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.