NEW PICTURES
including awesome rainwater catchment tanks

September 16, 2010 Thursday 8:57pm

First: Pictures from Mom & Dad's Visit!

And, New Pictures at the end!

Now, for the blog...

Yesterday I climbed Vumari Mountain. All the way up into our forest where I have been told there are ‘dangerous wild animals’, or maybe there were long ago.

I went with Vumari’s Forest Committee, Kamati ya Msitu Shirikishi, the mwenyekiti (chairman) of the village, and 2 ascari (police officers) totaling 9 people. Our mission: to arrest people illegally cutting down trees in the protected forest. The police officers carried guns, old machine guns with wooden parts. I know nothing about guns so you’ll have to wait for the pictures if you are interested.

I left my house around 615am to meet up with the group and start up the mountain. We started off at a quick pace, which wore me out quickly as we were climbing the mountain at a near run. But no one else seemed even winded. We walked as quietly as we could, listening carefully and looking for signs of cutting, and fresh footprints. By some stroke of luck, our trek was only 2 days after the first rainstorm in months, so it was actually possible to make out new footprints.

And we climbed.

Within the first hour we heard the first group, and slowly ambushed from different sides. I stayed towards the back, as I had no idea what to expect and didn’t want to get in the way of their strategy. The 2 male youth ran in different directions, and for a split second the mama in our group had caught a hold of one, but he threatened her with his panga (large knife/thing they use for pretty much everything – not as sharp as a knife) and she let go of him.

They left one pair of sandals, an ax, a jembe (hoe), and a huge pile of old growth trees stacked up and ready to be transported. We stood around the loot for a few minutes, discussing how we would use certain items to try to ascertain the identity of the youths, and then continued our climb at the same hurried pace.

A few hours in it was apparent I was not holding up as well as the rest of the group. Climbing uphill nonstop at near jogging makes me a little breathless, but the rest continued as if it where just lazy stroll. At last I had to stop as my legs refused to move any longer. I realized I had made a mistake in not bringing any food. I had thought we would be back down the mountain for lunch, and only brought water and my camera. But as lunchtime was rolling around, and we were still only nearing the top, I was worrying just a bit.

The higher we got the lusher and more beautiful the forest became. An exotic, almost prehistoric looking mix of tropical trees and moss and cool air. Banana trees, palms, Neem (don’t know if there is another name but it is a medicinal tree in Swahili called Marobaini which means the tree of 40 medicines), and MANY other medicinal trees that the man I call babu (grandpa) (who was winding me the whole way without fail) would point out. I wasn’t able to take that many pictures because I was trying not to hold the group back, which I already felt I was doing. Luckily by around 1pm we had reached the top and we followed the ridge awhile, climbing and then descending, so I wasn’t as exhausted as I was by the steady climb.

We wandered through and under and over, without any trail at all, being led by my babu. We passed a number of places where there was obvious destruction going on but we did not encounter any other groups in the act. There was one place my babu pointed out where a certain tree was growing that was not native to the forest. It was a pretty big tree and by looking at it and the surrounding environment, he ascertained that about 10 years ago that space was used as a cooking area for those who were cutting trees from the forest. The tree is Msele – they take the leaves from the tree and let the dry in the sun, then they mill them (they LOVE to mill things in this country!) and make a powder that they boil to make this green paste the consistency of snot (really) which they eat with ugali. I eat pretty much anything in this country, but I DO NOT LIKE msele. Most Tanzanians love it which is great because it is very nutritious.

Along the ridge of the mountain you could look down on one side and see parts of my village. On the other side, Same. It was easier to see Same because the drop off on that side of the mountain was very steep. Which became tricky in coming down.

I might mention at this point again my lack of preparedness for this trek. I had worn a skirt because it was in the village and I know how they don’t like me to wear pants in the vil. I wore an easy to walk in skirt, but a skirt nonetheless. And my chacos. Which are more comfortable in the heat than hiking shoes. Because I thought we were going up the trails I had already been on, or more like them. I did not, mind you, realize that we were going over the mountain. Next time I will ask more questions. . .

So walking through high grass, brambles, and all sorts of new thorn bushes and awful prickly things, I just gave up trying to avoid them. The pain of whatever was scraping against my legs mingled with the momentum of the trek. I just kept going.

My legs look disgusting right now. When I got home after I scrubbed off the mud and dirt I just sat with tweezers for over an hour pulling out thorns. Just one seems to want to get infected, but I just keep cleaning it out and neosporining it again and again.

I thought going up the mountain was difficult, but going down was nerve wracking. We spent at least 2 hours wandering the ridge looking for a place we could descend. The Same side of the mountain is strewn with huge boulders, which when you’re on top of them make cliffs. It is also, as I mentioned previously, very very steep.

So finally we just started down the best we could. We scaled the rock where there were enough vines and trees to hold onto. The soft mountain dirt just slid under my feet, but the mwenyekiti and sometimes others took turns making sure I didn’t fall down, finding sure footing and then taking firm grip of my hand. After awhile I learned to look towards the mountain. Looking out the other way made my head spin.

We descended through the jungle-like high forest to the rocky grassy midland. One of the ascari (police officer) dislodged a rock from the path above that missed all of us and hit the other ascari in the arm. (imagine a rock falling off a ledge pretty much straight down, that was what we were scaling) He wasn’t badly injured, in that he could still use it, but it was obviously causing him a lot of pain. We traveled more slowly after that, and those in the front watched for loose rocks and moved them far out of the way.

Anyone who has done any mountain climbing knows how hard going downhill is on your legs, and as we finally reached an area were we were actually just walking and not scaling, 3pm was rolling around and I had not eaten since 6am. My legs were wobbly, and I was lightheaded. I knew if I kept walking we would get to Same and food and water (mine had long since ran out since I shared it as no one else carried anything at all) so I kept walking. At one point we reached a water pipe which had a leak. Since my water bottle was already empty we filled it again and again and people took turns drinking. I knew the water was unfiltered and could have all sorts of worms and microbes and such in it, and as my job as a health teacher I did tell them before they drank that they were putting themselves at risk. But I drank it too. We were really thirsty.

The Same side of the mountain is not as forested and the sun beat down on us overhead. It was only moving forward. Thinking about a cold fanta. Moving forward.

We reached the road about 4pm. We walked a small distance down towards a primary school that we had agreed to meet the other group which had covered a different area in the low-lands. And I was so happy. We had made it. I had scaled Vumari Mountain, through the forest and climbed down the steep cliffs to Same town. The group watched over me like hawks. Making sure I was ok, always there to give a hand when I needed one (most literally) And we had all arrived safely.

