I live in the foothills of Mt. Rungwe, one of the bigger mountains in
southern Tanzania. A week and a half ago, I climbed it! I went with a
big group of students – between 50 and 100 – last Thursday night. It
gets pretty hot here during the day these days, so someone decided it
was best to start at midnight and hike all night. I wasn't really sure
what to expect, but mountain climbing is my cup of tea so I showed up
at midnight.
I ended up talking with a couple of my students that speak English
really well – Ezekiel and Josephat - about the existence of ghosts,
if the Free Masons are all in on a secret plot to take over the world
(they, like all Tanzanians, are convinced this is very much true),
favorite movies, and my unrequited love for Katy Perry. Our random
conversations actually sort of reminded me of hiking in Boy Scouts
when I was in high school.
So at around 4am, I was informed, for some reason, we were stopping on
the side of the mountain and sleeping for two hours until the sun came
up and then continuing to the top. I still have no idea what, if any,
the rationalization was for that decision. I hadn't gotten the memo
about this sleeping arrangement, so I lay down in a pile of leaves,
propped my feet against a tree so I wouldn't slide down the side of
the slope, and tried to stop shivering and sleep. It was a silly
situation. After finally falling asleep, I was woken by a very, very
strange event. In my half stupor, I thought I heard someone sliding
down the mountain and a bunch of people running. We were very much on
the edge of a steep slope, so what I first thought was someone had
fallen asleep and started sliding, and everyone else started running
after him to make sure he was okay. I didn't actually hear anyone say
anything, just one guy screaming and instantly a bunch of people
running away from me. Very quickly. Like it was maybe 5-10 seconds
between being asleep in a crowd of people to being the only person
within 50 feet of me. Apparently, no one actually started sliding down
the mountain. The guy screaming had a nightmare about zombies, woke
up, started screaming, and ran down the mountain. Everyone else,
without asking why he was running and screaming, just started running
after him. It was so, so strange.
Despite the zombie scare, we successfully made it to the summit a
little after sunrise! It was pretty cool – Mt. Rungwe is volcanic and
you can get right up to the edge of the crater and look down. We
finally made it back to school a little after noon, a little over 12
hours after we left. I slept quite well that night.
What else? I've become a master baker. Well no, that's not true, but
I've attempted baking quite a bit. Today I made chocolate pancakes for
breakfast and some sandwich bread. Just finished a very tasty peanut
butter and banana sandwich! I've also made rolls, soft pretzels,
bagels, and banana bread. I bake on a "Tanzanian oven," a Dutch oven
like setup using charcoal. I have a fireplace, so I can cook inside.
I'm slowly getting the hang of it meaning less burnt bread and less
burnt fingers, which is nice.
In school, I've been trying to do labs (or as they call 'em here,
practicals). I did one yesterday finding the specific heat capacity of
Tanzanian shilling coins (about 400J/kg K, if you were wondering). It
was the first practical I've done that involved anything potentially
dangerous – Bunsen burners. Bunsen burners, for those that don't know,
are those things you hook up to a gas pipe with a flexible hose and
create a little heat source – somewhere between a candle and a
blowtorch. Anyway, I was dumb and didn't do much of a safety talk
besides telling students not to mess with the Bunsen burners. Ah,
mistake. Somehow, a student managed to open one of the gas valves not
attached to a Bunsen burner and light it, creating a three foot flame
thrower. I think I better start doing more serious safety talks.
Okay, bedtime. TTYL.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Sunday, October 7, 2012
I have running water and it’s great. I used to have running water
in my kitchen, but then one day it slowed to a dribble. It only slowed in the
kitchen though. It was strange, but I didn’t really know what to do about it
short of digging up the pipes so I set up a bucket faucet thing and forgot
about it. Fast forward to a couple days ago.
So I come home from school and my neighbor is digging around
my pipes. I ask her what’s up. Apparently the faucet on my house that she uses
to water her fields was also not working. A big deal, so worth digging the
pipes up for. At least, this is what I thought she meant. My Swahili is still
laughable so I wasn’t sure. I understood something along the lines of “there is
no water in your kitchen, right? Wait a minute and I’ll fix it. There is a
bug.” I assumed I misunderstood the whole bug business.
Turns out no, I heard right. The “bug” was actually a very
unlucky frog that got sucked down my water pipe and managed to get clogged
right before the faucet in my kitchen sink. I watched as my neighbor pulled
dead frog bits (and after a few weeks stuck in a pipe, it really was bits) out
of the pipe. It was pretty nasty. Even though it was only a dribble, I had continued
to use that faucet. So I was cooking and drinking water infused with the
essence of rotting frog. Again, nasty. But now I have real running water in my
kitchen!
So teaching is going well. I am teaching physics to Form 5
students. So quick refresher, in Tanzania teachers move classrooms instead of
students. High school is split into O Level and A Level – I’m at an A Level
only school. In O Level, all the students take the same subjects, but in A
Level there is specialization. Students are split into different
“concentrations” and grouped into classes (called streams) with students having
the same concentration. There are a bunch of concentrations, all with fun
acronyms. So I teach the two concentrations that involve physics, which are PCM
(Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics) and PCB (Physics, Chemistry, Biology). Along
with science concentrations like PCM and PCB, there are arts concentrations
like HGL (History, Geography, Language – English) and HGK (History, Geography,
Kiswahili).
Rungwe Secondary has two streams of PCM’s and two streams of
PCB’s. To teach them all, I combine streams, so I’m teaching all the PCM’s
together and all the PCB’s together. This makes for pretty big classes. The PCM
group is very reasonable – around 40-50 students. The PCB groups is huge,
around 100. For the first couple weeks we were able to fit in one classroom,
but as students finished trickling back from break, it became more and more
difficult to physically fit. Now I’m teaching as much as possible in the lab,
just so there will be room for everyone. Teaching with that many students
creates a lot of difficulties. For example, when I let students work on example
problems, I can’t check most of the students’ work because I physically can’t
move from the front of the room without crawling over people and any activity
that involves moving around is a no go. But, students manage, and seem to
basically be getting the material.
In a lot of ways, I really feel more like a professor more
than a teacher. I basically have office hours. My youngest students are 18
(maybe a couple are 17). My oldest – I don’t really want to know – they are older
than me for sure. The material we cover is absolutely college level. Students
are motivated to learn to a degree that I don’t think I saw until I got into
upper division classes in college. Last week many of the students didn’t have
their homework done on Monday. (Apparently they had a social at a girls school
nearby over the weekend. I’d say a pretty good excuse at an all-boys boarding
school.) I really have no idea what an appropriate level of homework is, so I
asked the students if they thought the homework load was too much. Literally
every student quickly responded that no, they really wanted to have lots of
homework! That, I’m quite sure, I never saw anywhere in my education.
So I’ve developed a love of do-it-yourself home improvement
projects. I’ve rewired a bunch of stuff in my house. I now have electricity in
my kitchen and can switch off the light in my room from my bed, even with the
mosquito net tucked in. Which is pretty awesome, because tucking in a mosquito
net in the dark sucks. Don’t judge me. I got a big coffee table and kitchen
table made and painted a chalkboard onto the wall of my kitchen. Hopefully my
next project will be setting up a simple solar heater for my shower, but that
might be a pipe dream (pun intended, sorry). Right now I can have a cold shower
or a hot bucket bath. I choose hot bucket bath every time, my house gets
cooold. So yeah, hopefully I can just pipe my water up onto the roof and let it
sit for a while, then get nice hot showers in the afternoon.
A group of my best students comes in to work problems after
school a lot. These guys really are the top of the top – not many students make
it to A level, and not many that do make it continue to excel. It’s interesting
to see where they think Tanzania is going and how they will be a part of it. Though
a lot want to get out – find a scholarship to study abroad and then maybe get a
job somewhere where they can make real money – most say they eventually want to
come back to live and work here. They are really interested in learning about technology
and industry and helping that develop in Tanzania. There’s also a strong belief
that Tanzania is inherently stuck being a third world country though. There’s a
lot of talk about countries like China and India that used to be a lot like
Tanzania, but took off. Why Tanzania hasn’t is a tough question.
Okay, I’m tired. We’ve been in the middle of “pre-mock”
examinations. The big national standardized tests (called the NECTAs) are super
important, so they have a mock-NECTA a couple months before the real deal. Now
they’ve started having a practice for the practice, or the “pre-mock.” Anyway,
it requires a bunch of preparation so I’ve had a couple of realllly long days.
But now it’s basically the weekend, yippee!
Oh yeah, my wish list:
-
Parmesan cheese
-
The packets from macaroni and cheese boxes. Like
Annie’s or something. Seriously I miss macaroni and cheese.
-
CD’s of catchy terrible new pop music
-
Suggestions of good podcasts. Listening to
podcasts while washing clothes is my new favorite thing to do.
-
Information about scholarships for international
students at universities. A lot of my students want to know about this, so I
said I’d look into it, but I don’t know where to start. Who knows anything
about this? Let me know! Ideally for universities in the states but also Europe,
other places. Anyone have ideas?
I have running water and it’s great. I used to have running water
in my kitchen, but then one day it slowed to a dribble. It only slowed in the
kitchen though. It was strange, but I didn’t really know what to do about it
short of digging up the pipes so I set up a bucket faucet thing and forgot
about it. Fast forward to a couple days ago.
So I come home from school and my neighbor is digging around
my pipes. I ask her what’s up. Apparently the faucet on my house that she uses
to water her fields was also not working. A big deal, so worth digging the
pipes up for. At least, this is what I thought she meant. My Swahili is still
laughable so I wasn’t sure. I understood something along the lines of “there is
no water in your kitchen, right? Wait a minute and I’ll fix it. There is a
bug.” I assumed I misunderstood the whole bug business.
Turns out no, I heard right. The “bug” was actually a very
unlucky frog that got sucked down my water pipe and managed to get clogged
right before the faucet in my kitchen sink. I watched as my neighbor pulled
dead frog bits (and after a few weeks stuck in a pipe, it really was bits) out
of the pipe. It was pretty nasty. Even though it was only a dribble, I had continued
to use that faucet. So I was cooking and drinking water infused with the
essence of rotting frog. Again, nasty. But now I have real running water in my
kitchen!
So teaching is going well. I am teaching physics to Form 5
students. So quick refresher, in Tanzania teachers move classrooms instead of
students. High school is split into O Level and A Level – I’m at an A Level
only school. In O Level, all the students take the same subjects, but in A
Level there is specialization. Students are split into different
“concentrations” and grouped into classes (called streams) with students having
the same concentration. There are a bunch of concentrations, all with fun
acronyms. So I teach the two concentrations that involve physics, which are PCM
(Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics) and PCB (Physics, Chemistry, Biology). Along
with science concentrations like PCM and PCB, there are arts concentrations
like HGL (History, Geography, Language – English) and HGK (History, Geography,
Kiswahili).
