Saturday, December 15, 2007

Dec 15, 2007 Update and Pics: training, site arrival!

The Last Few Days of Training:

By the end of training we were subject to a ton of assessments on our new language/culture/technical skills (more test than I can count) and also a lot of hanging out. Below (the contrast is off...) are Jacob, Leiha, and James hanging at CCT.


We were also preparing to leave each other for site in various parts of the country. My host family and the families of four other volunteers had the huge going-away party for us all. There was plenty of food, and dancing (see below, me with little Sosi) and even presents.

It was all so overwhelming and at one point we each got up to give little thank-you speeches (which I stumbled through in kiswahili), and I even played a little guitar, so not that different from family parties at home! But sitting there at the very decorated table with the other volunteers (which kind of made it feel like we were all getting married). it was so bittersweet to have to leave our families in Morogoro. Below is me with my Mama, Baba and little brother.

Kind of a funny side-note, to dress up we volunteers all wore clothes like Tanzanians, but to dress up our families wore western formal-wear. A strange exchange of cultures!

Swearing-in Ceremony:

To become actual volunteers we were sworn in by the U.S. Ambassador to Tanzania. The ceremony was a big deal, with speeches fromus volunteers, the Morogoro District commissioner, Country Director of PC, Ambassador, and even the Tz Minister of Education. There was also plenty of entertainment, including a poetry/dance/music section from the volunteers (I co-wrote/sang a song with Jenna, another very talented volunteer, to thank our homestay families) and also some local dancers as well (shown below).

The best part was when the TZ minister of education got up to give the Tz dancers money (which is customary) and started dancing with them a bit too. Would that ever happen in America? People love having fun here!

Afterwards a bunch of us went out and took pics of all of us in our traditional garb (I'm wearing something my T-Fam gave me!).

Here are Me, Molly, Leiha, Laura, and Jenna all decked out!. Below are my sitemates, Leiha and Ethan, who are still pretty far away, but I will get to that.....



Arrival to Site:

The next morning we all left for our respective regions! It was so exciting/sad! I headed to Moshi with a bunch of others, only a 6 hr trip, where we stayed at the very nice YMCA ($5/night), the deck from which you can see Mnt. Kilimanjaro.



So beautiful but less and less snow atop every year... We met up with volunteers that night, and the next day were delivered to our respective sites.

My site is Lomwe Secondary School, in Usangi, Mwanga District (just south of Moshi) in the Kilimanjaro Region. It is in the Pare Mountains, shown below in the distance:
If you look really closely you can see a road snake up the side of the mountains; that is the road to my site. It takes about 1.5hrs once you enter the mountains to get there. My site is like a mini-paradise, set in a secluded valley (shown below) where the school lies. My house is about a .5 mile hike up the side of one of the mountain, and on a clear day you can see Mnt. Kilimanjaro in the distance.

Its prime hiking land, except you have to be careful about where you go. I expressed interest in climbing to the top of the mountain I live on, and found out that it is sacred land, the home of a few tribal gods, and that the punishment for entering it without permission is death by the gods/tribal elders. Supposedly someone fell victim a couple years ago, so I guess I'm glad I asked before venturing that way! That's one way to enforce land conservation!

My house is very very nice, and I have many other teachers/locals as neighbors.

You can see my house in the foreground and my neighbor's in the back. It has running water and Electricity (half the time), a big living room, bathroom (with western toilet!) kitchen, and two bedrooms.
Most other volunteers aren't so lucky to have a lot of stuff in their house already (I'm replacing someone) but it was lucky that I did since I started teaching a few days after getting to site! I'll be teaching a-level Mathematics (like senior year hs/freshman yr college) and o-level (high school) math. Each level is on a different schedule, so right now its just the a-level math. The students are wonderful and all of the teachers have been so welcoming! Although we are supposed to teach in English, Kiswahili is just about ubiquitous outside the classroom, so when I'm not lesson-planning or cleaning my house I try to study Kiswahili. All and all things are going well, and its tons of fun to walk about the village, to the market, greet people, and tell them about the U.S.. I can't count the number of U.S. maps I've drawn in the past two weeks! The only problems I've run into are with the bugs that have been inhabiting the house for the past three months during which it has been vacant. Spiders as big as your hand, I kid you not! And some fun other surprises, like acid-spitting flies. Also, the green mamba's that supposedly dwell in the brush in my front yard, will have to look out for them....

