Monday, December 28, 2009
Saturday, December 19, 2009 8:46pm
I just finished eating dinner, the first meal I have cooked at home in awhile. Rice with masala spices spooned over a cut up fresh tomato. I was feeling lazy, and only cooked because I am trying not to eat all of the ready-made food I have received in recent packages. (thank you!!!)
Yesterday I returned to my village after being away for about 2 weeks of training in Morogoro. It was the first time I had seen most of my friends for 3 months, since we were installed at site. It was interesting to hear about how each of them had settled into their different village cultures and what projects they were beginning, and what challenges they faced, and what successes they had. For the last 2 days of training, our counterparts came to learn about the Peace Corps program, and how they could help us in our work. (Program design and management and the like) I asked Flora to come and was happy she could meet my friends and understand more about my culture by observing us en-masse.
In Morogoro I ate pizza, macaroni and cheese, and drank cold crisp apple juice (once – it was REALLY expensive). There were so many fruits! I bought bags of tiny plums and ate them with every meal. I bought pineapples and shared them amongst friends. I tried jackfruit (finesse) for the first time (and found I did not like it – though I was told it was not a good one) and fell in love with little peanut candies that where sold on the street near the circle of chairs men sat in to drink chai and chat amongst themselves.
The internet was fast enough to not only log onto facebook – but for chat to be enabled so I could talk to friends I had not heard from since I left the US. The place we stayed was a short 45 minute walk outside of town, beautifully shadowed by the mountains rising up behind.
I was spoiled for a short moment. But we exhausted ourselves quickly – beginning our lectures and workshops at 8am and going to 6pm and then walking out into town to get dinner and staying out till midnight or much later before we ambled back to sleep.
Everyone agreed that I had the best counterpart. Her sassy and wise answers kept things moving, and gave insight to the topics we discussed. I feel truly lucky to be working with her. I know she also enjoyed coming – her first time to Morogoro – to learn new things and meet the people she had heard me speak so much about.
But nothing comes so easily. The nurse who has helped me a bit since I arrived was very upset that I didn’t invite her. I tried to explain it away (‘but you have to work at the dispensary!’) but she pouted quite vehemently for the days up until I left. Luckily since I have returned home, with a pineapple for her as a gift, she does not seem so upset. She did ask A LOT of questions about how much money Flora got, whether her bus fare, accommodations, and food were paid for. And also about whether mine where. These questions make me even more glad I did not invite her. I know Flora will help me with my work – and works happily along my side as a volunteer – like me.
It is good to be back in my village. I have spent the majority of these past 2 days wandering a bit, hodi-ing (going from house to house to greet people) and inquiring about the time past since we have last seen each other.
Despite rumours otherwise, the rains have stopped in Vumari. The rains have stopped before the crops have finished and the tall proud stalks have shriveled leaves that will soon turn brown and fall to the ground. Another years crop will fail if rain does not come by Christmas. I have heard this now from the mouth of every villager. If only the rains could come, for Christmas, they could all sing and dance.
I will be spending Christmas here in the village with Flora’s family. I will be cooking American food, and she food of her tribe – Wachagga (from around Moshi), and her daughter will be cooking food of the tribe where we live – the Wapare (from the Pare Mountains). I am thinking of making a cake, macaroni and cheese (using the cheese sauce sent to me from my loving parents) and tuna casserole (using the tuna sent to me by Rachel J and packet of dried cream of mushroom soup mix I got in Moshi) Flora also wants me to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches which she adored when I made them for the village leaders during the long day of food aid distribution.
Going to email this to be posted – though I haven’t finished writing more. Perhaps soon? I have more pictures too but the internet connection is so slow I have to try multiple times to even send an email through gmail’s html only.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Jen Has Added More Pictures!
(Check towards the bottom)
She promises that a blog post will be coming soon.
(Check towards the bottom)
She promises that a blog post will be coming soon.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009 4:18pm
It’s been awhile since I have written, I know. I have been busy, I assure you, with meetings and research, trying to understand this village of mine and figure out how I can even begin to help.
I have been going house to house in each subvillage, of which we have six, and asking a very long list of questions pertaining to the family, their perception of life in the village, their health, their nutritional status, their income source(s), their perceived needs, etc. It has been the most amazing and exciting and fun part of my work so far here in Tanzania.
Since I have the list of questions, there is no awkward silence, and I learn so much from them about their families, life here, and about the village. It is amazing the differences of attitudes and qualities of life amongst the different subvillages and even within the subvillages. But the conclusion is pretty grim. There is a draught here that has affected the area severely for the past four years, although it has been slowly encroaching for many years before that. Everyone who lives in this village is a farmer. A lucky few have alternate sources of income: carpentry, tailoring, teaching, shopkeeping. But income from these jobs is still insufficient to support their families. They grow maize and beans. What they don’t need to feed their family, they take to Same to sell. But they haven’t had enough crops to even feed their family in years.
Traditionally in this area there are 2 rainy seasons. One in the fall, a shorter season where they grow corn; one in the spring, a longer season, where they grow beans and other vegetables like tomatoes and onions and such. The problem is – for 4 years now – the rain hasn’t come.
A question I have come to dread in the survey inquires about the nutritional status of the family. Every family but one so far has answered that they cannot even begin to address nutrition because they don’t even have enough food.
Which brings us to water.
There are 6 public wells in my village, one at each subvillage, as well as a number of private ones that I haven’t figured out quite yet. They use a gravity system to bring water from natural springs on the top of the mountain down to villages. When the system was built there were 6 natural springs that provided water every day without fail. This was many years ago when this area was lush forest, before the beautiful hardwood trees where harvested and sold in the 80’s.
Over time the springs have slowly gone dry, one by one. Now there are only 2 springs that provide water at all, and they are inconsistent.
(Here in Tanzania, if you live in a village, you normally go daily to the water source, be it a pump from groundwater, the river, the pond, the mud puddle – as we had in Kilulu - whatever, and you carry buckets of water to your home to use.)
There are now only 2 wells in the whole village – which spans many miles – which ever have water. And the water they provide is inconsistent. This means that families spend whole days simply walking to get water and carrying it home. All week, every week. If there’s water.
So I live in this desert that once was lush forest. There are dried tree carcasses remaining, and people KNOW – they tell me – the environment is suffering because the trees where cut down. They want more trees. But the situation has gotten too dire – you can’t plant new trees without water for them to grow. And climate change will hit this area hard as well. Tanzania’s average temperature is supposed to rise (I think?) between 3 and 5 degrees in the next 30 years. The cycles of extreme draught and severe rain will become even more exaggerated.
So I have been spending this time, when I am not conducting my surveys, in meetings with people who know things about water.
I’m going to find a way to get my village water. I have to. They can’t live without it.
It has rained once now since I lived here. I was so happy and surprised. It rained for hours fast and hard – drenching the barren dusty landscape and eking out gullies and ravines. And suddenly little green leaves are budding out of trees I thought were dead. Beautiful stones dot the landscape that were once hidden by a mask of copper colored clay dust.
It is the year of El Nino and the expectation is that instead of no rain, as we have gotten these past years, we will get such torrential rain that it will cause massive flooding and erosion. You can’t win. But I will teach rainwater catchment, I hope. And people will be able to use it. I have no idea what to expect. I live day to day and learn and reshape my judgments and expectations as I go.
I was told yesterday that I will be given land to farm – that I MUST farm mahindi (maize) and send it back to America to sell. Every single person here is a farmer and they can’t even begin to understand my lack of interest in growing a field of maize. #1. I don’t like maize (but I wouldn’t dare tell them that). I tell them I want to grow a garden with vegetables and maybe some fruit trees, but they look at me funny. That is not food. Grow maize!
I have a radio now. I am borrowing it from the woman who I think will become my counterpart if she doesn’t get fed up with me first. She said I could borrow it for my entire service here, which is fantastic. It is a wonderful outlet to the world and sometimes I can get BBC new reports. I actually heard about Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize the day it happened. I went around the village gleefully telling everyone I saw – I was so excited and happy – but they didn’t know what the Nobel Peace Prize was. . .
In the afternoons at 3pm if I am lucky I get BBC world report. That same BBC world report I’d listen to at Craven Allen, and it is so nostalgic. I try to imagine what you guys are doing – if you are listening too. I think that’d be 8am your time. So you’d all be bustling around your houses with your running water and your electricity, eating your breakfast and walking your dogs…
I am sitting here with time to write this, I should tell you, because on my last bike ride in to Same, I fell and sprained my ankle. Which has made me pretty immobile for almost a week now. It has been a blessing and a curse. It has given me time to breathe and step back from my work, a much needed break. But also, I can’t do my work! And even more, I can’t go anywhere!!
People from my village have stepped in immediately to take care of me. The second I got home my favorite neighbor, who is about 10 years old, saw that I was limping. He asked for my water buckets and fetched my water. He has returned every other day to get water. He has been sweeping my front courtyard (it’s dirt, they sweep it. . . it’s what they do here. It gets the chicken shit, and the cow and sheep and goat and dog shit, out of the walking area.)
The following morning 3 neighbors arrived to make sure I had food and could cook for myself and one promised to send her daughter the following day to help me. Her daughter cleaned my house, did my laundry, and my dishes. I felt kindof guilty, but she seemed content and happy she got to listen to the radio.
And you might be wondering why in the world the woman who is helping me so much might get fed up with me? Miscommunication. Miscommunication has caused now a lot of struggle for both of us in – not knowing where the other one is that we are supposed to meet to begin work. I will wait at my house and she at hers. A 35 minute walk from each other, waiting. Not knowing. And that’s just the beginning. She must have infinite patience. I take everything as it comes here. This is my job. But this is not her job. She has a family and children and a non-profit organization to run. She is giving up her time to help me. I hope her patience doesn’t run out. She wants me to start working again tomorrow but my ankle is still swollen and the Doctor said I should wait until it is fully healed – next week – before I begin work again. To begin work would entail walking almost the entire day through the village, starting at sunup and returning at dusk.
And I can’t wait until I can work again. . .
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 12:43pm
It’s a lonely day today. Perhaps because I have been shut in my house with my sprained ankle this last week, limping as far as the duka that I get cellphone signal, and hanging out a bit at the dispensary chatting with the nurses, and returning home.
Today is a holiday, which means the school is closed and the dispensary as well. It is an overcast day, and everyone is at their shomba (farm) planting their maize and preparing their fields for the rains to come. It is a good day for work, without the sun beating down on them.
The adjective they use to describe sun here is so much more effective than I have heard used in English – they say – Jua ni Kali – ‘Jua’ is ‘sun’, ‘ni’ means ‘is’ or ‘are’, and ‘kali’ means ‘sharp, cruel, difficult, etc’ I find it a precise description of the sun here in Tanzania.
This morning as I was waving my phone around searching for signal, my favourite mzee (elder) came by with his bucket of vegetables. He is the only person who has hodi’d me yet, which I find somewhat unusual. To ‘hodi’ is to come to one’s house to visit. You say ‘hodi’ in their doorway and wait to be welcomed into the home. One Sunday a few weeks ago he came by, and I invited him in.
