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.