Michelle in Tanzania!

2007-01-03T19:43:00.001+03:00

The story continues...

2007-01-03T19:27:00.001+03:00

Hey! I'm still here! A little bit overwhelmed but overall OVERJOYED to be back home. NYC is more amazing than I remembered and I've been super busy with friends and family. My "to-do" list seems to grow by the day and I should probably get working on: doing laundry, cleaning my house, getting rid of my old college stuff, understanding my students loans that I have to start repaying soon, getting a new State ID (the old one expired while I was in PC), etc etc. BUT....have been feeling lazy about it. Maybe its a remnant of my TZ days where accomplishing ONE thing the entire day was more than enough. I am, though, happy to say that I have finally put up some of my photos from Tanzania and Ethiopia. Check em out (click on the albums above) and hope you guys like em!

I'm still trying to figure out what to do with this blog...keep it, get a new one, what? But I definitely need to change the title, huh (thanks Ruslan!)?

Also been feeling scared/lazy/nervous about job searching so have not really started..... Have, however, given it much thought and talked to friends and have decided that I will start looking for things in finance and consulting. Any tips would be greatly appreciated :) The scared factor comes from being nervous about putting myself out there again and once I get a job, I'm nervous about not having time for friends anymore.... But we'll see, huh?

But overall, am happy to say that I still feel chill and calm about stuff, something I picked up in TZ that I was hoping would stick with me for a while.

PROMISE to post about Ethiopia soon (its on my list of things to do, hehe)!

I'm Baaaaaack

2006-12-16T17:35:00.000+03:00

Hey! Yup! Its official. I'm back. Whoosh. Just got in late last night around 11pm from Addis. We had a stopover at Beirut, Lebanon and a layover at London Heathrow. The flight was really long but not bad at all and Ethiopia, in a word, was AMAZING! Sorry didnt get to blog. Internet was mostly dial up but surprisingly widespread. I also couldnt access blogs to read them...must be government blocked.

So what now? Lots of catching up with people (look out for a mass email Ill send in a few days) and SLOWLY adjusting back.... Its harder than I imagined. I freaked out a little last night, and will admit that tears were shed before sleeping. I don't know. It'll all be okay, no worries. Its just I think you build up this image you have of home in your brain for two years, get back, and see the reality of it all. And its just so strange being back to....home....after Tanzania and after travelling in Ethiopia for three weeks, where everyday I learned so much and saw so many new things. I'm inarticulate right now (probably could use some tasty food, haha) and will put up some photos soon (I took a trillion). More commentary to come.

Logistically, no cell phone yet but getting one on Monday I think. Monday also hanging out with Matt, my PCV friend I was in Ethiopia with. And already on Wednesday I'll be back to my old lab for a holiday lunch. I'm so excited to see people!

ethiopia!

2006-12-01T21:12:00.000+03:00

okay, really quick note cuz the internet here is dial up and super slow but i'm in ethiopia, have been here almost a week and loving it! its a really awesome, super beautiful country and i took a ton of pictures and have so much to tell you guys about. just for now though im doing well and safe and still planning on coming home dec 15 but slight possibility that i may move my flight up. hope you're all well and staying warm and cant wait to be home soon!

Overwhelmed....Turkey....Luggage....AH!

2006-11-22T12:00:00.000+03:00

Hey, Happy early Turkey Day! Not sure I'll get a chance to actually update tomorrow, but hope everyone eats delicious things. I'm back in Dar es Salaam, in the PC office, and honestly, a bit overwhelmed. Three main reasons. One- a trillion volunteers are here for the Turkey celebrations at the Ambassador's house. Two- I'm leaving TZ in TWO days to go to Ethiopia. Three- my travelling around has been exhausting me. Tremendously. Its been awesome, but intense. Since my last post, I've spent a week in Mwanza with Brian, a few days in Morogoro visiting my favorite Kiswahili teacher who taught me during training over two years ago and also visiting my old counterpart from Ndwika Secondary who is studying in Morogoro, and then I went to Zanzibar to visit Erica. And I just got back from Zanz today.

Okay, so I'm really lame, here's a part of Brian's description of my visit to his from his blog-

So Michelle [check out her blog, link at the right, and congrats to her since she is officially done with her PC service!] was here for about a week and it was nice to share some of my experiences in my town with another volunteer. I don't get a whole lot of guests. And boy did we hit the ground running, the first day she got here we went to a wedding in a nearby town. It was scheduled to start [the party] at 6pm, and wedding parties here follow a VERY strictly organized schedule, with time allotted for greetings, gifts, cake cutting, etc. That is, everything is planned down to the minute when it is supposed to take place.

Of course, the kicker is that this is Tanzania. So most of the guests arrived around 8pm, a good 2 hours late, and the party didn't actually get started until 10pm. UGH. We were both very tired, her moreso due to the travels, but once it started it was pretty nice. The happy couple, of course, looked miserable, since that's what brides and grooms are supposed to look like here. But the GUESTS, we had fun, drinking soda and beer, clinking glasses and giving gifts [everytime you go up to the head table to give a gift or something, you have to sort of 'dance' your way up to local TZ music]. The food was nice, although it was at about 1:30 am, and there was a bit of dancing. I didn't know a whole lot of people there, but the groom is a good friend of mine and I have worked closely with him on several projects, so he was happy to see me there and I was happy to see him. Granted he's lived with his wife for 15 years and they have 3 kids, but they'd never actually had a wedding. One of the guests described this as 'fixing things up', as in, he had sort of stolen his wife and now he was setting things right. Oh yeah, they got 3 cows and some goats and chickens in addition to dishes and cloth as wedding gifts.

The next few days we hung out in Misungwi, greeting my friends and checking out all a small TZ town has to offer. Not a lot, but we had fun. She helped me teach my last period at the Secondary school [we reviewed STDs and then watched a powerful, GRAPHIC, but I think very educational video on STDs which shows up-close shots of syphillis, chancroid, gonorrhea, etc]. We also went to the TTC for my last period there, where I taught the most whirlwind lesson on condoms ever, but despite the rush it went well and I think they got something out of it, or at least I hope ONE person at least got ONE little thing out of it, I think that would be enough for me to be content.

-----

Zanzibar was really awesome, a bit rainy but totally got tons of gifts (hope ya'll ready for fun things!!!) and got really beautiful henna done up my left arm. Yes, I totally have photos but sadly, can't upload right now. It would take too much time and too many people waiting to use this computer. Which, my the way, means I should peace out now.

Going to Ethiopia this Friday! Coming back to America, for now, on Dec 15! YAY! I'll try to write from Ethiopia but not sure how internet connected the country is. Its the 2nd poorest country in the world....sweet. Tanzania is 10th. It will be interesting to compare. Bye for now!

Back in Dar...for now...

2006-11-10T14:28:00.000+03:00

Hey! Its Friday afternoon and apparently...Veteran's Day. Who knew? I only found out when I got to the PC office and noticed that I was the only one present besides the guards... (the staff get days off for both TZ and American holidays). Oh well, my brain is not very American oriented these days. I was in Lushoto this past week visiting my friend Ness and we got a text from Matt about the elections and we were like....oh yeah! Elections! But am really happy to read just now online that the Dems took majority in both House and Senate. Makes returning home somehow easier...

So yes, am in Dar. Got in from Lushoto just this afternoon. Had an EXCELLENT time at Ness's. We did a lot of hanging out, chatting, cooking, visiting her friends and neighbors, and I helped her teach her Form 3 physics class. We did lab practicals, it was really fun. Made me think that maybe I don't hate teaching and that maybe it depends on the topic and the students.... Lushoto was just as beautiful as the two other times I've visited and may have been even more lush and green due to the intense rain its been getting lately. It rained, no joke, EVERY DAY, for the five days I was there. So it was way colder than I expected and we couldn't do much walking around or hiking but it was still really fun. I actually heard that its been raining a lot here in Dar as well as in Kenya, to the point where Kenya had to postpone its national secondary school exams. Luckily, and I continue to cross my fingers, its not raining here in Dar today.

Tomorrow I'm off to Mwanza, up by the beautiful Lake Victoria (3rd largest in the world? something like that). Brian tells me its not been raining nearly as much. Am totally looking forward to hanging out and more eating and going to work with him (he's also a health PCV like me) but especially am excited about washing my clothes and having them dry in less than 3 days :) The last time I was in Mwanza, I took the bus. This time, I decided to break out the big bucks and fly to both save time (the bus takes 2 days) and save my sanity. The latter especially since I'll be by myself.

Think that is all for now. Feeling a little bit nervous about my trip to Ethiopia with Matt; things are apparently heating up with Islamist fundamentalists in Somalia and Kenya... Ah well, we'll play it by ear and we might have to change our plans.

YAY!!!

2006-11-03T09:50:00.000+03:00

Oh man. Its official. No longer a Peace Corps Volunteer! Its a crazy, out of body experience. So weird. Two years. Has gone by sooooo fast! Still so much to do. So many more places to go before home. Official itinerary:

In Tanzania-
Lushoto,Tanga for a week
Mwanza for a week
Morogoro for a few days
Zanzibar for a few days

Then I'll be in Ethiopia from right after Thanksgiving until December 15, when I fly out to go home. Sweet!

So after I got back to Tanzania and my village from being in America, the days and weeks just FLEW BY. It was crazy how much stuff I had to get done. It was endless packing and cleaning and burning my old papers and things that Jess my replacement didn't need. And then there was the last few days in my village when I just went around taking a ton of pictures and saying goodbye's. It was incredibly stressful and sad but I promised people that I would be back in a few years to visit and that we could keep in touch through letters and Jess. Its crazy "closing" up a life you've led for the past two years and not knowing when you'll see certain people, if ever again.

After I left my village (incidentally, on my bus ride out they were playing this popular song called "starehe" and the chorus goes "kwa herini, kwa herini..." or goodbye!) I went to Mtwara to spend the night and Danielle and I met a bongo flava music star named Daz Baba (www.dazbaba.com)! Bongo flava is kind of like the hip hop of Tanzania and East Africa and I'm really into it. It was cool talking to him and his posse but its so interesting how different music superstars in Tanzania are from ones in the States. I mean, obviously, I knew there would be big differences (no stretch limos or red carpet treatment here...), but I expected that they would have a slightly higher standard of living. But nope, they were just staying at some regular hotel Danielle and I were at and riding the really really crappy bus (the one I was on that hit a tree) back up to Dar es Salaam. I was kinda surprised and then I found out from talking to our friend Tenney who knows even BIGGER Bongo Flava music stars that its basically the case with all of them. They are more or less regular people with not such fancy lives. I'm sure a buncha factors come into play but I think its mainly cuz things like royalties and contracts and money issues are not dealt with in a way that would give the artists themselves the most amount of profit.... I guess typical in developing countries?

Anyway, then after Mtwara the next day we got a ride up to Dar es Salaam with the PC vehicle which was an awesome air conditioned Land Cruiser. The road was pretty bad cuz the rains have started (its only paved in bits and pieces here and there) but it was definitely way more comfortable than taking a bus. About a million times more. So we were very grateful.

Once we got to Dar es Salaam (it took 2 days cuz we had to stay overnight; PC is not allowed to drive at night, for good reason) we just have been spending our time here finishing up lots of paperwork and medical appointments to offially close out.

So exciting! So yes. Thats me for now. My adventure here in Tanzania is coming to a close. I'm so so excited to visit friends and be in one place for a little while but have said some sad good byes to other friends who have already left to travel or go home. I'm also super excited but very nervous about Ethiopia but I know it will be a huge learning experience and good times. I miss you all! Write me, I love emails and comments :) Hope you guys like the pics; I dont think I'll have a chance to post more until I get home.

2006-11-02T13:49:00.000+03:00

Steph's kitten Matako licking a frog!

One view from the "bus stand" in my village

Primary school students running in the morning

Me in front of the sign for the primary school in MY village - Nagaga!

2006-11-02T13:46:00.000+03:00

Cooking on my kerosene stove

A close up of cashew nut and fruit - pride of my region

Crazy scary bug we saw one night at Steph's

Banana trees, yay!

2006-11-02T10:58:00.000+03:00

Danielle walkin on a road in Mtwara town

One view of my house on the inside; the buckets are full of water

A sunset behind Ndwika

On the way to Ndwika

More Photos

2006-11-01T18:01:00.000+03:00

Tony and I at his counterpart's saying bye.

Me and Tony's counterpart - Mama Joseph

Some mama's lining up their plastic buckets to fetch water

Closing out PC service!

2006-11-01T16:51:00.000+03:00

Hey! I'm in Dar es Salaam and starting my close of service process! I totally left my village. Lots to tell, but will type more later. Below are some pics!

A giant baobab tree near my village on the way to Ndwika Secondary and Steph's that I love.

Me and Tony at close of service conference back in July

My group at close of service! We started with 41, down to 25 now!

Back in TZ

2006-10-19T13:54:00.000+03:00

Hey all. I am back in Tanzania now. Have been back for 9 days now and what can I say? My life at the moment all just feels like a blur. My time at home in Amrica was very fast and very surreal but I am glad that I was there. I cant even begin to describe how strange it was to be back home so I'll leave that till I am home for good in December. Now, being back in TZ feels strange as well. It's emotionally and mentally weird to be moving between what I feel like are two separate lives I lead. Like when I am here, in TZ, in my village, it is weird to me that I have a whole other life and family and friends and responsibilities at home in America. And when I was in America, it was unfathomable that I had a life and a job and friends and a house in TZ.

Oh well. I'm growing and learning a lot from all of this! I have only 10 more days left in my village. Today I came out to a mission hospital 4 hours away from my site to say good bye to a mama that I am very close to here. I've been busy at site feeling very flustered cleanign my house, packing up, and saying my good-byes. I've accumulated so much physically and emotionally in the past two years! Hard to tell until you actually get down to the business of wrapping things up. I'm going to miss people so much. Especially my students. I really want to see how they end up doing in school and life. I'll be in touch with people here though. And I'll be asking my roommate for village updates when I'm back in America. But in the end, I think I'm ready to move on with life and the new challenges I know it will bring.

Will write again soon from Dar es Salaam when I'm in the office closing out my service! Hope you are all well!

Hey...Some Bad News...

2006-09-27T16:22:00.000+03:00

So my dad passed away Sunday night and I found out here Tuesday afternoon. Things have been frustrating with communication and phone troubles and being so far away from it all and I'm tired and overwhelmed, but I think it will all be ok. So I left Wednesday early morning from my village at 4am and made it to Dar es Salaam by 1pm. It only took one car, a bus, and a plane! Tonight at around 11pm I'm off to JFK Airport.... Its all very surreal right now, but just wanted to let you guys know. I'll be home for only a few days and will be in touch with some of you. Then I'm headed back here to finish up my service in TZ. Hope you're all doing well.

Pole Sana!

2006-09-16T09:50:00.000+03:00

Really sorry! Its been forever since I blogged. A whole host of reasons accounting for it, including the fact that my closest town, Masasi, lost its internet cafe. It just wasn't making enough money and at the same time sucking money from the NGO that ran it, so it closed. Now I'm in Mtwara, my regional capital, 8 hours from my village, trying to get in as much internet time as I can possibly tolerate brain and wallet wise.

So whats new? Hmm, a lot and not a lot at the same time if thats possible. I was trying to write down a weird checklist of things I wanted to tell you guys and its kinda random but I'm have a stab at it, so here goes:

I have a new roommate! Housemate, technically. Her name is Jessica. Its actually pretty funny cuz 7km away at Ndwika Secondary School (hey Cyndi!) where I have my peer educators, two PC Volunteers ago was a girl named Jessica and little kids around that area still call ME and the volunteer at Ndwika (Steph) by the name Jessica. Sometimes the kids just get used to one Mzungu (white) name and then they'll call every Mzungu that name. Awesome. In any case, THIS Jess, my housemate, is really nice and pretty cool. She's getting electricity put in the house, so thats pretty exciting but its been a headache and a half, to say the least. Lots of chasing after people, paperwork, money, supplies, etc etc. Gotta say though, having a housemate is both new and exciting and very very different. Like I've said before, I think I just really got used to living on my own, doing my own thing, having things stay where I left them, etc. But its only for SIX more weeks.

Sweet, so onto that. Leaving. What a strange thought. Continues to be strange. I guess it will hit me when I actually start packing and physically remove myself from the village, but for the time being I STILL sometimes feel like me being here is this strange, surreal experience. Like, I'm really in Tanzania? And have been here for two years now?! So....travel plans. I leave village around Halloween, late October. Go up to Dar es Salaam to close out my service and fill out PC paperwork in the office. Hang out in TZ for a few weeks visiting people, mainly Ness and Brian. Spend Thanksgiving at the Ambassador's in Dar. Fly to Ethiopia with Matt and Jon for four weeks. Fly back to the States and arrive in NYC DECEMBER 15. Such is the plan thus far. Of course, as most things are here, this is subject to change. But for now, be prepared for my bad English, weird new mannerisms, colorful clothes, and lots of gifts come mid December. YAY!

So what have I been up to? What will I do these last few weeks? I had spent some time prepping my house and village for Jess's arrival. I've been making tons of to do lists of things that need to be taken care of before I leave. I've been trying to wrap up teaching and projects. I've been to a cashew nut farm!

Whoa, that last comment. That deserves a paragraph. So yes, I may have mentioned before but my region's major cash crop is the cashew nut. The esteemed korosho (in Swahili) is grown on trees and highly prized for its annual income generation. Like its obvious when korosho are in season (as they are now) because people are happier, eating more, travelling more, buying new clothes, etc. So people have these korosho farms with varying numbers of trees. The farm of one of my closest mama friends that I went to was HUGE by village standards, it had maybe 200+ trees? And the job for the day when I went? Pick up korosho that fell off the trees. At first this sounds simple, before I actually got to the farm, I thought to myself-it cant be too bad cuz the nuts are attached to these bright yellow and orange colored fruits, they'll be easy to find. WRONG. Some of the fruits have dried into dirt colored things and the bases of the trees are just covered in dead leaves and grass. So its like Where's Waldo....with korosho. It was awesome tho. I spent the whole morning and most of the afternoon becoming intimately familiar with the korosho trees, fruit, and nut. I did everything from picking up nuts to sorting them to pulling the fruit apart from the nut to burning the nuts and cracking them open in order to get to the actual korosho's. So the nuts are sold by the kilo to rich folk who rip off people here and send them to be processed outside the country and the fruits are eaten or made into local alcohol. That day, my mama even brought with her corn meal and vegetables and dried fish so we cooked lunch out there on the farm. It was tasty and we were starving. At the end of the day, I was incredibly tired and sore but it was a really cool experience. And now I totally can understand. Because before I actually had gone myself, I always knew and talked to people about how their day at the farm went and what they did, but its an entirely different experience actually doing it oneself. It makes me realize how lucky I am that my life and sustenance is not dependent on farming. Lucky is maybe not the word. Privileged, perhaps.

Lets see. What else? Fellow volunteers are leaving so I have a few going away parties to go to coming up. TZ-ans take their parties pretty seriously. Its all about getting dressed up, having an MC, getting a DJ, having a timetable complete with speeches and poetry and dancing times and a high table with guests of honor, etc etc. Sweet! I myself, am luckily, not going to have a big time going away party in my village but will combine my going away with my end of year peer educators party at Ndwika.

Its midterm break now for most secondary schools (one week long only) so things have been a little halted teaching wise but I decided that I would tutor a few kids in math who wanted extra help and who lived in and around my village. Can I just say for as much as I really hate teaching in the classroom this tutoring thing was the BEST idea? Not only did I get to really see where my students were having problems but I got to do a lot of individual work catered to each student's abilities, students were able to help each other, and I got to know them all a lot better. And we had just hours and hours a day to do math. Cuz they weren't doing anything else. What a way to spend midterm break! Pretty tiring for me to explain the same thing a million times over to different students and sometimes to the same student over and over and to speak Swahili for that long but it was good times all around and I hope my students felt like they got something out of it. What I taught, if anyone is interested, is solving simultaneous equations. For example, given that x+y=5 and 3x-y=x+13 then what are the values of x and y?

So of course, I've been telling people that I'm leaving soon. Mainly to prepare them and myself and also it happens when I'm introducing Jess (i.e. this is my replacement in the village) but its heartwarming for people and my students to tell me things like: don't leave! we've gotten used to you here, we don't know what the new girl will be like. who will teach us when you're gone? you should add on an extra year. you should go home for a little and then come back for five more years. etc etc. I've tried to explain that as much as I really loved it here and learned so so much, I miss America and my friends and family and haven't seen them in two years. Its hard for people to imagine what my life was like before TZ and how much that differs from my life here now. I can't explain things like I don't find the work here stimulating enough and that I miss being a student and really hate the harrassment I sometimes get and am frustrated with the systems that exist here, and don't feel like I'm making any impact at all and that I'm ready to move onto the next stage of my life. Can't explain it for lack of language, lack of understanding and sumpathy in my audience (you're white and have a good life here, what do YOU have to complain about?), and not wanting any hurt feelings or feelings of self pity by TZ-ans (our country is so bad and poor and yours is so rich. how often do I hear this? and then have to reply that they are just very very different and you cannot compare in that way).

Okay, so thats me in a nutshell. Just gearing up for leaving the village and my travels ahead. Doing really well for the most part. Thought will probably be really sad to finally leave site. May not get to update again until I get to Dar es Salaam late Oct. Missing you all and hoping to see you sooooon! Email or leave hello comments :)

Final Stretch....

2006-07-29T11:07:00.000+03:00

It was weird. Had my close of service (COS) conference and we talked about all these re-adjusting back to life in America issues like resumes and jobs and returned volunteer services and health insurance! It was wild and now this is it. Final stretch. THREE MORE MONTHS left. Wow..... I don't know how you guys feel but wasn't it just yesterday that I was at home running around saying bye to people for the next two years and here I am, ready to head back.

In any case, to backtrack a little. The COS conference was SUPER! We had a great time hanging out on the beach and our sessions were cool and relaxed and we all laughed a great deal and had good quality time with each other. It also helped that the food was spectacular Western fare of buffet breakfasts, lunches, dinners. An awesome change from what we normally eat at our sites. We were there for four nights, stayed at really nice two person bandas by the beach with hot showers and all - courtesy of PC. Super.

After that, spent some time in Dar es Salaam before heading back down south and to my village. It was both exciting and strange to be back alone in my own house at my site. Exciting cuz I had been so tired of travelling non stop and living out of my bookbag for five weeks and I had missed my friends in the village but strange because those five weeks were daily packed with volunteers all around me, cool places to go, things to do, people to see, awesome food to be had. Not to mention all the English speaking. And then suddenly I was alone again. Totally mixed feelings. It used to be AWFUL in the beginning and I would hate being back and miss my non Tanzanian friends so so much, but I've gotten tons better at the re-adjustment back to site after being away for a while.

Which is all to say I am equally nervous and excited about heading home. Okay, so remember my Europe plans with Erica? She's extending now for an extra year on Zanzibar! So we wont be going to Europe, which is cool with me cuz I knew stuff like this may come up (they always do, just a part of life here somehow). And I am SO SO thrilled for her! To go from small village life in one of the poorest regions of the country to living on a tropical resorty island with running water and electricity. Hehe, and I cant help but think of all the amazing food and fresh fish and easy access to everything (from banks to beaches to internet to goods to NGOs) she'll be fortunate to have. Makes ME almost wish I were extending :) But alas, I really feel like my time here is up and I'm thrilled to be going home soon and starting up the next stage of my life. Which will include job hunting and serious hanging out with friends time.

So overall, things are prettty good. Am excited about a potential replacement volunteer coming to live with me in my house in a few weeks. Trying not to get my hopes up but really hope that I DO get replaced and she comes. How awesome and different to have a roommate for my last two months at site?

Anyway, hope everyone's having a great summer. Miss you all! Have I mentioned how much I love emails and comments?! :)

Hot Cold Hot Cold

2006-07-15T15:09:00.000+03:00

Hey, currently am in Tanga town with some friends. Its my first time here and I'm really liking it so far! I spent the past week visiting my friends Hilary and Ness at their incredibly beautiful sites up in the Usumbara Mountains. It was gorgeous and lush and food filled and best of all, cold. I slept with a sleeping bag! But anyway, Tanga is on the coast and really HOT, thus the title. Its weird going from a week of gray skies and wearing three shirts to burning sun. I am much more used to the latter but its nevertheless a small shock to the system.

So how can I sum up the past week? Lots of hanging out, meeting people, seeing our friends' schools (they're both secondary school teachers), walking around, cooking (some of our more impressive attempts being soup, burgers, grilled cheese sandwiches, ravioli, and cake), sleeping, watching videos on Ness's TV (yea! she has a TV! well, it technically belongs to the school, but they keep it in her house, amazing!), and admiring the beauty of the surrounding mountains and hills (complete with mini waterfalls, how cool!). Yesterday at Ness's we went on this hike for about 3 hrs roundtrip to this amazing place simply called the Viewpoint where honestly and cornily, I felt on top of the world. It was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen. How to even describe it? We were on the edge of these cliffs and could see the land and sky and clouds all around us for what seemed like infinity. It was incredible. I cannot give it justice. Even the photos I took will not be able to give it justice.

We left Ness's site this morning to come to Tanga and tomorrow I'm on my way back to Dar for our close of service conference with PC. For the first time since we left for our individual sites back in December 2004 my training group will be united as a whole! Of course, we've seen each other here and there, but ALL of us ALL in one place? Its been a while. So I'm terribly excited. We all are. It all seems to be happening so fast! And before I know it, I'll be home, huh? And missing TZ so so much. I already see it coming. Even now I miss my village. I've been travelling for a while now. Its awesome to be in new places and meet new people and see my friends but one starts to miss familiarity and one's own house and bed and time alone. How much I've changed.... Anyway, I need to run. Miss you guys! Hi Cindy! Really glad you and Greg made it back okay, I hope I'll have a chance to come visit ya'll when I get back :)

Good to Be Back

2006-07-05T09:12:00.000+03:00

Hey! Happy slightly belated Fourth of July!!! I am back in Dar es Salaam and last night about 30 volunteers and I were at the American Embassy singing the two national anthems for a bunch of Embassy guests and ambassadors and what not. It was pretty cool. As you can imagine, us volunteers were rather excited about the open bar and free food :) We got to schmooze a little and I met some interesting people (a super pretty actress from NYC, a random country rock girl band from California, some people with Sesame Street, the Ambassador to South Korea, the manager of the Holiday Inn here, and a group working with bringing TZ-an kids with heart problems to the States). There was also a few minutes of really breathtaking fireworks on the Embassy grounds. When was the last time I saw live fireworks?! Then we headed to a bar to watch the Italy Germany World Cup game.

Sooooo...how was MALAWI?! Wow, where do I begin? It was crazy times, for many many reasons. First of all, it took me 8 days to get there from my village. That roughly translates into about a millon and two hours on buses and one worst day of my life on a boat. The boat trip is a story that cant really be told in its entirety in these "pages" but lets just say it involved everything going wrong that could have gone wrong and 15 hours on a very rocky boat where I must have thrown up about 7 or 8 times.... And the boat didn't even take us to Malawi. We just ended back in TZ again. So we had to backtrack and get to Malawi by land transport. ANYWAY, we finally made it to Nkhata Bay and stayed at a really nice and resorty place on Lake Malawi. We ate lots of awesome food, met some people (can't say they were quite that interesting though....), went swimming and snorkeling (schistomiasis, anyone?), and just hung out for about three nights. It was fun but colder than we were expecting. We found out that horseback riding was way further out and expensive to get to than we thought so we ended up not going. And since we arrived late to Malawi, Danielle wasnt able to start her diving course when she wanted to so she stayed behind a few days.