He is the man who caught my eye during the party they held for me on my arrival. His face is weatherworn and reminds me perhaps of a wild west cowboy, which might be due to the fact that he wears a cowboy hat often. I remember he smiled warmly at me that day as I sat in amongst these strangers awkwardly trying to understand the events that were unfolding. Every time I saw him since he always smiled so kindly at me, and though we greeted, it was never in a situation that allowed for conversation.
He lives in a subvillage an hour and a half walk from my house. He walks around with a bucket of vegetables going from house to house to sell them. That day he hodi’d he told me about his work, trying to sell vegetables. He buys them from a village very far away (where they have water) He also told me about the minerals and stones that are mined in the mountains here. He had rocks and bits of previous stones that he showed me. I didn’t understand a lot of what he said but I appreciated the company and the interest. Before he left he gave me a bunch of tomatoes as a gift. I was taken aback by the man who worked so hard, but came here to give me these tomatoes.
Today, as I sat on the rock by the duka, waving my cellphone in the air, he handed me another bunch of tomatoes, after greeting me, and continued on his way.
It is for him that I will do my work. It is for him that I will find a way to provide the village with water. And then teach the village permaculture so that he may grow his own vegetables, and his profits will be larger, and he can live comfortably.
My choo is stopped up again. Which is a terrible problem to have. The solutions you try first are to pour water in, preferably boiling water. So I made up a big pot of boiling water and dumped it in, and now, excuse the profanity, it smells like cooking shit, and it is not draining. So I have twice the problem. And yet again the only source of solution is from those gov’t leaders and the doctor, the headmaster at the school. And they will crowd around in my choo-room and look at the shit floating in water and talk about how it’s a problem. Again. Ugh.
It’s been awhile since I have written, I know. I have been busy, I assure you, with meetings and research, trying to understand this village of mine and figure out how I can even begin to help.
I have been going house to house in each subvillage, of which we have six, and asking a very long list of questions pertaining to the family, their perception of life in the village, their health, their nutritional status, their income source(s), their perceived needs, etc. It has been the most amazing and exciting and fun part of my work so far here in Tanzania.
Since I have the list of questions, there is no awkward silence, and I learn so much from them about their families, life here, and about the village. It is amazing the differences of attitudes and qualities of life amongst the different subvillages and even within the subvillages. But the conclusion is pretty grim. There is a draught here that has affected the area severely for the past four years, although it has been slowly encroaching for many years before that. Everyone who lives in this village is a farmer. A lucky few have alternate sources of income: carpentry, tailoring, teaching, shopkeeping. But income from these jobs is still insufficient to support their families. They grow maize and beans. What they don’t need to feed their family, they take to Same to sell. But they haven’t had enough crops to even feed their family in years.
Traditionally in this area there are 2 rainy seasons. One in the fall, a shorter season where they grow corn; one in the spring, a longer season, where they grow beans and other vegetables like tomatoes and onions and such. The problem is – for 4 years now – the rain hasn’t come.
A question I have come to dread in the survey inquires about the nutritional status of the family. Every family but one so far has answered that they cannot even begin to address nutrition because they don’t even have enough food.
Which brings us to water.
There are 6 public wells in my village, one at each subvillage, as well as a number of private ones that I haven’t figured out quite yet. They use a gravity system to bring water from natural springs on the top of the mountain down to villages. When the system was built there were 6 natural springs that provided water every day without fail. This was many years ago when this area was lush forest, before the beautiful hardwood trees where harvested and sold in the 80’s.
Over time the springs have slowly gone dry, one by one. Now there are only 2 springs that provide water at all, and they are inconsistent.
(Here in Tanzania, if you live in a village, you normally go daily to the water source, be it a pump from groundwater, the river, the pond, the mud puddle – as we had in Kilulu - whatever, and you carry buckets of water to your home to use.)
There are now only 2 wells in the whole village – which spans many miles – which ever have water. And the water they provide is inconsistent. This means that families spend whole days simply walking to get water and carrying it home. All week, every week. If there’s water.
So I live in this desert that once was lush forest. There are dried tree carcasses remaining, and people KNOW – they tell me – the environment is suffering because the trees where cut down. They want more trees. But the situation has gotten too dire – you can’t plant new trees without water for them to grow. And climate change will hit this area hard as well. Tanzania’s average temperature is supposed to rise (I think?) between 3 and 5 degrees in the next 30 years. The cycles of extreme draught and severe rain will become even more exaggerated.
So I have been spending this time, when I am not conducting my surveys, in meetings with people who know things about water.
I’m going to find a way to get my village water. I have to. They can’t live without it.
It has rained once now since I lived here. I was so happy and surprised. It rained for hours fast and hard – drenching the barren dusty landscape and eking out gullies and ravines. And suddenly little green leaves are budding out of trees I thought were dead. Beautiful stones dot the landscape that were once hidden by a mask of copper colored clay dust.
It is the year of El Nino and the expectation is that instead of no rain, as we have gotten these past years, we will get such torrential rain that it will cause massive flooding and erosion. You can’t win. But I will teach rainwater catchment, I hope. And people will be able to use it. I have no idea what to expect. I live day to day and learn and reshape my judgments and expectations as I go.
I was told yesterday that I will be given land to farm – that I MUST farm mahindi (maize) and send it back to America to sell. Every single person here is a farmer and they can’t even begin to understand my lack of interest in growing a field of maize. #1. I don’t like maize (but I wouldn’t dare tell them that). I tell them I want to grow a garden with vegetables and maybe some fruit trees, but they look at me funny. That is not food. Grow maize!
I have a radio now. I am borrowing it from the woman who I think will become my counterpart if she doesn’t get fed up with me first. She said I could borrow it for my entire service here, which is fantastic. It is a wonderful outlet to the world and sometimes I can get BBC new reports. I actually heard about Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize the day it happened. I went around the village gleefully telling everyone I saw – I was so excited and happy – but they didn’t know what the Nobel Peace Prize was. . .
In the afternoons at 3pm if I am lucky I get BBC world report. That same BBC world report I’d listen to at Craven Allen, and it is so nostalgic. I try to imagine what you guys are doing – if you are listening too. I think that’d be 8am your time. So you’d all be bustling around your houses with your running water and your electricity, eating your breakfast and walking your dogs…
I am sitting here with time to write this, I should tell you, because on my last bike ride in to Same, I fell and sprained my ankle. Which has made me pretty immobile for almost a week now. It has been a blessing and a curse. It has given me time to breathe and step back from my work, a much needed break. But also, I can’t do my work! And even more, I can’t go anywhere!!
People from my village have stepped in immediately to take care of me. The second I got home my favorite neighbor, who is about 10 years old, saw that I was limping. He asked for my water buckets and fetched my water. He has returned every other day to get water. He has been sweeping my front courtyard (it’s dirt, they sweep it. . . it’s what they do here. It gets the chicken shit, and the cow and sheep and goat and dog shit, out of the walking area.)
The following morning 3 neighbors arrived to make sure I had food and could cook for myself and one promised to send her daughter the following day to help me. Her daughter cleaned my house, did my laundry, and my dishes. I felt kindof guilty, but she seemed content and happy she got to listen to the radio.
And you might be wondering why in the world the woman who is helping me so much might get fed up with me? Miscommunication. Miscommunication has caused now a lot of struggle for both of us in – not knowing where the other one is that we are supposed to meet to begin work. I will wait at my house and she at hers. A 35 minute walk from each other, waiting. Not knowing. And that’s just the beginning. She must have infinite patience. I take everything as it comes here. This is my job. But this is not her job. She has a family and children and a non-profit organization to run. She is giving up her time to help me. I hope her patience doesn’t run out. She wants me to start working again tomorrow but my ankle is still swollen and the Doctor said I should wait until it is fully healed – next week – before I begin work again. To begin work would entail walking almost the entire day through the village, starting at sunup and returning at dusk.
And I can’t wait until I can work again. . .
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 12:43pm
It’s a lonely day today. Perhaps because I have been shut in my house with my sprained ankle this last week, limping as far as the duka that I get cellphone signal, and hanging out a bit at the dispensary chatting with the nurses, and returning home.
Today is a holiday, which means the school is closed and the dispensary as well. It is an overcast day, and everyone is at their shomba (farm) planting their maize and preparing their fields for the rains to come. It is a good day for work, without the sun beating down on them.
The adjective they use to describe sun here is so much more effective than I have heard used in English – they say – Jua ni Kali – ‘Jua’ is ‘sun’, ‘ni’ means ‘is’ or ‘are’, and ‘kali’ means ‘sharp, cruel, difficult, etc’ I find it a precise description of the sun here in Tanzania.
This morning as I was waving my phone around searching for signal, my favourite mzee (elder) came by with his bucket of vegetables. He is the only person who has hodi’d me yet, which I find somewhat unusual. To ‘hodi’ is to come to one’s house to visit. You say ‘hodi’ in their doorway and wait to be welcomed into the home. One Sunday a few weeks ago he came by, and I invited him in.
He is the man who caught my eye during the party they held for me on my arrival. His face is weatherworn and reminds me perhaps of a wild west cowboy, which might be due to the fact that he wears a cowboy hat often. I remember he smiled warmly at me that day as I sat in amongst these strangers awkwardly trying to understand the events that were unfolding. Every time I saw him since he always smiled so kindly at me, and though we greeted, it was never in a situation that allowed for conversation.
He lives in a subvillage an hour and a half walk from my house. He walks around with a bucket of vegetables going from house to house to sell them. That day he hodi’d he told me about his work, trying to sell vegetables. He buys them from a village very far away (where they have water) He also told me about the minerals and stones that are mined in the mountains here. He had rocks and bits of previous stones that he showed me. I didn’t understand a lot of what he said but I appreciated the company and the interest. Before he left he gave me a bunch of tomatoes as a gift. I was taken aback by the man who worked so hard, but came here to give me these tomatoes.
Today, as I sat on the rock by the duka, waving my cellphone in the air, he handed me another bunch of tomatoes, after greeting me, and continued on his way.
It is for him that I will do my work. It is for him that I will find a way to provide the village with water. And then teach the village permaculture so that he may grow his own vegetables, and his profits will be larger, and he can live comfortably.
My choo is stopped up again. Which is a terrible problem to have. The solutions you try first are to pour water in, preferably boiling water. So I made up a big pot of boiling water and dumped it in, and now, excuse the profanity, it smells like cooking shit, and it is not draining. So I have twice the problem. And yet again the only source of solution is from those gov’t leaders and the doctor, the headmaster at the school. And they will crowd around in my choo-room and look at the shit floating in water and talk about how it’s a problem. Again. Ugh.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009 7:24pm
The first thing I have taught to my village (somewhat inadvertently) is how to make brownies. Even today, the day after my lesson, children and adults are repeating to each other the ingredients and proportions of this wondrous Merikani (American) food.
I initially intended to bake brownies (my first try at baking in Tanzania) for the graduation party for the daughter of the nurse who has been so much help to me these past weeks. I had been trying to explain to her about brownies, but the best I could get is chocolate cake which she sortof understood. They don’t have dessert here. The day before the party she asked if I could cook them at her house – because I haven’t managed to buy charcoal yet, and so she could watch.
