Every single thing for the last year.

I'm back!

So a bunch of people have visited me here and they haven't been featured on this beautiful blog yet (because, let's be honest, we all thought this blog was long dead). We'll start with that.

Ya have to read the whole thing though (or just skip to the bottom) because I'll tell ya about my new job in a new city and when I'm coming home to America!

So there's a lot to write and not a long time to do it, so I apologize for the limited/terrible writing. Lots of pictures though!

My Parents Visit

First off, my lovely parents came to visit. It was pretty great. They came in November-December last year (yes its been that long since I updated shut up). Here you can see them at my house on Thanksgiving. (They are the old looking ones on the right.) Thanksgiving at my house came a bit of a tradition, mostly because my house was big and has electricity. The first year we cooked chicken, so last year we had to go a little bigger - turkey! There are approximately 7 turkeys in Tanzania, but after a lot of detective work (...I called a dude and then called another dude), and a taxi ride with a live turkey at my feet, we had a turkey dinner for Thanksgiving! Rachel (bottom right) slaughtered it. She's a badass.

Prepping the turkey!





After checking out the hot destinations around my site, we did an intense hike, safaried, and went to Zanzibar.





























I had done a hike where you start up in the mountains then hike down to Lake Malawi and its super beautiful. So I thought we should do that, except start at a slightly different place. Turns out I'm bad at maps or something, because instead of starting in the mountains, we started at the bottom of the mountain and had to climb the mountain the first day. The above picture is on the first day before we knew the horrors to come. Not pictured is us walk along a dirt road unsure of where we were or where we were going at ten o'clock at night. So yeah, I'm a pretty good guide. But anyway, it was still cool and we finally did make it to the beach and had a day or two of well deserved rest and relaxation.


And then we went on a safari...

 Look its two park employees. However one knows how to track lions and one doesn't, so you can be the judge of who is cooler.

These are elephants. 

Elephants eat trees. Not like leaves, trees. This tree is apparently particularly tasty. Also see anything through the hole? Yeah we're artsy.  

This is a bird. I don't care about birds but maybe you do. So this is for you. 

LEOPARD!!!

So yeah a safari basically involves driving around in a car a bunch so I won't really talk about it with words. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. That's me and Emily in our safari gear. Just kidding safari gear is stupid.

My mother surveying the street scene. She approves. 

So then we went to Zanzibar, land of spices and white beaches. 

I "accidentally" got the parentals to buy the VIP ferry tickets to Zanzibar, so we took the journey sitting on leather couches. Nicest way I think I've ever traveled.

 We went on a spice tour. She liked it SO MUCH!

 There are lots of cool doors in Stonetown, Zanzibar. Its like their thing. As this picture demonstrates, Stonetown historically was inhabited by giants. 

Sometimes my father starts dancing awkwardly. One of many traits we share.

You can tell from our faces that we really really love these ties. They are so FUN! 

So yeah, it was an excellent time with excellent adventures!

Next up,

Grandma and Aunt Barbara Visit

This trip started out with a bit of a hiccup - the airline Grandma used somehow decided she could make a negative 10 hour layover (as in arrive in the evening and leave the same morning). As amazing as she is, this didn't work out but she still made it to Dar es Salaam - just a day later than expected. Though there were a few hours when we went into international-lost-grandma crisis mode, all turned out well and Emily and I were there to greet both Grandma and Barbara at the airport in Mbeya.

While searching for food after picking up our visitors, we ended up walking straight through a big political rally.

Despite the issues, Grandma was unfazed.  

 Along with creating an impossible itenerary, the airline also lost Grandma's luggage, so our first priority was picking up a nightgown at the local market.

Our adventures started off with some ambitious sightseeing, including this hike down to a river to see a natural bridge. My neighbor Lucas Mafren acted as guide. I'm fairly confident he likes my grandma a lot better than me. That's fair though  I guess.

Checked out this beauty. 

 We hung out at Lake Malawi for a few days just like with my parents. This time we didn't do the death march hike beforehand so were able to enjoy the beach instead of mostly sleeping and nursing our wounds. 