We hadn’t actually arrested anyone, which I was a little let down by. The group had decided to change paths after it was apparent that climbing steep slopes for hours was not within my ability, at least at their pace. I didn’t know this until later and felt pretty bad about it, though it didn’t seem to bother them. They said it allowed them to survey a different part of the forest they hadn’t been through in years (which is why they weren’t sure about where to cut down to Same)

So there we sat in the grass in the shade of some pathetically dried up little trees, waiting for the car to show up to take us into town to report. And the other group came up and we chatted and exchanged stores and information. I was feeling a little light headed, so I went and sat down.

And then I decided to lay down, and then I was out.

I was lucky that an older woman was walking by with a bottle of water. Which they thought just as good to pour on me as in my mouth. In less than a minute they had sent some child running to get sugar to put in the water and in no time I was drinking the most delicious mixture of water and sugar that anyone in their life has tasted.

And then I drank a whole soda, and a liter and a half of water, and then kept drinking. The car finally showed up and we went somewhere to eat, but somehow the rice and beans did not want to cooperate with my newly awakened stomach so I just kept drinking.

None of the other people in the group seemed at all out of sorts. They were tired, a little sun weary perhaps, and they ate with their normal fervor. But I was the only one who thought that it was unusual to climb a mountain from 630am till 4pm without food or water.

But, after all, it was also my total misunderstanding of what we were actually headed out to do. If I would have known, I would have brought snacks and more water. And worn pants and hiking shoes.

Now I know for next time.

But I wouldn’t take it back for a second. It was amazing.

Babu stopped in on me today to make sure I was doing alright, as well as a few other folks that heard I was ‘sick’ which I guess is how it seems to them. I didn’t realize how worried they were, as I considered it quite normal to pass out if you climb over a damned mountain practically at running pace for 10 hours without eating and without drinking enough water. But I am under their care, and they take care of me as their own.

I decided, for the first time since I have been here, that I would take a ‘day off’, and on the ride home from Same, canceled the Tree Nursery Group meeting that would have been the next morning. Somehow the thought of hiking back up into the forest only to carry back down huge bags and buckets of forest floor compost (for the tree nursery) seemed . . . impossible.

So today I cleaned my house, did laundry, and in the afternoon walked down to the secondary school on my still wobbly and very sore legs. I sat through some of their graduation practice and scored some free mediocre food.

Came back home, cooked up some eggplant and thought how good it would be if I only had some cheese. And then realizing I did, used up the very last of my parmesan that my parents brought me from the US of A. I am so glad that I finally convinced my mom that cheese can last without being refrigerated, and that I just might eat it anyway if it has gone bad a little, it’s still cheese!

On that note, I’m gonna get some sleep. I have a village government meeting in the morning and a PLWHA meeting in the afternoon. And I’m up WAY past my bedtime. . .

September 12, 2010 Sunday 6:32am

I have been in my village for more than a year now. The year mark passed August 20^th (I happened to be in Lushoto as my parents where visiting). The year mark in Tanzania passed months ago – June 18^th. I was in Same town with some girls I was teaching English. I bought us all icecream as a treat, and not being used to the cold food, they all threw theirs out after a bite or 2.

The times flies by and I know I will blink a few times and already be back in the US. I have so much work to do, though. And everything (but time) moves so slowly in this country.

My parents where here for three weeks. Traveling around Tanzania with them was the first time I looked at Tanzania from a tourist perspective. When I returned to my village everything became new again. A woman with a bucket of water on her head, balanced without using her hands, and her tiny baby tied to her back walking down the path towards her home is suddenly impressive, exotic, and beautiful, and sad. It had come in this year so commonplace that I didn’t think a second more of it before picking up my water buckets and lugging them towards my house. I am glad that I have reawakened my senses.

For these few days cooking over a fire will seem novelty again.

The same foods made from beans and maize and rice are delicious again.

Each extended greeting and slow meandering through the village to stop by houses is comforting, instead of frustratingly making me late to whatever place I was going.

Seeing Tanzania through my parents’ eyes also reminds me of how different their lives are than ours, and when they say that their lives are so hard and our (white people but meaning Americans and Europeans) lives are so easy, instead of having long discussions about it just being different and incomparable, I tend to agree.

Things so simple as water, cooking and food. Most people take for granted. Water is piped into our houses, safe to drink and cook and wash with. They carry water from many kilometers away, every day or every other day, just to get home, use it up, and go out to fetch more. And if they want to drink it, it should be boiled and filtered (but they don’t) We cook on gas or electric, supplied to our houses again, so we just turn it on and it is ready. Or toss the food in the microwave (oh novelty!) and in 20 seconds it is piping hot. They walk kilometers into the brush to gather firewood and cook in smoky brick rooms without windows.

It is comparable. Our lives, for the most part, are easier.

As much as I hate falling into generalizations, I find it impossible to reach any other conclusion.

And probably many of you are saying – well duh – that’s what you’re doing there to help them. But you know there is this purist idealistic little voice within us (or maybe just me) that wanted to see this life as simpler and therefore perhaps in different ways better.

The one thing I am always sure to tell them is that despite their poverty, Tanzanians in my observation, in general, are much happier than those Americans whom they so desperately want to be like.

I have finally fallen into groups working with successful projects, which makes me pretty happy. Our tree nursery is finally almost planted. The plot is cleaned and the day before yesterday we built a fence around it and made steps from the slight slope so the little trees would have a place to sit on.

The health drama club is up and running, and, knock on wood, the grant for my rainwater catchment project is slowly working it’s way through the bureaucracy that is inefficiency. The milk goats are already pregnant, and though they seem to be sick all the time, I am hoping once that grant comes through we will be able to get the project on its feet.

Pictures should be up sometime soon. Whether they go up with this blog post depends on a lot of luck at the Same internet café today. It is unlikely though. [From Dad: they didn't make it...]

More New Pictures!

New Pictures!

Tuesday, June 16, 2010 8:57pm

Beans cooked with pizza spice is not as good as it sounds. Which is truly a shame since it doesn’t even sound all that good.

But it is different. An appreciated change from the norm, and edible. Sadly, the rice too, is plagued by these small mostly clear whitish rocks, which as you can imagine are impossible to pick out when cleaning. Flora warned me about them, as they showed up in her rice too, and explained how to clean them out. But I seem to have failed miserably.

So pizza beans and rocky rice paired with an orange (they are coming in huge numbers from Tonga now) after a day of laundry and cleaning and putting together lesson plans and preparing for the onslaught of tomorrow through Monday.

Tomorrow, ISF will be coming for a meeting. The Spanish version of engineers without borders who have devastated our existing water system and are coming back, I hope, to make amends and fix things. They left the village before I came, and the stories surrounding the event are varied so I will try to remain neutral in saying that the work they completed did not provide adequate water. They were updating and refurnishing an existing system that when they finished provided significantly less water than when started. Part of this is due to drought. The other reasons I will let you speculate in order to remain neutral as a good little Peace Corps Volunteer is supposed to be on a public blog such as this.

