Emotional Roller Coaster

Last weekend, Sarah, another PCV, and I had an interesting conversation about emotions. We both came to the conclusion that emotional states here, for some reason, are extremely magnified. Things that would make you relatively happy at home can just about make your month here. For example, getting NYT crossword puzzles and a few magazines in the mail will make me smile all day long, combine that with a few packets of tuna and crystal light and I may as well have won the damn lottery. Conversely, the smallest disappointment can make you feel like you are stuck at the bottom of a 30-foot well with no one around to hear your screams. Every day here I feel like I am on an emotional roller coaster and just wondering when I am going to hit the highest point of the day or the lowest. Granted some days the average of my emotional state tends to be higher, but today has not been one of those days.

This story really began yesterday, so that is where I will start. I was listening to the news on VOA and realized that there were some terrorist acts that took place in Nairobi as a result of Kenyan forces entering into Somalia. I called up Peace Corps because I was concerned they would not let me travel to Nairobi to take the LSAT in about a month. As suspected, I am not allowed to travel to Kenya and in all honesty do not really want to be anywhere near people and hand grenades. I then contacted the people who give the test and explained my situation. Unfortunately, they are going to make me pay the extra money (a lot of extra money) to have the test moved to Dar. I could have done this earlier, but was going to take it in Nairobi to save money. On the upside they are going to let me take it in Dar, which I guess they did not have to agree to. Anyway, this coupled with the fact that Sunday morning I woke up with another lovely case of food poisoning set my week off to a really horrendous start.

Moving on, this morning when I was going to teach my first period class and realized the majority of my students were not in the classroom, but being punished for arriving to school late, I went and rounded them up in front of the teacher on duty without permission. Looking back, it was a poor decision not to ask first, but they were using my class time to punish students.  I admittedly did what I did out not out frustration and because I wanted to teach my students for a full period, but because I needed an emotional pick me up. My latter intention completely backfired in my face (Yes, Judy, if you are reading, I may have asked for this one). After class I felt guilty about what I had done and went to apologize to the teacher, whom I had wronged. [I should mention that culturally Tanzanians will not tell you if they are angry with you unless they are extremely angry with you.] Being less than thrilled to see me, he told me he was angry. I apologized to him and tried to explain that I know I live here and am expected to follow Tanzanian culture and in America what I did would not have been looked favorably upon either. I also tried to justify my actions by explaining that it is not easy for me to follow another culture 24 hours a day 7 days a week and as a result my behavior sometimes breaks down. After my explanation he seemed to understand my position, but still insisted I stole my students so they would not be hit because I do not approve of corporal punishment. I agree with him that I do not approve of it, but stated that I knew there was nothing I could do about it and was more upset that he was taking up my class time.  After all was said and done I called up and vented to Kat, who was really gracious and listened to me even though she experiences the same situation daily at her school, then made a cup of coffee.

Lesson learned from this situation: (maybe more like hypothesis reconfirmed) emotions are extremely amplified here and I think whenever I enter into a charged situation I need to keep a better charge of my emotional state and account for huge fluctuation. All in all, sometimes, as my father says, you have to eat a little crow.

All my love from TZ. 

Tanzanian Jack-o'-lantern

It is mid-October, which means fall is in full swing at home and spring is here! This means I no longer have to wear legging underneath my skirts, sleep in a sweatsedo, worry about heating my bath water or the electricity being off for 23 hours a day. I am proud to say that I have finished the syllabi for math and physics and my classes are currently in review mode—lord knows we need it. Sadly, I believe some of my students have the retention of a [insert animal with poor memory here]. Alas, I am attempting to combat that with plenty of interactive review before exam week (mid November) and the end of the school year (Friday, November, 25^th).

Everything else seems to be moving along here. Last week the form four students all across Tanzania took the national exam (NECTA). This meant that we had about five visiting teachers sent to our school to invigilate (proctor) and two policemen with guns to guard the tests. [Seriously, these guys don’t have better things to be doing?] Hard to believe, but we said good-bye to Andrew (a volunteer in the Education class before me) this week. He is finished with his two years of service at the end of the month. His leaving got me thinking of how much time I have left here and how much time has already past. Strange to think that I will have lived at my school for a whole year at the end of November! New health and environment volunteers arrived this past week as well and we will hopefully receive some new people in early December, right around the time I will be traveling to Nairobi to take the LSAT.