When they have parties here people all bring over food, dishes, pots, and firewood and women all come to help cook. So when I came to bake my brownies I had quite the audience, and the children of course come to see whatever I might be doing as well. I am so glad that they turned out well, since I was using a recipe out of the PC cookbook and changing it a bit because ingredients like butter just can’t be found around here.
In case you’re wondering, the ingredients are:
9 spoons of blueband (a horrendous margarine I have come to love)
(melt in pan before adding the rest of the ingredients)
1 ½ teacups sugar
9 spoons unsweetened cocoa powder
½ lidfull vanilla extract (they didn’t know what this was but I did
buy it in Same, artificial, but you take what you can get)
2 eggs
¾ teacup flour
tiny pinch of salt if you feel like it but the blueband already has plenty
Make an oven out of a big pot by putting 2 flat stones on the bottom. Put the smaller pot in and make sure that it doesn’t stick out of the top (there should be room between the top of the inside pan and the top of the outside) put a lid on it and put it on the charcoal.
Wait impatiently with everyone watching and peeking under the lid until finished (about 45min to 1 ½ hours) I made 2 batches the first one took forever. . .
The brownies where quite the hit, and the party was pretty amazing. It was asked that I photograph Aziza and her daughter and sister and brother and then since the camera was out I took a number of other pictures as well so hopefully you’ll get to see those sometime.
In the morning, there was a party at the Catholic church as well, for christening and it was asked that I take some pictures there too. The place was beautiful and the singing was amazing. It was packed full of people and I was uncomfortable taking pictures so I don’t know that they turned out well.
I would like to apologize to the people who I wrote letters during the last few weeks, and you will know who you are when you receive them. As promised, the first weeks at site where very difficult for me, but now I feel that I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, I love my village so much and I have so many projects to do that I hope will really be able to change the lives of the people who live here.
This past week has been the turning point for me. I was in meetings every single day as well as a few the last days of the week before. The first meetings were strenuous and frustrating. I would arrive and wait, very patiently, for the rest of the people to come. As promised, meetings usually start an hour or longer after the proposed meeting time. It made no difference to me because people would be talking before the meeting, and I would not understand the conversation. Then the meeting would begin, and people would be talking even faster usually, passionately discussing things of importance, but again, I would not understand a thing going on. A meeting scheduled to begin at 10am would usually get out around 430 or 5pm. No break for food, or anything for that matter. I took to writing down the words that I heard repeated that I didn’t know, then looking them up. Still, the gist of the conversation was usually lost on me.
Sometimes someone would be so bold as to ask me why I was not contributing to the conversation, and over time I answered this question with more evident frustration, as I thought it was quite apparent that I had no clue what was being said.
Tuesday, after one such meeting, I was approached by a young teacher who started speaking to me in English (asking me the dreaded question as to why I had no contributed to the conversation) The meeting that we had just finished was the government and school officials discussing what would happen during the meeting with the parents at the school the following day.
So, Wednesday, at the parents meeting, I insisted on sitting next to the teacher who had promised to help translate. I had to be pretty pushy, as everyone thought I should sit in the place of importance between two very important gov’t officials, but I had had enough frustration, and already missed so much important information.
After that meeting, my eyes where opened to so many things in the village. I was able to discuss many things with the teacher, and it seemed suddenly people understood that I could not understand them, and when possible they would call over someone who knew English (they’ve been hiding – I didn’t know they were here!) and suddenly the communication barrier was all but gone.
With the aid of communication, I have been piling on ideas for projects (and inadvertently expectations from the villagers for immediate action) and all the sudden I feel empowered to get things done. I also feel connected to these people. I have begun to make friends, even despite the communication barrier, find comfort in seeing certain people everyday.
There is this myth that during training we heard over and over again. From our teachers and staff a little, but mostly from current volunteers. They said we’d be bored a lot. That we’d have so much time on our hands we wouldn’t know what to do with it. Now, they might be big fans of PB&J for every meal, or maybe they have villages with fewer needs than mine, but I don’t ever have a second to breath from waking (usually around 430am, as the rooster crows) to sleep (somewhere between 830 and 930pm) I feel bad because for the past week and a half I haven’t studied Swahili (accept ‘in the field’) at all. I haven’t had time. At all. Even this past weekend when I was in my banking town (fri-sat) I spent all of Friday in meetings with different NGO’s and gov’t officials.
That said, I am exhausted. Tomorrow promises to be a long day as there is another meeting. This time though, I already know someone will be coming to help translate for me.
Also I will have someone (and hopefully not every important gov’t official as I am afraid will be the case) come look at my choo, as it does not drain. Which is quite awkward as I am the only one who uses it and thus must take responsibility for all that has. . . piled up.
And with that I will say, good night, Usiku mwema.
The first thing I have taught to my village (somewhat inadvertently) is how to make brownies. Even today, the day after my lesson, children and adults are repeating to each other the ingredients and proportions of this wondrous Merikani (American) food.
I initially intended to bake brownies (my first try at baking in Tanzania) for the graduation party for the daughter of the nurse who has been so much help to me these past weeks. I had been trying to explain to her about brownies, but the best I could get is chocolate cake which she sortof understood. They don’t have dessert here. The day before the party she asked if I could cook them at her house – because I haven’t managed to buy charcoal yet, and so she could watch.
When they have parties here people all bring over food, dishes, pots, and firewood and women all come to help cook. So when I came to bake my brownies I had quite the audience, and the children of course come to see whatever I might be doing as well. I am so glad that they turned out well, since I was using a recipe out of the PC cookbook and changing it a bit because ingredients like butter just can’t be found around here.
In case you’re wondering, the ingredients are:
9 spoons of blueband (a horrendous margarine I have come to love)
(melt in pan before adding the rest of the ingredients)
1 ½ teacups sugar
9 spoons unsweetened cocoa powder
½ lidfull vanilla extract (they didn’t know what this was but I did
buy it in Same, artificial, but you take what you can get)
2 eggs
¾ teacup flour
tiny pinch of salt if you feel like it but the blueband already has plenty
Make an oven out of a big pot by putting 2 flat stones on the bottom. Put the smaller pot in and make sure that it doesn’t stick out of the top (there should be room between the top of the inside pan and the top of the outside) put a lid on it and put it on the charcoal.
Wait impatiently with everyone watching and peeking under the lid until finished (about 45min to 1 ½ hours) I made 2 batches the first one took forever. . .
The brownies where quite the hit, and the party was pretty amazing. It was asked that I photograph Aziza and her daughter and sister and brother and then since the camera was out I took a number of other pictures as well so hopefully you’ll get to see those sometime.
In the morning, there was a party at the Catholic church as well, for christening and it was asked that I take some pictures there too. The place was beautiful and the singing was amazing. It was packed full of people and I was uncomfortable taking pictures so I don’t know that they turned out well.
I would like to apologize to the people who I wrote letters during the last few weeks, and you will know who you are when you receive them. As promised, the first weeks at site where very difficult for me, but now I feel that I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, I love my village so much and I have so many projects to do that I hope will really be able to change the lives of the people who live here.
This past week has been the turning point for me. I was in meetings every single day as well as a few the last days of the week before. The first meetings were strenuous and frustrating. I would arrive and wait, very patiently, for the rest of the people to come. As promised, meetings usually start an hour or longer after the proposed meeting time. It made no difference to me because people would be talking before the meeting, and I would not understand the conversation. Then the meeting would begin, and people would be talking even faster usually, passionately discussing things of importance, but again, I would not understand a thing going on. A meeting scheduled to begin at 10am would usually get out around 430 or 5pm. No break for food, or anything for that matter. I took to writing down the words that I heard repeated that I didn’t know, then looking them up. Still, the gist of the conversation was usually lost on me.
Sometimes someone would be so bold as to ask me why I was not contributing to the conversation, and over time I answered this question with more evident frustration, as I thought it was quite apparent that I had no clue what was being said.
Tuesday, after one such meeting, I was approached by a young teacher who started speaking to me in English (asking me the dreaded question as to why I had no contributed to the conversation) The meeting that we had just finished was the government and school officials discussing what would happen during the meeting with the parents at the school the following day.
So, Wednesday, at the parents meeting, I insisted on sitting next to the teacher who had promised to help translate. I had to be pretty pushy, as everyone thought I should sit in the place of importance between two very important gov’t officials, but I had had enough frustration, and already missed so much important information.
After that meeting, my eyes where opened to so many things in the village. I was able to discuss many things with the teacher, and it seemed suddenly people understood that I could not understand them, and when possible they would call over someone who knew English (they’ve been hiding – I didn’t know they were here!) and suddenly the communication barrier was all but gone.
With the aid of communication, I have been piling on ideas for projects (and inadvertently expectations from the villagers for immediate action) and all the sudden I feel empowered to get things done. I also feel connected to these people. I have begun to make friends, even despite the communication barrier, find comfort in seeing certain people everyday.
There is this myth that during training we heard over and over again. From our teachers and staff a little, but mostly from current volunteers. They said we’d be bored a lot. That we’d have so much time on our hands we wouldn’t know what to do with it. Now, they might be big fans of PB&J for every meal, or maybe they have villages with fewer needs than mine, but I don’t ever have a second to breath from waking (usually around 430am, as the rooster crows) to sleep (somewhere between 830 and 930pm) I feel bad because for the past week and a half I haven’t studied Swahili (accept ‘in the field’) at all. I haven’t had time. At all. Even this past weekend when I was in my banking town (fri-sat) I spent all of Friday in meetings with different NGO’s and gov’t officials.
That said, I am exhausted. Tomorrow promises to be a long day as there is another meeting. This time though, I already know someone will be coming to help translate for me.
Also I will have someone (and hopefully not every important gov’t official as I am afraid will be the case) come look at my choo, as it does not drain. Which is quite awkward as I am the only one who uses it and thus must take responsibility for all that has. . . piled up.
And with that I will say, good night, Usiku mwema.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Friday, September 4, 2009
August 22, 2009 7:25pm
I know I haven’t written in awhile. And I haven’t posted the things I wrote awhile back. Maybe I will post them when I post this entry. They feel so far away now.
Today I arrived at my site. I am cooking my first dinner now, myself, on the kerosene stove that my host family gave me as a going away present. I am starving, and it is cooking slowly. I am making potatoes with tomatoes, onions, garlic, and I might put an egg in at the end if I feel so inclined. I forgot to buy salt and I have no other spices...
I love my village. I love my district. I love the people who live here, and the people I will be working with. I love my house. I feel so lucky to be here.
Perhaps it is different because I struggled through my homestay. I didn’t connect with my family and often felt at odds with their expectations for me. I especially disliked my kaka Siafu and was often in his company. I was unsure of myself and stumbled a lot.
Last Monday at 5:20am I left my homestay family. It was a complicated goodbye for me as I wanted so badly to feel, still, like they were family, and connect somehow with them. I appreciate greatly their teaching me how to cook, fetch water, clean Tanzania style, etc, and I appreciate so much them welcoming me into their home and accepting me as family, but I never felt like family.
I traveled from Muheza to Dar es Salaam. I went to the dentist in Dar to get a tooth fixed that I had chipped on shadow week (nothing too bad, don’t worry) and on the 19th we were sworn in as official PC Volunteers.