Rungwe Secondary has two streams of PCM’s and two streams of
PCB’s. To teach them all, I combine streams, so I’m teaching all the PCM’s
together and all the PCB’s together. This makes for pretty big classes. The PCM
group is very reasonable – around 40-50 students. The PCB groups is huge,
around 100. For the first couple weeks we were able to fit in one classroom,
but as students finished trickling back from break, it became more and more
difficult to physically fit. Now I’m teaching as much as possible in the lab,
just so there will be room for everyone. Teaching with that many students
creates a lot of difficulties. For example, when I let students work on example
problems, I can’t check most of the students’ work because I physically can’t
move from the front of the room without crawling over people and any activity
that involves moving around is a no go. But, students manage, and seem to
basically be getting the material.
In a lot of ways, I really feel more like a professor more
than a teacher. I basically have office hours. My youngest students are 18
(maybe a couple are 17). My oldest – I don’t really want to know – they are older
than me for sure. The material we cover is absolutely college level. Students
are motivated to learn to a degree that I don’t think I saw until I got into
upper division classes in college. Last week many of the students didn’t have
their homework done on Monday. (Apparently they had a social at a girls school
nearby over the weekend. I’d say a pretty good excuse at an all-boys boarding
school.) I really have no idea what an appropriate level of homework is, so I
asked the students if they thought the homework load was too much. Literally
every student quickly responded that no, they really wanted to have lots of
homework! That, I’m quite sure, I never saw anywhere in my education.
So I’ve developed a love of do-it-yourself home improvement
projects. I’ve rewired a bunch of stuff in my house. I now have electricity in
my kitchen and can switch off the light in my room from my bed, even with the
mosquito net tucked in. Which is pretty awesome, because tucking in a mosquito
net in the dark sucks. Don’t judge me. I got a big coffee table and kitchen
table made and painted a chalkboard onto the wall of my kitchen. Hopefully my
next project will be setting up a simple solar heater for my shower, but that
might be a pipe dream (pun intended, sorry). Right now I can have a cold shower
or a hot bucket bath. I choose hot bucket bath every time, my house gets
cooold. So yeah, hopefully I can just pipe my water up onto the roof and let it
sit for a while, then get nice hot showers in the afternoon.
A group of my best students comes in to work problems after
school a lot. These guys really are the top of the top – not many students make
it to A level, and not many that do make it continue to excel. It’s interesting
to see where they think Tanzania is going and how they will be a part of it. Though
a lot want to get out – find a scholarship to study abroad and then maybe get a
job somewhere where they can make real money – most say they eventually want to
come back to live and work here. They are really interested in learning about technology
and industry and helping that develop in Tanzania. There’s also a strong belief
that Tanzania is inherently stuck being a third world country though. There’s a
lot of talk about countries like China and India that used to be a lot like
Tanzania, but took off. Why Tanzania hasn’t is a tough question.
Okay, I’m tired. We’ve been in the middle of “pre-mock”
examinations. The big national standardized tests (called the NECTAs) are super
important, so they have a mock-NECTA a couple months before the real deal. Now
they’ve started having a practice for the practice, or the “pre-mock.” Anyway,
it requires a bunch of preparation so I’ve had a couple of realllly long days.
But now it’s basically the weekend, yippee!
Oh yeah, my wish list:
-
Parmesan cheese
-
The packets from macaroni and cheese boxes. Like
Annie’s or something. Seriously I miss macaroni and cheese.
-
CD’s of catchy terrible new pop music
-
Suggestions of good podcasts. Listening to
podcasts while washing clothes is my new favorite thing to do.
-
Information about scholarships for international
students at universities. A lot of my students want to know about this, so I
said I’d look into it, but I don’t know where to start. Who knows anything
about this? Let me know! Ideally for universities in the states but also Europe,
other places. Anyone have ideas?
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
First Day of Class
Hello friends in the cyberspace. So it’s been awhile. I did some stuff. Here are some of the things I did. I made my house into a home (cute), people visited me and I tried to show off my kite but it wasn’t windy, I met some folks, and I taught some kids, sort of. This is my introduction. Now I will transition.
Right, so I did a bunch of home improvement. Sadly, IKEA hasn’t made it to Tanzania yet so I’ve been going to little dukas (shops) to buy stuff for my house. Mostly cooking and cleaning equipment and buckets. Lots of buckets. My water here is inconsistent so big buckets are good for storing water. I also use buckets to shower and wash clothes (they’re multifunctional!). So to buy stuff I have to go into Tukuyu, about 20km away on a crowded bus/van thing, which is even more fun when you are carting all your home improvement stuff with you. Needless to say, I took many trips. And I bought a bike! It’s way too small and possibly a girls bike, but it works. Oh, I also cleaned a lot. My house was kinda gross. Tangent, speaking of gross. So I got a brand new western style toilet, which is pretty sweet. Except it’s a cheap plastic one and it doesn’t really work. Yesterday I took a nap and woke up to a layer of water covering most of my room and the entire bathroom and a couple other rooms. I spent the next few hours scooping up poopy water with a dustpan. I eventually dumped out 6 buckets of water. It was impressive. Anyway, home improvement. I bought a two burner hot plate, which means I won’t be cooking by charcoal stove, wee! My school is big enough and out-in-the-middle-of-no-where enough that we have our own school fundi or carpenter/handyman/plumber. So, I had him make me a bed, a coffee table and a kitchen counter thing. They’re awesome. Oh and I got a mat. It’s a nice mat, as far as mats go I guess.
Next up: People visited me and I tried to show them my kite but it wasn’t windy. So yeah, a bunch of people from my “class” of education volunteers that live around me came to visit! I got to show them my giant house with electricity and (sometimes) running water and my school’s monkey. Did I tell you about this, dear blog reader? My school has a pet monkey. It’s a mini monkey (scientific name) and we fed it mini bananas. Find something cuter, I DARE YOU. But it is missing a leg cause they used some nasty trap to catch it and it’s in a fairly tiny cage, so its sorta sad. BUT SO CUTE. But yeah, I tried to fly my kite a lot but it didn’t work. It was sad. But I’ve gotten it to work other places and it’s great. Be happy.
So I met lots of folks at my site. I actually sorta became friends with the student teachers who used to live at my house. The first couple times I went to Tukuyu to buy stuff one of them came with me to help, which probably meant I got things for half the price I would have paid if I was by myself. Pretty cool. Now they are back at university but many of them live around here so I we’ll meet up again at some point. I’ve spent the most time with the family of the Secondmaster (like assistant principal) of my school. Before I got a kitchen of sorts set up I ate at their house, and still occasionally piga hodi, which basically means show up at someone’s around the time they usually eat in hopes that they will feed you. I attempt to speak Swahili with the Secondmaster’s wife and kids and they laugh at me and its good times. And I buy eggs and firewood from them. A couple days ago I gave them a watermelon. I felt pretty good about myself.
Last but not least, I taught! So I’m still getting used to the way schools work around here. Everything seems to happen slowly and in a disorganized fashion. School “started” yesterday, Monday. I still didn’t know which classes I’d be teaching, or have the syllabus – the list of topics I need to cover – so I couldn’t start teaching. As it turns out, none of the teachers started teaching and only maybe 15% of the students were at school the first day. Today we had maybe 20% of the students and learned what I’m teaching! I’ll be teaching Form 5 Physics. So there are 4 “streams,” or classes of Form 5 students that take physics and each class has 10 periods per week. Peace Corps says I should start by teaching only around 20 periods per week, so I guess the plan is to combine the streams into two double sized classes. Today there were so little students though that all four streams easily fit into one classroom. We shall see. Anyway, I still don’t have a syllabus but I went ahead and taught anyway! We just did introductions and all that boring stuff you always do on the first day of school. I had the students ask me questions and got quite some interesting ones ranging from intense (“What is different about the people of Tanzania and America that makes America much more rich than Tanzania?”) to way too personal (“If you have no wife here how will you live for two years without being with a woman?”). Those were fun to try to answer! But yeah, the student’s seemed great. They seemed to have a good grasp of English, seemed motivated and interested in physics and most importantly laughed at my stupid jokes. Now these were just the 20% that decided to show up on the second day – they might be the cream of the crop. We shall see.
And that’s it. Time for lesson planning and bed and maybe some Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia. I just started watching that. It’s a good show. I highly recommend it. Over and out.
Right, so I did a bunch of home improvement. Sadly, IKEA hasn’t made it to Tanzania yet so I’ve been going to little dukas (shops) to buy stuff for my house. Mostly cooking and cleaning equipment and buckets. Lots of buckets. My water here is inconsistent so big buckets are good for storing water. I also use buckets to shower and wash clothes (they’re multifunctional!). So to buy stuff I have to go into Tukuyu, about 20km away on a crowded bus/van thing, which is even more fun when you are carting all your home improvement stuff with you. Needless to say, I took many trips. And I bought a bike! It’s way too small and possibly a girls bike, but it works. Oh, I also cleaned a lot. My house was kinda gross. Tangent, speaking of gross. So I got a brand new western style toilet, which is pretty sweet. Except it’s a cheap plastic one and it doesn’t really work. Yesterday I took a nap and woke up to a layer of water covering most of my room and the entire bathroom and a couple other rooms. I spent the next few hours scooping up poopy water with a dustpan. I eventually dumped out 6 buckets of water. It was impressive. Anyway, home improvement. I bought a two burner hot plate, which means I won’t be cooking by charcoal stove, wee! My school is big enough and out-in-the-middle-of-no-where enough that we have our own school fundi or carpenter/handyman/plumber. So, I had him make me a bed, a coffee table and a kitchen counter thing. They’re awesome. Oh and I got a mat. It’s a nice mat, as far as mats go I guess.
Next up: People visited me and I tried to show them my kite but it wasn’t windy. So yeah, a bunch of people from my “class” of education volunteers that live around me came to visit! I got to show them my giant house with electricity and (sometimes) running water and my school’s monkey. Did I tell you about this, dear blog reader? My school has a pet monkey. It’s a mini monkey (scientific name) and we fed it mini bananas. Find something cuter, I DARE YOU. But it is missing a leg cause they used some nasty trap to catch it and it’s in a fairly tiny cage, so its sorta sad. BUT SO CUTE. But yeah, I tried to fly my kite a lot but it didn’t work. It was sad. But I’ve gotten it to work other places and it’s great. Be happy.
So I met lots of folks at my site. I actually sorta became friends with the student teachers who used to live at my house. The first couple times I went to Tukuyu to buy stuff one of them came with me to help, which probably meant I got things for half the price I would have paid if I was by myself. Pretty cool. Now they are back at university but many of them live around here so I we’ll meet up again at some point. I’ve spent the most time with the family of the Secondmaster (like assistant principal) of my school. Before I got a kitchen of sorts set up I ate at their house, and still occasionally piga hodi, which basically means show up at someone’s around the time they usually eat in hopes that they will feed you. I attempt to speak Swahili with the Secondmaster’s wife and kids and they laugh at me and its good times. And I buy eggs and firewood from them. A couple days ago I gave them a watermelon. I felt pretty good about myself.