Needless to say, the villagers where very upset when water became inadequate, and arguments began. ISF left without finishing most of their work about a year before I came to the village. In order to do my initial report, I tried my best to get an accurate picture of what had happened, and what could be done. Water, as has been mentioned in previous posts, is the biggest problem in my village, and can be traced to be the source of most other problems (along with lack of education). Without water, there is no life.

My initial thought was to figure out the source of the conflict and then A: try to collaborate with ISF to return to the village and finish their work as well as look into the reasons of the failure of completed projects or B: Find the original contract ISF signed with the government of the village as well as the Government in Same and hold them accountable to finish the work described within to an acceptable standard.

Sadly, due to a total lack of adequate communication and a number of failed meetings, and the inability to find the contract due to a change in local government, I put all that by the wayside and started working with the villagers to think of other ways to find adequate water.

And now all the sudden ISF has shown back up. And tomorrow I will sit through my first meeting with them and my villagers. They have come 2 other days now, which I had already scheduled projects.

I am very interested in what they have to say.
I am also nervous they will let my villagers down again.

It might be a contributing reason to their lack of confidence in my larger projects coming through and their reluctance to take part, contribute labor, money, or resources to projects that seem so obviously propitious to all to me. But they have been let down now. And who knows how many other times before.

Friday morning (8am) I have a meeting with the Forest Committee. We will be planting a tree nursery with 2 trainers from Same. We are hoping to plant about 500 seedlings. I have promised to bake banana bread, and made sure that was written into the announcement (meetings are announced by letter which are distributed usually by children or whoever happens to be going near the home of that person, as we don’t have cell network and people don’t own cellphones. . and no, no landlines either) The bread is a bribe for people to show up – as well as show up on time.

Just this last week I went to a meeting, planned between myself and important gov’t officials (I won’t name) about a big project I am trying to get running, and not a single person came. Not even the unnamed gov’t officials. I sat for 2 hours in the hope that another single soul would arrive.

So I have come to bribing them with banana bread. And I pray that it works.


In the afternoon I have my very first PLWHA (People Living with HIV/AIDS) meeting. This took a long time because they had to become used to me and trust me. Also, I have to be known as working with many clubs and groups in the village. Because no one is ‘out’ in my village due to tremendous stigma, it is important that they are seen as just another group of people that I am working with.

I am excited, which seems an inappropriate reaction. I have met with many of them individually, taken them food and sat with them to discuss the difficulties they face in getting medicine and proper care, and many even adequate food for themselves and their families. One of them is a dear friend of mine who is sick and has been in and out of the hospital, and just yesterday showed me the rash that she has all across her stomach and side. The doctors say it is a bacterial infection, but she is not getting better.

I worry about her. I visit her often.

She is known and loved in her subvillage. I wonder what would happen if they knew she had HIV.


On Saturday I will be heading into Same to teach a group of Secondary students English for the weekend. Mostly form 4 students who will be taking their national exam soon (August I think) and are in Same for ‘tuition’ which consists of classes held by teachers during school breaks (such as right now) for a small fee usually about 100/= (about $0.10) per class.

Anyways, sleepy now. Pizza beans and rocky rice makes for a heavy dinner J

Thursday June 10, 2010 6:55pm

There’s this time of day just before sunset where light rakes across the landscape and I remember why I so love photography. Because really, photography is a love of light. A delicate understanding of the relationship between objects and (as most often in my case) the sun.

I climbed a small mountain, what some might consider a large hill, near my house today. I am on a quest to find personal space, peace and quiet, me time. Most of you who know me know how prone I am to cram my schedule full of productive activities, leaving me exhausted but fulfilled, moving ever forward in my somewhat eclectic life story.

But here, in Africa, in my little village, with my 2,204 villagers spread out over 8 hours of foothills and mountains, whatever I do never seems to be enough. And I am exhausted. So my plan is to do less.

Counterintuitive? Nah. I’m just tired. I feel like all of my projects are suffering from the lack of time to commit to any one single project. So I am cutting back, and wandering a bit, on my own.

And on top of that little mountain, looking down at the sun raking over the cornfields and the scrubby brush, over the mountains beyond, and the mountains farther beyond, I felt happy. And that’s a start.

So I climbed back down off the mountain, aiming haphazardly towards the primary school, cut through the soccer game, and went to my newest phone-signal spot down the road. There, I met a drunk man. Harmless, rather friendly in a comfortingly non-hitting-on-me way, which is unusual for drunk men. Instead he wanted to talk about our local Catholic priest.

In my first week here in my village, I had an unfortunate encounter with this priest. I will spare you the details as this is a very public venue, but needless to say, it was an un-priest-like encounter. Since then I have had numerous conversations with women here in the village, after I got a lot more comfortable of course, and found that everybody already knows that the guy is a creep.

So tonight, this drunk fellow is telling me that his wife’s sister recently got a ride with the priest as she was walking into town (the priest has a car, and is one of the 2 people in the village with this privilege). And he stopped the car and made, shall we say, (again because this is very public, we’ll leave out details) a forceful and graphic invitation.

I try to reason with this drunk man, making him aware that I know of the priest’s behavior and am rather furious and confused as to why the community both knows about it and still tolerates his presence in our village and in our church. He tells me this: because it is the custom of the Pare people, he put a medicine on his wife. If the priest sleeps with his wife, he will be stuck to her, unable to separate. And then the man will know that his wife has been unfaithful.

And my answer is: “Huh?” no but really? I asked him what the name of this medicine is and how it works but he said it was something known to him and his people. I suggested strongly and repeatedly he simply have a few words with the priest about his behavior, and he agreed that he would do that in addition.

And then he invited me to dinner. Which I declined. (As a rule, I don’t go home with drunk people)

So now I am eating my beans. Without rice or anything else cuz I don’t feel like cooking any more. And cooked with tea spices because I misplaced my curry powder cleaning today. Which I have to say makes for interestingly flavoured beans.

It’s these long evenings by myself that kill me.

Sunday June 13, 2010 8:47pm

Tomorrow I will walk into Same. My bike, as usual, has a flat tire, and in the soft glow of afternoon errands I couldn’t bring myself to again ask the fellow who always repairs my flat tires to help me yet again. Sometime soon I will have to learn how to do it myself.

Tuesday I will be leaving early in the morning to spend a solid 24 hours with a local group called Muhama, which is also the name of a local tree, who do a number of great things along with sing and dance in the traditional Pare tribal custom. They have invited me to come with them to guard and celebrate the Mwenge – the freedom torch of Tanzania – as it passes through Same.

