Back to the Mountains

Today is my last day in Dar es Salaam. I've had a really great week, and it's pretty cool to be in a setting that's pretty much the opposite of where I usually am, just because I'm one who likes variety. Having said that, I am looking forward to getting back. The main reason is the weather. It is hot in this town. And I mean really hot. It's quite humid too. Of course in a country like this, there aren't all that many places that are air conditioned, so the heat can be pretty oppressive. It's always lovely to wake up in the morning damp because of your own sweat through out the night. Fortunately I've been staying places with nice showers. It's also going to be nice to just take it easy, because I've been moving at a pretty fast pace all week and keeping busy. I should have at least a couple of days to relax at home in the cool weather. Of course, it likely will be raining back home, but that'll be ok thanks to my new purchase of rubber muck boots. Now wading through ankle deep mud and across small rivers to get to town will be no problem.

In about a month I'll begin teaching again. Things will start at the school before that. I think it will be a lot easier now that the students and I are used to each other. I will work very hard this year with few breaks, but as much fun as I'm having now it's not what I'm here to do. I still have Christmas and New Year's and a short PC conference before all that, so I'll just have to get all of my rowdiness out of my system I suppose. It'll be good to be back to things, actually. I have a good life at Kongei.

That's my short post for a dull day. Have a good weekend.

A New Side of Africa

While I have been here in Tanzania I have seen many sides of the country. I lived just outside the second largest city and now I live in a somewhat isolated valley full of subsistence farms. Yesterday, though, I saw something new. I'm here in Dar es Salaam and I got a call from Matthew, a friend of mine who's another teacher at my school. I told him I was in Dar and he said he is too, staying with a friend of his. We decided to meet up so I went out there. Turns out his friend lived in what many people would call a slum. It wasn't as bad as the worst images you may have seen with pieces of sheet metal just piled together to form some kind of shelter. What it was however was narrow alleyways in which tiny houses were packed together. I've spent a lot of time in the city center of Dar without going out to see how most of the people in the city live. Fortunately people aren't starving, but the high density and lack of sanitation systems causes the occasional rather horrific outbreak of cholera or typhoid or some such disease. It was interesting for me to be there because I definitely seemed to be the only white guy for quite a distance around, but my presence didn't cause the kind of stir I normally do in a rural area. The kids were also real friendly and not at all scared of me. I played with several little girls who seemed pretty excited to have such a strange looking guy around.

Matthew and I spent the afternoon visiting people, eating lunch, and having a couple of beers in a surprisingly nice bar. I can't help but think how shocked I would have been by the place if I went there right after arriving here. I wouldn't have believed that people were raising there families in such an environment. Now however, it doesn't seem like such a horrible life, just different. Of course concerns about health are quite serious, but people, many of them working, are there and leading a decent life. We Americans put such a premium on having our own space that we can't believe that many people don't feel such a need. In fact, Tanzanians are often completely horrified that I live in a house by myself. They think I must be suffering unbearably. This isn't to say that these people probably wouldn't have nicer places if they could afford it, but it certainly isn't as bad as many Westerners would assume at first glance.

I was hoping to post some pictures this week, but I'm having trouble getting this computer to recognize my camera. Hopefully I'll be able to before too long.

Live Turkeys and Car Chases

I was going to post some pictures and try to write about general life over here. I know that my every day life seems just like dull every day life to me, but to a lot of you back home it's probably interesting to know how I'm living. All of this will wait until later in the week though when I will also post a lot of pictures. It will wait because I had a rather interesting experience on the way into Dar es Salaam yesterday.

So right now because my school is a boarding school and we're basically in our summer break, the students are gone as well as the teachers so it's pretty much a ghost town where I live. This has not motivated me to stay at home too much so I've been looking for some stuff to do on my own. A good opportunity is right now when several of my PC friends, including the two guys who were in Mwanza with me, are in town for the Close of Service stuff which largely consists of paperwork and medical exams. They'll have evenings free though, so we'll be able to go out at night in the big city. I figured it'd be fun to come down for the week and just have a good time then go back to Lushoto for Christmas.

Yesterday I hopped on the bus at 6 in the morning yesterday and made it to the bus station here in Dar a little before noon. I left the station hoping to get a daladala (the crazy, but dirt cheap, mini buses that are the primary mode of transportation) but it was a really busy time and it seemed like it would be pretty hard to get on one. A taxi driver then offered to take people into town for 1000 shillings each (about 75 cents). The dala is only 300 shillings, but no waiting and a more comfortable ride seemed quite worth the extra cash. So I get in with three other people and we're riding toward town. All of the sudden the car in front of us brakes pretty hard to make a u-turn, which wouldn't be so bad if his brake lights had been working. Since they weren't, our driver didn't react quite quickly enough and had to slam on his brakes. He managed to avoid hitting the car in front of us, but the dala behind us slammed into our cab (no one was injured at all). The taxi driver and the daladala driver were pretty irate at the guy who they believed (somewhat fairly) caused the accident. So the dala conductor jumps out of the dala and into our cab and we start chasing they guy! At this point I was thinking two things. One was that I couldn't come up with any scenario where something good would come out of this car chase. The other thing I was thinking was should they succeed in the chase that it would be pretty hard to explain to Peace Corps how I ended up involved in some horrific incident of vigilante justice. After some ridiculous swerving through traffic and a couple misidentifications of the car in question everyone realized we had lost the other driver. I was pretty relieved about this. So the dala and taxi guys traded insurance information and I ended up getting into town, a little shaken up but completely unharmed. The only other annoyance was at the hotel where I had made a reservation. Apparently making a reservation doesn't mean they hold a room for you, but that they'll give you one if it's available when you come. I decided it wasn't worth explaining to them what the word reservation means so I had to go to another hotel for the night. No big deal, but it wasn't exactly the smoothest afternoon. Fortunately I met up with several friends and we went to a really amazing Ethiopian restaurant and had a good time. I think it'll be a good week here in Dar.

As I mentioned, when I get back to Lushoto I'll start putting together our Christmas celebration. I think the highlight of this is that I'm going to get a live turkey from some of the nuns around and we're going to cook that hopefully with mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, and green beans. I'm going to have to slaughter the turkey, so that will be a new experience for me. I'll write about that, don't worry. Fortunately Isaac, another volunteer in the region, has killed a turkey before and can give me advice.

Another funny thing that happened yesterday was a Tanzanian guy who saw me assumed correctly that I was in the Peace Corps and said, "Ah, Peace Corps, askari wa amani!" which basically translates to "guardians of peace." That was pretty cool and made me feel like a superhero. As I'm in Dar I have access to cheap and sometimes free internet, so there'll be more this week.

The End of Year One

My first school year as a teacher is over. It’s been quite a time and I’ve learned a lot from the experience. I’m really glad to have time off, but I’m certainly not dreading the start of another year. For the next month or so I’ll be meeting new volunteers in the Lushoto area and showing them around and I’ll be traveling around a bit. It should be a real good time. I’ll do my best to fill you in on what’s going on.

First off, I was really pleased with how my Form Ones performed. About a month before the final exams I gave them a tough math test that they really bombed. I was pretty angry with them for not preparing and in one class I was yelling at the students. Finally a tiny 12-year-old girl named Theresia put her slightly trembling hand up, her eyes big as saucers and asked, “Sir, will you cane us?” Well, that was too cute so it softened me up a bit. I also thought it was funny that they thought I might hit them. As I’ve mentioned before, corporal punishment is quite common in the schools here, but fortunately at my school now it’s quite uncommon because the administration doesn’t allow it. I guess my students figured that like some of the other teachers, every now and then I would resort to hitting them. So anyway, apparently this test really scared them and they studied really hard for my final. The grades were really good. I’m real glad about that because after they had done so poorly in the previous test I had doubts about how well I had gotten through to them. It’s an interesting kind of pride a teacher has when his students perform well.