This past week I embarked on a new adventure in the spirit of fall in New England, I bought two pumpkins. One I used to make pumpkin cookies, pumpkin bread and pumpkin curry and the other I had a bear of a time carving into an African Jack o’ lantern. The food actually came out really well, but I was disappointed that the left over pumpkin I had spoiled before I could use it to make ravioli.  Speaking of cooking I am actually amazed how far my ability has come over the past year, I am no Julia Child, but I can now make noodles from scratch, grill steaks and make a mean curry. Hopefully after service I will continue to cook from scratch, but will all of the convinces that are available at home and that have been unavailable in the past year I am not sure how true that statement will prove.

So seeing as there is never a dull moment here, this morning was no exception. On my way to teach my first period of the day I was followed by a boy about 10 years old who was dressed in tattered clothes, carrying homemade toys and wearing two broken sandals. At first I did not think much of the situation because kids follow me around here a lot, however when he walked into my classroom, I was a little scared. All 80 of my students started to laugh when he continued to walk further into my classroom and closer to me. At this point all of the students looked at me and seeing the panic on my face because the kid was giving me the hairy eyeball, got up and chased him out of the room.  After they came back in the room we all had a good laugh. Apparently he is a mentally handicapped kid who lives in the village and escapes from home every once in a while, which would explain why I have never seen him before. This morning I was also visited by James from Peace Corps because he was doing new education volunteer site visits in the region. I was surprised when he asked me if I was going to Tanga for the new health and environment volunteer training and I said I wasn’t. About a month back I applied to be a facilitator and teach a session on the Tanzanian education system and teaching in Tanzania. Apparently the staff liked the idea, but never contacted me about it? Not quite sure, but I would have really liked to do the session…

Miss you all! Good luck next weekend to people racing in the Head of the Charles. Wish I could be there!

All my love from TZ. 

"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

Graduation, A meat feast, A win, A loss and Perhaps a fractured finger

Woo! Yesterday was the 1 year mark of our arrival in Tanzania! It really does not feel like I have lived here for a year. It is funny, but life just seems like life here. Occasionally I have the “woah, I live in Tanzania” moment, but mostly I just feel like I am at home because I have a routine, friends near by and a sense of community at my school.

A couple of Thursdays ago my school put on a graduation ceremony for our Form IV students. Graduation usually takes place before their national exams, which seems a little backward to me, but then again most things here seem that way. The school took the whole day before hand to prepare by building a little shaded area for the guest of honor and the graduates. The next day I got up, put on a dress, put Tanzo earrings in (which means I was getting dressed up) and left to be absolutely bored out of my mind. I was informed the day before by my head of school that the graduation would start at 10am and go until 3:30pm and would be all in Swahili. Awesome. I arrived at school and soon realized that I would be cooking all day with the rest of the female teachers and the village mamas. One would think that I would be as equally upset to be cooking all day, but I was able to wear pants, taste-test the food and was not expected to sit through the ceremony. I was given the all-important task of grating carrots, peeling onions and stirring in the rice. After most of the food was cooked I skipped out of the kitchen to catch some of the graduation ceremony, which, in true Tanzanian fashion, began two hours late. The bit I did catch, however, was the part where the students demonstrate scientific experiments for the audience. To sum up the experience, graduation ceremonies in Tanzania are a lot different from ones in America.

Last weekend after graduation, a few other volunteers from my region and I travelled to Songea to meet up with a bunch of other volunteers. Songea is about 8 hours on a bus from Mbeya and is located to the southeast. We arrived on Friday afternoon and had lunch and dinner with a bunch of other volunteers. Saturday was sports day, 3 on 3 basketball and volleyball. I got roped into playing basketball with two other male volunteers. It was actually a lot of fun considering our second place prize was Lifesavers, beef jerky and a sprained/potentially fractured middle finger, for me. That afternoon/night some of the volunteers who live in Songea asked a Brazilian ex-pat to host a BBQ. It was amazing! We each paid around 10,000/=  or $6.25 for roasted pork, fresh bread, salad, potato salad and three beers. The meat was so tasty because it had been marinated for 24+ hours in a mixture of garlic, parsley, brine and some other mystery spices. He cooked up 25 kilos or 55lbs of meat for around 30 people. By the end of the BBQ we were taking “meat shots”, everyone had to take a piece of meat no matter how full they were. After our meat fest we held a “talent show” at a near by bar, which was followed by a lot of dancing on full stomachs and the smell of meat burps. I ate so much meat I was still full the next morning when I woke up to catch a bus back to Mbeya. The first half of the return trip to Mbeya was smooth until we reached a place called Makambako. From there our group got a little split up and some of us ended up on a really crowded bus, sitting in the aisle jump seats complete with chicken, bus sick Tanzanians, very limited leg space and no fresh air for about three hours. The quintessential developing country bus trip and one I wish I could do more justice, but it is one of those things in life that no description will do and you need to experience for yourself.