They warned there will be no sleeping, only singing and dancing and staying with the torch as it travels through villages and towns. And at least the dancing part I can handle. The songs, I usually catch on in time.

I am not allowed to bring my camera, I have been warned time and again, that the photography surrounding the mwenge can only be done by government registered photographers, and one person even related a story of a poor Norwegian tourist whose camera was . . removed from her possession. So you will only get my written account, but I promise to draw pictures with my words, as best as I can.

For now I am off to prepare for these next few busy days.

I hope you enjoy the new improved blog with pictures! I tried for a good long time to get a nice slideshow from my picasa web album on the side of the blog but it doesn't want to show up in the widget to choose.

So I'm gonna go back to sleep cuz I'm sick and really sleepy.

At Site

I made a fantastic dinner tonight after almost a whole week of having no appetite (I think due to stress and the fact that I had a bad cold) I thought I would save half of it for breakfast tomorrow, but managed to eat it all! I made fish (from dried) in a sauce of tomato, onion, garlic, and carrot. Then I made some matembeli (delicious and healthy greens) and I managed to eat it all before the rice finished cooking (it’s still cooking now). Sometimes if I have leftover rice I boil it with milk for breakfast. (I have Nido – powdered milk – which is expensive but. . . necessary)I am glad to have my appetite back as my avocado a day diet probably wouldn’t have gone over well after the first week.Anyways, I know, again, it has been awhile. I have had some personal things going on, which are still unresolved, but I figured it was good time to let you in on how things are going.

My Easter I spent again with Flora and her family. It was subdued because of some family problems she was having, but I was happy to be able to go house to house to visit other neighbors in her subvillage. I was secretly happy that we didn’t manage to find milk so I didn’t have to bake cake, because I kindof didn’t feel like it. After cooking all day on Christmas and feeling like I missed out on visiting and being with people, I was ready for a holiday of being a ‘guest’ instead of the host.

The break of Easter along with the activity of it being rainy season (EVERYBODY IS FARMING EVERY DAY ALL DAY) put a long strange gap in my work routine. It gave me some time for a much needed rest, and to readjust my project schedule and visit people and reevaluate needs.

Also, I was finally able to plant my garden which already had some healthy matembeli and lemongrass, as well as some american sweetcorn and both tanzanian beans and american stringbeans which are well on their way to bearing fruit now. I have to say that the Tanzanian beans (which they are calling soybeans but I don’t believe they are) are so much happier and healthier than the stringbeans and I can finally have proof to back my claim that me providing seeds from America will not help their gardens. (although I do give some seeds to every person who comes to me to show me they have dug a permaculture garden, they are mostly of tanzanian origin)

But back to my garden, I have now added hot and bell peppers, tomatoes, watermelon, cantelope, cucumber, carrots, eggplant (though they are still tiny and pathetic little sprouts), and Chinese greens (they call them chinisi pronounced chai-nee-zee) which are eaten cooked and rather yummy. I also have a bed which I just put some zinnia and portulaca seeds, as well as ornamental sunflowers. I have approximately 3 of each plant listed, which if they all bear generously should be enough to keep me fed and take around to my neighbors to interest more people in vegetable gardening. As people who farm to feed their family as well as for most their sole source of livelihood, and who have done so since their ancestors first inhabited these mountains, I am sometimes taken aback by their lack of knowledge on how to farm well, as well as their lack of interest in planting anything other than corn and beans.

May 25, 2010 6:50pm

It can’t be that more people die here in Africa, because the truth of it is that everyone dies. Everyone dies. So why have I been to more funerals here in Tanzania than months I have spent in country, while I have yet to attend a single funeral in the US?

Yesterday, the funeral was for a woman whose wedding I attended part of in December. She was young, 25, with no known health problems. The day before she died she received notice that her mother had died. During the long trip to her mother’s funeral she fell ill, and died before she reached the hospital. Cause of death is unknown.

About a month ago I had been planning to go to a wedding, excited as I enjoy these cultural exchanges that have to do with happy things, and I have seen so few. When I got to Flora’s subvillage, as we were going to walk to the farther subvillage together, she told me that within the family that the wedding was taking place, the brother of the bride had passed away due to complications from polio. POLIO! They have vaccinations for polio! WHY!!!??

But the farther you are from the towns the less knowledge gets around, and when the people come once or twice a year and say ‘come and get shots for your baby’ if you’re sick, or your baby’s sick, or there’s farming to do, you don’t know how important it is to go. And years pass. And life goes on. Until it doesn’t.

Funerals are unbearable. The women who are close family wail. Not in that ‘wailing because it is culturally appropriate’ but wail in terrible, horrible agonizing pain of missing their loved ones. They fall to the ground and wail. And you want to hug them and comfort them, and you want to cry yourself, which I usually do. But there is no one comforting them, and no one to comfort me either. I tried to explain this to some women I was sitting with yesterday at the funeral, offering comfort, and hugs. They didn’t really get it. Here, they wail. I don’t like funerals. The break my heart, and I usually don’t even know the deceased. I cry the whole way through.

Last month a woman died because she bled out after she gave birth. She died because she was living where there was no cell reception, no transportation, and no clinic close enough to take her. She was healthy, from a reasonably well to do family. Her baby survived, and is thriving now. The family luckily has enough support from the community and within the family to purchase the very expensive and hard to find store bought breastmilk. The alternative for most babies? Cow’s milk and water.

Ah but enough of that. Good things have happened in all this time too. I have had some very important visitors to my site. (the Deputy Director of all of Peace Corps, the Regional Director of Peace Corps Africa, and the Country Director of Peace Corps Tanzania) Because I live in no-phone-service-land I got the information very late that they were coming and threw together quickly what I could think of as a welcoming but very short (40 minute) introduction to my village. My primary school kids sang and danced traditional Pare dances, and I showed them around the school and my home. They presented a plaque to my village in thanks for working together with me and supporting me, which my village loved, as well as pins to some of the people I work most closely with.

I was, as you can imagine with their large scale of boss-ness, very nervous about their visit, but they turned out to be extremely down to earth and comfortable and we had a very good time.

My garden, as you can see from the pictures, is beautiful. I harvested my first batch of beans, which my villagers said were beautiful and healthy (which is true) but they laughed when I told them how much I had harvested (about ¾ kilo) but this is only because they farm acres and acres, and I planted a space about 1 meter by 2 meters, or about 12 plants. I was impressed by my harvest.

My projects are moving along painfully slowly, despite the fact that I feel like I never have a second to breath because I am always in a meeting or teaching, or writing a project, or planning and scheduling lessons.

I am still teaching in the primary and secondary school. My gardening classes have come to a halt as people are busy with farming work, so I have put them on hold. I am starting a rainwater catchment project in Matongo which is our very poorest subvillage, with a high rate of childhood death and malnutrition, and the most desperate water situation.