 

Grandma living the high life in a canoe carved from a mango tree.

 Food! Actually looks pretty gross but I think that's a very tasty peas in coconut with rice dish (trust me its good).

Tanzanian children are super cute. Its a thing. I tried to give them some clothes my parents brought for them but they just ran away and so I chased them and then I felt weird because I was chasing children. Story over. 

 Hanging out with my students.

Just for the record, here's proof I was actually teaching as well as doing all this fun stuff with all my visitors.

I couldn't take too much time off during the school year. After all the fun of my site and the beach (and a night at Utengule Coffee Lodge) , I sent Aunt Barbara and Grandma off in a safari car to safari it up at Ruaha National Park and then to Zanzibar. From what I hear, they had an excellent time.

Library, Conference, Exams

So along with all the visitors, life at site continued. Beyond teaching lots of physics and working on a variety of projects with a bunch of great students in the Science Club, I was also involved in a project to bring new, quality books to the school library in desperate need of quality resources. 

 This is Deo, we learned Swahili together. 

 Science club: can you use four 4's and any operator (+ - * / ! ( ) etc.) to get any number from 1-20? Okay that's math not science but whatever. 

Grading exams: This used to be a significant part of my life. Its not anymore. I'm so happy. 

We did a "Critial Thinking Conference" with a bunch of PCVs in the Mbeya area. Mostly it was for younger students (middle school aged). I brought some of my older students (18-19 years old) who helped lead the conference. Excellent work by all.

We are lions here, obviously. This is an excellent group of students, some of my very favorite. Sad to see them go, but I've been able to keep in touch with some of them. Excellent folks.

In May, my students took their final national exams that determine if and where they can go to college (think SAT but more so). This was what they've been preparing for a solid two years, so it was a stressful time for both students and teachers. I just recently got the results back - though by no means amazing (physics is a tough subject), scores were better than they have been in the past. Got some congrats from my school's Headmaster, but the best part were the texts and call from former students thanking me.

James' Visit

Yet another excellent visitor! The magnificent James Bauer came to visit and we had a magnificent time. He liked it so much he stayed an extra week or two. Sadly I got a call literally when he was flying here saying I needed to start my new job early, so I had to send James out on his own for some parts of the trip. Worked out very nicely though - think he enjoyed venturing out on his own and hanging out with a bunch of other Peace Corps Volunteers. In fact, he might even apply to Peace Corps himself (hint, hint James). 

Hung out with my neighbors at my house.

 Ate some good food, drank some good beer. Or at least, cold beer.

Hiked some nice hikes. 

Swam in some nice lakes and oceans (this one is on Zanzibar, but we also went to Lake Malawi)

 An elephant! Safari-d it up, saweeet!

Safari car got a flat, so we stood guard for lions, no big deal.

 I even got to show James the Peace Corps office in Dar es Salaam, where I'm working now!

Anyway, James and I did lots, really deserves its own blog post in itself. Just ask us when we're in America together. We'll be the guys wearing awesome matching suit jackets. I sadly can't find a picture, but they are orange and they are amazing. Get excited to see them.

Leaving Site

So as I alluded to before, my adventure with James ended up actually being my permanent departure from site since I started my "extension" job early. Anyway, it ended up being a rushed departure. In some ways it was nice - ended up doing all my goodbyes in a couple of very long days. Tanzanians are really good at goodbyes. As I went from house to house, both close friends and came out to say goodbye. There was one common difficult question "if you like it here, why are you leaving?" I think it was sincere, and I took it just to mean they liked me so much they wanted me to stay! In general though, they made goodbyes easy. They thanked me for my work at the school, told me I'm welcome whenever I want to come back, and we were done. No long drawn out goodbyes, but also solid closure. I had also already said my most difficult goodbyes to some of the people I was closest to at site - my  students. 

I was touched especially by my last goodbye at site. Probably my best friend at site, Freddy, came and said goodbye to me the day before we left. We were leaving at 5:00am the next morning. Though a great guy, he (like most Tanzanians) have a very loose sense of time. If something is said to take an hour, you should expect two. If an event is to start at 3, expect it to start around 5:30. Anyway, this is all to say I had never seen Freddy "on time" to any event, ever. I told him we'd be leaving and he mentioned something about maybe getting up to say goodbye the next day. I knew not to expect him. Amazingly though, at 4:50am the next day, there Freddy was at the front door, not even on time, but early, here to say goodbye one last time. 

