Summer has finally decided to show up in my part of Africa. After freezing for the first two months I was here, Africa has finally decided to live up tot he reputation we are taught our entire lives in school. Let me tell you living without AC or electricity for that matter to power a fan is becoming a problem. I love to be cold when i sleep and I am now stuck sweating constantly and looking like an all around hot mess daily.
The term is almost this is my last full week of teaching before testing starts and i cant believe have time has flown. The fact that it is already November blows my mind. Next week I am going to be leaving here and heading up to Dar Es Salaam to hang out and meet up with some of the other and actually be in a place that has electricity and fast Internet i cant wait.
Last weekend Gretchen, Nicole, Lisa and myself decided to go to Mbeya. It was Nicole's birthday weekend and we needed to go to the immigration office to get some endorsement stamp in our passport because we are all going to be traveling soon. The immigration office in Isongole assured us that the immigration office in Mbeya would be open on Saturday. With that knowledge Gretchen and I got up in the wee hours of the morning to take the one and only bus that leaves here which happens to be at 4 am and headed out. Most of you can probably guess that true to form things did not turn out the way they should. We got to Mbeya and found the immigration office only to be told that in fact they weren't open on Saturdays and to try again some other time. I was already coming to expect this but hey, a girl can hope right?
After that Nicole and i decided we were going to go back to Isongole for the night and celebrate her birthday by making a cake there. Everything else actually worked out and the cake turned out delish.
Halloween on the other hand was mildly depressing. I have tried to explain the concept of Halloween to all the people here and no one can understand the concept. On Monday i go to school ready to give my kids candy, for what they still don't get, only to find out 3/4 of the school had been sent home because they had not paid their school fees. I waited around for an hour at school and decided it wasn't worth it and i was going home to enjoy my cookies and lay out.
In other news there is now a huge bird living in the tree right outside my window. This may not sound like big news to you, but i swear it is taunting me. It only comes out at night and when it does it is constantly making noises and flapping its wings. Last night it started something new, there are little fruits on the tree and from time to time the bird will fly from the tree to our roof, well now it has decided to bring the fruits and drop them on our tin roof which sounds like softballs hitting our roof each time. I also have to sleep with my window open because it is so hot and this thing is making noise all night , its really starting to piss me off.
I will leave you with 5 things I learned this week
1. telling African kids to pose produces some of the funniest pictures
2. African ladies can officially carry almost anything on their heads
3. I was told by one of our friends he wants his son to marry me because it would be free because American girls don't expect a bride price, but that I would still have to do all the cooking and cleaning for the rest of my life because its Africa and that's what ladies do.
4. the concept of a swim suit is lost on the people in my village
5. my name is in fact not Lucas it is Rukasi, this was a legit conversation i have had multiple times lately. People tell me after i tell them my name which I only say is Lucas because Lindsay would be too far out of their reach to pronounce that Lucas is a boys name and that my parents are crazy for naming me this and that they really meant to name me Rukasi which is a perfectly acceptable girls name .
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Teacher On Duty
As i said in my last post last week I was assigned to be teacher on duty. Up till now I am pretty sure that the headmaster, second headmaster, and academic master really haven't had much faith in us, and therefore haven't really given us any responsibilities. During midterms they did not trust us enough to monitor the tests, it was that bad. Well now that all the student teachers have left and there are now only 5 of us teachers they kind of have no choice but to trust us. Gretchen had her week as teacher on duty the week before me and was assigned to do it with Makala the second headmaster.
Let me take this time to give you a run down of the teachers at our school, it will make things a lot more clear later on.
Makala- he is the second headmaster, he is from Dar and is 27 and probably the tallest person in the district, because everyone down here is short. He comes across as kind of a baby sometimes. He loves to come over and listen to my Ipod and hates walking around after dark (personally i think he is afraid of the dark). Anyway most of the time he is quiet and soft spoken and always refers to me as madam. Things turn though when he is dealing with students, suddenly he is loud and has a really scary and semi threatening tone an LOVES to piga (beat) the students. This morning in fact he informed me that it was good to piga the students because it gets their brains working in the morning....typical.
next we have Kassim- he is the academic master and oddly enough has basically been gone for most of the term, we are still not really sure where he went, but now he has returned and is back in action. He is from around this area and therefore is short and also semi soft spoken when you hang out with him. I have never really seen him teach a class but apparently he loves history and Geograph (because they don't ever pronounce the y on anything). He is also a big fan of pigaing the students because in his mind it builds character.
Finally we have the Old Man- He is the other English teacher and he is not really old by American standards but here he is Old. He has also been gone pretty much the whole semester which is my excuse for not knowing his name. That and the fact that when he signs in in the mornings he has worse hand writing than me and i cant read his name. He is also super quiet and only likes to piga the students when it is really necessary, but he always walks around with a huge stick to intimidate the students.
Now back to my week, I was assigned to be teacher on duty with the Old Ma. From the onset he knew my thoughts on pigaing the students and told me that this week he would try to do things my way. My way included hard labor for the kids who misbehaved. He liked the idea of hard labor so Monday afternoon all the students who were in trouble got to move bricks from one side of the campus to the other, i am not really sure why they moved them but hey it was something to do. Being teacher on duty basically means you are the secretary/ disciplinarian/ monitor. When the kids want to leave campus for any reason they must ask you. You make all the announcements in the mornings at the assembly and at the end of the day you dismiss them. All week long i would have kids coming into my classes to ask if they could go home because they were "sick."
Everything ended up going great the Old Man restrained himself and did not piga the students all week because as he told one of the parents who was up at school one day and did not understand why I was against pigaing the students, "in America they are taught that hitting people is against their human rights" after he made this comment there was a silence and then they both laughed at the idea of human rights and students actually having any. Needless to say I survived being teacher on duty even though i had to be at school early and stay late, although i am fairly certain that the students thought me being teacher on duty was a joke, because when i would go around doing uniform checks they would just kind of giggle as I passed...Oh well they like me and they respect me and listen to me when I tell them to do things so I am okay with it.
Let me take this time to give you a run down of the teachers at our school, it will make things a lot more clear later on.
Makala- he is the second headmaster, he is from Dar and is 27 and probably the tallest person in the district, because everyone down here is short. He comes across as kind of a baby sometimes. He loves to come over and listen to my Ipod and hates walking around after dark (personally i think he is afraid of the dark). Anyway most of the time he is quiet and soft spoken and always refers to me as madam. Things turn though when he is dealing with students, suddenly he is loud and has a really scary and semi threatening tone an LOVES to piga (beat) the students. This morning in fact he informed me that it was good to piga the students because it gets their brains working in the morning....typical.
next we have Kassim- he is the academic master and oddly enough has basically been gone for most of the term, we are still not really sure where he went, but now he has returned and is back in action. He is from around this area and therefore is short and also semi soft spoken when you hang out with him. I have never really seen him teach a class but apparently he loves history and Geograph (because they don't ever pronounce the y on anything). He is also a big fan of pigaing the students because in his mind it builds character.
Finally we have the Old Man- He is the other English teacher and he is not really old by American standards but here he is Old. He has also been gone pretty much the whole semester which is my excuse for not knowing his name. That and the fact that when he signs in in the mornings he has worse hand writing than me and i cant read his name. He is also super quiet and only likes to piga the students when it is really necessary, but he always walks around with a huge stick to intimidate the students.
Now back to my week, I was assigned to be teacher on duty with the Old Ma. From the onset he knew my thoughts on pigaing the students and told me that this week he would try to do things my way. My way included hard labor for the kids who misbehaved. He liked the idea of hard labor so Monday afternoon all the students who were in trouble got to move bricks from one side of the campus to the other, i am not really sure why they moved them but hey it was something to do. Being teacher on duty basically means you are the secretary/ disciplinarian/ monitor. When the kids want to leave campus for any reason they must ask you. You make all the announcements in the mornings at the assembly and at the end of the day you dismiss them. All week long i would have kids coming into my classes to ask if they could go home because they were "sick."