I will try to update more, but there is a lot to tell and no time to describe it all! I will rant a bit about the travel in this area...

A little bit of travel...takes a long time!

The other day I tried to visit Leiha who lives a few towns over. What a hassle! I got to the bus stand at 7:30am, waiting 45min for a bus to come, waited half hour for it to load up, and finally drove to the next town. We didn't have enough passengers, so ended up going back to Lomwe, and by 9:30am I was in the same spot I had started. When we finally took off for real, I got the junction town between our two villages, found out that if I went to her village I would have no ride back, went anyways on the next bus over, and didn't even make it all the way before the bus stopped. So Leiha met me a town over from where she lives, and we talked for 45min (as the whole village looked on, two wazungu is a big deal) and then I hitched a ride from some Fundi's delivering truck wheels to moshi back to the junction town. From there, waited two hours and finally got back to my town at 4pm. The breakdown:

Total travel time: 8.5hrs
Total visit-with-leiha time: 45min
Total actually - moving time : 3hrs hrs
Total waiting time : 4hrs 45min

And you though SEPTA was bad.















Saturday, November 24, 2007

Pictures pt 2: Zanzibar and things

My second attempt at loading pics. Sorry that some of them are sideways, its hard to be computer savvy here, and the thought of reloading anything up is painful! A lot has happened since last I posted, I will try to incorporate it in the descriptions below....



Sosi:This is my 1 and a half year old little brother. So cute! he always comes into my room (thus the aveno) to hang out. He is also learning to use the cho (potty) but diapers are sparse here, so he also has peed on my floor a couple times. Its funny how easily you get over that..... Anyway, I am going to miss is smile (see above) a ton.

The roads:
The "vuli" short rainy season started the other week, and it didn't dawn on me until a few days in that during the rainy season it literally rains for weeks on end! no stopping. And seeing as outside of Dar Es Salaam there are about 3 paved roads in Tz, the dirt roads all go to mush which makes travel very frustrating. On the way back from training one day, we hydroplaned in the mud I kid you not for a quarter mile, almost hitting a goat, a tree, and an mzee (old person) on a bicycle before coming to a definitive stop. My much-more-helpful fellow trainees then pushed it out of the mud while I took pics (see above). Now imagine this happening every hour on a nine hour bus ride and you can see why travel throughout the country during the rainy seasons is almost impossible, i.e. getting medicine and food to people. We need roads!

Shadow Visit: Zanzibar

So I went on vacation...I mean shadow visit last week to visit an extremely nice education volunteer on Zanzibar. It was great, the first night we got there we biked to a beach and swum in the Indian ocean while watching the sun set. The water has such a high salt content that you just float, no work needed. Very luxurious (sp?) . We also hung around Stone Town (above) which was quite touristy but has this wonderful arabic feel to it. Certainly a lot older feel than mainland Tanzania. Everyone looks like they have a grandfather from the middle east too, and the differences are subtle but interesting. Everyone is also Islamic, but no one seemed to mind my infidel self. The PC volunteer here is by far the most in-the-bush volunteer (we hung out with some VSO and other volunteers as well) and I think its pretty awesome that she is living out in the Shamba (farm) with villagers. It made me incredibly excited for site.


Speaking of which, I found out where I will be for the next two years! In the Kilimanjaro region outside of Moshi near a town called Mwanga. Its a boarding school, and I will be teaching A-level math (last year hs/first year college) and O-level (hs) physics. Its also in the mountains, and my closest PC neighbor is a 3 hour hike away! Can't wait to show you all pictures of that!