Anyway, I'm hoping to get back to Mbeya and my site soon - might even have a little farewell party. We'll see. 

Pre-Service Training - Again!

So I got called away from site to go through Pre-Service Training (PST) again. This is the 3 month training people go through before becoming full Peace Corps Volunteers and head to their site. Its what I went through right when I arrived in Tanzania a little over two years ago. This time though, they were low on training staff so asked me to come in and help out with training. It was a fun and very busy time. Consistent 6 days, 60 hour weeks. I was involved with everything from leading sessions to setting up the chairs every morning to figuring out the logistics of sending 61 volunteers on buses to their new site across Tanzania. This time was a little different from my time as a trainee. I didn't get the experience of living with a host family, but got the perks of living in a hotel room with a hot shower and AC! It was exciting to see all 61 Volunteers Swear-In at the U.S. Ambassador's residence in Dar. 

New Job

Finally, a few weeks ago after the new class of Volunteers had sworn in and headed off to site, I started my more "permanent" job. I'm extending my assignment as Peace Corps Volunteer by one year to work as a Peace Corps Volunteer Leader. This means I'll be headed home for good in mid-September, 2015. But I'll be home for a month soon, see below! So yeah, I moved out of my place in Mbeya and moved into my new house here in Dar where I'll be working in the main Peace Corps office. Its a huge change from the village where I did laundry by hand, routinely cooked on a charcoal stove, took bucket baths, etc. I now live with a lot more creature comforts (my house basically feels like its in America - and it costs more than I've ever paid for rent in the states). Its also difficult though - living in a big, hot, dirty city can be tough and surviving on a volunteer stipend while living and working in a very well-to-do part of the city brings its own challenges. I'm really excited about the job. In practice I'm a glorified intern - I'll be helping out in a lot of different areas, programming and training, admin and logistics, grant-writing and review, monitoring and evaluation. Though most of my time will be spent in Dar, I'll also be travelling for trainings and going out to visit folks at their sites and potentially develop new sites as well (this is huge as Tanzania's Peace Corps program is continuing to substantially increase its numbers). So far, working with Peace Corps staff has been an amazing experience. They really are the best of the best in their fields. Having the experience of being a Volunteer in the field has allowed me to act as a liaison between Volunteers and staff, by bringing the Volunteer perspective to discussions with staff and also explaining to PCVs the huge amount of work, often unseen, that staff does every day. It's also giving me the opportunity to see how an international development organization works - something I'm becoming more interested in being involved with after Peace Corps. 

and last but not least...

I'm Coming Home!

If you extend your service for a year, Peace Corps gives you a month-long trip back home! If you haven't heard, I'm officially going to be home November 16 - December 15, 2014. Over Thanksgiving I'll be visiting relatives with my family in the south, but other than that I expect to be in Washington. So, lets hang out!

Oh and why am I leaving right before Christmas, you ask? Because my sister is coming to visit me! She'll be here over Christmas and New Years and we're going to have a grand old time. But that's a story for another day (like a day after its happened). So for now, I'm done! 

Zambia and Projects

I hate how I always start my blog entries like this…but here we go
again. Sorry it's been, like, a long time since I updated this thing.
But I am now!

First up, a big waterfall and bridge jumping. Until last month, I'd
been in Tanzania for a whole year, but never set foot in another
African country. That' just silly. So when our "summer break" in June
finally arrived, five friends and I jumped on a train in Mbeya headed
toward Zambia. The train was quite the experience – let's just say
I'll never complain about Amtrak being a couple hours late again. The
train we were getting on started off in Dar es Salaam, out on the
coast. By the time it arrived in Mbeya, it was already around six
hours behind. Three of the six of us travellers started off in Dar, so
we got some warning about the lateness but still ended up sitting
around the Mbeya train station for a few hours. It was actually an
interesting place. With its grand architecture and big clocks
everywhere, I'm pretty sure it was built by the Germans. It was weird;
it felt like walking into Europe, except a 1940's Europe that hasn't
seen much maintenance since then.