I am continuing the process to try to get a water bore-hole dug for my secondary school which will also help the new primary school (they are beginning plans to build it and will be turning the current primary school which is much to large for it’s student body into a girl’s-only boarding highschool)

I am continuing to work on the youth club which will act as a school to teach out of school youth work skills such as carpentry, house building, tailoring, amongst other life skills. We just finished writing by hand the most tedious 26 page long katiba (I think that translates somehow into bylaws or constitution for a club but it is very important here in Tanzania) and we are now working on getting funding for the initial tools and materials to begin teaching.

This next week I’ll be heading to Lushoto to help an ed volunteer with a project that will be finishing up her service here in Tanzania. She is working on creating a history of her village. She will teach her students interview and documentary techniques, and they will go around and interview elders in the village. She then got some disposable cameras from the US that she is going to have a few students take around to document their village. And I will be teaching them some basic photography skills.



I spent this past weekend in Marangu, Flora’s birthvillage, her home, at the base of Mt Kilimanjaro. It is amazingly beautiful there. Coffee trees and banana trees line the roads, and there are avacados everywhere. If you’re hungry, you just walk outside a bit, until you find one that is ripe on the ground, and you eat it.

Paradise.

I went to see her niece’s wedding. Her whole family, of course came, and I have to say I have never been more comfortable with anyone (including, perhaps, volunteers) here in Tanzania. I was so comfortable that on 2 different occasions I forgot and spoke English. Which has never happened before. (although when the guests from Peace Corps came to my village, no one knew Kiswahili so I translated. I had no problem translating, though a few times I got mixed up and when I was addressing my villagers I spoke in clear English, and then addressed my guests in Kiswahili. Luckily, they just laughed. . )

The wedding was beautiful, though incredibly late. I didn’t really care since I didn’t have anything better to be doing, I was with good people, and NOTHING was my responsibility. I came when they said it was time, ate when food was offered, and wandered around and enjoyed my time off otherwise.

We came (Flora and I) Friday evening thinking that the wedding would be Saturday morning. All the guests came with this schedule in mind. But on Saturday morning word arrived that it had been postponed until Sunday. Afternoon. It didn’t even start until 430pm.

We took a rather fun and funny stroll to the house of the family of the groom, where he commenced in nervously offering us every drink under the sun, until agreeing that we would all, accept Flora who doesn’t drink, have beers. Despite my insistence that I HATE beer, they thought I as just trying to make Flora happy, which in it’s own way is sweet of them. (Flora thinks that drinking any kind of alcohol is bad)

They negotiated the terms of the bride price, which I assume was already mostly negotiated. What I overheard where last minute adjustments including making sure food and alcohol was brought for the elders who were unable to make the trip to the wedding place, as well as adequate transportation provided for the guests of the bride’s family.

This being my first full wedding (others I saw parts of the preparations which take place before the wedding but not the actual ceremony, or only the church ceremony as in the case of the wedding on Easter) I was unaware of the fact that it was a very sober time for the family of the bride. After some time, and careful observation, I finally asked Flora why the bride’s parents looked some mixture of pissed off and unhappy during the whole event. She replied that it is ‘unattractive’ for the family of the bride to appear happy during the wedding because they are losing their daughter.

Later there will be a ‘send off’ which is the party for the bride and her family to be happy and celebrate.

The wedding was an interesting mixture of western and Tanzanian culture. The service was Christian, Lutheran I believe, and then we went to the ‘kumbukumbu’ or party.

There were 2 cakes, but I believe only one made it to my photo album. The first one was a typical iced cake, made with flour, decorated as we are used to.

The second ‘cake’ was a whole goat, roasted whole, with it’s head sewn back on, and carrots and cucumbers placed as it’s eyes, and around it’s body as ‘decoration’ and celery or . . something. . coming from it’s mouth.

There is a ‘cake ceremony’ that Tanzanians do at events, whether it be birthdays or graduations, any event which cake shows up (it’s rare as they are expensive to buy and no on knows how to bake in the vil) They cut the cake into bite sizes, approximately the size of . . perhaps thick French fries. Then they toothpick each one. And each important party member (be it the graduee or the bride and groom or otherwise) takes it upon themselves to feed each individual who happens to have come to the party one by one with a bite of cake. They like it if there is a picture taken right at the point where the recipient’s mouth is gaping and the cake is half stuffed in.

Sometimes they then reverse the process and have everyone feed the said important person, but usually there isn’t enough cake.

It takes FOREVER.

And since I’m the one with the camera, they often want me to be photographing every gaping-mouthed-cake-eater. I have since declined to bring my camera to such events, but more for other reasons.

So at the wedding after they finish the cake feeding process with cake #1, they brought out, and in direct translation, cake #2 – the ndafu cake. (goat cake)

And they cut a little bit off the side of the goat. And they do the feeding thing all over again.

They gifts are not dropped on a side table to be taken care of later, but danced to the front in an organized procession, although at this wedding they were wrapped, which Flora says is a Chagga (tribal) custom. At the Pare (tribe) events and weddings the gifts are given without wrapping, so everyone knows what everyone else gave.

There was no dancing other than the dancing to and from the stage where the bride and groom with the best man and maid of honor where seated or standing the whole evening. When the MC suggested the groom and bride do a small dance before we left, and music was put on, they awkwardly (EXTRMELY AWKWARDLY) clutched each other with that 6-grade-dance hand on shoulder lean side to side. We all felt sympathy for them, and they ended the song after about 30 seconds.

Flora promised there would be tons of dancing at the send off, but the sad thing is the send off is at the home of the parents, who now live a day and a half trip away from their birthplace (Marangu) – a day and a half and very expensive trip away, and there’s no way I (or Flora) can make it.

More Pictures!

Pictures!

Friday February 19, 2010 7:41pm

Yesterday, at the secondary school, I taught matumizi ya kondomu (how to use condoms) and today I sat by the bed of a fellow teacher at the primary school who is succumbing to complications after a severe stroke earlier this month.

He was the quiet one, who I have only greeted so many times in passing. The only one who didn't ask me millions of questions about just about everything. His was the desk I always sat at because, for some reason, every time I came in the teacher's office he was in the classroom teaching (a rarity in this country). I use past tense, but he is still taking raspy breaths, eyes unfocused, his chest rapidly rising and falling to the beat of a drum somewhere we cannot hear.

I know it's unusual, at my age, to never have had anyone I was close to die. And I was not close to this man, my fellow teacher, either. But to see him laying so vulnerably indented into the thin mattress, it tears at your heart. Knowing he is so far away from anything that could be called healthcare. His wife said she wants him to die in his home.