The shindig was at the Ambassador’s house for the first time in more than 4 years. It was amazingly posh, the food was fantastic, and we had an AWESOME band and we all danced the night away. The ceremony was nice, and we sang a song of our making to illustrate the things we had learned during training. Each CBT created a verse that thanked their LCF and mentioned particular things that had happened during training. I think it was televised so feel free to try to google search it. They were videotaping the whole thing.
(I finished cooking and ate. . . so here is the continuation. . )
August 24, 2009 7:13pm
Today my village officially welcomed me. My VEO (village executive officer) talks so quickly it is like a waterfall of Kiswahili falling onto me, and I don’t understand at all. He knows a tiny bit of English, and sometimes, when he feels especially inclined, he will make sure I know what he is talking about and when I say ‘NO’ that I really don’t know at all, he will translate a tiny bit in English. And then return to the waterfall of Kiswahili.
My village is tiny, at the foothills of the mountains, and very dry. It is beautiful, with cacti and a dabbling of trees, and the mountains rising behind. From about halfway up the mountains there is a forest, and I think the top catches a bit more rainfall than we get here at the base.
I am high enough in the mountains to be cold at night, and sometimes chilly during the day a bit too. I am really glad to have such a warm sleeping bag. I do wish I hadn’t lost my only jacket, though, I am going to try to buy another here soon so I don’t freeze all the time.
I am about a 2 hour walk from my banking town which is the only place I can buy pretty much anything. Here in my village I can buy soap, eggs, salt, and sugar. Sometimes I can find phone vouchers, though it is almost moot because I have no signal here in my village, unless I climb the mountain. There is a ‘public’ truck that goes to town every Sunday morning and returns in the late afternoon. If I want to go any other day I have to go by foot. Which isn’t bad accept that I need to buy all my food in town and many other things I need for my home, and will be carrying them all the way back. . I will be in good shape very soon.
I was told when I arrived in town that jumatatu (Monday) would be “Jennifer Day” So I prepared to be fed (meaning I barely ate breakfast) and prepared a small speech to explain myself to the villagers in Kiswahili. I even bathed for the first time since I got here in lukewarm water which was the best I could make with the tiny pot I have to boil water and the one bucket I have to use for all my water needs.
My house is a duplex that I share with the family of a teacher at our primary school. They have chickens that crow at about 4am, and their doors (and mine) could use a good dousing with wd-40. It took me a while to not jump at every door opening thinking it was my own. They have a new baby, who cries often, and a child about 2 who knows the words mama and baba and dada and says them all the time. The older kaka, Juma, who is 11, is quiet and helpful and often watching his younger sisters. When my door is open during the day he will peer in curiously but not enter.
The wife is a teacher and I do not know what the man does, perhaps he is a farmer? I think they just moved here as well because in Tanzania teachers are moved around a lot by the gov’t. I tried to visit this morning but got the feeling it was a bad time.
As you walk in the house, you enter my sitting room (currently sans chairs). To your left is a room that could be a bedroom or office or otherwise though I don’t have the money to furnish it at all. Past the sitting room is my bedroom on the right. There is a single window that looks out into my courtyard. The windows all have boards halfway up, perhaps for safety (per PC request) and perhaps to keep out the wind which is cold at night.
My courtyard has a rocky concrete floor. A wall separates my courtyard from the family in the other half of the house. Across the courtyard are three rooms. One is to serve as my kitchen, another my food storage room, and the third is my choo/shower room. There is a door to the outside from my courtyard and the wall to the outside is lined with broken glass (again for safety) which glistens and glitters in the sun.
Along the front of my house are tropical looking plants planted in old broken buckets and paint containers and other such things. They are situated to catch the rainwater off the roof so they can get watered occasionally. Nothing is flowering right now, but I pulled all the brown leaves away and they look pretty happy now that I give them my waste water.
My village is tiny, and the houses are spread out over the foothills far away. My house is next to the dispensary and across the street from the secondary school. Both are very well made buildings, and look new.
Our water comes from atop the mountain. I haven’t figured out quite how it works, but we have a faucet and every other day we are allowed to get water from it. From what I understand sometimes there isn’t water. The water is clean, though, very clear.
So this morning I woke up and swept like a good Tanzanian woman (though couldn’t mop because I don’t have enough buckets) and bathed and prepared myself for Jennifer Day. I left my house with trepidation, and stumbled immediately upon so many people who wanted to converse with me. They speak quick and fluid Kiswahili, rolling out at me as if I understood each word. I feel like even when I recognize some words I forget their meaning because I am so engrossed in the timber of the voice.
I understood almost nothing all day.
First, I spoke to the doctor at the clinic after many long greetings with nurses, villagers, teachers, and children. He knew some English, which was such a relief to my brain. He asked me what I was going to do (the giant looming question), and had a list of things that he wanted help with. It was comforting to know that all three things I plan to begin with (at his request) are within my reach. He wants help with rainwater catchment, he wants me to teach about prevention of common diseases in the village (and provided a list) and he wants me to teach about permaculture (which excites me greatly) He was very organized, and I look forward to working with him in the future.
Next, I met with a huge group of village officials, all of whom spoke to me and about me in rapid Kiswahili. For awhile I could see that they were going over what looked to be a budget for the party they were throwing me. Which was awkward to say the least, but here in Tanzania things like that are different. I think they wanted me to know that they are putting money into welcoming me here, so that I know that they want me here and are showing it through lavish reception.
Together, we went on a small walking tour of the village, with the VEO spilling out his beautiful Kiswahili as he pointed here and there at houses and hills and the pocked rocky dirt road. When we returned, the villagers where gathering for my welcoming party. Children where playing soccer in the field, and women were standing in groups wearing beautiful colorful clothing.
A chair was brought out and I was told to sit in it. Students marched out and began singing songs, all about me. I could understand most of the words, and they were about my long journey here to Africa, and about wanting to learn from me, and thanking me for coming. The older children sang first and I was asked to dance with them, which I did, much to the enjoyment of the crowd.
The little children came next, singing more songs about me and thanking me for coming again. I danced with them, as well, and some of the mamas came to dance with us too.
It was pretty amazing to hear these songs they had written, as they were all about me, and how I could help them and how happy they were I came.
I might mention at this point that I hadn’t eaten because I wanted to be hungry for my feast, and it was going on 3pm.
Then a lot of speeches commenced and I was very glad to have prepared mine. I am pretty sure I repeated A LOT of what the VEO had already told the villagers about me, but I said most all of it anyway. They were very happy that I used a Kipare (local language) greeting, and they received me warmly. I feel very welcome and comfortable here.
After the speeches, the children played this strange game where one pretended to be me and another pretended to be a villager and they played out scenarios. I didn’t really understand much of it but everyone laughed a lot, so I did as well. Then there was a question answer session with the children where they were asked questions about me (my name, what I do, when I arrived in town, when I will leave) and took turns answering.
It was hard to concentrate because I was hungry and dehydrated. But it was amazing. It was a good way, I think, for the villagers and children together to learn what this mzungo was doing here in their village.
It was amazing.
Completely amazing.
Then I was welcomed inside for my feast.. So many different things to eat and they were all so good. I like the cooking here better than Muheza or maybe I was just soooooo hungry that it tasted so good. I kept eating and ate too fast that I immediately felt like I was going to throw up. I had to finally not even able to clean my plate, which is bad manners, but I was very afraid that instead I would have to go throw up which would also be. . . bad.
Many more speeches were given and then there was a question answer session which luckily I didn’t have to provide the answers as the questions were about me. The only one I understood completely was basically “how can she help us if she can’t speak/understand “Kiswahili” which is a fair question. The answer was “She’s learning”
I was asked to speak again, and just ended up repeating a few things I had said before and then saying thankyou about 30 times and sitting down.
After the speeches were over, the VEO said I could go home and rest, as I had danced a lot and must be tired.
And I was. But I sadly could not rest, there are always things I need to do.. ..
There is a nurse here that I met the day I arrived. She has helped me through the village and though she knows absolutely no English we have been able to make sense of each other. She is kind and luckily has also been willing to give me a bit of space when I need it. She has the unfortunate habit of ripping my phone out of my hand all the time when I am trying to do something (send a text message or call) and I know it’s because she knows where to hold it exactly to get the signal, but I have to bite my tongue to not snap every once in awhile for her not to do it.
She has gotten me the use of a bucket, though, which is great, and I will use it until I go into town on Thursday and can buy a few more. I really need to do laundry and clean a bit here.
I am still living out of bags and the only furniture in the house in the bed which I am borrowing from neighbors until I can have one made. The PC gave us, from what I have heard, considerably less than previous groups as ‘moving in allowance’. We were told it should be sufficient to buy one bed, mattress, one table, and 2 chairs. I am hoping to squeeze in a bookshelf and something to hold my clothes, but we’ll see. There are many other things for the house that I need. Like buckets. (note to those who haven’t lived w/o running water: Buckets are life. You fetch and store water in buckets, you wash clothes in buckets, you clean the floor in buckets, you do dishes in buckets, you keep drinking water in buckets, etc.)
Tomorrow I will be going to the fundi with my nurse friend after we return from our visit to the hospital. Hopefully I can post all of this soon. . . but I am tired and have written enough for the night.
Usiku Mwema!
August 29, 2009 7:02pm
They have said, and I know very well, that these first three months at site will be the hardest of my service. I do not know if I am more homesick now than I was those first weeks during training. I am even craving things that I didn’t think would be an issue for me at all. Running water. A stove. Right now, furniture to sit on. I am so tired of sitting on the floor and my back hurts. I will have furniture sometime next week or the week after, though.
It was a long day today.
Let me mention a few things that happened this week, though, before I go into it, for the sake of congruity.
The visit to the hospital was a miscommunication, as instead we were a ‘mobile clinic’ which meant we took a box of supplies out into the hills (by the aid of a car) and sat on stools in the middle of nowhere. Women and children came, and the children were weighed, given inoculations and vitamins, and the babies where checked for health. Birth control was handed out (pills) and women even came selling wares and vegetables. Which was good because I really needed some food and I bought some cabbage and mchiche (Mchiche is translated according to the dictionary as ‘spinach’ but it’s just the greens of some plant and it has nothing to do with what we know as spinach, but it’s good cooked. Also, it’s different greens depending on the region)
The nurses (of which there are 4) sat around and gossiped and tried to teach me Kipare which is the local tribal language. I cannot understand them and feel desperately lost. The common verbs they use here are different from the common verbs used in Muheza, and it seems I get lost in the simplest sentence. They also conjugate A LOT which loses me quickly.
All you who know me know that I tend to be quiet around people initially. And it doesn’t help me being the foreigner who can’t talk anyway sitting around quietly. But I observed and took notes and tried to understand what was going on. The questions that I did understand I could not answer anyway, for that reason that I kept trying to insist the PC not place me as they did – the nurses asked me what ages children in the US got what shots, and did we give this shot in the leg or the arm or the buttocks, etc. And I have no clue. I don’t even know what shots I got as a child, only that they have been sufficient to keep me from dying yet.