Everything ended up going great the Old Man restrained himself and did not piga the students all week because as he told one of the parents who was up at school one day and did not understand why I was against pigaing the students, "in America they are taught that hitting people is against their human rights" after he made this comment there was a silence and then they both laughed at the idea of human rights and students actually having any. Needless to say I survived being teacher on duty even though i had to be at school early and stay late, although i am fairly certain that the students thought me being teacher on duty was a joke, because when i would go around doing uniform checks they would just kind of giggle as I passed...Oh well they like me and they respect me and listen to me when I tell them to do things so I am okay with it.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Summa Time
Here are some of the highlights since my last post
1. I successfully baked a birthday cake for my roommate for her birthday over the charcoal jicho
2. I made a whole bus of people stop so that I could get a package (selfish yes, necessary absolutely) thank you Myka
3. Sat for two hours in between two massive army men with guns on a car ride
4. Went to Malawi
5. Became obsessed with Malawi
6. Made my students write letters to my friends and family back home which turned out to be pure genius because the things they wrote are hilarious
7. Got observed teaching by my boss who then informed me that I was a ball buster in class, proving that some things never change
My time in Africa is flying by and I cant believe that I have already been here for 4 months, I feel like it was just yesterday I left home. We only have three real weeks left to our semester here and things have started to get intense. My students From II and Form III are both taking national and district exams so the preparation has been crazy. I am trying to prepare them as best as I can for their exams, knowing full well that the exams will be absolutely ridiculous and full of errors. That’s Tanzania for yah. I feel bad for the students because especially lately everyone in the community has been saying how dumb and not serious they are because of the results from the national mock examinations. Its really not fair to them because the do try hard but when the exams are written to where a native English speaker cant even understand them there is clearly a problem. It is a constant struggle everyday because I want to teach them proper English but I know at the same time the test will not be in proper English so I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. I feel like this is what teachers in America feel like always teaching to the standardized test we take, there really isn’t any freedom.
Enough of my ranting about NECTA and the ridic Tanzanian education system for now and let me give an update on life here in the village. This month it was my roommates birthday, knowing this the last time I went to Mbeya I was able to find some Betty Crocker dark chocolate cake mix because I had decided I was going to bake her a cake. It was easier said htan done. It looked all over the internet for tips on how to make your own homemade Dutch oven to bake things over charcoal. I got some really good tips and decided to go for it, it was either going to work or fail miserably. Things ended up turning out great he cake was awesome although I couldn’t find any frosting I was able to buy some Hershey’s chocolate syrup and I made a molten cake. It has given me the confidence to branch out and try to bake other things, my next project is going to be bread because you cant get bread anywhere around here.
Last weekend my friend Nicole and I decided we wanted to go to Malawi because we had a long weekend and the border is literally a quarter mile from her school. Saturday morning we had arranged a car and her second headmaster/our friend who I will refer to as Lu Dog was going to go with us to help us out. We had crossed the boarder before and had no problems and didn’t even need our passports so we really weren’t concerned. Little did we know that it was going to turn into a cluster. We spent a good hour in the immigration office in Isongole while they were trying to arrange for us to not have to pay for a visa because we were just going for the day. When things finally got figured out we were on our way. The town we went to was Chitipa which was the first major town across the boarder about 45 minutes from Isongole. We were cruising along great and then right before we got to Chitipa we get to a road block they check out or passports and tell us we must go to the immigration office. There we get our passports stamped and actually had to show our yellow fever cards, until this point no one had ever asked to see it, Lu Dog and our driver def didn’t have yellow fever cards and we were starting to get nervous but Malawians being the nice people they are let us go and even told us we could stay for up to five days because they liked us so much. When we actually got into Chitipa Lu Dog arranged for a sketchy transfer of our Shillings to Kwacha the currency they use in Malawi, then the guy who changed our money ended up being our tour guide and took us to a LEGIT, I repeat LEGIT grocery store. This may be where I fell in love with Malawi. Inside the grocery store they had a bakery, immediately when we walked in the door we were hit by the smell of fresh baked bread. Living in a place where I get bread once every 2 weeks I was in heaven. They also had rice Krispies, Glade products Lays sour cream and onion chips. We were so taken aback that this little gem of a town was so close yet no one had ever mentioned the treasures that could be found here. Another reason why I think I fell in love with Malawi was that everyone spoke English, even the gypsy street vendors. It is so weird that Malawi is one of the poorest countries yet they have a great universal health care system that many of my students have used before and they also have a fairly good school system that pushes English from a very young age. I will decimally be returning to Malawi, I really want to go to the capitol city because I hear they have some AMAZING chili peppers.
Recently I have been reviewing things that my students have allegedly already learned and need to know for their exams. One of the things that always shows up on the exams is a prompt about writing a letter. I decided what better time than now to have my students write letters to people in America. I spent time and wrote them all prompts about what they would say to the various people and what they should ask and talk about. Little did I know what would come of this. The students got really in to this project. They did rough drafts and second drafts and finally when they had written and decent letters I gave them a sheet of paper and some markers and they got to make their letter. The thigns they drew and wrote are hilarious. Some of the letters are cut and dry but other students took it to the extreme. I cant wait for my friends and family to get these letters because I know they will love them.
This week also marked the time that my Field Director/boss Ashley was coming to do her site visit. She comes to evaluate our teaching and to also check out our house and how we are doing and coping with our living situation. She arrived Wednesday night and we immediately introduced her to what it was like to walk 45 minutes up and down the mountain to get things that we need. She had been here before when she was scoping out potential schools but had been driven in a car everywhere and really did not fully understand how rough our life is. Anyway she came to school to observe me teaching my From III kids, we were reviewing for a test we were going to have the next day. After the lesson she had a sheet with questions she had to answer and comments about my lesson. The first thing out of her mouth was Jeeze you are really a ball buster in class, you don’t take any crap from any of your students. Some things never change, but my students laugh at me everyday so I know they like me and we have a good time outside of class, which is what counts right?
This week the school has finally decided to give me some responsibility (big mistake) and made me teacher on duty. Basically what it means is I have to get to school super early and stay super late and when any of the students want to leave the must come ask me. Also I am in charge of all the discipline matters which means the beatings of the students. Which until this point I haven’t really talked about. IN Tanzania it is totes fine and expected for the teachers to hit the students with sticks and various other things they find. Girls normally get three swats on the palms while boys have to lay on the ground and get three swats on the lower back area. Students can get hit for any number of reasons and it never ceases to amaze me how the nicest of our teachers can suddenly turn on the students and start chasing them with sticks. Anyway I digress basically I told the other teachers that this week instead of hitting the kids they will do hard labor…We will see how that goes, I will let you know at the end of the week. For now this is a long enough post
Until next time..
1. I successfully baked a birthday cake for my roommate for her birthday over the charcoal jicho
2. I made a whole bus of people stop so that I could get a package (selfish yes, necessary absolutely) thank you Myka
3. Sat for two hours in between two massive army men with guns on a car ride
4. Went to Malawi
5. Became obsessed with Malawi
6. Made my students write letters to my friends and family back home which turned out to be pure genius because the things they wrote are hilarious
7. Got observed teaching by my boss who then informed me that I was a ball buster in class, proving that some things never change
My time in Africa is flying by and I cant believe that I have already been here for 4 months, I feel like it was just yesterday I left home. We only have three real weeks left to our semester here and things have started to get intense. My students From II and Form III are both taking national and district exams so the preparation has been crazy. I am trying to prepare them as best as I can for their exams, knowing full well that the exams will be absolutely ridiculous and full of errors. That’s Tanzania for yah. I feel bad for the students because especially lately everyone in the community has been saying how dumb and not serious they are because of the results from the national mock examinations. Its really not fair to them because the do try hard but when the exams are written to where a native English speaker cant even understand them there is clearly a problem. It is a constant struggle everyday because I want to teach them proper English but I know at the same time the test will not be in proper English so I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. I feel like this is what teachers in America feel like always teaching to the standardized test we take, there really isn’t any freedom.
Enough of my ranting about NECTA and the ridic Tanzanian education system for now and let me give an update on life here in the village. This month it was my roommates birthday, knowing this the last time I went to Mbeya I was able to find some Betty Crocker dark chocolate cake mix because I had decided I was going to bake her a cake. It was easier said htan done. It looked all over the internet for tips on how to make your own homemade Dutch oven to bake things over charcoal. I got some really good tips and decided to go for it, it was either going to work or fail miserably. Things ended up turning out great he cake was awesome although I couldn’t find any frosting I was able to buy some Hershey’s chocolate syrup and I made a molten cake. It has given me the confidence to branch out and try to bake other things, my next project is going to be bread because you cant get bread anywhere around here.