The dispensary doctor saw him today. He said it was 'pressure' referring to blood pressure, one of the many one-stop-answers on the list of diagnosis' here in Tanzania. If you have any pain, diarrhea, stomach problems, or sickness, the first culprit is malaria. A shoulder ache, I was just told by a friend yesterday, was malaria for sure.

Then we move on to a cough - which is inevitably pneumonia. Fever and sore throat are also pneumonia.

And then we have the third catch-all for anyone over 45yrs - pressure.

My all-time favorite diagnosis - perhaps because it was given to me: I had a headache (which I get all the time because the blazing sun) but this one was accompanied by the beginning of a sore throat (what one might attribute to a common cold, or in my case, just stress and not enough sleep). The doctor happened to walk by my doorway when I was playing with the kids, and saw my rather pained expression. I told him my symptoms (headache, slightly sore throat) his answer: tonsillitis.

The kids (the secondary school ones), by the way, LOVED the condom demonstration. And I rather enjoyed giving it, in spite of myself. One of the teachers helped, thank heavens, a temporary teacher who will sadly be leaving next week to return to college.

I teach Forms 1 and 4 one week, then 2 and 3 the following week. So this week I began with form 4. (Form 1 being equivalent to 9th grade)They asked so many questions, that time ran over and we didn't have time left to play the condom game. (a version of 'hot potato' using condoms blown up as balloons with slips of paper inside with questions about condoms and condom usage on them. When the music stops, the person holding the condom-balloon has to pop it and read the question aloud, then answer it.) They wanted to play the game so I told them we'd do it if they could teach their fellow Form 1 students how to properly use condoms (both male and female)

They did such a great job - I would definitely say much better than I did. They were able to explain in more detail things I had struggled with in language, and their peers listened surprisingly well. They could easily answer questions, while that is the HARDEST thing for me. As much Swahili as I know, to understand a shy student mumbling a question using words I probably don't know even if I could hear them - is really hard.

Among other successes, I finished the 4-lesson permaculture classes in one subvillage now. Once I got used to the fact that everyone would show up between a half hour to an hour after the scheduled time, everything went unbelievably smoothly. It was my intention that one person would be chosen by the group to have the 'example garden' which we would create together throughout the lessons. Of their own accord, this group went and dug everyone's garden together in the days between lessons. They have not finished all six, but so far 4 are complete, and they intend to finish all 6 soon, including an accompanying compost pile!

Not everything goes perfectly, though, and in my own subvillage, we have had 2 meetings now with no one showing up, and this past meeting today, before we all went to visit the sick teacher, my counterpart Flora didn't show up, the video wouldn't show on my computer, and the person whose house we were supposed to dig at had not gathered the necessary supplies (composted animal manure (any animal, and they have plenty of them) white ash (which they also have plenty of since they primarily use firewood and charcoal to cook) and charcoal dust) So, after waiting an hour, then going house to house to collect the people one by one myself, when we got to the house to begin the lesson, there was very little for me to teach.

And my lessons at the primary school. Oh. Who knows what I will do. I co-teach with a fellow teacher whom I ADORE. He is a sweet well meaning old man. But he DOES NOT understand the lessons we are teaching. And then the students, in turn, also don't understand the lessons we are teaching. I try to choose the simplest of lessons, and I have spent HOURS explaining to him what we are teaching and how.

Today we 'taught' communication skills. We had an exercise where the teacher had a simple picture he had to explain to the children how to draw. (I provided paper) He explained it (using words) 3 times. The first time he walked into the classroom and faced the chalkboard and spoke quickly. The students weren't allowed to ask questions, and he walked out. The second time they were allowed to ask questions, he faced the class, and he explained more slowly, but did not answer the questions. The third time he went student to student and helped them and answered the questions and gave praise. The students were then to discern that for good communication, you face the person/people. You ask and answer questions, you give praise, etc (it was more slightly elaborate than that, but you get the idea)

The problem is, after literally more than 2 hours of me explaining what we were teaching, my co-teacher wanted to just draw the picture on the blackboard. I would have been the person coming in and doing the acting myself but I just don't know enough Swahili to explain how to draw a picture well, so I was afraid it'd be skewed.

And after he did the lesson with me slowly walking both HIM and the class through it, when I asked the students to tell me what helped with communication, referring to them understanding how to draw the picture, the first answer I got was to use a phone. The second was newspaper.

I have to find a way to teach these kids!!!

March 10, 2010 7:31pm

A lot of time has passed since this last entry, partially because the events that occurred in between needed space to process and understand before I was fully ready to lay them out in the public eye.

Shortly after I completed writing the previous entry, I heard the blow of a horn. Without being followed by the voice of the town crier, the sound signifies a death in the village. I found out the next morning that very literally within a minute after I left the room, my fellow teacher and neighbor succumbed to his ailments, and stopped breathing. In the following days I was told by neighbors that I was brought out (I left with a group of neighbors) at that time because they knew he was about to die and didn't want to upset me.

After being told that the funeral was the following day, I headed into Same to check my email through a loophole Flora had found for me (without even knowing how to type or use a computer, she can still manage to hook me up with someone she knows who is the manager of the power plant in Same which uses internet to do business) Since I had made an appointment a week previous, and the funeral was the following day, I decided to keep it.

I expected an email from an NGO I wanted to collaborate with to help me with funding/digging a new water bore hole near the secondary school. I didn't receive an email from the NGO. Instead, there was an email informing me that a very dear friend of mine in the US, who was my neighbor growing up, had died of cancer.

Joe Peplinski may you rest in peace.

One of the last things he did before he died, I was told, was go out to buy things to send me a care package. And by judging the date of the email (which I received a few weeks after it was sent b/c I hadn't had access to the net in awhile) the letter I put in the mail to him was posted around the day he died.

I knew that he was sick, I had known a long time, but I never truly understood that he was sick. I did not truly understand life, I had not yet known death.

As I was writing and rewriting a reply to this email, working over the news in my head, Flora had just arrived at the power company to tell me another neighbor had just died of AIDS.

And for a good while the world was hazy.

Though I had seen this man many times and could put a face to the name, we had never spoken more than in greeting, and I did not know he had AIDS. (I don't know if it's wrong of me NOT to stigmatize thin sick looking people?)

4 days 3 deaths 2 funerals. The death of my friend back home overpowered the sorrow of the others lost. Somehow attending the funerals was cathartic. And wrenching. The teacher was young (early 50s) He had many children still at home, his youngest 9 years old. His wife I would guess around 40. The children were inconsolable. They fell to the ground in their anguish.

I allowed myself to cry, although more subtly, with the family, friends, students, fellow teachers, neighbors and villagers and people who had come from as far as Dar es Salaam to mourn. I cried for them all, but most of all thought of my friend back home. Somehow, it allowed me to mourn for all of them together.

Now I have known death.