So some more things about Malawi. Technically, it is the 4th poorest country in the world, with TZ being the 5th but thats all based on GNP calculations and we just got the general feeling that Malawi was WAY poorer than TZ. Actually, it was kind of funny because we ended up meeting a lot of TZ-ans in Malawi who were there to do business and stuff because Malawi imports almost everything.... I was really looking forward to picking up really cool Malawian cloth and things but they were all from TZ... And we heard more than one time how much "better" TZ is. A little weird. Malawi is also a really really small country compared to TZ. I really think that the whole of Malawi is about the size of my region in TZ. And we were up north, which is the "poorer" part of Malawi. We found Malawians to be incredibly friendly though. Just really warm and laid back and cool. Malawi's nickname is the "warm heart of Africa." Also a big thing we noticed and liked - Malawians speak English! Like everyone we spoke to had at least really basic working knowledge of it to greet and be able to give us directions and etc. Such a big change from TZ! But in Malawi there is no unifying national language like Swahili is in TZ, which as a volunteer, I really like cuz it means I can go anywhere in the country and still be able to communicate.

But truly, it sometimes takes crazy travelling and going to another country to truly appreciate and love the one that you are in. I cannot explain in words how happy Erica and I were to be back on TZ soil and back in Dar es Salaam - land of sun, Swahili speakers, familiar streets and surroundings, and friends we knew. Awesome.

Now what? There's another 4th of July party in a few days and then I'm going with a few friends up to visit my friend Ness in her little nook of the mountains in one of the most green and prosperous regions of the country. I went last year around this time but wasn't able to stay that long but this time I think I'll be able to get in some more hiking and walking around. Should be cool.

Then after that is my close of service conference where we get to sit in sessions on what to do after pc, how to leave our sites, etc etc. Its going to be on a beach (another reason to love TZ - we're right on the Indian Ocean!) and I'll be with all the remaining people that I came to TZ with almost two years ago. Coming around full circle :)

Anyway, think thats all for now. May not update for a little while, but as usual, look forward to reading comments and emails from you guys and hope everyone is doing really well at home! xoxo

Off to Travels

2006-06-20T11:55:00.000+03:00

Hey guys, back in town (Masasi). Am actually on my way to Malawi with two friends for a week. I'm super excited to see Lake Malawi and to go horseback riding and hopefully snorkeling. My friend Danielle is going to get scuba certified (sorry, have I already mentioned all of this in a previous entry? If so, sorry!). Then, things are a little up in the air but promise to be fun. How can life NOT be fun travelling around TZ?

My week or so in my village was somehow uneventful. My birthday came and went and sadly, loads of my friends weren't around (volunteer or Tanzanian....) but I made myself a KICK BUTT banana cake (man, I gotta go home and bake it for you guys, its heavenly) and tried but somehow failed to make a Tanzania spiced rice dish. I also finished reading Guns, Germs, and Steel. It was really well written and really interesting. Made me feel like I was back in school again :) Its been a long time since I've used my brain to think critically! I can't tell you all how much I miss school. I'm eager to be back. Who woulda known a few years ago when I was super stressing out in college?

I'm only just know starting to figure out the massive phenomenon that is myspace.com I'm sure you all know of it. Did it get crazy popular right after I left? Its kind of a weird blast from the past. I'm not on it yet (cant decide if I wanna be) but have searched and found people I haven't seen in over ten years! A little crazy. How much smaller the internet makes the world.

And speaking of small world? Can I just tell you guys? The craziest thing. One of my friends from PC TZ here that lived in my region but finished his contract back in December went home and completely randomly met my friend Judy (hey hun! you reading this?) from college at a lecture at Johns Hopkins. Wow. Intense.

Hey, sorry. I'm feeling a small brain drain. Maybe from not eating all day. Maybe from the excitement of my upcoming travels. I miss you guys. Write comments PLEASE! Email me, even little notes to say hi and let me know whats up with you! They make my day :) Will write more when I get back from Malawi, or maybe when I'm there if I can dig up an internet cafe.

Week in Mtwara

2006-06-08T16:39:00.000+03:00

Hey! Hope you guys liking the pics. Sorry if some not showing, you may have to refresh a few times... In any case, like I mentioned earlier, I'm in Mtwara town now (the biggest town in my region) doing a teacher seminar with other volunteers. Its 18 primary and secondary school teachers from the region and the main goal of the week is to introduce participatory approaches to teaching in general, but especially in teaching topics of HIV/AIDS and Life Skills (relationship, communication, and decision making skills). I need to admit that in my usual pessimistic way, I was nervous about how useful this seminar was going to be and whether or not the participants would really care. But it has turned out great! Things have been running smoothly for the most part (this IS still TZ.....) and the participants have shown great energy and interest during the sessions. Today was Day Four of Five. Tomorrow is therefore the last day and on Saturday I'm headed back to my village. Some mixed feelings with that since I DO miss my friends there and my house but at the same time, being in town with my volunteer friends, eating ice cream, taking showers, sleeping under a fan, watching music videos (American and East African), and doing internet daily has its perks. I have definitely grown to appreciate the smaller things in life here. The following will be a little random. It was just some things that in my village I jotted down to tell ya'll so I wont forget, so here goes:

New Anais Nin quote I really like: The risk it takes to remain tight inside the bud is more painful that the risk it takes to blossom.

Only FIVE more months left! Time is simply flying. In two weeks I'm off to Malawi with Danielle and Erica where we'll horseback ride and snorkel while Danielle takes a course to be certified in scuba diving. After that we're off to Dar es Salaam for some 4th of July celebrations at the embassy; we've volunteered to sing both TZ and American national anthems, it should be fun. Then I'm free between then and July 18 and might go visit friends in other parts of the country or go hiking or something. July 18 is our PC Close of Service Conference which every volunteer goes through three months before they leave country. Its basically to talk to us about paperwork we have to do and re-adjustment back to life in America. Crazy stuff!

So I've mentioned this before, but I'm leaving here late Oct. Erica and I are planning on hitting up Europe but she has to be back by early Dec for a wedding. I also might go home but may be lured into travelling elsewhere with other friends. I'll DEFINITELY be back to the US by Christmas. I can't believe soon after I get back it will be 2007! A few people have been asking about my plans post return to the US. First off, I plan on EATING A LOT :) No big surprise there for those of you who know me well :) So besides eating, I want to visit friends (both ones from home and PC TZ ones), get used to the uber crazy-ness that is NYC and America (I'm telling you guys now, I'll be really shocked for a while when I first get back!), and ultimately look for a JOB. So long term plan is to work for a while (I'm thinking something along the lines of international health and working for NGOs or foundations) and then back to school. Not sure yet for what, but am really excited and eager to be a student again, not a teacher!

Some of you may remember that around this time last year I was chosen to help train the new group of PC health and environmental volunteers. I had a really really great time and was SO excited to return again this year but unfortunately, was not chosen :( This new group of volunteers (are any of you reading this?!) will arrive here in TZ mid June and finish training mid August. Then a large percentage of them will come live with some of us (maybe even ME!) to replace us at our sites after WE finish up in late Oct. Does that sort of make sense? Sorry for the awful English. But basically my training group's replacements are arriving soon and I may get a housemate for about two months! Another American to go through daily life in my village with! It will certainly be very interesting.

The reading continues! One day I will put up a list of my books read here, but I'm up to 74 so far! An awesome one I read recently was The Female Nomad by Rita Golden Gelman (see www.ritagoldengelman.com). Basically, the title says it all. The author is literally a nomad of sorts, living several months of the year in various places around the world. The book talks of some of her really very cool adventures (in places like Indonesia, the Galapagos Islands, Guatemala) and she is here in TZ right now for a conference! Danielle has invited her to come visit Mtwara town and region!! I really really hope she gets to. It would be incredible to get a chance to speak with her and show her around. Two books I've started reading are Fear of Flying by Erica Jong (Barnard alum?? I forget) and Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond (a really famous Pulitzer Prize winning book about how different societies have become what they are today. From Wikipedia - But the book is not merely an account of the past; it attempts to explain why Eurasian civilization, as a whole, has survived and conquered others, while refuting the belief that Eurasian hegemony is due to any form of Eurasian intellectual or moral superiority. Diamond argues that the gaps in power and technology between human societies do not reflect cultural or racial differences, but rather originate in environmental differences powerfully amplified by various positive feedback loops). If any of you guys have read either book, lemme know what you think of em!

I said I would talk a little about the use of coconut milk in food. I'm really lucky to live near the coast of TZ so palm trees and coconuts are abundant and heavily used in cooking foods like rice, soups, beans and etc. I had no idea what was involved in actually making coconut "milk" before coming here and thought one could just use the "juice" in a regular coconut. Wrong! One must first take a regular ripe coconut (nazi in Swahili, as opposed to dafu which is young coconut), crack it in half on a rock or hard surface, and then grate it against a special "chair" (I'm sitting on it in that picture, but its hard to tell). Then with the white powdery coconut grated pieces (surely there is a better way to say that! In swahili its chicha) one pours slightly warm water over it and squeeze the grated pieces. Now THAT squeezed liquid is the "milk" you cook with. Then the grated pieces are just dumped. Awesome, huh? Its a lotta work! I just recently bought a grating chair (really cheap, around 2 USD) but only cook with coconut occasionally since I cook for just one person and usually am not too particular about my food.

And SPEAKING of cooking, I've gotten really good at baking with charcoal! Long explanation short, I use two cooking " pot things" (no word in English cuz we don't have em but sufuria in Swahili), one inside the other, and a lid. Anyway, some things I now can bake from scratch are: brownies, corn bread, banana bread, coffee cake, and yellow cake! So awesome. I will definitely show you guys when I get home! I like to fool myself into thinking no more Betty Crocker cake-in-a-box for me, but I know I wont have the time to bake from scratch as often as I do here. And, unlike here, making things from scratch in the States is probably MORE expensive than buying the processed mix. Anyone know the answer?

Think thats all for now. Miss you guys tons, leave me comments, write emails to say hi! Hope you're having a great start to the summer! We're officially in "cold" season now with no more sweating for me at 6am and blankets at night, YAY!

What Are These Pictures OF??!!

2006-06-06T17:39:00.000+03:00

Hey ya'll. Been forever. I know! Pole sana (sorry in Kiswahili). And the pics? Yeah, I know. I have no pictures for the longest time and then BOOM, five million. Its mostly cuz I'm in town for the week, which means lots of internet time and I get to rob photos off my friend Erica's digital camera and put them online. So sorry for the long download time and you may have to refresh this page a few times if some of the photos don't show up..... Before I go into stuff, let me first explain some of the photos. Sorry I didnt write an explanation immediately below each photo, that woulda taken even longer. Let me tell you, computers and the internet connection here in Mtwara town? Not so fast....

Okay, so here goes explanations of photos from the top down....
-Lucy and a GIANT sting ray at the Mtwara fish market/beach

-me and Lucy at the teacher seminar we are holding this week

-Danielle, Tony, and I at this fancy Mzungu (white, foreigner) restaurant in Mtwara by the beach; awesome sunset!

-okay these next two of the car/truck thing are in reverse order. A bunch of my friends and I were going into town after visiting another friend-Justin (check out his blog on the sidebar)- and our vehicle FLIPPED on its side!!! It was really pretty scary but we weren't hurt, just shocked. Then it took a whole bunch of guys to flip the car back up, like you see in the first picture.

-the last two photos in that entry are the bunch of us at Justin's school. In the top photo we stuffed ourselves into a random empty closet :) A bunch of us in the second pic from the left: Josh, Jen, Thais, Erica, me, Steph (my closest neighbor at site!!), and Marisa

-first pic in the next entry is Erica (you see her in the hat?! she kind of stands out a little, hehe) with a bunch of primary school students

-Josh, Justin, and I at our friend Cris's (Filipino Volunteer Services Abroad volunteer) house

-Erica and I at Cris's

-me grating a coconut for coconut milk to cook with! Totally cool and will explain in another entry

-Tony and I in the PC car on our way to Dar back in Feb for the Peer Support and Diversity meeting

-Cris and I cookin up a storm! It was for that party to welcome the new volunteer I mentioned two or three entries ago

-me, Amy, Danielle, and Erica in Dar es Salaam totally SCARFING down all you can eat ribs. That was the most amazing meal I had had in a LONG time!

-Erica, Josh, and I with the Ambassador way back when

-Matt, me, Brian, and Erica on Zanzibar back during New Years; check out the lovely sandy beach, beautfiful sky, and green waters!

-Erica's living room and house in Chiungutwa (20km from my village and basically my second home); check out the map - such a staple of PC volunteer homes :)

-me and Erica on Zanzibar wearing her super diva sunglasses during New Years

2006-06-06T17:06:00.000+03:00

2006-06-05T17:59:00.000+03:00

Photos! Finally!

2006-06-04T12:04:00.000+03:00

(insert witty title here)

2006-05-13T09:52:00.000+03:00

Sorry, am feeling uncreative today. So I'm back in town. Got in yesterday after teaching math in the morning. Its not so bad these days. Im encouraged by the few really good and motivated students that I have (unfortunately they are mostly boys, the girl students aren't as high achieving as I would want...) and try not to get hung up over the really not such great students (like the ones who cant multiply 5 and 5...). Everyone knows that in the end, only a few will make it anyway. The secondary school system has two filters: a national exam at the end of Forms II and IV that determine whether or not you continue on. I've mentioned to Tanzanians before that in the States, we dont really have national exams or national syllabi for that matter and they're pretty surprised! Could you imagine if all the students in all of America had to follow one set of syllabi? It would be chaos like no other I think.

What else is new? Not that much. Gearing up for my final half year left! My health clinic got HIV/AIDS testing and counseling (a huge feat for a village! its mostly available in towns) and ARVs (anti retrovirals or HIV/AIDS drugs) are being brought to my clinic these days by folks from the Clinton Foundation (yes, THAT Clinton). Unfortunately, not as many people are testing as we would like. The big issue with HIV/AIDS and a major reason why it continues to spread is the huge stigma that still surrounds the topic among Tanzanians. Its definitely getting better and strides are being made in large scale efforts but people are still shy to talk about it, to talk about the biggest spreader of it (sex), and misconceptions abound about people living with the illness and general facts about the illness itself (how its transmitted and what not). The efforts I speak of include media exposure on the radio, on TV, in the newspapers and through NGO funded health magazines (really well put together and popular among TZ-ans). On a "smaller" scale, billboards and sign boards (sometimes no more than a few painted planks of wood nailed together) are put up in towns and villages with messages ranging from "Youth, let us get together to educate about HIV/AIDS" to "AIDS Kills" (uh....not a good message to send or the way to go, but I see it...) to "Don't discrimate against people living with HIV/AIDS" and etc. There are also the large billboards that promote Salama Condoms with the slogan "If you really love him/her you will protect him/her." Oh and speaking of condoms, I often feel like they are the best hope for slowing down the spread of HIV/AIDS, BUT....they are not used nearly as much as they are in say, the States. There are several reasons for this and even when they ARE being used, sometimes they are used incorrectly (wearing more than one condom at the same time, using cooking oil as lubrication, re-using condoms). Some of the reasons for the lack of condom usage also go back to shyness in talking about sex and cost. For example, in my small village, only a few stores sell condoms and in a place where EVERYONE knows EVERYONE, walking into a place and buying condoms can be a bit embarassing. In terms of the cost, a packet of condoms (3 in a packet) cost 100 Tsh. Thats like TEN CENTS! But 100 Tsh can also buy you some tomatoes or dried fish or cooking oil or kerosene or a little bit of flour. So if it comes down to feeding yourself or your family or buying some condoms, sometimes the stomach comes first....

Of course as health volunteers, we're trying to change all of that by promoting safer sex practices (and in some cases abstinence) and speaking freely about condoms and HIV/AIDS as a topic in general. Like I've said before, its sometimes hard to see any changes (which can be really frustrating) but like my friends sometimes say, its better than nothing, huh? And the issue is huge. It is boundless and endless. I mean, I have to admit, some of us (myself included..) came here to PC, to Africa feeling like we can SAVE THE WORLD! We quickly realize that we can't but we somehow do as much as we can......even if its not enough or doesn't seem like that much.

Sorry to make this short, but I have to run now! Hope ya'll doing well and gearing up for spring! I've started wearing sweatshirts in the morning and late evening! Awesome :)

Internet is BACK!

2006-04-30T14:18:00.000+03:00

And I am back to communication with the outside world :) HURRAY. First, some answers to comments in my last post:

To Goofy:
Welcome to Tanzania! Ndanda is a beautiful and wonderful small town with a great mission (Catholic? Lutheran? I forget), a well run hospital (with internet), and a nice market stocked well with fruits and vegetables. Ndanda springs is also located here where much of the bottled water in the Deep South comes from. There are restaurants and bars but they are Tanzanian, which may be a little different from what you're expecting. I actually live in NAGAGA which is smaller and on the other road. But I know of NANGANGA and Tanzanians frequently think that is where I am from when I first introduce myself.

To Karen:
HEY! Thanks for leaving a comment! You must have been a PCV right before Colleen. I'm in Masasi right now and actually had a nice talk about Masasi Girls last night with one of the teachers (Mama Malenga, unamfahamu?). She was telling me how students from Masasi Girls did well in recent Form Six results this year and how they are awaiting a male Japanese volunteer to arrive to replace one that had just left. As for pictures, Jen and Justin are Deep South PCVs who both post photos; links to their blogs are on the left hand side. Enjoy! Thanks for the encouragement and I look forward to your letter :)

Onto other news. Its so hard to write when I haven't written in such a long time! So yes, I'm in Masasi town this weekend. For a bunch of reasons, really: to see people, do internet, get shopping done, go to this housewarming party of a VSO (Volunteer Services Abroad) volunteer who recently arrived from the Netherlands, and to meet a few PC Headquarters people who are coming to talk to us about our work on HIV/AIDS. Town has been good so far. I've gotten some errands done but still have a few more. Tomorrow is a public holiday - May Day, or Worker's Day.

So how is site? Not bad. Its harvest time and I'm so happy that food is plentiful in my village! I am getting literally bombarded with zawadi (presents) of peanuts, pumpkins, maize, beans and greens left and right. Its awesome! Actually, with the pumpkins, I get a little TOO many and have had to give away some myself (often only to receive another the next day!). Tomatoes are coming back too and people are walking around selling eggplant and okra in buckets. I gotta tell you guys, NYC and supermarkets are going to be SCARY when I return.

And speaking of home, my sister videotaped some members of my family talking to me and I recently got it in a package she sent and finally got to see it yesterday on my friend's DVD player. It was so awesome to see my family and hear their voices. It was also more Chinese than I've heard in a REALLY LONG time. Its good cuz to be honest, I'm forgetting a lot of it. Its a little embarassing but I'm sure it will all come back to me in the States. I saw my little cousins in the video and I feel like I've been gone AGES. They look so much older and more mature! I'm preparing myself somehow for the shock.

Okay, the other night I couldn't sleep and woke up at like 2am. My journal was in bed with me so I wrote a short list of some really random things I wanted to tell you guys, so here goes:

Rainbows make me incredibly excited here :) I don't really know why but they are just SO beautiful and since the sky seems to go on forever, I can often see really good ones (and sometimes two rainbows next to each other!). Its been drizzly and rainly a little here these days so awesome rainbow "season" if you will. I've asked my Tanzanian friends what they are called in Swahili and I've been told "bows of God" or "bows of the sky." Sweet.

And more sky info (yes, I'm easily fascinated since before coming here I'd never seen such HUGE expanse of sky in my life) - the stars and moon are really amazing here! These days the moon has been rising late. That combined with the sparse electricity in my village makes for really cool star gazing. For the first time in my (somehow short so far) life I can actually see the Milky Way. I'll really miss that in the city. Looking up at the stars and just feeling so small in comparison. Makes me feel like my problems are nothing at all.

So I think you guys know I have to take malarial prophylaxis pills once a week. Well, one known side effect of the pills I'm taking is bad dreams or nightmares. To share two particularly graphic and memorable ones:
- I get eaten alive by wild dogs while a friend and I are having dinner outside
- I watch my friend get torn apart by a large lion in a large stadium like pen where two people are blindfolded and placed before the lion to choose; I am waiting to go next when I suddenly wake up
I COULD switch my pills but I'm already pretty used to these and the other kind of pills I have to take daily so I guess I can deal with the scary dreams for a few more months. They certainly make for interesting text messages to my friends here.

I may have spoken a little bit about this in an earlier entry but used clothing from the States is really everywhere here! Its awesome to see Tanzanians walking around with shirts that say Mossimo, Guess, McDonalds, Old Navy, Bob Marley, or Harvard. Once I even saw a shirt from my siblings' university - U of Rochester - on this guy who was walking around a bus stand selling juice. I considered telling him that his shirt comes from the school that my brother and sister are studying at but I think the cool-ness of it would not have really registered. Tanzanians still ask me how long it takes to drive to my home country and if I'm gone for a weekend I sometimes get asked if I went back to America (or Europe, the two get confused a lot).

More random bits another time! In other news, still teaching math at my secondary school and working harder with my peer educators. They taught a great lesson these past two weeks about assertiveness. I was REALLY impressed with their understanding of it (I taught them the lesson in an hour), their participatory approach when they taught their fellow students, the good answers they gave to questions asked, and the energy that they created in the classrooms. They really got their fellow students active and excited and involved. It was wonderful to watch. I'll have to take pictures next time. And the lesson is really awesome cuz my peer educators are at an all girls school and I hope I'm slowly helping to dessiminate (is that the correct spelling?) girl's empowerment.

Okay ya'll. Gotta go and write some emails. Will update again in about two weeks. Again, love and miss you all. I hear the weather is great at home! Great here too but in a different way (getting colder!). Comments most welcome :)

Seven More Months.....

2006-03-28T09:54:00.000+03:00

....left of service. I sound like a broken record, but I again apologize for lack of updating this. My town still doesn't have internet so I waited about 5 weeks before travelling to my regional capital 8 hours away to do a massive amount of shopping, food eating, and internet time.

So whats new with me? I guess not much. First, the environment. TZ-ans love talking about the weather more than Americans do and its not in a casual small talk way. Never have I rejoiced at rains as much as I do here. Not only does rain mean cooler weather and food but collecting the stuff that falls from my roof is an excellent and clean source of water. I love it. BUT it does mean really bad road conditions (seeing as many of the roads are not paved) for travel. The corn in my village has started to be ready. Its not the sweet corn that we're used to eating in the States, but rather its maize. A kind of not sweet corn I guess you can call it. It is grilled over fires, boiled, or dried out and then ground into corn flour to make a starchy staple called ugali. Ugali is interesting. I'll have to try making it when I get back to the States to show people. Its a huge part of many African "cuisines" and of Playdoh like consistency. You eat it with your hands and make small balls out of it. It is usually eaten with beans, mushy vegetables, or tomato/onion sauce, sometimes meat, fish. I didn't like it when I first got here but I've gotten used to it now. Its not so bad, but doesn't have much of a taste. So there's corn and soon there will be lots of peanuts. Did you guys know that peanuuts grow underground? I didn't! Until I got here, that is. Its also orange season. Oranges are green here!! But they still call them machungwa - which also means the color orange. Interesting. I hear that in the States, we DYE our oranges the color orange. Is this true? Anyone know?

Work wise, I started teaching math at a secondary school that opened in the village next to mine. New schools here are always short on staff and supplies and a little chaotic but I agreed to help because I know the acting headmaster - he's from my friend Erica's village and they work together. So I have about 60 students (with more showing up every week) and they have an extremely wide range of abilities and motivation levels. Its hard to get into the craziness of it all here, but lets just say that teaching secondary school here is nothing like teaching high school in the States. Its all the more frustrating that as teachers, we're supposed to teach in English and all the national exams are in English, but the students don't KNOW any English, having been taught in Swahili before entering secondary school. Its like going to high school in the States and all of a sudden being expected to learn and write and read math, sciences, history, geography, etc in Hungarian or something. I could go on and on, but perhaps this is not the best forum for it :)

My health work is not so great. I made an attempt to return back to primary schools and it wasn't as bad as I expected, but I still cant say that I enjoy it at all or will see myself enjoying it anytime soon. I give this me-not-liking-work thing a lot of thought (maybe too much) and I dont know, it just makes me frustrated. But I've come to two definite conclusions:
1) I don't like teaching
2) I don't like development work in the sense that I'm doing it, really one on one

So I guess if nothing else, I've learned those two things about myself and I have grown tremendously as an individual here. I've also made a lot of great friends in my village and among other volunteers and I've learned tons of Kiswahili (how that may be useful in the future, who knows?). As unhappy as I sometimes am here, there are also tons of times when I'm happier than I ever remember being at home, so I guess it all evens out, huh?

I'm sorry there's not much exciting stuff going on. I'm sure if I gave it a lot of thought there could be some interesting stories to tell. But for now, I'm here (nipo, as we say in Kiswahili), I'm mostly :) and I'm healthy.

Think thats all for now. Easter is coming up this month and I'm excited for going to church, massive amounts of yummy food in my village, festive spirits, and everyone wearing new clothes (including me!). So Happy Easter! Happy Spring. Miss and love you guys! xoxox Again, comments are most welcome :)

Wageni Wengi (Many guests)

2006-02-15T16:42:00.000+03:00

Sorry. Its been forever since I last wrote. Things have been a bit busy and my closest town (Masasi) no longer has internet. Its broken but we think its going to return. I'm in Dar es Salaam right now. I just finished a three day training for our peer support and diversity network. It was awesome. I felt like I learned a lot and was happy to be part of a diversity panel for our PC staff where we spoke of our personal experiences and stories.

The multiple guests reference in my title is about last week when in the span of just three days, my region was visited by: The US Ambassador to TZ, our PC Country Director, and my Program Director. The visits were all really successful and a few volunteers and I had lunch with the Ambassador and some Embassy staff in Masasi town and then dinner with our Country Director. After lunch with the Ambassador we went to my friend Erica's village to watch her teach a lesson on HIV/AIDS to her secondary school students. It was a lesson on facts/myths and the students did really well without previous prep! After that, we had the extreme honor of meeting the ex-president of TZ (just stepped down a few months ago) at his house for tea!!! It was super insanely crazy. Erica and I couldn't stop giggling like school girls, we were so excited! It was a short visit but very cool.

I think the past few weeks at site I haven't been eating all that well and lost a bit of weight. Rain continues to be few and far between and people in my village continue to worry about the crops (esp corn) and fear that there will be starvation this year due to increasing food prices and lack of rain. I am at least not in danger of that issue. So since arrival in Dar a few days ago, I have been eating protein in quantities that surprise even me sometimes! Two nights ago, some friends and I went to an Applebee's like restaurant here and had all you can eat ribs! That was accompanied by a glass of yummy white wine, amazing sides of creamed spinach and butternut squash, and a heavenly chocolate milkshake dessert. Last night it was Indian food buffet and tonight it will be all you can eat pasta at this nice Italian restaurant. Sweet. PC Volunteers taking the city's dining scene by storm!!! We truly look like we have never seen food so good in our lives.... I fear for my return back! I'm warning you guys now!