Now the school is closed and the students have all gone home, and almost all the teachers have left as well. It’s now really quiet since almost all my neighbors are other teachers. Since there’s so little going on there I probably won’t be at home too much, though I will likely be in the area a lot because I think I’ll want to go around the area and visit the new ones in their sites. A lot of them are in new sites that I’d like to check out and if their settling in time is anything like mine they’ll be real glad to have visitors. The first few months at site was the most difficult time of my life. That’s not to say it was bad, it was just really, really hard. Every day I considered going home for awhile. Once you get four to six months in, for most people, you can make it the whole way and now I’m really glad I didn’t leave. In fact in the last several months any ideas of leaving early seem pretty crazy. Of course the Charlotte 49ers in the Final Four would be a perfectly logical reason, unlikely as it is, but as often happens I digress. The point is I know that these kids are going to be going through a tough time and I hope I’ll be able to help.

Speaking of the new group I got to meet most of them, though they don’t move in until the first week of December. I’m here in the Tanga region, which is divided into two parts. There’s Tanga Juu, the Lushoto area, where I live. Juu is Swahili for “up” or “above” because we’re up in the mountains. Then there’s Tanga Chini. As you may have guessed, chini is “down” or “below.” This is the area near Tanga town on the coast. The two areas are physically close together, but the roads winding their way around the mountains make travel between them somewhat difficult. They also have very different climates because of altitude differences. So in the two areas we have four in Tanga Juu and one in Tanga Chini starting their second year. We’re getting loaded up with new ones. If I’m counting correctly we have a total of nine coming to Tanga region, six Juu, three Chini. I guess I may as well mention that of the nine, seven are girls, which led to my rather ridiculous happy dance on the streets of Dar es Salaam. When I told Josh (my good buddy and fellow Lushoto volunteer, and only other available guy in the area) the news he bellowed a celebratory “Sweet Fancy Moses!” It’s lucky for all involved that they sent more than one girl to the area so that Josh and I won’t necessarily be engaged in an epic battle for some poor girl’s attention. By “epic” I of course mean pathetic.

Besides closing the school it’s been interesting couple of weeks. Right when we were closing the school I had two trainees come visit for a few ideas so they can see what Peace Corps is like once you get to site. We had a real good time. One of the ones who visited will be in Tanga Chini, not too far away. After a hanging out at my place we went up to Josh’s and met up with all the trainee shadowers who came up to the area, seven in all. We had a good party and hiked around a bit. Josh lives next to a big mountain that has a great view of the Kenyan plains from the summit. Unfortunately when we got up there it was so foggy we couldn’t see much, but it was still a good hike.

After the trainees left I went down to Dar for the Thanksgiving celebration at the Ambassador’s house. It was a great party. Over 100 PCVs showed and he was ready for us. Apparently he imported 20 turkeys from Brazil and had a well-stocked bar. There was even cold draft beer which quite frankly was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. It’s kind of odd how much you miss the little things. We had a good time down there and even went to the movie theater. I emphasize “the” since it’s the only one in the country. Now I’m up in the Kilimanjaro region visiting some people in the area before heading home.

I’m updating this later on. I’m back in Lushoto awaiting the arrival of the new volunteers in two days. Several of the current volunteers will be here in town to welcome them. It’s been a bit strange being at the house with none of the other teachers around. The first day was good because I wanted to just have some quiet time, but I may get bored before too long. Fortunately, there will more travel, people to visit, and I just got a lot of great reading material and puzzle books in the mail (thanks to mom and Aunt Becky). As for now, I hope that I can recharge and hopefully begin to write some more detailed things about my experience so far. I hope I’ll have time to go to the school and use the computer a lot and prepare some long posts during the break. No promises though. I’ve learned not to put too much stock in planning over here.

It's been awhile

My arch nemesis TANESCO, the monopoly power company here, has been beating me into submission. For well over a month there was no electricity during the day, making it ridiculously expensive to use the internet at the places that have generators. A lot has happened since my last post. I don't have too much time for details but I'll give a basic rundown.

I have now been in Tanzania for over a year and I'm more than halfway through my Peace Corps service. This blows me away. It doesn't seem like a whole year, yet America does seem a distant memory. I think the next year will fly by for me. We'll see. I think I've gotten quite well adjusted so I hope that in the next year I can really leave my mark.

I had a great visit from two RPCVs from Jordan who were travelling through East Africa on their way home after finishing their service. They stayed at my house for a few days and came to the school and talked to the students. It was real cool having them around and hearing how different PC service is in Jordan, which is much more developed but lives under the threat of terrorism.

I got stung just below the eye by a Nairobi fly, a rather nasty insect. If you don't know what it is, Google it, no doubt you have more internet time and bandwidth than I. Basically it meant that for a few days I looked like Mike Tyson had punched me in the eye. Fun stuff.

It's now the short rain season. That means maybe once a week it will rain for two days straight and the valley I live in becomes a muddy swamp. I've never seen rain like this. Fortunately a day of two of sun dries it out quite nicely. However, rain at the wrong time can basically cancel any travel plans.

I finish school in less than three weeks. I'm excited about the break. I should get some travelling in. I can't believe I've just about finished a whole year as a teacher. That actually suprises me more than making it a year in Africa.

When the Jordan RPCVs were around I went to Tanga for the first time. It's a fairly large town on the coast. Got some fish, went to the beach. Good times.

In a few minutes I'll be hopping a bus to Mlalo to visit Josh for the night. He has promised pork and cold beer. Frankly I can't think of a better offer. Until next time, remember that just because I can't update very much doesn't mean I'm in bad shape. No need to worry just because I'm in Africa.

Life in Africa Isn't All Fun and Games

Warning: Parts of this post will be disturbing for some readers. At least the events described were disturbing enough to experience.

So the last post ended with the words "I can't help it if I'm lucky." Man, was I asking for it. Within 12 hours of writing those words it seems a virus carried on some food that I ate brought about my worst week in Peace Corps. It started with vomiting, a slight fever, and then things got serious. I think everyone is familiar with the word diarrhea, but I submit that most Americans don't really understand what that word means. I do. I was reminded approximately every one or two hours for three straight days, then five or six times a day for a few days after that. Oh, and I have a squat toilet. Up to then I had seemed to have a stomach of steele, but I now know that's not the case. I can safely say that was my worst week in Peace Corps. A week in bed running to the bathroom every hour with only my satellite radio for company. Actually, that's not fair, a lot of the teachers came by and brought me food and things. They were very good to me.

I continued to feel sick all of last weekend and finally Monday felt pretty good. Monday was the first time in nine days I managed to eat two meals on the same day. That was fantastic. Needless to say I was still pretty weak most of this past week. This weekend I came into Lushoto again to get out of the house and since I was out of food. I hope I never get a bug like this again, but these things happen. Life in Africa ain't always pretty.

Since I've recovered things are going well. In two weeks we have graduation at the school so everyone's focused on that right now. For some reason they do graduation before the national exams which I think is a big mistake because now the students aren't very focused on anything except the graduation. All the classes do a song and a dance performance as part of the ceremony so they are spending a lot of time rehearsing. It should be real nice and I'll try to get some pictures put up here. That's all I've got for now. I may not be able to post as often now because there is only electricity for two days a week now. I think many of my readers already know how I feel about the power company here, so I won't go into it.

So the moral of today's post, kids, is don't eat raw vegetables from questionable sources. Bad things happen when you do that. Really bad things.

The picture is taken from Mbelei Secondary, the school in the foreground. This is where Isaac, another PCV teaches. I went up to visit him last weekend. He lives on top of a mountain while I'm on the floor of the valley. If you look directly above the building in the middle of the picture, at the back of the dirt area, you can just make out a rooftop in the valley below. That's Kongei, my school. Interestingly enough, despite what is obviously not that far, it took me over three hours to get from my site to his. That's how transport goes in the mountains.

I didn't get to write in advance this time, so not much to write. Tonight it's movie night because fellow PCV Becky was recently in America for her sister's wedding and brought back some movies. Exciting stuff.

School's still going well. The students are working, but it was a week of difficult material so sometimes it felt like I was beating my head against the wall trying to get them to understand. That's going to happen sometimes, no matter how good the school. I can't let myself get too spoiled at Kongei. It seems that now I'm experiencing Peace Corps Lite not because of the urban setting, but the quality of my school. As Bob Dylan said, "I can't help it if I'm lucky."