After Songea, a few other volunteers decided to go to Matema beach/ Lake Malawi because most of us are currently on school midterm break. On Monday we travelled to Matema, which took a little bit longer than usual because we took public transportation the whole way and had to wait for the bus to completely fill before we could depart. Just as we were approaching Matema the bus stopped at a checkpoint, which they recently established to charge entrance into the village. The check point is clearly a way to get more money out of the white people visiting the lake, even though the sign says that non-Matema residents also have to pay the fee, but the people at the booth would never know unless a Tanzanian came forward and said they did not reside in the town. At the checkpoint a village official boarded the bus and asked us each for 5,000/=, which is a lot considering our living allowances. By this point I was hot, tired and not in the mood to be pushed around by this guy. I promptly took out my laminated copy of my work permit, visa and passport to prove to the guy that I did actually live in the country and was not the ordinary white traveler. The official, after seeing documentation, still would not give us the citizen price of 2,000/= and the Tanzanians on the bus, who we patiently waited for while they loaded all of their goods on to the bus earlier in the day, were getting angry with us. At that point another volunteer and I got off the bus with 2,000/= for every person traveling with us and went to the village office. We finally got the correct entrance price after a mix of help from our bus driver, decent Swahili and my temper because I was tired and hungry. I have to admit after the whole ordeal was over I was pretty impressed that we successfully argued and got our way in Swahili. If someone told me a year ago I would be able to do that I would have never believed them. I should also mention here that we picked up an addition to our party in Songea, Scott, a guy from the states who is backpacking East Africa for a while before he applies to jobs. It is funny how you have an immediate bond with people from home, whom you have never met. I have to give him some credit; he ended up adjusting to the PC way of life pretty quickly, living on the cheap and wearing the same outfit three days in a row. 

Following our rough start the rest of our time at Matema was awesome. We eat simple meals in the village, 1,000/= for rice and beans ($0.62) and made bon fires both of the nights we were there. The only low point of the trip was when my Kindle slipped off my lap without me noticing and I left it on the bus thinking it was in my backpack. I attempted to track it down, but was unable to get it back, probably because someone took it and was going to try to sell it. Good luck, sans charger. Thankfully it was partially insured, but it is still a bummer to lose something that you use all the time and that is a pain to replace. All in all it was a great way to spend the first part of my week off, hanging out with friends, swimming in the lake and soaking up some sun!

Two days ago a couple of volunteers in the area and I hiked Ngozi crater. It was a nice to spend most of the day outside getting some exercise. I am actually really glad that I live so close because anytime any volunteers want to hike they usually call me up and I am able to meet PCVs from all over the country. The people in my village are also happy because they charge a 5,000/= fee per person to hike. (I get to hike for free because I teach at the school!)

Okay time for a slightly funny/ creepy story. On my way into Mbeya this week two different Tanzanian men confessed their love for me and proposed to me. As any sane person would do I politely declined their offer, but the second man would not take no for an answer. As I was explaining why I would not accept him/ walking away, he grabbed his crotch and told me he did not have AIDS. I was not sure whether to laugh or run away, so I did both. Sorry buddy, but the reason I do not want to marry you has a lot more to do with you as a person and not whether you do or do not have AIDS.

Everything else here has been moving forward. It has started raining again here (first time since probably May), so I started to plant my garden. So far I have snow peas, regular peas, zinnias, basil and pumpkins in the ground. Now let’s hope I don’t end up killing them. Hoping that watching my garden grow will pass the time here for the next two months until school break after Thanksgiving time. Speaking of which, since coming to Tanzania and not really experiencing the seasons as we know them I think fall may be my favorite season. I know most people dread it because it means the start of a new school year and the end of summer, but when you go a whole year without seeing the leaves change color, pumpkin pie, pumpkin iced coffee from DD, hot apple cider, apple pie, apples in general, cool fall nights and mornings, sweater/jean outfits, the Head of the Charles, and most importantly Halloween candy ( I <3 you, candy corn!), you think about how much you took those things for granted when you had them.