And speaking of returning home, Erica and I are already making plans for our departure in eight or so months!!! We are thinking post close of service to go to: Zanzibar, Rome, Amsterdam, and Ireland - in that order. Any thoughts? Ideas? Comments? Leave me comments on anything! Just to say hi, just a quick note. I miss you guys! Show some love :)

So my friend Ness (the one I went on my crazy Dec travels with) totally cut my hair pretty short in our hotel room the other night. Its still able to be tied back but just barely. Its a bit funny and choppy looking, seeing as it was her first experience with hair cutting of any sort, but I have developed here a healthy and general disregard for my physical looks. TZ-ans are fairly conscientious about one's outward appearance, but ideas of fashion and style are pretty different. It will be good times when I go home and show off all my TZ-an clothes - so bright they will blow your socks off! :)

I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day. Its totally celebrated here in TZ and one of the very very few times I have seen flowers widely being sold. Or flowers at all..... I think it must be too hot and flowers must require too much water to be grown in my region. But have to run now, xoxoxox, leave comments!

Home

2006-01-29T15:47:00.000+03:00

Home is where the heart is. Home. Such an interesting concept. Home is what one makes it, no? I dunno. I miss my American home these days. My NYC, American home. Today is Chinese New Year. At least thats what my friend Erica tells me. On my ride to town today I thought about red envelopes of money, new clothes, visiting relatives, delicious FOOD, grandma burning incense and paper money.... And these days when my mind's feeling idle, all I dream of is home and images of home. Images of friends, family, college, the city, random memories. Its been 16 months since I left the States. Some days it feels like its been forever and other days like no time at all. I just found out recently that instead of December, we are now being asked to leave country and end our service at the end of OCTOBER! Mere months away.... Can I deal with it?

I dont know. Really don't like work these days. Just super not feeling motivated or energetic. Feel pretty pessimistic and negative about a lot of things. But still like being here, enjoy being here. But at the same time, want to be at home. So... where does that leave me?! CONFUSED.

I wish I could even explain the work feelings but its all just confusing and mixed up even to me. I've talked to tons of my friends here about it already. Not sure about a "soluntion" (mwafaka in Swahili, pretty funny soundin word...) if there is one. Just need a way to deal with the rest of my time here and be reasonably happy with all aspects of my life.

Its raining now. Have decided to do more internet time. Rain is awesome. Its the rainy season at the moment and this year the rains have been late and not too plentiful. When I first got back to my village after being away, people swore to me we would all die this year from starvation.... There fortunately have been some rains here and there lately. Its been wicked hot though. It was 90 degrees this morning at 7:30am. Crazy stuff.

Have a bunch of emails to write, so will peace out. Sorry haven't updated in a while and this one was kinda depressing. Haven't been in town in a bit and the last time I did try doing internet, the electricity was out. Will try to have cool things to write next time!

Map!

2006-01-05T15:20:00.000+03:00

I don't really know why I never thought of this before. But here's a map of TZ! I'm trying to figure out how I can put it on my sidebar so it is permanent, but for now, this may be helpful in following the madness of the destinations I mentioned below. And just for reference's sake,

Mtwara - my region, in the SE of TZ. My village and district are fairly close to the Mozambique border

Dar es Salaam - the "capital" of TZ in everything but name

Dodoma - the true capital

Zanzibar - beachy good times

Bukoba, Musoma, Mwanza - where I travelled when I was up in the Lake Region

And finally, the map is courtesy of www.worldatlas.com :)

Happy New Year!

2006-01-04T13:01:00.000+03:00

Okay...I know I haven't written in some time and totally apologize for that. Things have been an incredible whirlwind of events. I hope everyone had a really good holidays and New Years. Where do I begin? I guess where I left off would be a good start.

So after rafting Ness and I took a "short" (6 hour) bus ride from Kampala to Bukoba, Tanzania - right near Lake Victoria. As corny as this sounds, it felt good to be back in the country. Felt like coming home, ya know? It was definitely nice to fully understand people and the conversations around you. Hehe, Ugandans speak a lot of English but to each other they speak dialects or Ugandan. In Bukoba we stayed with an education volunteer who had recently got to site. Her school and house were amazing!!!! Her school is one of the best all girls' schools in TZ and it was just so beautiful and clean and complete with multi story buildings and fresh paint jobs! She replaced an outgoing volunteer so her house was all set up with furniture and goods. It was fun. We made REAL macaroni and cheese (they can get the YUMMIEST cheese in Bukoba!) and tasty banana bread. The next day we watched a bit of a storm and walked around town. It was so beautiful and just lush and green and hilly and super nice views of the lake. I took tons of pictures to show people back in my village. After a day and a half there we hopped onto a boat to go to Mwanza - 2nd largest city in TZ and also on the Lake.

The boat ride was really interesting. I'd never been on a boat that big! Ness and I were in a sleeping cabin with six beds. We had a grandma, two young mothers, a lady moving (who brought tremendous amounts of luggage with her into our tiny room!), and two small kids. It was good times though it was a bit difficult to sleep, our grandma stripped down to her underwear in front of us, one of the young mothers was wailing for God throughout the night, and one of the kids was poking my mattress (I was in a middle bunk). At the Mwanza port, our friend Brian (check out his site in my links!) came to meet us. We spent a teeny bit of time in town just having a yummy breakfast and chatting and walking around town and then we took a small coaster out to his town - Misungwi - one hour away.

The last time I had seen Brian was back in March. Living up in the Lake region, its really rough times getting out. And not too many people wanna go there.... So Ness and I were actually his first out of region volunteer visitors. Good times. He was a great host and his house is really nice and well set up and decorated! We had fun walking around and meeting all his friends (he has tons and tons) and just hanging out. He even taught us the greetings in the local tribal language. So basically Ness and I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas there. And because I'm lazy, here's what he wrote about our visit and food madness:

Had two guests at my site from Saturday til this morning - a personal record!! Not many visitors here. Well, 2 of 3 (myself included) are not Christmas celebrators, but we still used it as an occasion to cook a feast (though, to be honest, just visiting other PCVs is usually occasion enough, cooking is a big deal here). On Sunday, Christmas day, we cooked and then consumed, per person, the following:
3, 1/3 pound hamburgers (except for the vegetarian)
2-3 mangoes
3-4 tacos (with spicy ground beef, refriend beans, salsa, guacamole, homemade tortillas)
several slices of banana bread
fantastic homemade brownies
pilau (spiced rice) and goat meat (brought to us by my neighbors)
2-5 FANTA organes (michelle was hands-down soda champion of the day)
3 french hens, 2 turtledoves, and a partridge in a pear tree (not really, though they do raise doves here for eatin'. not sure what the hell the 'turtle' part is about, and the doves themselves look pretty gamey, not a whole lot of meat....)

And yes, I AM a soda champ. I am trying to definitely decrease my intake, but so far, my personal record is 5 in one day. Thats insane. Soda of choice? Fanta orange. Whatever will I do when I get back to NYC? Is Fanta all that available?

So after two days with Brian and Mwanza, Ness and I took a five hour bus ride to yet another city on the Lake - Musoma - to visit another volunteer buddy of ours - Meena. She too, was the perfect hostess. We ate tons (hehe, see a trend in PC?) and walked around, visited neighbors, chatted, watched movies on her computer and saw TONS of the lake cuz guess what? Its in her backyard!!! The largest freshwater lake in all of the Africa and the 2nd largest lake in the world (really, it looks like an ocean) is in my friend's backyard.... Meters from her house! It was an amazing view. One I think I could never tire of.

But like Mwanza, we were only there for two days and then we were off again. The four of us. In a bus. Twenty six hours. To Dar es Salaam. It turned out to be fairly decent. It was the same bus company I had taken to go to Kampala but this bus was not air conditioned nor did it have a toilet. But all was well and I just mostly tried sleeping and view watching and music listening. And speaking of view watching, what better sight for sore eyes and hot bus air than Mt. Kilimanjaro with frosty white snow at her peak? I guess it was a white Christmas of sorts for me :) It was gorgeous and my second view of it. Tons of my friends have already climbed it. Me? Not so brave. Maybe one day.

We spent one night in Dar and the next day we were off again to Zanzibar by ferry! Courtenay in my group had organized to rent out a bungalow hotel by the beach for the bunch of us and the next few days days following were followed by sand, the Indian Ocean, food, chocolate, trashy American magazines (courtesy of our friends who had just gotten back from holidays at home), late nights, and of course - booze. The beach in front of our hotel was fairly full of seaweed and rocky so we trekked half an hour down by the Italian resorts and I saw more light skin (and just skin in general....) than I have in a REALLY long time. It was a little overwhelming at first but I got over it quickly. The first full day we had at the beach I was in the water a whole lot but then got sunburned and sea urchin-ed so was not so much into it after that. I just don't really think I'm too much of a beach go-er. I guess not having grown up with it. But it was fun while it lasted.

Then more travelling back again to Dar and here I am. For my mid service PC conference with the rest of my group's health volunteers (only 12 of us left now). the conference consists of a mixture of medical check ups and technical information. Its been really great seeing people and being in the big city away from site, but to be honest, I think I'm ready to go back to my village. A bunch of us from my region are getting a ride back in the PC vehicle on Monday. And though these days when I think about my village it seems like a million miles away and almost a dream that I was once a part of (I've been away for about a month now...a really long time), I'm really excited to see people again and to see my volunteer neighbor Stephanie.

So there ya have it. Sorry it this was a bit long and maybe not that interesting and I REALLY wish I could include awesome pictures but alas, no digital camera. But as I've said before, have been taking bunches of good ol' hard copy photos so there will just be a massive showing off/scanning pics effort in about a year from now!

I really hope that everyone had a wonderful New Years and is staying toasty warm! Sending hugs and love!

Rafting!

2005-12-21T19:37:00.000+03:00

Oh man. So a few days ago my friend Ness and I rafted the one and only NILE! It was utterly insane. Where do I begin? We got picked up at our hotel with a bus and when we got to the rafting site (about 1.5 hours outside of Kampala-capital of Uganda) there were a whole bunch of people. We ended up dividing into three boats of around 8 people. My boat had 10 people in it including our guide. It was me, my friend Ness, some Swedish students, and 3 British Airways pilots. Okay, so the Nile? Its gorgeous!!! We all had life jackets and helmets. Helmets! Just for safety sake, I think. The banks of the Nile are super lush and green and we saw tons of birds and ducks. Unfortunately no hippos or alligators. Boo. But probably for the best. So the Nile is great and there are tons of spots where its just flat, calm water. The guides are awesome and know the river like the back of their hand so they tell us when its safe to go swimming and how to best maneuver our raft. So I went swimming in the Nile!!! It was super. I could barely believe it when I was in the water. I was like. Wow, THIS is the Nile River.... And when its NOT flat, its really awesome rapids ranging from grade 2 to 6. Okay, gotta be honest here. I was kind of a weenie and DID actually go into the "safety boat" during the class 5 and 6 rapids. The safety boat rafts alongside the other rafts and helps to "save" people and carry equipment and stuff. There was also a team of kayakers out there saving people. The lower class rapids were really fun - we all had to hang on to the raft but in the class 5 and 6 rapids the raft actually FLIPPED. I watched my fellow rafters go into the white foamy water, their rafts flipping, and then them swimming around getting sucked in and out of the water, gasping for air. Ness was brave and actually went on all the rapids and even SHE said she felt like she was gonna drown (she's been swimming all her life). After the whole experience I regretted a little not experiencing such "closeness to death" but Ness (knowing my poor swimming skills and distrust of water in general) said that I probably would have been pretty terrified. So maybe it was for all the better. I still had an awesome time though.

I was in Kampala for a total of three nights. Ness and I had a day and a half to walk around town and explore a little. Kampala is SO nice! I didn't really know what to expect but it is WAY more developed than Dar es Salaam (TZ's "capital"). It was fairly obvious that Uganda is having a lot more econonomic development and progress. Everything from the leagues of well dressed women (with manicures and pedicures!) to the stores (computer and printer stores, Panasonic, malls, boutiques) to the cars and traffic to the restaurants (Italian, Chinese, Thai, pastry shops, etc) to all the nice buildings pointed to this. There was even a Sheraton in Kampala! TZ doesn't have a Sheraton! It was really a great time and my first time in a country I didn't know so well. Luckily English is the official language of Uganda (it was so surprising to see signs and newspapers in English! Such sharp contrast from TZ) and most people we met spoke it pretty well. The other languages are Ugandan and then there are tons of dialects and tribal languages throughout the country. TZ is lucky to have one major language that unites the nation. So Kampala was awesome - I might even say worth the 30 hour bus ride that it took to get there!

So speaking of getting to Kampala, it was a little crazy cuz we took a bit of a loop up through Kenya and then into Uganda but it was a safer route, all on paved roads, and we were on an air conditioned bus that gave out soda and biscuits! There are only like two bus companies in TZ that provide such nice service! Our bus was seriously nicer than Greyhound buses from home. We had to cross the TZ/Kenyan border in the middle of the night and it was kinda surreal and movie like cuz I was awoken from nodding off on the bus and we all had to get off the bus to fill out a bunch of forms on both the TZ side and the Kenya side and then physically walk over the border. I thought it was pretty funny. I'm sure its like this in many other countries too. Its just that I haven't been to that many so far :)

Right now I'm in Bukoba - a town close to the Ugandana/TZ border. Ness and I arrived yesterday evening and stayed with a new volunteer in town. She replaced a volunteer who just finished her service so her house is SUPER nice and all fully furnished complete with sinks and built in closets and a flushing toilet and a real kitchen. Her school - Rugambwa Secondary - is THE nicest school I've ever seen in TZ. It has three story pink and white buildings on a gorgeous campus. Its also the second best girl school in all of TZ so I guess I shouldn't be expecting anything less. The town is gorgeous and green and so very lush and full of food and fresh fish from the Lake Victoria (2nd largest lake in the world). Its wonderful. Such a big change from my region and from my village.

I'm super running out of time, but wanted to say HAPPY HOLIDAYS to everyone! Hope all is well at home and miss you all so so much! Stay warm and eat lots of yummy food for me :)

Travels

2005-12-17T15:20:00.000+03:00

Here I am in Dar es Salaam in the PC Volunteer lounge taking advantage of some sorely missed air conditioning and free internet and quite frankly, hiding from the sun outdoors. Its pretty wicked hot. Like burning skin and hurting eyes hot. Anywho, my friend Ness and I had planned on busing out of here today for Kampala, Uganda but alas the bus was full when we went to buy tickets. So we are leaving tomorrow morning super early. The bus will take about 25 hours and arrive early the next morning and drive overnight. I think a year and a half ago, if someone told me I'd be on a bus for 25 hours, the thought would be horrifying and I just wouldn't go. But now all I can think about is how nice and smooth the 25 hour ride will be on paved roads and how cool it will be to pass through Kenya and Nairobi.

I am, to be honest, a bit terrified about rafting the Nile. A lot of volunteers I know have done it and they almost all agree that you feel like you're going to die. Wonderful! Just was I was looking for!! Two things are helping to keep me from worrying TOO much :
- the presence of a "safety" boat that rafts alongside our raft that will save you if you fall out and cant get back in
- the fact that the Nile apparently has no rocks that one can break their skull on

So altogether I'm trying to not really think about it too much. I fear if I do, I'll just chicken out. But the tickets are bought and Ness and I are on our way. We will be fearless and brave! I already told her she may need to give me encouragement :) We're going with the two day raft, which includes an overnight camping stay on an island. I've never been camping or rafting! Two birds with one stone. Sweet.

A whole bunch of volunteer friends of mine are home for Christmas now. Intense! At first I was envious but now I think that going home for a two or three week stint in the middle of my service like this would do more harm than good. Sure, seeing everyone and the food and hot showers and cold weather would be super nice but I also fear the shock that would most likely occur. The sheer thought is fairly overwhelming. NYC crowds and consumerism during this time of year? The madness and activity and masses.... yeeks. And then there would be the option of simply just staying at home and not even returning back to TZ to finish up service. Surprisingly, its not unheard of! There was a volunteer last year who did just that. Went home for the holidays and then was at the airport to come back here and just decided that she didn't really want to. So she stayed in the US. I don't really know if I would be in danger of being in that situation, but hey, one never knows.

Oh, speaking of losing people, my group is down to 26 from 41 now. The two training groups that came after mine each had only one loss from their groups so far. Much better track record....

I think thats all for now. I had grand goals of a witty and insightful entry but when I put myself to the task, my ideas and words seem to evade me. I'll try to write from Uganda but I'm sure I'll be super tired! But I'll definitely keep everyone posted about how my trip goes! Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas soon!!

2005-11-23T12:11:00.000+03:00

Hey! I'm really sorry I haven't updated in a long time. Life has been pretty busy and the internet in my town Masasi has been down these past few weeks. Oh man. So where to begin? I guess with Thanksgiving. I hope everyone had a good one!!! Us Peace Corps Volunteers were invited to Thanksgiving buffet lunch at the American Ambassador's house in Dar es Salaam. I was really excited but because it was not "official" PC business, we were not given plane tickets to fly out of my region. So we took the bus unwillingly. I say unwillingly cuz we had just heard horror stories about it from other volunteers and Tanzanians who had taken the road before. Its mostly unpaved and the buses are pretty unsafe. Sure enough, we crashed two hours into our trip. Thats me and my friend Tony in the first picture waiting out on the road where our bus ran off the road into some trees and in the second picture is the large hunk of metal that was our bus. We then proceeded to wait for four hours in no shade before an open air cargo truck came along and we were bumping in that for 13 hours before reaching Dar at 3am. It was, quite frankly, the worst day of my life. Seriously!!! Just super frustrating and exhausting and the three of us were super super sore afterwards for days. And the worst part is that it seems like the PC budget doesn't have enough money to fly us up anymore for official PC business so it looks like we may have to take the bus back and forth from now on..... We're all trying to dispute the matter with the office and we'll see what happens, but our road and experience was really pretty crazy and other volunteers in the rest of the country don't have to deal with road and bus conditions like ours.

But Thanksgiving and seeing other volunteers and meeting the new trainees was nice, if very overwhelming. The Ambassador's house was really really nice and the food was good. I think it was just a bit crazy for me to suddenly be around SO many other Americans when I'm used to either just me in my village or just a few of us when we get together in town.

Our return trip down was a little bit better. It was definitely a lot safer but we had bought tickets the day before and the day of they told us our bus was no longer going so we had to board a bus to get to another bus and etc etc. Basically we ended up with not the seats we had reserved, sat all the way in the back under the wheels, and kept flying out of our already cramped seats the whole way cuz the road is so bumpy. My friend Tony actually lost his glasses out the window. And cuz my seat had no back cushion, the guy in back of me had his knees in my back the whole time! I got back to my village at 9pm that night and spent half the night and all the next day super sick. I must've eaten something bad on the road.

So it was a crazy hectic experience and a day after I got back, I started my three day seminar I've been writing about. I think it went pretty well. On my first day I concentrated mostly on HIV/AIDS info with stuff on STDs and family planning methods. The second day's theme was communication and I talked a lot about assertive (vs aggressive or passive) communication. That was a little bit harder to convey but I think a few people REALLY understood it well, so I'm at least happy about that. And then the third day was mostly about leading a healthy lifestly. It was lessons on planning for goals, planning for the future, building self esteem, avoiding risky behavior, etc.

Then right after that I met the new volunteers for my region! We got four of them, including one person only 7km away from me! I'm sure I've already talked about this but yeah! Her name's Stephanie and I met her briefly at Thanksgiving but we spent some more time having dinner in town with PC staff, and I showed her around town, my village, and her village. I only spent two days with her before leaving again and I felt really bad about it but she thinks its for the best. She says if I'd stayed in my village, she would have depended on me too much for certain stuff and jumping into the whole community integration thing alone is really going to help her later on. Super brave cuz I totally remember how scary and miserable I was when I first got to site and how lonely I had felt. If I had someone with experience only a few km away I would have felt so much more relief!

So after that I left to go to one of the big towns in the south because I was heading up north for a PC workshop and a PC car was in the region (it had brought down Steph and the other new volunteers with their luggage) and was going back up to Dar. So instead of a crazy 19 hour bus ride up, we had an 8 hour car ride in a nice air conditioned Toyota. It was awesome. The five volunteers, including me, just chatted, listened to music, checked out the scenery along the way, and napped. It was still bumpy but it waaaaaay more comfortable than the bus or the cargo truck. So we were super lucky.

So the past few days I've been in Dar. I spent tons of money! I've been trying to keep track of my expenses, but things are super pricey in the land o' plenty and there's tons of good food and ice cream to tempt one to just spend and spend. And there's the matter of hotel rooms. The first night we were only able to get a triple with air conditioning at this one place and it was $$$$! We fortunately got rooms at the YMCA hostel after that (they have em here!) with shared bathrooms and fan. Yesterday I spent the morning/early afternoon at the American Club in Dar and saw two movies - Hostage (with Bruce Willis) and Hitch (Will Smith). They were both pretty good tho Hostage a bit creepy and totally out of my realm of thought - something as violent as what was depicted would probably never happen here in TZ. Makes me almost scared to go home, guys! Hitch was pretty cute. It made me miss NYC :) And last night I saw Harry Potter with my volunteer friends. So it was a big movie day. I thought Harry was okay. I'm not a huge fan of the books, but the special effects were nice and it was cool to be in an actual theater.

So now I'm in Morogoro. Just got here on a 3 hour bus ride from Dar today. This is the town that I trained in when I first got to TZ so I know it fairly well and I haven't been here since March! I've missed it tons. Its super beautiful with the gorgeous mountains behind us as a backdrop and its a pretty bustling city without the madness that Dar sometimes has. I'm here for a workshop on using natural materials (like wood and flour bags) to make visual aid materials (like posters). The first day of the workshop is tomorrow so I'll know more about it. But I'm just really excited to see some of my friends who were also chosen to come and really excited that I'm back in Morogoro. The conference center they have us staying at is also really nice. Its brand new and operated by a group of sisters (like nuns....:)) that are based in town.

After this, the plan is to go to Uganda to do a two day rafting trip, then to visit my friends in the Lake Victoria region for Christmas, then to Zanzibar (this awesome resorty island) for New Years, and back to Dar for training early Jan. A lot of travelling, living out of my bookbag, and being away from site! It will be super fun I hope!! I'll for sure keep ya'll updated! Sorry, have to run! Will post again soon. Miss you all so much!!!!

Development Is...

2005-11-18T09:11:00.000+03:00

Development is the feel of pavement after an hour of bumpy dirt road. Too bad they're just going to pave up until the President's house.

Development is teaching HIV/AIDS in my primary schools. Too bad I found out one of the teachers at the school in my village was sleeping with one of my 14 year old students.

Development is the district council sending people out to villages to try to create a community plan to combat HIV/AIDS. Too bad the plan they came up with will be difficult to carry out and many people won't be willing to abide to it.

I'm feeling a bit cynical these days.... Can ya tell? Not sure what to do but I realized that my pessimism and cynicism wasn't doing anyone any good. Its cool though. I'm going away for Thanksgiving soon and will hopefully feel more motivated and re-centered again after talking to friends and stuff.

I just re-read briefly my last entry. I obviously didn't proof read it. I also wrote it over the course of two days. Sorry! I must sound crazy raving about my ceiling so much.... It continues to amaze me and keep the mice out. My neighbor's cat sneaked into my house the other day when I was out and hid on my bookshelf behind some boxes of condoms I had (for teaching!). When I went to reach for something it leaped out and ran away! It was pretty funny but unfortunately she pee-ed on my flip charts that I use for teaching and now that room has the consistent smell of cat urine. Too bad she wasn't around when I really DID have mice.

Mango season is beginning and I'm eating them like a monster. Any chance I get. Mango trees in my village abound and mangoes that fall onto the floor are free for all. The little kids are all really good and looking for and finding em. People also walk around selling em for 10 shillings a pop (less than an American cent). But they're still a bit small these days. My gorging, unfortunately, has not been stomach friendly so I think I'll take a small break. Maybe hold out for the big mangoes to come....

After Thanksgiving, I'm having a seminar with a group of out of school youth the next village over. It will be for three days, a few hours each day. I already have a schedule all planned out but still need to go over and create some of the lessons. I'm a bit nervous but my counterpart will be there to help and these youth came to us asking for this so they're pretty motivated. It will be a nice change from primary school kids. Also, they performed some skits about HIV/AIDS for my counterpart and I to show their enthusiasm about the topic. It was pretty sweet.

Things continue to be good in the village. My next door neighbor's 15 year old helper got pregnant and ran away in the middle of the night so people have been gossiping about it. One of my friends just set up a tailoring "business" (not much more than her, a sewing machine, and an iron on the front porch of a store that sells dry goods and cold drinks. I went to Church for the second and third time to see two little kids that live near me and I'm super friendly with get baptized and then to receive Confirmation.

Think thats all for now! Have to run, as usual :) Gobble gobble...

Mouse Free Days are Here to Stay.....

2005-11-08T11:05:00.000+03:00

Yes. I am more than pleased to announce the recent arrival of a ceiling in my house!!! Its amazing and beautiful and really, I can't get over how safe and cozy I now feel in my house. It is glorious. To hear the mice roaming around up there but to know they can't fall down onto my couch or eat my food. Wow....

To be quite honest, I had a tremendous number of things I wanted to write here but now that I'm speeding through internet it mostly all escapes me. Sigh.

So I haven't been to town for a while. It has, indeed, been more than two weeks since my last spoken conversation in English. Little primary school kids yelling "Good morning madam" at 6pm to me on the road and me replying "Good morning!" does not count.

Things at site have been good. I was at my secondary school yesterday and my peer eds and I did a lesson on reproductive systems. They have an amazing memory and mostly drew the male and female external and internal reproductive parts correctly! TZ-an students don't really have textbooks and essentially their notebooks become "textbooks" so they become used to drawing diagrams and pictures in good detail and with care. We had a good talk and they had good questions to ask. And a few days ago my village counterpart came to me to say that a group of out of school youth in the next village over came to him saying that they had come together to request education on life skills and HIV/AIDS!!!! Awesome!! I'm really super excited. I'm gonna talk to my friend Brian today about HIS experiences doing something really similar. I've wanted to work with out of school youth for a long time now, cuz there are lots of them and they mostly just hang around the village doing nothing - so they have tons of time and are at a high risk for getting STIs and HIV. I was confused as to how I would get them together but now that a group has formed by themselves and taken the initiative, wow! Cool beans!

Oh, before I forget - I FINALLY have my ceiling. It was wonderful. I admit some rather bothersome behavior on my part towards my supervisor at the district council (responsible for my house) but my persistence paid off. One year later, finally two men from the district came with my ceiling boards and materials and worked for two days. There was lots of furniture moving and dust and cleaning to do afterwards but I have my ceiling!!!! I cannot tell you what a difference it has made! No more mice and dust and dead tree pieces falling from my roof. I can still hear the mice running around but I know they won't be able to come down! It sounds silly but has made me feel safer and cozier in my house than ever before.

I spent Eid (Muslim holiday celebrating end of Ramadan and fasting) in my village and was waiting for my ceiling to be finished but then had yummy goat pilau (a rice dish with spices and meat and potatoes, onions...really good) at my Mama's. She and her son were all decked out for the occasion. I wore a nice shirt myself. But the cool part is that she's Christian, but her and the other Christians in my village were all in celebrating spirits. It was awesome. I explained to my Mama how in the States that doesn't really happen. Christians celebrate Christian holidays, Muslims celebrate Muslim ones, etc etc. She found it unusual. Ah, TZ and religious tolerance. A beautiful thing.

Sorry, have to be off now. Miss you all tons! Gettin nice and toasty in these parts. Happy Thanksgiving soon!

Oh the Heat is On....