Henna and chocolate:
After shadow all of the PCT's met up in Dar for thanksgiving and to get some more briefings on policy. It was a lot of fun hanging out in the city after training sessions, especially after I got wonderful packages from family with letters and chocolate (see above). Thank you! The markings on my arm are not a tatoo but Henna, which I got on Zanzibar. The whole village came out for it, and about 40 people were just watching for the hour and a half it took to get done. Usually people only get it when they are getting married, but I thought it would look cool....

The End of Training:
This is me and some of my Besties here from my training class. We were out at the local mzungu (foreigner) hang-out last night, celebrating our last few days before we are all scattered throughout the country to teach and hopefully serve this country well!

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Pictures!!! Finally

So here are some of the pics I've taken so far. I apologize for how terrible they are but we really try hard to not look like tourists, so taking your camera out can only be done occasionally, and these are just some pics I snuck in. Also, it takes about 5 min to upload a small pic, and i don't have that kind of time! I do hope, however, that it gives you some taste of Tanzania. Enjoy!

Dar Es Salaam and Arrival:

Our (very nice I realize now) hotel in Dar Es Salaam. It had toilets and everything.....


PCT Laura with a huge plant at the safi PC compound in Dar.


MOROGORO:


Its hard to see, but its the biggest spider I have ever seen just chilling out at our training area. Water bottle for comparison. It was about the size of a hand....and of course they are all over (I discovered after this). I shower with about five of them lookin on....


The Uluguru Mountains of Morogoro which we are NOT allowed to climb! People always get mugged apparently when they climb them, but they taunt all of us every day. Was the sky always this big?

Training session with some of our lovely Language-Culture Facilitators (LCFs).

This is Kihonda Secondary, the school I have been student teaching in. It has about 7 of those buildings, with no electricity and open-air classrooms. The dust from the field next door leaves a quarter-inch coat that the girls have to clean off each morning from EVERYTHING: the floors, the desks, everything. The boys just look on. Its a pretty nice school though, one of the best in Morogoro.
The Neigborhood kids I'm trying to teach guitar. On the right is my sis with our little brother on her lap. We are in my fam's living room.

MIKUMI National Park:
The lions that were "on honeymoon" as the guide put it. They were no less than 10 feet away and it was so tempting to just step out of the vehicle...but, oh wait...they would eat you. The male also growled as us a couple times which was amazing to hear.

Most of the PCT's I've been training with. I'm on the right with my chicas a little shadowed. Notice the nice rainbow in the background!

The Elephant that kept the drivers foot on the gas ready to book it.

MOROGORO again....:
Eliza, my sister. She comes from a shamba (farm) in Singida and I think is sending all of the money she makes by working in the house to support her family of 6 back home. She's 16, great sense of humor, excellent cook, and loves to sing Bongo Flava. She gets up at 5:30am to start cleaning and pretty much runs the house, while babysitting our 18 month brother. I help when I can, but I'm in utter awe of her resilience (sp?) in life. Her fav thing to do lately is laugh at my attempts to cook and things, but I'd pretty much do anything to keep that smile on her face.


My mama on the left and Mama Mdogo (mama's younger sister...but really cousin. Families are big here...) and me in clothes I got made. Not my best pic, but we were in a huge rush to get to a kitchen party (women's party before a wedding where they tell the bride-to-be about family planning, AIDS, what to expect on the wedding night, and what to do when your husband cheats). We are always late, and I rarely ever know where we are going until about 5 minutes before we leave but its always fun!


The Saba Saba market, or at least a small part of it, that I go to on Sundays. Think the worlds biggest thrift store, with the fun of bargaining thrown in. Its great!

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

This Morning

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." I'm beginning to understand what Dickens was talking about. This day was simultaniously the best and worst of training so far.

This morning I was delighted to wake up early to teach my first early class, and as a result I caught the morning assembly of students. Usually some of the 600 or so students we have collect in the school courtyard to say what I can only guess is the Tanzanian pledge of allegiance and to hear announcements. The line up military style by form (year) and stream (class) and that is exactly what I found when I walked up to the school this morning. It all started out normally.....and then I saw that the teachers overseeing the morning assembly had sticks. And then I saw some of the teachers - normally extremely nice, welcoming, intelligent people - start punishing the students by hitting them on hands.