Hope everyone at home is doing well, adjusting to the cooler fall temperatures and eating all the Halloween candy you can get your hands on! (Almost forgot about jack-o'-lantern Peeps and mini Reese's Peanut butter Cups! )

All my love from TZ

 Practicing for Graduation 

Drummin'

Dar and the dentist, round 2... Ding! Ding!

Excited to blog after these past few weeks!  A few weeks ago at school, what seemed like any other day, I was walking back to my house during our chai break to make some coffee (Dunkin’ cinnamon coffee always makes my day here… remember it is the small things!) when I saw a group of students and teachers standing around a female student lying on the ground. She had fainted, which is something I have seen before at school and done on a few occasions myself. We got her some soda and elevated her feet. Once she seemed to be coming around I continued to my house, made some coffee and came back to school. I sat outside with the rest of the teachers when I heard people screaming/chanting. I looked around the corner of the office building and the girl, who had fainted, was again lying on the ground, but this time two teachers were pinning her arms and legs down and chanting over her. According to the other teachers the girl was “sick from the devil” and needed to be healed by the power of Jesus. This continued for about another 10 minutes, while I laughed uncomfortably and other teachers and I discussed why I did not go to church here or really believe in any religion.  I was actually laughed at by one of the internship teachers, then I got angry defending myself and told him that I respected that he had his own beliefs and I deserved the same respect – he laughed, I wanted to knock some sense into him—literally.  And so, after 11 months in country, I experienced my first demonic possession and subsequent exorcism—wicked bizarre.

I know many of my blog posts include stories or comments around religion and I just thought I would take sometime now to write about how my views towards religion have changed here. Before coming to Tanzania I was perfectly fine with religion. Being born and raised Roman Catholic, going to church was not a problem for me, although I would not have considered myself, “practicing”. I enjoy some of the Bible’s messages; ones that say you should be kind to others, give to those who are less fortunate, etc. I think that they should and do form the basis of ethical thoughts and behavior. Upon arriving in Tanzania, as I have written about before, we were told that it would not be unusual for people to ask us, our names, if we were married, had children and what our religion was. As much as I think Peace Corps prepared us for the religious differences, I think they could have given us more direction on how to deal with not going to church or associating with a religion. Their main advice was to confront it in a way that made us feel comfortable. I cannot tell you how many times I have been laughed at or chastised because I do not go to church and told that I “must believe”. This has really made me believe that missionaries did not do people here any service and that religion has the ability to make people very close-minded, when I feel religion is supposed to be about acceptance. I have stopped trying to explain to people that I have different religious beliefs and have moved on to explaining that some people have different views on religion (not every one is Christian or Muslim) and that people are entitled to believe what they want and that should be respected. I really hate to say it, but I am starting to believe less and less that religion does more good than bad. I feel the people here have been imposed upon and were unknowingly not given a choice. If a Tanzanian does not follow the religion of their parents it is seen, culturally, as very disrespectful. Just another reason why I feel so fortunate to live in America where religious beliefs do not necessarily have to be passed from generation to generation and we are allowed to believe what we want, presumably, without feeling judged.

So as some of you already know, this week I had to make another trip to Dar because my filling fell out—fun, right? I was not too excited about this trip mainly because of the experience I had the last time at the dentist here. My trip got off to a rough start when my bus was running over 2 hours late. When the bus arrived at my village it was not the bus I thought I was going to take, but a really crappy bus. I should have known it was going to be a long ride when there was no space between my seat and the one in front of me for my knees. About two hours into the trip our bus slowed down through a village when I heard a sound that was mix between fireworks and gunshots. I looked out the window to see a lot of smoke and more than 50 people sprinting off into the bush. I am not kidding. Women were running with infants strapped to their backs and men and children were sprinting. Everyone on my bus closed the windows and ducked down. I am still not sure what was going on, but no one was hurt and our bus kept rolling right through. I was pretty scared, but eventually everyone’s panic turned into laughter, especially at me for being white and scared. Seriously, when you see 50+ people sprinting in the opposite direction you are headed and you hear what you believe to be gun shots, it is a wonder I did not piss my pants. The whole experience was summed up pretty well by the man sitting behind me when he said, “Well…welcome to Tanzania”. Yes, thank you buddy. This place really never ceases to amaze me.