Last but not least, I taught! So I’m still getting used to the way schools work around here. Everything seems to happen slowly and in a disorganized fashion. School “started” yesterday, Monday. I still didn’t know which classes I’d be teaching, or have the syllabus – the list of topics I need to cover – so I couldn’t start teaching. As it turns out, none of the teachers started teaching and only maybe 15% of the students were at school the first day. Today we had maybe 20% of the students and learned what I’m teaching! I’ll be teaching Form 5 Physics. So there are 4 “streams,” or classes of Form 5 students that take physics and each class has 10 periods per week. Peace Corps says I should start by teaching only around 20 periods per week, so I guess the plan is to combine the streams into two double sized classes. Today there were so little students though that all four streams easily fit into one classroom. We shall see. Anyway, I still don’t have a syllabus but I went ahead and taught anyway! We just did introductions and all that boring stuff you always do on the first day of school. I had the students ask me questions and got quite some interesting ones ranging from intense (“What is different about the people of Tanzania and America that makes America much more rich than Tanzania?”) to way too personal (“If you have no wife here how will you live for two years without being with a woman?”). Those were fun to try to answer! But yeah, the student’s seemed great. They seemed to have a good grasp of English, seemed motivated and interested in physics and most importantly laughed at my stupid jokes. Now these were just the 20% that decided to show up on the second day – they might be the cream of the crop. We shall see.
And that’s it. Time for lesson planning and bed and maybe some Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia. I just started watching that. It’s a good show. I highly recommend it. Over and out.
Friday, August 17, 2012
Swearing In and Move to Site
16/8/12 – 2:45pm
I'm on a very long bus ride to site, so I figure it's as good a time
as any to get my blog on. So let's see, the big news is – I'm now
officially a Peace Corps Volunteer. Before I was a Peace Corps
Trainee, but I passed all my exams and survived training so Peace
Corps decided I can stay on another two years. Speaking of tests, we
had a bunch – medical exam, technical (aka teaching) exam, written
Swahili exam and oral Swahili interview. The fact the I passed the
oral interview is a testament to the existence of miracles.
Swearing in was a fancy ol' ceremony at the Ambassador's Residence. I
guess we aren't quite important enough to make it to the actual
Embassy, but the ambassador's house was pretty cool. We all dressed to
the nines; lots of people had Tanzanian dresses and such made here,
but I went with a more "used-car-salesman" look. Speeches were made,
songs were sung, oaths to defend the constitution were taken, and
tasty apps and zerts were eaten. Actually there weren't any zerts I
just like saying zerts. Zerts. Anyway, it was fun. We also discovered
the ambassador's house is like a block from the beach, so I got to see
the Indian Ocean up close for the first time. It looks wet.
After training got done in Morogoro we spent four days hanging out in
Dar Es Salaam before swearing in yesterday. We had some more info
sessions and learned some money matters. I think I'll be making
somewhere around 300,000 Tanzanian Shillings a month, so like $6 or so
a day. I also just hung out with our training class and took a mini
vacation to America for $20. Well no, that would be impossible unless
maybe you knew how to apperate. Which I don't. But I did go to Subway
and a mall, went shopping at a grocery store with checkouts and
conveyor belts and baggers, got ice cream and saw the Batman movie in
a theater. It was pretty great.
So now I'm on a bus to move to my site for realzies. All our school
principals came to Dar to learn how to deal with us odd Americans and
are now heading back on the bus with us. Let's talk about
transportation in Tanzania, since I'm experiencing it currently. So if
you have money, there's charter domestic flights that can get you
between big cities or you can hire a car and driver. In the city,
taxis are pretty common in the cities.
If you want to be cheaper, you ride dala dalas around town, which are
basically 9 person vans or sometimes small busses. They can get VERY
crowded – like 20+ in a 9 person van. Usually you are standing up, but
it's okay, you aren't going to fall down since there is nowhere to
fall. Personal bubbles do not exist. Another option are piki-piki's or
motorcycles. There are LOTS of motorcycle-taxis that'll take you
around the city. They are pretty dangerous though, and Peace Corps
doesn't allow volunteers to use them. Going between nearby cities you
can take coasters, which are larger, slightly less crowded dalas. Then
there are full on buses to get to different regions of the country.
They are more less crowded and more organized than dalas or coasters,
but are still crowded. Most of them pack 5 rows across instead of the
typical 4 in the states. Also, the trips are looong. I think my trip
from Dar to Tukuyu will be somewhere around 13 hours, though we've
been going through a bunch of construction so it might be a little
more. The roads in my area are pretty good – they are mostly paved
though there are lots of random speed bumps and stops for police check
points and construction, so it's pretty tricky to sleep. So you blog.
There are two interesting things about bus rides that I have learned.
First, the art of "chimba dawa" which literally translates to "dig for
medicine," but actually means peeing. These buses don't have
bathrooms, and they don't like to stop more than every five hours or
so, so you either have to be in significant pain, pee in a bottle, or
dehydrate yourself. Most, including myself, go with dehydration,
though I have seen all three being practiced. Often when the bus does
stop, it just stops by a patch of woods – one side of the bus is
designated "boys," the other "girls." Second, food. Though you might
have to pee, you won't go hungry. At any stop of any kind (including
police checkpoints and construction), there are a bunch of guys that
will run up to the sides of the bus and sell everything from bananas
to jewelry to watches. From my experience, the food is really, really
good. Today I had an excellent breakfast of chapatti, samosas and a
banana, all bought out my window, and for maybe $1-$1.50. It's
actually pretty fun to buy stuff.
So what's driving like here? First off, for anyone thinking about
coming here, don't even consider driving your own vehicle. I would
instantly crash if I tried to drive here. Lanes, stop signs and
lights, and distinctions between road and shoulder are not followed to
any significant degree. The best way to describe it I think is a sort
of complicated dance. Vehicles honk and flash their lights to
communicate, but also generally have a guy on the passenger's seat
just to signal other drivers. Buses tend to pass pretty recklessly and
often have to squeeze in between vehicles at the last second to avoid
being hit by oncoming traffic (hence the signaler). They also have a
nasty tendency to pass on blind curves with their horn blaring to warn
opposing traffic. Fun times.
So my school starts up on September 10th. From now until then, I'll be
setting up my house and prepping for school. Unless things have
changed drastically since I last saw it, my house has a bed, dresser,
desk, and some chairs. All things considered, that's pretty good, but
I've got lots to buy. I'm still not totally sure what classes I'll be
teaching, but once that's figured out I can start prepping lesson
plans and such. I'm also hoping to get a bike ASAP so I can get to
town easier. Next week I'm headed to Peace Corps's Mbeya Super
Regional Conference, which I think is focused on HIV/AIDS prevention
stuff. We shall see. It'll be cool to meet all my Peace Corps
neighbors as well.
Oh, I'm getting a new address soon, so if anyone is thinking about
sending anything in the next week or so, maybe just wait until I get a
P.O. Box set up – I'll get it faster if it doesn't have to go through
the Peace Corps office. I'll post my address when I get it.
Righto – time to attempt a nap again. I must bid you adieu dear readers.
I'm on a very long bus ride to site, so I figure it's as good a time
as any to get my blog on. So let's see, the big news is – I'm now
officially a Peace Corps Volunteer. Before I was a Peace Corps
Trainee, but I passed all my exams and survived training so Peace
Corps decided I can stay on another two years. Speaking of tests, we
had a bunch – medical exam, technical (aka teaching) exam, written
Swahili exam and oral Swahili interview. The fact the I passed the
oral interview is a testament to the existence of miracles.
Swearing in was a fancy ol' ceremony at the Ambassador's Residence. I
guess we aren't quite important enough to make it to the actual
Embassy, but the ambassador's house was pretty cool. We all dressed to
the nines; lots of people had Tanzanian dresses and such made here,
but I went with a more "used-car-salesman" look. Speeches were made,
songs were sung, oaths to defend the constitution were taken, and
tasty apps and zerts were eaten. Actually there weren't any zerts I
just like saying zerts. Zerts. Anyway, it was fun. We also discovered
the ambassador's house is like a block from the beach, so I got to see
the Indian Ocean up close for the first time. It looks wet.
After training got done in Morogoro we spent four days hanging out in
Dar Es Salaam before swearing in yesterday. We had some more info
sessions and learned some money matters. I think I'll be making
somewhere around 300,000 Tanzanian Shillings a month, so like $6 or so
a day. I also just hung out with our training class and took a mini
vacation to America for $20. Well no, that would be impossible unless
maybe you knew how to apperate. Which I don't. But I did go to Subway
and a mall, went shopping at a grocery store with checkouts and
conveyor belts and baggers, got ice cream and saw the Batman movie in
a theater. It was pretty great.
So now I'm on a bus to move to my site for realzies. All our school
principals came to Dar to learn how to deal with us odd Americans and
are now heading back on the bus with us. Let's talk about
transportation in Tanzania, since I'm experiencing it currently. So if
you have money, there's charter domestic flights that can get you
between big cities or you can hire a car and driver. In the city,
taxis are pretty common in the cities.
If you want to be cheaper, you ride dala dalas around town, which are
basically 9 person vans or sometimes small busses. They can get VERY
crowded – like 20+ in a 9 person van. Usually you are standing up, but
it's okay, you aren't going to fall down since there is nowhere to
fall. Personal bubbles do not exist. Another option are piki-piki's or
motorcycles. There are LOTS of motorcycle-taxis that'll take you
around the city. They are pretty dangerous though, and Peace Corps
doesn't allow volunteers to use them. Going between nearby cities you
can take coasters, which are larger, slightly less crowded dalas. Then
there are full on buses to get to different regions of the country.
They are more less crowded and more organized than dalas or coasters,
but are still crowded. Most of them pack 5 rows across instead of the
typical 4 in the states. Also, the trips are looong. I think my trip
from Dar to Tukuyu will be somewhere around 13 hours, though we've
been going through a bunch of construction so it might be a little
more. The roads in my area are pretty good – they are mostly paved
though there are lots of random speed bumps and stops for police check
points and construction, so it's pretty tricky to sleep. So you blog.
There are two interesting things about bus rides that I have learned.
First, the art of "chimba dawa" which literally translates to "dig for
medicine," but actually means peeing. These buses don't have
bathrooms, and they don't like to stop more than every five hours or
so, so you either have to be in significant pain, pee in a bottle, or
dehydrate yourself. Most, including myself, go with dehydration,
though I have seen all three being practiced. Often when the bus does
stop, it just stops by a patch of woods – one side of the bus is
designated "boys," the other "girls." Second, food. Though you might
have to pee, you won't go hungry. At any stop of any kind (including
police checkpoints and construction), there are a bunch of guys that
will run up to the sides of the bus and sell everything from bananas
to jewelry to watches. From my experience, the food is really, really
good. Today I had an excellent breakfast of chapatti, samosas and a
banana, all bought out my window, and for maybe $1-$1.50. It's
actually pretty fun to buy stuff.
So what's driving like here? First off, for anyone thinking about
coming here, don't even consider driving your own vehicle. I would
instantly crash if I tried to drive here. Lanes, stop signs and
lights, and distinctions between road and shoulder are not followed to
any significant degree. The best way to describe it I think is a sort
of complicated dance. Vehicles honk and flash their lights to
communicate, but also generally have a guy on the passenger's seat
just to signal other drivers. Buses tend to pass pretty recklessly and
often have to squeeze in between vehicles at the last second to avoid
being hit by oncoming traffic (hence the signaler). They also have a
nasty tendency to pass on blind curves with their horn blaring to warn
opposing traffic. Fun times.