O.k. I knew there would be corporal punishment, and we were duly warned about this and I have seen it all before. But while I was watching this from a safe distance, I noticed things started to escalate. One of the teachers woke up on the wrong side of his mosquito net or something because suddenly he was indescriminately administering hits from his stick to students trickling in. It was horrific, but no one else but myself and another PCT who I arrived early as well seemed to notice, and plenty of teachers were just enjoying their chai. And plenty of students were laughing. And some were crying. And one girl that got hit particularly badly was escorted to the bathroom by her friends to wash the wound (I guess). And then it was all over and the students went to class and I just stood there looking confused, dumbounded, and more American than I have ever felt in my life. Then this sweet teacher who a second ago was whipping students comes up to me and asks me how my family is doing and shakes my hand. I couldn't do anything but return the reply and be herded to class by my PCT friend, who thought it would be better if I just got away from the teachers.

So I get to class and all I can think of as I stare at these students is that they just witnessed and some were victims of a highly unorganized, frightening punishment. I couldn't even imagine how it made them feel or decide if I would have even come to school anymore if that's what our mornings were like. Well, I pull it together and talk to the students a bit about what they have been studying. I'm taking over a class that has been taught by a substitute teacher for the past month because their teacher went M.I.A. unexpectedly (not unusual). The substitute is this incredibly nice woman, and a good teacher, who was thrust into a new school a month ago teacher five different classes over two different subjects. I found out through talking with the students in those first 10 minutes of class that the material I thought we were to cover over the next few weeks, and the material they had spent the last month covering, had already been taught be the previous teacher. No wonder they were bored out of their minds!!!! And no one had bothered to speak up, because students here don't talk back to teachers, so the past month had been a complete waste of their time. I spent half of that class finding out what they knew and the other half starting new material from where they left off, and it was like a light switch turned on. They were excited and talkative and they participated and not one, I flatter myself, was sleeping in the back of the class for the whole two hours that I kept them. The teacher after me never showed but I ran out of material to teach them off the top of my head and had to go to kiswahili class myself. There have been few moments in my life where I felt more greatful to be on earth than when my students yelled "Karibu Kesho" (you are welcome tomorrow) as I left the classroom.

And then it was 9:30am and the rest of my day started. This is Africa.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Pretty Awesome Weekend

So the weeks here are tough. Learning swahili with a little bit of studying swahili and trying to speak as much swahili as possible mixed in. Oh yeah, and a little bit of swahili flash-card quizzes in the free time.

But the weekends.......that's when the week is redeemed (sp?)! Last weekend I went to this confirmation party for the daughter of my Baba's brother. We were there from like 12pm to 9pm, I kid you not, and it was full of music and dancing and food food food and a lot of trying to talk to others. They treated this little girl like she was queen for the day, and everyone was really decked out. It was so nice that hardly anyone took notice of the mzungu (white person) and instead focused all of their attention on her. Everyone in her family got up and spoke to here (about what, I have no clue) and was giving her gifts. It was great. The three beers my mama insisted I drink helped a lot as well, especially since they are about twice the volume and average 5.5% in alcohol. But I couldn't be rude, I was being culturally sensitive!!! I also got to talk to these teachers about the tanzanian education system and about how they like it when people come to tanzania to teach.

This weekend was also amazing. It was Eidi (sp?) the Islamic holiday to celebrate the end of Ramadan, so we had both saturday and sunday off from training. On saturday I went to my Mama's sister's house where we spent a really long time just hanging out with the fam, watching pretty bad tanzanian movies, and an american thriller called "prey" which takes place on the Serengeti I think. Then we watcher wrestle-mania, RAW, and I was horrified that this is what they think of when they think of america. I made a point of telling them it was bad american tv....The only downer of the day was this creepy relative who kept taking my picture, which happens sometimes when I'm walking down the street (thank you cell phone cameras) but had never happened so blatenly in someone's home. I never thought I would feel like a rock star in the peace corps...