It's strange how it enforces an immediate acceptance of mortality.

Life is finite.



Both funerals where open casket. Both were catholic. The close women of the family get together in one room where all the furniture is removed and the big woven plastic bags (gunia) that are used to store corn and other things are placed empty on the floor. The women sit up against the wall, silently lining the room with grief. Visitors (primarily women but the occasional male passed through) take off their shoes and work through the room greeting and offering 'pole' or condolences. I sat in this room a bit, as I was invited to by the women at both the funerals. There is a book and a type of 'offering bowl' that is passed around in the room, as well as throughout the crowd. In the book you write your name and the amount of money or the item you have brought in offering to help the family. It is custom to always give something, no matter how little.

Outside under whatever shade available or is set up in a haphazard manner, women sit and talk quietly separately from men. Women cook food in huge pots over fires, and before the service, everyone is served a large meal. In both cases this included pilau (a rice dish made with meat - either cow or goat - fried onions and spices and oil) and rice and beans. (yes rice with rice.)

The Catholic priest presided over both services. I do not know if it was a typical Catholic funeral service because I have never been to one before. The casket was opened and all the guests where led past to take a last look before the burial. While the preservation techniques are not as affective as what might be done in the US, it was not grotesque, just intensely upsetting. I do not know if I would ever want an open casket funeral. I guess it's not my choice though, as I will be dead.

Once the whole procession of guests are led through, women and children first, men carry the casket to a space behind the house (this all takes place at the house of the deceased) where a hole has already been dug. The men stand forward at this time, and the women create a semi-circle behind as the casket is lowered in and covered in soil. During the procession and the burial, the women sing.

After burying the casket, a short history of the deceased is read.

And then people disperse.

Women close to the family stay around to help clean up. Neighbors and friends visit every day for weeks to help cook, clean, and take care of the needs of the family, bringing food and water and whatever else need be.

The week that followed was strained. I was already overscheduled and everything I did felt tainted by sadness. I kept moving forward.

That Thursday a good friend arrived to visit me who lives in southern Tanzania, close enough to throw stones into Mozambique. I greatly appreciated her presence.

That following weekend many of my fellow volunteers (including my good friend from the south) ran in the Kilimanjaro Marathon.

I did my fair share of the work in supporting them wholeheartedly with screaming, cheering, clapping, and carrying all their crap. I also took tons of pictures which where subsequently eaten by a glitch in my friend's camera.

Which is unbelievably unfortunate.

But more importantly, they all finished in good time, and we all had a good time, and it was good to be thoroughly distracted for just a short while.

In the meantime, I have finished as of today, teaching permaculture gardening to 2 small groups (6-7ppl each) in 2 subvillages. So far, every single member of both groups has either completed or is in the process of creating a permaculture garden.

The first group finished their gardens about 3 weeks ago now, and they already have flowers on their tomato plants, and are harvesting and selling(!) mchiche (local greens) in large quantities, amongst other beautiful vegetable successes. Other neighbors are coming to see their gardens, which are producing in quantity now with the one brief rainfall we have gotten since they planted together with the small amount of water that was carried in buckets from the bomba (distribution point of gravity water that originates in our forest on top of the mountain) They are asking questions and becoming interested in using the same techniques to make gardens of their own! This, dare I say without jinxing myself, is very close to a 100% success rate. Tomorrow, after teaching at the secondary school, I will be going to a farther subvillage to teach their very first lesson: nutrition (basically a balanced meal) and the basics of the garden.

It is my intention to teach small groups within each subvillage so that they become teachers then themselves and teach others. Since the lessons are practical - we actually dig a garden completely at one group members' house - it is necessary that the groups be small. It also allows the groups to help one another in purchasing seeds, teaching other people the gardening methods, and generally supporting one another. The more people, the less cohesive the group.

But I am getting tired and just rambling now. I will leave you all here until I have the time and mental clarity and control of the English language (sometimes I have Swahili days) to continue on. (9:09pm)


Tuesday, March 16, 2010 1:22pm

It is RAINING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh how I love the rain.

(that's all, work to be done now)

(and a few more pictures!)

February 7, 2010 7:57am

It has been a busy week. I am finally on my feet – doing projects – teaching in the village. My first projects include teaching Life Skills classes at the primary and secondary schools (in Swahili, of course) teaching self-formed small groups permaculture gardening and nutrition, teaching disease prevention seminars at the dispensary, and working with the Village Water Committee to address our dire water situation. I also hope to get the permaculture garden at the primary school back on its feet and plant seeds in the next week or so as the rains are coming!!

I have my hands full, but as I work into a routine it will become less difficult. My villagers are excited about my projects, and excited to learn new things, I know that I am lucky in this. Many other volunteers face lack of interest and ambition in their projects from their villagers, people not showing up for meetings, classes, or project implementation. My village is the opposite – showing up at seminars asking if I can teach more about different things next time!

I began my teaching in the secondary school on Thursday of last week. I was very nervous going into it, never having taught in a school before, not being used to kids, the disciplinary structure, and of course – I would have to teach in Kiswahili. But luckily, I had no choice but to plow through it. I put on a fearless smile, and walked in and started. I told them we were learning together and when they laughed at my Kiswahili mistakes I laughed with them. I taught 2 classes in the secondary school, each with approximately 140 students. I didn’t know the amount of students (despite repeatedly asking) before my lesson, so when I walked into the classroom to see the sea of faces staring up at me squeezed into every space possible in the small classroom, I was pretty overwhelmed. But what can you do except begin?

And despite the complicated metaphors within the first lesson, they grabbed the concepts quickly, and the lessons that follow I think they will really enjoy. The Life Skills manual is a fantastic and easy to use tool, and it breaks down a lot of the lessons into hands on games, role play, and interactive lessons. I will have to figure out how to work with such a huge group, but I know they are willing and excited to learn – and where there is a will – there is a way.

Teaching at the primary school was a little more hit and miss. In the primary school I co-taught the class with a fellow teacher knowing that there was going to be even more of a communication difficulty getting across ideas to these younger children. Also, because the primary school is not so desperately strapped for teachers, it was actually an option, unlike the secondary school. The complication more arose from the lack of the teacher’s understanding (despite me sitting down with him and going over the lesson step by step a few times) of the meaning and content intended. In the future, I might end up wanting to teach that class myself, although the little voice in the back of my head reminds me of the unsustainability of this idea. Over time I am hoping he will understand more completely himself the ideas and skills we are teaching through the life skills lessons.