So my school starts up on September 10th. From now until then, I'll be
setting up my house and prepping for school. Unless things have
changed drastically since I last saw it, my house has a bed, dresser,
desk, and some chairs. All things considered, that's pretty good, but
I've got lots to buy. I'm still not totally sure what classes I'll be
teaching, but once that's figured out I can start prepping lesson
plans and such. I'm also hoping to get a bike ASAP so I can get to
town easier. Next week I'm headed to Peace Corps's Mbeya Super
Regional Conference, which I think is focused on HIV/AIDS prevention
stuff. We shall see. It'll be cool to meet all my Peace Corps
neighbors as well.
Oh, I'm getting a new address soon, so if anyone is thinking about
sending anything in the next week or so, maybe just wait until I get a
P.O. Box set up – I'll get it faster if it doesn't have to go through
the Peace Corps office. I'll post my address when I get it.
Righto – time to attempt a nap again. I must bid you adieu dear readers.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Site Visit Etc
Pictures! Check my facebook! Here's a link that should work even if you live under a rock and don't do facebook: Pictures!
K so - my site. My nearest banking town is actually Tukuyu, not Mbeya. I spent most of my week of "site visit" in Tukuyu shadowing a current volunteer, Hannah. Another new volunteer, Mandy, and I were shadowing Hannah. Basically, we just sat around cooking (mostly them) and eating (mostly me) American food and watching movies. It was awesome. Hannah has a really safi house. "Safi", by the way, translates to "clean" but also is slang for like "really nice" or something. Anyway, spent a lot of time making the house nice, and has a mini refrigerator and oven and such, its super nice. So yeah, I felt like I was in America. We also got to walk around Tukuyu and see the area. Its really beautiful - hilly and green, with lots of evergreen trees. Its also pretty chilly - maybe getting down to the low 50's at night. At first that doesn't sound so bad, but then you have to remember my house has zero heating or insulation, so its low 50's inside, which is a bit chilly. But I like it! Cool is way better than hot in my book. OH! I got to fly my kite for the first time in Africa! It was quite excellent. The wind wasn't great, so I had to run around like an idiot. When we started there were like 3 kids on the field but within a couple minutes probably 50 kids were running around chasing the kite. It was literally the greatest thing.
I just spent one night actually at my school - my house is still being used by student teachers and the students are in the middle of exams, so there wasn't too much for me to do. My school seems pretty great. Its about 16km down the main road from Tukuyu, then 5km down a dirt road. The school is a boarding school sorta out there all by itself. I'm somewhere around 10km away from the nearest village with a market. There isn't any public transportation from the main road out to the school, so I'll need to get a bike or make friends with someone with a car ASAP.
So I just finished all the language exams yesterday. I did my final written exam a couple weeks ago. Just got the results back, and I did way better than I thought! 92%, yeehaw! The oral interview was yesterday, which I'm sure I did a lot worse on, but I didn't feel HORRIBLE about it, so that's good!
Training is finally really slowing down. Today all we did was practice singing the national anthem of Tanzania (and the U.S. one as well. never gonna get those lyrics down.) and "Don't Worry, Be Happy" which we translated into Swahili. We're apparently going to be singing a lot for our Swearing In ceremony. Which, by the way, is next Wednesday! We're headed to Dar on Sunday, then go directly to our sites on Thursday the 16th.
I'll start teaching probably around the 7th of September. Yesterday I got a bunch of books for A-level physics and math. I was looking through them, and there is some pretty intense stuff they go through. I've got a lot of review (and lets be honest, first time learning) to do! I'm excited though, it will cool to really know my stuff physics wise after two years of teaching it.
K so - my site. My nearest banking town is actually Tukuyu, not Mbeya. I spent most of my week of "site visit" in Tukuyu shadowing a current volunteer, Hannah. Another new volunteer, Mandy, and I were shadowing Hannah. Basically, we just sat around cooking (mostly them) and eating (mostly me) American food and watching movies. It was awesome. Hannah has a really safi house. "Safi", by the way, translates to "clean" but also is slang for like "really nice" or something. Anyway, spent a lot of time making the house nice, and has a mini refrigerator and oven and such, its super nice. So yeah, I felt like I was in America. We also got to walk around Tukuyu and see the area. Its really beautiful - hilly and green, with lots of evergreen trees. Its also pretty chilly - maybe getting down to the low 50's at night. At first that doesn't sound so bad, but then you have to remember my house has zero heating or insulation, so its low 50's inside, which is a bit chilly. But I like it! Cool is way better than hot in my book. OH! I got to fly my kite for the first time in Africa! It was quite excellent. The wind wasn't great, so I had to run around like an idiot. When we started there were like 3 kids on the field but within a couple minutes probably 50 kids were running around chasing the kite. It was literally the greatest thing.
I just spent one night actually at my school - my house is still being used by student teachers and the students are in the middle of exams, so there wasn't too much for me to do. My school seems pretty great. Its about 16km down the main road from Tukuyu, then 5km down a dirt road. The school is a boarding school sorta out there all by itself. I'm somewhere around 10km away from the nearest village with a market. There isn't any public transportation from the main road out to the school, so I'll need to get a bike or make friends with someone with a car ASAP.
So I just finished all the language exams yesterday. I did my final written exam a couple weeks ago. Just got the results back, and I did way better than I thought! 92%, yeehaw! The oral interview was yesterday, which I'm sure I did a lot worse on, but I didn't feel HORRIBLE about it, so that's good!
Training is finally really slowing down. Today all we did was practice singing the national anthem of Tanzania (and the U.S. one as well. never gonna get those lyrics down.) and "Don't Worry, Be Happy" which we translated into Swahili. We're apparently going to be singing a lot for our Swearing In ceremony. Which, by the way, is next Wednesday! We're headed to Dar on Sunday, then go directly to our sites on Thursday the 16th.
I'll start teaching probably around the 7th of September. Yesterday I got a bunch of books for A-level physics and math. I was looking through them, and there is some pretty intense stuff they go through. I've got a lot of review (and lets be honest, first time learning) to do! I'm excited though, it will cool to really know my stuff physics wise after two years of teaching it.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Site Announcement!
Yesterday was a big day! Thursday was the last day of official full time language training, so the first thing we did on Friday morning was the final written exam. It wasn't great, but it wasn't horrible - I think I passed, and that's what matters right!? The OPI, or Oral Proficiency Interview is in a week and a half and will be the real challenge.
After the exam was done, we got what everyone has been waiting for - site announcements! Peace Corps gave the event a little African flavor by hiring a bunch of dudes with drums for some pre and post announcement music. And we got Snickers bars. Which is what I was really most interested in.
Anyway, where am I going!?
My banking town (largest town nearby - the town with a bank) is Mbeya. Mbeya is a good sized town of 280,000 in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania. It mountainous and coolish, which is what I was looking for.
I don't really know much about the school I'm teaching at or place I'm living yet, but here's what I do know. I'll be teaching at a school called Rungwe Secondary School. Its an A-level only school, meaning students are all in forms 5 or 6. That corresponds basically to the last couple years of high school in the states. I believe its a boarding school, but not 100% sure on that yet. My house has electricity and running water and I think is on the school grounds. Its very typical for teachers to live in a "compound" attached to the school itself. I'll have my own house and everything though, so seems like a pretty good setup. Oh I guess there's a garden with the house, so maybe I'm going to become an expert gardener. Maybe. I am replacing someone, but because of scheduling issues it's been a year since the last Peace Corps person was there, so I'm not sure if any of his/her stuff is still there or if I'll be furnishing my own house. I guess they had a pet dog, but no one knows the status of it after a year...
Anyway, lots of questions to be answered this week as I go visit my site! I'm leaving tomorrow, shadowing a nearby volunteer for a few days and then hopefully spending some time at my site getting things figured out and meeting my future coworkers and such! I'll keep ya updated with pictures and such as I get them!
After the exam was done, we got what everyone has been waiting for - site announcements! Peace Corps gave the event a little African flavor by hiring a bunch of dudes with drums for some pre and post announcement music. And we got Snickers bars. Which is what I was really most interested in.
Anyway, where am I going!?
My banking town (largest town nearby - the town with a bank) is Mbeya. Mbeya is a good sized town of 280,000 in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania. It mountainous and coolish, which is what I was looking for.
I don't really know much about the school I'm teaching at or place I'm living yet, but here's what I do know. I'll be teaching at a school called Rungwe Secondary School. Its an A-level only school, meaning students are all in forms 5 or 6. That corresponds basically to the last couple years of high school in the states. I believe its a boarding school, but not 100% sure on that yet. My house has electricity and running water and I think is on the school grounds. Its very typical for teachers to live in a "compound" attached to the school itself. I'll have my own house and everything though, so seems like a pretty good setup. Oh I guess there's a garden with the house, so maybe I'm going to become an expert gardener. Maybe. I am replacing someone, but because of scheduling issues it's been a year since the last Peace Corps person was there, so I'm not sure if any of his/her stuff is still there or if I'll be furnishing my own house. I guess they had a pet dog, but no one knows the status of it after a year...
Anyway, lots of questions to be answered this week as I go visit my site! I'm leaving tomorrow, shadowing a nearby volunteer for a few days and then hopefully spending some time at my site getting things figured out and meeting my future coworkers and such! I'll keep ya updated with pictures and such as I get them!
Monday, July 23, 2012
Teaching, Swahili, Site Announcements and Hiking!
First, check the blog post below this. I think I (finally) got the pictures working. Pole sana! (very sorry!)
So I went on a Safari! A few weeks ago the whole training group got a full weekend off to go act like tourists for a weekend. We rented a couple buses and headed to Mikumi National Park, a few hours North (I think..?) of Morogoro. It's a fairly small park compared to the giants like the Serengeti, but it was pretty cool! We saw giraffes, hippos, zebras, baboons (right? I get my primates mixed up), gazelles, and elephants! It was pretty cool. Probably more than any of the animals we saw, it was nice to just be on our own for a weekend. Nothing against our great host families, but everyone feels a little like they're in high school again, so it felt good to be free!
What else? I started, and finished, internship teaching at Morogoro Secondary School. I taught physics to Form 1 students, which roughly corresponds to 8th graders, except they are in secondary (high) school. Its been exciting, rewarding, eye opening and a little frightening all at the same time.
I'm teaching two "streams" which basically means classes. In TZ, students all stay in the same room, and teachers move around. There are 60ish students in each class, which actually was less weird than I thought it would be since I'm used to larger college classes than smaller high school ones. It's a lot though. Teaching in English is challenging particularly to Form 1 students, as the language barrier is biggest. There is a really huge range in student's English ability. In both of my classes there were a few kids who I think were ready to answer every question I asked, in nearly perfect English. But, there were also kids who couldn't answer very basic yes or no questions I posed in English.