Small Victories

Last week I got up to Mlalo where we had a get together of many of the volunteers in the region. It was a nice time. Hilary, the second year who hosted the shin dig, is a great cook and the proud owner of a meat grinder and a grill. That’s right, we had grilled burgers! We even had home made buns to go with them. Not only that, but she baked a cake, and made potato salad (first time having it in 11 months) and humus. It was amazing. When I have to live off my cooking, such days are really appreciated. I’ve really been spoiled so far since I’ve spent time with at least one other volunteer every weekend since I came to the new site.

School is going really well. I am really impressed by my students, especially the Form IIIs. Of course when you’re teaching they’ll be times when they don’t understand something the first time you explain it. My experience before was that most students gave up on math a long time ago so they just let it go and you really struggle to figure out when they are or aren’t getting it. My girls here at Kongei ask questions when they don’t understand! That’s right, they know that just because they didn’t immediately get it doesn’t mean that they can’t eventually figure it out or perhaps it could be explained better. I can’t tell you how exciting this is for me. In the practice Form IV national exams this year Kongei scored 5th out of 70 schools in the region and as good as the Form IIIs are they can perhaps do even better. By the way, with the attitudes this country has about women, it’s especially gratifying when a girls’ school does so well.

Another small victory I’m very proud of is with the local primary school kids. They would always shout “Good morning, sir!” when they saw me home in the afternoon. So now and then I would call one over and explain in Swahili that in the afternoon you don’t say “good morning” but “good afternoon.” Apparently the few I explained this to told all the other kids because now when I’m walking home I hear, “Good afternoon, sir!” Because of that, even if I left today, I think my Peace Corps service would be a success. Fixing the little things, that’s what it’s all about. One little thing down, only eight million to go.

Now that I’m getting more used to life in Tanzania away from the big cities, certain things have become easier. For example, now that I’ve been here awhile, that 50 minute walk to the road seems like nothing, and in fact I’m lucky to be that close. I can’t just walk out the door and hop on a daladala, but I have an easier time with transport than most volunteers. There are two towns I can get to in an hour and a half at the most. Granted, one of those towns, Soni, is barely more than a village and Lushoto’s no Mwanza, but I can get most of what I need. The variety of produce is amazing and most things are cheap so I’m not going to run out of money, which I could have done in Mwanza if I wasn’t careful. I’ll easily be able to save lots of money for travel which is going to be very nice.

So I have the satellite radio now, which has been amazing. I can listen to the BBC, CNN, and (oh boy!) NPR as well as lots of music stations. The sound quality is great too. The only problem is I am going to go through a lot of D batteries until (and if) I get hooked up with electricity.

Two more things. Some of the other teachers who are about my age are interested in having American pen pals. If anyone's interested, let me know.

The Cold and Wet

One of the biggest differences at my new site is the weather. Lushoto is very cold and wet. Now of course the temperatures aren't freezing or anything, but you have to understand that buildings here are not built for cold. There is no insulation, let alone heat. In fact, often the windows don't have glass. This means that though it's not that cold, you can never get out of the cold so it kind of slowly seeps into you. I've kind of gotten used to it, but I find that I can't sit still too long before I get too cold and have to move around. They tell me that things will warm up in September. I hope so.

It's also raining quite a lot. No one seems to be able to tell me if it's the rainy or dry season because it's not torrential rain, but steady drizzle. It's enough to make many of the roads a muddy mess and there are some areas around where buses aren't running. Fortunately I can walk to the paved road in just under an hour so it hasn't really affected my transportation. Of course, walking in a cold rain doesn't make for a fun walk. Between the more or less constant cold rain and the fact that I live in this steep valley almost makes me feel like I'm living in a Scottish glen. For those of you who haven't known me that long, I spent about six months in Scotland and am quite attached to the Scottish highlands so this is quite a nice feeling.

Today I'm heading up to Mlalo, about two hours outside of Lushoto. Two volunteers are up there, Josh and Hillary. Josh was in the same group as I was in training and is one of my best buddies in Peace Corps, so I'm glad to be in the region with him. Hillary I've met a few times. Several of us are going up to Hillary's for a party tonight and are returning tomorrow. Fortunately they haven't been getting too much rain up there so we should be ok getting there and back. Again, I marvel at the great PC social scene here (no offense Ryan and Brian, but there are actually girls here, so, well, you know).

Things continue to go well at school. There are the usual frustrations with students used to rote memorization and not really thinking about a problem, but I feel like I'm starting to get through to a few of them. I actually am really lucky with the quality of my students, so I have hope. Also I'm getting along really well with the other teachers and am liking the whole working environment.

My friend Richard from Mwanza came to visit this week. He's a university student who was studying near my old site. It was really cool to have him around for a night, although the poor guy was freezing the whole time. Most Tanzanians are not used to the cold. Unfortunately his wallet was stolen on the bus so it's not just wazungu who have problems with theft.

Ok, well that's it for today. It's actually warm and sunny today so maybe that will keep up. It's hard to believe I'm starting to get close to a whole year in Tanzania. Until next time.

Life at Kongei

I found out my school has a computer. There’s no internet, but at least I can type things for this blog ahead of time. Since half of my internet time was usually just typing, this makes things much easier for me. I can either pay for half as much time, or spend more time feeding my insatiable appetite for news. All in all, this works out very well for me. The only weird thing will be that I’ll often post these entries days or even a week or two after writing them, so I’ll try to keep the dates straight.

The week of July 17 was a really good one. I’m really getting the hang of the school and how things work here. I already feel at ease in the class as I did at Nsumba. I also like the teachers here a lot, and it’s nice that I have my own desk in the staff room. I didn’t have a desk at Nsumba, so it was harder to get any work done at school, so I usually took it home with me. Here I can get everything done at school so I’m always really done when I go home for the day. I think that’s a luxury many teachers in America don’t have. The highlight of the week though was my old buddy Wes came through.

Now by “old buddy” I mean from training. My dad and my brother, who visited recently, are the only people I’ve seen since I came to Tanzania who I knew before, well, I came to Tanzania (or, actually two days before when we had staging in DC). So, since we were in the same four-person group in training, he’s as old as my Tz buddies get. Anyway, his girlfriend’s visiting from America and they’ve been doing a wee bit of traveling and they decided to come through our area. My new place isn’t so far out of the way and Josh, who was also in our four-man group, is around here as well. Wes and Christina, his girlfriend, came here on the 17th and stayed for the night, making them my first visitors. It was a real good time catching up. Tuesday they left, but they came back Friday and we went into town to Ness’s house (the volunteer in the area with a house in town, so a frequent gathering place) where we met Josh and Jen. Wes and Christina could only stay one night, but the rest of us stayed for the weekend. I had a great time. Yet again I think it’s nice to have so many other volunteers around and be in a region where people from other regions, like Wes, can visit without too much hassle. I love my site, but there’s not too much there. There’s the school, but that’s it. Even the nearest village is 5 km away, so it’s nice to get out and be in the bustle of town and see some friends. Plus, I need to go to town anyway for banking, internet, and buying food, so it’s great that when I go to town there’ll usually be some friends there.

The area where I live, as I’ve said, is pretty remote, so at the moment I’m still very much a curiosity. On walking back from the road not too long ago, a couple kids shouted, “MZUNGU!” and began to walk after me out of curiosity. Gradually more children joined the group until I was walking down the road with a pack of about 20 kids right behind me. It was somehow both cute and a little disconcerting. They stayed with me until the one daladala that goes to the village 5 km past my house came by and I hopped on for the last 2 km back to my house. It is a nice, though long, walk to my house from the road. The other times I’ve made the trip I’ve gone by bike taxi. The first time I tried that, I was scared out of my mind, but now I enjoy it quite a lot. At 1000/= (about $.85) I’m pretty sure I’m getting overcharged, despite haggling a little bit. Of course, just knowing Swahili immediately got the price down from 2000/=, so I guess 1000/= isn’t so bad. By the way, the /= is the symbol for a shilling, the currency here.