A few more hours into the trip, the back of the bus started to smell really bad. All of the people, myself included, covered their noses with their shirts as we attempted to locate the source of the foul smell. It turns out it was actually a “fowl” smell. A live chicken, which is not an unusual thing to see on a bus because people buy them on their way home for dinner, sitting in a plastic bed in the overhead bin, had pooped and the poop was now dripping out of the bag onto the head and head rest of the woman next to me. Laughing hysterically, I offered her my apologies and some napkins.

When we arrived at the half way point about 3 hours behind schedule, I decided that I should prepare myself for arriving in Dar at around 10 pm, late, but not awful. Then at about 4:30 or 5 pm, after passing over a speed bump our bus blew a tire. At this point, I was thankful our bus did not roll over and I really, really had to go pee. I usually try not to drink anything on the bus ride, but the Diet Pepsi in my bag was just too tempting. So I took the time to get off the bus and relieve myself in the bush. Apparently hiding behind a pile of sand was not enough because I think I mooned a few people on a bus passing in the opposite direction. Oh well. At that point I was just glad to stretch my legs and empty my bladder.

About another 2 hours into the trip our bus blew another tire and we hopped off the bus again. At this point it was dark out and I estimated our arrival in Dar to be around 11 pm or 12 am. We climbed back on the bus and arrived in Morogoro, which is about 3 hours from Dar at about 8:30 pm. At this point we picked up some more passengers, who were stuffed into the aisles, leaving the rest of us with peoples butts in our faces, elbows resting on our heads and no legroom. One guy who was standing next to me, tried to talk to me in really broken English. At this point my patience had been shot and I tried to ignore him until he started speaking about me in Swahili. At that I got a little rude and told him not to talk about me and that I didn’t talk to him in English because I, frankly, was not in the mood to talk.  Then, he asked for some of the food I was eating and I told him, “No”, but offered some to the woman sitting next to me. Culturally very rude, but I was tired and extremely annoyed.

At about 1:30 am, we still had not reached Dar when our bus stopped again because the driver thought something was wrong with the breaks. At this point people started going crazy and getting very upset. I even stood up and openly admitted in English that I was going to lose my stuff if we did not start moving soon. At that point I had been on an awful bus for about 16 1/2 hours. I was tired, dirty and frustrated. Thankfully after about another 20 minutes our bus started rolling again. When arrived at the bus stand a little worse for the wear it was about 2 am and I may have elbowed a few people in the rush to get off of the bus.

The next morning I had a 10am appointment at the dentist’s office, which went surprisingly well. I think the gods felt they had punished me enough because I ended up seeing a really nice Indian woman, who wore surgical gloves and didn’t make me cry. She was really understanding and I almost wanted to hug her after she finished my filling. Afterwards, I hung out with a few other volunteers who happened to be in the area and had some real food. That night I had dinner with a woman who was taking over for the ex-pats I normally stay with. We had fresh calamari, which was awesome, and a really nice conversation about Tanzania and the Peace Corps.

The next morning I boarded the nicer bus back home. Everything seemed to be going well and we were on schedule to make it back to Mbeya by around 6:30pm. About 2 or so hours into the trip I heard the girl talking to her brother behind me and realized he had thrown up from being bus sick and that it had traveled under my seat and made it to my backpack which was lying on the ground. I was so angry and so grossed out. I felt bad for the boy, it is really irresponsible of a parent to stick their four children on a bus, by themselves when all of them are under the age of 10., but I was really mad. I would not have been as upset if they had simply told me to pick up my stuff before it got vomit on it, but they didn’t and I made the bus conductor take my back pack and stuff in the overhead bin because I was so mad. [Lesson: always carry hand sanitizer when traveling, you never know when someone is going to blow chunks] Other than the puke incident, the ride home was much faster than my ride to Dar and I was back at my site by around 7 pm.

So here is to hoping I do not have to travel back to Dar any time soon. As awful as the trip was I cannot help but think that I voluntarily signed up for this and how many people get to write a blog post like this one, right? I figure that if I didn’t have experience like this the good experiences would not mean, as much and I would never have anything to blog about. So here’s to the chicken poop, bombs or fireworks and the bus-sick boy…thanks for keeping life here interesting.