In the primary school I taught standard 7 students ranging from 13 to 15 years old. While most volunteers choose to teach only in the secondary schools, this year in my village only 4 students out of 48 passed the standard 7 exams which allowed them to go on to form 1 (secondary school). Those other 44 students are at the end of their educational careers. A statistical majority of students who pass the standard 7 exams don’t have the money to pay the school fees necessary to attend secondary school anyway. The very luckiest might somehow be able to find funding to go to trainings to learn skills as tailors, mechanics, furniture makers, or otherwise, but the vast majority will farm with their families while looking to start families of their own. (this is another project that I am working towards beginning - some sort of sustainable affordable apprenticeship program or school)

It feels good, rewarding, and exhausting, to finally be getting work done in the village. There is so much to do – so many things I can do – and damn – my Swahili is GOOD!

Saturday, January 23, 2010 7:28pm

There are always going to be those days that every moment I am wanting so badly to be home, in America, with my family, and my friends. Doing familiar things that I know I am competent doing, instead of teaching things in a foreign language that I myself just learned the day before. They will always be followed by days where every moment something new and beautiful happens that reminds me why I am here and restores faith in my ability to help bring change to this village.

Again, it has been awhile. I have been busy, training, then Christmas, New Years, then training again. I have just returned to my village now after my second training. I have completed my report (a whopping 17 pages of single spaced Swahili that I am very proud of) and I am ready to begin my real work here in the village.

Upon my return I was told that I have a new mtendaji – a village leader that I have long since forgotten the English translation for. I have yet to meet her – but was only told – repeatedly – that like me – she is a woman. The day I returned I searched out all the people I wanted to begin collaboration with: the headmaster of the primary school, the headmaster of the secondary school, the doctor at the dispensary, and the mtendaji. Not a single one of them where around.

But let me back up a moment because I am sure you want to hear about Christmas, New Years, my birthday.

Christmas: I decided I wanted to spend Christmas in my village, with Flora and her family, and cook American food to share with my villagers. The afternoon before Christmas I came to Flora’s house with my bicycle loaded down with supplies to make tuna casserole, macaroni and cheese, and cake. A strange menu, I know, but these were the foods I had ingredients to make. We could not find bread so the PB&J, what Flora was most excited about on the proposed menu, did not happen

I was excited to see midnight mass in Tanzania, and to hear the beautiful voices of the congregation raised in Christmas song. But, as blessings do come, the rain we had all prayed for began early evening continuing into the night, pounding the dusty soil into thick mud. Despite our best efforts, Floras’s son Chikira and I decided to turn around in only 2 minutes, being completely soaked, and unable to see or walk on the dark muddy paths.

So I awoke Christmas morning, before the sun, starting the fire with Salome, one of Flora’s daughters. I began helping her cook chapati and chai. By the sunup, people where already visiting a bit, close neighbors came to drink chai and give Christmas greetings and chat a bit before continuing on. I had already begun cooking my dishes. So I sat, in the jiko (pronounced gee-ko meaning kitchen) which is a brick room separate from the house that the fire is in, and cooked amongst the smoke and heat of the day.

It took longer than I ever thought it would to cook tuna casserole, mac and cheese, and 2 cakes. By the time I finished it was early afternoon and it begun to rain again. This whole time I had tried very hard to fight off thoughts of Christmas at home. Waking up to stockings on the door (yes, even now that I’m all old and grown up) cooking yummy breakfast and eating together. Cinnamon raisin bagels with cream cheese. Listening to Christmas music and sitting by the Christmas tree opening presents together. Relaxing and being together family.

I sat alone in the jiko trying hard not to resent my missed Christmas, not to miss all those things, to want in the least one familiar song. (On a side note, I was lucky that my mom had baked for me and mailed my very favourite part of Christmas, her Christmas cookies, which arrived amazingly intact and I was able to share with my villagers, who thought they were perhaps the most delicious food they’d ever tasted. But alas, I had run out by Christmas day)

So I cooked, until mid-afternoon. Then showered quickly, put on my new dress, and waited. But the rain had started again and no one came. We sat in Flora’s living room listening to Kiswahili choir music eating the food we had cooked, and dancing a bit. On any other day it would have been a fun afternoon. But I wanted Christmas. I was tired from cooking, and no one was even going to be able to come because of the rains. I had invited all my favourite families from my subvillage but it is a 35-40 minute walk, not something anyone would be willing to do in a steady downpour even for the promise of yummy American food.

After a lonely Christmas I decided I had to spend New Years with friends. I am glad I did. I headed up to Moshi to stay at the house of an ex-pat with fellow volunteers. New Years Eve we went to a club with live music, overpriced drinks, and the most fantastic fireworks/bonfire display I have ever seen. The bonfire was built about 2 times my height. Then, in a small area perhaps 20ft x 20ft, random people ran in, put down a firework, lit it, watched to see if it went off, relit it, and then ran away quickly. The next person would run in, at no prescribed interval, and put down a few more, and play the same amusing dance. In between fireworks, sometimes someone shot a gun repeatedly into the air. Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang. It was incredible, entertaining, and impressive that no one lost a limb.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010 8:54am

Someone came to my door as I was writing, and I haven’t had a chance to finish. But I am going to send this to be posted now, and will try to write more later.

New pictures are up, including of my birthday – cake and pizza! I was lucky to be in Dodoma for training during my birthday, but more on that later.

January 2, 2010 10:57pm

They say that depression is the disease of the privileged, and I have begun to understand why. I do see depression effecting people in my village, women who have lost child after child unable to find happiness in anything anymore. Men whose farms have failed for so many years it is hard to muster the strength to plant another crop and wait again for rains that will not come.

But the expectations and judgments that we Americans put on ourselves fall away, too. I came to this country probably a pretty typical American, concerned with my looks, my weight, my skin, my hair, my cleanliness. But these things I have no control over now. At first the weight gain bothered me, when I had the rare chance to see myself in a mirror I was horrified by how I was changing and desperate to find a way to lose weight and get 'in shape'. But I have realized, over time, I just have no control over it. I cannot control when or what I eat on most days.

My skin has plagued me since about a month into country, breaking out into a strange rash that has not really gone away for the 6 months of service until now. I hated it - not wanting to come out - trying to put the little bit of make-up I brought over it, and hating the very un-sensitive comments that I got daily from every Tanzanian I met ('Hi, my name is __ . What is wrong with your face?' - I'm not exaggerating. . ) But I have come to understand there is nothing I can do about it. So it doesn't bother me.

I am getting fatter. My skin is plagued by some strange rash. I am often late, or early and waiting for hours. When there is no water, I cannot shower. Or when I run out of conditioner, which they don't sell in this country. My hair is often stringy, oily, and dirty. I have no control over these things so they are no longer stressful for me. I have to accept them, and everyone in this country accepts them. There are so many things that you do not have control over, even as simple as food and water. Sometimes they are there, sometimes they are not.

The less control you have over your world the less you feel like it is your personal responsibility to make it perfect.

The sociologists are right.

I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Years. :-)