In general, students seem very motivated to learn and are well behaved (at least compared to American 8th graders!). Every day when I come in the classroom, all the kids stand up and say in unison "Good Morning Teacha" in their British/African accent. Its pretty cool.
What else? Swahili is going. Memorization is not my strong suit in any form, and it shows in my language acquisition. But, I'm definitely progressing. I'm understanding more and more from other's conversations and can get basic ideas across fairly well. I did good on the midterm written exam, and good enough on the oral one, so I feel okay, if not great on the language side. It's been more fun than I was expecting and it really is a pretty interesting language.
So the big news around here is the impending Site Announcements. It's happening this Friday, and everyone is VERY excited for it, including me. We're still in training, and haven't left Morogoro except to go to Mikumi since we left Dar. On Friday, we learn we're we'll be living for the next two years. Then the next day, we go there! We have a week long site visit, then head back here for a final week of training, then to Dar for a few days for swearing in, and we head to site for good! Site announcement means we know physically where we're going, what the climate will be like, what type of school we're at, if we'll have water and electricity, what other volunteer's we are near (and how far away from people we are). It also means we get to go on a trip and see some more of the country, wherever we are going! So yeah, its a pretty big deal.
There's lots of talk by the guys who make the site decision placements, by current volunteers, and by people who talk to those groups of people. So, there's lots of rumors going around. One I've heard is I'm heading to an A-level school, which means like upper high school (age 17-19ish), which would be pretty sweet. We'll see, I'm trying to not think about it until I know in 4 days!!
Oh I went hiking yesterday! It was sweet. We walked up a little mountain stream, got to see some amateur civil engineering proving water to a bunch of very basic houses on the side of the mountain. Also some really beautiful views of the town of Morogoro and just very Africany jungle.
K, I've got swahili to learn and undies to wash. Busy evening ahead! I suck and haven't posted pictures, but I promise I'm taking some, and stealing more from facebook, and I will post some within the week!
So I went on a Safari! A few weeks ago the whole training group got a full weekend off to go act like tourists for a weekend. We rented a couple buses and headed to Mikumi National Park, a few hours North (I think..?) of Morogoro. It's a fairly small park compared to the giants like the Serengeti, but it was pretty cool! We saw giraffes, hippos, zebras, baboons (right? I get my primates mixed up), gazelles, and elephants! It was pretty cool. Probably more than any of the animals we saw, it was nice to just be on our own for a weekend. Nothing against our great host families, but everyone feels a little like they're in high school again, so it felt good to be free!
What else? I started, and finished, internship teaching at Morogoro Secondary School. I taught physics to Form 1 students, which roughly corresponds to 8th graders, except they are in secondary (high) school. Its been exciting, rewarding, eye opening and a little frightening all at the same time.
I'm teaching two "streams" which basically means classes. In TZ, students all stay in the same room, and teachers move around. There are 60ish students in each class, which actually was less weird than I thought it would be since I'm used to larger college classes than smaller high school ones. It's a lot though. Teaching in English is challenging particularly to Form 1 students, as the language barrier is biggest. There is a really huge range in student's English ability. In both of my classes there were a few kids who I think were ready to answer every question I asked, in nearly perfect English. But, there were also kids who couldn't answer very basic yes or no questions I posed in English.
In general, students seem very motivated to learn and are well behaved (at least compared to American 8th graders!). Every day when I come in the classroom, all the kids stand up and say in unison "Good Morning Teacha" in their British/African accent. Its pretty cool.
What else? Swahili is going. Memorization is not my strong suit in any form, and it shows in my language acquisition. But, I'm definitely progressing. I'm understanding more and more from other's conversations and can get basic ideas across fairly well. I did good on the midterm written exam, and good enough on the oral one, so I feel okay, if not great on the language side. It's been more fun than I was expecting and it really is a pretty interesting language.
So the big news around here is the impending Site Announcements. It's happening this Friday, and everyone is VERY excited for it, including me. We're still in training, and haven't left Morogoro except to go to Mikumi since we left Dar. On Friday, we learn we're we'll be living for the next two years. Then the next day, we go there! We have a week long site visit, then head back here for a final week of training, then to Dar for a few days for swearing in, and we head to site for good! Site announcement means we know physically where we're going, what the climate will be like, what type of school we're at, if we'll have water and electricity, what other volunteer's we are near (and how far away from people we are). It also means we get to go on a trip and see some more of the country, wherever we are going! So yeah, its a pretty big deal.
There's lots of talk by the guys who make the site decision placements, by current volunteers, and by people who talk to those groups of people. So, there's lots of rumors going around. One I've heard is I'm heading to an A-level school, which means like upper high school (age 17-19ish), which would be pretty sweet. We'll see, I'm trying to not think about it until I know in 4 days!!
Oh I went hiking yesterday! It was sweet. We walked up a little mountain stream, got to see some amateur civil engineering proving water to a bunch of very basic houses on the side of the mountain. Also some really beautiful views of the town of Morogoro and just very Africany jungle.
K, I've got swahili to learn and undies to wash. Busy evening ahead! I suck and haven't posted pictures, but I promise I'm taking some, and stealing more from facebook, and I will post some within the week!
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Saba Saba
So most of us Peace Corpsers live in families with running water. Which really, is great. Except, you start to rely on it and then it goes away. The water shuts off from time to time - for a few seconds, a few minutes, a few hours, or a few days. I'm starting to figure out some of the tricks (i.e. unexpectedly a lot of rain means you'll lose water for quite awhile - hours or days) but I'm still mostly unaware. Theoretically, these shut off's shouldn't be a big deal, because you keep stores of water in buckets for when this happens. You should keep stores of water, that is, but sometimes you don't because you are a dumb American.
Let me back up. Taking a cold shower goes something like this: You wake up and think "holy hell I don't want to get up, and I really don't want to get up and take a cold shower." So you trick yourself by getting up to pee then just freakin' turn the knob while you're in the bathroom, suppress a scream as the water hits you, and try to get completely wet as quickly as possible so you can turn the water off. Then you soap up, and do a rinse. Except sometimes the water shuts off while you're sudsing up. This has happened a few times, but I've had water at the ready so it wasn't a big deal. Yesterday I got cocky and decided I didn't need to have extra water. Of course, the water shut off.
It isn't until you realize you are standing naked in the bathroom, completely covered in soap and shampoo, with no way of rinsing off, that you know you are truly out of your element.
Anyway, I now have a bucket of water in my bathroom. I will always have a bucket of water in my bathroom.
What else is new? We had half a day off on Saturday to play sports. We all met up at some school and just played games for like four hours. It was really really great. With the combination of weird cultural issues, a busy schedule and my general laziness, I hadn't done any form of exercise at all, except walking because that's my only means of transportation, since I arrived in country. Being active was awesome. We played ultimate (with you're disc Matt, thanks!), soccer, kickball and random relays. My small group won the piggyback race despite the fact that I collapsed during my leg. Got a sweet battle wound.
Today I did lotsa laundry with the help of the family. Except I have to wash my own erm, delicates, so I did that while my family was at church this morning. They leave the house at 6am and today didn't get back until 10am, intense. I had the house to myself so I just washed underwear and rocked out to Katy Perry. It was excellent. Oh that reminds me, the radio here plays an interesting combo of what I think is traditionalish Tanzanian music, weird new Tanzanian rap music, and American dance club music. Anyway, I often end up laughing quietly to myself (LQTM, its the new LOL) while I eat dinner with my host family with some Black Eyes Peas song blasting in the background.
So later we went to the market to get some clothes and just check it out. I ended up just getting one thing, but its a pretty sweet Zanzibar soccer jersey. I paid Tsh 9000 which is like $5.75. Probably the foreigners price, but we (okay, 95% my host mom, 5% me) got it reduced from 12,000 so whatever, I'll take it. We got it at a big street market that just runs on Sundays. It was super crowded and apparently a hotbed of pickpocketers. I was hyper aware of my surroundings and was continually checking my pockets and such, but I was actually surprised how little attention I got as the white dude. The market is called "Saba Saba" which means "Seven Seven." Though no one seemed to know why it was called that, I guess Tanzania (or Swahili speaking countries in general..?) have mini holidays when the date and month are the same. So next Saturday is "Saba Saba," since its the 7th of July. Maybe its connected. Who knows.
In Swahili, people refer to pork as "kiti moto" which literally translates to "hot seat." Everyone seems confused as to why we would think this is weird and can give no explanation for it. I don't understand.
K, picture time.
view from just a couple minute walk up the mountain from my house. Oh yeah, I live on a mountain.
This is at Morogoro Secondary School, where I have class about half the time, and where starting next week (eek!) I'll be teaching very part time. They've had a super popular traveling preacher chilling there for the last week.
Studying it up at CCT, the other place I go to class.
More of CCT
View from my front door. See, I live on a mountain.
Yeah, I do laundry.
Charcoal and kerosene stoves. We have electricity, but no electric stove.
Saba Saba market. Probably dumb to have brought my camera, but here ya go.
Kids playing soccer near my house.
View from near my house.
My new Zanzibar jersey. Noice.
Let me back up. Taking a cold shower goes something like this: You wake up and think "holy hell I don't want to get up, and I really don't want to get up and take a cold shower." So you trick yourself by getting up to pee then just freakin' turn the knob while you're in the bathroom, suppress a scream as the water hits you, and try to get completely wet as quickly as possible so you can turn the water off. Then you soap up, and do a rinse. Except sometimes the water shuts off while you're sudsing up. This has happened a few times, but I've had water at the ready so it wasn't a big deal. Yesterday I got cocky and decided I didn't need to have extra water. Of course, the water shut off.
It isn't until you realize you are standing naked in the bathroom, completely covered in soap and shampoo, with no way of rinsing off, that you know you are truly out of your element.
Anyway, I now have a bucket of water in my bathroom. I will always have a bucket of water in my bathroom.
What else is new? We had half a day off on Saturday to play sports. We all met up at some school and just played games for like four hours. It was really really great. With the combination of weird cultural issues, a busy schedule and my general laziness, I hadn't done any form of exercise at all, except walking because that's my only means of transportation, since I arrived in country. Being active was awesome. We played ultimate (with you're disc Matt, thanks!), soccer, kickball and random relays. My small group won the piggyback race despite the fact that I collapsed during my leg. Got a sweet battle wound.
Today I did lotsa laundry with the help of the family. Except I have to wash my own erm, delicates, so I did that while my family was at church this morning. They leave the house at 6am and today didn't get back until 10am, intense. I had the house to myself so I just washed underwear and rocked out to Katy Perry. It was excellent. Oh that reminds me, the radio here plays an interesting combo of what I think is traditionalish Tanzanian music, weird new Tanzanian rap music, and American dance club music. Anyway, I often end up laughing quietly to myself (LQTM, its the new LOL) while I eat dinner with my host family with some Black Eyes Peas song blasting in the background.