Last weekend my friend Nicole and I decided we wanted to go to Malawi because we had a long weekend and the border is literally a quarter mile from her school. Saturday morning we had arranged a car and her second headmaster/our friend who I will refer to as Lu Dog was going to go with us to help us out. We had crossed the boarder before and had no problems and didn’t even need our passports so we really weren’t concerned. Little did we know that it was going to turn into a cluster. We spent a good hour in the immigration office in Isongole while they were trying to arrange for us to not have to pay for a visa because we were just going for the day. When things finally got figured out we were on our way. The town we went to was Chitipa which was the first major town across the boarder about 45 minutes from Isongole. We were cruising along great and then right before we got to Chitipa we get to a road block they check out or passports and tell us we must go to the immigration office. There we get our passports stamped and actually had to show our yellow fever cards, until this point no one had ever asked to see it, Lu Dog and our driver def didn’t have yellow fever cards and we were starting to get nervous but Malawians being the nice people they are let us go and even told us we could stay for up to five days because they liked us so much. When we actually got into Chitipa Lu Dog arranged for a sketchy transfer of our Shillings to Kwacha the currency they use in Malawi, then the guy who changed our money ended up being our tour guide and took us to a LEGIT, I repeat LEGIT grocery store. This may be where I fell in love with Malawi. Inside the grocery store they had a bakery, immediately when we walked in the door we were hit by the smell of fresh baked bread. Living in a place where I get bread once every 2 weeks I was in heaven. They also had rice Krispies, Glade products Lays sour cream and onion chips. We were so taken aback that this little gem of a town was so close yet no one had ever mentioned the treasures that could be found here. Another reason why I think I fell in love with Malawi was that everyone spoke English, even the gypsy street vendors. It is so weird that Malawi is one of the poorest countries yet they have a great universal health care system that many of my students have used before and they also have a fairly good school system that pushes English from a very young age. I will decimally be returning to Malawi, I really want to go to the capitol city because I hear they have some AMAZING chili peppers.
Recently I have been reviewing things that my students have allegedly already learned and need to know for their exams. One of the things that always shows up on the exams is a prompt about writing a letter. I decided what better time than now to have my students write letters to people in America. I spent time and wrote them all prompts about what they would say to the various people and what they should ask and talk about. Little did I know what would come of this. The students got really in to this project. They did rough drafts and second drafts and finally when they had written and decent letters I gave them a sheet of paper and some markers and they got to make their letter. The thigns they drew and wrote are hilarious. Some of the letters are cut and dry but other students took it to the extreme. I cant wait for my friends and family to get these letters because I know they will love them.
This week also marked the time that my Field Director/boss Ashley was coming to do her site visit. She comes to evaluate our teaching and to also check out our house and how we are doing and coping with our living situation. She arrived Wednesday night and we immediately introduced her to what it was like to walk 45 minutes up and down the mountain to get things that we need. She had been here before when she was scoping out potential schools but had been driven in a car everywhere and really did not fully understand how rough our life is. Anyway she came to school to observe me teaching my From III kids, we were reviewing for a test we were going to have the next day. After the lesson she had a sheet with questions she had to answer and comments about my lesson. The first thing out of her mouth was Jeeze you are really a ball buster in class, you don’t take any crap from any of your students. Some things never change, but my students laugh at me everyday so I know they like me and we have a good time outside of class, which is what counts right?
This week the school has finally decided to give me some responsibility (big mistake) and made me teacher on duty. Basically what it means is I have to get to school super early and stay super late and when any of the students want to leave the must come ask me. Also I am in charge of all the discipline matters which means the beatings of the students. Which until this point I haven’t really talked about. IN Tanzania it is totes fine and expected for the teachers to hit the students with sticks and various other things they find. Girls normally get three swats on the palms while boys have to lay on the ground and get three swats on the lower back area. Students can get hit for any number of reasons and it never ceases to amaze me how the nicest of our teachers can suddenly turn on the students and start chasing them with sticks. Anyway I digress basically I told the other teachers that this week instead of hitting the kids they will do hard labor…We will see how that goes, I will let you know at the end of the week. For now this is a long enough post
Until next time..
Thursday, October 6, 2011
African Hospital Adventure
The adventure continues here in my little slice of the middle of nowhere. Last week the safari ended well with Iringa like I said in my last post becoming my new obsession due to all of the white people and the availability of things like milkshakes and lattes. We spent one night in Mbeya at a new hotel that for 40,000 Shillings a night (roughly 25 dollars ) we got a massive room with two couches and two massive African chairs a full size fridge and freezer and a connecting room with a king size bed and most importantly a TV that had American channels. I got to watch Teen Mom and Ellen as well as CNN, my roommate didn’t much care about that but I was once again in heaven. it’s the small things in life right?
Coming back from the safari and all the luxuries we had for the week was a little rough, and to make it worse this week at school all of the student teachers had left so now there are only 5 teachers for the close to 400 students . This week also happens to be form 4 testing, which is the two week long process where the form 4 take subject tests to determine if they can continue on to further education. I thought testing in America was intense little did I know. When I showed up to school Monday morning I was greeted by two army men in full fatigues with their semi automatic weapons loaded and hanging on their arms. They never leave the school or the tests for the next two weeks. They sleep in our headmasters office to make sure no one tries to “sabotage” the tests as my headmaster said. Needles to say everyone has been really busy this week and I have been left alone in the staff room all day with just my new rifiki the skeleton to keep me company.
Now to where the adventure starts yet again. When we were coming back from our safari I decided to stay with two of the other volunteers in Isongole, while my roommate went home. When I got home Sunday she was in BAADDD shape. Monday morning they took her down to our hospital in Isoko where she proceeded to know more than some of the doctors and was advising the doctors on what kind of tests she needed. Eventually they told her she had Dysentery (you might be wondering who actually gets Dysentery anymore, apparently our small piece of “paradise” is a breeding ground for the amebas, I have decided that my occasional intake of alcohol kills all the amebas…at least I hope) They gave her some medicine and we thought that would be the end of that. Little did we know how much worse it could get. Yesterday I was at school reading and trying tog et a tan because Wednesdays are pointless and I only teach for 40 minutes in the afternoon, when she called saying she needed me to come home because she was feeling really bad. I rushed home and when I saw her she looked like a hot mess, and we made the decision that we needed to go to Mbeya the “big city” to a real hospital to get checked out. Being in Africa and in our remote place getting anywhere was bound to be difficult. I called our boss in Dar, Ashley and had her work her connection while we tried to make something happen on our end. This all started at 9 A.M btw. Finally at 11:30 Ashley called to say that a car had left a village an hour and a half away and would be there as fast as they could. In the meantime our headmaster had come over and provided me with his version of why she was sick and what we should do. He informed me that she had gotten Dystenary from the change in climate he was sure of it and that when one of us is sick it is as though he is sick…he is a very philosophical man let me tell yah. He then informed us that we needed to go to the hospital in Isoko to wait for the ride, much against our protests.
When we got to the hospital in Isoko after waiting 45 minutes for a car to come up the mountain, they proceeded to tell Gretchen that (this is slightly vulgar but they said this in all seriousness keep it in mind) that her diarrhea was her body crying, just from another end. I could not contain myself at this comment and had to excuse myself.. Also I forgot to mention there is a white German doctor who is currently working at the hospital. Before you get the wrong picture in your mind like I did, let me tell you he is an old creepy dude who kind of reminds me of that creepy uncle in movies. I was hoping for the young cute doctors without boarders type, but of course this is what I get. Anyway he also comes in to check on her and proceeds to tell us his life story and about the “predicament” he is in with his 30 year old African lover that he cant take back to Germany because the people there just wouldn’t understand. The entire time he is telling me this I am confused as to what it has to do with anything, but that has become a typical thought. Finally after 4 hours of being held hostage at this hospital while the doctor was writing a letter to the doctors at the hospital in Mbeya we are allowed to leave. It is now 4 and we are off to Mbeya in the sweet African style ambulance (a land cruiser with a bull horn siren on top and a flashing red light, which we got to ride with on the entire time) Little did we know that we had some stops to make on the way to Mbeya.
One stop left us talking to the district education officer, a LARGE woman who we met the first day we came down here, who we also thought hated us, after yesterday I will never think that again. One of the first things she said to me was Sara (she thinks its my name, I don’t correct her because I am semi scared of her because of her size) you have very nice legs. It was a creepy comment yes, but hey it was a compliment none the less. During this time she is trying to force feed my roommate uji, which is a porridge like liquid. The education officer then gets even creepier by sitting and staring at me and repeatedly telling me that I am beautiful and being at Kafule has made me even more beautiful and she wished she could have a picture of me to keep. At that I was sufficiently creeped out and ready to get away from her. At this point it is 6:30 and we were still not at the hospital and my poor roommate was not doing so well. After this stop we picked up 10 people who got to cram in the back of the ambulance with me and we were off for the final leg of the trip to the hospital. Finally at 10 pm we arrived at the legit hospital outside of Mbeya city. We were told that she would be staying in a VIP room and had no idea what that meant. When we walked in we found out, this room is massive, pretty much the size of our house. I even got my own bed and didn’t have to sleep on a couch or chair like I was picturing. All of it only costs 30,000 shillings a day. Speaking of costs there was a chart in one of the doctors rooms that we talked to and at this hospital you can get a tooth pulled for three dollars, have a minor surgery for ten dollars and get an amputation for 25 dollars. Would I ever have any of those things done here…absolutely not but it was funny to see the prices for these things. So we are still sitting ehre waiting to find out the results of all of her tests. This morning we have been greeted by so many people who want to know how Gretchen is doing. It is nice to know that everyone is so concerned and making sure we are well taken care of, that’s one thing you have to love about the Tanzanian people. That’s all for now who knows how long we will be here, but so far I cant complain. We have electricity, running water and I have an extremely comfortable bed. I hope that i enver have a real emergency here in Tanzania because I for sure would not be able to make it
Coming back from the safari and all the luxuries we had for the week was a little rough, and to make it worse this week at school all of the student teachers had left so now there are only 5 teachers for the close to 400 students . This week also happens to be form 4 testing, which is the two week long process where the form 4 take subject tests to determine if they can continue on to further education. I thought testing in America was intense little did I know. When I showed up to school Monday morning I was greeted by two army men in full fatigues with their semi automatic weapons loaded and hanging on their arms. They never leave the school or the tests for the next two weeks. They sleep in our headmasters office to make sure no one tries to “sabotage” the tests as my headmaster said. Needles to say everyone has been really busy this week and I have been left alone in the staff room all day with just my new rifiki the skeleton to keep me company.