After a long wait the train finally arrived. Though not even close to
the madness that are Tanzanian buses, it was still crowded with people
and all types of baggage (though I didn't see any live animals, a big
difference from buses). Our friends were excited to see us and our
supplies of food, water, and of course wine, though it meant they'd be
a bit more crowded. We rented out a second class compartment, which
basically consisted of two sets of triple decker bunk beds and a tiny
table all squished in the space of a minivan. That along with the 8
hour delay at the border with Zambia (who knows why…) meant we all got
to know each other pretty well! It wasn't bad though – there was a
dining car and sometimes showers, so we were well fed and cleanish by
the time we arrived. Most of the people who work on the train are
Zambian so don't speak Swahili (but do speak really good English), so
we all had a couple awkward moments when we said "Habari za jioni?"
("How's the evening?") and they said "What..?" I think my favorite
part about the train was its lack of safety standards. That means a
few doors were missing and all the windows opened wide enough to stick
the top half of your body out. Sticking your head out the window and
watching the African landscape fly by was awesome. And yes, dogs also
like doing that but that does not diminish the experience okay?

So, right, we finally reached the end of the line. We were headed to
Livingstone, and the world wonder Victoria Falls, which is all the way
down on the border with Zimbabwe. The train dropped us at
Kapiri-Mposhi, a couple hours outside of Zambia's capital, Lusaka.
After a quick bus ride we got into Lusaka and headed to a backpackers
for the night. Lusaka is in many ways a modern city with grocery
stores, shopping malls and fast food joints. We spent a day doing
things we thought were amazing but you probably don't. We got donuts
and pizza, wondered around grocery stores for literally hours, and got
complicated coffee drinks for as much money as we make in a day. Then
off to Livingstone, another 8 hour or so journey. We had heard
hitchhiking was easy in Zambia, so a few of us went for it! It was
really fun – we met interesting people – a woman working for USAID, a
safari tour operator, and an Irish guy working at a fishing operation,
to name a few.

K, finally, Livingstone and Victoria Falls. We stayed at a backpackers
again. It was strange being back in that culture, meeting fellow
travellers from all over the world. Victoria Falls is crazy. I like to
think I know my waterfalls pretty well, but this one was in a
different league than any other I've seen. In June the water level is
really high and I believe at that time of year it is the largest
waterfall in the world (measured by flow…cubic meters per second). I
don't have internet as I write this though, so I might be lying. I'm
also pretty sure it is the largest in the world as measured by width.
It's a mile wide. It is a wall of water one mile wide. That's, like,
difficult to comprehend. Because of the spray, there's nowhere on the
ground you can actually see the whole thing. Speaking of the spray,
it's crazy. Victoria Falls is a little strange; the Zambezi River
spreads out and falls into this giant crack which funnels all the
water back together at the bottom. Just look up a picture, it'll make
more sense. Anyway, during the high water season you can't go to the
bottom of the crack because it's full of water, so you see the falls
from the other side of the crack instead. Even there though, it's
raining all the time from the spray, and more intense than any normal
rain. We all got completely soaked in a matter of seconds.

So besides seeing the falls, we jumped off a bridge. There's an
awesome giant bridge over the river next to the falls and you can
bungee jump off the middle of it. Now, Emily and I didn't actually
bungee jump, but did this thing where you jump off and freefall for a
while and then get caught by the arc of a rope you are attached to.
You don't end up upside down but you still have to walk off the edge
of a bridge with the ground 300 feet below you and freefall for like
3.5 seconds (I calculated it). I feel badass. Emily and I did it
together, which meant we had to walk off at exactly the same time. I'm
fairly sure if she wasn't there I would have chickened out. It was
scary. My palms are sweating remembering it. Heights are SO SCARY.

That was Zambia and Victoria falls! It was a really fun trip. There
are a couple more stories that aren't blog-appropriate, so just ask
me! What's next? Ahh, projects. I've got a few projects in the works
including a Boys Conference, a book drive for my school's library, and
working with a group promoting "hands on" science.

