More Fun With Animals

This is my new friend, Bob. Bob (the one on the left) is a monkey. He lives at one of the nice mountain lodges in the area. Bob and I get along really well so I've stopped by to visit him a couple times. Sometimes they have him in a cage, but they let him out to play sometimes. He also grooms by beard and hair for me. Isaac's theory is that Bob likes me because he thinks I'm one of his kind, what with all the hair. So as you can see, I'm not an enemy of the entire animal kingdom, just turkeys.

Right now I'm in Dar es Salaam because a filling that a crazy Swedish dentist put in my tooth last month (with no novacaine) has come out. This, as you can imagine, is a bit of an inconvenience since I must travel for six hours to get to the nearest decent dentist. Oh well, this is Africa.

School's going ok. My students are still working, but the results on the first test were a bit disappointing. It's hard to get them to study hard this early in the year I guess.

The results for last year's national exams were released. My school did quite well, which is great. Tanga Region, where I live, was unfortunately the lowest-scoring region in the country overall. Sadly this reinforces stereotypes a lot of the country have about the local tribe, the Sambaa. They're kind of seen by some as backward and lazy, kind of like the South sometimes is stereotyped in the US. There isn't anything like the tribal tension here as there is in some other countries, but people will dismiss this tribe as lazy (if they seem to lack ambition) or greedy (if they have ambition). It seems to be a can't-win. Oh well, such things happen everywhere I suppose.

This is short, but I'm planning on updating tomorrow too.

Back to School

Unfortunately the computer I am using today refuses to acknowledge my flash drive. This is unfortunate because I brought some good pictures I wanted to post. They will have to wait until next time.

So the school year is underway. So far it's going well and it has been an easy transition back into things. I have a slightly heavier load than last year, but I don't mind. Teaching seems a lot easier than it did before I think largely because I'm more comfortable in the classroom. It's been great to see the other teachers. I get along well with all of them and have become quite close with a few. In short, as odd as it may sound, I now feel quite settled into a normal, comfortable life. As much fun as I had during the break, I'm glad to be back into it. I can't believe how quickly my time here is winding down. I only have ten more months! I guess some people at home may think that sounds like a long time, but I can't believe how soon it will be over. Oh well, I'm just going to make the most of it and I think I can help my students do well on their exams. Time will tell.

So my life's back in routine, but here's some rather unusual information I've come across lately. You may or may not know that hippos can be quite dangerous. In fact there are many areas of this country that have a bit of a hippo problem. My buddy and fellow PCV Patrick who's over on Lake Victoria not too far from my old place lives in a small remote village right on the lake. They've had a few people killed by hippos apparently. This kind of thing isn't too uncommon. Because of this, sometimes the villagers may decide a hippo is too dangerous and must be killed. As you may imagine it's not exactly easy to kill a hippo. Now, however, I have finally learned the common method for killing a hippo, but it is only real effective if the hippo is in a fairly small pond. If you have problems with lake hippos, I don't think it would work. Sorry, Patrick.

This method takes at least two guys. One has a gun and the other has a very large stick, almost like a log. This method is very dangerous for the guy with the stick. The guy with the stick goes up to the edge of the pond and begins to stir up the water. Apparently this annoys the hippo and it will walk out of the water. Of course if the hippo walks out toward the guy with the stick, it's bad news. Anyway, once the hippo is out of the water they guy with the rifle shoots it. Hippos, though, are quite large, and one bullet seldom does the job. Irritated by the bullet, the hippo will return to the water and the process much begin again. Sometimes it can take half a dozen shots or more to finally bring the hippo down. There are no hippos around here, so I haven't seen it firsthand, but I wanted my faithful readers to know how to protect their loved ones from a dangerous hippopotomus.

That's all for now, hopefully next week there will be pictures.

Holiday Fun

New Year's on Zanzibar was a good time, which really isn't a big surprise. Going to a tropical paradise with a dozen or so good friends can't really be a bad time, can it? What was just as good, and perhaps more interesting, was Christmas.

As I mentioned before, the nine new volunteers in the Tanga region and I were celebrating Christmas at Rachael's house. Rachael is one of the new ones. Her house is on the edge of town and big, so it works well as a meeting place. I'd gotten word that some nuns in the area had a turkey they wanted to sell, so Neil, one of the new guys, and I went to the their farm to take it off their hands. The turkey was big. It was a little bit awkward carrying it back to Rachael's house, but we got it back and put it in a dog house that for some unknown reason is in her front yard. We nailed some boards across the door to keep the turkey in there until the next morning, Christmas, when we had to do the deed.

As before, Neil and I were on turkey duty. Early on there was a little trouble as we disagreed on the method of slaughter. I was in favor of cutting the throat, but Neil pointed out that the PC cookbook tells us to kill chickens by shoving a knife through its skull. After some debate, we decided we could do that. Neil took the knife while I held the turkey. The first stab did not get through the skull. The second did, and we were relieved that it was stabbed through the head and dead. Or so we thought. I let go of the bird, but then it jumped up, spread its wings and squawked with the knife sticking out of its head! It was like some kind of bizarre horror movie when the monster jumps up after you think its dead. Fortunately we acted fast. Neil grabbed the bird and I started cutting its head off. Unfortunately the good knife was in the turkey's head. Our backup knife wasn't exactly what you'd call sharp. After much hacking and sawing we finally got the turkey's head off. Neil and I were slightly traumatized, but better off than the turkey I guess. After that Dan helped us in the long process of plucking and pulling out all the innards. Once all that was done, it actually looked like a big old Butterball. Fortunately, it just fit in the oven we had. We made stuffing, gravy, biscuits, mashed potatoes, and a vegetable quiche to go with the turkey. It was an amazing meal. The turkey and everything else was delicious. I have to give the credit for the great food to Christa and Clare, two girls who have a Mama Clark-like flair for food.

Other than the moments when I found out how much of a killer instinct I don't have, Christmas was great. It's real tough being away from home, but I like the new group of volunteers a lot and it was nice getting to know them a little bit. In less than two weeks I'll be teaching again. I'm real excited, I feel like the next 10 or 11 months will fly by. Before all that starts though, I have mid-service conference where I will have a host of extremely thorough medical exams. I'm feeling pretty good about my health and even think I'm parasite free. We'll find out soon enough.

The other interesting incident was yesterday when I tried to go back to Lushoto. Turns out a bridge on the only road that heads up that way from Dar went out and it was impossible to travel. After waiting by the side of the road for hours, it turned out our options were to walk past where the bridge was out and hope we could get on a bus on the other side (talk about a leap of faith) or we could turn around and go back to Morogoro, which wasn't too far back. We have some friends in town here, so it seemed like the better option. So here we are. We'll be down here until our conference because at this point we'd just have to turn around and head back once we got home.

That's all for now. I hope everyone's having a happy new year. To everyone at home, remember I'm coming home this year. Seems pretty hard to believe.

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.