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.