2005-10-22T11:48:00.000+03:00

So, the electricity is out in the entire town but for some reason it is on in the post office. I'm here using the internet and though I have technically 45 minutes left, the post office closes in 10 minutes. So...we'll see how it goes. I apologize for not writing last weekend. I was at site and my friend Erica came over to play. She cut my hair! Only made it a little shorter. It was getting long and its wickedly hot these days.

So whats new? Not much. Just general hanging out in the village. Went to church and a funeral on two separate occasions recently, both for the first time! Church I'd been to before in TZ but never in my village. I went with my favorite Mama and it was interesting with a lot of singing and praying and I was even able to follow along pretty well! I heard the word mtakatifu a lot, which means saint, which I guess makes a great deal of sense in Church (even me not being Christian knows THAT much....!) And the next day, the Father went to see my Mama to express his happiness at seeing me in Church! Good times. The funeral was less interesting. It was a Muslim funeral of a family member of a well known business owner in my village. I went with my Mama and covered myself entirely in two pieces of traditional cloth (like a sarong, called a kanga here). We went to sit in the "women's section" near the house and there were SO many people that it was hard to find a shaded area not occupied. We were unfortunately not able to see much but I saw the coffin being taken for burial followed by all the men (women were not allowed. I was told this was a Muslim custom. Can anyone enlighten me further on this?). I more or less sat in part shade, part sun, not doing much but chatting on and off with my Mama for about two hours. Then we got hungry and tired and left. I think I was pretty dehydrated cuz it was nearing the noon hour and all I'd had that day was chai (tea...like in America! But not chai tea as we know it) but I felt all weird and dizzy and started seeing fuzzy. But was okay after lots of water and some sitting.

I'm pretty excited and starting to think/plan out my plans for travelling in December. There is of course, Christmas and New Years, but also, all the schools are closed for a month and a half starting early December. Crazy! So a couple of options: my friend Ness travelling down here to see me, me going rafting on the Nile in Uganda and possibly checking out Nairobi with friends Danielle and Myra, me going up to Lake Victoria in northern TZ (way way up there) to see my friend Brian. Then our group is planning a huge gathering of sorts on the lovely island of Zanzibar for New Year's. And soon after New Years will be my Mid Service Conference (where I get to find out what fun worms I may have contracted in the past year!!) at the Peace Corps Office in Dar es Salaam. So basically, a bunch of options, lots of decisions to be made, limited time and cash, etc etc. But oh so exciting! Sometimes I think about home and how awesome it is and how much I miss it, but then other times I'm like: check out this AMAZING opportunity that I have being here to learn, travel, grow, see the world, and explore. So its a great love hate relationship that I have. I guess you could expect nothing less here.

So more on the hate part.... Yesterday I was really THIS close to throwing a rock at a little kid. I was with my friend Erica and put the rock down but really, I swear I probably could have done it if I were alone. A little kid! He was like 3 or 4! But he was being an absolute brat of a child and I just won't go into details... But the thought is frightening huh? Basically, my point is that here in TZ I have endless frustration and unjustifiable anger. That sort of just builds up and sometimes I am good about keeping it under wraps but at other times, it just rears its ugly head and I want to....throw rocks at children... About this unjustiable anger though, maybe as a crazy American, I have just become used to my ways of getting what I want and when I want it. And there can be consequences and rectifications (is that even correct English?) when that doesn't happen. Which actually, right now, as I am typing that, sounds a bit ridiculous. But for example, bus driver stops to have breakfast for an hour, I'm waiting at the post office forever and people are just cutting in line, people openly mocking and talking about me when I'm standing right there!, constantly being ripped off or having to question prices for everything from a provided service to buying food, etc etc. I can go on, but I won't. In either case, a lot of that stuff, if it occurred in America, would be grounds for complaints and sometimes more (lawsuits, anyone? Or maybe thats a bit of an exaggration). But here in TZ, you can't get angry or mad. Its not justified. The only thing you can do is laugh it off, be patient, stay calm, and related peaceful forms of "dealing". You CAN'T get mad. It just happens. Its going to happen and nothing you do can stop it. It's just how it is and you've just gotta deal with it. I've got to admit that I've gotten TONS better at all of that since arriving here, but some days it just gets harder. And I'm not the only one. I think I'll end here, sorry for the not so coherent-ness. Am racing against time a bit. Hope everyone is well! HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!! Eat lots of candy and pumpkin pie for me :)

Picture and Party!

2005-10-07T12:44:00.000+03:00

I got this picture from a Japanese volunteer Tom who came to visit my friend Satomi in town a bit back. We are all chillin in our VSO (Volunteer Services Overseas - another volunteer organization that works here in TZ) friend Cris's house. From the right: Tom, Josh, Me, Satomi, Erica, Cris, and Andy. Josh, Erica, and Andy are in my district and PC Volunteers. YAY for pictures. My friend Jen's blog has tons too if you guys want to check em out. Link on the side. I guess I really shoulda brought a digital camera with me here, but ah well.

Things continue to be pretty good despite the fact that I found out my good friend Johanna is leaving early. We came in together and she is the 13th person leaving from my group. I'm really sad to see her go, but know that its being selfish to think of how much it sucks to not have her here when I know that she's really happy with her decision.

I had an awesome awesome party the other day for my secondary school peer educators. Like many TZ parties, it was well organized, complete with music, an MC (one of my girls), guests of honor, a high table (which I sat at with some other teachers), and a time table of events. The party was in honor of my Form Four girls who were graduating and they looked so nice and dressed up. I got to the school real early with goat meat from my village (about three kilos of fresh stuff). The girls and I cooked, watched music videos (American and Tanzanian on a satellite TV owned by my counterpart) and all around had a good time. I prepared for my speech very shortly before the start of the party, but I think it went pretty well. My students did some short plays, songs (from memory! and personalized with my name, that of my counterpart, and the girls graduating), dancing, and poetry. I was thrilled with their talent and dedication. Still can't say that I'm thrilled with work and doing lots of things, but we shall see.

Am running low on time, and may not get to use internet again real soon, but miss you all tons and hope you like the picture. Jen's site has lots more! BTW, who left me the nice comment on my Sept 16 entry? THANKS! Lemme know who ya are tho! :)

Ice Cream is Here.....!

2005-09-29T15:24:00.000+03:00

Hey all! Sorry about not posting in awhile. Things have been a bit hectic. But here I am in Mtwara town- 8 hrs away from my village and the land of Pringles, Snickers, and ice cream. That last item of yumminess only very recently arrived here in my REGION and on my bus ride here it was all that I could think of. Now, one Snickers, two different kinds of potato chips, one juice, and one thing of ice cream later, my stomach is doing some flip flops. But I am happy, essentially :) I am here in town on Peace Corps business of sorts. We just had a test run in case of an emergency. I think the office is gearing up for the event of madness in light of this October's national elections and want to see how long it takes each of us in country to reach our consolidation point. Something like that. Sorry if that didn't make much sense.

So whats new? Not much really. Recently went to Masasi in my secondary school's pick up truck with a peer educator student of mine to pick up stuff for a party that I'm having for my peer eds (13 of em) on Saturday. Mostly in honor of the Form Four students who are graduating from my school. Among my peer eds there are six Four Fours. The kids are cooking early Saturday morn and I promised brownies and nice certificates. Brownies I tried cooking the other day on my favorite mama's charcoal stove and they turned out not bad. Not terribly tasty like my friend Heidi makes em, but not bad at all. Cocoa is available here and the rest is just eggs and flour and sugar and butter (I use tasty margarine instead :) ). It was kind of fun walking around the market with my student and a list of things to get (such as: garlic, onions, rice, tomatoes, cooking oil). I'm excited about this party though my counterpart at the school left me to work it out on my own (he left the last minute to go to a seminar in another part of the country. Teachers here do that a lot in the middle of the school year. And you wonder why the students do poorly on national exams...). I'm a bit nervous about this small speech that I have to make. It has yet to be written but I look forward to working on it with some people in my village so that my Swahili will be in tip top shape!

Sorry, my time is running low here! Check out my friend Brian's site! He's all the way on the opposite side of the country from me, but its still Tanzania and he's a great writer :) His link is on the side under Jens. Or at least I hope it is! Just made the change :) Miss you all.

ONE YEAR mark of leaving hom passed. I have survived!!!! :)

The Sun is Eating My Skin...

2005-09-16T14:05:00.000+03:00

...Says my friend Tony as we are walking to internet today. It IS pretty wickedly hot these days. The heat has begun, my friends. The days of cool nights and mornings and the occasional shady afternoon are disappearing. Summer is coming to Tanzania....

So...this past week I set out with a stash of health magazines in Swahili and went to my schools to share em with the kiddies. I was successful only on Tuesday as the rest of the week the students were out because Class 7 students had their exams to enter secondary school. I find it interesting how an entire school can be off for 40-70 students to take an exam, but thats how it works here. The school system in TZ is divided into Primary School (Class 1-7) and Secondary School (Forms 1-6). Primary School is supposedly cumpulsory (am I spelling that right?) and is free but students start Primary School at any age starting from 7. I teach students of Class 6 and 7 so they basically range from age 13 to anything above that. There's so much that is interesting and different about the education system here that I fear what I write won't make much sense, but here are some random sentences:

-Students get beat for anything from being late to disrespecting the teacher
-Students are responsible for cleaning specific areas of the school, their classrooms, and dormitories
-There are single sex Secondary Schools
-Students are kicked out of school for being pregnant or making someone pregnant; its obviously much harder to see the latter
-Students and teachers never return back to school on time after vacations or for the start of a new school year
-Students don't have their own textbooks
-Secondary school is SUPPOSED to be all taught in English and all the national exams are in English while in Primary school, everything is in Swahili.....
-Grades are crazy...You can have entire classes failing or passing mark be a 30
-Most of the time teachers aren't even around or teaching when they are supposed to be. There is a HUGE shortage of teachers at both levels of school
-Secondary schools come with fees but not all the students can afford to pay them. Yet they still go to school.... Not sure how this works. I don't know if its legal to kick a student out of school here for not paying school fees
-Many secondary school students board at school and eat horribly

Sorry, these days I don't even know if I'm making sense. Its the whole lots of things to say, little time or space to compose my thoughts problem. My brain feels fuzzy today. I apologize.

But I am doing not so badly. Getting a LOT more comfortable and friendly with people in my village these days. Still not super uber excited about work. How horrible does that sound? I'm an HIV/AIDS educator in Sub Saharan Africa whose NOT motivated to do work...? I sound like a bad human being. But what can I do? I've tried to disect this "problem" of mine and get to the root of my issues but its not so easy and I think trying to pick the problem apart makes it even worse. So my brain is fuzzy, I'm running low on internet time, its getting wicked hot, I still don't have either electricity nor ceiling boards, but at least the mice have not been around lately.

Miss you all tons. Check out my friend Jen's blog. She recently completely training here. Also a Health Volunteer, used to live in NYC and now lives a mere 20 km away from me! One of my closest neighbors here! A link to her site is on the left hand side of the page.

Greyhound Buses Lookin Pretty Sweet These Days...

2005-09-11T15:18:00.000+03:00

Hey! So it occurs to me that perhaps in the time that I have spent here in TZ, I have nearly forgotten what is so different or interesting about my life here and perhaps my blogs of late have been a bit boring. So I apologize! And thought that hey, this ride to town the other day was pretty cool and VERY different to anything I ever experienced at home, so why not explain it in detail? So here it is!

Okay, so the other day I wake up in my house in my village at 5:30am and am ready and out of the house to wait for a bus on the side of the road by 6:15am. I have discovered that more vehicles go by on the road earlier in the morning and it is thus easier for me to get to town faster. So I walk a very short distance, sit and wait and try to listen for cars. Its fairly quiet but I hear a bustling of people nearby and I look and see around 30 women wearing colorful kangas (multi purpose cloths) with buckets at the well located at my health center. The water is off again. I have a pipe behind my house so I knew that already. The women have woken up bright and early to come wait to fetch water from the well with plastic buckets, which they then will carry on their heads back to their homes (some far, some close). So back to the vehicle waiting. I'm not waiting for long and by 6:45am I hear the rumbling of a large car coming my way. Its a lorry. Or a canter. A big giant cargo truck more or less. They stop when they see me on the side of the road with my bag and at first a guy from the front of the truck in one of the seats next to the driver gets out to give me his seat. I refuse and tell him I can ride in the back. The truck is not one I have been on before and because there really aren't that many vehicles in my area I get to know the ones that do come down my road. So the guy probably thought hey, here's this young "white" girl whose not used to riding trucks so let me give up my seat.

Anyway so I climb into the back and just hang on to some bars. Its wide open and to be honest, I've grown to enjoy riding canters a lot more than buses since one can feel the wind blowing and the fresh air. Its not nearly as comfortable or safe as a bus ride, but being crammed into a bus like a clown car can get very stuffy and very old very fast. So we are riding along. A few people are sitting on the floor, mostly older bibi's and babu's (grandmas and grandpas) and young kids. And we go. Canters don't go very fast cuz of their size and when they do go fast, it gets to be pretty bumpy. We all need to watch out for trees and branches and duck appropriately.

The canter keeps going until it sees another passenger on the side of the road and it stops for just enough time so the person gets on in the back and then we're off again. Thats the thing. I remember how in the US there are bus stops. No such thing here! You just wait along the road, hear something coming, go out, and hop on in.

We go for a little while and stop off at the side of the road and the back of the truck opens and we wait as 10 planks of wood are loaded. A number of men are helping so it doesn't take too long, but I see a bus pass us by.

About 45 minutes later, we hit Chiungutwa - home to my friend Erica. We drive off of the road and INTO her village and I wonder hmm, what are we gonna do now? We stop off at someone house and there's a bit of movement and craziness and lots of men around and then they start loading these giant bags of cashew nuts. I count no less than 10 bags, each 100lbs or more being loaded onto the canter. People have gotten off to help, people who stayed on are moving from one side to the other to make way for the bags. You see, its cashew nut season in my region of TZ. Cashews are what most people make their income off of, once a year. They grow off trees and bud off these small yellow semi bitter fruits. The raw nuts are then cooked, giving off a horrible odor and cracked open to reveal what we know as the pale tan cashew nut. Its quite a bit of work. What they were loading that day were raw nuts going to be sold in town. So after those ten bags were loaded, we drove around to another house nearby and picked up five more bags. So 15 bags of cashew nuts and about 25 passengers later, we are back on the road and on our way to town.

The bags are enormous and people end up having to stand and sit on top of them and we are driving even more slowly than before. I see another canter pass us on the road. I think about how strangely patient and calm I've become in TZ. And how just a year ago, I would have become restless and annoyed at travelling in this sort of manner.

When we are finally closer to town I grow joyous inside and then realize that there are people working on the road. Time for a detour. We take these massively long winded narrow paths in and through town before stopping some yards and yards away from the bus stand (final destination for most vehicles upon arrival to town and where I needed to go). The conductor (they are actually called that - no special Swahili word for em) tells us that anyone wanting to go to the bus stand should get off here and walk cuz the canter is headed here and there to drop off the wood and the cashew nuts. Lovely. So I get off and walk to the bus stand.

At the bus stand, I get harrassed a bit by guys wanting to know where I was going and trying to get me on their bus, but I know which one to walk towards. After awhile one kind of just knows which buses go where and where in the bus stand they are parked. I get on and the bus looks empty. The guy assures me that it is leaving soon and I protest that its empty and he says to me that it will fill up. I sit because I'm pretty tired from standing during the two hour canter ride and about 45 minutes later people start streaming onto the bus and we start to move. The bus gets loaded with stuff on top (bags, food, crops) and I notice a chicken sqwaking underneath a seat close to me. Its in a bag and wrapped with a cloth but its head is sticking out. By now, I've learned to not get TOO excited when the bus first starts going because I know that it doesn't necessarily mean we are on our way to the main road and to our destination. And we're not. We drive at a snail's pace picking up a few more passengers along the road in town and then stop for a while near the market in town waiting for even more people.

And so this continues. The bus drives on the road (this time its actually paved, unlike the road that runs by my house) and goes quickly or slowly depending on if we are driving by a village or just woodsy areas. If it is a village there is a chance there might be a person waiting to get on so we go slowly. I think you get the idea. Then I reach my destination.

So thats one account but it gets replayed over and over in my fun adventures in travelling, sometimes worse, sometimes easier. I only tell myself that after travel in TZ, I can now go ANYwhere! Cuz it can't get much worse than this, right? What do you guys think?! :)

I hope everyone's well. I miss you all. Things are good on my end. Till next time, peace!

Home is Where the Heart Is...

2005-09-02T15:51:00.000+03:00

As I sit here about to write this I realize that I am galaxies away from my hotel room where I left my pineapple cottage cheese that I bought today. PINEAPPLE COTTAGE CHEESE. Its been I think more than a year since I've had cottage cheese. And now its just sitting in my room. Maybe it will still somehow be tasty later. Or maybe not. I paid an arm and a leg for it. So where did I get this lovely cottage cheese, my friends?

Well, am still in Dar es Salaam. Going home TOMORROW. HURRAY!!! The city has been overstimulating me. I need to get back to hours of me alone time. I'll let you guys know how it all goes.

Y0

2005-08-30T13:00:00.000+03:00

So apologies for not having written in some time. Things have been a bit busy and intense as you can imagine. So where to start?

Hmm, so I picked up my visitor (her name's Beth) from the airport in Mtwara and we headed soon after that to my site. We were in my village for a week where she followed me around to my different teaching responsibilities. She also met tons of my neighbors and other people in my village. We had another movie night! This time it was at two separate times. The idea behind this was to have the students and little kids come earlier, thus leaving tons more room for the older people and adults because last month it was a slight disaster with the numbers of people. It was a small disaster this time too. Where did I get thinking that I could "control" hundreds of screaming kids and get them to leave an area to "make room" for the adults?! I don't know. I got mad at them. They didn't listen. To make a long story short, we had a small change of plans but overall I think it was not so bad. People seemed to enjoy the movie - it was about a young guy who got involved with drugs and how he lost his girlfriend and freaked out his parents.

After being at site, we headed off to Zanzibar! Have you guys heard of this place? Its like the Carribean Islands of Eastern Africa. It was my first time there and though I didn't hit up any beaches, I was able to walk around this area called Stone Town, which is the starting point for most tourists and absolutely reeking of amazing history and architecture. So Zanzibar used to be an important site for Arab trading ventures - including spices and slaves. It has beautiful archaic architecture, narrow streets, and the Indian Ocean. It was honestly like stepping into another country. Actually Zanzibarians have a bit of a superiority complex (or is it inferiority? I can never get them straight...) - basically they have the purest form of Kiswahili and only "recently" became a part of Tanzania. Actually, quick aside: the name Tanzania comes from the name of the mainland (Tanganika) and the name of the island (Zanzibar).

So back to Stone Town. Beth and I did an informal walking tour and we hit up some old buildings, a museum or two, and definitely got lost in the narrow streets and alleyways. Though I'd never been, it really reminded me of what Italy must look like. Beth was really interested in finding this ancient Persian bath the Omani rulers had used back in the days and at first I wasn't TOO excited but it turned out to be pretty cool, if a little creepy. Very cavernous and empty these days, but could definitely have seen these rich sultans and their wives walking around through the changing room, the warm room, the hot room, the shaving room. Another highlight was the Spice Tour that we took. Basically we were in a group with a guide and went to two spice plantations. In Zanzibar's heyday, spices were the major export. Not so much anymore, but some of the plantations are still in operation. He showed us a lot of plants and it was pretty cool! It was a lot of stuff I was familiar with but some I had never seen in natural form. And we got to taste/smell/touch things too. Off the top of my head: pepper, vanilla, cardammon, ginger, cocao, and some other stuff escaping my brain momentarily. We also went to visit a church that was built over former slave trading grounds and rooms where slaves were reputedly kept. It was all pretty weird and eerie. The ferry ride to and from Zanzibar (2 hours on a fast boat) was pretty rough. Its been a while since I've travelled on water...

Then it was back to Dar es Salaam and off to Bagamoyo, a small town about an hour outside of Dar. It was more town exploring and a little beach action though it was relatively cold by the water!

Now I am back in Dar es Salaam and unfortunately a bit sick. I think I may have gotten food poisoning yesterday. Hmmm. I saw our medical people here in the office and I'm hooked up with some drugs. We'll see. Its no biggie, but it DOES stop me a little from enjoying all the amazing food this city has to offer!!!

I still have a few days in Dar and sadly, I miss home! I miss my tiny village and am somehow just plain tired of travelling around. Also, I'm excited to go see the new voluteers of the south and visit them at their sites. Have I already mentioned this? One is a mere 20 km away! Thats less than an hour by bus :) New neighbors, fun times.

Update: have decided NOT to get the dog. Really think he would just hinder me in a number of different ways. And I know I probably can't give him the love he deserves. Alas. Maybe I'll start to grow plants...

One last thing: Check out:
www.gizoogle.com
http://sites.gizoogle.com/?url=http://dub16.blogspot.com

<3

2005-08-13T09:33:00.000+03:00

I must confess. I have fallen in love. With a dog. So yesterday in town I went to the house of this Dutch doctor couple with two of my friends. They've been in TZ for two years and are leaving soon, sadly so. We went to say bye and to score some of their stuff that they're selling before they leave. I myself got a beautiful stainless steel water filter with special candles. I've been eyeing one for MONTHS now! Ever since I first saw it at the home of my friend Chris. His organization gives them to its volunteers. Sadly, Peace Corps does not. So whats so special about this water filter? Why is it better than the one I have now? For one, its so pretty. Secondly, it has a little spigot at the bottom (spigots are hard to come by in these parts). It also keeps your water relatively chilled AND with these special candles, I wont have to boil my drinking water! Currently I boil and filter. Wheeee. Sorry about the aside; but WOW am I excited :)

Back to the dog. So at this Dutch couple's house, I saw the most awesome super cute puppy. Apparently it belongs to their neighbor, Masasi's District Medical Officer. And apparently, he would be more than perfectly willing to give it to me, seeing as we know each other and he has tons of other dogs.... HMMM...

So I've been thinking about this since yesterday. To dog or not to dog? That is the question. Taking care of a dog here is a lot easier than one would think at home. For one, they eat anything and I would probably feed it corn flour meal and dried fish (both easily obtainable in my village). The space in back of my house is enclosed, so that helps. But....Tanzanians are somewhat afraid of dogs. They are not used to seeing them as domesticated animals and mostly use them for guard dog purposes. Also, what do I do with my dog when I leave for town and stuff? Who can I entrust to feed my dog? Big questions. But having a dog would be great fun and maybe I'll feel tons better about being in my village? What do you guys think? I know its not a lot of info that I present here. Leave comments with your thoughts!

So my teacher visitor arrives in Tanzania today and I will get to see her tomorrow at the Mtwara airport down here in the South! I am MORE than uber excited and can hardly wait. I've been imagining this for months now. Its too much. I can't wait to show her around and talk about stuff. She insists on me calling her by her first name, but alas that is SO difficult. Am I the only crazy one? When you are a kid student and used to calling teachers Ms. or Mr. So and So, wow...its hard to go to calling em John or Mary. Even if I am no longer their student. Its just weird. We'll see. So we'll be at my site for one week. I hope she doesn't get too bored. Not too much to see or do in my house and/or village. Then its off up north to the land o' plenty! I was there just recently for a while, but one can never have too many hot showers or hamburgers.

So thats me update. Am doing better at site.... Still kinda feel not super super happy, but I've been trying to project loving, positive energy. I say it to myself when I feel like I'm going to get mad or upset. It sounds pretty corny, but hey, I think its workin! I hope ya'll are doing well and having a great end of summer. Sending my love! :)

Snickers are Here!!!!

2005-08-03T09:23:00.000+03:00

Hello! Before more elaboration on the title, a bit of news. Have been feeling a bit down lately. Been annoyed with students who don't seem to care about my lessons, been annoyed at people who don't care to know me and always just ask me for things. Been annoyed about the harrassment. Just been feeling sad about home. Don't feel like the person I used to be. I hope I get over this soon. Mainly for my sake but also because I'm getting my first American visitor in a week and a half! My favorite teacher from high school was studying in South Africa this past month and is travelling up here to see me for three weeks! We'll be at my village for one and then vacationing for two more. I can hardly wait. Don't want to be a big party pooper in her presence. But I think talking and sharing experiences with an "adult" will help too. I spend tons of time just chatting with other volunteers my age.

The new trainees are coming! My region is getting four. Three girls within two hours away from my village and one boy. Super sweet. They'll be coming down south this month. It will be nice to greet new neighbors and help them settle into their new lives and towns/villages!

So yes, Snickers has finally arrived in my town- Masasi. Now I only have to go two hours away from my village for my chocolate cravings versus eight like before. AND now there is also Pringles. Good for my stomach, bad for my wallet. But I have the shillings to spare.

In my vast journal writing energy, I recently made a list of food I ate and could get. Just for kicks and also for future reference but thought you all would be interested. So here goes!

What I Eat at Site:
tuna, egg, mayo, and onion salad
potatoes and onions - something like hash browns?
mashed potatoes
fried onions - now a vegetable side dish in my food vocab
eggs - in all its glorious forms
peanut butter and jelly
tomato and onion sauce with pasta
curry veg (tomato, onion, pepper, eggplant) with pasta
egg with mayo salad
whatever fruit is in season - now oranges
biskuti - TZ biscuit things
Kool Aid, water, sometimes soda but these days rarely
cocoa with powdered milk to make hot chocolate - tastes a bit funny
cereal and granola from Dar es Salaam - I stock up when I go
anything that used to be alive and is green - all kinds of weird leafy things
soup out of whatever I have around
rice with lotsa little rocks in em
condiments: sugar, salt, pepper, ketchup, curry, soy sauce
soy sauce pasta - for those really out of food days
cheese from Mtwara or Ndanda
random strange processed food, like microwave meals from my friend Erica here
chicken from the bus stand
Pringles and random candy from here and home!

What I Eat When I Eat "Out"
Any combination of:
fried eggs
chicken
soda
rice
veg

Whats Available in My Village Nagaga
potatoes
onions
dried fish
tomatoes
fruit of the season
rice
green leafy stuff
beans
flour
salt, sugar

What People in My Village Eat
ugali - this doughy stuff made from corn meal (not such a big fan myself)
rice
beans
dried fish
green leafy stuff
steamed potatoes
mchuzi - a kind of sauce from tomatoes
fruit
cooked bananas

Exotic Food I Eat or Get in Mtwara (8 hrs away from village)
avocado
carrots
cabbage
cheese
fish, sea food!
cucumbers
apples
chocolate
ketchup, soy sauce
yogurt: homemade
exotic soda like Mountain Dew

Cuisine I've Had in Dar es Salaam (8 hour bus and one plane ride away)
Chinese
Indian
Ethiopian
American
Japanese

When I looked at the list of stuff I could eat at my site, I was shocked. Seems like a lot, huh?!! I don't know. I still miss food from home lots and lots. I dream of the meals I will be eating upon my return. Expect dinner invitations to all my fav restaurants upon my return!

Let it Snow......

2005-07-23T17:00:00.000+03:00

Okay, well, not really. But I was riding into town this morning on the back of a pickup truck with LOTS of people and three chickens and the wind was blowin and it was actually pretty chilly! I loved it. But of course, later on it got to be noon and the crazy sun was out so alas I will have to wait until nighttime for more cold-ness!