So later we went to the market to get some clothes and just check it out. I ended up just getting one thing, but its a pretty sweet Zanzibar soccer jersey. I paid Tsh 9000 which is like $5.75. Probably the foreigners price, but we (okay, 95% my host mom, 5% me) got it reduced from 12,000 so whatever, I'll take it. We got it at a big street market that just runs on Sundays. It was super crowded and apparently a hotbed of pickpocketers. I was hyper aware of my surroundings and was continually checking my pockets and such, but I was actually surprised how little attention I got as the white dude. The market is called "Saba Saba" which means "Seven Seven." Though no one seemed to know why it was called that, I guess Tanzania (or Swahili speaking countries in general..?) have mini holidays when the date and month are the same. So next Saturday is "Saba Saba," since its the 7th of July. Maybe its connected. Who knows.
In Swahili, people refer to pork as "kiti moto" which literally translates to "hot seat." Everyone seems confused as to why we would think this is weird and can give no explanation for it. I don't understand.
K, picture time.
view from just a couple minute walk up the mountain from my house. Oh yeah, I live on a mountain.
This is at Morogoro Secondary School, where I have class about half the time, and where starting next week (eek!) I'll be teaching very part time. They've had a super popular traveling preacher chilling there for the last week.
Studying it up at CCT, the other place I go to class.
More of CCT
View from my front door. See, I live on a mountain.
Yeah, I do laundry.
Charcoal and kerosene stoves. We have electricity, but no electric stove.
Saba Saba market. Probably dumb to have brought my camera, but here ya go.
Kids playing soccer near my house.
View from near my house.
My new Zanzibar jersey. Noice.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Training!
Here's a couple blogs! Sorry for the complete lack of organization.
Today is Jumatatu! Aka Pill Day. We arrived in Dar on a Wednesday and we took our malaria pill right when we got there. Its a weekly pill, so forever after Wednesday will be called Pill Day. I haven't gotten any of the insomnia or weird dreams people talk about being associated with the malaria, which is cool I guess, though I was looking forward to some sweet dreams.
Since Sunday, I have....
- Gotten a haircut! I paid an I think not overcharged price of 2000Tsh ($1.25), hopefully because of the very limited Swahili I used with them
- Had my placement interview! After giving us a few weeks to get settled and really think about what characteristics we want for our site, we had our interviews with the people who decide where we get placed. My main thing was I want somewhere coldish. I'm sure I could get used to this heat, but I think I'd really like being in a colder place, maybe up in the mountains in the Kilimanjaro region or something. We shall see! I also said I'd prefer a boarding school. Kids are much more likely to attend school regularly and you can more easily organize after school activities. I said I'm happy with electricity and water, or not. I think most (but not all) teachers have electricity either at their home or at their schools. I also said more rural (up to 6ish hours to the nearest banking town) is fine, or not.
- Got rained on for the first time! It was excellent. The roads weren't dusty for once, it was cool, and rain is awesome. Its rained a few times before at like 4am, and I always get excited, and then by the time I get up its always stopped. But today is rained until mid day sometime. My mama made me bring an umbrella to school though, which was super not Pacific Northwest of me. Sorry.
Swahili is going well, if slowly. I've gotten good at saying "tena tafadali" (again please) and "sema pole pole" (speak slowly).
Just cause I should practice, here's some Swahili for ya. I'll talk about what I do on a daily basis, because that is basically all I know how to say...Plug it into google translate to see what I (hopefully) said.
Jumatatu mpaka Jumamosi, ninakwenda shuleni. Ninatembea kwenda CCT (Christian Center of Tanzania?? I'm not sure...) au Morogoro Secondary. Morogoro Secondary nitafundisha fizikia wiki kesho. Huamka saa kumi na mbili na nusu asubuhi. (This won't will translate to 12:30 in the morning. However, time in Swahili is weird - the day starts at 6am and ends at 6pm, so basically you need to add or subtract 6 hours to get from English time to Swahili time. Anyway, saa kumi na mbili na nusu asubuhi = 6:30am). Hukula chakula cha asubuhi (chai, ndizi, chibati na/au mayai). Na rifiki zangu, hukwenda shuleni kujifunza Kiswahili. Ninapokuja nyumbani, ninasema "Shikamoo Mama." Mama Hilda anasema "Marahaba."
Okay, I'm cutting that short. Basically, my days are busy. In three months we are learning a new language, learning to be teachers, learning how to stay alive in a very new environment, and learning how to operate in a different cultural climate. Not this weekend but the next we get a full two day weekend, and are planning for a super short safari are in the works! Apparently we should see a good number of the Big Five. Should be most excellent.
Oh I was watching the news on TV with my family today, and they translated some for me. Apparently many doctors are on strike in Tanzania hoping for better pay. When bus drivers go on strike, people are late getting places. When doctors strike, people die. Its a pretty nasty situation apparently. We'll see what happens.
Ah, something totally unrelated. A few days ago, we got to see some experienced PCV Education volunteers teach a class of Form 1 (9th grade) students. It was eye opening to see the level of English of the students, which is pretty low. Even in technical classes like math and physics, a lot of time will need to be spent on making sure students understand the English. Lots of repetition! We also learned how to speak "special English" as they call it. Special English is English meant to be easy for English learners to understand. Speak slowly, very e-nun-ci-ate, pronounce your T's strongly and since Tanzanian's are used to British English, spell and pronounce words like the Brits. A-lu-minium is my favourite meTal. Yeah. Its tricky and will take some getting used to. Sadly, speaking with a full on British accent is apparently not so useful. Maybe I'll do it anyway.
We've started doing "micro-teaching" which is just 10-15 minute mini presentations in front of other volunteers. I've done one's on distance vs displacement, equilibrium, and gravity. I think on Friday I'll switch over to math and do something on probability. They are pretty useful I think, and fun to prepare. Its nice to get to use the mathy side of my brain once in awhile with all this language clogging up the other side. In a week and a half things get real, and we'll start teaching a few periods a week at a secondary school. Woo! I'll be teaching either Form 1 or 3 (9th or 11th grade) I think. I think probably physics, but it could also be math. We'll see!
Today is finally Jumapili! (which means Sunday, but is also the name of one of the training directors, which is confusing)
After three weeks, the six-days-a-week schedule is starting to hit me pretty hard. It's nice being busy, and I feel like I'm learning a lot, but man you really don't have much free time. Today I just hung around the house with my host mama and sister. My host dad apparently works seven days a week, so who am I to be complaining about six days a week. We did some laundry and I caught up on Swahili homework with the help of my host sister.
Yesterday a friend showed me a slot on my computer that accepts SIM cards, so I thought I might be able to get internet without the annoying USB dongle that I use now. When I put it in though, it not only didn't work at all, it also got stuck in my the slot. I have no idea how to get it out. So if anyone happens to know how to get a SIM card out of an Asus netbook, I'm all ears. Now I'm using the SIM card from my cell phone. On the brighter side, I found a deal to get 24 hours of internet for 500Tsh, which is a steal.
At one point for some reason, my internet got super fast, so I opened up Google Earth to try and figure out exactly where I am. With the help of my host mom and sister we found the secondary school that I'll be teaching at which is only a couple kilometers away, but couldn't get oriented enough figure out where the house is. The satellite imagery is surprisingly good – you can make out individual houses.
So some friends wrote me a list of questions – I’m going to start trying to answer them.
Do they have pillows?
Yes, they have pillows.
Do they use pens?
Yes, they use pens. But seriously, THEY DON’T HAVE MECHANICAL PENCILS AND I AM GOING TO DIE IF I DON’T GET SOME SOON. Seriously. Send me mechanical pencils stat.
I haven’t seem ‘em. I did see a girl wearing a Mercer Island Half Marathon sweatshirt though. Cool.
Today is Jumatatu! Aka Pill Day. We arrived in Dar on a Wednesday and we took our malaria pill right when we got there. Its a weekly pill, so forever after Wednesday will be called Pill Day. I haven't gotten any of the insomnia or weird dreams people talk about being associated with the malaria, which is cool I guess, though I was looking forward to some sweet dreams.
Since Sunday, I have....
- Gotten a haircut! I paid an I think not overcharged price of 2000Tsh ($1.25), hopefully because of the very limited Swahili I used with them
- Had my placement interview! After giving us a few weeks to get settled and really think about what characteristics we want for our site, we had our interviews with the people who decide where we get placed. My main thing was I want somewhere coldish. I'm sure I could get used to this heat, but I think I'd really like being in a colder place, maybe up in the mountains in the Kilimanjaro region or something. We shall see! I also said I'd prefer a boarding school. Kids are much more likely to attend school regularly and you can more easily organize after school activities. I said I'm happy with electricity and water, or not. I think most (but not all) teachers have electricity either at their home or at their schools. I also said more rural (up to 6ish hours to the nearest banking town) is fine, or not.
- Got rained on for the first time! It was excellent. The roads weren't dusty for once, it was cool, and rain is awesome. Its rained a few times before at like 4am, and I always get excited, and then by the time I get up its always stopped. But today is rained until mid day sometime. My mama made me bring an umbrella to school though, which was super not Pacific Northwest of me. Sorry.
Swahili is going well, if slowly. I've gotten good at saying "tena tafadali" (again please) and "sema pole pole" (speak slowly).
Just cause I should practice, here's some Swahili for ya. I'll talk about what I do on a daily basis, because that is basically all I know how to say...Plug it into google translate to see what I (hopefully) said.
Jumatatu mpaka Jumamosi, ninakwenda shuleni. Ninatembea kwenda CCT (Christian Center of Tanzania?? I'm not sure...) au Morogoro Secondary. Morogoro Secondary nitafundisha fizikia wiki kesho. Huamka saa kumi na mbili na nusu asubuhi. (This won't will translate to 12:30 in the morning. However, time in Swahili is weird - the day starts at 6am and ends at 6pm, so basically you need to add or subtract 6 hours to get from English time to Swahili time. Anyway, saa kumi na mbili na nusu asubuhi = 6:30am). Hukula chakula cha asubuhi (chai, ndizi, chibati na/au mayai). Na rifiki zangu, hukwenda shuleni kujifunza Kiswahili. Ninapokuja nyumbani, ninasema "Shikamoo Mama." Mama Hilda anasema "Marahaba."
Okay, I'm cutting that short. Basically, my days are busy. In three months we are learning a new language, learning to be teachers, learning how to stay alive in a very new environment, and learning how to operate in a different cultural climate. Not this weekend but the next we get a full two day weekend, and are planning for a super short safari are in the works! Apparently we should see a good number of the Big Five. Should be most excellent.
Oh I was watching the news on TV with my family today, and they translated some for me. Apparently many doctors are on strike in Tanzania hoping for better pay. When bus drivers go on strike, people are late getting places. When doctors strike, people die. Its a pretty nasty situation apparently. We'll see what happens.
Ah, something totally unrelated. A few days ago, we got to see some experienced PCV Education volunteers teach a class of Form 1 (9th grade) students. It was eye opening to see the level of English of the students, which is pretty low. Even in technical classes like math and physics, a lot of time will need to be spent on making sure students understand the English. Lots of repetition! We also learned how to speak "special English" as they call it. Special English is English meant to be easy for English learners to understand. Speak slowly, very e-nun-ci-ate, pronounce your T's strongly and since Tanzanian's are used to British English, spell and pronounce words like the Brits. A-lu-minium is my favourite meTal. Yeah. Its tricky and will take some getting used to. Sadly, speaking with a full on British accent is apparently not so useful. Maybe I'll do it anyway.