So, like I said, things are going really well. Sometimes it’s slow and there’s not a whole lot to do at night in the dark, but things are really good. I miss Mwanza and the lake a lot and a lot of the people back there, but the moves going as well as I hoped. Luckily, yet again I’m in a place where it never gets as hot and humid as I’m sure it is in NC right now. It’s still pretty cold here and should be until September. Enjoy the rest of the summer.

Week One

So far things have been good here in Lushoto. The school's been good and my students seem excited to have me there. I'm getting along well with the other teachers and even adjusting well to life without electricity. It's quiet and peaceful here, which is nice, but I will miss the more things to do Mwanza has to offer.

One encouraging thing is that my school seems to have a lot more resources than my old one. There is a well-stocked library as opposed to a pile of a couple dozen books. And perhaps the most shocking, almost all of my students have a math text book. Before in a class of 50 maybe two or three would. I don't have to tell you this makes things for me and my students much, much easier. I suppose that the difference is that now I'm at a Catholic school instead of a public one. Even at a good school like this, though, they struggle to get enough teachers. Perhaps because it's not right in town. Anyway, so far it's been great and I'm excited to be at Kongei.

Today I made the walk to the road and it was very nice, except for one disturbing incident. Apparently a truck hit and killed a child and there was a big crowd around the stopped truck. Some women were wailing and many of the men had knives and machetes. I've heard a lot about mob justice here, even for accidents like someone getting hit by a car, so I really didn't want to stick around to see how things turned out. The hardest thing to deal with here is how common a child's death is. If it's not malaria it's a car accident. It's also disturbing that it's so common you almost get used to hearing about the death of the child or grandchild of someone you know. Life goes on though.

Lushoto

A lot has happened since my last post. Last Wednesday I got a call from Peace Corps. They told me that at 9 the following morning I'd be getting on a plane for Dar es Salaam and the day after that I'd drive to Lushoto. Needless to say Wednesday was a hectic day of saying goodbyes, packing, and giving away stuff that wouldn't fit on the plane. I didn't get to say goodbye to everyone, including my students, which I really regret. It's just the way these things go sometimes.

In Dar I had a good time because a lot of PCVs were in town. PC was also good enough to reimburse me for a lot of my losses in the theft. I didn't expect that so it was a nice surprise. After a crazy night at the weekly "Thirsty Thursday" hosted by the US embassy contingent of Marines, I left Friday morning for my new home.

I'll spread my impressions over several posts as there are so many. First of all, it is incredibly beautiful here. Lushoto is in the Usambara mountains and my school is in a beautiful valley filled with maize fields and banana trees. The school itself is beautiful and well-maintained. It is a Catholic girls' school and much of the staff are nuns. They've been very helpful, as has my second master. He even brought me into town on Sunday and bought me things like cooking utensils for the house. It was a very nice gesture. I'll be teaching math again, and should start teaching tomorrow. Today I had to come into town so I can open a bank account. It's not too hard to get into town from my site, but it's certainly not as easy as it was at my last site. Really though, I have to say overall I think I'll like this place more. It's certainly safer, it's quiet, and the school is really supportive so far. The only down side is that for the first few weeks I'm sharing my house with a couple of other people. It hasn't been a big deal so far, but having my own space to relax was pretty important to me at my last site, and I'm sure it will be at this one. A few weeks won't be bad though.

There is so much more to say about the new place. In my next few posts I'm sure I'll elaborate more. By the way, new address:

Kongei Secondary School
PO Box 61
Lushoto, Tanga, Tanzania

I'll have a lot less internet time than before, so letters would be appreciated. In fact, letters always make my day. I may be able to update this weekend.

Waiting

Well, Kenny and dad have left, so I'm back on my own. There isn't a whole lot to report about my impending move, but I'll write what I know.

It still looks like I'll go to Lushoto. One school PC was looking at didn't work out, but another looks like it will. I should know in the next day for sure. If I do go there I'll be close to some other volunteers and not far from town. If it is indeed my new site I'll post some more details about the school.

It is possible however, that this school also will not work out. If it doesn't then I will probably be send to the southern highlands. There are a lot of PCVs down there, so that could work out too. I did visit Njombe down there in November, and had a good time.

So basically it's all up in the air. Hopefully I can post again this week to write something definate. Meantime, thanks for all the comments.

Kwa heri, Mwanza. Karibu Lushoto

Well the big news is that due to my continuing security problems Peace Corps has decided to move me to a new site. In the very near future I will be leaving Mwanza and going to a school near Lushoto, though I'm not sure which school yet. I have very mixed feelings about this, but I'll go ahead and give the pros and cons, only in the opposite order.

Cons:
I like Mwanza, in fact I've grown to like it a lot. It's a nice place to live, very beautiful and I like the people there. I feel like I have only recently started to really get a handle on things. I like the teachers at my school and have made a lot of good friends--Tanzanians, Americans, and Koreans alike. I regret that I have to leave them. Most of all I regret leaving my students so abruptly without a teacher. They are the ones who are really suffering from this decision and I hate that it has to happen to them. I will also have to again go through the adjustment of living in a new place.

Pros
Obviously it's not good to be in a place where I am such a consistent target of crime. I was extremely stressed for a long time but thought that the problems were over. Now as long as I'm here I'll jump at noises in the night when I'm alone in the house. That's not a healthy situation. Also, I'm moving to a good place. Lushoto is in the mountains close to the coast just south of the Kenyan border. The climate is nice, it's beautiful, and there are already several PCVs there, some of whom I'm already good friends with. If I stayed here I'd be the only PCV in Mwanza next year, which would be hard. Lushoto will also solve my travel problems because it's a lot easier to travel to Dar and other parts of the country.

I think overall the pros outweigh the cons, which is good since it wasn't my decision to make anyway. I'm looking forward to getting out there with the Lushoto crowd and I'm sure that I'll get used to things there and be able to do some good work and have a good time. I'm not sure exactly when I'll move, but it should be within a couple of weeks, so please hold off on sending mail until I have a new address. Thanks for all the comments on the blog. It's been a hard time but I'm getting through alright.

In other news, Kenny, dad, and I have been having a pretty relaxed week, which is good. I'm glad they're here while all this stuff is going on. They'll be leaving on Saturday, so then it'll just be me waiting to be moved. It's definately an odd time in my PC service and I haven't quite sorted out how I feel about it all. It's just amazing how fast everything can change.

Ups and Downs

I know I've mentioned before about how Peace Corps is such a series of ups and downs emotionally. This week is a case in point. My dad and brother arrived on Tuesday, real exciting, but they were a day late. The reason was that dad had to go to the hospital in Nairobi for a partially collapsed lung. Fortunately he's fine now and made it ok and was well enough to go on the safari.

The safari was just amazing. We went through the Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Conservation Area. It was amazing. We were at some point within ten yards of elephants, lions, cheetahs, a leopard, zebras, wildebeasts, and many other amazing animals. We also saw hippos, rhinos, and crocs and farther distances. It was simply amazing. We took hundreds of pictures and I'll post some shortly I'm sure. Then last night we returned to my house.

When we got back, the back door was open. Someone had broken through the lock and also the locks on two of the bedroom doors and a locked cabinet. Basically everything I had of value in the house was taken. Some of my dad's money and mine was taken, about $1000 worth in all, also my bicycle, my laptop (just brought to me from home), luggage, food, and even my photo album full of all the pictures I brought from home. Needless to say I'm pretty upset. Peace Corps has told me that since this isn't my first security incident I may have to change sites. This is pretty shocking. I love Mwanza despite my problems and frankly don't want to leave. Starting over at a new site is also pretty terrifying and I'm not sure I have the strength to go through it all again. Basically right now so much is up in the air and I don't know exactly what I think about it. Who knows, in a month I could still be here, anywhere else in Tanzania, or maybe even back in America. It's so frustrating because I thought my security problems were behind me. And to be honest, there's a good bit of anger that my house is the only one on the school ever broken into because someone sees me and assumes I'm wealthy. I almost feel a little betrayed because I'm here trying to help out and someone still feels justified in stealing from me.

Having said all that, the people at the school and my neighbors, and I should add PC staff, has been really helpful and supportive. And if I have to go through this, I'm glad it's when family's here. The way the people around have been behind me makes me feel particularly bad about the possibility of leaving. By next post maybe I'll know where I'll end up and how I feel about it. Hopefully I can now have a nice relaxing time with my family for a little while.