Sorry about not updating in a while. I actually stayed at home in my village last weekend! It was nice. I was getting a bit tired of all the travelling and my friend Brian came to visit. It was his first time seeing my site. He lives about three hours away from me but in the other direction away from town. He's a Peace Corps Education volunteer teaching math at a secondary school. We had good times, though there's not that much to do in my tiny village!

What's new? Hmm...Not much. Got back to site, started work, got sick with a cold for a little while, been reading a lot. When I FIRST got back to site, I was pretty excited about starting up with work but when I actually got started, I began to feel a bit restless and unmotivated. My general sentiment these days is that life is pretty good, but work is eh... I just kind of feel like my students aren't as motivated to learn or understand, and it makes it hard for me to motivate myself to prepare lessons and walk to these schools to teach.

But I did have one pretty successful work related thing happen recently. I held my very first "Movie Night at Nagaga Village" last Sunday and about 1,000 people came! It was out of control! There was this tiny TV and ALL these people were sitting/standing around it outside in this open area near my village bus stand but it was put up pretty high and I think people got a good gist of the film. The sound was fairly decent as well. It was something I got from my PC Volunteer Leader - a movie about discrimination against People Living with HIV/AIDS. PC loves for us to use movies as much as we can and its great for Tanzanians cuz many of them don't get to see movies very often. The plan was that I was going to teach a little before and after the film and help process it with my audience, but oh man...there were WAY too many people. But it was a good first try. I'm going to make some changes next time and maybe rent the TV and have people bring it to other surrounding villages rather than have people come to MY village. So that my audience will be smaller. I also announced it to my little students that I teach and SO many of them came. I think I may have a separate showing just for students. Ideas like that... I'll have another movie night next month. Will letcha all know how it goes!

In other work news, it looks like I may have been invited to help out with two new health initiatives in and around my village regarding health education. I'm not sure how this will all pan out, but I guess I'll have to wait and see!

My health center that is only a few yards from my house finally got electricity! Its amazing! I came back from my break and it was on! Super cool. We are crossing our fingers for HIV/AIDS testing to come to my center but one never knows about these things. And I may be able to get electricity soon as well! I have to go to this town about 1/2 hour away from my village to talk to these people at the TZ Electric Company office, but yeah! We'll see what happens. Lights at night would definitely make my reading and working much easier.

The new volunteers are close to the end of their training! My, how time flies. Three of them will be coming to my region here in the Deep South in the middle of next month. I don't yet know who but its so exciting to have new neighbors!

Hope alls well at home. I miss NYC in the Summer SOOOO much. And for all ya'll still in the city, go check out SummerStage in Central Park! I was an intern there last summer :) Good people, good times!

PS - As an afterthought add on, have you guys heard that BOTH Laura Bush and Clinton travelled to Tanzania lately?! And someone told me that a few months ago Justin Timberlake and Cameron Diaz came to shoot something for MTV? WHOO HOO! TZ is THE latest "it" African country :)

Guess Who's Back?

2005-07-03T15:31:00.000+03:00

List of some things I did while I was in Dar. Am currently back in the deep and dirty south and surprisingly not as upset about it as I thought. Am looking forward to being back in my own house, my own bed, and not living out of my bookbag! Its been almost four weeks away from site! So on with the list:

-watching my friends gamble at a casino
-Holiday Inn Breakfast buffet (I think I almost fainted it was so good...!)
-went to the airport thrice: once to pick up some people with a friend and another time to drop off people and then I went to take a flight down south
-went to the American Club twice: watched my friends swim, ate well, played some tennis, lost some tennis balls
-did a buncha drinking, especially for friend Ryan's birthday :)
-went to this AMAZING Shop Rite!! Got olives and a crotchet hook and other food goodies
-went to see: Mr and Mrs Smith and Star Wars
-went to visit Peace Corps office
-went to happy hour at this fancy hotel
-went to visit the Peace Corps Medical Officer's house in Dar! It was like a mansion!

Sorry, gotta run. Know this entry was a bit haphazhard. Can't wait to get back to the ol' village! Will write more another time!

Adventures in Kilosa

2005-06-27T09:34:00.000+03:00

Okay, so with all my madness and running around, I myself have trouble keeping track of what I'm doing!! SO... right now I'm back in Dar es Salaam. I spent about ten days in Kilosa, Morogoro helping out with Pre Service Training. The new trainees have arrived and have been in country for about two weeks now!! I think that when I had first arrived here as a trainee I had little idea of what when on before I came and now as a volunteer, I had a behind the scenes glimpse of some of the madness - incredible amounts of work on behalf of all the staff and wonderful teamwork and spirit altogether. It was a bit crazy at times, but it all came through in the end. A lot of it reminded me of my experiences working with Orientation in college!

The day of the trainees' expected arrival at the training center was incredibly exciting! I was so anxious and nervous and it felt so unreal. Here we were, having been working for days (myself) and weeks (most other staff) planning for this new group and they were just going to show up!!!! Super surreal. But they arrived and we had a drum dance thing prepared for them. It was a lot of fun. Altogether, they were at the training site for about three days and two nights before heading off to homestays. I spent a great deal of time talking to them and answering a lot of questions. Questions about Tanzania, life as a volunteer, what its like to be a female here, my travels here, food and water situations, my village and house, etc etc! It was a lot of fun and brought me back to myself just a few months ago upon my first arrival here. The trainees are of two sectors: community health education (like me) and environmental. They are all so excited and pumped about being here! It made ME happier and more excited :) The group is really diverse and interesting, so it was good but busy times in Kilosa. I also enjoyed being Kilosa. Its a different place from where I trained (about two hours farther) but I think it was a good move on the part of Peace Corps because its a lot more rural than where I was, leading to a much more realistic picture of where the trainees will live and work at after training. Did that make sense? Sorry if my grammar is off! Basically PC thought rural to rural was a smarter move than sort of urban to rural.

I'm going back to my village in about a week and in the meantime will be visiting some volunteer friends. I am somehow excited about returning south! I've been gone for awhile now and I'm actually looking forward to seeing my village and neighbors and friends again! What is this all about?! Could I be turning into a happier volunteer?? I guess maybe!! :)

Happy summer time! The weather is getting gloriously cooler here early in the mornings and later at night so I'm enjoying our "winter" very much! Miss you all!

Oh, and saw Mr and Mrs Smith last night at the theatre. Pretty good movie. Fun, action packed, cute - that kinda thing. Good stuff.

Fun Times in the Big City

2005-06-15T07:56:00.000+03:00

Hello! Sorry haven't updated in a while. Been a bit crazy busy. But am in Dar es Salaam right now in the Peace Corps Volunteer Lounge!! And my meeting is about to start. But I did two amazing things these past few days:
- Saw Star Wars 2 at the Dar movie theatre. It was my first time there and it was so amazing! Ice cream, popcorn, even peanut M&Ms! The only thing missing was an ice slushy machine. But we can't have it all. I have, surprisingly, NEVER seen any Star Wars movies. EVER. My friends were all surprised. But this one was okay. The dialogue a bit cheesy. The special effects were fun. And it was nice to be in a theatre for the first time in eight months!
- Ate dinner at a Japanese restaurant last night with my friend Sean. It was so yummy and a crazy out of this world experience. I went to this area of Dar that is by the water and it was like Chelsea Piers in NYC.
It's strange because I don't necessarily WANT to feel like I'm not in Tanzania but its such a weird culture shock to come out a movie theatre and realize that I still am... Is this making sense? Sorry if its not. Am a little brain crazed at the moment.

Schedule? Spent a few days in Kilosa (about 5 hours from Dar) preparing for the new incoming trainees (arriving tomorrow night!), came to Dar for a few days for Peer Support and Diversity training, going back to Kilosa to help with a meeting and then staying to be PC Volunteer of the Week for Week One. I read the resumes and aspiration statements of the trainees and I'm so excited to meet them! Sorry, gotta run and will try to write more when I can in Kilosa (though it only has one internet cafe with three computers)... Happy summer time!!

B-A-N-A-N-A-S

2005-06-06T09:40:00.000+03:00

Have you guys heard the new Gwen Stefani song off her L.A.M.B album? If so, thats where the title of this post comes from. If not, no worries. Its banana season again where I am. But I guess its always banana season, huh?

Am currently in the lovely big town of the South - Mtwara - awaiting my flight departure tomorrow to Dar es Salaam!! I am SO utterly excited I am speechless. Was there about three months ago, but can hardly wait for delicious food (Holiday Inn Breakfast Buffet, anyone?) and nice hot showers. My reasons for going to the land o'plenty are two fold, both for Peace Corps business, undoubtedly.
1- I'm going to be a Peace Corps Volunteer of the Week for the newbies that are coming soon so going up for training and random related activities
2- Working on a new Peer Support and Diversity Network group that PC TZ just started. Not really sure of exact responsibilities yet but will see at our first meeting!
3- Possibly also going on vacation leave. WAS going to go to the lovely island of Zanzibar for my birthday, but received word from PC that I may be PCV of the week for week one, conflicting with my intended leave.... Oh well, I guess I'll see

The timing is great for all of this because the schools are out on vacation for about a month! I'm excited to be away from site for a bit, but think I will be ready to go back to my own house and bed after travelling.

Speaking of my house, update on mice: still there!! Last weekend, I came home one day to find my cooking oil jar uncapped. I peered into the bottle, expecting to find pieces of mouse poo floating in my oil, but instead I found a dead mouse floating in it. YAY! I was pretty nonchalant about the whole thing (am I spelling that correctly? My English skills are dying a bit..) and told my neighbors about it. The kids had a good time peering into my bottle, checking out the mouse. They eventually poured the thing down the drop hole toilet. Fun times. So somebody from the district council (responsible for my housing) had come to fix a few things and measure my house for ceiling boards. He said he'd be back, but of course its been months without anything. Don't know who he is, what his name was, how to find him, etc, etc. I guess I can be more persistent and try harder to track him down, but somehow have come to a certain peace with the mice. Is that awful? But really, I WILL eventually get my ceiling boards. AND my electricity. They have put up more wooden poles and wiring, so thats a SUPER good sign of progress. My fingers are being crossed for the ability to obtain a fan and charge my stuff at home.

More random stuff? Am planning on getting a satellite radio!! I don't know if you guys know much about this lovely item, but my friend Danielle has one and I am smitten. The radio itself is pretty pricey, but theres an offer now where I can get a free one for signing up for a one-year subscription. Its wonderful! I can listen to music and BBC and NPR at my house! The only slight drawback is that without electricity, I will need to use batteries. Oh well. I'm a fan of the rechargeable ones here. I can hardly wait. My CDs are great, but I've listened to them over and over again and its always nice to hear about what the REST of the world is up to. Whenever I am on internet, I don't bother much checking the news. Being here, I am in more of a bubble than I was in during college!!

Latest reads?
- Just finished The End of Poverty, by the one and only Jeff Sachs. A really interesting book on globalization and development and basically, ending world poverty by the year 2025. A bit far fetched in some parts, but he makes compelling, well thought out points
- Before that finished The World According to Garp, John Irving. Was a really good and fast read for me. Was the first Irving book I've ever read! He's a super writer
- Working on another Irving - The Cider House Rules. I've never seen the movie buit have heard that the book is really different. Its really BIG is what it is. Having a bit of a hard time getting through it quickly, hopefully it will speed up

Okay, enough randomness for now. I never thought I'd say this, but I am super excited for the airplane sandwiches tomorrow afternoon!!! Cheese and tomato! CHEESE! I can hardly wait. Yummy yummy.... :)

How Time Does Fly...

2005-05-29T12:15:00.000+03:00

Look at the date. Nearly June. Wow. Today I was looking at the Barnard and Columbia sites for graduation news and photos. To all my fantastic newly graduated friends, CONGRATULATIONS!!!! How exceedingly exciting!!! While I was checking out the pics and reading through Anna Quindlen's speech, I was just struck by the feelings of nostalgia and amazed at the fact that it has been a full YEAR since my own graduation. As cliche as this sounds, it seems like it was only yesterday. Does time go by faster as we age? Some days I feel like it must. No other way to explain it. I've passed my eight month mark of being here and soon, a new class of Health Volunteers will be arriving, fresh from the US and Washington DC. Wasn't it just last week that I was nervously up all night packing and trying to savor my last American restaurant meal? Was it not just the other day that I was on the longest plane ride of my life, excited and not knowing what to expect upon my arrival here? Ah, times have changed...

I'm doing pretty well but somehow getting a little antsy in my village and hoping to go up to Dar es Salaam soon for Peace Corps stuff and deliciously protein filled meals! I still feel a lot of ups and downs these days but lately it seems like my "downs" are not so down anymore. A good sign indeed!

This past week, I watched my secondary school peer educators teach for the first time and I didn't really know what to expect and to be a bit honest, I was a little worried. But they were AMAZING. I was thrilled to see their organization, familiarity with the material, and ease of answering their fellow students' questions. I guess its moments like that that I need to stay here and live for, huh?

Sorry this entry was a bit random. Miss you guys all dearly and hope everyone is doing well and enjoying pleasant weather! Been a bit cold here lately early mornings and evenings, so super happy about that!!

As Cool As I Am

2005-05-14T12:12:00.000+03:00

Title of post comes from Dar Williams song I am obesessed with and played endlessly on repeat this past week while I was staying with my friend Johanna at her site. She is a secondary school education volunteer teaching math and physics. I went to her school for the week to teach her kids about HIV/AIDS/STDs/Life Skills. I had a really awesome time hanging out, cooking, eating, and teaching. Teaching older students is wonderful. They were interested and had really good questions. And I think they all enjoyed our school wide game of health Jeopardy at the end of the week. We gave out a prize of candy. Examples of some questions I got from students were:
-If a person with HIV gets rid of his/her blood and gets a blood transfusion from a person without HIV, will they still have HIV?
-Is there any harm in not having sex for a long time?
-Can you get pregnant if you don't have sex?
-Do pimples on your face come from not having sex?
-What is masturbation?
-Does the female condom only come in one size?
-Why can't you wear more than one condom at the same time?
-What are studded condoms for?
-Is it true that drinking alcohol increases your weight?

I work so much with little kids that I forget how much more interested and how much less shy older students are. It was great! And her school is really pretty though its a 45 minute walk in a giant sand pit from the main road.

And now on a completely different topic, I have revised my "things that I can get sent" list. I think it will be pretty final for now.

Things I Will Never Tire of Receiving in TZ
-hard candy
-chocolate
-small Kool Aid packets
-tuna in plastic pouches (Starkist makes them, I think)
-mix mp3 CDs (all music welcome!)
-old magazines (any kind!)
-books
-random American snacks

Address is still:
PO Box 531
Masasi, Tanzania
East Africa

I think thats all for now. Had a good and busy week!

A Day in the Life...

2005-05-07T09:41:00.000+03:00

So? What do I DO everyday? I feel like I've finally fallen into some sort of a routine and here's what it looks like briefly!

-wake up between 6:30 and 7:30 (depending on how interesting my book was the night before and what I need to do that day)
-wash up: bucket bathe, brush teeth, wash face
-breakfast: recently been eating cereal dry that I bought in Dar es Salaam with Kool Aid! Yummy. I am certain that my intestines look like a child's finger painting. Other stuff I sometimes eat include oatmeal and bread.
-journal or write a letter for a little while listening to music. My morning music of choice is usually something calm along the lines of Norah Jones these days
-house stuff: sweep/dishes/wash clothes, etc etc
-prepare for lessons (which involves thinking about what I want to teach about, compiling information from a few sources, putting it in English, translating it to Kiswahili and then writing it up on flip chart, sometimes adding fun pictures!). Or sometimes if I am feeling particularly ambitious, I'll study Kiswahili. Been doing more of that lately, so thats good
-make food: leftovers or something fast like egg sandwich, egg salad, PB&J
-go to school to teach: anything between half an hour to 1.5 hours away. I usually teach for two periods, 40 minutes each
-return home
-prepare/write/read/study some more
-cook while its still light out; gets dark around 6:30 or 7pm
-eat (what do I eat? Lots of vegetables and spaghetti and eggs)
-retreat under my mosquito net in my bedroom and continue to read/write/etc
-sleep! been easier to sleep recently cuz its getting colder! finally!

So mix the above with some random socializing among neighbors and going into the "town part" of my village and you have a full day. It's hard to be productive at night without electricity, but I've gotten used to reading my kerosene or candle. I don't like planning lessons that way though. Funny how much work I USED to do at night back in college... Ah, late nights at Butler Library...

Then on weekends, usually leaving my village on Friday and going back Saturday or Sunday, I head into town about two hours away. It's only about two hours, but sometimes I have to wait just as long or longer for a bus or truck to come down the road. In town, I do things like the post office, internet, banking, and shopping for things like food, stationery supplies (markers, pens, flipcharts, etc) and household items (buckets, jugs, bowls, etc). I also of course, get to see and talk to my friends (in English! YAY!) and eat meat (I prefer chicken). Also the occasional random activity like making photocopies or typing something up.

Oh and last week I saw my first live birth at my health clinic!!!! It was really awesome. I actually got a little light headed for a while after seeing the blood and stuff but luckily there was another stretcher in the room for me to lie down on :) It took a remarkably short period of time and it was interesting to observe how little the mother complained or yelled and how determined she was. She's 18 and it was her first birth. Her own mother and the public health nurse (my next door neighbor) were in the room, along with myself. The process almost made me not want to have children for a second, but then just to see the baby come out (he was so big!) and move and wriggle and cry out was (as corny as this sounds) pretty miraculous... I told my neighbor that I wanted to see more in the future!

Thats all for now, time running low! Happy graduation to those it applies to :) And miss you all!

2005-04-29T15:46:00.000+03:00

28 April 2005
Dear Diary,
Today is Thursday. Finally- the end of the week. Erica will be in town today and I will ask her later if Mill's packages came....Today I go to the school that is so very freakishly far away. I guess it won't be horrible. I wish it were as cool all day as it is right now. I miss the days of wearing a sweatshirt all the time. Is it so bad that the smell of my Tanzanian soap and certain things burning remind me of home? How easily I am transformed back to that. I miss it so much that I can almost taste it. But I know, I really do, that going home any amount of time after now will make so many things there feel so incredibly ridiculous to me. Like really so. I am reminded of one incident my sophomore year when my friend Kate briefly mentioned to me how she always saw me wearing the same sweatshirt. Wow. How about here where it is very common to see people wear the same thing every single day? And nobody talks about that. Nobody cares. There are no such things as clothing brands or fashionable styles. Kids are not ostracized for not having the latest bookbag, sneaker, or haircut. People are concerned with the very basics of living- eating, sleeping, staying happy. Sometimes it feels to be the more realistic and human society. Whatever that means. As much as I complain now, I am more than certain that I have reached a point where I will miss it dearly here when I return home. I mean, I don't "start" work today until like 12:30pm. How very insane is that? When else at home in the land o' plenty do I have that luxury? We pay is what we do. For the things in our first world lives we pay the price of selling our time and energy to others. Is it worth it? Judging from my constant yearning for it, I guess so. But maybe its only cuz its so familiar to me. Because I knew nothing else before coming here...

...I am feeling pretty hungry but other than that am relatively calm. Teaching was ok. Nothing big- condom demo. Pretty straightforward. Am making "soup" now. My first time. I wonder how its going to taste. I hope okay. Feeling listy so:
What I Wish Were in Front of Me Right Now
-spinach leaf salad with balsamic vinagrette
-cold Mountain Dew with ice cubes
-steaming hot miso soup
-spicy tuna roll wtih soy sauce and wasabi
-fresh guacamole
-fried plantains
-chicken burrito with chicken, rice, avocado, sour cream, onions, parsley, hot peppers
-noodles fried with greens, beef, and scallions
-vanilla ice cream from Haagen Dazs (am I spelling that right??)
Is that asking for a lot? I am going to get very fat when I get home. Very fat. And I will not care. It will be glorious. I cannot wait. I have high expectations for this, but I cannot see how they will be let down. So I will continue to pursue this dream. I asked Mama N (my mama that lives next door) to borrow her cat for the night. It ran away. Argh. I hear the mice! I wish they would all die!

....I CAN BE HERE FOR ANOTHER 20 MORE MONTHS! And I can be very happy doing it. I am so very happy to have finally reached this point - seven plus months of being in country. And almost five months at site. What a nice way to end this journal. I can hardly wait to start on the next one! I will use the one that Judy sent next. Its so pretty!....

That was parts of my latest diary/journal entry. Yes, I really do make lists of food. I dunno why. It somehow makes me feel better. And you wonder how it is that I go through my journals so quickly, hehe. I never really realized the extent of my food obsession until I came to Tanzania. It's a pretty big one... These days writing in it is more like a way for me to talk to myself. I think that a few years from now they will be pretty interesting to read. It's funny to see the changes I go through and the things that I learn. My old diaries used to be sporadically written, and usually when I was feeling angry or super happy. But now they are more daily and I have the time and luxury to write and record so much more. So I'm happy to say that I think I am finally starting to feel a lot better about being here. I'm not sure what it is. Just a mix of things. Thats all for now! Happy Spring, everyone!

Dreamin of Chocolate Milk

2005-04-23T16:57:00.000+03:00

As previously stated, here is the list that we came up with about things we appreciate about Tanzanian culture:

Appreciations of Tanzanian Culture
-"hamna shida": this often used phrase (better known to Americans as hakuna matata) can explain away anything from inclement weather to being two hours late
-helpful: fairly self explanatory
-welcoming: the word for welcome in Swahili is "Karibu" - it is used VERY often to welcome one to anything from food to a room to TZ
-greetings: both good and bad but somehow nice to know that you can talk to ANYONE on the street through a greeting and not have them think you are a creep
-respect for elders: the other day I was shucking corn with my mama next door and she asked about grandparents in America and she asked if many Americans lived with them. I told her about nursing homes and she was in shock
-children: not really happy about how they treat children here but they are otherwise really happy and helpful all the time
-time: not as big of a deal as in NYC!
-sharing: very communal, shared culture here
-good use of resources: things are very rarely wasted or only have one use
-happy and optimistic: very general statement, but many TZans are this
-we <3 mamas!: mamas are wonderful, that is all

Sorry, not a very substantial list and not well worded. Am on Instant Messanger right now as well and running low on time.
Recent books read: America by Jon Stewart and The Kite Runner by Khaled Housseni (maybe spelling that wrong). Both were fabulous!! Am on a crazy Dean Koontz novel right now. Doing fairly well and trying to remember to be happy and smile lots! Love and miss you all!

My Village has 1,556 People!

2005-04-15T12:03:00.000+03:00

So Bush funded PEPFAR HIV/AIDS conference is over and I was in my village for a week and am back in town for the usual of posta, internet, food shopping. One of the very last sessions of the conference talked about cross cultural issues. The group was split up between the American volunteers and our Tanzanian counterparts that we had each brought with us that week and each group was told to write down a list of things that frustrated us about the other group/culture. This is the list that the Americans came up with:

Frustrations with Tanzanian culture
-never disagreeing: TZans sometimes tell you that they think an idea is good or they agree to something when they don't really feel that way
-much discussion before actual work gets done
-male and female relations, in terms of harassment and strict gender roles
-lack of privacy or anonymity: Americans here stand out and others tend to be pretty curious about us
-staring: lots of it; again cuz Americans stand out
-"bei Mzungu" or European prices: always needing to bargain or question the price of things because we are so frequently overcharged; very few places have price tags!
-being judged by appearances: its so much more important sometimes that you look nice and neat or that the application/form/essay that you hand in is nice and neat, versus the actual content of anything
-focus on personal life vs. work: some volunteers expressed that when trying to talk to TZans about starting projects or other work related items, they are more interested in wondering what they are eating, how they get around, who is washing their clothing for them, etc
-lack of emotional expressiveness
-being overly concerned with love life: haha, this one I get a lot being a young girl who is unmarried in a culture when most women my age have children. Volunteers get asked a lot who they are dating, if the friend walking with them is their boyfriend/girlfriend/fiance. I can't tell you how many times I've been mistaken as one of my male volunteer friends' fiance. Oh, and most volunteers are inevitably asked (by TZans you barely know!) if they would like an African boyfriend/girlfriend/fiance
-not understanding what its like to live in another country: many TZans, especially down here in the South have barely left the region of the country where they were born, and I have yet to meet someone down here who has ever left TZ. Its rough when people expect you to integrate so easily or to not have worries when they've never had the experience of living in another country/language/culture
-criticism of Kiswahili: this is especially hard for those volunteers who are new and replacing a volunteer who just left after two years of being here. Of course one's language skills won't compare!
-comparisons to other non Tanzanians: either in your village or town or other non Tanzanians they've ever known, especially ones who have brought a lot of outside money into the community; we're not all the same!
-expectations for money: not a week goes by when people don't ask me for money but luckily they have not yet started coming to my house to do so. I think my situation is a bit unique in that aspect though
-not admitting when they don't know the answer: this can be super frustrating when you get wrong answers from people or get taken to incorrect places
-feel taken advantage of: goes back to having a guard up all the time and feeling ripped off about prices and things
-greetings: they are everywhere! Everyone does it! All the time! We are not used to asking every person we see on the street: How are you? How is the day? How is the family? How is here? Where are you going? When are you returning? Haha, well, not EVERYONE
-unclear expectations: especially from people we work with

This all sounds so bad. When we finished our list, we realized we had filled an entire page of flip chart. We felt like we really needed to not seem so angry at Tanzanian culture (which we really aren't!!!) so we made a flip chart of things that we appreciate about Tanzanian culture. Haha, unfortunately, I didn't copy that down in my notes. I'll try to reproduce it from memory and put it up next week :)

But really, sorry if this post sounds like bashing. Its really not that bad. Just different. And takes getting used to. I have been feeling fairly good lately. Ordered more furniture to be made yesterday because I feel like my house is one of the least "home-y" Peace Corps Volunteer homes I've been in. So time to settle in some more. Work goes as usual. Am feeling busy busy lately. Which is good. Seventh month mark coming up soon! Only TWENTY more to go!!! LOL. Miss and love you all!

Boring Week

2005-04-06T14:50:00.000+03:00

Have you guys ever heard of The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)? It's Bush's multi billion dollar effort to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS throughout the world. Anyway, Tanzania is one of the 15 focus countries in the plan and Peace Corps plays a role in carrying it out. This week, all the health volunteers of the south are together in Mtwara (biggest city in the South and not even a 1/1000 of what Dar es Salaam has to offer) for a PEPFAR conference. Today is day three of this five day extraordinary affair and I am bored to tears. We each had to bring a Tanzanian counterpart and all the stuff that we are learning in our sessions (from 8am to 5pm daily, but today we ended a bit early) is mostly meant for them. From the volunteers' perspective, it is not only stuff that we have learned 12 times over during our two previous trainings, but its stuff that we have taught to others as well. But its not all bad. I DO get to be away from my village for a week, I do get fed 5 times a day (pretty decent food too!), and they have been talking about SOME new things.

In any case, have been thinking recently about what my reasons are for staying here. And they seem relatively flaky and abstract compared to my reasons for going home. And I am wondering if those fluffy reasons for staying will be enough to get my through another 21 more months. I have been talking to my friend Johanna who is thinking of leaving early (in December) and returning home. I am really not wanting to go home. But I really do miss it more than I can explain. I guess I just want to be happier here. And sometimes I'm not sure how to do that... I guess thats a big question to ask and one that I have been pondering since I got to Tanzania, but especially since coming to site... Alas, in any case, have to go now, but I won't be jumping on a plane anytime soon, so not to worry. Happy messages and any ideas you may have for keeping sane here are most welcome :) Love and hugs to all!

