Mbeya Girls' Empowerment Conference

Hello all! Just a quick post before I depart to the States tomorrow. Last week we held our Mbeya Region Girl's Empowerment Conference. Overall the conference was a lot of fun and the girls had a great time! About 14 volunteers ran the event and brought anywhere from 3- 6 students from the ages of about 12-16. The girls and all of the volunteers stayed in dorm and held our classes at MIST (Mbeya Institute of Science and Technology). The conference covered everything from HIV/AIDS, to relationships, nutrition, condom demonstrations and making of pads. The highlight of the conference for me however was when one of my older students hit younger students for tattling on her for being loud and stealing their blanket. I decided that she should go home because leaving the conference would be punishment enough, not to mention embarrassing. Some of the Tanzanian counterparts held a meeting with the students from my school and the students from the other school to find out what really happened. Once they had established what exactly went down they did not support my decision to send her home. I thought it was pretty funny that they found my punishment too harsh when they themselves are willing to hit students with a stick or make them kneel holding rocks over their heads in the hot sun. I actually found their disapproval insulting, condescending, hypocritical and very frustrating. Who are they to punish one of my students? And who are they to judge how I punish my student? Anyway, after I told the student she had to leave she begged me to stay and asked me if I could "beat" her instead of sending her home. I was pretty surprised by this request and told her that I would not ever beat her and that leaving is a much harsher punishment than beating. I also told her it was not in my culture or morally right to beat a student and that expulsion was a just punishment for her actions.
        Other than that blessed event, the conference was a lot of fun, but also very humbling. All of our lessons were taught in Kiswahili because some of the girls do not know any English. Let me just say that being able to buy food at the market and have short conversations in Kiswahili gave me a false sense of how much Kiswahili I actually know. Granted the health volunteers have been in country longer and are used to giving lectures on the material, but I never realized how many words I did not know. Thankfully I will probably only be called upon once more to give a lesson completely in Swahili, but I will not be quick to forget how much work my language skills actually need.
       Another highlight of the event was our "disco" on the last night. Unfortunately the power went out, but it didn't stop one of the volunteers from being the mobile DJ station and walking around the dance floor blaring music from his computer, one of the other volunteers from starting a huge conga line or us from dancing by candle light!
       So hopefully everyone has been enjoying the posts. Tomorrow will officially mark 9 months in country. Crazy how fast the time goes here... Oh! Also, a big warm Karibu (welcome) to the new class of ED PCTs who arrived a little over a week ago. Hope they are handling things well. On their fourth day in country they were dropped into their home stays (our class moved in after 2 weeks in country)... probably the most terrifying, but ultimately rewarding experiences during training.
       I hope everyone is well at home! America here I come! All my love from TZ.

Glass bottles are the national currency of Tanzania?!

Sorry for the delay folks. I have been busy wrapping up things up at school. The last two weeks at school I was typing up, 29 in total, (apparently  “help type” means I will be typing all of the exams), proctoring or grading exams all day long.

Not too much has really gone on. As a group the Mbeya PCVs met two weekends ago to finalize the plans for our regional girls’ empowerment conference. The conference will take place from June 13^th - June 18^th. The conference will cover everything from healthy relationships and career options, AIDS/HIV awareness and personal hygiene. All of the sessions will be taught in Kiswahili, which will be a challenge for most of us, considering our Swahili is more geared to buying food at the market and avoiding being overcharged for transportation.

This past weekend Mexican Night was held in Tukuyu. A handful of volunteers got together for burritos, nachos and few cold beverages. It was actually a welcome break from my students, grading exams and filling out report forms. Miraculously, we found some cheese (thanks, TJ!), I made flour tortilla chips, Eric picked up some chapatti that we used for the burritos and we broke out the meat grinder for the 3 kilos of meat we bought and salsa! All in all it was a fun night and a nice break from my site.

So short story about language and the importance of the glass bottle in Tanzania:

A few months ago TJ and Kat came to visit me. Before we made dinner at my site we went into my village to get some beer. We paid the women at the duka and told her we would return the bottles the next morning. At the time I recall her saying that she would give us the rest of our change when we returned the bottles, which sounded like a fair deal to me. The next morning we left my site really early and returned all, but two of seven bottles. One of the bottles that was left was empty and the other was still unopened. I was planning on drinking the beer, but never really got around to it. About every 20^th time I walked into my village the woman would remind me that I still owed her two bottles and every time I would tell her that one bottle was still full. The next time I would bring them into the village, but her duka would be closed (Note: these conversations all took place in Swahili because the bottle lady does not speak English).  Apparently the other day was the final straw for this woman. On my way through the village she came after me screaming and making a scene. I was actually quite embarrassed because a bunch of people were witnessing this woman chew me out. She even had the nerve to tell me that she was going to tell my head master about the incident. (I would have loved to see her try, after I typed 29 exams for him…the sun literally shined out of my backside for a week there after). I offered to walk all the way back to my house with the woman and give her the bottles, but she did not want to walk all the way so I decided to bring them back the following day. I honestly did not see anything wrong with the situation because I had her bottles and she had my change. In my eyes, we were even. [I should also admit here that I am almost 100% certain that no one in my village understands the full meaning of swears in English and that I may have let more than a few slip out during our heated exchange… ] The next day I returned with one empty bottle and one unopened bottle, tracked down the woman and tried to settle the issue at hand. As it turns out the bottle lady thought that I still owed her some money along with the bottles. Honestly, let’s think about this; why would you sell something to some one if they did not pay you in full upfront? I could have sworn she owed me money, but in the end, and after some more swearing from my end, we settled the dispute. After the whole incident I am pretty sure half of my village thinks I’m insane and the other half is still wondering what the hell happened and what the hell a “f’ing piece of sh*t” it. I will say this though; sometimes my sanity is thankful that people here do not know any English and bottles are a big freaking deal.

Other than that nothing truly noteworthy has happened and to be honest if something did I might have forgotten about it because it has been so long since my last post.

Currently sitting around my site and school with not much to do. Trying to write a proposal for my secondary project, a multipurpose court, studying, reading or cleaning. I actually have to start packing soon for my trip home (once I leave for the girls’ conference on the 18th I will start heading towards Dar! 17 days and counting… Below is a full, but not exhaustive list of things I will be eating upon my return home:

1. Cheese

2. Iced Coffee

3. Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream

4. Fish Burrito

5. Dad’s meatballs, Mom’s chicken piccata or a combination of the both

6. Pad Thai

7. Bagels

8. Milk and Cereal

9. Mom’s chocolate chip cookies

10. Sam’s sandwiches

*Note: The numerical order of all of these food items is arbitrary

Congratulations, Kyle on your graduation from Cornell and Kate on your marriage!!! Also BIG FREAKIN’ congrats to Brown Women’s Crew, 2011 NCAA Division I National Champions!!!

Hope everyone is doing well at home.

All my love from TZ!