A Day in Wazunguland

My good buddy and fellow lake volunteer Rob posted some great Mulletfest pictures here. Also check out his blog for an exciting account of our ridiculous bus ride.

I came to Arusha today, heart of tourism in Tanzania, hoping to get a bus back to Mwanza but I couldn't get a ticket until today. I'm leaving around 2 pm and will again be travelling overnight through Kenya. I am not exactly what you'd call excited. Arusha has been an interesting experience. It's a little smaller than Mwanza, but much more chaotic. There are also tons of people trying to hawk overpriced souveniers to every white person (or "mzungu," the plural is "wazungu") they see. They are actually pretty shocked when I come back to them in Swahili. They're pretty much used to tourists who don't know a word of it. In Mwanza most of the foreigners you see are people who live there so it isn't surprising to the Tanzanians if you speak a little. Now being a big tourist center has its advantages. There are nice coffee houses and an actual Western-style supermarket. The supermarket completely blew my mind. I just wandered the aisles in a daze for awhile. It's amazing how quickly ordinary things become strange once you leave them. I guess in my mind certain things belong in America and certain things in Tanzania. Here the supermarket blows my mind, but I guess the site of a Maasai warrior walking down the street in traditional dress would shock me at home even though I see it about every day here.

Alright, I'm off to grab lunch before the bus ride. Maybe by this time tomorrow I'll be off the bus.

Pan African Mulletfest 2006

Right now I'm up in Moshi for a few days to visit the Kilimanjaro area, an area with a high density PCV population, and break up the ridiculous 31 hour bus ride from Dar to Mwanza. In Service Training with the group I spent to months with in Morogoro was great. The highlight was beyond a doubt Mulletfest 2006. That's right, about ten of the guys and one very brave lady in my group grew our hair out in order to have a mullet cut this past week. We even had shirts made. My new look is pictured above. Unfortunately it's hard to see the hair in the photo, but I think the mustache is the best part anyway. I also figure you can't go wrong with a Tanzanian flag headband. Somehow I think I have stumbled on my natural state. Oh, and by the way, with the mullet I am no longer known as Andrew, mild-mannered Peace Corps Volunteer, but as the obnoxious redneck "Jugs." My fellow PCV Justin (down in the deep south, very, very far away from me) posted more photos here.

The whole week was a really great time. We were a really close training group and most of them I hadn't seen in a little over six months, so it was great. It's also amazing to compare notes with other volunteers and hear about the differences in the different parts of the country. Unfortunately it'll be another six months before we're together again, but right now I'm taking advantage of vacation time and visiting some other volunteers. And in just over a week, my dad and brother will be arriving so it should be a great school break. So I'll check in again soon. Have a great summer everyone. So far mine's been great.

Long Week

It has been a long week at Nsumba. Supervising exams and most of all, grading. I put in a few 12-hour days this week getting all my papers graded, but they're done now, so I took off a little early today.

As I expected before I got here, many of my students struggle with math. Last year my Form III students took national exams and only 30% passed math (this put Nsumba among the top 20% in the region). It's kind of discouraging to think that it would take a miracle for me to get half of them to pass their exam next year. Their performance on the end of term test is not encouraging. I think part of the problem is a lack of effort because some of the problems were almost identical to examples we did in class, so if they studied they should have done alright. On the other hand, it's pretty tough that since they have no books, if they don't see something written on the board by me they don't see it at all. Under those conditions it's pretty hard to get what you need across in four hours a week. I'm still pretty new at teaching, so I know I could be better at it. Still I know it's not only my fault. Hopefully in the next year and a half all of us can do better.

One interesting and somewhat related point was a conversation I had with one of my students one day. He actually said that I was his best teacher, and knowing he wasn't exactly enthusiastic about math, I asked him why he thought that. Well, it turns out that it was because I hardly miss any periods. Of course I'd noticed that many teachers seldom leave the staff room and go teach something, but I guess I hadn't noticed the scope of the problem. Now some teachers are really good and always show up, but apparently this student didn't have many of those teachers. So I thought that it was interesting and kind of sad that I'm considered a really good teacher just because I show up.

So most of the hard work is over. It'll probably be hectic Monday and Tuesday next week, but soon I'm off for some time off and a chance to see all the PCVs I trained with. Hard to believe most of them I haven't seen for six months, which is hard after how closely we bonded in our shared trial of Peace Corps training. Until next time.

Term Winding Down

It's been a really eventful week, so here goes:

Last Monday I met Joshua Berman (a returned PCV from Nicaragua) and his wife Sutay (likewise an RPCV, but in the Gambia) came through Mwanza for a couple of days. They are in the midst of a very long trip you can read about on Joshua's site. They got in touch with me thanks to this blog and called me up when they got into town. Of course, all Peace Corps Volunteers love visitors, so I was excited to meet them and show them around town. The following day, before they left, they came out to my place for a little while. It was really interesting to talk to the two of them about their Peace Corps experiences, both to compare with my current experience, and also because I'm curious about what it's like when the service ends. I heard from them, as I have heard from others, that returning home after service is very difficult. That doesn't surprise me. I've often heard that "reverse culture shock" is worse than the original culture shock, and this was certainly true when I returned home from Scotland four years ago. Oh well, all that is a long way away. Anyway, Josh and Tay, thanks for stopping by and karibuni tena!

Also last week we finished up classes and this week we have end of term exams. The math exams will be given Wednesday, so after that I will be very busy because one other teacher and I will have to grade all of the school's math exams in just over a week. After that I'll be rushing off for Peace Corps training. It's hard to believe I've effectively finished a quarter of my Peace Corps service. It doesn't seem like almost half a year in Mwanza.

Saturday I went with my buddy Kassim and another teacher with about fifty students to Kinango Secondary School, about an hour and a half east of Mwanza, for our schools to compete in a debate, and sports (volleyball, basketball, and, of course, soccer). The school was in a pretty isolated place and the land there was absolutely beautiful. It was a lot of fun to go out there, and the students seemed pretty happy that I'd come along. It's nice for students to have diversions like this because I feel bad for them being stuck at a boarding school with nothing at all to do on the weekends. That's kind of a recipe for teenage boys to get into trouble. It also gave me a chance to see how luck I am to be at Nsumba. While Kinango is beautiful, it would be very, very hard to get to a town from there and of course there's no running water or electricity. Yeah, I'll take my Peace Corps Lite any day.

I may be able to post again before I leave for Morogoro on June 2, but I may not. If not, it may be three weeks or so until my next post, so don't be alarmed if that's the case.

My final word is I want to say a big congratulations to my brother Kenny "Special K" Clark for graduating with his Master's from Wake Forest a week ago. Also congrats to my best friend Woody Pike and his special lady Michelle, who will be getting married on Saturday. I hate be missing all this stuff, guys. Best wishes to all of you!

Africa vs. the West

The other day I walked down to the dining hall around sunset and many of my students were out eating their usual dinner of ugali (boiled maize flour with the consistency of mashed potatoes) and beans. Some of them invited me to join them and we began talking. They all seemed to want to talk about history and current events, particularly Africa's relationship with Europe and America over the last couple of hundred years. It was a very illuminating conversation.

Many of my students are very passionate about how much harm slavery and colonialism did to them. I think they are completely right about that. There is still an attitude among so many people here that Africans just aren't as smart and capable as Europeans and Americans. This self doubt is certainly at least partly because of colonialism. However, many of them see it, and the globalization they call a new colonialism, as the only reason Africa is still poor. This I argued vigorously with them. Now, before I go into detail in this argument remember that I am very liberal and am in what some conservatives call the "blame America first" crowd. I'll plead guilty to this, but it is because I feel that to be a country, or even a good person, it is much more important to see what you can do better than what others can do better because you can actually do something about your faults. In the end you can criticize others, but they have to make the decision to improve themselves. So I say that it's fine to talk about the bad things other countries or people are doing, but first let's look at what we are doing.