Now to where the adventure starts yet again. When we were coming back from our safari I decided to stay with two of the other volunteers in Isongole, while my roommate went home. When I got home Sunday she was in BAADDD shape. Monday morning they took her down to our hospital in Isoko where she proceeded to know more than some of the doctors and was advising the doctors on what kind of tests she needed. Eventually they told her she had Dysentery (you might be wondering who actually gets Dysentery anymore, apparently our small piece of “paradise” is a breeding ground for the amebas, I have decided that my occasional intake of alcohol kills all the amebas…at least I hope) They gave her some medicine and we thought that would be the end of that. Little did we know how much worse it could get. Yesterday I was at school reading and trying tog et a tan because Wednesdays are pointless and I only teach for 40 minutes in the afternoon, when she called saying she needed me to come home because she was feeling really bad. I rushed home and when I saw her she looked like a hot mess, and we made the decision that we needed to go to Mbeya the “big city” to a real hospital to get checked out. Being in Africa and in our remote place getting anywhere was bound to be difficult. I called our boss in Dar, Ashley and had her work her connection while we tried to make something happen on our end. This all started at 9 A.M btw. Finally at 11:30 Ashley called to say that a car had left a village an hour and a half away and would be there as fast as they could. In the meantime our headmaster had come over and provided me with his version of why she was sick and what we should do. He informed me that she had gotten Dystenary from the change in climate he was sure of it and that when one of us is sick it is as though he is sick…he is a very philosophical man let me tell yah. He then informed us that we needed to go to the hospital in Isoko to wait for the ride, much against our protests.
When we got to the hospital in Isoko after waiting 45 minutes for a car to come up the mountain, they proceeded to tell Gretchen that (this is slightly vulgar but they said this in all seriousness keep it in mind) that her diarrhea was her body crying, just from another end. I could not contain myself at this comment and had to excuse myself.. Also I forgot to mention there is a white German doctor who is currently working at the hospital. Before you get the wrong picture in your mind like I did, let me tell you he is an old creepy dude who kind of reminds me of that creepy uncle in movies. I was hoping for the young cute doctors without boarders type, but of course this is what I get. Anyway he also comes in to check on her and proceeds to tell us his life story and about the “predicament” he is in with his 30 year old African lover that he cant take back to Germany because the people there just wouldn’t understand. The entire time he is telling me this I am confused as to what it has to do with anything, but that has become a typical thought. Finally after 4 hours of being held hostage at this hospital while the doctor was writing a letter to the doctors at the hospital in Mbeya we are allowed to leave. It is now 4 and we are off to Mbeya in the sweet African style ambulance (a land cruiser with a bull horn siren on top and a flashing red light, which we got to ride with on the entire time) Little did we know that we had some stops to make on the way to Mbeya.
One stop left us talking to the district education officer, a LARGE woman who we met the first day we came down here, who we also thought hated us, after yesterday I will never think that again. One of the first things she said to me was Sara (she thinks its my name, I don’t correct her because I am semi scared of her because of her size) you have very nice legs. It was a creepy comment yes, but hey it was a compliment none the less. During this time she is trying to force feed my roommate uji, which is a porridge like liquid. The education officer then gets even creepier by sitting and staring at me and repeatedly telling me that I am beautiful and being at Kafule has made me even more beautiful and she wished she could have a picture of me to keep. At that I was sufficiently creeped out and ready to get away from her. At this point it is 6:30 and we were still not at the hospital and my poor roommate was not doing so well. After this stop we picked up 10 people who got to cram in the back of the ambulance with me and we were off for the final leg of the trip to the hospital. Finally at 10 pm we arrived at the legit hospital outside of Mbeya city. We were told that she would be staying in a VIP room and had no idea what that meant. When we walked in we found out, this room is massive, pretty much the size of our house. I even got my own bed and didn’t have to sleep on a couch or chair like I was picturing. All of it only costs 30,000 shillings a day. Speaking of costs there was a chart in one of the doctors rooms that we talked to and at this hospital you can get a tooth pulled for three dollars, have a minor surgery for ten dollars and get an amputation for 25 dollars. Would I ever have any of those things done here…absolutely not but it was funny to see the prices for these things. So we are still sitting ehre waiting to find out the results of all of her tests. This morning we have been greeted by so many people who want to know how Gretchen is doing. It is nice to know that everyone is so concerned and making sure we are well taken care of, that’s one thing you have to love about the Tanzanian people. That’s all for now who knows how long we will be here, but so far I cant complain. We have electricity, running water and I have an extremely comfortable bed. I hope that i enver have a real emergency here in Tanzania because I for sure would not be able to make it
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Safari time
True friendsThis week has been full of new experiences, first we had the send off then graduation and finally a safari. Let me start at the beginning with the send off.
Send off’s are one of the big things in Tanzania for girls, right behind the actual marriage ceremony. We have had student teachers at our school since the first week of August and one of them on her second day gave us this invitation for a send off. At that point we had no clue what the chicks name was but we felt since it was our first invitation we had to accept. (fun fact anytime you are invited to something here ie graduation party, wedding or send off you have to pay to go) We paid our money and kind of forgot about the whole thing. Well this week rolls around and the girl is reminding us about the party, we are still under the impression that it is for her, little did we know. Our second head master Makla was going to accompany us to the party because he just loves to dance and informed us there would be a lot of dancing. When we got to the party of course the electricity in Isoko was off so that party was running late, when it finally started we realized that the party was not in fact for our co-worker but for what I assume was her sister I am still really confused by it. These two girls walk in all done up in gaudy orange prom dresses, not smiling, they actually looked all around pissed to be there. During all of this there is screaming and waving and dancing while an MC is announcing everything. Then they started passing out drinks to all of the guests (we were sitting on benches btw) and everyone starts dancing. For the first time I ate rice with my hands (super difficult) because of course there was food, because its not an African party unless there is a massive amount of food. At one point it was time to give the gifts so everyone forms a conga line like dancing thing and dances up to give the bride and groom (who apparently its customary for them to show up late?) When my roommate and I got up there our teacher friend stops us and they stop the music and want us to make a speech in Swahili which was not about to happen, so we stood their awkwardly for a good three minutes until they realized we weren’t going to say anything and they turned the music back on. The party was hoppin until we left at almost 11, I am still so confused as to who the girl was but all I know is she looked super pissed, but she did have 2 mzungu girls at her send off and we are on video plenty of times to prove it because I forgot to mention that they had a guy walking around with a spot light and video camera filming the entire spectacle.
Graduation was the next big thing on Friday. Like I said before we had been having staff meetings to talk about graduation for the past month but they were always in Swahili so I never really paid attention. Turns out my roommate and I were put on the decoration committee (such a bad choice on their part, clearly they had no idea I am horrible at making things). So Thursday we were informed that we had to be at school at 7 am Friday morning to prepare for graduation which was to start at 10. We got there promptly at 7 to find no one on our committee there naturally, so we waited around for an hour before they showed up and the decorating began. They brought out a box full of toilet paper, primary colored fabric, a weird collection of balloons, and my favorite gifti paper (pronounced jifti). Then they told us we would be decorating what basically looks like a lean to behind the school. I have added a pic of what the finished product looked like and let me just say I am proud of our work. While we were decorating the DJ got there and started bumping bongo flava and Rihana music at 8 am and the kids promptly started dancing. This kids/the people of Tanzania in general LOVE to dance. They also have some interesting dance moves, I have also added a pic of some of the form 4’s dancing. Like I said graduation was supposed to start at 10 but the guest of honor the MP for our district was almost 4 hours late so graduation really didn’t start until almost 2. Graduation here is fun, like I said there were skits and dances and raps that he kids preformed, that was the fun part. The it went into a 2 hour speech period where the headmaster and then the MP keept talking and talking and not really about the students at all. I wasn’t really paying much attention until all the sudden the MP told us to stand up and singled us out in front of everyone and again asked us to say something to the crowd, again we panicked and just stood there awkwardly and waved. That has become a theme of this experience, me feeling super awkward and singled out and not knowing what to do except smile and wave. Graduation finally ended at 6, when we were told to go and eat yet another feast. We thought it would be for everyone, turns out it was on for the special guests and teachers. There was so much food, they had rice, pilau, chicken, beef, cabbage, and banana. There was supposed to be a dance party after but it got really weird when it was just the creepy teachers and old men dancing so we peaced out to a party we were invited to. Mr. Mbughi the post man/ our friend/ the house where we drink typhoid water, houses 6 girls who come from far away to go to school and two of them were graduating so they decided to have a party. We thought there would be a lot of adults there but when we showed up it was all kids and by kids I mean there were some small kids there getting down as well as the form 4’s. Basically we sat there for 3 hours acting like chaperones and making sure the kids did not get to close to the TV or sound system, or cause too much dust to rise because of course it was an outside event.