I'm planning a Boys Conference with a few other volunteers who live
around the Mbeya region. Boys and Girls Conferences are really popular
for Peace Corps Volunteers. Basically a few volunteers work with local
counterparts (usually other teachers at their schools) to design a
weekend full of sessions usually relating to family planning,
HIV/AIDS, girls empowerment, career possibilities, etc. Ours will be
centered on issues related to gender equality, HIV/AIDS and careers,
particularly in science. Figuring out the complicated application
process for grants like these is a little tricky, but a good skill to
have I guess. We're in the approval process but hope to have the
conference over the weekend of October 5-6.
I've also just sent in the initial application for a grant to buy
textbooks for my school library. I'm excited about this one because a
lack of textbooks is a major concern at the school and something my
students ask me about all the time. There are only a few current
textbooks in the library now, so it'll be really good to get enough so
that even if students don't have their own textbooks, at least they
have consistent access to ones. This will be a PCPP (Peace Corps
Partnership Program) grant. That's a fancy way of saying it goes up on
their website and anyone can donate money. And by anyone, I mean my
friends and family. And by that, I mean YOU. It's not up yet but it
will be soon. Get ready.

What else? I'm also now on the Shika na Mikono ("Grab with your
Hands") committee, which tries to promote the use of hands on science
activities in the classroom using cheap, locally available resources.
We're working on a manual that was started a few years ago by
volunteers and also going to new volunteers' trainings to show them
some cool science labs. Hopefully we'll also be working with the
Tanzania Ministry of Education to get the word out beyond the Peace
Corps community. We'll see!

K, that's it for now. Thanks for reading and expect to hear from me
again soon, this time pointing you towards a website where you can
donate to help kids in Africa. How great is that? So great.

Neighbors, School, and Exploring

So I'm heading back into school after a "Spring Break" of sorts for Easter and I've done some cool stuff, so here we go, blog updated.

First off, neighbors. In the last couple of months I've discovered I'm surrounded by a bunch of ex-pat neighbors, all with interesting stories. There's the family of white Zimbabweans who moved here a few years ago and run a big avocado farm right next to my school that exports to the UK. Their house is only a mile or two away and is completely nice and western - much nicer than any home I've lived in in America. It was exciting to go visit and eat good food and feel like I was back in the states for a couple hours, but also a little strange knowing that even as I attempt to live in a relatively simple way - no refrigerator, doing laundry by hand, bucket baths, etc etc, there's this family living a very western life so close.

I also met a woman working at the avocado farm and her sister who both live around here. They are daughters of missionaries (maybe from South Africa?) but were born and raised in Namibia. They tell stories of growing up with pet monkeys, fighting off snakes and hyenas, and dealing with the awkward situation of a baboon with a crush on their dad. All I had was "my dog is pretty good at catching Frisbees." What a way to grow up.

Then there is my neighbor only maybe a third of a mile away from Germany who I didn't know existed until a month or two ago. Claudia has lived all over Africa and is now working for a women's empowerment group through the Morovian Church. Its fun to go over to her house to eat excellent home made (of course) baked goods and drool over her washing machine and cheese. Roberto from Switzerland is living right next to her for the next 3 months or so. He's here on sabbatical from his job as a science teacher at a high school and he's going to be working on a solar light project and helping me teach physics at my school. I'm really excited to have another physics teacher, especially one with a bunch of real experience. So yeah, those are my cool international neighbors. It's fun to hear all the crazy mix of languages and accents when we get together. I feel pretty worldly.

School is basically going well - I've been keeping pretty busy with teaching. The last two topics I've taught are electromagnetism and current electricity, two topics I knew very little about before two months ago, so I've had my work cut out trying to learn about them and teach them! I've also been working with students on the science club. We finally got student leaders elected so I'm hoping they start to take the lead and I can back off some. Also thinking about trying to get a grant for computers for my school and/or start a book drive of some sort for textbooks in the next month or two so let me know if you know anything about computer companies giving out free monies and don't be surprised if me or someone I know asks you for money!