Guess Who's Back? Back Again....

2005-03-28T15:01:00.000+03:00

So yes. Am back in the South. Safely. Am in Masasi town right now. Flew into Mtwara yesterday. It was a nice 45 minute flight from Dar es Salaam. We got soda and cheese/tomato sandwiches as usual. Not much to say and am running out of internet time except that I feel kind of weird being back. It is SO SO HOT and I have extremely mixed feelings about returning back to my village and to work tomorrow. It's going to be me alone again! :( Well, for a few days. On Saturday, I am going back to Mtwara for a five day HIV/AIDS workshop with all my fellow Southern TZ Peace Corps Volunteers. So another "break" of sorts from my village/"home". I haven't had a lot of Kiswahili speaking in the past two weeks. I fear my language skills will be horrid! Anywho, just a short entry. Peace to all!

Fans are a Beautiful Thing

2005-03-26T13:10:00.000+03:00

Here I am in Dar es Salaam again, ready to go back to the Deep and Dirty South. Am luxuriously in the Peace Corps Office Volunteer Lounge enjoying free unlimited internet and computer usage as well as lovely air conditioning, although today it is rather cloudy in Dar so its not quite as hot as normal.

So since leaving my site about two weeks ago, I spent one week in Morogoro/Dar for training and this past week travelling a whole lot. A few friends and I did a whirlwind tour of some of our friends' sites. We went to see four people and had a super time. A large chunk of this week was spent in Arusha region - a very touristy part of Tanzania because it is near such attractions as Mount Kilimajaro, Serengeti Desert (Lion King, anyone??), and Ngorongoro Crater. We went to visit our friend Matt who teaches upper level chemistry at a Secondary School in Karatu Town, about 2 hours outside of Arusha Town. He lives on the school grounds and replaced a married couple who just finished their Peace Corps service. His house is super nice! It is all pimped out with tons of furniture, electricity, fireplace (doesn't really work), running water, hot showers, a real kitchen, western toilet... It was awesome to stay there for a few days. The weather was beautiful and oh so cool. We had to use blankets in bed!! My friend Erica wore a fleece to sleep! Luckily I brought a sweater with me. It rained quite a bit and his town is REALLY pretty - rolling lush hills and huge expanse of sky. The rain caused for some crazy mud and fun walking experiences (barefoot for me one time), but such is life.

One day when we were there, we were in Karatu Town and saw a huge group of tourists at the local internet cafe/non Tanzanian food place. It was the strangest thing for my volunteer friends and I. It has been a really long time since we've seen such a large group of non Tanzanians. We sometimes just see a few walking here or there. Or in the South where I live, we basically know all the non Tanzanians (other volunteers, missionaries, etc). We felt so strange seeing the group of teenage Americans and somehow felt like we belonged more because we were dressed respectfully (they were wearing short shorts, tank tops, etc) and knew the language and weren't just here in the country to safari and leave. I don't know. I'm probably not making much sense, but I came away from that experience feeling like I don't think I would ever really want to live in a touristy part of the country, because Tanzanians treat you as a silly tourist with lots of money to blow and no interest in the local culture aside from souvenirs.

But, we do stand out nevertheless and regardless of our language skills, people still assume sometimes that we are tourists. So of course we got ripped off. It was bound to happen at least once during this trip. It was in Arusha and we were leaving. The second we arrived at the bus stand and got out of our vehicle, we were bombarded by people wanting to know where we going so they could pursuade us to get on THEIR bus. This one guy was particularly adamant, even after we told him not to bother us and we started walking away, but we saw that his bus seemed to be one of the few left in the stand, so we decided to go with it. He of course started off with a ridiculous price, and we argued for a bit and he brought it down. He boarded the empty bus with us and came back with tickets and asked for our fare. We gave it to him, not really thinking and he left to bring us our change. He of course never came back and the bus started to take off. We soon realized that nobody else on the bus seems to have paid. This was confirmed when the REAL ticket collector came to get our fare. We felt a bit silly, but there was not much we could do about it. Two of us paid again and one of us refused. They finally kicked us off the bus and paid for us to get onto another one, after a brief stint with a police officer. That was the start of probably the worst day of my TZ life so far. From point A to point B, it took us 11 hours and 8 moving vehicles when it should have been around 7 or 8 hours. I'm not sure how that happened, but no questions asked. We were so incredibly tired and frustrated by the end, but luckily our friend Jon has a really nice place (it seems like the Deep and Dirty South people are the only ones WITHOUT fancy homes) and had dinner ready for us when we got to his house finally at like 9:30pm.

I am flying out of Dar es Salaam tomorrow and going back to the South. Last night, I had an amazing food experience (milkshake, burger, prawns, noodles, 2.5 sodas, fresh passion fruit juice) and came back to the hotel room stuffed and so so happy. I took a HOT shower and felt the cleaner than I have in months. I laid on the bed under the ceiling fan and thought about how much I would give up to have a fan at my site. Fans are a beautiful thing.

This morning I went to ShopRite. Yes, ShopRite. Yes, it was like being in America. I bought a lot of stuff and spent a buttload of money. But its all worth it. I picked up things I could not get anywhere else easily in this country. It was heavenly. It had aisles, display cases, air conditioning, music, selection to choose from. I got CEREAL!! I will have to eat it with lukewarm powdered milk, but Special K for breakfast! How awesome. :) Tonight we are going to attempt to see a movie - either Miss Congeniality 2 or Hitch. I am so excited. I don't even care about what movie it is. It's been six months since my last movie going experience and I am ready for one.

I think I am also ready to go back. The other day, I called my village "home." I think it may have been the first time. I am feeling better and better about it, though it lacks many of the luxuries I have seen other volunteers have. It is my own and I feel comfortable there and I don't have to live out of a bag. And besides, I am beginning to think that flush toilets are more trouble than they are worth. I actually think I prefer my hole in the ground (especially when one has diarrhea!!! - I had it for 8 days during this trip... but won't go into too many details).

So there it is. A brief recap of my first vacation experience. It was fabulous, but I got frustrated a lot travelling. Am ready to head back, but not before filling up on some great food. Love and miss you all, Happy Spring! Happy Easter Bunny! :)

Green Eyed Monster

2005-03-19T14:23:00.000+03:00

So I was in Morogoro for training for most of the week, then spent almost two days in Dar es Salaam (biggest city, but not capital of Tanzania). It was almost like being at home again! Air conditioning, pizza deliveries, glorious Ethiopian food, bars, clubbing!! A few friends and I even tried out the American Club. It was too surreal - swimming pool, tennis courts, food galore (I had a turkey wrap with fries, nachos, and a brownie), and we watched a movie while lounging around on couches. They had framed photographs of a few major cities and the one of New York made me long for home so much!

But honestly, to continue with my shell shock experiences, we stayed at a fellow volunteer's house in Morogoro town last night and I could not believe how much nicer it was compared to my own. Running water, nice furniture (more options in town undoubtedly; I have one guy who makes stuff in my village and its not such good quality), electricity, a Western toilet, sinks, a ceiling! And today I was walking around town and went to the market and was in absolute disbelief as to how much is available here. Foodwise (because that's all that I really think about, right?!) I saw cilantro, avocadoes, cucumbers, zucchini, cauliflower, and all the usual TZ foods like potatoes, onions, etc. But it was so beautiful! I remember a time when I was so scared and overwhelmed by the market. But now, compared to the past three months at site, it seems so wonderful to be here in Morogoro. And I must admit sheepishly that I am slightly jealous. I know that I would be having a little bit less of a Peace Corps experience by living in one of the biggest towns in TZ and being able to eat cornflakes and cold milk in the morning and do internet every day and have food at yummy restaurants, but my inner superficial self still very much desires those things.... And it just seems to me the discrepancy between our various situations is so great. But I am only self pitying myself now - a very bad and dangerous thing! I'm working on it!

Monday I leave for Arusha, a big touristy town near Mt. Kilimanjaro. I'm going with some other health volunteers to visit an education volunteer friend of ours - Matt. It will be our first time going and we're super psyched - both to travel (9 hours on a bus), to see a new place, and to see Matt for the first time in three months.

Anywho, will write more from Arusha. Internet really slow today, maybe because the electricity JUST came on (its almost 3pm). But mood now is pretty happy :) Love and miss you all!

Shell Shock

2005-03-13T11:30:00.000+03:00

Yesterday morning I left Southern Tanzania to fly up north for my Peace Corps in service training this week. We got to Dar es Salaam International airport and it was like deja vu all over again. We then took a taxi to the bus stand and then a bus to Morogoro (where I did my original 10 week training) and all along the ride through Dar and from Dar to Moro I was in complete AWE and utter disbelief. Of course, I have seen all of this before but after living in a village for 3 months, my perspective has changed completely! And it was so strange to see just how much it has changed. I was truly the country gal coming to the big city. I just could not believe how TALL the building were! And the number of people! And how nicely dressed everyone was. Women wearing pants! (I, too, wore pants for the traveling in the big city occasion). So many businesses! So much food! It's been a while since I've seen a multi storied building, nevermind a home! The homes along the road seemed like mansions to me. I guess they would, seeing as my village has mostly mud huts with thatched roofs. I was just surprised at how much I had become accustomed to the environment at my site in such a short period of time.

I think I am feeling overall better now. I think I've completely decided that I really just need to try to be really happy and grateful and fortunate and to just live day by day. It's sometimes rough because I'm so used to worrying about things and trying to plan and control everything (some of you know this all too well!) but that just doesn't cut it here. Not the way it works. Never works out in the end. And work is going fairly well, I think. Here's my schedule:

Mondays- peer educators group at Ndwika Girls Secondary School
Tuesdays- Mkangaula Primary, class 6 and 7
Wednesdays- health center and Nagaga Primary (in my own village), class 6 and 7
Thursdays- Namalenga Primary, class 6 and 7
Fridays (will start when I get back)- teaching random youth who hang out at the bus stand area in my village

So I should not have any complaints!! I think that my kids are just getting a bit more used to me and I'm getting more used to teaching so I'm feeling more comfortable now. Plus the youth from my village youth group are really super supportive and helpful.

On a more sadder note, my friend Jesse is leaving :( He was my other closest volunteer neighbor besides Erica (20 km up the plateau) and I'm really super sad to see him go. He was a super awesome friend and PC Volunteer and was really emotionally supportive of me. But like my other friends that left, I am certain he is making the best choice for himself. It is still very sad. And he is the first one in our "Deep and Dirty South" group to go. I sincerely hope that nobody else leaves because the support network is so strong and helpful and I am deeply grateful for it.

Anywho, time is running low. I miss you all!! Thinking of home, but trying to be more mentally in TZ all the time :) May the Easter bunny bring you all sweet delicious treats and lovely spring weather :) (almost "winter" here soon! can't wait to not sweat at 7am!). Oh, and anyone interested in a Google Email (Gmail) account, lemme know. I got tons of invites! I LOVE Gmail!

Only Beyonces Drink Chocolate Milk in TZ

2005-03-05T16:29:00.000+03:00

I was in town today with my friend Erica and as usual, on our walk to the post office and the market, we were harrassed by the men and male children along the way. You would think that after being here for 5 months, it would not be an issue anymore, but it still very much irks me when people yell out "Mzungu!" (European) or "Mchina!" (Chinese person) or "Hey, sista sista!." We get the occasional "I love you" screamed at us as well. And TZ men make this noise that is difficult to describe but repulsive and meant for prosititutes and when they use it to try to get our attention, I internally cringe. A huge part of TZ culture is greetings and respect for elders and when children are disrespectful, it bothers me greatly. I try to ignore all of this most of the time, but sometimes I stop to give people dirty looks and demand that children greet us properly. But it still makes me so angry and so hateful. My friend Erica reminded me today that us being here is a little bit like being a celebrity. It's not always good, but people ARE undoubtedly going to recognize us, and we stand out quite a bit. We inevitably always meet people who know our names and where we live whom we've never met before (news spreads- there's an Mzungu whose living amongst us!). And we undoubtedly forget a lot of the people we meet but of course, they remember us. We DO have more money than the average Tanzanian, so I shouldn't feel as bothered when everyone I meet inevitably wants something from me - money, candy, my clothes...(!!). Erica tells me that I should just pretend that I'm Beyonce (my celebrity of choice to be) and that when they are yelling Mzungu! people are really saying "hey, thats Beyonce!" And the whole chocolate milk thing? We were on our way to get some. It's a bit pricey and quite a luxury and definitely not something your average Tanzanian will blow money on. It seems a little ridiculous to me sometimes when people are starving, but I can't save the whole country, right?

To clarify things a bit, the situation is not as bad in my village, only in towns. I think that my villagers are starting to get used to me more. I really like the children and they seem to not be as interested in my daily activities as much as they were in the very beginning, so thats a good sign! And the school children are running to help me with my bags and stuff when I am nearing the primary schools so they recognize that I'm a teacher and not just some random Mzungu.

This week, my volunteer leader stayed with me in my house for two full days and it was really nice to have her there. We talked alot about how I was feeling and adjusting and she was extremly helpful and made me feel really really absolutely hopeful that I was going to be okay and that things were a lot better than I thought. I tend to be a bit hard on myself sometimes. But in a week, I will be seeing almost all of the first year health volunteers back in Morogoro where I did training!!! We are all going for a Peace Corps in service training for about a week. It's been three months since I've seen some people and it will be so nice to be back in Dar es Salaam and Morogoro. It will be good to talk to people about their frustrations and successes with work and hopefully I'll feel really energized upon my return. I am also travelling to Arusha with some volunteers after training to go see our friend Matt whose up there, so that will hopefully also be good times. But I have to run now, as always, missing you all! All my love!

Here's some Kiswahili for those interested in seeing what its like in sentence format! It's my introduction about who I am, where I'm from, what I do, etc etc. I've got it down pat!
Ninaitwa Michelle. Ninatokea Merikani, jimbo la New York, jiji la New York City. Ninafanya kazi wa kujitolea. Nilifika Tanzania mwezi wa tisa, mwaka jana na nilikaa Morogoro kwa muda wiki kumi pamoja na familia Watanzania. Nilijifunza Kiswahili, utamaduni, na mambo za afya. Mimi ni mwalimu wa afya. Sasa, ninakaa Nagaga, karibu na kituo cha afya na ninafanya kazi shule ya msingi, shule ya secondari, na zahanati. Nakaa hapa kwa muda miezi miwilli.

Marshmallows...

2005-02-27T15:42:00.000+03:00

I don't really particularly like them, but somehow, it seems strange that I have not seen one or had one in a long time. The other day marked my five month departure from the States. Some days it feels like I've been gone forever, and some days I feel like I left home only yesterday.

I have finally found out (or seen with my bare eyes, rather) the mice that live in my ceiling. So the mice babies? No longer a mystery. I caught one the other day under a bucket and the neighborhood kids beat it with a stick and carried it away by its tail to a nearby garbage pit. I think the problem with the mice could be solved if I got myself a ceiling (which I found out recently I was SUPPOSED to have, but the town council somehow never did it for my house....).

This past week, I finally made it to the secondary (high) school!!!! It was a 1.5 hour walk there and then another 1.5 back, but it was glorious to speak English with the teachers and to see older students! Its a womens' school and has had Peace Corps volunteers live and teach there for the past 7 years. The last Peace Corps Volunteer left behind an awesome peer educator group that I will take up. I'm super excited because this week I felt a lot of frustration working with the really young primary school students. They somehow do not seem very interested or very enthusiastic. When I ask questions or ask them to repeat things I have mentioned, I get blank stares. Perhaps I am still new to them. I like to think that my Kiswahili is not THAT terrible. Also perhaps, they are not so much used to a learning environment that is very interactive since they are lectured to most of the time. It is nevertheless quite frustrating.

So I was at three primary schools this past week and must fully admit that I was not too excited about any of the work. Is that really awful? Is it just part of the adjusting process? I just feel very unmotivated these days. I also feel like I am not working to my fullest potential here. My supervisor from Peace Corps came to visit me at my village on Friday. It was super awesome to see her and when we talked a bit about how I was feeling at site, she asked if I felt like things would be better if I moved to a different location. I told her that I wanted to stay and that I think moving would only make it more stressful, as I would have to start afresh and such. I therefore think that it is perhaps ME who needs to change and my reaction to my external environment. I think it is also hard because my ideas of success and progress and expectation are so incredibly different here and they need to be! Tanzania is no New York City! My pace of life has slowed down considerably and I think I just need to remember to be happy about small accomplishments. It is nevertheless difficult coming from my Energizer Bunny self (as many of you are aware of). And it is difficult coming from my Energizer Bunny self who unfortunately still miss many American "luxuries" like FOOD and showers. But also, I hope that I will be getting over soon.

Yesterday I saw a whole bunch of volunteers because we got together for an STD Seminar at my friend Erica's secondary school. It was pretty interesting, I think (I hope) for the students but it was incredibly tiring for us to teach the same 45 minute lesson five times in a row. But it was really good experience and I look forward to doing more collaboration work of that sort. Erica and I are looking to plan a girls' seminar in town towards the end of this year and inviting girls from the surrounding secondary schools. Will keep ya'll posted on that! Hope all is well. Miss everyone! Stay warm in the city (wiggity hot here as usual)! :)

My I Hate TZ Week

2005-02-18T15:21:00.000+03:00

Sorry didn't update last week, but was not near an internet cafe. Anywho, here was my week:
Sunday- got back home to find three weird mouse/rat fetus baby things on my floor wriggling and squealing. This was the second time this has happened. I'm not sure where the mice/rats are exactly coming from. I think perhaps they live in the beams of my house and since I only have a tin roof and no ceiling, they give birth and the babies fall? I'm confused. But it was pretty yucky. I swept them out of my house and they kept squealing with every sweep of the broom...

Monday- had a meeting with my village youth group to discuss teaching at the primary schools. They didn't speak any English, my Kiswahili still not perfect, and had an utterly confusing meeting that left me feeling pretty stupid...

Tuesday- started teaching at a nearby primary school. Not really too bad. Was surprised at how much help I was able to get from the leader of the youth group

Wednesday- tried to bike to the closest secondary school to me (4 miles away) and unfortunately failed and got really tired and blacked out for a bit on the side of the road. Was totally fine, just really tired and dizzy, and it was super hot, and I'm not too used to this physical exertation thing! And need to practice bike riding more! Some people helped me back to my house with my bike and I rested for most of the day. Also found out in the evening that my health center supervisor left my village forever without saying goodbye or telling me! And she had seen me earlier in the day. Hmmmm....

Thursday- biked to a village two villages away to teach. Was sort of able to do it, but had to stop a whole lot. I felt bad because I had way more experienced riders with me. I feel so weak and out of shape! I felt like my heart was going to explode out of my chest and fall on the dusty dirt road...

So altogether, had some frustrating times. And I get the feeling that my neighbors think I don't like them and thus don't like me in return. Which is not the case at all! How easy it is for shyness and fear to be mistaken for pride and prejudice... I greet them and they don't greet me back! Most unusual behavior for a Tanzanian. But am feeling a bit better now. Wrote loads and loads in my diary. Feel like I really need to be less afraid and less serious. Do you guys think I'm serious? I think I'm too serious here. Alas. But I will try to go to the secondary school again next week and WALK this time (only 1.5 hours!). But primary school teaching this week was not so bad. I think I get nervous about talking in Kiswahili and then my language skills fail me. Must not get nervous!

Sorry, this entry must have been a little weird. I am in a bit of a weird mood. May write a better entry kesho (tomorrow). Miss you all! Stay well!

Remembrance of Things Past

2005-02-05T17:41:00.000+03:00

I recently sent out a mass email and though I am not able to respond to everyone, THANK YOU SO SO much for sending your replies! I love reading the updates on your lives and hopefully it will make me feel that much less clueless when I see you all again in two years!

Some people have asked me about photos and such. I would love more than anything to be able to have photos of my house, my village, Tanzania in general put up online for you guys to see. However a few things with this:
1- I do have a film camera but am wary of taking it out since the second that I do, EVERYONE will want their picture to be taken; I am fairly certain that I am one of the few people in my village with a camera. And I am not sure I want that to be widely known.
2- Processing and developing film is not easy here. It can be done in the towns near me (one shop in each town is able to do it), but I have heard mixed reviews about the quality. And it is fairly expensive, so to be on the safe side, I think I will develop in Dar es Salaam the next time I am there (I have two rolls of film that are waiting to be developed from training).
3- Uploading is not so easy! I am using public terminals at internet cafes so my time is both precious and expensive! Scanning is time consumming and costly as well.
So overall, I totally apologize. It sounds so crazy that I cannot provide a physical pictoral image for you guys, and I really would love to be able to, but I promise promise to have many photos to show by the time I return back to the States!

So I've lately felt really homesick. I mean, I generally do on and off, but as the weeks and months wear on and as I am not so busy yet (hopefully this will change soon) and as I receive emails and letters and packages from you guys, I so totally wish that I were back in the city and back to... familiarity mostly. I know its so silly and childish to want it, but sometimes I am just tired of not understanding people, tired of being uncomfortable (mentally, physically, emotionally), and tired of so much more. I know that it is mostly the fond days of my American life that I remember and I definitely realize that there were many rough times as well (I have multiple old diaries to back this up), but I sometimes have overwhelming desires to be back in cooler weather and to be back to things like friends and family, chocolate, cold milk and computers. There is not a day that I don't miss FOOD!!!! Be it American, Asian, Mexican, Italian, whatever!! The question of why I am here also, predictably, comes up often. Is it all worth it? I am certain that I am learning a lot and that the challenges that I am facing will help me to grow and such and such. But really, sometimes I wonder if I could be more productive and useful if I were back in the US. But I am ranting. So apologies, but just some of the random thoughts and feelings I've been having lately. But I am hopeful, so that keeps me in check and not wanting to run to Dar and jump on a plane home. And I have all the fabulous support of you guys!! Thanks so much. I miss you all and keep the updates coming!

Updates and More!

2005-02-04T13:21:00.000+03:00

Okay, so I'm apologizing for this in advance because its pretty shamelss, but I am pretty desperate. So here goes. I am in extreme need of something that is not easily obtainable in my neck of the world - JOURNALS/DIARIES! Some of you may know that I have consistently had a diary since I was 8 or 9. Well, my habit has only gotten worse since coming to Tanzania, especially at my site. With a lotta time to think, a lot of thoughts to be had, and nobody to tell these to on a constant basis, I've been averaging 3-4 pages daily (sometimes up to 6!). I am therefore going through the one blank journal that I brought with me at a rather alarming rate, and finished a journal that came to Tanzania half full. So I apologize for blatantly asking for something, but it means a whole lot to me. My current sanity, my older self, and my unborn children (who will doubtless appreciate my accounts of my Sub-Saharan African years) will greatly appreciate it!! I figure if at least four people send something, I'll be set for a few months! My shameless request ends with asking that the journal please be bound (not spiral), lined, with light colored pages (cream, white, etc) and smaller than 8.5 by 11. I know, I'm pretty anal about them. Sorry! Shipping is going to be pretty hefty so please don't buy something fancy or expensive! Please send it to me at PO Box 531, Masasi, Tanzania, Africa. Thanks so so much!!!

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.....

So since I last wrote, I have taught twice at the Primary school. Both times were with teachers. It was an interesting experience to say the least. It was done entirely in Kiswahili, but I had prepared flipcharts in advance so it was not so bad. I think that the teachers thought my first lesson on the Facts and Myths about HIV/AIDS and how it is transmitted was rather easy. However, the second time I taught it was about the biology behind HIV/AIDS and the progression of the disease. I think that was more newer information and more useful since it explained why people may look healthy, but still have HIV, etc etc.

These past few weeks I have also had nursing students from the big hospital in town (Masasi) come do field work at my village! It was so very very exciting because here were six educated women, interested in health, and living only a few houses down from me! I spent a lot of time with them. They taught me a lot of Kiswahili, they fed me often, and I followed them on the job. One day, they had gone around my village to do "home visiting" in order to catalog how many people in my village had pit latrines, a rack for drying dishes (hygienic), and a pit for burning trash. I had never really explored too much the "backwoods" of my village but found it to be really really interesting. It is all farmland and most of the homes were what the nursing students termed temporary - made to last only a few years, usually built of mud bricks and thatched roofs. It was good to go on this tour cuz I met a lot more people and a lot more people met me. But it was shocking for me to find that many people in my village do not even have pit latrines for toilets. And I already knew this, but many people also have to walk to a common tap to fetch water and then carry it in buckets on their head. So here comes my big thought for the week:
I LIVE IN A PALACE
So I have therefore resolved not to complain any more about my brown water from the tap that I have in my courtyard or about my hole in the ground pit latrine. As they say, its all relative.

Sometimes I feel like my brain is dying. That seems like a weird concept. But compared to my more academic days of school, essays, research, homework, my work here is easy. Of course, the hard part is more abstract - "cultural adjustment" as it is popularly known. It has only been a few months since I left the US, but already, the life I left behind seems universes away. This may seem funny to those of you still in school and dying to get out, but really! I recently browsed through some of my old papers and my thesis (have them on CD with me here and viewed them on my PCV friend Josh's computer - Hi Josh's mom!!) and wow....they seem to not have come from the same Michelle that I know now. I've mentioned before that I feel like I've reverted back to a person that existed before high school and most of college. It's easy to feel self conscious here. For example, a week ago I followed the nursing students to a nearby primary school where they were doing guest teaching about diarrhea and malaria (very common ailments among children here). I happened to be standing out in the courtyard when school broke out for tea break. All at once, about 500 faces ran out of the classroom, saw me and stood still. And stared. And giggled. And whispered amongst themselves. When I went into the headmaster's office, faces peered through the window and children were clammering to get a look at the Mzungu (European). The nursing students finally threatened to give them shots if they didn't go away. It was not the first time something like that happened to me, and I'm trying to not let it get to me, but still....

In any case, I am so certain that I will feel much better about being in my village once things start rolling and I start to be more productive. Just like my crazy days in America, I think the busier I am, the happier and more productive I will be. :) Oh, and funny tidbit, I found out this week that the Minister of Health (highest health position in Tanzania) has family who live in my village!!! And she is FEMALE! I don't know if she was born in my village, but I met her mom last week. I would be so super thrilled if I got to meet her. Their home is really really nice and all decked out with electricity and satellite TV!

In terms of books, this week I finished reading the first half of author Doris Lessing's autobiography Under My Skin and have just started Beyond Love by Dominique LaPierre. It's a really interesting book on how AIDS was first discovered in America and other parts of the world in the late 1970s and the race to find HIV. I'm really enjoying it.

Well, think thats all for now. Hope everyone is doing phenomenally well! Miss and love you all!