Now to the fun part the safari. Wednesday we learned that we would get a break from school this week so we immediately decided it was time to get the heck out of the small village and see some animals because I have been in Africa for 4 months and yet to see any good animals. We decided to come to Iringa and arrange a safari to Ruaha National Park. It is one of the largest parks in Tanzania and has the second largest elephant population in all of Africa, needless to say I was super excited. We got to Iringa (which I am now obsessed with) After leaving our village at 4 am and taking a semi and then a bus for 8 hours on Sunday. Monday morning we went to a safari company and told them what we wanted and they said in one hour we could leave and go. We had a massive Land Rover with a fridge inside all to ourselves and an awesome guide/driver Nolesco. We got to the park at like 12 and in being in there 5 minutes had already seen 8 elephants. Right now it is the dry season and Ruaha, unlike the parks in the Northern circuit have a lot of bush, so it can be hard to see animals. We ended up seeing a pride of lions sleeping, so many zebras, hippos, crocodiles, elephants, a cheetah, impala’s, warthogs, and waterbucks the first day. It was so nice having the car to ourselves and even nicer that Ruaha is a less popular park and therefore it felt like we were alone there because there weren’t like 5 cars around one animal. That night we stayed the night in the park at the government bandas. The bandas are basically like a metal hut they were nice, but before we went to bed our guide told us to be aware at night of the hippos because they come out of the water in search of for and kill more animals than lions. That was a fun thought right before we went to bed especially knowing that to get to the bathroom it was a good 3 minute walk from our sleeping area. All night long you could hear noises from the animals it was amazing. The second day we got up early and headed out and spotted a cheetah, our guide was so cool and even went off the path to try and get close to him for a pic but he was to fast for us. We saw more animals just hanging out and as we were about to leave in the later afternoon all the sudden Nolesco stopped and we were literally 50 feet from a huge male lion just lounging under a tree, it was amazing to be that close to a grown lion in the wild. I will def be going on another safari as soon as I possibly can because being that close to the animals and just driving around in the amazing landscape is incredible. There were many times during the drive that I was left thinking, this is really my life right now I am so lucky.
We are now back in Iringa town and are planning to leave to tomorrow to start the two day trip back. Iringa town is awesome so many expats. At this point in the trip I love to be able to talk to other white people and just hangout which is what Iringa provides. I have even been able to have a milkshake AND a real latte (it’s the small things in life that I long for). Also another reason why I like Iringa is they have a huge Masai population. As I have said before I am OBSESSED with Masai people they are so cool. SO far I have bought a pair of leather sandals and Masai cloth from legit Masai people on the street. Iringa has soooo many great gift’s, I cant wait to bring them back for everyone!!!
As I promised here are just a few of the pics of my life lately, I hope you enjoy! Sorry they are in no special order.
Half of one of my form 2 classes, the little guy in front Musa is one of my favs
My skirt after it got caught in the bike and we had to cut it
At a soccer game some of my girls, and random gypsy mountain children
Town/ the used shoe dealer who always tries to get me to buy air Jordans
This is what i walk 45 minutes to get to.. classy right?
Just a typical passenger on the bus
A giraffe standing perfectly in the hole of a tree, it was perfect timing
Awkward single pic of me with some elephants in the background
The lion that we stumbled on when we were leaving the park, it was so close
Our sweet safari ride with a fridge
Sunset from our campsite 
Some elephants that we saw right when we got into the park 
Part of the dance party while we waited for graduation to start 
In refrence to my last post, there is nothing gay about this at all, just to boys hanging out 
Some of my form 2 girls just throwin up the delta after i taught them top tri delt rushee 
Mr. Mbughi and I at the graduation party
At the start of the Safari
gypsy mountain children hanging out at my house
how we decorated for graduationMonday, September 19, 2011
Pole Sana
I am sorry it has taken me so long to update but things around here have been pretty crazy. From now on I should be better about updating because I finally received my solar panel from my amazing parents!!!! It came just in time because my lovely area of the globe is entering the hot dry season, which for me means that the 45 minute walk down the mountain to warm beer and electricity wont be happening very often because the town relies on hydroelectricity and the electricity is constantly being cut. Getting my solar panel was another story that again involved me having horrible transportation problems. Things would be to simple if the postman were to deliver my packages to me but no instead I must go to him. He of course does not work on the weekends so I had to miss school one day to go to him. On the way there I got to ride on the fancy big charter bus that has started running from my village to Mbeya, but on the way there the bus got three flat tires and we were waiting for three hours before I befriended the conductor, Charles and started walking. An hour later I told Charles the next motorcycle that drives by get them to take me where I want to go I will pay good money. I have really become way to lax when it comes to transportation, getting on the back of random peoples motorcycles in the hopes that they take me where I want to go, but hey its Africa and everyone can be bought for the right price.
In other news when I was walking through a clothing market two weekends ago out of the corner of my eye I spotted what looked like a razorback so of course I immediately bolted towards it and low and behold it was a XXL razorback football jersey with the tags still on it, naturally I bargained with the man and that lovely piece of apparel became mine for the low low price of 8 dollars. I will be wearing it every game day from now one. It is basically like a dress on me but I don’t even care.
At school the big news this week is it is graduation for the form 4s on Friday. Graduation from secondary school is a big deal here because the majority of the kids do not get accepted to go on to further studies. What I did not realize is that it is a production. The whole school is involved. There are raps, skits, songs and dancing. They go all out. Apparently I should have known all of this already because for the past month we have been having staff meetings every Friday but of course the meetings are all in Swahili (even though everyone in the room speaks English) so I take that time to work on my brick breaker score. There is also going to be a feast with anything I could want according to my second headmaster. When I asked if there would be queso and salsa he just looked at me baffled, where upon I informed him that clearly they were not having everything. Graduation is also a day long event it starts at 10 and goes to 4 ish, then my roommate and I have been invited to an after party for one of the girls where there is going to be more food and dancing until whenever the petroli runs out. I am pretty excited for this and cant wait tog et some great videos and pics of the kids to show everyone the first chance I get with good internet, because it is a spectacle.
Lets see the pagan rituals have continued, we went again this past weekend and we learnd that this time there were two different groups drumming adnhtat it was a competition that ended with all these kids charging into the ring. Basically this whole "celebration" as they like to call it revolves around drumming and the groups taking breaks to go out into the banana tree fields to drink pombe (aka home brew, the name of one translates from Swahili to mean lion tears, so you know it must be good) Needless to say it’s a great time to people watch.
this week we have been invited to a send off for one of the student teachers at our school. Again these things involve massive amounts of food and dancing. I already have my outfit picked out because apparently people go all out at these things , and I have to keep up with all the Africans. Nobody wants to be that culturally insensitive mzungu. I will def be providing a detailed description on Saturday when I update with how graduation went.
So here is a list of a few things I have learned since last time
1. Found out that for the past two months we have been drinking typhoid water at multiple people’s houses repeatedly, that was a fun thing to learn, yet it helped to explain many things. I probably now have multiple parasites living in me but hey its Africa.
2. Thought I had some random skin disease (potential leprosy) on my arms because my skin was turning different colors, only to find out that in fact it was not a disease just dead skin cells that were collecting because I take a shower with a bucket. That was fun to learn, and furthers my belief that I really never get clean.
3. Pig fat is a totally acceptable as a dinner course. At the house of the postman of the village (where we have been drinking the typhoid water) they always serve us pig fat but call it meat. These are HUGE chunks of straight fat and we can never tell because it is always super dark by the time we eat. You never know what you’re going to get until you bite into it. I try to keep it off my plate but he always notices and throws huge piece onto my plate.
4. Because I wear knee length skirts I am risquÈ. We were having a talk with the girls last Friday and one of the things they brought up was skirt length for the girls and their uniform and all the sudden one of the teachers was pointing to me and my skirt and repeatedly saying hapana (no), awesome.