They even wanted me to help dispense medicine and give shots myself. But I insisted I was not a doctor. And not a nurse. I am beginning to feel like the are questioning my worth to them, wondering exactly what I do.
I guess maybe I am wondering the same thing.
Thursday I woke early to go so Same to buy things. My nurse friend had insisted she come with me, and as I didn’t know how to get there I thought it might be a good idea, though I felt so bad she had to take off work and walk there (a 2 ½ hour walk) although she also negotiated transportation back, which was helpful.
I met a PCV in town who has been here for about a year and he showed me where to buy everything. Of course, despite my list, I forgot some things, but I was at least able to add considerably to my food stores. I now have bread and peanut butter and jelly which has become my favourite meal. I also have some spices, some more buckets, a frying pan, and a lot of other necessary house stuff. (this morning I made peanut butter chapatti and it was fan-tastic) There is an amazing luxury to be able to eat when I am hungry instead of having to light my stove, cut things up, and wait for them to cook.
When I returned from Same, I was tired and dirty. I wondered over to my nurse-friend’s house and talked a tiny bit with her. I wanted to buy some laundry soap from her duka, so I waited for her to decompress a bit from the trip. As I mounted the hill above my house, I saw a ton of people standing around, more than I had ever seen in my village. Seated at a table in front of them where the VEO and Mwenyekiti (Village executive officer ie – head honcho, and the chair person) amongst the other important village officials. The VEO saw me and motioned me over.
So there I sat, in front of maybe a houndred or more people, dirty and tired from my trip, hungry and thirsty, and just wanting to buy some laundry soap.
It turns out that they were reading the list of people who were to get food aid, in the form of corn, the following day. It took me a long time to figure this out, of course, but I sat patiently and observed and wrote down the words I didn’t know, which was most of them.
In the middle of the name reading, the VEO decided to introduce me and then asked me to say a few words. Which was very kind of him, he is a very kind and wonderful man I like him a lot, the problem is he said my name, where I am from, how long I have been here, how long I am staying, and what I will be doing. Which are the only things I really know how to say well in Kiswahili. Which left me with nothing to say. And being tired and hungry I squabbled out a few broken Swahili sentences and then said thank you and sat down.
The name reading continued.
At the end of the list of each subvillage (they read the name of every person in each family, as the corn would be distributed based on the number of people in the family) they had a discussion as to what people found to be inaccurate in the list. People got very angry and where screaming. I couldn’t really figure out why.
The following day I had the pleasure of trying to wash out my newly purchased buckets so I could fetch water with them. See, when you buy a bucket here it was used, usually for cooking oil, already. They sell it to you dirty. So I stood there, at the well, with my bar of soapand washcloth for about an hour scrubbing at the 3 oil covered buckets trying to clean them.
Finally, seeing my frustration, one of the nurses came over and in 5 minutes, with a clump of old rice bag and the same soap I was using, cleaned all 3 buckets and had kids carry them full of water back to my house.
2 days before that I had been quite the spectacle. I had my one big bucket that the PC had given us. I filled it with water and someone told me that the children would carry it for me to my house. Being the independent American, not wanting to make children do my work, I insisted I could carry it. I had carried water on my head before. I had the children help me get the bucket onto my head and immediately realized it was a bucket twice the size I was used to. Still, with my pride intact, I knew I could walk down the hill to my house with it. So carefully, I did. But by the time I got to my house, my neck wasn’t holding out, and I knew then I couldn’t get it off my head by myself. But as no one was around, I had no choice but to try. I thought I about broke my neck, and the water fell everywhere.
And apparently everyone was around, because I heard laughing immediately and every time I come to the well now they recount the story to me. I try to take it lightly, but my neck still hurts.
They gave out the corn yesterday, and as far as I could see, there weren’t problems with the distribution. I did my laundry so I was in my courtyard for a good part of the day, and then I went to my Kiswahili class (more about that later)
Today, though, there were more problems.
I felt like a hermit, a bit, today. I took some time to try to neaten up my belongings which are just piled places since I don’t have furniture. I cooked peanut butter chapatti which was fantastic. I consolidated my lists and then made newer better lists. I stayed cooped up in my house until about noon.
When I ventured out I found myself again the observer of a meeting. I was invited to sit, again, this time amongst a group of perhaps 15 villagers. Almost all where familiar faces. The Mwenyekiti insisted that everyone speak Kiswahili (and no Kipare) on my behalf so I could understand (which was almost moot, because I barely understood a thing) and was super awkward because everyone was angry and yelling.
I was unprepared to observe a meeting so I found a spare second to rush back to my house and grab my dictionary and a pen so I could continue my list of words I don’t know and maybe look a few up as I went. The meeting went on for a few hours. At the end I barely understood. All I knew was that someone was supposed to be getting corn and for some reason did not.
Then, out of some miracle, a man came up to me and in fluent English explained that the women had not been able to carry all of their bags of corn back to their home the day before. They had left it in the duka (shop) that belongs to my nurse friend. A boy (22 year old) who I have talked to a few times and seems pretty nice, sleeps there (haven’t figured out why but knew that he does) The corn disappeared during the night but the boy insists he didn’t sleep there that night.
At the end, the women were given a little corn to tide them until the corn could be found.
August 30, 2009 7:25pm
I am writing a tiny bit more before I go to sleep because tomorrow I will be heading to Same and likely will post this.
I went to church today, Catholic, which is about a 2 minute walk from my house. Most of my neighbors go to either the Catholic church or the Lutheran one down the hill a bit. I chose the Catholic one because one of the nurses said she was going and invited me to come to her house after service.
But, alas, I did not see her there, or at all today, and I have no idea where her house is.
The church service was beautiful. I understood very little if any at all. I know at one point the pastor mentioned me because everyone stared at me for a bit and he mentioned the word mmerikani (American) a few times. Of course, it was all in Kiswahili.
The singing was amazing, and there was accompaniment of drums and clapping, though not revival style, a more reserved melody as could be expected at a catholic mass. It was nice to feel like I was part of the community and for once my lack of ability to communicate was not such an immediate barrier.
After church I visited a neighbor mzee (elder) who told me a bit about his life, mostly in Kiswahili but some small pieces translated into English. We ate a late lunch together and chatted and played with his 1 year old grandson, who is the healthiest and cleanest kid I have seen so far in Tanzania (and is in love with me) And he brought out some videos (he has solar power, and a TV and a VCR, he has, as far as I can tell, the posh-est house in the village) and we watched people dance to Christian music in Swahili with strange interjections of pictures of biblical stories which seemed so out of place because of their all white cast.
It was a good Sunday all in all.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Photos
Hi folks, I am sorry not to post actual text. I swear in tomorrow and I am tired and I have enjoyed being able to actually upload some photos with actual haste today instead of logging into gmail after 30 minutes only to have the power go out before I can read a single email.
I have many posts prewritten and perhaps will post them tomorrow. . . Put until I get to that - Karibu (welcome to) photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/JennKunz/Kilulu?authkey=Gv1sRgCLORm9HOnd3SMQ#
The speed was even decent enough to make comments for some.
So appreciate.
And write me letters.
I will be at site on Saturday.
More soon (ish)
I have many posts prewritten and perhaps will post them tomorrow. . . Put until I get to that - Karibu (welcome to) photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/JennKunz/Kilulu?authkey=Gv1sRgCLORm9HOnd3SMQ#
The speed was even decent enough to make comments for some.
So appreciate.
And write me letters.
I will be at site on Saturday.
More soon (ish)
Thursday, July 2, 2009
These last days. .
(before reading this please apprecite that it took me 45 minutes to log into my blog and copy and paste this from my thumbdrive. . )
Sunday, June 27th(?) 2009 1:55pm
I have been trying to figure out how to best cover the time that I have been here in Kilulu in my homestay, since there is so much to tell, and my mind is disjointed from being sleep deprived and on sensory overload for .. . 2 weeks or so.
I will take a few bits from my journal so you can get a better feeling of how I was experiencing everything in the moment. My recollection of the emotion is not as explicit as I felt it – I know when I read back over the entries for my first few days.
But first, let me introduce you to my village.
We are in the north near the mountains, outside my house everywhere you look there are beautiful lush green mountains in the distance.
The larger market town, is about 4 – 6 kilometers away from the village. From the market town you climb a red dirt road up through fields of maize and cassava, some sunflowers, all dotted with orange trees, coconut palms, papaya trees, mango trees, and many other things that I don’t know. Along the road is a primary school and secondary school, both made of brick – large open structures – I hope I will be able to post a photo or 2 of the secondary school when I post the blog.
There are a few shops that are hard to differentiate from the houses, made of either brick or of mud and straw. They are small, and people are walking along the road. Women wrapped in colorfully decorated kangas and dresses, men in loose bright button up shirts and shorts. The women are carrying baskets on their head, or have their head wrapped tightly in fabric.
As you approach my village, there is a long space of just brush and trees. You start seeing humble homes, made of cement or, for the most part, of mud bricks, or just of mud and straw. The doors are all open during the day and children are laughing and running through the streets (school is out for the summer) Women are sorting corn or rice on mats in front of their houses, doing wash, cooking, or cleaning. Men walk around, wave, on their way to work, or .. really . . I haven’t figured out what they do.
I don’t really have photos of the village – or of my home for that matter, because I don’t want to bring out the huge symbols of my wealth – especially not so early.
It is spring here and everything is green. All you see is green, accented by the red dirt of the road and courtyards that are swept daily in front of each house. There are crops everywhere. When you get to my house, depending on which road you approach it from, you will either see the red clay courtyard, the chair that my Baba (host father) sits in often, then some of the children playing, or a small covered porch accented by a red wall.
I am greeted by my host Kaka, Abdullah, who takes my bag from school and invites me into the home to rest.
In the afternoon (5pm), when I come home from school, I will try to tell the family what I have learned that day. My Dadas (host sisters) are sitting in the courtyard around a number of jichos (stoves) peeling vegetables, preparing food for dinner. I will usually start on the peeling of potatos to make ‘viazi’ (which just means potatos in Kiswahili)
I peel the potatoes with the very dull knives. My hands have not been washed, but neither had the potatoes (they are rinsed before they are cooked). I just peel and talk and point to each ingredient and other object around me to practice the Kiswahili word for it. My host kakas (brothers) will crowd around to watch, and sometimes make fun of how I do something or say something, we all laugh.
My family consists, as far as I can tell, of a Mama and Baba (mom and dad) who are older, perhaps around 65ish? There are 4 Dadas (sisters) my age, and 2 young girls maybe 4 and 6. Then I have 2 host Kakas who are about my age, one a bit younger, and 3(?) who are children, around 4 yrs.
The house is one of the nicer ones in the village. It is made of cement, with cement floors. It has wooden doors (as apposed to just a piece of cloth to separate rooms. It has 2 bedrooms as you walk in, a sitting room, and then my bedroom. My window looks out to the side of the house, to my Bibi (host grandmother)’s house.
Running around the courtyard are countless chickens and chicks. While we cook dinner they walk around and peck at the peelings and bits that we leave as we cook. I laugh at them but no one seems to be interested at all in them. They run around everywhere throughout the village. There are also dogs and cats (mbwas na pakas) running throughout the village. The dogs tend to stay near their families but the cats have no allegiance. I am told they are fed/let live because they keep the rodents away.
