New Home

Life as an official volunteer for the Peace Corps isn’t bad… I would now because it was made official last week at our graduation. The graduation was a big festivity the guest of honors where the U.S. ambassador in Tanzania, the head of the Ministry of Education in Tanzania and other respected dignitaries. All of the volunteers’ host families were invited and came to celebrate with a grand feast of Traditional Tanzanian foods, beans and rice. It was a very nice day marking a new chapter, the start of what I really came to Tanzania to do…volunteer of my service, knowledge, and time.

The day after graduation all us volunteers packed up and in nine land cruisers were delivered to our new homes. Some as far as a four day drive from Morogoro and then me a twenty minute ride, well if there is an emergency evacuation you know who will be on the plane first, suckers. I was able to say goodbye to every one and once they were gone our training manager brought me to my new school and my new home, Mzumbe Secondary. The teachers have been great and very friendly, and my head master seems to be a very intelligent and overall nice guy.

I had been really busy around my home this week since I moved in cleaning and painting. The house was very dirty and looked like a college frat house with crazy things painted on the wall. So I decided for me to be able to feel comfortable in my new home it needed a fresh coat of paint, and it gives me something to do before I start teaching which will be the first of the New Year. I hired my home stay family brother as my house help and he has been very happy to be working and making some money, and he has been doing a really good job! He loves the breakfast’s I have been cooking banana pancakes or French toast, ya I am roughing it ;-)

This weekend the other volunteers in my region are having a welcoming party for me so that will be nice to get to know the other volunteers in the region. After I finish painting this week I hope to get my bike running good and do some mountain biking. I want to ride to this village up the mountain from me where another volunteer is living; it will probably be a full day ride. I will keep you all posted! Thinking of you all and wishing I was getting ready for snowboarding season.

I Am Not Leaving Morogoro!

Well… I am staying in Morogoro for the next two years. I herd that the region was getting one volunteer but the rumor was that the school wanted a chemistry teacher, so I counted my self out of staying in Morogoro. I am the only person staying in the region and the other 37 volunteers are moving out next week to their new regions. I was taken by surprise to say the least but I know why they wanted me at the school. A little background:
Thomas a Tanzanian National a mzee (a respected elder) with an infectious smile and laugh is one of two people in charge of placing us education volunteers in the Peace Corps, I guess you would call him my supervisor. Before Thomas worked for Peace Corps Tanzania as an APCD he was a prominent head master at Mzumbe secondary school where he was of the first head masters in Tanzania to ban corporal punishment at his school. Mzumbe secondary school is located next to Mzumbe University in the Uluguru Mountains. Mzumbe secondary in the best secondary private boy’s boarding school in all of Tanzania. They have had the highest test scores on the A level test for form four and form six students for the like the last ten years. Tanzania is on the English system of education where they have “O” and “A” level streams, where A level streams are bound for college and more technical degrees, where O level students are bound for vocational colleges. Some of the brightest students in Tanzania come to Mzumbe Secondary to study with many of them graduating and going to university abroad and most come back to Tanzania and hold very prominent jobs.
I will be one of four volunteers who will be teaching A level and I will be teaching at Mzumbe Secondary school. I was very flattered that Thomas wanted me to be teaching at his old school with lots of prestige. So I have a great school with very bright students. They have a computer lab at the school they hope that I will be able to do some work and classes for students. I couldn’t be happier with my school! But… I am staying in the same area I have been living for the last two months. I won’t get the village experience most the other volunteers get because I am really close to a major town and have electricity and running water, most of the time. I even herd that the volunteer before me left a fridge, ya its amazing I know. I am really close to my host family so I will be able to stop by the house and have dinners with them now and then. Some of the other perks to being in Morogoro I will get to meet all the new volunteers when they do their training in Morogoro, they have two groups a year education volunteers September-November and Environmental/Health volunteers June/July. I am only two hour bus ride to Dar es Salaam and then from there a two hour boat ride to Zanzibar! Morogoro is a centrally located city so a lot of buses go through their and very easy to get to other parts of the country. So if any of you were thinking of coming to visit me we lucked out BIG time.
Other good news is that I am close to internet so I will be able to keep my blog up-to-date with pictures now and then. I got to go; it’s our last night in the big city Dar es Salaam.

The End of Swahili Training!

Mambo!