Anyhoo, when we got home from lunch around 4:30pm I was playing guitar in the living room and these neighborhood kids wandered in and I ended up playing a little joni mitchell for them and trying to teach them guitar. Another good reason to bring a travel guitar, its kid sized! Then I got them to teach me the tanzanian/african anthem and we were singing it. It was awesome. I also got my sis to take all of our pictures, and they loved seeing the digital image. The children here are the saving grace of the nation and the most obedient you will find. It was the best day. That night I went with my fam to a restaurant, where we got a big plate of pork and some cooked bananas. mmmmmmmm.

So today? Internet and cleaning, and, oh yeah, a little swahili.

Culture Shock!!!

So culture shock is just like walking into a glass door: the more confident you are the more it hurts, and you never see it coming. I thought I was all prepared for the bugs and food and language, and all of those things are pretty hard, but its the subtler cultural differences that are really going to take some getting used to.

The school where I'm teaching exemplifies all of this frustration. Two major factors are effecting the Tanzanian education system right now: Lack of money(sound familiar???) and lack of teachers due to a number of things, including AIDS. At my school, we "have" 44 teachers, most of which are M.I.A. and off at university or other places. From the 15 or so that I've met, all of them are over worked and most are extremely young, especially the science teachers. During the day I will tally how many classes are actually being held at any given time. Once three classrooms actually had teachers out of the 10 or so that should. That was amazing. Most of the time the students, who still show up for school because they really really want to be there to learn, will just hang out. The four other Peace Corps Trainees and I have taken to wandering the classrooms and teaching anyone with questions. It would be easy to blame the teachers, but its not their fault. Nor is it the admistrators. Its just the way things are right now and most are doing the best they can. So as you can imagine we are all filled to the brim with purpose and inspiration to teach as much as possible. It dawned on me while teaching some students the other day that I came to spend two years at a blackboard and spend as much of that time fulfilling these students hunger for knowledge. It was an incredible feeling, unlike anything I have felt before.

Of course, after feeling awesome I slammed into a glass door. You see, I had come to the classroom that day to observe a teacher. I tried finding her, and asked around, to no avail (no one ever knows where anyone else is here! you get like 5 different answers!) anyways, I decided to wait in the classroom. When I walked in all the students stood up and I was like "no, no, sit down I'm waiting for the teacher" in broken swahili and ended up making small talk with them for like 20 minutes. I found out that only 4 of them, all boys, have text books. Then I tried to find the teacher, again to no avail, and by this time 30 minutes of our 80 minute period had gone by. Finally, this student walks in with chalk, hand the chalk to me, and explains that the teacher gave it to her. So I'm thinking, the teacher is giving me chalk? The teacher wants me to teach? The student says, in broken english, that she spoke with the teacher. Ok. So I ask the students what they last learned and picked up from there. It goes pretty well for 20 minutes, and some of the students are really getting it, and then I hear this knock on the door. Oh shit, its my teacher, and she is like " I thought you were going to observe today before starting to teach" and I'm like "didn't you give a student chalk and tell them I should teach" and she says "no, the student just asked for chalk and I gave it to her" so I'm thinking great. great. now this teacher thinks I'm a pompous american who thinks I knows so much better (which isn't true in the least), but I erase the board in shame and the teacher picks up from there and I really really wanted to cry. After 30 minutes of her teaching she ends class and we leave. I'm doing all but getting on my knees and begging for forgiviness for usurping her classroom, and she is surprisingly calm and says "oh, I didn't mind at all, I was relieved that they were doing something. I did ask them how it went, and they said it was fine, you might just want to speak slower next time". What?!?!?! she didn't even care?!?!?! that was when I was like, "I can't do this, its too different, I don't understand this culture at all, what's going on!?!". It was a glass door.

Hopefully in the coming weeks/months/years I will come to understand more about how the schools here work and why they look so chaotic. Right now I just look around and am incredibly confused, but I know that there is something going on underneath that I can't see.....kind of like the new york stock exchange. Yes these cultural differences are like coming into a blue country with yellow sunglasses on, and all you see is green.

Monday, October 1, 2007

A Day in the Life

So if you are reading this you must be extremely bored at work!! If that is true, I'm happy to elaborate on the daily going-ons of a trainee in tanzania.