Next to my house we have a papaya tree, 2 orange trees, both still young, some cassava and some mchichi (greens that are cooked) Outside the back of the house (which is where the courtyard is and usually where I enter) there is the choo (toilet) and shower. They are the same structure with a wall separating that does not go all the way up, which sucks because when I shower, I always have to smell the choo.
We get water from one of 2 ‘wells’ in town. I have only been to one. It is the most beautiful walk, I would approximate about ¾ of a mile. Through fields of corn and cassava and others that are dotted generously will all sorts of trees and palms and oranges and such, down a mountain and then down a steep hill. What they call a well I would assume is a natural spring. It is muddy. You can’t see an inch through the water, like a river after a heavy rain. I carried a ¾ full bucket on my head the whole way back to my home. Women laughed at me as I struggled up the steep hill, but really the bucket of water on my head wasn’t the problem.
Women wear a piece of fabric called a kanga over their clothes. So I wear a skirt and a short sleeved shirt, then over the bottom I wrap a long piece of fabric that goes to my ankles and over my top I drape the same. Walking up the hill the kanga over my skirt really restricted my movement, and kept falling off. Still, it was one of my favourite memories here yet, carrying the water up the hill along the beautiful path to my village at sunset. Perhaps because my host kaka (brother) who was with me did not expect me to speak Kiswahili to him for a moment, I had the peace of completeing my task.
The muddy water from the ‘well’ is used for everything. It is the water poured in a pot to boil for rice, to make ugali, to wash your hands, to wash your body, to drink. I have gotten used to it. I have not gotten sick. It is disconcerting, but it has no flavour. I have bought drinking water and I horded it from our training center as much as I could but I end up dehydrated because Tanzanians (as I was warned) just don’t drink much. They drink chai (which is just black tea but has no caffeine, as far as I can tell) but not much else. They eat a lot of oranges. I try to do the same. I try to eat as many vegetables as I can. I have no vitamins as it seems that the PC usually does not provide them until after training (why – I don’t know) but they are also backordered. .
After cooking, water is warmed for my ‘bath’. I wrap my clothes, instead of in kangas, in my backpacking towel, and I head to the ‘stall’ with my shampoo and soap. The heated muddy water (sometimes with sticks and small leaves in it) is in a bucket with a plastic cup in it. I get myself wet – soap up – and rinse – by pouring water from the cup. It actually isn’t that difficult at all. As long as they give me enough water, which is an unpredictable thing. At night I only wash my body, the sweat and dirt of the day. In the morning I wash again, and wash my hair too. Some PCTs (PC trainees) only shower once, or every other day, but some of my family showers 2xs, and I think you would too if you were so wrapped in kangas and hot all the time, sweaty, covered in dust, and had NO other time to wash any other part of you during the day, your hands before or after eating – which you do with your hands (other than the more ceremonial than useful pouring of water on hands before you eat) or after using the choo (which is a hole in the ground leading to a tank) not even before cooking, or after cleaning.
While I am showering the family gets things ready for dinner, sometimes they are already eating when I finish. The small kids are all bathed before dinner as well (which is good since all the eating is done with hands out of shared dishes of food) The men sit at a table in chairs in the sitting room and I eat with the women and children, on a mat on the floor in the corner. The first night, when I arrived and was shellshocked and overwhelmed and was sitting in a chair and then as food was brought out, asked to move to the floor, it REALLY upset me. With all the other stuff going on I have grown not to care.
After dinner I usually try to go to my room, because I am exhausted. It’s about 9 by the end of dinner, usually, but my older host kakas and host baba want to talk to me. I entertain them with as much Kiswahili as I can bring to mind, and they teach me as much as I have patience for (usually they try for much more) before I can pull myself away to sleep.
I wake up usually around 3am. I have finally come to the conclusion that my Mama does dishes at that time in the room outside my door. It is loud as hell, whatever it is. Sometimes I can tune it out and go back to sleep. There are other intermittent noises after that, as the house slowly wakes up. Usually, the house is bustling by 5:30am, and I resign myself to waking around then and drag myself out of bed.
When I wake I try to find my Baba and Mama and greet them with the respectful morning greeting given to elders (shikamoo) Then I help my Dadas (sisters) sweep out the house, and then scrub the cement floor with an old kanga. You’d be amazed how much dirt is tracked in that house everyday.
After cleaning, I shower (bucket bath) and eat. Then my host kaka Siafu walks me the 10 minute walk to class. Sometimes the 10ish year old kaka (brother) Le Ju Manne walks with us and wants to carry my bag.
I get to school at 8am. There are 4 other PCTs in my village. Jayce and Shani, who are about my age, and Wes and Heather - a young (24 year old) married couple who are very shy and keep to themselves. I am very sad to say that I have come to heads after some time with Jayce and Shani who I personally can’t even understand why they are in PC or what they are doing here. They are catty and are annoyed by my exuberance and excitement in things (which is so strange to me) (I came in one morning after helping to cook chapati – a small pancake type thing – and was excitedly telling everyone how it was done, and Shani said she’d had just about enough of my getting excited about things.) It’s hard to explain, but I am sad to say that I cannot find comfort in the group of other volunteers I am posted in village with. I took a walk with Wes and Heather at lunch one day, and they are very kind, they seem fine, but they keep to themselves.
All day, we learn Kiswahili. We have lunch made for us by a local mama and then get back to work, until around 5pm. Then I return home to my homestay.
I have to say, it is completely overwhelming. There is nothing here that is familiar to me. Except maybe the fruits. The language, the customs, the homes, the people, my surroundings, how I am expected to dress and act, everything is unfamiliar. It is overwhelming. It is even weird to go from class, which is more casual in that it’s taught by a Peace Corps Kiswahili teacher who cusses and is funny and laid back, and with my English speaking fellow PCTs – to return home to my homestay family where I am expected to act a certain way and everything is spoken in a language I don’t understand, and still, what is expected of me is confusing.
Slowly I am learning. Pole pole (slowly slowly – pronounced poe-lay poe-lay)
Sunday, June 27th(?) 2009 1:55pm
I have been trying to figure out how to best cover the time that I have been here in Kilulu in my homestay, since there is so much to tell, and my mind is disjointed from being sleep deprived and on sensory overload for .. . 2 weeks or so.
I will take a few bits from my journal so you can get a better feeling of how I was experiencing everything in the moment. My recollection of the emotion is not as explicit as I felt it – I know when I read back over the entries for my first few days.
But first, let me introduce you to my village.
We are in the north near the mountains, outside my house everywhere you look there are beautiful lush green mountains in the distance.
The larger market town, is about 4 – 6 kilometers away from the village. From the market town you climb a red dirt road up through fields of maize and cassava, some sunflowers, all dotted with orange trees, coconut palms, papaya trees, mango trees, and many other things that I don’t know. Along the road is a primary school and secondary school, both made of brick – large open structures – I hope I will be able to post a photo or 2 of the secondary school when I post the blog.
There are a few shops that are hard to differentiate from the houses, made of either brick or of mud and straw. They are small, and people are walking along the road. Women wrapped in colorfully decorated kangas and dresses, men in loose bright button up shirts and shorts. The women are carrying baskets on their head, or have their head wrapped tightly in fabric.
As you approach my village, there is a long space of just brush and trees. You start seeing humble homes, made of cement or, for the most part, of mud bricks, or just of mud and straw. The doors are all open during the day and children are laughing and running through the streets (school is out for the summer) Women are sorting corn or rice on mats in front of their houses, doing wash, cooking, or cleaning. Men walk around, wave, on their way to work, or .. really . . I haven’t figured out what they do.
I don’t really have photos of the village – or of my home for that matter, because I don’t want to bring out the huge symbols of my wealth – especially not so early.
It is spring here and everything is green. All you see is green, accented by the red dirt of the road and courtyards that are swept daily in front of each house. There are crops everywhere. When you get to my house, depending on which road you approach it from, you will either see the red clay courtyard, the chair that my Baba (host father) sits in often, then some of the children playing, or a small covered porch accented by a red wall.
I am greeted by my host Kaka, Abdullah, who takes my bag from school and invites me into the home to rest.
In the afternoon (5pm), when I come home from school, I will try to tell the family what I have learned that day. My Dadas (host sisters) are sitting in the courtyard around a number of jichos (stoves) peeling vegetables, preparing food for dinner. I will usually start on the peeling of potatos to make ‘viazi’ (which just means potatos in Kiswahili)
I peel the potatoes with the very dull knives. My hands have not been washed, but neither had the potatoes (they are rinsed before they are cooked). I just peel and talk and point to each ingredient and other object around me to practice the Kiswahili word for it. My host kakas (brothers) will crowd around to watch, and sometimes make fun of how I do something or say something, we all laugh.
My family consists, as far as I can tell, of a Mama and Baba (mom and dad) who are older, perhaps around 65ish? There are 4 Dadas (sisters) my age, and 2 young girls maybe 4 and 6. Then I have 2 host Kakas who are about my age, one a bit younger, and 3(?) who are children, around 4 yrs.
The house is one of the nicer ones in the village. It is made of cement, with cement floors. It has wooden doors (as apposed to just a piece of cloth to separate rooms. It has 2 bedrooms as you walk in, a sitting room, and then my bedroom. My window looks out to the side of the house, to my Bibi (host grandmother)’s house.
Running around the courtyard are countless chickens and chicks. While we cook dinner they walk around and peck at the peelings and bits that we leave as we cook. I laugh at them but no one seems to be interested at all in them. They run around everywhere throughout the village. There are also dogs and cats (mbwas na pakas) running throughout the village. The dogs tend to stay near their families but the cats have no allegiance. I am told they are fed/let live because they keep the rodents away.
Next to my house we have a papaya tree, 2 orange trees, both still young, some cassava and some mchichi (greens that are cooked) Outside the back of the house (which is where the courtyard is and usually where I enter) there is the choo (toilet) and shower. They are the same structure with a wall separating that does not go all the way up, which sucks because when I shower, I always have to smell the choo.
We get water from one of 2 ‘wells’ in town. I have only been to one. It is the most beautiful walk, I would approximate about ¾ of a mile. Through fields of corn and cassava and others that are dotted generously will all sorts of trees and palms and oranges and such, down a mountain and then down a steep hill. What they call a well I would assume is a natural spring. It is muddy. You can’t see an inch through the water, like a river after a heavy rain. I carried a ¾ full bucket on my head the whole way back to my home. Women laughed at me as I struggled up the steep hill, but really the bucket of water on my head wasn’t the problem.
Women wear a piece of fabric called a kanga over their clothes. So I wear a skirt and a short sleeved shirt, then over the bottom I wrap a long piece of fabric that goes to my ankles and over my top I drape the same. Walking up the hill the kanga over my skirt really restricted my movement, and kept falling off. Still, it was one of my favourite memories here yet, carrying the water up the hill along the beautiful path to my village at sunset. Perhaps because my host kaka (brother) who was with me did not expect me to speak Kiswahili to him for a moment, I had the peace of completeing my task.
