"That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”

Living in Tanzania when it is down pouring outside and no electricity would probably leave anyone with a lot of time to think and I am no exception. Yesterday morning when I turned on my MacBook Pro to check my email and the news, as I do every morning, I was shocked and saddened to learn that Steve Jobs had passed away. As the day wore on most of my friends on Facebook had posted some sort of tribute to him, which got me thinking about how much I admired him not only because he helped to develop half of the technology that is sitting on my coffee table, but because he liked to keep things simple.

After having lived in Tanzania for almost 13 months now, I appreciate simplicity more than ever. I see where Steve Jobs was coming from when he wanted his products, and possibly life, to be simple and streamlined. He appeared to live a very modest life, considering that his net worth was more than the GDP of most countries, and to be in love with his job. Living here has taught me that simple is good and that less is definitely more. After this adventure is over and I return to the land where life can be complicated by luxuries that are taken for granted, I hope that my life is simpler and more streamlined than it was before I left. Does this mean I will be giving up running water, hot showers, a dishwasher, car and eating processed food, no probably not, but I will hopefully have a more stripped down and simplified view of life; I hope that I continue to find the joy in the small things. Here I get excited about Nacho night, being able to watch “When Harry Met Sally” on a Saturday night with a bowl of popcorn or talk to my parents on the phone. I also hope to enjoy my work at home as much as I enjoy my work here.

To look at a bigger picture, I think the ideologies of Steve Jobs and the Peace Corps can be considered one in the same. Change the world, but keep it simple.  As a Peace Corps volunteer I am aware that what I am hopefully doing is initiating change on a small scale, but small is simple and affective. I like to think of the ideas I share with my students as a small rocks thrown into a placid lake. I think one could say the same thing for Steve Jobs contributions, although his ideas were more like simple boulders. I am not sure change could manifest itself in a more simple way than the ripple effect.

So thank you, Steve, for my all of my computers and iPods (without them I have already expired here due to boredom) and for showing the world that no matter how advanced we become we can still keep it simple.

Everything else is going well here. Yesterday it rained from 1 pm to about 12am and I thought that the rain was going to wash out my garden, but it is still standing as of this morning. On the bright side, I will not have to boil drinking water for the next week and tonight is nacho night in Tukuyu!

All my love from TZ

*Title quote from Steve Jobs