Now a quick rant about some of the things that make Tanzania's school system a failing one - corporal punishment, teacher truancy and general lack of dedication (at my school it's no exaggeration to say it is uncommon to see a teacher actually in the classroom), and a focus on rules and rote memorization above critical thinking. It's hard to see how big improvements can be made without major changes in attitudes towards the value of education by everyone from the national education leaders to individual teachers. Tanzania needs to show a real drive for improvement in education (and in a larger sense for development in general) if it wants progress. The problem of course is that drive often doesn't exist in schools today which leads students - future teachers - to follow the same listless path, a relentless cycle. Though I must say I can see a real drive in many of my students and I think they and others like them have a real opportunity to bring big changes to Tanzania. Anyway, just my perspective/rant.

K, what else? Freddy, my shy 17 year old neighbor kid comes over every other day or so to hang out, take pictures with my camera and do odd jobs for school fee money. For like $15, Freddy bought, delivered, and cut up approximately 1 room full of firewood so I've been having nice big fires in my fireplace as the weather starts to get colder. He really likes school and always brings math or physics questions and loves writing out problems on my blackboard. Anyway, I assumed he was a hella nerd at school. He goes to the local O-level school nearby and I said I'd meet up with him to watch their school play soccer against Rungwe (where I teach). Much to my surprise, not only is he on the team, he's by far the best player. All the ladies were swooning. Boy did I peg him wrong. However, Rungwe still won 4-0. Gotta represent.

So for my Spring Break I had some folks over to my site and then went exploring nearby. Roberto (Swiss physics teacher) brought a little guidebook for this area of Tanzania. I had no idea it existed and still have no idea who wrote it - its super detailed. Anyway, it changed my life and I've been trying to find all the cool stuff it mentions around my site. I went to God's Bridge, a natural bridge over a big river caused  by some volcanic something something. We went to Kaparogwe Falls, one of the most impressive falls I've ever seen. You walk into this cave big cave area under a huge rock outcropping and look out on beautiful views of the rolling green hills. It would be an awesome place even left at that. But no, there's more, a giant sheet of water pours over the outcropping so you are literally standing behind the waterfall. So cool. What else? Masoko Lake, a super clean, deep and beautiful lake fairly close to my site where you can swim and take in the impressive views of mountains all around it. Next to Ndulilo Falls, again near my site. No one seemed to know where it was except children and there wasn't any real trail there so we hired the kids to show us the way (payment in peanuts, of course). It's a cool waterfall with a strange short volcanic tunnel running next to the falls from the top to the bottom. It was fun to hang out with the kids as well, though a little frightening to see a 6 year old carrying his 3 year old sister down the side of a cliff. Oh boy. Next weekend hopefully to Ngozi Crater, a huge volcanic crater near my site. Oh yeah, I live in a volcanically active area, if you hadn't figured that out. Check my Facebook for pictures. I'll hopefully add some more soon.

Travel!

Yeah yeah, it's been a long time, my bad. My computer broke, but that's not really an excuse as it happened like a week ago.

So lets see, what's happened? I've done a lot of traveling, a lot of vacationing on beaches, and even a little productive work for Peace Corps.

First up, Thanksgiving. Since I have a really nice house for Peace Corps standards (aka running water, electricity, and a fireplace), I had a little gathering of volunteers to eat, drink, and be merry together for Thanksgiving. We felt positively American eating macaroni and cheese and pie (albeit mango not apple). We felt positively Tanzanian when we bought a couple chickens, brought them home still alive on public transportation, killed 'em, and ate 'em. The killing process involved hanging them by their feet to a tree and cutting their heads off with a kitchen knife. I think I screamed throughout the ordeal more than the chickens. Though chickens squawk, not scream. Just saying. Anyway, by the time it was done I was covered in chicken blood and knew I was finally a man. 

While we're on the subject of chickens, I'll mention that I spent a significant part of both Christmas day and Boxing day chasing around a rouge chicken named Freddy given to us as a gift. Chickens would make excellent capture the flag players - they are so quick on their feet. I truly enjoyed eating that chicken. 