Today is a mile stone day because I have finished my official language training and took my final test, I think I passed! It is such a relief to be done with this chapter and move on to the next one, it’s a big monkey off my back. Tomorrow we 38 volunteers (yes we last one more) leave to go visit other volunteers that have been in the country for awhile. People are going to some cool places like the Kilimanjaro region, the highlands in the south of Tanzania and Zanzibar. But…I picked the short straw and am going no where; I am staying in the region and going to a volunteer’s site an hour away. I was bummed initially because most the people are getting to see more of the country and I am staying around here, but it’s only a visit and we get our actual sites next week in Dar es Salem the day before Thanksgiving. Then I will finally know where I will be living for the next two years. The volunteer’s site that I am going to visit sounds like it’s a really cool village tucked away in the mountains with waterfalls and cool views, and I heard she makes some killer brownies!

Last weekend I had my worst experience so far in Tanzania! Well let me start by saying I got giardia couple of days after getting to Morogoro, its been manageable up to this point. Once in a while I have the guppy poppies, nothing I can’t deal with right? WRONG! It started innocently enough by joining some people at a local pub that serves pizza on Friday nights. One of the volunteers in our region was finishing his service so there were a bunch of volunteers there and a great chance for us to meet them and a chance for them to see the fresh meat. The pizza was great, wood fired! The conversations were great to hear some of the experiences of other volunteers. The trouble started on the taxi ride home… My stomach was starting to tumble like I pissed my little giardia friends off, and I did! I spent most the following night in the choo, remember no fancy western toilets just a whole me and the horrible smell of sulfur which is reminiscent of giardia. After getting little sleep that night and having quads ache because I was running to the choo all night and squatting over my hole. I learned a valuable lessen, milk products + giardia = a night of the worst diarrhea EVER!

My family is making me a shirt for graduation next week so I went to the tailors to get fitted, a custom made shirt for under five dollars! I should get it by the end of the week so I am excited to see how it turns out. A lot of people are getting close made here because it is so cheep, some are pretty funny because of the language barrio people don’t always get what they were expecting. My brother and sister came too so we are going to have matching outfits, its going to be sweet! Two other families with volunteers and mine are throwing a party of Matt, Sarah, (other volunteers) and myself on the 25^th of November! We are excited for the sending off party, they are having the neighbor The Referee (that’s what we refer to him as because he always wears a referee’s jersey) is the dj and there’s going to be lots of food and drinks it should be great.

Love hearing from you all! I miss: talking with good friends, walks in the park with Keena, Pax and Jeff, the smell of a hockey locker-room and the puck hogs, my family, and definitely elk camp this year!

First Drum Circle and Lion

Habari Marekani?

Life in Tanzania has been a world wind of activities. They keep us busy doing so much. We are teaching in our micro teaching school which has been great to get a feel for the educational system good and bad. We have one last week of teaching in our micro teaching school and then we are now getting ready for training in our community based training sites to be over. We have two weeks left then we are bouncing around to visit other volunteers and go into Dar es Salaam for more training. We are all getting ready for training to be over and get to the business that we came over here for. Training has been very valuable but we are excited to see were our permanent sites are going to be and how living situations are are going to be. I am paying to be in the high lands and away from the cost so that I don’t have to suffer with the extreme heat of the cost. Our training group had their first drop out this last week so our initial 40 is down to 39 and we are taking bets on who will be next. The girl decided to leave because she thought her time better spent doing a graduate program she got accepted for.

This last week has included some of my favorite memories thus far in Tanzania. Last Sunday after a full morning of washing my clothes by hand and cleaning my room one of our neighbors took me and two other volunteers to a nearby village, about one hour walk. At the village they were celebrating with drums and other traditional instruments and a lot of dancing. They were celebrating two girls and the “coming out party” that their families have decided that they are ready to marry. So the whole day they community members danced to drums and celebrated. In the late afternoon the two girls came out on the shoulders of two men and were paraded around the drum circle. We were told that the week that follows perspective husbands would come to the families’ houses and try to out bid other prospects with offers of money, livestock, or I can only guess at what else they would offer. I was great to be able to be a part of a traditional celebration and see it in a small village. Very cool experience only wish I had my camera, sorry no photos.

This weekend was great we got to visit Mekumi National park for the weekend and see real wild African animals. At the park we got to see elephants, giraffes, zebras, impalas, hippos, crocodiles, orangutans, and the best of them all simba (Lions). We were very lucky see the lion, our training director says he has gone five times and has only seen lions once. I got video of the lion walking up to our tour bus and growling, priceless (Travis I Love the camera Thanks!). We spent two days in and around the park. It was great to have a night at a hotel with some of the other volunteers and relax away from our host families.

It is great to see all your messages as it is easy to read them, I have a really hard time opening my hotmail e-mail account to read mail. So keep me updated love to hear from everyone!

Pictures next Time

Habari za nubani?