Things I Do in TZ that I Don't in the US

2005-01-25T18:38:00.000+03:00

It's time for another list. Hope you all like this one!

bucket bathe
go to the bathroom in a hole in the ground
wash clothes by hand
use laterns, candles and flashlights once it hits 6:30pm
cook with kerosene
read a whole lot (just finished a good one- Time Traveller's Wife)
write a lot of letters
pretend to understand people when they're speaking Swahili to me
greet a lot of people everyday (greetings are super important here)
collect rain water
be afraid of bats (they're trying to get into my bedroom!!)
have to filter and boil water for drinking
eat cheese from a can (and love every bite)
drink powdered milk (ah, the days of cold milk...)
go without checking my email 20 times a day
cook vegetarian only (no fridge for meat)
take malaria pills once a week
sweep the floor like 12,000 times a day (lotsa dust and dirt)
wear long skirts with slips daily (miss pants!!!)
text instead of call people on the phone
feeling uncomfortable walking around sometimes
bargain for everything to lower prices
wear glasses everyday
take 2 buses for 7 hours to get Pringles
have to look hard for bread and eggs
burn trash
sleep under a mosquito net (I pretend its a lovely canopy)
sweat from pores that I never knew existed
ride a bike (I learned!!!!)
look at photos of family and friends a whole lot
try to figure out what insects and animals are making what noises at night
stare at the sky at night (amazing amazing stars)
enjoy reading People magazine
charge my phone only once a week
drink a LOT of soda (widely available cold and safe drink)
wear Tevas ALL the time
ponder often on why flies exist in such great quantity (can someone enlighten me?)
look forward to chocolate
wish I were back in college
ration out my candy reserve
not look at my watch 5,000 times daily
stay indoors when night falls
paint blackboards on my walls at home!! (blackboard paint! brillant!)
have a house of my own (probably bigger than anything I'll ever have in NYC!)
go hours without speaking English (have not started talking to myself...yet..)

Well, tomorrow is scary judgement day. I am teaching about 12 primary school teachers and 6 nurses my very first lesson in my village. It is going to be about the facts and myths on HIV/AIDS and how HIV is transmitted. I'm pretty nervous because I don't know what to expect and it all has to be done in Kiswahili. Fortunately, I have a lot of written out on flip chart paper already (an essential tool for any Peace Corps Volunteer) and I've prepared sentences and phrases in advance. So wish me luck and send good thoughts my way! I'm also starting to teach at my health clinic soon. It seems so weird and informal and I don't really know how to approach it, but I guess it will be okay. I'm not sure what people are expecting of me in general and I don't know what to expect from them either.

Today I got a visit from Jess. She's our Volunteer Leader for the year. She used to live 7km away from me and just finished two years of service. She liked it so much that she's staying as a leader for an additional year. She just got back from a one month vacation in the States in Cali and I was super happy to see her!!! We had a nice long talk about how I was doing and what I was feeling and how to approach my work. She helped me feel a whole lot better about a million things like my food situation (not too much in my village...), being in the middle of nowhere (its so funny to think of my volunteer friends in other parts of the country who are in towns or big cities while I'm in this tiny village thats never had a non-Tanzanian live there), and so much more. So I'm in a good place right now, though still nervous about teaching.

Jess had this really awesome tailor in my village that she was good friends with and told me that I definitely had to go meet him cuz he's known three American Peace Corps Volunteers and loves to chat and tell stories and help people with Kiswahili. And he sort of also understands Americans a little bit (at least probably more than anyone else in my village can). A few weeks back I had saw this fabric in Mtwara that I absolutely LOVED and bought it even though it was pretty expensive (it was from Mozambique) so I took it to him and asked him to make me two skirts and a blouse, specifying exactly how I wanted them to look. He took my measurements and a few days later, BAM, amazing clothing!!! It's really well done and I really love it and he made me a gift of a bag out of extra cloth that was left over. I don't really remember the last time I was this excited about clothing. A lot of Tanzanian women have their clothing made from these amazing and brilliant cloths and I think I may also start to get into the habit. It's so awesome to have clothing that fits perfectly (well, at least for now) and designed specifically how you wanted.

It makes me think about how different it is being here and always knowing where things come from. Seems like an easy concept but not really something that I used to think about much in the States. For example, my food. Where did it come from? The supermarket. My food here? Off of someone's farm. Probably down the road from my house. My clothes? I dunno. Gap proabably has some factory in Honduras? My clothes here? Cloth from Mozambique and this guy in my village sewed it together (manual sewing machine, mind you). Did you know that Tanzania is huge for cashew nuts, especially where I live. Next time you see a bag of cashew nuts, see if its from Tanzania!!

I have great news! I may get electricity soon!!!! The word "soon" can mean anything from weeks to months here, but I feel good about getting it within a few months because numerous people have assured me that it will be here shortly. And plus I have seen people putting up wooden poles for the electrical lines. But then my house needs to be wired and meters have to be set up. But it will be so so nice to be able to charge my phone (this past week I've had it off and been turning it on only to check messages cuz my battery was dying) and get a fan and maybe an electric burner to cook on! Wow, I feel like another world is open for me. Will keep ya'll updated. Miss everyone! Hope all is well and hear its cold in the city. Stay warm! Its smoking hot here :)

Where's Waldo?

2005-01-14T13:18:00.000+03:00

Sometimes I feel like Waldo from Where's Waldo. When I'm on the bus or randomly walking little children are capable of spotting me from a million miles away or squeezed into a busload of people. They yell out "Mzungu!" (European) and sometimes I make babies cry. It's quite funny. I think I may rather get used to this celebrity status and maybe even miss it when I go home. Imagine, that, huh?

So school starts in a few days. Primary and secondary. Hopefully I'll get a chance to talk to the teachers and students and get some stuff going. The meeting I was supposed to have this week never happened. No big surprise. I was at my health center yesterday just hanging around. I'm going to get to see a delivery soon! Can't wait. It sounds gruesome but exciting. There's also a new group of about 7 nursing students at my health center doing field work for a month. I'm thinking maybe I can work with them too!

It rained a lot this week and I collected a whole bunch of clean water! Wheeeee!!! Better than the brown stuff that comes from my tap! :) It was so funny. I had all my buckets and pots and pans out to collect. It was like Little House on the Prairie. I have never appreciated rain so much in my life as I do here.

Anywho, gotta run. But here are some good books I've read recently!
Poisonwood Bible
Interpreter of Maladies
Middlesex

Love and miss you all! Cheerios!

More Thoughts

2005-01-10T11:31:00.000+03:00

So I was reading some of my recent blog entries (sorry I don't get a chance to update them so often) and I realized that they are very mundane and very superficial and don't nearly tell as much about my life here as I would like to share. So here is an attempt at a more substantial blog entry. I totally apologize, but its just because I usually do email first and then blog so I don't usually have that much time left :)

Okay, so I'm going back to my village today. It's about 2 hours away by bus from Masasi, where I am right now. Buses here are funny. First off, the ones that go by my village are not really buses. They are more like mini coasters. So smaller. And there are no schedules. So we basically go to the bus stand, ask around for a bus going in our direction and hop on it to reserve a seat. It usually does not leave for quite a while if it is not too full. Time is not valued in Tanzanian culture as it is in American culture. They try to squeeze as many people in as possible. I sometimes get to sit, but even sitting is not too comfy since multiple people may squish into a row meant for only a few and there is usually a lot of bags and luggage and even animals (like live chickens!) onboard. The road to my village is not paved so its a pretty bumpy and crazy ride. The other day coming to town, I rode on the back of a giant lorry and it felt like a roller coaster ride. It was pretty intense and I felt like I was going to get thrown out of the side! I finally had a chance to sit down halfway through the ride. Down here in my area of Southern Tanzania, there are only two main roads! The one further north IS paved but doesn't go by my house.

I came to town this weekend to buy things like cushions for my couch and food. So my village has very little food. My "market" is sad looking. I picked up vegetables here. Going to market here in town is a bit of an experience. My friends and I get harrassed quite a bit, because we stand out a lot. We get a lot of verbal comments and have learned to mostly ignore them. It gets old but I feel like I've developed a really tough skin here. I never realized how obvious us non Tanzanians were until I started being very surprised and I started easily spotting anyone who was not Tanzanian. But its much better in my village. People are friendlier and the children nicer and more respectful so I actully will get greetings and more genuine questions (not proposals of marriage; I got one about two weeks ago in town).

I also bought some juice here, which is quite a luxury! It's a nice South African brand and really tasty. I miss juice and fruit and there is not much of either down here in the South. Can't buy meat because I don't have a fridge to keep it in. Also, cooking meat on kerosene probably takes longer (have yet to try it) and kerosene is pricey and not easy to find these days.

For cushions, we had to go to another town about 5.5 hours away (one way). The trip was exhausting and tiring, but worth it, because of the cushions and because we went to a nice "white people" store to buy things like Pringles and Nutella (which is way expensive!).

I like my village but am still not too comfortable in it, as I've mentioned before. I also feel like I don't know myself anymore! I have reverted back to a person that is shy and feels awkward in social interactions and this is a Michelle that used to exist in elementary and middle school. My Kiswahili is decent but not phenomenal. I understand more than I can speak so when I am spoken to, I usually get the gist of what people are asking or trying to say. Nobody in my little village speaks much English, so I will have to do my lessons entirely in Kiswahili. I'm not really sure how thats going to turn out, but I guess we will see.

I know that things will get better. I have much faith in that fact. And hopefully I will have more of a schedule in my life soon. Until then, miss you all. Stay safe and warm (its summer here and smoking hot! And my house has a roof of tin...)

Tanzania is Really Really HOT

2005-01-08T18:53:00.000+03:00

Happy New Year everyone! I can't believe that its 2005 and I spent it in Tanzania not seeing Dick Clark's New Year's Countdown and the Big Apple drop! But before I go on, just wanted to say that I'm okay! Thanks for those of you that asked about me in reference to the tsunami that happened. I saw a little coverage of it, and it looked really really awful. Unfortunately ten Tanzanians did die in it, but fortunately, I am safe and so are all of my friends and fellow Peace Corps Volunteers.

So anywho, I spent New Year's Eve in a town about half an hour away with my friends Jesse and Erica. The town is called Newala and its really really really beautiful and really cool (weather wise) because its on the top of the Makonde Plateau. It was my first time visiting Newala and Jesse showed us some really breathtaking views. I was even able to see the river that divides Tanzania and Mozambique! We had dinner with some Baptist missionaries that live in town and know Jesse. They had a super phenomenal and truly American home. We had chili hot dogs and lemonade and even dessert! There was ketchup and mustard. We ate ravenously! It was awesome. We did manage to stay up until past midnight, but fell fast asleep after that because we're all so used to sleeping early (I sleep at 9:30pm).

So I am doing okay overall. I finally got a bed for my house! I've had some ups and downs but am trying to keep going still! I'm still not entirely used to my village or my neighbors nor has my novelty worn off yet. Everyday I have people in my house just there to observe me as I do regular stuff like washing dishes, sweeping my floor, writing letters... I sort of feel like a circus animal at times and it can get annoying when I just want privacy, but I've sort of gotten used to it. I haven't started work yet but have a meeting with the primary school teachers this week. I hope to start training them soon and teaching them to incorporate HIV/AIDS lessons into their biology and science courses. Also, I hope to start working with patients and mamas at the nearby hospital.

Well, have to run. Internet time almost up. Miss you all as usual! Thanks for keeping me in your thoughts. Love you much!

Happy Holidays!!!

2004-12-24T15:41:00.000+03:00

Happy Holidays! It's Christmas Eve and I'm in town with some Peace Corps friends. Hopefully we'll have a nice holiday complete with fab food and such!

I miss you all and I'm slowly getting adjusted to my site. Still don't have furniture, but am getting really friendly with the neighborhood kids. I've played hopscotch and Frisbee and Tic Tac Toe and coloring with them. My supervisor's family has a really cute pet monkey that I love watching! She's really super smart and lots of fun to play with. I hope to be able to take her for walks around the village soon! Her name's Mgiwa.

Haven't done this in a while, but Kiswahili phrase of the entry: Crismasi ya Furaha (Merry Christmas!)

All By Myself.....

2004-12-18T14:48:00.000+03:00

So I was at my new home, my site, for five days before I came back into town to see other volunteers and buy some things for my house. So here I am. The past week has been a little crazy and overwhelming. What can I say about my house? It has a living room and two bedrooms. It has an outdoor bathroom, toilet, and kitchen. It is connected to another house. I have a lot of privacy in my outdoor backyard area because its enclosed in a cement wall. I was so excited about the running water in my backyard, but then I realized that its brown! I need to get started on filtering and boiling it.

I have spent the past week meeting many many people and signing many many guestbooks at the various surrounding villages. I have been trying to get used to living on my own. It has so far been a bit difficult, but I am trying not to give up! My village is rather tiny, with very very little food sold and not too much of a market at all. I had no idea how rich Morogoro (where I did my training) was in comparison! I feel like every new place I go to in Tanzania gets more and more rural!

Today I found out that one of the volunteers that I had become closest with during training, my friend Sara, is going back home to the States. I was really upset when I talked to her today but I know that she is making the best decision for herself. I have had many thoughts about going home, but I feel right now like the benefits of me staying here for two years will outweigh the benefits that I can look forward to if I were to go home right now (mainly superficial things like food and clean water and a high level of comfort and familiarity). I also know that the first few months are supposed to be the roughest. I feel like I have a really great support system down here in the South because there are a bunch of us volunteers, so I hope that I'll be able to make it. I also have this phenomenal list of reasons why I shouldn't go home that my friend here made for me and I refer to it often! :)

I'm going to spend Christmas here in town Masasi with a few other volunteers. I really miss Christmas in New York! I hope everyone is doing fabulously and for those of you going home from CU, enjoy break!! Miss you all! Hugs and kisses!

New Address!

2004-12-11T16:18:00.000+03:00

So it is Saturday. I have finally arrived in Masasi town (the closest big town to my little village). I have been here for a few days with two members of my training group - Josh and Erica. Josh lives in town so we've been staying at his house. Erica and I have not seen our villages or our homes yet! I don't know if I feel crazy or anxious or excited or what not. But all will be resolved tomorrow when I depart from my friends and embark on a new life. One member of our group has already left to go home to America. She was at her site for two or three days, I think. I don't know the exact reasons but it makes me terribly sad. It's so funny how much I have become attached to people here. I really miss some of the other people in my training group that are really really crazy far right now. I feel so isolated down here in the south.

In any case, I have a new postal box. The address is below. It has been recommended that anything that is sent to me should be less than four pounds and in a padded envelope. Apparently those items get here fastest. Letters are also much appreciated, even if its a small note! Giant packages stay at Mtwara, where I have to go 6 or 7 hours by bus to pick it up. It's funny how my idea of traveling has changed since coming here. I have heard of people taking 40 hour bus or train rides from one part of Tanzania to another, so I guess 7 hours is nothing. In any case, I hope everyone is doing well. I miss you all! I wish I could say more about my new place and such, but all is unknown for now. I think I'll be back on this in a week or so, so feel free to check then!

Michelle Choy
Peace Corps Volunteer
PO Box 531
Masasi, Tanzania
AFRICA

More News from the South

2004-12-07T17:07:00.000+03:00

Wow, I feel like I'm in America. Two days in a row doing internet! I'm really glad that this town has internet, because the south is notoriously known for being a little behind the rest of Tanzania. There are only two internet cafes here, but even thats a whole lot more than I expected. I'm currently paying about 500 shillings per hour, which is less than 50 cents. It's a little bit less for a soda. So basically I'm in Mtwara town right now. My little village is about 6 hours away and the closest town to me is called Masasi. That's where I will be doing my banking and mail. I haven't yet gone there and opened a mail box but as soon as I do, I'll let ya'll know my address.

In any case, I really like it down here so far. When I was at Morogoro for my training and homestay, I had NO IDEA how lucky I was. The city of Morogoro is HUGE compared to Mtwara down here. Morogoro had a number of internet cafes and many many stores that sold more "Western" items like cheese and juice. One has to look pretty hard to find things like that here and they are way more expensive since they have to be trucked or flown down here. The other thing about being down here is that its wiggity hot. My village is supposedly a little bit cooler, so I'm looking forward to not sweating at 7am. I bet its pretty cold at home right now, and sometimes I feel like I would kill to be in cold weather. There are parts of Tanzania that are cold. For example, I have a few friends whose sites are right by Mount Kilimanjaro! I have these great dreams of climbing Mt. Kili. We'll see if it actually happens. It's not uncommon for volunteers to do it, and I've met many who have, so we'll see!

Sorry for being all strange and random and ranty, but just wanted to talk about how much I feel like I have changed since coming here. Peace Corps Volunteers love talking about it. For example, our standards have most definitely changed. It's no longer necessary for us to have running water or even electricity at our hotels. The one we are staying at right now have TV in the lounge and one English speaking channel (BBC News) and we think its the most amazing thing. Today, I finally found a store that sold these lightbulbs that I've been looking for and to me, that was a huge accomplishment for the day. I was also at the market today and bought this really beautiful cloth from Mozambique. I think I'm going to make a skirt and top out of it.

It's funny to me to think about what its going to be like when I finally return home in two years and how different I will find others to be and how different I myself will be. I've always heard about how difficult it is to explain to people at home what one's Peace Corps experience was like because nobody can really ever understand. I guess we'll see in two years' time, huh? In any case, if you are bored, I leave you with the following websites of two friends of mine here,

www.courtenayinafrica.com (fellow trainee and friend Courtenay)
www.froboy.org (first year volunteer Avi)

More definitely exist, but these are the ones I know off hand.
Anywho, I think thats all for now. I recently heard a little story for the origin of the Kiswahili word "mzungu," which means European, but is really used for anyone who is not Tanzanian and is frequently shouted to us as we walk past little children in the streets. So "kizunguzungu" means dizzy or head spinning, basically, and it is theorized that "mzungu" was the term used to describe the first European who reached here because he traveled around the globe or Africa, or something. Not such a great story, I guess.

Well, miss and love you all! Enjoy the cold weather and fabulous holidy season for me! It just doesn't feel like Christmas when its so very hot out!

Deep and Dirty South

2004-12-06T10:47:00.000+03:00

So I arrived safely down south! On Thursday December 2, we had our swearing in ceremony. It was held at Morogoro Teacher's Training College. It was pretty nice. A lot of officials came and all the trainees (now officially volunteers!) were dressed in their best outfits (a lot of us had Tanzanian clothing on!). There was someone from the American Embassy there and such. We sang anthems, said speeches, and ate really awesome food. Our training group said some pretty sad good byes to one another. Then I went home and did massive packing. I had arrived at my homestay with three bags and left with four. Peace Corps has given us so so much stuff, but mostly books and resource materials.

Friday morning I said good bye to my homestay family. It wasn't a big crazy cry fest. I really liked them, but never really got to know them, so I don't think I'm going to miss them too too much. I did really like one of my sisters, but she was busy with school and not around too much so I didn't see her often. About 15 of us left Morogoro on a Peace Corps hired bus with all of luggage (tremendous amounts of it) and we drove to Dar es Salaam (2.5 hours away). There, we went to the Peace Corps Headquarters Office to pick up some cash and our plane tickets. We spent the rest of the day hanging out at the Headquarters and organizing our stuff. Then we hung out around the hotel and had fun eating and drinking.

Saturday morning we boarded a plane in Dar and flew for 55 minutes to Mtwara Airport in Southern Tanzania. It was great! I had never appreciated airplane food and air conditioning so much. I sat next to one of my favorite people, Tony, and we talked about our fears and anxieties and tried to remember the really awesome reasons why we were thousands of miles away from our homes and family and friends.

Since arriving down south in Mtwara town, we've stayed in two hotels and moved our luggage around way too many times! I'm here until Thursday. All of our supervisors (heads of schools and hospitals) are here on a Peace Corps conference to introduce to them what we will be doing down here in regards to HIV/AIDS prevention. I will leave for my village Nagaga on Thursday morning. I'm so excited to see my house! Oh, and to clarify, I WILL be living alone! All Peace Corps volunteers live alone in their own house (some of us have practically mansions with four bedrooms!) and there is usually only one Peace Corps Volunteer to a village. I am excited but scared to be living by myself, but hopefully my supervisors will help me out a lot in the beginning and hopefully I will be living near really nice mamas who will take care of me when I'm just starting to learn how to cook with kerosene and charcoal. I'm not entirely disappointed by my lack of electricity. It would have been nice, but my homestay was without it, so I've begun to get used to it. I will take my phone and batteries to be charged at my friend Josh's place in town.

Anywho, I hope everyone is doing fabulously well. Send emails so I know all about your exciting lives back home! Love and miss you all!

Kiswahili words of the entry (courtesy of The Lion King): rafiki (friend), simba (lion), hakuna matata (don't have worries - but its not really used that much here, hamna shida is a more proper way of saying it)

Site Announcements!

2004-11-27T14:19:00.000+03:00

Sorry to all who received my mass email. Below is the just a copy of part of it. There's some new stuff at the bottom!

So anyway, I've been really super busy as it is near the end of
training! I can hardly believe it. Next week at this time, I'll be
down south!! So on Saturday the 20th, we had this huge ceremonial
thing to tell us all where we will be stationed for the next two
years. It was terribly nerve wrecking. I was not so much anxious
about my exact location, but more nervous about who I would or would
not be close to. The way that it worked was like this: they had us
all sit outside underneath a tent and there was a giant board in the
front with a giant map of Tanzania with photos of current volunteers
close to their location in the country. There were blank spots for us
to stick photos of ourselves. One person went up to the board, picked
a random blank spot and one of our supervisors read out a description
of that site. When the description was finished, they said "and this
site goes to......." Then that person got to pick another blank spot
and have THAT site description read.

It was all pretty crazy and exciting at the same time. We are all
spread throughout the country with many health people clustered down
south, where I am going! I was the last health person to find out
his/her site. But all is good. Below is the description of my site:

Nagaga is about 20 km from Chiungutwa on the Newala road. The health
center in Nagaga was recently renovated. Near the health center are
staff houses and the PCV house. The PCV house has no electricity, two
bedrooms, and a living room. The kitchen, toilet, and storage room
are behind the main house but are enclosed with a cemented wall to
create a very nice private space. Running water is available here.
The local market doesn't have much to offer, but you will soon learn
to keep your eyes and ears open for people selling things as they pass
by your house. This is how most the locals get the food they do not
grow themselves. There are about 6 buses a day going to Masasi or
Newala though, both of which are towns where you will be able to find
anything else you need when you go into town for the postal and bank.
You will have a Health PCV at Chiugutwa 20 km down from the road and
an Education PCV in Newala, 20 km up the Makonde Plateau. It's a
killer of a bike ride up, but an exhilarating hour and a half bike
ride down. This is one ride you will be extremely glad to have that
PC regulation helmet for! Besides the health center there is a
primary school and a youth center. The youth center was initiated by
UNICEF, but depends on community initiative to run well. Seven km
away is Ndwika Secondary School. You will find the staff there to be
very cooperative and if you ask nicely, they will most likely be more
than willing to give you a lift to town in the school car.

So there is is. A preview of where I will be living for the next 2
years (hopefully I won't leave early!!!). I don't know how I feel. I
am excited to be down south with 7 or so other health volunteers, but
at the same time, some other trainees that I have become very close to
are really far from me. Two of my closest friends, Sara and Brian,
are working for a non governmental organization by Lake Victoria (all
the way north) and I'm so far down south I'm practically in Peace
Corps Mozambique! I am writing this on Saturday. Peace Corps is
flying us from Dar es Salaam down to Mtwara in the South this coming
Friday. I'm so nervous to be in a house by myself and have to do
cooking and buying things for my house (no IKEA here!),and getting to
know my village. There isn't much structure in my job, so it will be
difficult.
------------end of email, start of new-----------

So I don't have much time left and I don't know when else I'll be able to use internet again, so I'm just going to rant senselessly. Basically, I'm in a weird and bad mood. Not sure why. I think its a whole host of things, and mostly being the fact that I feel so weird having spent so much time the past 9 weeks with this large group of truly fantastic people and now we are all getting separated and put in villages all by our lonesome selves. It will work out. I know that it will. And talking to current volunteers gives me the ability to say that. I'm just nervous,I guess. And plus, I didn't come to Peace Corps to meet other Americans, right?? Sometimes I feel like I'm in some weird sociological experiment where they test our ability to cope with change. I'm still adjusting, I think, and there are honestly days where I STILL can't believe that I'm here in Sub-Saharan Africa doing Peace Corps. What else is bugging me? I don't know how I'm getting all my stuff down south! I know I'm flying, but since coming to homestay 9 weeks ago, I have accumulated A LOT of junk (mostly stuff from Peace Corps, like books and resource materials and what not). What about my other stuff?

And this past week, we spent three days in Dar es Salaam. It was a truly weird experience. Jumping from small town village to the big city was a big deal (surprising coming from me, huh?) and it was good but a lot of over stimulation, I think. I had a fabulous food time and ate truly fantastic Chinese food (even better than some stuff I've had at home!). Dar was crazy, and I don't have much time to say more about it now.

I don't know when I'll next have internet, but hopefully soon! Love and miss you all!!

Things That Make Me :) In Tanzania

2004-11-07T15:25:00.000+03:00

Because I like making lists,

Food wise:
tasty chicken
peas for dinner
fresh hot milk with sugar
good bread from Mzumbe University for breakfast
buying juice and Pringles in town
rice versus ugali (corn flour meal thingie) for dinner
cold soda (fav one now is Sprite)
pilipili kali (hot pepper)

Random:
lots of warm water in my shower bucket in the morning
nice smelling bath soap
successfully washing red dirt out of white socks
drying my clothes in less than a day outside in the hot sun
rain! (cooler and less dusty but makes roads really muddy and gross)
internet sessions in town
clear sky at night where I can see trillions of bright stars
seeing the whole training group (now down to 37 of us...)
waking up without new bug bites
text messages - sending and receiving
listening to my CD player and dancing funny by myself in my room
getting mail
no birds or bats in my outdoor bathroom when I go to use it!
a clean and not stinky kerosene lamp
cool breeze at night into my room
getting a good seat on the daladala (public bus of sorts)
wearing my one skirt that has pockets

So I found out that I'm traveling to Dumila to shadow a first year Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) named Rich. I'm going with a good friend of mine Sara. I'm pretty excited, but a little bummed that Rich's site is only an hour away from town. Some people are traveling way west or south several hours by bus. I was really hoping that I would be able to see another region of the country. In any case, I think that it will be loads of fun and I will be able to see a PCV "in action" and see how they teach, handle situations, interact with their community, etc.

So I just wanted to write something about the transportation here so far. My village Changarawe is pretty far out in the boonies so Peace Corps often drives us whenever we have to be at sessions in town or have to go to our nearest village to meet up with another group for technical lessons. It's nice being chauffered around, but not nice living so far out from the other trainees. In order for us to get into town from our village, we have to take this public bus (really a minivan of sorts) called a daladala. They are really really really crowded and I never get on one unless there is a seat. It is a truly interesting and can be kind of scary experience. They usually have about 16-20 seats but I've been on dalas that fit 35 or more!!! It's crazy how many people stand and hang out of doors and etc. In any case, I have to run! But as always, miss you all very much!

Kiswahili word of the entry: pikipiki (motorcycle)

I Hate Titles

2004-11-04T16:03:00.000+03:00

So its two days post election. Last night at my homestay my baba was listening to Tanzanian radio and though I could not understand it all, I did already learn the verbs to "fail" and "succeed" in Kiswahili so I was able to get a general gist of the situation. I had also earlier that day been able to watch a little bit of coverage at my friend's house (she has satellite TV at her homestay so we were able to watch some BBC and some other random Indian News Channel). It was funny because my friend Tony was commenting how the US would never cover any other countries' elections with such vigor, insanity, in depth-itude and intensity (those were his exact words....). Anyway, in case anyone was wondering, I did vote by absentee ballot and was able to receive it in time and send it back. Not that it helped much because NY basically went to Kerry. Alas.

Eh, things are going okay. Still miss food, still miss flushing toilets. I taught some students today a lesson on goals and they are going to be peer educators and teach to their class tomorrow. It went way more well than I thought. Next week, all the health trainees are going to visit a current Peace Corps Volunteer in Tanzania for four days to check out how they live and their communities. I'm super excited to spend some time away from my village and my homestay, but I don't know yet where I'll be going. Saturday I'll find out.