5. Kande in Tanzania totes different than candy in America. Kande here is basically a combination of beans and the maize that we feed cows in America. It is not a good combo. I go really excited when the kids told me that for lunch instead of the typical ugali and beans that we were having kande, but nope instead it was food that in America would be fit for the livestock. It was not a good experience (although I did learn that a banana leaf makes a great spoon). Now all the kids laugh at me when I ask wahts for lunch and I say sipendi kande sipendi kande (basically I do not like I do not like)
6. I am obsessed with bongo flava. Look it up, the music videos will crack you up
Until next time
In other news when I was walking through a clothing market two weekends ago out of the corner of my eye I spotted what looked like a razorback so of course I immediately bolted towards it and low and behold it was a XXL razorback football jersey with the tags still on it, naturally I bargained with the man and that lovely piece of apparel became mine for the low low price of 8 dollars. I will be wearing it every game day from now one. It is basically like a dress on me but I don’t even care.
At school the big news this week is it is graduation for the form 4s on Friday. Graduation from secondary school is a big deal here because the majority of the kids do not get accepted to go on to further studies. What I did not realize is that it is a production. The whole school is involved. There are raps, skits, songs and dancing. They go all out. Apparently I should have known all of this already because for the past month we have been having staff meetings every Friday but of course the meetings are all in Swahili (even though everyone in the room speaks English) so I take that time to work on my brick breaker score. There is also going to be a feast with anything I could want according to my second headmaster. When I asked if there would be queso and salsa he just looked at me baffled, where upon I informed him that clearly they were not having everything. Graduation is also a day long event it starts at 10 and goes to 4 ish, then my roommate and I have been invited to an after party for one of the girls where there is going to be more food and dancing until whenever the petroli runs out. I am pretty excited for this and cant wait tog et some great videos and pics of the kids to show everyone the first chance I get with good internet, because it is a spectacle.
Lets see the pagan rituals have continued, we went again this past weekend and we learnd that this time there were two different groups drumming adnhtat it was a competition that ended with all these kids charging into the ring. Basically this whole "celebration" as they like to call it revolves around drumming and the groups taking breaks to go out into the banana tree fields to drink pombe (aka home brew, the name of one translates from Swahili to mean lion tears, so you know it must be good) Needless to say it’s a great time to people watch.
this week we have been invited to a send off for one of the student teachers at our school. Again these things involve massive amounts of food and dancing. I already have my outfit picked out because apparently people go all out at these things , and I have to keep up with all the Africans. Nobody wants to be that culturally insensitive mzungu. I will def be providing a detailed description on Saturday when I update with how graduation went.
So here is a list of a few things I have learned since last time
1. Found out that for the past two months we have been drinking typhoid water at multiple people’s houses repeatedly, that was a fun thing to learn, yet it helped to explain many things. I probably now have multiple parasites living in me but hey its Africa.
2. Thought I had some random skin disease (potential leprosy) on my arms because my skin was turning different colors, only to find out that in fact it was not a disease just dead skin cells that were collecting because I take a shower with a bucket. That was fun to learn, and furthers my belief that I really never get clean.
3. Pig fat is a totally acceptable as a dinner course. At the house of the postman of the village (where we have been drinking the typhoid water) they always serve us pig fat but call it meat. These are HUGE chunks of straight fat and we can never tell because it is always super dark by the time we eat. You never know what you’re going to get until you bite into it. I try to keep it off my plate but he always notices and throws huge piece onto my plate.
4. Because I wear knee length skirts I am risquÈ. We were having a talk with the girls last Friday and one of the things they brought up was skirt length for the girls and their uniform and all the sudden one of the teachers was pointing to me and my skirt and repeatedly saying hapana (no), awesome.
5. Kande in Tanzania totes different than candy in America. Kande here is basically a combination of beans and the maize that we feed cows in America. It is not a good combo. I go really excited when the kids told me that for lunch instead of the typical ugali and beans that we were having kande, but nope instead it was food that in America would be fit for the livestock. It was not a good experience (although I did learn that a banana leaf makes a great spoon). Now all the kids laugh at me when I ask wahts for lunch and I say sipendi kande sipendi kande (basically I do not like I do not like)
6. I am obsessed with bongo flava. Look it up, the music videos will crack you up
Until next time
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Things I learned this week:
1. Never underestimate how good having truly clean hair can make you feel.
2. You can meet some great characters riding in the front of a lorry (semi) for 5 hours.
3. cooked rice in a plastic bag is totally acceptable take out
4. plastic bags are called Rambos, after Rambo (some of them even have his picture on them) but pronounced lambos. I had been super confused by the whole concept until this week.
5. two grown men walking down the street holding hands...nothing gay about it, they are just friends, guys hold hands all the time here. I love it.
6. Calendars make perfect wall decorations. Pretty much all the houses/ establishments here have calendars covering the walls the most curious things about it is that none of them seem to be from 2011. Most are from 2005 and before but some go way back to the 80's, I still do not get why they think its cool.
7. showing dead bodies on TV is totes fine.
September has arrived and I am struck by how fast time is actually flying here. Yes some days I still end up questioning why they heck i got myself into this situation but more often than not the days present me with experiences that I know I will cherish the rest of my life. I still miss America and all my friends and family way to much but I am learning to deal/manage here in Tanzania. Case in point this past weekend i was trying to go to Mbeya to eat some pizza, take a warm shower with running water, put pictures on my blog, and watch TV. Of those things i only accomplished two of the things, and it took me ten hours to get there and ten hours to get home. Mbeya is only 100 kilometers from my town there is no reason it should have taken that long, but hey I had an experience. I got to meet the guy who drives the minibus, Georges (we are real tight now) family, AND i got to ride in the front of a lorry with two Tanzanian nuns who spoke Italian, i mean really where else can I have an experience like that?
This week was also the EID holiday, which is the end of Ramadan. In our village it is about 99% Christian but apparently it is a national holiday, so Monday at 3 pm our headmaster informed us that we may not have school the next two days depending on if the moon rises. That is how things work here you find out the day before if there will be a holiday. Incidentally i was also informed this week that the midterm break our students are supposed to get in two weeks we actually are not going to be getting until October...Awesome, but that's a different story. Anyway the moon did not rise Monday night and we went to school Tuesday to find only 40 students it was pretty much a worthless week.
The beginning of September also marks the end of the harvesting in Isoko which means a big celebration. Today I went to the celebration that entailed traditional dancing and drumming. It was really cool to see all the dancing and drumming but then one of the students who was standing by me informed me of the history of the event. He told me that all of the people who were doing the drumming were drunkards and all the ever did was bang their drums and drink all day. Tonight they will be drinking all night and the party will continue until tomorrow. The celebration is supposed to happen every Saturday until October, I guess it is their version of Oktoberfest? Oh and he also told me it was a pegan ritual, to go in and do the dancing, after my roommate was drug into the dancing area. Gotta love it.
Oh yeah and in honor of the first razorback game this weekend i taught my kids how to call the hogs..It was a sight that of course i got on video and they will be made to repeat every game week.
1. Never underestimate how good having truly clean hair can make you feel.
2. You can meet some great characters riding in the front of a lorry (semi) for 5 hours.
3. cooked rice in a plastic bag is totally acceptable take out
4. plastic bags are called Rambos, after Rambo (some of them even have his picture on them) but pronounced lambos. I had been super confused by the whole concept until this week.
5. two grown men walking down the street holding hands...nothing gay about it, they are just friends, guys hold hands all the time here. I love it.
6. Calendars make perfect wall decorations. Pretty much all the houses/ establishments here have calendars covering the walls the most curious things about it is that none of them seem to be from 2011. Most are from 2005 and before but some go way back to the 80's, I still do not get why they think its cool.
7. showing dead bodies on TV is totes fine.
September has arrived and I am struck by how fast time is actually flying here. Yes some days I still end up questioning why they heck i got myself into this situation but more often than not the days present me with experiences that I know I will cherish the rest of my life. I still miss America and all my friends and family way to much but I am learning to deal/manage here in Tanzania. Case in point this past weekend i was trying to go to Mbeya to eat some pizza, take a warm shower with running water, put pictures on my blog, and watch TV. Of those things i only accomplished two of the things, and it took me ten hours to get there and ten hours to get home. Mbeya is only 100 kilometers from my town there is no reason it should have taken that long, but hey I had an experience. I got to meet the guy who drives the minibus, Georges (we are real tight now) family, AND i got to ride in the front of a lorry with two Tanzanian nuns who spoke Italian, i mean really where else can I have an experience like that?
This week was also the EID holiday, which is the end of Ramadan. In our village it is about 99% Christian but apparently it is a national holiday, so Monday at 3 pm our headmaster informed us that we may not have school the next two days depending on if the moon rises. That is how things work here you find out the day before if there will be a holiday. Incidentally i was also informed this week that the midterm break our students are supposed to get in two weeks we actually are not going to be getting until October...Awesome, but that's a different story. Anyway the moon did not rise Monday night and we went to school Tuesday to find only 40 students it was pretty much a worthless week.