Having said that, I did defend America from my students, or at least tried to pursuade them to look at the things Africa can do to help itself. One thing I point out to them is that globalization does hurt many people, there's no doubt about it, but it helps many as well. Resisting it to me seems rather useless because it's a fact of life, and quite frankly poor countries that embrace it, like India and China, are doing a a lot better than poor countries that reject it, like Zimbabwe and Bolivia. So good or bad, I feel like you have to play the game. Of course many policies of the West hurt developing countries, but I feel like screaming tp these countries to change isn't going to help the situation here.

The other thing I point out to them is that there is another very important reason Africa and the Middle East largely stays poor--the treatment of women. Women in Tanzania and much of Africa are for the most part just expected to have as many babies as possible and stay home and cook, clean, and watch the kids. I told my students that doing this means half of the working age population isn't contributing to the economy. Now I'm not saying being a stay-at-home mom is so horrible, my mom was when my brother and I were real young. However, if she were African, she would probably have had 8 or 9 kids and most likely would have been out of the work force for a good 30 years. I told my students to look at the countries in the world that are rich, be they in America, Europe, or Asia. These are very different countries with different cultures, but the common factor is that in all of them there are good opportunities for women. Even countries that are poor, but richer than Tanzania, like South Africa, have more equality for women. Of course, countries made rich by oil don't have to fit this mold, but oil definately changes the equation. Anyway, I'm generalizing, but I don't have time to write a thesis, though I think it'd make a good one.

So anyway, I'm glad that my students are so interested in the world, but sometimes I'm discouraged that they don't want to help themselves, but just make excuses. Some of them also have crazy conspiracy theories. One even asked if as a Peace Corps volunteer I have to write a report for the CIA. Overall though, I really enjoy hearing the students' points of view on these things. I'm just going to be careful they don't provoke me into a political debate while I should be teaching them math.

Who's the Real Do-Gooder at Nsumba?

The kindness of some of teh people here really touches me sometimes. Take my friend, Kassim, another teacher at my school. For no real reason one day last week he invited Cha, the Korean volunteer at our school, and I to have chips (in the British sense) after school. There are several places by the road where they sell beer and soda and usually there's a guy who pan fries chips and grills beef shishkabobs call mshikaki. A popular thing to do with the chips is to add beaten eggs as he fries them. This comes out as sort of a french fry omlette, which sounds strange but is really good. It's called chipsi mayai--mayai being Swahili for eggs. So Kassim, who makes less money than I do and a lot less than Cha, insisted on paying. This is real normal for him. He often insists on paying for bus fare if we go somewhere and things like that. I've learned it's pointless to argue. I tried to make up for it a little this time by buying our sodas. So they guy made chipsi mayai and mshikaki one serving at a time since he only has one pan, and of course Kassim took his last. Everything up to then was nice enough, but what really touched me was when he saw a little boy walking home from primary school, called him over, and gave him half his food. By then it was 3 in the afternoon and that kid probably hadn't eaten since breakfast at 6. Needless to say, he was quite hungry and extremely grateful. I often think of the things I'm missing at home and lament my, by my old standards, spartan existence. Then there's Kassim, who's working as hard as I am but doesn't have a relatively luxurious life to look forward to after two years. I'm often amazed by how much people with so little can give.

Back to Teaching

So far it's been a very good week. First of all, Sunday I got most of my lights replaced, finally, so I now get to read by glorious artificial light after 7 pm or so. Teaching is going well, it's actually kind of nice to be back into the old routine, but that doesn't mean the news I got today was bad. Turns out, tomorrow's a holiday. It's Union Day, celebrating the union of TANganyika and ZANzibar to become--TANZANIA. Pretty exciting. What's funny is how many teachers at the school didn't realize tomorrow was a holiday until today. So in honor of the holiday we will be celebrating volunteer solidarity as the Peace Corps and KOICA (that's Korea's Peace Corps) of Nsumba and Nganza Secondary Schools will get together and make a huge pot of chile. The Koreans have cooked Korean food for Ryan and I before, so we are finally going to return the favor with some wicked hot American chile. I'm pretty excited. Ryan's recent purchase of a pressure cooker(brilliant) and meat grinder (more brilliant) make this exciting event possible. I can hardly contain myself.

On top of all that great stuff (electric lights and chile are enough to make a week great in the Peace Corps) finally, finally, it looks like I'm going to get that security gate on my door. My headmaster brought a fundi (that's Swahili for a guy who makes and/or fixes stuff, I guess you could say "handyman") to my house today to look at my house and give him an estimate. He should start in the next couple of days. I'm glad this is finally being done because both I and the Peace Corps were losing patience with my school. With the extra security I won't be too worried about leaving my house to travel in June and July.

So I notice my mood is dramatically different from my last post. Well, let's just say that emotions are pretty far from constant here in the Peace Corps. In fact most days I will experience the mood from this post and from the other each several times a day. "Emotional roller coaster" really is the best way to describe this service. The ups and downs are more extreme and come more quickly than I have ever experienced before. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it's horrible, but it is never boring (except when you're sitting at home alone in the dark, but that's not a problem at the moment). It's an amazing amount of stress and I imagine I'll look five years older instead of two next time most of you see me, but it's an amazing experience that I'm lucky to have. Who knows, maybe I'll even have a positive impact here? So until next time, this is Andrew Clark, signing off from the University of St. Augustine computer lab, Mwanza, Tanzania.

Electricity

As loyal readers know, TANESCO, the company that holds a monopoly on electricity in this country, and I are not exactly the best of friends. Well they managed yet again to find a way to foil me. No, my electricity isn't exactly out. In fact it's been on pretty much all week. However, there seems to be a problem with a transformer around my school and for a couple of days the current was so low it hardly lit the light bulbs and wouldn't start the fluorescent lights. Then for a short time things went normal, then the current spiked incredibly high. This blew out all my fluorescent lights, most of my light bulbs, and my phone charger. They said they have to get another transformer from God knows where and install it, so I'm sure it'll be here by year's end. In the meantime, there's no use replacing bulbs that will just blow out in the periodic spikes, so we're waiting until the transformer is fixed. The school will replace my lights which is a good thing because one fluorescent tube is a good four days' pay for me, and I lost three of them. So despite having electricity, I still am again stuck with candles. I did replace my phone charger, which cost $10. Even that's pricey as I make $6 a day.

Ok, sorry about that rant. On the other hand it's been a pretty quiet week. I'm catching up on my laundry and grading tests. I kind of wish I could have travelled but I don't want to leave my house until the security improvements are done. Unfortunately, still nothing but promises there.

So a lot of whining this entry, but I guess I have too much time on my hands. Next week it'll be back to the old routine, which will be ok. There will only be about six weeks of classes before the long break when I will have a lot more going on. Hopefully things will be relatively calm until then.

Conference Over, Life Back at Site

The conference is over, so back to normal life. After the conference, the people going back to Bukoba couldn't leave until last night because of the ferry schedule, so they came up to my place Saturday with Meena (from Musoma) and we had a big dinner. They stayed around until last night and then got on the ferry. The whole time was really great and it was nice to see everyone. The only problem was that when I returned home on Saturday I found that even though a student was staying in my house to watch it someone tried to break open my bedroom door (which I had locked) and a few small things were stolen. The whole security thing is becoming really frustrating, so I'm really pressuring my headmaster to improve the security at my house. He's being very responsive. He was not around for the last few weeks so he likely wasn't aware that promised improvements have not yet been done. Hopefully it'll be done soon. I'm certainly not going to leave my house overnight again until I have more secure doors and windows. I think PC will put a lot of pressure on him too so I hope it can be taken care of shortly. I know volunteers who have been temporarily or permanently removed from site because of security concerns, and that's really something I don't want to deal with. People back home shouldn't worry to much. I've never felt physically threatened. I think stuff will be stolen but I think it's extremely unlikely I'll be hurt.

Anyway, other than security things are fine. I think I'm going to enjoy a week to relax. Of course there is also a lot of house work to do and tests to be graded, but it won't be too bad. And after the break it's maybe six weeks until we have the much longer break between semesters. Time actually is going pretty quickly right now. So I'm off for at least one day of utter laziness. Since I have a lot of time this week I may be able to use the internet a little more so I may update this again in a couple of days.

Break from Teaching!