Miss you all!
Kiswahili word of the entry: lala fofofo (sleep like a log)

African Safari

2004-10-31T15:16:00.000+03:00

How could a trip to Africa be complete without a safari? So I just got back from Mikumi National Park and am in Morogoro town doing internet. I left my homestay on Saturday morning and stayed overnight and got here in town early afternoon. It was really interesting but not at all what I expected. I saw animals, yes, but they were few and far between! It logically makes sense because they all occupy different habitats and such, but they were so difficult to look for. And we spent many hours just randomly driving around in a large bus - which was boring. So we went as an entire training group of 40 as a Peace Corps trip and was driven there using two buses. We stayed in those buses for the safari because I guess its the easiest way to do things as opposed to riding around in multiple four by four Jeeps or whatnot. So what did I see? Giraffes (!!!!), wart hogs, many birds, mpalas, lions (!!!), zebras, crocodiles, hippos, and monkeys. Wow, writing all that out makes it sound really crazy cool. I guess it was. I'm just in a bit of a downer mood because last week was pretty stressful and I don't think I did so well on my Kiswahili Oral Exam. And this coming week is going to be nuts too. Also, the hotel we stayed in this weekend had a lot of problems and a few trainees got sick, so things are just a bit haphazard right now.

But we are halfway through with training!!! Only five more weeks to go. This coming week is going to be focused on us practicing how to train peer educators to do work with elementary school students. I feel pretty overwhelmed right now, but am trying not to think about it too much. The week after that we get to pair up with another health trainee and visit an existing health volunteer in Tanzania for four days! I'm really really excited about that because I will get the chance to spend time with another trainee and will also get to see how life is like as a volunteer. We will be doing shadowing activities such as going to their schools and watching them give presentations to their village.

So more about what exactly I'm going to be doing here. It has really only been made clearly to me recently. We are the first health group of trainees/volunteers in Tanzania that will be doing health only (the other groups from before used to do health part time and teach science part time). Basically, my understanding is that we will do whatever works for our village. During training right now, we are being taught a number of skills that we may or may not use. These include peer education; creation of health clubs at our neighborhood schools; outreach to out of school youth, mamas, etc; and working with nearby non governmental organizations. It's all very very intimidating right now and whenever we have current volunteers come speak to us, it sounds like they do so so much! So I'm feeling overwhelmed. I know things will be fine, but it all sounds so difficult!!

Bye for now! My time is almost up! As always, I miss you all very much!

Kiswahili word of the entry: wowowo (big butt)

Packing List and Etc

2004-10-26T10:15:00.000+03:00

It seems silly that I would be including a packing list now, but it is really for the benefit of future potential Peace Corps volunteers. So here goes a list of things that I could not live without in Tanzania:

long skirts (must be below the knee; solid color ones are best)
blouses
good supply of socks and underwear
closed toe shoes
soap, shampoo (it is available here but the quality is not the same)
chapstick
flashlight
CD player and music
Nalgene bottles (liter, half liter; try to put things in them when packing in suitcase)
stationery and envelopes
good notebooks and writing instruments (I'm obsessed with such items but they are not absolutely necessary)
fleece blanket
battery charger and rechargeable batteries
diary (old ones and new ones)
Ziploc bags
Tevas / Chacos

I obviously brought other things with me, but the above I feel are most crucial. The packing list Peace Corps provides is quite extensive. Not everything is necessary.

Things other people added to the list:

deodorant
lotion
watch
tampons (PC provides some)
hat
sunscreen (PC also provides)

I should NOT have brought so many long sleeved and winter like clothing items. It is crazy hot here in Tanzania and to think that this is only the start of the hot season.

So to continue with observations and what not:

Illness: Malaria and malaria related diseases are among the top illnesses in Tanzania. Peace Corps volunteers need to take weekly (Larium) or daily (Doxycyclin) prophylaxis pills. We are strongly encouraged to wear bug spray (DEET) and use our mosquito nets at night. Malaria is easily treatable with Malarone and usually goes away in a few days if it is detected early and treated. Each Peace Corps volunteer gets a first aid kit with everything from Benedryl to sunscreen to Gatorade to Tempa-Dots to condoms.

Time: Many people do not wear watches here and my mama tells me that Tanzanians sometimes tell time from the position of the sun. Therefore, lateness is common for certain types of events and waiting on someone for one or more hours is fairly normal and acceptable.

Relationships: This is obviously a topic that is extensive, but really briefly - it is not common to see women and men walking down the street holding hands but homosexuality is illegal. The concept of having friends of the opposite sex is unusual here and it is not really acceptable for two people of the opposite sex to be alone in a room together.

That's kinda all for now. I'm gonna give my computer over to my friend Tony. I developed some pictures in town this week! There were some from my Bon Voyage party at Shalel. They were so cute! I miss you guys! I also had my first practice teaching lesson to two high school classes yesterday and today. They went okay. High school in Tanzania is thankfully taught mostly if not all in English so I didn't have to use my meager Kiswahili skills. Speaking of which, I have a written exam tomorrow and an oral exam on Friday that is scaring me and my fellow trainees in my village. This week is tough. But this weekend, the whole Peace Corps group of trainees is going to Mikumi national park on a safari! Can't wait to see elephants (tumbo) and giraffes (twiga)!!! I will definitely take pictures!

Kiswahili words of the entry: kichefuchefu (nauseous) and kizunguzungu (dizzy)

Randomness

2004-10-23T12:19:00.000+03:00

So some people have asked about sending me care packages. Whee!! So a few things first. It takes packages around 3 weeks or more to arrive. I will only be at the below address until Decemeber 3. I will have another, more permanent address in Novemeber when I find out where I'll be for the next two years. Packages are expensive to send! So please don't feel like you need to!!! I will still love you all, regardless. :) If you do decide to send a package though, please try to take everything out of their packaging as much as possible to minimize the weight and etc. Ziploc bags are super useful for such things! Letters only take a week and cost about $0.80 though (wink, wink!) So my address again, is:

Michelle Choy, PCT
Peace Corps Tanzania
PO Box 9123
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
AFRICA

Ideas for things in a care package:
hard candy
breath mints/gum
granola bars
photographs
Pringles or other chips
cookies
powdered mix drinks (Nestea, Kool Aid, etc)
old books, magazines, clippings from newspapers or magazines
Purrell!
tissues
mix CDs of oldies but goodies or new stuff! (I have a MP3 CD player so you can burn up to like 150 or 200 MP3s on one CD as a data CD instead of an audio CD!!)
freezer quality Ziploc bags (sandwich and larger) - very useful!

I'm doing okay right now. Not having such a fantastic week. They say that Peace Corps is a roller coaster experience. I am at a down point right now, missing friends and family more than ever. Its hard because I used to go to friends a lot when I was stressed and though I have friends here, its not the same and I have only known these lovely people for a month, so they don't know me quite as well. I miss you all!! They say that training is the hardest part of Peace Corps. It's also hard because right now I don't feel like an individual or a free adult. Our daily lives are scheduled so tightly and everything we do feels monitored. We get very little free time and we don't get to see each other much outside of the other trainees in our village. I think that as Americans, we are just used to being able to do pretty much anything that we want to do, and when we want to do it. Not so here. Hopefully, things will be much more different when I get to my site. My site announcement is Novemeber 20. It is also the exact same day as a wedding in my family of my oldest sister!! I'm not really sure what to do yet. It would be so so awesome to go to a Tanzanian wedding, especially when it's my family's. And the wedding is going to be in the exciting fabulous city of Dar es Salaam (about three hours from me and where the Peace Corps Headquarters is). Site announcement is so exciting though because I want to know where me and the others in my group are going to be in the country and I would like to see who is going to be close to me.

The ironies of life do not escape me in Tanzania. Despite not having either electricity or running water, I have a cell phone!!! How crazy, huh? Just when I thought I'd leave all that behind me in the States. I think my phone here is actually a little nicer than the one I had in the US, haha. It's super expensive to call home (about $4 a minute) so I'm sorry that I won't be calling much or any at all. My family at home is trying to look for cheapo African calling cards to call me and I've heard that its about $0.30 a minute (way cheaper!). My phone number is in my signature at the end of my Gmail emails, so if you really want to know it, guess you're gonna have to email me! I mostly use my cell phone now to text the other volunteers. It is way cheaper than calling and since service around here can be spotty, its pretty useful. I'm getting better and better at texting everyday! The way that the phones here work is cooler than in the States, I think. You buy a cell phone for a flat rate (mine was $100) and then buy these prepaid debit cards with PIN numbers that you input into your phone. When you text or make calls, it deducts the money. You can check your remaining balance easily. Pretty cool and definitely a much better system of dealing with phones here in Tanzania.

A couple of observations on random things and these will continue in future entries:

Money: The exchange rate is around $1 for 1,600 Tanzania shillings. Soda here costs about 250 shillings per glass bottle. It's pretty strange to deal with thousands of shillings and it seems like so much! But its not! One can easily get a meal (rice, beans, chicken, veggies, drink) for less than 2,000 shillings.

Clothing: Tanzanians are pretty "formal" in their clothing, especially for us Peace Corps peeps because we will be teachers and educators. Women here must wear skirts that hit below the knee! This is especially important in villages. Shirts that we wear are conservative, long or short sleeved button downs or solid color t-shirts. Tanzanians wear wrap skirts and wrap or blouse tops and men and women are always very neat and clean in their clothing. It is a sign of respect to others. People here wash and iron on a regular basis! I have therefore not had many opportunities to wear pants or t-shirts and I feel so different from my American self sometimes because of it!

Religion: Many people here are Christian or Muslim. My mama tells me that there is an almost 50/50 split with the exception that the island of Zanzibar is almost 99.9% Muslim. Church or mosque going is a pretty big deal here and I went to church with my mama two weeks ago! It was a really interesting experience. My mama is Roman Catholic and my baba is Lutheran. Apparently though, religious differences are not a huge source of conflict here and intermarriage is quite common.

Drinks: Water here MUST be boiled before drinking! I take Nalgene bottles full of water with me or get bottled water or drink soda. Surprisingly, there are Pepsi and Coke products galore here!!! I was so surprised when I first saw it. There's also a lot of Fanta here and I've taken a liking to Fanta Passion and Fanta Orange. But soda usually must be downed near the store or at the restaurant because they are in glass bottles that the establishments must return to be refilled. You can take bottles home if you leave a deposit, I think. Other things that people drink here are: tea, coffee, and boiled milk (fresh at my house!). I really really miss cold drinks of: milk, juice, and iced tea!

Thats all for now! Gotta run. Kiswahili word of the entry is maziwa (ma-ZEE-wa), which means either milk, breasts, or lake, depending on the context!

Life on $4 a Day

2004-10-14T15:15:00.000+03:00

I am feeling much much better now and have decided that a great way to tell people about my life here is to write down a typical day. So here goes!

About 3 or 4am the roosters at my house start crowing awfully loudly and I usually wake up and am able to sleep until about 6am when my family get up and there is hustle and bustle about. I get out of my bed around 6:30am and then mix cold water with boiling hot water in a bucket to brush my teeth and take a "bucket shower" in a cement block inside my house. The shower is also next to our indoor pit latrine so I try to take the fastest showers ever and get out quickly. The smell is not usually too pleasant. I have breakfast around 7:15am and usually eat a fried egg, bread with some butter, and drink fresh boiled milk. Fresh milk is so yummy! I leave my house around 7:40 to walk to school. It is around a 10 to 15 minute walk depending on how many people I meet and greet (one does that a lot in Tanzanian villages. Its shikamoo! to elders and mambo! to others).

I have school from 8am to 5pm and we usually do language lessons in the morning in our little group of the 4 of us in my village (4 students!! I never even had that at Barnard!). We break for tea around 10:30am and we usually have an activity where we walk around our community or go visit our nearest Peace Corps volunteers for a group technical (health related because I am a health volunteer) session. We eat lunch in school around 1:30 and its usually rice with beans and spinach or some sort of grey, unidentified meat. In the afternoon we review our Kiswahili lessons and talk about our visit to town or get a cross cultural informational session.

We leave school around 5pm and have recently gotten into the habit of stopping by our fellow classmate and trainee Allison's homestay to hang out. Her place is so nice! Her family has three cars, the only flush toilet in the village, satellite TV, electricity, and even their own driver! Alli gets a sitting room AND a bedroom! Whenever we go there, we are welcomed and given cold sodas. :) It gets dark starting around 6pm so thats when wwe start heading back to our own places.

When I get home, I usually clean my room or do laundry (by hand!!) or write while there is still a little bit of light out. It is completely pitch black by 7pm. Dinner at my house is usually around 8 or 8:30 and for dinner, we almost inevitably have rice, beans, spinach, oranges, bananas (which Tanzanians eat like a veggie more than a fruit) and meat once or so a week. I am sad to say that I miss FOOD the most. I think about the wide variety of food I had or could have had while in the States and literally lie in bed or in class daydreaming about fooooood.

After dinner, I will sit in the living room and talk, study, or listen to the radio with my family. They speak English but like to hear about my Kiswahili lessons of the day and we help each other out. I usually retire to my bedroom around 9:30 or so and go do more homework, write letters, write in my diary, or listen to music before sleeping at around 10:30 or so. And I absolutely need to put bug spray and my mosquito net over my bed before sleeping.

That is basically my day! We get together in our large group of 39 once or twice a week and we are always pretty excited to see everyone else. I really love my little group of 4 in my village. Their names are Alli, Tony, and Cathy. Alli and Tony are around my age and recently graduated. Alli's from New Mexico and Tony's from Alabama. Cathy is a bit older, in her forties, and is from Tennessee. We all joke around a lot in class and we crack our Kiswahili teacher up. Alli and I like making lists a lot. Below is a list of things that I miss:

ice cream
cold milk
NYTimes, especially Sunday
cereal
hot, long showers
street lamps
wearing pants
wearing flip flops out
bug free beds
antibacterial soap
garbage cans
MTA transit in all its glorious forms
paved roads
FOOOOOOOOOD (steak, chicken, Korean, Japanese, Thai, noodles........)
regular use of internet (esp email) and computer
flushing toilets
going outdoors at night
American pop radio
shopping malls and Target!
desserts of all kinds
Chinese bakery goods
bubbletea
nice mattresses
movie theatres
slushy drinks at movie theatres
NY neighborhoods: Upper West Side, Chinatown, SoHo esp

Things that other people in my group miss:
kissing
painting toenails
tank tops
shorts
Flintstones vitamins
chocolate
TV shows
lounging on couches
USA Today
processed food
football and beer
chips and salsa
buffalo wings
hot potato chips
crinkle cut fries with seasonings
Will and Grace
English!!
air conditioning
lots of clothes
going out dancing
MTV
angelfood cake
TV at night
boneless meat
tucking siblings into bed
my church
talking on the phone
driving
cheese
going for walks
my dogs
millkshakes
McDonalds
Wendy's frosties
knowing my surroundings
apples
strawberries
looking pretty
contacts
blue jeans
butter
smelling good
people not staring at us
easily responding to questions
swimming
drains
ice tea!
mayo

And the Kiswahili word of the day? Kiti moto (pork)

Malaria is a Very Bad Sick

2004-10-10T16:24:00.000+03:00

Two weeks into my Tanzanian adventure, I receive the fabulous distinction of being the first one in my group to get malaria. I am currently on day three and feeling not fabulous but certainly not as horrible as I felt yesterday or the day before. Malaria sucks!!! It is the leading cause of death among Tanzanian adults mostly because it is so prevalent, it goes unchecked, and people can't afford preventive pills. I have been diligent about taking my prophylaxis every week, but I was bitten so much when I first got here that I jokingly told people I would get malaria. Then I started feeling really bad Thursday night. I had all the symptoms of the flu and I thought it might be side effects from the prophylaxis but they took me to the hospital and took a blood test. It was malaria. Craziness!! I didn't think it was possible. So I was taken out of my host family and put up in the training center. I have pretty much been on a liquid diet and sleeping A LOT. I'm feeling MUCH BETTER now, so no worries. I just miss American food and nice toilets and warm showers. And maybe chicken soup. All that good stuff that you get when you're sick. I know I will be fantastic in a few days. Will update everyone then! Miss you all so so much!

Homestay Experiences!

2004-10-01T16:41:00.000+03:00

I can't believe that I'm here and that I'm so far away from everyone! I'm currently in a computer lab at Mzumbe University. I am living with my homestay family now in Changarawe. What to say? It is incredibly HOT. And this is just the start of the summer season here. They say that Tanzanians don't even get used to the heat....

My family is really great. I live with a mama and baba and two sisters but one of them is going to go back to school soon. They live on a farm facing beautiful mountains and I have never seen so many animals in my entire life: chickens, roosters (that crow starting at 3am), cows, goats, sheep, and dogs. They grow mangos, bananas, rice, and oranges. My family doesn't have electricity or running water so things are different to say the least. I've been here for just about a week and am only slowly getting used to kerosene lamps, bucket showers and hole in the ground toilets. I feel really awkward and my Kiswahili is coming around slowly but I am NOT SICK! They always scare you about getting sick when you first arrive at a country, but things have been good so far!

I miss the States a lot. It's all the little things: ice cream, air conditioning, running water, being able to go out at night, TV, etc. It's really hard now because its the beginning, but I know it will get better as I get more adjusted.

I am right now in an intensive 10 week training session. There are 41 of us in our entire group and we have been separated into little groups of 4 in separate villages. We get together as a giant group around once a week. I have already met some really incredible people and I really like the Peace Corps trainees in my village group. We walk around the village greeting people and sometimes people respond well and sometimes they are amused and run away.

I think that's all for now! Time to read some emails. Miss you all!!

Start of Training

2004-09-21T06:50:00.000+03:00

Today was the start of training in DC. It was pretty cool. I was pretty tired because I had spent the whole night before awake and packing. But I met really awesome people and I'm beginning to get become truly excited. There are 40 something of us and I'm staying at the Washington Plaza, which is really pretty nice. Anywho, below please find my mailing address for my first three months in Tanzania starting on Thursday, Sept 23.

Michelle, PCT
Peace Corps Training Site
PO Box 9123
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

I'm feeling like I'm in some sort of extended dream or false reality. I'm sure I'll be hit with reality soon enough tho!

Michelle in Tanzania!

2004-09-16T18:24:00.000+03:00

Tuesday afternoon I received a call from the Peace Corps asking if I would be able/willing to leave on Monday, September 20th if a position opened up. They didn't tell me details other than that it might be a tropical location and I might be leaving on Monday.

Wednesday afternoon I received a call confirming the availability of a health education position leaving on Monday to go to Africa - Tanzania to be specific. After speaking with her for a few minutes about the country and the position and discovering that I may not be able to get another assignment until January (!!!), I accepted the placement on the spot.

I was shortly sent (via email) a job description and a link to the Tanzanian VISA form. Today I received my country book by FedEx.

This is all happening way too fast! This is such a big mental change for me. For six weeks, I dreamed of Nepal and traveling around Asia and Southeast Asia. I read up as much as I could about the country and Peace Corps Volunteers' experiences there. I now have a new country and continent to adjust to and I have new things to purchase. Luckily, many of the items I had for Nepal are still applicable to Tanzania.

Travelwise, I will be leaving Monday morning at 10AM to fly out of LaGuardia to go to Washington, DC (Candace I want to meet up!) for a few days to attend a mini orientation and receive my immunizations. Then I will be headed to Tanzania!

Tanzania is on the southeastern coast of Africa. Some key highlights of the country include the Serengheti desert, the lovely island of Zanzibar, and Mount Kilimanjaro. It is also bordered on the east by the Indian Ocean. The official languages of the country are English and Swahili (which I will definitely have to learn) and the major religions are Christianity and Islam. Being below the equator, I will be experiencing seasons opposite to what I'm so used to! Their basic "seasons" are hot, cold, and rainy.

Since I don't know much, briefly what I'll be doing there: most likely teaching in a school doing health education part time and hopefully working with a non profit or non governmental organization the other time or I may have to teach math or science. I will most definitely be living in a village with sporadic water and electricity. I may or may not be close to the Indian Ocean (though I really would love to be!).

I'm not entirely thrilled about leaving so soon. I'm also not necessarily looking forward to teaching children. But I know that this experience will be amazing regardless and that I will love it more than I could ever imagine right now.

I think that that's all for now. I have so much to do before Monday! Friends on campus, I will be coming to visit this weekend!

Nepal No More

2004-09-12T21:37:00.000+03:00

So yes. I am now not going to Nepal at all. I received a call from the Nepal desk at the Peace Corps yesterday telling me that my trip was cancelled entirely. Apparently, two bombs were thrown at a building housing a US information center and Embassy offices in Kathmandu. Good enough reason not to be going, eh?

I was pissed and sad when I first heard but I spoke to some friends and felt a lot better. I mean, safety is incredibly important and goes above and beyond my excitement about going to Nepal for two years and climbing Mount Everest.

Now I wait for a new assignment. I am supposed to hear from my placement officer mid next week. I totally understand that things are crazy now and 33 people must be re-assigned to other parts of the world, but I want to know NOW where I'm going, when I'm leaving, what I'll be doing.

A large part of my current frustration stems from the fact that I feel like my life for the next two years is so completely out of my control and that these crazy life changing decisions are being made FOR me. I don't remember the last time I felt so helpless.

Not leaving just yet...

2004-09-09T05:59:00.000+03:00

SO, today in the afternoon I was eating lunch with my mom in Chinatown and checked my cell phone messages afterwards. Someone from the Peace Corps called me and asked that I return her call as soon as possible. When I did, she told me that my trip to Nepal was going to be POSTPONED until October 4 due to conditions in Kathmandu.

Lately I've been reading up a lot on the political situation in Nepal. The most recent incident happened last week when thousands of Nepalese stormed the streets of Kathmandu burning buildings and stores in protest of 12 Nepalese workers killed by terrorists in Iraq. Since then, the city has been under curfew (though I'm not quite sure that its been lifted yet) and travel advisories warn against going to Nepal at all.

So they thought that it would be a better and smoother transition if we didn't go just yet.... I'm not sure how I feel about this. I was just getting excited about the prospect of leaving and was more or less mentally prepared to go and now this. Time now to decide what to do with the next few weeks.

Four...Three....Two...

2004-09-07T20:46:00.000+03:00

So the countdown has begun. It's all very surreal. I'm not sure I'll be fully aware of the fact that I'm leaving the US until I'm physically in Nepal. I am familiar with this feeling. It's a mental blockade that I put on myself when I am stressed...

Luckily I did a lot of shopping this weekend so that a HUGE portion of my to-do list is now gone. I've seen people put up lists of things they brought with them to the Peace Corps and I'm not sure I'll do that since my list will be rather long, but some big items of purchase include:

-nice sleeping bag (20 degrees AND its only 5' 6" unlike most sleeping bags of 6' or more)
-Scarpa hiking shoes
-good pair of Tevas
-waterproof jacket
-waterproof pants
-good bookbag (that I bought with Steph and Ced and Jenn at Woodbury!!)
-portable speakers (gotta have music!)

Some things I still need to get include knitting supplies and gifts for my Nepalese host families and Peace Corps Volunteers already there.

I miss school!

2004-09-07T07:29:00.000+03:00

I was on campus today and I saw so many people at the block party. It
made me so nostalgic (but what about Barnard doesn't?). I wish I were
back in school. I miss having my friends two floors or two blocks
away. I miss going to classes and meeting new people. I even miss
having meetings and planning events.

When I was IN school, all I did was complain and stress out about the
work, the long hours, the studying, the insanity. I wish I knew back
then how much I would miss it all. Am I ready to be an adult? I guess
I need to learn to move on. Or be less attached. Bleh.

Status on packing? Not there yet...

Preparations and FAQs

2004-09-02T20:28:00.000+03:00

Welcome to my blog! This will hopefully be an up to date chronicle of my Peace Corps adventures in Nepal. Until there are exciting stories to relate, here are some FAQs! :)

When will you be leaving?
My travel plans are as follows:
Sept 11: leave NYC for Seattle where I will have a mini orientation and get immunizations!
Sept 13: leave Seattle for Nepal
Sept 15: two layovers (Tokyo and Bangkok) and 20 something hours later, I arrive in Kathmandu - capital of Nepal

What does the rest of your schedule look like?
Upon arrival in Kathmandu, I will train with the other Peace Corps Volunteers (PCV) for three months. During this time, I will be doing intensive language training in Nepali as well as learning culture, history, and technical skills needed for my job. I will be living with a host family for this time period.
After three months, I will be sent to a yet to be determined destination in Nepal, where I will remain for two years.

What will you be doing there?
I am assigned to Nepal as a Health Educator. I will be doing a whole host of things but mainly I'll be working with non governmental organizations (NGOs) on anything ranging from AIDS/HIV prevention to general sanitation and hygiene to family planning.

How long are you going for?
27 months (three months training plus two full years of service)

Are you coming back to the US during your stay in Nepal?
As much as I am going to miss my friends and family, I don't believe I will be returning home during my two years. I do get vacation days (24 a year) but I am almost certain that I will be using those to travel around India, China, Tibet, Thailand, etc.

Where is Nepal?
From my Peace Corps Welcome to Nepal book, "Nepal is a landlocked country that borders Tibet on the north and India on the west, south and east. Nepal is approximately the same latitude as Florida and is about the same size of Tennessee..." Also check out the official CIA site on Nepal (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/np.html) for a map and more fun facts!

What's the weather like there?
I don't know where exactly I'll be stationed but it will most likely be in the low lying Terai region where they have (again from my trusty Welcome to Nepal guide) "a subtropical climate with three seasons - a hot and dry summer from March to May; a rainy season (monsoon) from June to October..; and a cool winter from November to February.."

What kind of food will you be eating there?
(From guide:) "The traditional diet consists of rice or flatbread, lentil soup, potatoes, and a limited variety of seasonal green vegetables...The main meats are mutton (goat), water buffalo, and chicken."

Are you getting paid?
I will be given a monthly living allowance of approximately 8,300 rupees (approx. $113) as well as a housing allowance of 1,500 to 3,000 rupees and a travel allowance of 2,200 to 3,200 rupees. It doesn't sound like a lot, but it does when you consider that Nepal's average income per capita is $350.

How much stuff can you bring with you?
Less than 100 pounds total, with a combined linear dimension (height+width+length) not exceeding 107 inches. So in short, not a lot of stuff. But I won't have to bring all that much. In all honesty, as of today (Sept 2) I haven't done much packing yet. The PC provided us with a loooong list of suggested items to bring and I've been reading up on web journals of PCV's who were in Nepal for an idea of what are good things to take with me.

Will you have internet?
Hopefully! I don't know where I will be stationed but many of the larger cities have internet cafes and many towns near large cities have internet connections.

Will you have a phone?
I may or may not have a personal phone in my place of living but I will probably have a phone at my workplace. I'll definitely let everyone know that number as soon as I get it! Oh, and my cell phone is going to my sister Millie, in case anyone's wondering!

What is your address there?
My address in Nepal for my entire stay will be:

Michelle PCT/PCV
c/o U.S. Peace Corps
GPO Box 613
Kathmandu, Nepal

Mail is notoriously slow to arrive in Nepal and it will normally take three to four weeks and can sometimes take up to a few months. Please send letters, photos, postcards and other goodies (more on that later! But Ced suggested I create a food package delivery schedule and divide it amongst my friends, haha).

I think thats all for now. If I think of more stuff, I'll letcha'll know! And of course send me questions if you have em!