The beginning of September also marks the end of the harvesting in Isoko which means a big celebration. Today I went to the celebration that entailed traditional dancing and drumming. It was really cool to see all the dancing and drumming but then one of the students who was standing by me informed me of the history of the event. He told me that all of the people who were doing the drumming were drunkards and all the ever did was bang their drums and drink all day. Tonight they will be drinking all night and the party will continue until tomorrow. The celebration is supposed to happen every Saturday until October, I guess it is their version of Oktoberfest? Oh and he also told me it was a pegan ritual, to go in and do the dancing, after my roommate was drug into the dancing area. Gotta love it.
Oh yeah and in honor of the first razorback game this weekend i taught my kids how to call the hogs..It was a sight that of course i got on video and they will be made to repeat every game week.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Tanzania, where old is new again
A major thing that I have learned about Africans in general lately is that everything is used. You can buy anything used, shirts, pants, shoes, I am fairly certain you may even be able to buy underwear which really grosses me out but it is what it is. Let me set the scene of a typical shopping extravaganza for an African:
Picture a crowded alley way surrounded my little shanty's and the ground is naturally unpaved and therefore super dusty. You walk down said alley until you reach a huge opening with table after table of just heaps of clothes. Each table has one item whether it be shirts (tshirts on one table nice dress shirts on another) pants, sweaters, coats, etc. To find what you want you must dig through the piles upon piles of clothes to find the perfect item. Oh and why you are attempting to do these there are about 500 other people trying to get to the same pile of clothes and things are getting thrown everywhere, yet there seems to have some kind of system. A key point to this whole fun shopping trip is that the tables are in no way set to distinguish male and female clothes they are all thrown together, this is why i have found you will see grown men walking down the street in tshirts that are clearly made for women. Once you have settled on the winning item, you pay (bargaining naturally because they want to charge to much) and then you pay for your sack and take your coveted purchase home and wear it for the next three days straight to show it off.
Also in Africa Croc's have found new life. I have decided that the U.S and the rest of the world when the majority of the population realized how worthless crocs were gathered them all up and decided sending them to Africa would be a great idea. Everyone here wears some version of the God awful shoe. They LOVE these things they are their comfy after school shoe, or the walking to town shoe. I just do not understand it.
1990s style windbreaker neon tracksuits also a BIG draw here. They have whole stalls in the markets devoted to these great outfits, because every African male needs to be looking fresh in those fun pants and matching jacket. Before i leave here i will buy one of these just because i remember how much i loved mine back in 1994.
Now for the fun things i have learned this week
1. Big dadas(Swahili word meaning sister) always go for the small kakas( Swahili word for brother)- i learned this fun lesson from one of the other volunteers second headmaster last weekend when we were watching TV he informed us that being a small kaka he was scared of the big dadas.
2. My long hair apparently means i am rich- so this week there has been a lot of fuss about my hair at school and around. Last weekend at one point there were kids who kept touching it because they had never seen a white person with so much hair before and therefore wanted to touch it. Then at school my second headmaster and i were talking and he told me that it must be really expensive to have hair as long as mine. When i asked him why he said because I must have to put so much oil into it and that stuff isn't cheap. He could not believe me when i told him all i must do is shampoo and condition this hot mess.
3. Crayola markers are like gold to my students. I brought my bag full of markers to school to use in class and kids started flocking around me repeating the phrases "madam borrow me a marker" and "madam give me marker pen" all of this was said with the saddest looking faces possible for me to have pity on them which inevitably i did and let them borrow a marker to write on their books, then i became the most popular person at school, and i am pretty sure the other teachers were pissed, sucks for them.
I promise this weekend i will put pictures up because I am going to Mbeya, one of the pictures will def be of the chicken i sat next to on the bus for 4 hours last sunday, great expereince let me tell yah.
Picture a crowded alley way surrounded my little shanty's and the ground is naturally unpaved and therefore super dusty. You walk down said alley until you reach a huge opening with table after table of just heaps of clothes. Each table has one item whether it be shirts (tshirts on one table nice dress shirts on another) pants, sweaters, coats, etc. To find what you want you must dig through the piles upon piles of clothes to find the perfect item. Oh and why you are attempting to do these there are about 500 other people trying to get to the same pile of clothes and things are getting thrown everywhere, yet there seems to have some kind of system. A key point to this whole fun shopping trip is that the tables are in no way set to distinguish male and female clothes they are all thrown together, this is why i have found you will see grown men walking down the street in tshirts that are clearly made for women. Once you have settled on the winning item, you pay (bargaining naturally because they want to charge to much) and then you pay for your sack and take your coveted purchase home and wear it for the next three days straight to show it off.
Also in Africa Croc's have found new life. I have decided that the U.S and the rest of the world when the majority of the population realized how worthless crocs were gathered them all up and decided sending them to Africa would be a great idea. Everyone here wears some version of the God awful shoe. They LOVE these things they are their comfy after school shoe, or the walking to town shoe. I just do not understand it.
1990s style windbreaker neon tracksuits also a BIG draw here. They have whole stalls in the markets devoted to these great outfits, because every African male needs to be looking fresh in those fun pants and matching jacket. Before i leave here i will buy one of these just because i remember how much i loved mine back in 1994.
Now for the fun things i have learned this week
1. Big dadas(Swahili word meaning sister) always go for the small kakas( Swahili word for brother)- i learned this fun lesson from one of the other volunteers second headmaster last weekend when we were watching TV he informed us that being a small kaka he was scared of the big dadas.
2. My long hair apparently means i am rich- so this week there has been a lot of fuss about my hair at school and around. Last weekend at one point there were kids who kept touching it because they had never seen a white person with so much hair before and therefore wanted to touch it. Then at school my second headmaster and i were talking and he told me that it must be really expensive to have hair as long as mine. When i asked him why he said because I must have to put so much oil into it and that stuff isn't cheap. He could not believe me when i told him all i must do is shampoo and condition this hot mess.
3. Crayola markers are like gold to my students. I brought my bag full of markers to school to use in class and kids started flocking around me repeating the phrases "madam borrow me a marker" and "madam give me marker pen" all of this was said with the saddest looking faces possible for me to have pity on them which inevitably i did and let them borrow a marker to write on their books, then i became the most popular person at school, and i am pretty sure the other teachers were pissed, sucks for them.
I promise this weekend i will put pictures up because I am going to Mbeya, one of the pictures will def be of the chicken i sat next to on the bus for 4 hours last sunday, great expereince let me tell yah.
Friday, August 19, 2011
the five things i elarned this week
Here are the five things I learned this week:
1. All white people are related- as I said in my last post we had other white people come to our school from the British non-profit Read International to tell our school we would be receiving new books for our library. This visit prompted much discussion among my fellow teachers and even the headmaster that would ultimately end with all white people are related. They refer ed to the three university students as our relatives and when we would try to explain to them otherwise we were told that in fact we were related and that was the end of that.
2. Tanzanians do not understand the concept of a water bottle- this week i finally received my packages from America!!!! and inside of them was a new water bottle because my other one had broken before i even left America. I started bringing it to school this week because I am always thirsty and was getting some really weird looks from the students and the teachers. Finally a teacher came up to me and said, "Madam are you drinking spirits?" In the class right after this question the students asked again as if it was no big deal if i was drinking alcohol? Apparently the only people who carry around water bottles are the drunks..Oops One teacher even confessed she thought it was perfume..The things they do not understand sometimes
3. Noodles with Ranch seasoning and a little water tastes like America. My package contained ranch dressing seasoning packets to make Ranch because clearly i cant go a year without that. Well I have come to find out that naturally I lack the ingredients to make Ranch dressing so all i am left with is the seasoning. IN a low point i decided to put some on my pasta and add a little water to make a roman noodle concoction if you will and low and behold it was Amazing!! tasted like pure America. I was happy
4. Africans find little people hilarious- I was desperate to watch some TV this week and on Thursdays at the school they watch TV so I decided to join after some students told me it was a good idea. I had no idea what i was in for. Picture about 150 people crowded in a room with a 26 inch TV straight out of 1994 being powered by a generator showing what looks like shows produced by high school production class. One of the shows featured a little person and every time he would come on the room went cray cray it was funny to watch them all freak out when they saw him. When i told some of the teachers about the show Little People Big World they were beside themselves.