Well, in the continuing saga, my electricity is back now, but I'm not at home. This week I'm staying at a lovely Catholic conference center in town where six other volunteers and I are at a conference for PEPFAR, which is the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Tanzania is one of the 15 target countries for the program and Peace Corps carries out some of the programs. Most of those are done by the health volunteers, but the rest of us are encouraged to do some secondary projects in HIV/AIDS relief. It is an area where there is a lot of grant money available, so if something comes up I may go in that direction. There are a lot of options though and I'm still pretty new at site so I haven't made up my mind on what kind of project I'll do. Time will tell.

The conference itself has been a blast. I hadn't seen most of these volunteers in several months and one I just met. It's been real cool to get together and go out on the town each night, including a great time last night for my birthday (25, now, which according to my cousin Erika means I'm "half dead"). Following the conference I'll have about 10 days off from school, so it will be nice to rest and collect myself. I won't travel too far, but may make some small trips or have a visitor or two. We'll see.

I got a text message today from Laura, a volunteer out in Tanga (on the east coast near the Kenyan border) who is a good friend of mine. Apparently her students just killed a 12-foot python that had just eaten a goat. Unfortunately I have no exciting wildlife stories to report. Being at a site so close to a big city, in many ways I'm just "Peace Corps Lite," except I have more security problems. Like I've written previously, it's different enough being where I am, but you get out in a village and it's another thing entirely. It's really amazing how much the PC can differ between volunteers in the same country. I'm sure I'll get out there to Laura's site sometime and get a little more insight into the differences. Until next time.

Almost at Midterm

Hard to believe but after only one more week we'll be at midterm exams. In a way time seems to have flown by. It doesn't seem like I'm about halfway through my first of four semesters. This month has been interesting because we have had nine student teachers from the local teachers' college student teaching at Nsumba. It was nice having these students around. They were all bright at seemed extremely dedicated, which is what I have noticed from the young teachers at my school as well. If I'm seeing a good representation of the younger generation of teachers, then it seems like there is indeed some promise in the future of Tanzania's schools. I certainly hope that's the case.

Unfortunately, my electricity has cut off again. I had none for two weeks, had it for a week, and now for the last few days it's been out again. I kind of gave up on getting to use my electric stove too much so today I went out and bought another kerosene one. Now I can cook rice and beans at the same time! Still, the grading papers by candlelight is not getting any more exciting. Hopefully I'll have it back before too long, but I've learned not to get my hopes up. TANESCO, the monopoly Tanzanian power company, has officially become my representation of all of Africa's evil. I haven't figured out exactly how they are responsible for HIV and malaria, but I'm sure there's a connection.

Last weekend I went up to Musoma on the eastern shore of the lake and spent some time with the three PCVs up there. It was a good time and it was nice to get out of town for a little while. I like Mwanza, but as many of you know, I do enjoy a change of scenery now and then. The highlight of the trip was that Meena, my host in Musoma, is an amazing cook, so I had some great food. She even baked a cake, which is quite a feat in a world without ovens.

Other than that things have been more or less routine. I get up before sunrise, hope there is water pressure because bucket showers are a pain, go to school and teach, go out to the road and buy some food, visit with some friends, cook, eat dinnner, read, and in bed by 10 or so. It's become a pleasant routine, sometimes broken with trips to town, a beer on the lake with PCV Ryan, or a movie and some Korean food at Cha's house (he's a volunteer at my school from KOICA, Korea's version of the Peace Corps). It's turning out to be a pretty nice predictable life. And best of all, no one's tried to break into my house in almost a month. Pretty exciting. I think in a couple of months I'll be ready to start thinking about some secondary projects, but I don't want to get ahead of myself. For now I'll just concentrate on doing my job and staying sane. Fortunately the latter is steadily getting easier.

Another world 30 km away

I've been here in Tanzania for almost six months now, so for the most part I'm pretty used to life here. This past Saturday, though, I realized how limited my experience has been. Almost all of my time in the country has been in places that are either urban or the Tanzanian version of suburban. Unlike most PCVs, I have spent very little time in rural settings out in the villages. This past Saturday though I did spend the day in the village, and it was quite a time.

Right now at most of the schools in the area there are student teachers. One of them at Nganza, my PC neighbor Ryan's school, invited the two of us and Brian, the PCV in the town of Misungwi not too far from here, to go up to her family's place in a village outside of Misungwi. It sounded like a good time and something different, and I knew I'd get a good meal out of it, so I went along. It really was an amazing ride. The first thing was that the landscape was completely different even though Misungwi is only about 30 km away. Where I live it is very hilly and wooded and there are huge rock formations, especially right on the lake. Once you get a few kilometers further way though you come to grassland that is almost completely flat. Picture images of the Serengeti without animals and you're pretty close. It was a really beautiful and clear day so the scenery was quite amazing.

Once we got a ways off the main road another difference was how empty things got. Like I said, I've pretty much only lived in fairly densely populated areas. The sheer amount of empty space was amazing. You really could imagine a herd of wildebeast come thundering through at any moment. Another difference is so far from town, Swahili is no longer the predominant language. While most people know Swahili, they mostly speak Kisukuma, the language of the Sukuma tribe which inhabits this region. Brian, living in a much more remote site than Ryan or I and being gifted with languages, actually knows a good bit of Kisukuma, but Ryan and I don't know a bit. Fortunately in the house we were speaking Swahili, which Brian and Ryan have no problems with and I can muddle through.

Perhaps the most significant difference was transportation. By Western standards, my normal transportation may seem primitive. I get around in mini buses about the size of a VW van called daladalas that they cram as many as 30 people into. It's not the most comfortable way to get around, but it's cheap and convenient. I have one come by my house every five minutes or so and get to town for the equivalent of a quarter. It's pretty nice. Out of town, however, it's a little different. So, let's say the closest point any daladala comes to your house is five kilometers, and you just want to drop in for a visit so it's kind of ridiculous to walk the ten kilometer round trip in the heat, but there aren't even any cars around, let alone buses. What do you do? (Oh, and don't think horses. I've actually seen significantly more elephants than horses in this country. I've seen one elephant so far). Well the solution the rural Tanzanians have come up with is an interesting one--bicycle taxis. That's right, a guy with a bike that has a small platform over the rear wheel for the passanger to straddle. Now I have to tell you, I'm not all that comfortable on bike's in the best of circumstances, but when I'm the one pedalling, at least I'm in control of things. Riding on the back over bumpy roads dodging cattle was at first downright terrifying. Once I got used to things and relaxed though, it actually became a pretty fun way to travel. For the sake of our pedalers I was glad it was so flat where we were. They got us there (sometimes alarmingly) quickly and each got the equivalent of 50 cents for their trouble, which doesn't sound like much, but for the time it took it's only a little less than what I make. Once in the village we had a great time walking around and had a great meal, so I was really glad I got to make the trip. I'm also excited because this weekend I'm going to Musoma on the eastern shore of the lake to visit Meena, another PCV. I haven't been up that way yet, so I'm excited about it.

In other news, last Thursday after 15 days my electricity finally got fixed. It was one of the most exciting moments of my life. Grading tests by candlelight, while possibly the most quintessential Peace Corps experience, is no fun. Everything else has been going pretty well and it's only a few more weeks before we have a PC conference where I'll get to see most of the lake volunteers who I haven't seen since Christmas. So, until next time, kwa heri (goodbye).

Roller Coaster

It has been an eventful couple of weeks with some crazy ups and downs. School is going really well. My supervisor from PC was here and got a really positive evaluation of me from the administration at my school. On the other hand, my electricity has been out for a week and my best buddy in PC, Nathan, is heading home early. I must say I'm disappointed to hear that news. I was also sick last week so I missed the Nganza graduation (see last two posts) and all my fans (who were the ones graduating) have left and I can't roam the school like a rock star anymore. Oh well, such is life. My buddy Ryan, the one at Nganza, tells me how everyone has crazy highs in lows in the Peace Corps and I have to tell you it's completely true. Most days I'll at some point feel like I'm the luckiest guy in the world to be here and at some point be desperate to be back home. It's a strange roller coaster ride, but it's starting to seem normal. Problems come, but I deal with them. If I can't deal with in by myself, then most likely there are friends or neighbors who can help me out. It's a strange life I'm living here. It's usually not easy, but that's ok. I didn't come here for an easy life.