I wake up at like 5:40am 'cause none of the roosters can tell time and make tons and tons of proclomations of their manlyhood outside my window even though the sun is not up! I finally stagger out of my mosquito net at 6am for a quick morning bucket-bath and grab an egg and bread and some chai before walking to school with some classmates.

We greet everyone on the 20minute walk. Everyone. and people usually greet back since we stick out like sore thumbs. The kids are always weary since they haven't seen many white fold up close, but its cool, everyone is still nice. The eyes are always looking though.

School is all about learning the language with our absolutely amazing Mwelimu (teacher) Rehema. She is so patient, she let us play this game where we tell time in swahili (african time = six hours back. 10am = 4am) for like an hour and it must have been so boring for her! But she was totally patient. Anyhoo, we have chai breaks, and a woman comes to bring us food ($1.5/day) that is sooo good it dangerous, and then we study until about 4pm.

I return home to play with my little brother and procrastinate on studying and try to talk to all the tons of people that frequent the house. The children stare and laugh when I make mistakes, and the adults are so kind in teaching more of the language. We eat at 8pm and then I take another luxurious cold bucket bath, try to study swahili or chase the chickens in our yard, and finally drop to sleep at 10pm. Another beautiful day in Morogoro!

now get back to work before your boss catches you!

Swahili Greetings (Jambo ain't no way to go)

pronunciation: a like in all you can eat, i like eeek a mouse! u as in you are too kind. oo as in oh know, i drank the water

People your age or below: Habari (news? what's up). Variations include inquiring about home or the day or school: Habari za nyumbani, habari za leo, habari za shule...ect. All of which you reply with Nzuri (good) even if its the worst day ever. If its a really really bad day, you reply with Nzuri tu (just good) and people are like "who died?"

People older/repectful greets: Shikamoo (your feet in my hands literally) to which Marahaba is replied

For teenagers: Mambo ('sup) to which you reply Poa (cool) or safi (clean)

There are tons of others, most of which I just reply with nzuri, asante! (good, thanks) and only sometimes do I sound like I know what I'm talking about....

safi? now you can sound smart at all those dinner parties!

October 1st, 2007 Email Home

Dear Family and Friends,

Thanks for your letters and letting me know what's going on back home!
Its great to hear the news. I have been extremely busy here in
Morogoro training, and am currently living with a family in the suburb
of Kihonda. My T-fam (tanzanian family) consists of a Mama, Baba
(Dad), Dada (sister), Kaka (brother) and mtoto (baby brother) who
cried at first sight of me, but now we are very close. The family is
rich by tanzanian standards and extremely welcoming. So I won't bore
you with the mundane details, but suffice it to say learning swahili
demands most of my time. I learn with four other volunteers who live
in the area and then we go out and have to speak as much as possible.
It hard....but good, and I can hold a simple convo by now. Too much
else to tell in a short email, and I know y'all are busy, so I will
just list the things I got used to immediately and the the things that
will take..um...a little more time:

things i love: the people (soooo nice), the food (so good, haven't
gotten sick and gained 5 pounds?), the students (eager to learn!), My
fellow Peace Corps trainees, the scenery, the animals (like a giant
petting zoo, all the locals laugh when I try to pick the chickens up),
and so much more

things that will take getting used to: african time (literally, the
count the hours from sunrise so 10 am = 4 in the morning, and i'm in
constant fear of being 6 hours late for stuff), not knowing how to say
anything, cold bucket-baths, not having you guys (tear), the animals
that sound like they are having a party all night long (including a
cow with GI problems???) and lastly, all the animals I live with. This
includes 2 lizards that share my room, a seemingly infinite number of
ants, cockroaches, and unknown rodents, spiders in the showers, and a
chicken that likes to roost in the hallway closet. All of them are
harmless of course, save the chicken who I almost tripped over on the
way to the bathroom one morning. Suffice it to say, I tuck in my
mosquito net like its the wall of china.

Ok, running out of internet time. Write me how you are doing!!! I will
try to post pics on my blog http://hils-peacecorpsblog.blogspot.com/

Love,

Hils