I also should mention that my kitten Pebbles has passed away. For those of you keeping track this is my second dead pet and third pet overall in 11 months. She was really tiny, but did not seem sick as she was eating and acting normally. Last Thursday I woke up to find her stone dead in her box. It was really sad, but I had to bury her in the back yard. I have since sworn that she will be my last pet in country. Cannot risk anymore going to the place in the sky under my supervision.

I hope everyone is getting into back to school mode.  I was honestly not too sorry to hear about the loss of power to people on the East coast because of Irene. You all got a little taste of Peace Corps life!! (Now just ad a small kerosene stove and a 10L bucket bath to that).

We are entering our home stretch here with mid term exams and Form IV graduation approaching soon. Today and tomorrow are actually Muslim holidays, so we do not have school and we have a week break from September10^th till the 18^th!

All my love from TZ.

  

The Endless Summer and a Few Bad Eggs

The other night I sat down to watch one of my favorite movies of all time, The Endless Summer. For those of you who have yet to experience this work of genius let me give you a brief run down. Basically in the 1960’s this guy Bruce Brown took a camera, and followed two young surfers, Robert August and Michael Hynson, around for a year and filmed them following warm weather and surfing in different locations. Regarded as mother to all modern day surf films. The Endless Summer is probably the most well-known real surf documentary—Blue Crush is not. The first stop on Mike and Roberts journey is Senegal, West Africa.

Having seen this movie more times than I know or would even like to admit, I was totally taken a back when I watched after having actually lived on the continent of Africa for almost 11 months now. At one point Mike and Robert walk down to a beach—where local people are trading goods and fishing—to go surfing. I was amazed to find that even though it is 2011, the local people were still wearing the same clothes and using the same goods they use today. The women were all dressed in brightly colored vitenge outfits and the men were wearing pants and shorts that were clearly second hand from a developed country. The women still had their children strapped to their backs and carried goods on their heads. The fishermen used the same dugout wooden canoes I have seen in use on Lake Nyasa/ Lake Malawi, as well as the same hand woven fishing nets. Even the big bowls and platters in the movie are ones I can buy at the market. Okay, so this may not seem that strange to some of you…. so what things looked the same in Africa over 50 years ago as they do today. Well, now ask yourself this; do things look the same in America as they did 50 years ago. How many of us are still wearing the same style of clothing that people wore in the 1960’s? How many of us are still using the same technology? People here seem to make due with things that have been in use for some time and have not felt the need to change. On the flip side, many of the countries in Africa are behind the developed world. Two areas where I notice this on a daily basis are in education and technology. Text books that are outdated, corporal punishment, number of students who go to college, walkmans, outdated lab apparatuses, typewriters, carbon paper for making copies… (the list goes on). Before living in Tanzania I would have had a hard time imagining how it would be to live behind the rest of the world. So, after watching this movie again I feel even more grateful to live in a developed country that is constantly moving forward.

As for the past couple weeks things have been moving forward. The New Ed volunteers received their site last week. We will be getting three new girls to the Mbeya region, which leaves just TJ and Eric … and 9 (?) girls. Poor boys… This past week I also had shadowers, who sat in on one of my classes and lived at my house for most of the week. It was nice to have some other people around for a change. Last Saturday I also procured pet #3.  Her name is Pebbles; she is a tiny gray kitten. As any of you know I have had a pretty bad track record here, as far as pets go, hopefully this one will last longer than a week. I also hope she grows a lot more so she will be bigger than the rats she is supposed to kill.

Add one more thing to the list of medical issues I have had in country…. Two nights ago I had food poisoning. I woke up in the middle of the night with stomach cramps and a small fever. In the morning, I was in no shape to go to school, so I tried to call my mkuu and a counterpart. I ended up getting sick… won’t really share the details, but it involved a bucket and my choo -- simultaneously. I ended up sleeping most of the day. Around 4 I attempted to walk to the duka near my house to get some soda and crackers, but only made it about half way before I came really close to fainting. Thankfully a student went to the store for me as I barely made it back home to my couch. Add to all of this that I had a meowing kitten, who kept trying to butt her head into the bathroom, and I ran out of water to flush my toilet. Thankfully this morning I woke up feeling much better and my 101.9 degree fever had disappeared.