Not much internet time today, so keeping this short.

Security

Yet again there have been many ups and downs since my last update. First, there have been security concerns. On several occasions someone has attempted to reach through the bars on my windows and take anything close enough for them to grab. On one occasion a bag containing my camera and passport was taken, so I lost all my pictures, which is why none have appeared on the blog. Even more serious, though, was last Friday night when I returned to my house with a couple of Tanzanian friends. We caught someone with a crow bar trying to pry open my front door. I'm glad there were three of us, since he had the crow bar, and he just ran away. He did not succeed in getting in, but he did do enough damage to the lock that it would no longer open and I had to used the back door until we could replace the lock this week. Now people stealing stuff is one thing, but the fact that someone was almost in my house is a little more disturbing. Fortunately, my neighbors and the people at the school have been great. My headmaster has agreed to put metal gates on my doors (a fairly common security precaution here) that would probably prevent someone from breaking in. My neighbor, who is also in charge of maintenance at the school, brought someone to fix the lock, is hiring a welder for the gate, and brought students over to my house to clear out all of the large bushes surrounding my house, taking away a potential thief's hiding place. Once those gates are finished I feel like my house will be pretty secure.

On other fronts, things are going well. Classes are starting to feel fairly normal and I think that it will be a job I can handle just fine. I'm also starting to spend more time with the several Tanzanian friends I've made. I think that is helping me feel more part of the community. At first it was extremely hard to feel like I belong there, and in some ways it still is, but I don't feel so out of place anymore.

I've taken some more time to explore some of the areas around the school. As you go away from town from my house, you quickly come to sparsely populated farmland close to the lake. The area is quiet and beautiful and there are always some amazing birds down there. There's even an out of the way place to have a drink, and a really nice hotel/bar they are building that will be spectacular when it's finished. Of course with the speed things get done here, it may not be open until after I'm gone.

An update on my Nganza fan club: they convinced Ryan to invite me to their Form VI graduation on Wednesday. It's going to be quite a party.

School Daze

So I've started teaching and it hasn't exactly been easy. Teaching is something I'm completely new at, and the language and culture barriers I must overcome are often difficult. Also, with recent health scares from two of my grandparents, I've felt guilty about being away from my family during tough times. I've also been profoundly disturbed with the practice of hitting the students with wooden sticks for pretty much every misbehavior, however minor. At one point I was watching a student getting hit and I wondered how I could possibly stomach that for two years. I still don't know. However, having said all that, teaching is getting easier, however slowly, and the students seem extremely grateful that I show up for class--get this--on time. I found out the day school opened I'd be teaching Form II as well as Form III. The Form III classes are great and there are only about 25 students each, but each of the Form II classes has around 60. That makes things extremely difficult and means I can give almost no individual attention. Of course, I expected difficulties like this when I came, so I'm sure I'll manage. As often as I wish I were at home close to family and somewhere I can walk down the street without sticking out like a sore thumb, I feel like I'm doing the right thing and that I will get more and more out of this experience as time goes on. Time, as always, will tell.

One of the more interesting, and I admit quite nice, things recently is that I've become somewhat of a celebrity at Nganza Secondary School, and all-girls boarding school about 1 km from my all-boys boarding school. There is another PCV there, Ryan, so I go down and visit now and then. Ryan tells me that many of the girls were quite taken with me (don't worry, he teaches Form VI, so his students are 20-22). One told Ryan she'd even be willing to marry me if I shave my beard. I must say, it's nice to be a celebrity among those girls in their early 20s. Since they are also graduating in a few weeks, I suppose any relationship can be completely guilt-free, right? With the Nganza girls and a university across the street, opportunities abound.

In other news, the continuing East African drought is fortunately not causing water shortages for those of us lucky enough to be less than a mile from Lake Victoria. However, low water levels are causing problems for hydroelectric dams and there is now power rationing all over the country. I know many PCVs don't have power at all, but it's still nice to have the lights on at night. Hopefully rain will come and we'll be able to have power all the time. It's particularly annoying because I've just gotten my conflict with the power company resolved. They had cut me off because the PCV there before me hadn't paid his last two bills. We'll see how this goes. In reality I'm lucky because as you may have heard the drought is causing famine in NW Kenya. While food prices are rising here, there certainly isn't a shortage. Next month the long rainy season should start, so we'll hope it does better than the short rainy season and actually show up. If it doesn't, the lake may drop low enough that I will no longer have running water. This would be much more annoying than the power problem.

Anyway, thanks for the comments and keep them coming. The next two months will be busy, but it's only two more months to Easter break! How sad that I already count the days...

"The Staff Meeting" or "The Depth of Human Suffering in Subsaharan Africa"

Warning: This post is not approved for younger viewers, those with heart conditions, or anyone who is or may be a wuss.

Last Monday it happened. I knew it was coming, but that's not to say I was ready. I walked into the staff room at the school on Monday morning as I always do. Even though we're not teaching yet, we have to "report" every day. This time on the announcements board a message was written by the assistant head master. "Staff meeting today." There was no time on the message, and none of the other teachers knew what time it would start, so we just had to wait.

Now, waiting is the national pasttime of Tanzania. Nothing ever starts remotely on time. You rush to catch the bus that ends up leaving an hour late. School years sometimes end up starting a couple of weeks after scheduled, but some of us aren't quite used to this.

So we waited. Eventually the meeting started, and before I get into the description I'll go ahead and say in lasted five hours. FIVE HOURS! The meeting was also in Swahili. Now I can scrape by in Swahili and usually get a message across, but can you imagine trying to pay attention to someone for five hours in your native language? It's impossible, you can't do it! Inevitably you start to drift. You can't focus. You can maybe pay attention for an hour in your native language, but in another you last maybe two minutes. We went through complaints about discipline and who knows what else and then, sometime in hour three the rain started.

Ok, so we were inside, so it's not like I was getting wet, but it sure didn't help the mood. Ok, well maybe I was really excited to see rain because the rainy season was real late to start and Lake Victoria is at record low levels so it actually probably brightened my mood, but remember that the point of this story is my suffering!

As hour five approached we were served tea. This was quite nice but consider that this was just a clever plot to get enough sugar and caffeine in our systems to take more punishment.

Then, after an announcement that we will indeed be getting satellite TV in the staff room which I'm actually quite excited about the meeting ended, OR DID IT? Afterwards we had to have meetings in our academic departments. NOOOOOOOO! THE HORROR! Ok, so we'd already discussed what I would teach so that meeting lasted about ten seconds, but by then it was well passed lunchtime so it seemed a lot longer.

So that's my tale of inhuman suffering. Wait, you ask, "In a country ravaged by poverty and disease how can you in good conscience call a boring meeting suffering?" My response is: if you think you're so tough, you go two months without a cheeseburger. TWO MONTHS! What's that? You're a vegetarian? Well you really should try chicken. It's delicious.

The School Year is Set to Begin

Finally Monday I will start with the reason I came to Tanzania. The school year begins this week, and I am ready to have something to do. I've enjoyed my time here in Tanzania, but so far I haven't really accomplished anything so it's nice to finally be getting going. Hopefully all will go well, but I know there will be difficulties as the students get used to their mzungu teacher. Hopefully I'll be able to say how teaching is going before too long.

New Year in Tanzania

So it's a new year and I'm going to start a new job in a country that is still sometimes quite strange to me. If things go as planned, 2006 will also be the first year of my life that I've spent entirely outside of the United States. I start teaching in two weeks, so it's really time for me to get serious on the preparations. I feel like I'm ready for the job, but we'll see. I am definately ready to start teaching, because at the moment it is a fairly lonely time since I have way too much downtime and I'm not quite at the point where I feel like I fit in my community. Fortunately it does continue to get a little easier and I'm sure once I'm working things will be easier.

As for the ACFGK, I forgot an important Kiswahili word that translates perfectly into a Southernism. The word niliweza can be translated as "I used to could." Have a good new year and enjoy the cold. I hardly remember what that's like...