We've started doing "micro-teaching" which is just 10-15 minute mini presentations in front of other volunteers. I've done one's on distance vs displacement, equilibrium, and gravity. I think on Friday I'll switch over to math and do something on probability. They are pretty useful I think, and fun to prepare. Its nice to get to use the mathy side of my brain once in awhile with all this language clogging up the other side. In a week and a half things get real, and we'll start teaching a few periods a week at a secondary school. Woo! I'll be teaching either Form 1 or 3 (9th or 11th grade) I think. I think probably physics, but it could also be math. We'll see!
Today is finally Jumapili! (which means Sunday, but is also the name of one of the training directors, which is confusing)
After three weeks, the six-days-a-week schedule is starting to hit me pretty hard. It's nice being busy, and I feel like I'm learning a lot, but man you really don't have much free time. Today I just hung around the house with my host mama and sister. My host dad apparently works seven days a week, so who am I to be complaining about six days a week. We did some laundry and I caught up on Swahili homework with the help of my host sister.
Yesterday a friend showed me a slot on my computer that accepts SIM cards, so I thought I might be able to get internet without the annoying USB dongle that I use now. When I put it in though, it not only didn't work at all, it also got stuck in my the slot. I have no idea how to get it out. So if anyone happens to know how to get a SIM card out of an Asus netbook, I'm all ears. Now I'm using the SIM card from my cell phone. On the brighter side, I found a deal to get 24 hours of internet for 500Tsh, which is a steal.
At one point for some reason, my internet got super fast, so I opened up Google Earth to try and figure out exactly where I am. With the help of my host mom and sister we found the secondary school that I'll be teaching at which is only a couple kilometers away, but couldn't get oriented enough figure out where the house is. The satellite imagery is surprisingly good – you can make out individual houses.
So some friends wrote me a list of questions – I’m going to start trying to answer them.
Do they have pillows?
Yes, they have pillows.
Do they use pens?
Yes, they use pens. But seriously, THEY DON’T HAVE MECHANICAL PENCILS AND I AM GOING TO DIE IF I DON’T GET SOME SOON. Seriously. Send me mechanical pencils stat.
How much does stuff cost?
Stuff is pretty cheap compared to the dollar. I don’t know my economics terms very well but I think the dollar’s purchasing power here is about triple here than in the states. Beer at a bar costs anywhere from $1 to $1.75; a cooked meal costs between $1.50 and $7. A room at a super fancy hotel in Morogoro costs $30, a cheap hotel would probably be $5-10. You can probably pay a lot more for a hotel room in a bigger city like Dar though. It’s nice to think about stuff in USD, especially when you are getting ripped off, because in dollars everything is really really insanely cheap. But then you remember you make about $5 a day, so thinking in terms of dollars is just silly.
The currency is the Tanzanian Shilling (Tsh), with a conversation rate of about 1600Tsh=1 USD. Basically, it’s awesome, because you can carry around 10,000 notes and feel like a badass.
How’s the beer?
I like it, but I don’t have high standards for beer. Its plentiful, cheap (at least in dollars, see above…), and has cool names like Safari and Kilimanjaro to remind me I am in Africa. Oh also they have these 3oz (or so) bags of hard alcohol you can buy for 500Tsh at bars. So that's like just over a quarter. Apparently they are TERRIBLE. Haven't had one yet, we shall see.
Do they have a movie theater?
Apparently there is a real one in Dar somewhere, but I didn’t see it. However, right down the road from my house there is a building that I think may be a movie theater of sorts. At first I thought it was a bar, but it has a screen and projector and a bunch of bootlegged DVD’s displayed outside. Will be investigating further.
What do you do at night without electricity?
Stuff is pretty cheap compared to the dollar. I don’t know my economics terms very well but I think the dollar’s purchasing power here is about triple here than in the states. Beer at a bar costs anywhere from $1 to $1.75; a cooked meal costs between $1.50 and $7. A room at a super fancy hotel in Morogoro costs $30, a cheap hotel would probably be $5-10. You can probably pay a lot more for a hotel room in a bigger city like Dar though. It’s nice to think about stuff in USD, especially when you are getting ripped off, because in dollars everything is really really insanely cheap. But then you remember you make about $5 a day, so thinking in terms of dollars is just silly.
The currency is the Tanzanian Shilling (Tsh), with a conversation rate of about 1600Tsh=1 USD. Basically, it’s awesome, because you can carry around 10,000 notes and feel like a badass.
How’s the beer?
I like it, but I don’t have high standards for beer. Its plentiful, cheap (at least in dollars, see above…), and has cool names like Safari and Kilimanjaro to remind me I am in Africa. Oh also they have these 3oz (or so) bags of hard alcohol you can buy for 500Tsh at bars. So that's like just over a quarter. Apparently they are TERRIBLE. Haven't had one yet, we shall see.
Do they have a movie theater?
Apparently there is a real one in Dar somewhere, but I didn’t see it. However, right down the road from my house there is a building that I think may be a movie theater of sorts. At first I thought it was a bar, but it has a screen and projector and a bunch of bootlegged DVD’s displayed outside. Will be investigating further.
What do you do at night without electricity?
I have had electricity all the time since I’ve been in Tanzania. It seems like about 80-90% of volunteers have host families with electricity. Apparently it goes out fairly regularly, but it hasn’t happened yet. We also have running water. Pretty often the water will stop for between a few seconds and a few hours. This morning it went out mid shower, which meant I had half a bucket bath. Oh, yeah, I still have a showerhead The water isn’t potable, but I got my homemade water filter up and running a couple days ago, so I have fresh clean water to drink without boiling or having to buy bottled water. Yay!
Anyway, there’s a pretty good chance as a teacher I’ll have access to electricity throughout my service. We’ll see. I’ll know where I’m placed in a month or so!
Anyway, there’s a pretty good chance as a teacher I’ll have access to electricity throughout my service. We’ll see. I’ll know where I’m placed in a month or so!
Toms shoes – are they there?
I haven’t seem ‘em. I did see a girl wearing a Mercer Island Half Marathon sweatshirt though. Cool.
Have they heard of Seattle?
Although they may be wearing Seattle area clothing, no, they definitely haven’t heard of Seattle.
Although they may be wearing Seattle area clothing, no, they definitely haven’t heard of Seattle.
Can you get Chinese food?
Yes! I went to a place that had a large selection of Chinese food last night. Got fried rice because it was cheap, even though I eat rice twice a day, every day. How silly. Anyway, yeah, it’s not common by a long shot, but yeah, you can get it in Morogoro. Indian food too!
Transportation
So most people just walk places. Kids walk to school, most adults walk to work, I walk everywhere. I'm probably walking 4-5 miles a day, which is a nice excuse to not exercise at all ever. Lots of people bike as well. People will carry impressive amounts of stuff on bike trailers. Charcoal for stoves is delivered by guys on bikes with giant trailers. Daladala's are either small buses or large vans that act basically like a bus system in bigger cities. They follow general routes, but aren't consistent and are private and not regulated at all. Each daladala is individually owned, so there isn't any sort of schedule. Since I live relatively close to town, I haven't ridden a daladala in Morogoro yet, but I rode one in Dar. I'll probably ride one fairly often once I'm at my site. Motorcyles taxis are also really common. They are super dangerous and Peace Corps explicitly forbids volunteers from riding them. Normal taxis are also common, though relatively expensive. In town, there's a fairly good number of private cars as well. Large buses are the main means of transportation between cities.
Coffee
The idea that Tanzanians grow good coffee for export and drink the bad stuff seems pretty accurate. Instant coffee that I think must be decaffeinated is ubiquitous, but I haven't seen real coffee being served anywhere. I'm sure its available at nice places though. Chai tea is super common though, and I am growing to accept it as a viable alternative to coffee. I think it has a decent amount of caffeine too!
What do they eat for breakfast?
Well the most important thing is that Tanzanian's actually eat breakfast twice. Its genius. One they call "chakula cha asubuhi," or "food for the morning" and the other they call "chai" or "tea." Maybe they are copying the Brits? Anyway, chai time is around 10am and the reason to stay awake during those early hours. Common breakfast foods include bananas (of which I have at least two every day), doughnut like fried bread, something somewhere between a tortilla and a pancake, bread with jam, chai, and these excellent potato ball things. Its basically like a mini chicken pot pie that has been fried. Its amazing.
Yes! I went to a place that had a large selection of Chinese food last night. Got fried rice because it was cheap, even though I eat rice twice a day, every day. How silly. Anyway, yeah, it’s not common by a long shot, but yeah, you can get it in Morogoro. Indian food too!
Transportation
So most people just walk places. Kids walk to school, most adults walk to work, I walk everywhere. I'm probably walking 4-5 miles a day, which is a nice excuse to not exercise at all ever. Lots of people bike as well. People will carry impressive amounts of stuff on bike trailers. Charcoal for stoves is delivered by guys on bikes with giant trailers. Daladala's are either small buses or large vans that act basically like a bus system in bigger cities. They follow general routes, but aren't consistent and are private and not regulated at all. Each daladala is individually owned, so there isn't any sort of schedule. Since I live relatively close to town, I haven't ridden a daladala in Morogoro yet, but I rode one in Dar. I'll probably ride one fairly often once I'm at my site. Motorcyles taxis are also really common. They are super dangerous and Peace Corps explicitly forbids volunteers from riding them. Normal taxis are also common, though relatively expensive. In town, there's a fairly good number of private cars as well. Large buses are the main means of transportation between cities.
Coffee
The idea that Tanzanians grow good coffee for export and drink the bad stuff seems pretty accurate. Instant coffee that I think must be decaffeinated is ubiquitous, but I haven't seen real coffee being served anywhere. I'm sure its available at nice places though. Chai tea is super common though, and I am growing to accept it as a viable alternative to coffee. I think it has a decent amount of caffeine too!
What do they eat for breakfast?
Well the most important thing is that Tanzanian's actually eat breakfast twice. Its genius. One they call "chakula cha asubuhi," or "food for the morning" and the other they call "chai" or "tea." Maybe they are copying the Brits? Anyway, chai time is around 10am and the reason to stay awake during those early hours. Common breakfast foods include bananas (of which I have at least two every day), doughnut like fried bread, something somewhere between a tortilla and a pancake, bread with jam, chai, and these excellent potato ball things. Its basically like a mini chicken pot pie that has been fried. Its amazing.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Host Family and Morogoro
So I'm writing this from the room in my host family's house in Morogoro. I spent a few days in Dar Es Salaam, 99% of the time being spent in the Mbazi Center, where we slept, ate, had info sessions, and got injected with every vaccination ever invented. I am now literally immortal. Which is good because I've learned from the medical sessions that almost every plant and animal in Africa can and probably will kill you. So far though I'm healthy minus a few strange bug bites here and there. We also had sessions on cultural adjustment (girls, don't be offended when people call you fat, its a compliment) and safety and security (U.S. Embassy official advice: don't ride local public transit called dala dalas. Peace Corps advice: yeahhh, we aren't paying you enough to ride taxis everywhere so get used to dala dalas). We did a quick walk around downtown Dar. It was about as expected - very crowded, dirty and busy. The streets are full of people selling all kinds of ware. Its easy to get a full meal along with some grocery and even clothes shopping, all while stuck in traffic (which, by the way, is virtually guaranteed to happen). It was cool to see all the hustle and bustle of a large city in the developing world. Our group stood out pretty obviously, and we got groups of street children running up to us shouting "wazungu!" (white people!) a couple times. We also visited the Peace Corps Tanzania headquarters, which is in Oyster Bay, a really nice part of the city. Lots of embassies and NGO headquarters are right around there, which were fun to see.