The muddy water from the ‘well’ is used for everything. It is the water poured in a pot to boil for rice, to make ugali, to wash your hands, to wash your body, to drink. I have gotten used to it. I have not gotten sick. It is disconcerting, but it has no flavour. I have bought drinking water and I horded it from our training center as much as I could but I end up dehydrated because Tanzanians (as I was warned) just don’t drink much. They drink chai (which is just black tea but has no caffeine, as far as I can tell) but not much else. They eat a lot of oranges. I try to do the same. I try to eat as many vegetables as I can. I have no vitamins as it seems that the PC usually does not provide them until after training (why – I don’t know) but they are also backordered. .
After cooking, water is warmed for my ‘bath’. I wrap my clothes, instead of in kangas, in my backpacking towel, and I head to the ‘stall’ with my shampoo and soap. The heated muddy water (sometimes with sticks and small leaves in it) is in a bucket with a plastic cup in it. I get myself wet – soap up – and rinse – by pouring water from the cup. It actually isn’t that difficult at all. As long as they give me enough water, which is an unpredictable thing. At night I only wash my body, the sweat and dirt of the day. In the morning I wash again, and wash my hair too. Some PCTs (PC trainees) only shower once, or every other day, but some of my family showers 2xs, and I think you would too if you were so wrapped in kangas and hot all the time, sweaty, covered in dust, and had NO other time to wash any other part of you during the day, your hands before or after eating – which you do with your hands (other than the more ceremonial than useful pouring of water on hands before you eat) or after using the choo (which is a hole in the ground leading to a tank) not even before cooking, or after cleaning.
While I am showering the family gets things ready for dinner, sometimes they are already eating when I finish. The small kids are all bathed before dinner as well (which is good since all the eating is done with hands out of shared dishes of food) The men sit at a table in chairs in the sitting room and I eat with the women and children, on a mat on the floor in the corner. The first night, when I arrived and was shellshocked and overwhelmed and was sitting in a chair and then as food was brought out, asked to move to the floor, it REALLY upset me. With all the other stuff going on I have grown not to care.
After dinner I usually try to go to my room, because I am exhausted. It’s about 9 by the end of dinner, usually, but my older host kakas and host baba want to talk to me. I entertain them with as much Kiswahili as I can bring to mind, and they teach me as much as I have patience for (usually they try for much more) before I can pull myself away to sleep.
I wake up usually around 3am. I have finally come to the conclusion that my Mama does dishes at that time in the room outside my door. It is loud as hell, whatever it is. Sometimes I can tune it out and go back to sleep. There are other intermittent noises after that, as the house slowly wakes up. Usually, the house is bustling by 5:30am, and I resign myself to waking around then and drag myself out of bed.
When I wake I try to find my Baba and Mama and greet them with the respectful morning greeting given to elders (shikamoo) Then I help my Dadas (sisters) sweep out the house, and then scrub the cement floor with an old kanga. You’d be amazed how much dirt is tracked in that house everyday.
After cleaning, I shower (bucket bath) and eat. Then my host kaka Siafu walks me the 10 minute walk to class. Sometimes the 10ish year old kaka (brother) Le Ju Manne walks with us and wants to carry my bag.
I get to school at 8am. There are 4 other PCTs in my village. Jayce and Shani, who are about my age, and Wes and Heather - a young (24 year old) married couple who are very shy and keep to themselves. I am very sad to say that I have come to heads after some time with Jayce and Shani who I personally can’t even understand why they are in PC or what they are doing here. They are catty and are annoyed by my exuberance and excitement in things (which is so strange to me) (I came in one morning after helping to cook chapati – a small pancake type thing – and was excitedly telling everyone how it was done, and Shani said she’d had just about enough of my getting excited about things.) It’s hard to explain, but I am sad to say that I cannot find comfort in the group of other volunteers I am posted in village with. I took a walk with Wes and Heather at lunch one day, and they are very kind, they seem fine, but they keep to themselves.
All day, we learn Kiswahili. We have lunch made for us by a local mama and then get back to work, until around 5pm. Then I return home to my homestay.
I have to say, it is completely overwhelming. There is nothing here that is familiar to me. Except maybe the fruits. The language, the customs, the homes, the people, my surroundings, how I am expected to dress and act, everything is unfamiliar. It is overwhelming. It is even weird to go from class, which is more casual in that it’s taught by a Peace Corps Kiswahili teacher who cusses and is funny and laid back, and with my English speaking fellow PCTs – to return home to my homestay family where I am expected to act a certain way and everything is spoken in a language I don’t understand, and still, what is expected of me is confusing.
Slowly I am learning. Pole pole (slowly slowly – pronounced poe-lay poe-lay)
Monday, June 22, 2009
Pictures!
http://picasaweb.google.com/JennKunz/PeaceCorpsTraining?authkey=Gv1sRgCOv_-MnakNfidw#
It took me a long time to post these. So please appreciate. Nothing especially interesting but it gives you an idea of where I have spent my last week(s) (I really don't know how long I've been here and am too tired to figure it out right now. . .)
It took me a long time to post these. So please appreciate. Nothing especially interesting but it gives you an idea of where I have spent my last week(s) (I really don't know how long I've been here and am too tired to figure it out right now. . .)
A day in Dar, to Homestay tomorrow
Monday June 22, 6:11 PM
I am sorry I haven’t written in a bit. They have been keeping us very busy with Kswahili and safety lessons and all sorts of fun talk about sex.
Yesterday, for the first time, we went into Dar es Salaam. They have been keeping us pretty sheltered in a nun-run complex outside of Dar, other than our trip to the Peace Corps office, which of course was another pretty sheltered space.
It was a Sunday and we were told that it was much less crowded than usual, although a lot of shops were open, I tried to imagine what it would look like on any other day. We walked about a half hour into town in small groups each with a staff member – some took dala dalas in (small buses) but our group decided to walk.
The city is beautiful, though the poverty is evident. The shopkeepers were kind, but in general people kept their distance. I bought a katenga which is a large piece of fabric that women wear either wrapped or get made into dresses our clothes. Some girls in the group got kangas which are slightly smaller and have a saying in Kiswahili on them. I also picked up some shampoo which was much more expensive than I thought it would be – and very hard to find – at least one that looked like it was meant for. . white people hair. I ended up finding a bottle of target brand 2in1 on the back of a shelf unpriced and paid about $7.50 for it. Hopefully I can stretch it for awhile.
I also got a dress, since my skirts are pushing the edge of modesty, and I want to have something to wear once I get to homestay where I will need to respect the more conservative expectations of dressing (including the before-mentioned no pants)
Dar was amass with different people – and different smells. I will have to get used to the strength of scent in this country, especially if I ever need to use the choo (bathroom) and am not near my own house.
In the afternoon part of the group rode a dala dala to a ferry, went to out to a peninsula, and way to a beach near a resort that was safe. We had 2 PCV escorts that led the way as we grasped our packs to our fronts and desperately stretched our Kiswahili skills.
The beach was beautiful, and peaceful, and it was the first break we have gotten since we got to staging however long ago that was. We all swam all afternoon and relaxed on the beach (and some even road a camel – but I was being cheap with my shillings, and decided to save for other things . . like toilet paper. )
We left the beach around dusk and climbed up the hill to where the dala dalas had dropped us off. Half the group got on one that I think had timed it’s return well to pick up our group. The rest of us split into groups of three or 4 after climbing up the long road to some houses, and stuffed (I mean STUFFED) ourselves into the dala dalas to make our way back to the ferry. We all met up safely, though, made our way to the ferry, and with the help of our savvy PCV guides, got ourselves onto another dala dala home. It was a good day.
Tomorrow, we leave for homestay. Early, around 7am. At homestay, each of us will live with a family. We will have our own room, and the family will help us learn Kiswahili, culture, cooking, cleaning, laundry, showering (bucket style) and all the other basics (like for us girls, how to make sure we dress appropriately and act appropriately, as there are SOOO many rules to follow here.)
I am nervous and excited. I will be entering into someone’s home to live with their family when I don’t know much of the language or the culture. I barely have a familiarity with my surroundings. I remind myself that they are excited to meet me and that they want to help me as a PCV, and they signed up to have someone live in their house for 8 weeks.
It will be an experience – I am sure – that will build my skillset of meeting new people even though I feel unprepared to communicate. In 8 weeks I will enter my village alone, without my fellow PCVs to turn to, and have to meet new people every day, until they become familiar, until the become friends.
I am going to try to upload some pictures with this blog post but I don’t know how it’ll go. The computers are slow in the internet café, and I have been typing some on my laptop, saving it to a USB thumbdrive and taking it over so I don’t have to fight with them (and pay for the time) The photos are of the place we are staying (that I am not allowed to tell you, in case you were wondering why it had been left out) and a few from the PC headquarters in Dar. I did not bring my camera to the trip yesterday because I didn’t want it to be a target. I brought almost nothing, after listening to stories of pick pocketing from other PCVs and being warned in particular about Dar. Three of our group where pick pocketed yesterday in Dar. I wish I could have photographed the city. The people. The beach. The pretty camel J But I have 2 years. I will need to become very comfortable with my surroundings, very aware, and probably made sure I know a lot of the people around me, before I show that I have anything of value that can be snatched.
I am sorry this is hastily written, I have to conserve laptop battery life, I don’t have much time as is. I still have some packing to do and some Kiswahili studying, and other reading. We are leaving so early tomorrow!
I hope all is well in the US of A. Please write me letters, as I will likely not have internet access for the next 8 weeks.
Now I’ll go see if I can post this. ..
I am sorry I haven’t written in a bit. They have been keeping us very busy with Kswahili and safety lessons and all sorts of fun talk about sex.
Yesterday, for the first time, we went into Dar es Salaam. They have been keeping us pretty sheltered in a nun-run complex outside of Dar, other than our trip to the Peace Corps office, which of course was another pretty sheltered space.
It was a Sunday and we were told that it was much less crowded than usual, although a lot of shops were open, I tried to imagine what it would look like on any other day. We walked about a half hour into town in small groups each with a staff member – some took dala dalas in (small buses) but our group decided to walk.
The city is beautiful, though the poverty is evident. The shopkeepers were kind, but in general people kept their distance. I bought a katenga which is a large piece of fabric that women wear either wrapped or get made into dresses our clothes. Some girls in the group got kangas which are slightly smaller and have a saying in Kiswahili on them. I also picked up some shampoo which was much more expensive than I thought it would be – and very hard to find – at least one that looked like it was meant for. . white people hair. I ended up finding a bottle of target brand 2in1 on the back of a shelf unpriced and paid about $7.50 for it. Hopefully I can stretch it for awhile.
I also got a dress, since my skirts are pushing the edge of modesty, and I want to have something to wear once I get to homestay where I will need to respect the more conservative expectations of dressing (including the before-mentioned no pants)
Dar was amass with different people – and different smells. I will have to get used to the strength of scent in this country, especially if I ever need to use the choo (bathroom) and am not near my own house.
In the afternoon part of the group rode a dala dala to a ferry, went to out to a peninsula, and way to a beach near a resort that was safe. We had 2 PCV escorts that led the way as we grasped our packs to our fronts and desperately stretched our Kiswahili skills.
