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!