On Tuesday, we took a threeish hour bus ride to Morogoro, 200km east of Dar. It was really really great to get out of the city and into rural Tanzania. My host family's village (though urban in comparison to the site I'll be living at, probably) is a polar opposite of the city I left in Dar. My house is on a very long, very very very bumpy dirt road. The road becomes impassible by car about 20 meters past my house. The village I live in is what I think of when I think "Africa" - much more so than Dar was. Women dress quite conservatively and often wear a traditional colorful cloth, called a konga. People tend to walk slowly and have long, complex greetings with others they meet walking on the street. Tiny markets are available all over the place with people selling fresh food. Cars are seen only once in awhile - most people walk or get a ride on a "piki piki" or motorcycle taxi. I walk about half an hour to the Morogoro Secondary School, where I'm learning Swahili and eventually will be student teaching. Its a large school, with about 20 classrooms, each holding at least 50 students, often many more. Though the school is very dilapidated physically (broken windows, nasty pit toilets, etc.), the staff we met seemed very dedicated and the school has a good reputation. I will be spending most of my time at this school, either learning Swahili with a Tanzanian instructor and four other volunteers, or student teaching. We also meet up with the full class of Peace Corps Trainees about once a week. Training is pretty intense. We have full days of training (language or otherwise) 6 days a week, and then spend a lot of the 7th day on chores. Two weeks ago, a late night out was staying out til 4am. Last night I went to a bar and stayed out til it was dark. Didn't make it home until 9pm. It was a crazy night!
So that's basically what I've been up to. Here's some other stuff I thought of talking about...
Eating:
I've mostly been eating rice, beans, potatoes, and bananas. There are bananas growing all over the place, and its a strange day if I haven't had one with at least two meals. Rice (sometimes with curry), potatoes and beans are both super common. Ugali is also very common, though I've had it just once. Ugali basically looks like very very firm mashed potatoes, but its made from a corn meal type thing. Its filling, though has absolutely no flavor. Its often eaten with vegetables or meat. Speaking of meat, I've had chicken, beef, and goat. All meat, but chicken in particular, is quite a different experience here. I'm used to fat American chickens, often with all the bones removed. Here all chickens are way skinnier as they run around all day and are served with lotza bones. Its also common to get served a not so normal part of the chicken, for example, its face. Kinda gross. In general though I'm actually really enjoying the food. Its super carb heavy, which is how I eat in the states anyway, so its pretty awesome. A lot of stuff is totally cool to eat with your hand here, like ugali. Eating with your hand is pretty great, though it is taking me awhile to get used to, especially because I need to do it with my right hand (I'm left handed). Historically (and for many still today), toilet paper was nooot used, so the left hand was for dealing with that whole situation, and the right hand was for eating. Naturally, people give me a strange look if I start eating with my left hand.
Sleeping:
I sleep under a mosquito net, which is this big net that hangs over your bed and you tuck into the mattress to create a insect free zone. It also sorta feels like you are camping which is pretty great. Apparently all animals in Africa decide to wake up and make as much noise as possible from 1am-3am (and the roosters dont stop then), so sleeping through that is a bit challenging. My bed is super comfy though, and I'm generally exhausted and sleep very well every night. Staying up until 11pm tonight to finish this blog is a major major achievement for me. You are welcome.
Host family:
I'm living with the Musiba's. Stay at home mom Hilda, dad Julius has a windshield repair shop in town, and 14 year old daughter Mary is just starting secondary school. They speak English very well, but are also excited to help me learn Swahili, so it seems like its been a good fit. Tomorrow they are going to show me how to wash clothes by hand. Excellent. I haven't been able to do much outside the house with my family yet, so hopefully tomorrow we can walk around the area or something.
Being a foreigner:
Though you definitely get a lot of stares, people are overwhelmingly happy to see us. I get a lot of "Karibu sana Tanzania!" (very much welcome to Tanzania!). People get excited when I manage to spit out a few basic greetings in Swahili. Its definitely an interesting experience being a minority really for the first time.
So that's all I can think of off the top of my head. Post you're questions, I'd love to answer!
Another post coming soon with pictures. In case that doesn't actually happen, check the facebook album at https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151031670774515.485414.510569514&type=1&l=ad2203db1b
So that's basically what I've been up to. Here's some other stuff I thought of talking about...
Eating:
I've mostly been eating rice, beans, potatoes, and bananas. There are bananas growing all over the place, and its a strange day if I haven't had one with at least two meals. Rice (sometimes with curry), potatoes and beans are both super common. Ugali is also very common, though I've had it just once. Ugali basically looks like very very firm mashed potatoes, but its made from a corn meal type thing. Its filling, though has absolutely no flavor. Its often eaten with vegetables or meat. Speaking of meat, I've had chicken, beef, and goat. All meat, but chicken in particular, is quite a different experience here. I'm used to fat American chickens, often with all the bones removed. Here all chickens are way skinnier as they run around all day and are served with lotza bones. Its also common to get served a not so normal part of the chicken, for example, its face. Kinda gross. In general though I'm actually really enjoying the food. Its super carb heavy, which is how I eat in the states anyway, so its pretty awesome. A lot of stuff is totally cool to eat with your hand here, like ugali. Eating with your hand is pretty great, though it is taking me awhile to get used to, especially because I need to do it with my right hand (I'm left handed). Historically (and for many still today), toilet paper was nooot used, so the left hand was for dealing with that whole situation, and the right hand was for eating. Naturally, people give me a strange look if I start eating with my left hand.
Sleeping:
I sleep under a mosquito net, which is this big net that hangs over your bed and you tuck into the mattress to create a insect free zone. It also sorta feels like you are camping which is pretty great. Apparently all animals in Africa decide to wake up and make as much noise as possible from 1am-3am (and the roosters dont stop then), so sleeping through that is a bit challenging. My bed is super comfy though, and I'm generally exhausted and sleep very well every night. Staying up until 11pm tonight to finish this blog is a major major achievement for me. You are welcome.
Host family:
I'm living with the Musiba's. Stay at home mom Hilda, dad Julius has a windshield repair shop in town, and 14 year old daughter Mary is just starting secondary school. They speak English very well, but are also excited to help me learn Swahili, so it seems like its been a good fit. Tomorrow they are going to show me how to wash clothes by hand. Excellent. I haven't been able to do much outside the house with my family yet, so hopefully tomorrow we can walk around the area or something.
Being a foreigner:
Though you definitely get a lot of stares, people are overwhelmingly happy to see us. I get a lot of "Karibu sana Tanzania!" (very much welcome to Tanzania!). People get excited when I manage to spit out a few basic greetings in Swahili. Its definitely an interesting experience being a minority really for the first time.
So that's all I can think of off the top of my head. Post you're questions, I'd love to answer!
Another post coming soon with pictures. In case that doesn't actually happen, check the facebook album at https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151031670774515.485414.510569514&type=1&l=ad2203db1b
Thursday, June 7, 2012
In Dar
I've arrived in Dar! I'll be here until Tuesday. The journey was long and I didn't sleep more than an hour or two for some very long amount of time (Monday at 4am to Wednesday night), but all is now well. We are in a hotel/conference center here. Its pretty big and relatively nice - we all have our own rooms with bathrooms and showers even! The showers are pretty basic without hot water, but compared to what I'll have in a few days, this is pretty nice. We aren't allowed to leave the compound for a few days since we don't really know any Swahili and haven't gone through basic security training yet. So, I haven't seen too much of the city. Just the ride from the airport was pretty interesting though. Anyway, once I've got some pictures I'll update again.
On the Plane
From June 6...
I’m on the plane from JFK to Johannesburg now and have some
down time (15 hours of it to be precise) so I’ll talk a little about the last
few days. Oh yeah Mom, don’t even worry, I just did a little walk around the
plane, blood clots got nothing on me. My first official event with the Peace
Corps was what they call “Staging.” My class all met in a conference room in a
hotel in Philadelphia for seven hours or so. We did some paperwork and
officially moved from Peace Corps Invitees to Peace Corps Trainees. We won’t
become full-fledged Peace Corps Volunteers until August 15th, when
we will have our swearing in Ceremony, which is apparently a fairly fancy-smancy
event. When we got our PC passports I was a little disappointed – it’s just a
normal old passport with a little sticker on it saying I’m a Peace Corps
volunteer. How boring, sad. But, it does have my Tanzania visa in it, which is
pretty cool, so I guess it’s okay.
I had some confusion on the number of volunteers that would
be going with me; it turns out there are 47 of us in my “class.” There are a
total of 160 volunteers in Tanzania. What I didn’t know is there are multiple
stagings each year for Tanzania because they are broken up by the type of job
you’ll be doing. So my staging was an education specific one. There are
volunteers in Tanzania involved in environmental and health sectors as well,
but those trainees get their own staging events.
So staging was about what you’d expect it to be. It was a
bunch of people meeting for the first time, and about to head off to a really
different environment together. There were lots of get to know you activities,
and then a bunch of high level discussions about expectations, fears, safety
issues, and the like. It was pretty interesting and a great way to start
getting to know people. My fellow
trainees seem like a really great group of people. Everyone was pumped up to
finally be going and made what could have been a pretty dry conference really
fun. I guess this should have been obvious, but I was really struck by the geographical
spread of people backgrounds. I think there were three other Washingtonians,
but there were folks from every region of the States. My roommate at staging was a guy from
Pennsylvania. Amazingly, a few months ago he met a friend of mine who I studied
abroad with and went to college with. Small world! Most were fairly recent
grads, though there were a few older people too. Though there were some people
who had just graduated a few weeks ago, probably the typical situation was
someone who graduated a few years ago and wanted a break from the normal
working world. I’m not sure about my group specifically but I guess the average
age of Peace Corps volunteers is 28.
So after staging
ended, we I was planning on getting a little sleep before the 2:00am departure
time for the airport. Instead I went out and celebrated the birthday of another
trainee and didn’t end up using the hotel room except for storing my luggage
and a quick shower. No regrets! I didn’t get much sleep the night before
staging either though, so I’m running on fumes. Strangely, I took a couple hour
nap on the plane already and feel good to go again. It’ll hit me at some point…
We got to the airport hours before we could check our bags
(better safe than sorry I guess), so here we are with all our luggage sprawled
out on a floor of the lobby. Sorry for the terrible image quality.
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