The beach was beautiful, and peaceful, and it was the first break we have gotten since we got to staging however long ago that was. We all swam all afternoon and relaxed on the beach (and some even road a camel – but I was being cheap with my shillings, and decided to save for other things . . like toilet paper. )
We left the beach around dusk and climbed up the hill to where the dala dalas had dropped us off. Half the group got on one that I think had timed it’s return well to pick up our group. The rest of us split into groups of three or 4 after climbing up the long road to some houses, and stuffed (I mean STUFFED) ourselves into the dala dalas to make our way back to the ferry. We all met up safely, though, made our way to the ferry, and with the help of our savvy PCV guides, got ourselves onto another dala dala home. It was a good day.
Tomorrow, we leave for homestay. Early, around 7am. At homestay, each of us will live with a family. We will have our own room, and the family will help us learn Kiswahili, culture, cooking, cleaning, laundry, showering (bucket style) and all the other basics (like for us girls, how to make sure we dress appropriately and act appropriately, as there are SOOO many rules to follow here.)
I am nervous and excited. I will be entering into someone’s home to live with their family when I don’t know much of the language or the culture. I barely have a familiarity with my surroundings. I remind myself that they are excited to meet me and that they want to help me as a PCV, and they signed up to have someone live in their house for 8 weeks.
It will be an experience – I am sure – that will build my skillset of meeting new people even though I feel unprepared to communicate. In 8 weeks I will enter my village alone, without my fellow PCVs to turn to, and have to meet new people every day, until they become familiar, until the become friends.
I am going to try to upload some pictures with this blog post but I don’t know how it’ll go. The computers are slow in the internet café, and I have been typing some on my laptop, saving it to a USB thumbdrive and taking it over so I don’t have to fight with them (and pay for the time) The photos are of the place we are staying (that I am not allowed to tell you, in case you were wondering why it had been left out) and a few from the PC headquarters in Dar. I did not bring my camera to the trip yesterday because I didn’t want it to be a target. I brought almost nothing, after listening to stories of pick pocketing from other PCVs and being warned in particular about Dar. Three of our group where pick pocketed yesterday in Dar. I wish I could have photographed the city. The people. The beach. The pretty camel J But I have 2 years. I will need to become very comfortable with my surroundings, very aware, and probably made sure I know a lot of the people around me, before I show that I have anything of value that can be snatched.
I am sorry this is hastily written, I have to conserve laptop battery life, I don’t have much time as is. I still have some packing to do and some Kiswahili studying, and other reading. We are leaving so early tomorrow!
I hope all is well in the US of A. Please write me letters, as I will likely not have internet access for the next 8 weeks.
Now I’ll go see if I can post this. ..
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Today we went to Peace Corps headquarters. It was the first time we had ventured from the walls of the nun – run – complex we are staying since we arrived late evening on Tuesday. It seems like we have been here for so long, and at the same time, that time has flown so quickly. Soon enough we will be heading towards our homestays to live with families and begin a very intensive regime of Kiswahili.
Outside the gates, the poverty is apparent. I find myself observing the people to try to understand their mannerisms. I tried to see what the women were wearing, judging my own clothes in hopes that they are not too tight, short, or otherwise revealing. I know that when I am in my homestay and then at my post, the dress will likely be more conservative than here on the outskirts of Dar. I wish I brought longer looser skirts, and looser shirts. Hopefully on Sunday they will let us venture into Dar with PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) guides and I can buy a kanga (cloth that is used to wrap around other clothing, or as clothing)
Inside the compound everyone is kind and greets you in Kiswahili – which I stop to try to stammer the appropriate reply. When I practice them in class I feel very confident, but when they are presented unexpectedly in a quick practiced tone, I usually end up replying ‘hi’ with an apologetic smile.
Tomorrow is more safety instructions, and now that I have been through town I truly understand the need for it. And immunizations, 4 more shots for me.
Today we went to Peace Corps headquarters. It was the first time we had ventured from the walls of the nun – run – complex we are staying since we arrived late evening on Tuesday. It seems like we have been here for so long, and at the same time, that time has flown so quickly. Soon enough we will be heading towards our homestays to live with families and begin a very intensive regime of Kiswahili.
Outside the gates, the poverty is apparent. I find myself observing the people to try to understand their mannerisms. I tried to see what the women were wearing, judging my own clothes in hopes that they are not too tight, short, or otherwise revealing. I know that when I am in my homestay and then at my post, the dress will likely be more conservative than here on the outskirts of Dar. I wish I brought longer looser skirts, and looser shirts. Hopefully on Sunday they will let us venture into Dar with PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) guides and I can buy a kanga (cloth that is used to wrap around other clothing, or as clothing)
Inside the compound everyone is kind and greets you in Kiswahili – which I stop to try to stammer the appropriate reply. When I practice them in class I feel very confident, but when they are presented unexpectedly in a quick practiced tone, I usually end up replying ‘hi’ with an apologetic smile.
Tomorrow is more safety instructions, and now that I have been through town I truly understand the need for it. And immunizations, 4 more shots for me.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Training
Wednesday, June 17, 2009 7:45pm
It is still impossible to fully grasp that for the next 27 months, I will call this beautiful country my home. Walking around the grounds of the nunnery that we are staying at for these first 8 days, it’s hard to even convince myself I am in Africa.
These next days will be long, filled with paperwork, medical information, rules, and a lot of Kiswahili – preparing us for the 8 weeks of training that we will be doing in Tonga. I am so tired from so many nights of not sleeping that it is barely possible for me to stay awake in the hot stuffy classroom, very much absorb what is being told to us. I am hoping to get a full night’s sleep tonight and perhaps feel human again tomorrow.
We each have our own room here in the nunnery. A bunk bed with mosquito nets, a small closet with shelves, a table, chair, sink, a toilet without a seat, and a shower head that puts you precariously close to standing in the toilet in order to shower. There is only one temperature of water, but it is room temperature, not cold, and it is hot here so it isn’t so bad at all. You have to make sure not to open your mouth while showering, because the tap water is unfiltered. We brush our teeth with boiled water and drink bottled water for now. They showed us during class today how we will make large filters for our water. We will have to boil it for 3 minutes, then pour it through a bucket/filter system to filter out the solids.
I had to take out my nose ring. Some current volunteers who are here to help with our training said that women in the villages wear them – Muslim women and Christian women, but it is still against PC policy.
My camera is locked up under my bed. I probably won’t even bring it out until after I am finished my training, even perhaps more than a month into my post. I have my little point and shoot and I will hopefully be able to post some pictures for you soon. I don’t know how much access I will have to the internet. I am writing this now because I know we will be going to PC headquarters tomorrow and have a little time planned in as internet time.
Tomorrow begins the real training. Friday we get more shots. .
It is still impossible to fully grasp that for the next 27 months, I will call this beautiful country my home. Walking around the grounds of the nunnery that we are staying at for these first 8 days, it’s hard to even convince myself I am in Africa.
These next days will be long, filled with paperwork, medical information, rules, and a lot of Kiswahili – preparing us for the 8 weeks of training that we will be doing in Tonga. I am so tired from so many nights of not sleeping that it is barely possible for me to stay awake in the hot stuffy classroom, very much absorb what is being told to us. I am hoping to get a full night’s sleep tonight and perhaps feel human again tomorrow.
We each have our own room here in the nunnery. A bunk bed with mosquito nets, a small closet with shelves, a table, chair, sink, a toilet without a seat, and a shower head that puts you precariously close to standing in the toilet in order to shower. There is only one temperature of water, but it is room temperature, not cold, and it is hot here so it isn’t so bad at all. You have to make sure not to open your mouth while showering, because the tap water is unfiltered. We brush our teeth with boiled water and drink bottled water for now. They showed us during class today how we will make large filters for our water. We will have to boil it for 3 minutes, then pour it through a bucket/filter system to filter out the solids.
I had to take out my nose ring. Some current volunteers who are here to help with our training said that women in the villages wear them – Muslim women and Christian women, but it is still against PC policy.
My camera is locked up under my bed. I probably won’t even bring it out until after I am finished my training, even perhaps more than a month into my post. I have my little point and shoot and I will hopefully be able to post some pictures for you soon. I don’t know how much access I will have to the internet. I am writing this now because I know we will be going to PC headquarters tomorrow and have a little time planned in as internet time.
Tomorrow begins the real training. Friday we get more shots. .
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Staging
Here I am in Philly, tomorrow I leave from JFK towards Tanzania. The flight will be ~18 hours with a 3 hour layover in Amsterdam (a slight recalculation on my previous estimate)
During our staging we were told that our first 8 days in Dar we will basically be 'compounded in' - not allowed to leave. This, of course, is for our safety. It also prevents us from being able to get internet access, phone access, be able to purchase cellphones (which they said eventually might be an option) or contact home in any way.
So don't worry about me if you don't hear from me for a little while. No news is good news.
I am exhausted, and not looking forward to check-out at 6:30am and getting my immunizations at 7am. Hopefully I'll be able to get a good night of sleep tonight. Goodnight all.
During our staging we were told that our first 8 days in Dar we will basically be 'compounded in' - not allowed to leave. This, of course, is for our safety. It also prevents us from being able to get internet access, phone access, be able to purchase cellphones (which they said eventually might be an option) or contact home in any way.
So don't worry about me if you don't hear from me for a little while. No news is good news.
I am exhausted, and not looking forward to check-out at 6:30am and getting my immunizations at 7am. Hopefully I'll be able to get a good night of sleep tonight. Goodnight all.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Goodbye Durham
Today I packed up a truck with the help of some friends, said my final goodbyes, and drove away from the city I have come to call home.
Over the last few weeks I have been saying goodbye over and over, it seems, to everyone I see. It still hasn't sunk in that I will not see my friends for 27 months. You will be missed. But I will come home. I promise.
Over the last few weeks I have been saying goodbye over and over, it seems, to everyone I see. It still hasn't sunk in that I will not see my friends for 27 months. You will be missed. But I will come home. I promise.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Information on Tanzania from
The Peace Corps Welcome Book
The Peace Corps Welcome Book
you can read all 107 pages at:
http://www.peacecorps.gov/welcomebooks/tzwb621.pdf
http://www.peacecorps.gov/welcomebooks/tzwb621.pdf
People and Culture: The population of
The population of
Economy: The economy of
With per capita income at an estimated $270 a year in 2002,
History: Most experts agree that the earliest humans originated in fertile regions of
In its desire to establish an economic and political foothold among other European powers, a newly unified
Government: The United Republic of Tanzania was formed on 
Environment: The landscape of mainland
Peace Corps in
As a relatively small player in a country of almost 36 million people, Peace Corps/Tanzania recognizes the need for a strategic vision that focuses on niche areas, where a small number of dedicated Volunteers can make a significant difference. Our projects are in areas where we can play a catalytic or model-building role while meeting
Friday, April 3, 2009
Artsale and Fundraiser, Photograms and Photographs
New Work, Old Work!
Framed and Unframed!
All Prices Negotiable!!
Come and see my work even if you don't want to buy anything!
And if you can't come and want to take a look - check out my website: http://jenkunz.com/home.html
I don't need to store all my art in boxes for 2 years - I'd rather it be on your walls!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