Most days I really do not notice that I live in a different country/ culture because I have pretty much adjusted to things here. The times I notice things are really different is when I am sick. There are very few convinces here that we are used to at home such as ginger ale, saltines, Saved By The Bell reruns and an actual toilet bowl. These may seem like trifles, but when you are sick they can make a world of different. Also, as much as I appreciate my counterparts they do not seem to understand that when a person is sick it is not necessarily malaria, you cannot take medicine for every aliment and you may only be sick for 24 hours.

So lesson learned this week… make sure eggs are fresh and cooked thoroughly (refrigeration also wouldn’t hurt)

I hope the last few weeks of summer are treating everyone well. We are getting the tail end of “winter” here, so hopefully sometime soon it will start to warm up! Also hoping it starts to rain again…really tired of living on the surface of the moon (there is so much dust that it puffs up when you walk, like moon dust).

All my love from TZ. 

Waterfalls, Love notes and Too many socks

It has been a pretty quiet month in Mchangane. Besides teaching, studying and reading all of the books in the Hunger Games series (which I think were really good, but it could be that I was just really bored) I have not been up to too much. Two weeks ago I acquired a nice cold, which is still lingering and which I will add the list of things I have gotten in Africa.

Friday, after teaching, I met up with a few volunteers and friends in the area and we all went to Kaporogwe Falls. The falls are actually relatively close to my site, but the road to get there is unpaved and thus it takes about an hour to get there. Although it took a good chunk of time out of the day it was well worth the trip. Behind the falls is , what I believe to be, half natural, half man made outcropping cave-ish ledge that you can walk along. The mist from the falls was actually pretty refreshing along with view of the valley in the background. Honestly right now I am lacking the creativity to paint you a wonderful verbal picture, so I will add a picture I took!

After the trip to the falls I decided to decline an invitation to Nacho Night and took a late coaster back to site. On the way home, as sometimes happens, I became the entertainment for the other passengers on the coaster. The entertainment started when the conductor told me he “liked” me (Umependeza) and asked if I was married. I figured I would have some fun and told them my “husband” was back in the states, but would be coming to Tanzania soon. [If some of you think this is strange… many volunteers make up fake fiancées or spouses to avoid awkward situations, in fact Peace Corps taught us, in so many words, make up “white lies” to avoid situations] The conversation slowly changed to be between my seat neighbor and myself on the topic of where I was from and what I was doing here. I think I may have turned some heads when he asked me, “Mungu yupo?” [Is God present?] to which I responded Hiyupo [absent]. Turns out that the man was a pastor, but respected the fact that I do not go to church and do not really practice a religion. He may be the first Tanzanian who has not tried to convert me or laughed in my face. Hallelujah!

Yesterday was cleaning day. I swept out all of the rat poop in my house and washed all my laundry because my large woven basket was overflowing with clothes. Normally I am on top of my laundry, but when you have to let it sit overnight in a bucket (which requires some forethought) or scrub by hand, then rise and dry outside; one tends to avoid doing laundry like the plague. [I would like to admit here that Febreeze will save you a couple of washes on things like blankets, couch covers and jackets—ala college] After what would probably equate to two loads of laundry in the states and 12 pairs of dirty socks I pledged to separate my laundry when I get back to the states, use dryer sheets and clean out the lint filter in exchange for never having to wash clothes by hand again.

Classroom entertainment this week: I intercepted my first love note. I was giving a quiz in my Form 1A math class when I saw one of my male students attempting to pass a folded up piece of paper in his hand to a girl next to him.  I asked him to give it to me and I unfolded it and found a beautifully drawn red rose. I started to laugh out loud because that was the last thing I expected to find. Then, I thought back to high school and how I would have felt if one of my teachers caught me with such a note. I decided not to embarrass him, folded the note back up and gave it back to him after class.  I also thought that this could potentially dissolve any trust the student or other students has in me. Thinking back on it, I probably made the right decision, but I am still interested in what a Tanzo love not is actually comprised of…. I guess I may never know.

Well I hope all is well at home, that the temperatures have cooled down a bit and that everyone is enjoying their summer! Hard to believe it is almost August! Happy Early Birthday, Dad!!!

All my love from TZ

Pathway/  ledge behind the falls

Behind the falls

Valley