What next? I went to Peace Corps In-Service-Training, a two week conference for volunteers after they've spent a few weeks by themselves at their site. Everyone brings a "counterpart," a Tanzanian from the community (or school in the case of Education volunteers) that is interested in being involved in any projects you do. We had sessions ranging from ways to put on AIDS awareness events to how to start a permagarden to the impact of corporal punishment in schools. It was great to see everyone and hear stories about how they are settling in at their sites. (Well, almost everyone - of the original 47 volunteers in our class, we're down to 41. Six went home, either for medical reasons or because, well, they wanted to go home.)

By the time the training was done, school was out so I was on vacation! I went up to Moshi, a touristy and fancy town in northern Tanzania, and stayed with a friend who has views of Mt. Kilimanjaro from her house. We were only there for a couple days, but we did get to walk up to the gate of the park and sneak in for a couple minutes. To actually spend a day in the park is expensive, $60 aka over a week of pay, so we didn't really go into the park. I'm sure I'll be back though! 

Next, to Tanga, a beach town on the northern coast of Tanzania. It was HOT, but we got to swim in a pool and the ocean, and eat hamburgers for a dollar, so all was well. We stayed in an old German colonial era mansion converted into a hostel. It didn't have running water, but I got a giant room on the corner of the second floor with giant windows with a view of the water all for three bucks. What a deal!

After Tanga, we got on a plane (yes, you read the right, I flew on a plane!) to Pemba, the northern most island in the Spice Islands archipelago (which, for those interested for some reason, also included Zanzibar and Mafia Islands). There's a scuba resort there that gives a great (like, really great) deal to Peace Corps volunteers, so a bunch of us took advantage of it and got our scuba license. It was crazy awesome. The water was super blue and clear and beautiful and the coral reefs were incredible. We dived down to around 60 feet and saw some awesome fish and stuff. Its hard to describe, its just a whole different world down there. I highly recommend it. So come visit me and I'll show you some awesome scuba diving, for cheap!

Let's see, next up, Christmas. After heading back from Pemba to my house I went back to Tukuyu, my closest town, for Christmas. My closest Peace Corps neighbor, Hannah, lives there in another nice house and she had a gathering for Christmas. Just like Thanksgiving, we cooked a bunch of food and killed a chicken. Stupid Freddy. And we got a Christmas tree! Tukuyu is cold enough that it has quite a few evergreen trees so we went out in the afternoon of Christmas Eve with a saw looking for a tree to cut down. As we walked down a street we happened to see a kid up in a tree cutting down, you guessed it, Christmas trees. Christmas trees don't seem too popular here, but apparently somebody wanted some. We asked the kid to cut us one, and boom, we had a tree. Easy peasy. 

After Christmas, of course, is New Years. I spent New Years on Matema Beach on Lake Malawi. I've been there once before, but this time a couple other guys and I decided to hike in from the mountains northeast of the lake instead of just taking a bus in. It was a really cool trip. We spent the first day hiking through Ruaha National Park. It was really beautiful but we ended up basically just walking along a road the whole time, so it was more like being bad at hitchhiking and less like really hiking. The second day was  much more interesting. We started off hiking through a these little tiny villages (or rather groups of five or six houses near each other) way up in the mountains. We were up at around 10,000 feet so it was fairly cold. Around every corner we'd get groups of kids on the side of the road staring at us - you got the idea they didn't get a lot of international visitors. Then finally, we got off the road. We finally stopped climbing up and headed down towards the lake. Even when we were way up in the mountains we could see the lake in the distance. To get there, we walked on a tiny trail through the rain for about six hours. It was really muddy and steep and its a minor miracle we all made it down without any major injuries. We were all exhausted by the end of it for sure. Though I shouldn't complain - our sixteen year old guide we hired promptly turned around and headed back up the mountain when he'd delivered us to the lake. It was quite a day - starting shivering in the wet and cold way up in the mountains and ending getting sunburnt swimming in 80 degree water. 

And there we go. You are caught up in the life-o'-Willie. Hongera sana. Look it up.

Mt. Rungwe, Baking, and Practicals

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.

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?