I hope all is good on the home front. Tanzania has been great to me. Swahili is coming along and I am starting to communicate with my mama now and my brother and sister at my home stay. I can tell the market venders to not give me the white man price because I teach their children; saving money already;-) I can communicate where I come from and where I am staying and what my business is in Tanzania; the language is coming slow and steady. All of the volunteers have been split up into small groups of five and we study everyday together and all live in close proximity to each other. Our neighbors are starting to call us by our names even though we have never met, so everyone is talking about the white people around I would assume.

Last week we had a great experience with our class got to attend the schools graduation for the form 4 students. We got front row seats then were introduced during the ceremony and were invited to eat and have drinks with the guests of honor after the graduation ceremony. The guest of honor was a local head of the Catholic Church and was very interested about our mission in Tanzania.

They are keeping us very busy in the classroom working on our Swahili and teaching classes so not too much new since my last post. I did find a chocolate hook up in country so my life is getting better. The lady is very nice and gives me a good deal because I keep coming back and by enough for the week. I promise next time I will try and post pictures so you can see the beautiful setting. Until next time, Salama(peace)!

Learning another language is HARD!

Mambo?

Tanzania has been amazing! The people here are so very nice. I am living with the Milanzi family. Mama and baba Milanzi and they have two kids Joseph two and Rachel four. Rachel is very sweet and always wanting to play, Joseph thinks I am a doctor and is still warming up to me, the first couple of days de would start crying every time I was around. He thinks that I am going to poke him with a needle when he’s not looking because most all of the doctors here are white. I played some music on my ipod last night and the kids loved it so I think he will start warming up to me soon. My Swahili is coming along but is really frustrating because my communication is very limited; we study for 8 hours a day so our progress is good. I have to keep reminding my self I have only benn studying for a week and I have to crawl before I can run. I am studying in a small village outside of Morogoro in the mountains called Chengarhwi absolutely beautiful, the people and community is great. I can’t wait until my Swahili gets better so that I can talk with more of the community members. We are studying at a secondary school Andrian Mkoba. Most the day I study with four other volunteers and our teacher Petti who is a native Tanzanian and is so sweat and a very good teacher. In four weeks we will start teaching classes at the secondary school with a cooperating teacher. I am paired up with Albert, a teacher about my age who teaches Math and Physics. He has been a great friend to me and is helping me with my Swahili. The training has been long days and very intensive, and is in a very hot schools thou now I am starting to get used to the heat.

My living conditions are very modest. The home has no running water or electricity but the bathroom does have a “hole” that connects to a sewer system so that is nice. The bathroom consists of a hole it’s the only thing in the bathroom; four walls and a hole it works. The house is very empty except for the couple of chairs in the living room and the small wood stove in the kitchen. In the morning its nice my mama boils water for my bath which I take over the hole, and in the afternoon my bath is cold water which is nice after sweating all day. This Sunday will be my first day off and I am looking forward to being around my house and learn the daily activities like cooking, boiling, and washing my clothes. Thus far my mama has done everything for me not much different than the last couple of months at home in the USA (I love you mom). I was lucky that the family I got placed with the baba(dad) speaks English so I can communicate with him and he can help me with my Swahili. I have had a couple of good conversations with him at night. He is partially handicapped because Polio has deformed one of his legs. He is a great man and really believes in what we are doing here educating the future leaders of Tanzania.

The food has been great here, always plenty of rice and beans to eat. We live close enough to larger cities so we can get a variety of fruits and vegetables which is nice. We have chai twice a day once for breakfast and once about 11. There is not much for eating meat because of lack of refrigeration so if we have meat it is always a treat and in very small portions. I am lucky to get a couple of hard boiled eggs for breakfast with my chai and banana.

One much unexpected modern convenience has been cell phones, almost all Tanzanians that have a job has a cell phone. I was hoping to get away from the ties of the phone but it looks like I will purchase one soon for safety and to communicate will fellow volunteers. I will let you know the number as soon as possible, it is cheaper for you to call me and texting will be free.

I don’t have access to Internet in my town so I hope to come to the larger town of Morogoro once or twice every two weeks to copy e-mails and send some out. So please do write but it may take a while to respond.

Lucas and Lovin’ It

Going Away Party; Could Not Have Been Better

My parents threw a great going away party for me, it was a great way to get sent off. My grandparents drove out from Minnesota to help out and my brother and his girlfriend flew out from Saint Louis it was really special for them to come all that way for me. My mom estimated 85 guest, 48 hamburgers, 24 hot dogs, 24 bratwursts, 5 pounds of chicken legs, 10 pounds of potato salad, 3 kegs of Bud Light, a bottle Crown Royal for a toast around the fire pit, last night with family and friends...priceless.