5. You can always increase- after the phrase be free this is what i always here. They use it to refer to a coke, beer, food, time or really anything in general. My late friend Mr. Happy was notorious for using this phrase. Last Friday i was down in Isoko hanging out at the guest house/ bar/ lounge tha tin America on the inside would be considered a crack house but here is a fine establishment that plays gospel music videos and Tanzanian parliment. Anyway Happy and i were hanging out and he was buying me coke after coke informing me when I finished one that there were plenty and i must increase I could not possibly be full. Six big cokes later I finally managed to stop the madness only after being informed that I could alwasy increase with one for the walk home. I kindly declined and was about to set off for home when he infomred me that I must have an escoourt or two because again you can alwasy increase and walking alone all that way would make me lonely.
That is all for now because I do not have very much battery left on my computer I am going to update again this weekend with details from the Tanzanian funeral I sadly had to attend this week for my friend Mr. Happy.
1. All white people are related- as I said in my last post we had other white people come to our school from the British non-profit Read International to tell our school we would be receiving new books for our library. This visit prompted much discussion among my fellow teachers and even the headmaster that would ultimately end with all white people are related. They refer ed to the three university students as our relatives and when we would try to explain to them otherwise we were told that in fact we were related and that was the end of that.
2. Tanzanians do not understand the concept of a water bottle- this week i finally received my packages from America!!!! and inside of them was a new water bottle because my other one had broken before i even left America. I started bringing it to school this week because I am always thirsty and was getting some really weird looks from the students and the teachers. Finally a teacher came up to me and said, "Madam are you drinking spirits?" In the class right after this question the students asked again as if it was no big deal if i was drinking alcohol? Apparently the only people who carry around water bottles are the drunks..Oops One teacher even confessed she thought it was perfume..The things they do not understand sometimes
3. Noodles with Ranch seasoning and a little water tastes like America. My package contained ranch dressing seasoning packets to make Ranch because clearly i cant go a year without that. Well I have come to find out that naturally I lack the ingredients to make Ranch dressing so all i am left with is the seasoning. IN a low point i decided to put some on my pasta and add a little water to make a roman noodle concoction if you will and low and behold it was Amazing!! tasted like pure America. I was happy
4. Africans find little people hilarious- I was desperate to watch some TV this week and on Thursdays at the school they watch TV so I decided to join after some students told me it was a good idea. I had no idea what i was in for. Picture about 150 people crowded in a room with a 26 inch TV straight out of 1994 being powered by a generator showing what looks like shows produced by high school production class. One of the shows featured a little person and every time he would come on the room went cray cray it was funny to watch them all freak out when they saw him. When i told some of the teachers about the show Little People Big World they were beside themselves.
5. You can always increase- after the phrase be free this is what i always here. They use it to refer to a coke, beer, food, time or really anything in general. My late friend Mr. Happy was notorious for using this phrase. Last Friday i was down in Isoko hanging out at the guest house/ bar/ lounge tha tin America on the inside would be considered a crack house but here is a fine establishment that plays gospel music videos and Tanzanian parliment. Anyway Happy and i were hanging out and he was buying me coke after coke informing me when I finished one that there were plenty and i must increase I could not possibly be full. Six big cokes later I finally managed to stop the madness only after being informed that I could alwasy increase with one for the walk home. I kindly declined and was about to set off for home when he infomred me that I must have an escoourt or two because again you can alwasy increase and walking alone all that way would make me lonely.
That is all for now because I do not have very much battery left on my computer I am going to update again this weekend with details from the Tanzanian funeral I sadly had to attend this week for my friend Mr. Happy.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
three countries, one weekend
So sorry it has been a week since I last updated the generator at the school that we used to charge our computers over night has been broken and walking 45 minutes into town and 45 minutes back just hasn’t sounded like much fun. Where to start, well this past weekend was Nane Nane which is a big holiday for the farmers which basically meant we got Monday off of school. With the long weekend my roommate and I as well as our fellow volunteers 2 hours away were planning on going to Matema which is on Lake Malawi with my driver friend, but he had a death in the family and therefore we were stuck with public transportation and decided to go to Tunduma which is the Tanzanian boarder town with Zambia.
This fun adventured entailed another morning of walking up at 4 am and walking down the mountain to stand on the side of the road until a bus comes out of nowhere Harry Potter style to pick you up. The bus looked exactly like the one from my first post and was crowded with 17 people, luckily we got the front row and only had to sit next to a lady with a live chicken in a basket. When we arrived 4 hours later in Tunduma we met our friends and checked into our hotel the High Class hotel. Let me tell you this place was classy. There was crown molding around the ceiling and a television in our room that had English channels,a real toilet, needless to say I was happy.
In Tunduma because it is a boarder town there are so many Zambian people just hanging around. We were on hunt for pinapple because we heard you could get it there and ended up finding two Zambian guys who escorted us around town all day. At one point we asked about the internet and found out that in Tunduma the power had been cut all day so they suggested we go to Zambia because they had power. It sounded like a good idea so we went. This boarder crossing was like nothing I ahd experienced before in that there were no people with guns standing around nobody even questioned what we were doing, it was on the sketch side but hey its Africa. The rest of the time in Tunduma was spent getting charged a crazy amount by the venders because we were muzungu’s (literally translated it means white person, so very racist.The kids here shout it at me when I walk by, I am beginning to hate it) On Sunday we decided to go back to Isongole to stay with our friends and see what their town was like.
Nicole one of the volunteers has to bike to school everyday and suggested we go to town when we got to their house to see what was going on. Her and I got on the bikes and everything was going fine until my skirt got caught in the chain and literally almost ripped right off me. Two guys on a motorcycle had to stop and help me. I decided to ride the rest of the way into town and have Nicole buy me some fabric to wrap up in (thank god for kangas). I should have known it would happen I mean really that kind of stuff happens to me. In town I get to meet some of her fellow teachers one of which is deadest on coming to American and marrying a blonde girl from Tennessee, I told him to shoot for the moon with that one. He also wanted us to go to Malawi which we decided why not lets go it was only another 20 minute bike ride. At this boarder crossing they actually had men with guns but again we did not have to show any form of identification, I am still confused about it all.
This week also marks the two month mark I have been in Africa and at this point I feel like I
have really culturally assimilated because of the following reasons:
Today I spent an hour sweeping dirt in my compound
I have no problems dirnking warm/ hot beer
walking 45 mintues jsut to get said warm/ hot beer is something i look forward to
I have come to accept eating with my hands/prefer it because then washing the dishes takes less time
When I see other white people I freak out and refer to them as muzungu’s
I have almost successfully mastered the art of taking a bucket shower and getting all the shampoo out of my hair
Sitting on a bus that was made for 6 people max and craming 15-20 people, chickens, babies, and massive sacks of grain no longer bothers me
And lastly I may or may not have some fun parasite but am not even bothered by it
These are just a few of the things that I have decided make me truly African
Everything else is going great I now only teach 2 classes because of all the student teachers and this week in honor of work week at Arkansas I made the kids learn the lyrics to she was a top tri delt rushee and then filmed them….they loved it they also saw pictures from America on my camera and made fun of my nike shorts . I will post pictures soon I promise
This fun adventured entailed another morning of walking up at 4 am and walking down the mountain to stand on the side of the road until a bus comes out of nowhere Harry Potter style to pick you up. The bus looked exactly like the one from my first post and was crowded with 17 people, luckily we got the front row and only had to sit next to a lady with a live chicken in a basket. When we arrived 4 hours later in Tunduma we met our friends and checked into our hotel the High Class hotel. Let me tell you this place was classy. There was crown molding around the ceiling and a television in our room that had English channels,a real toilet, needless to say I was happy.
In Tunduma because it is a boarder town there are so many Zambian people just hanging around. We were on hunt for pinapple because we heard you could get it there and ended up finding two Zambian guys who escorted us around town all day. At one point we asked about the internet and found out that in Tunduma the power had been cut all day so they suggested we go to Zambia because they had power. It sounded like a good idea so we went. This boarder crossing was like nothing I ahd experienced before in that there were no people with guns standing around nobody even questioned what we were doing, it was on the sketch side but hey its Africa. The rest of the time in Tunduma was spent getting charged a crazy amount by the venders because we were muzungu’s (literally translated it means white person, so very racist.The kids here shout it at me when I walk by, I am beginning to hate it) On Sunday we decided to go back to Isongole to stay with our friends and see what their town was like.
Nicole one of the volunteers has to bike to school everyday and suggested we go to town when we got to their house to see what was going on. Her and I got on the bikes and everything was going fine until my skirt got caught in the chain and literally almost ripped right off me. Two guys on a motorcycle had to stop and help me. I decided to ride the rest of the way into town and have Nicole buy me some fabric to wrap up in (thank god for kangas). I should have known it would happen I mean really that kind of stuff happens to me. In town I get to meet some of her fellow teachers one of which is deadest on coming to American and marrying a blonde girl from Tennessee, I told him to shoot for the moon with that one. He also wanted us to go to Malawi which we decided why not lets go it was only another 20 minute bike ride. At this boarder crossing they actually had men with guns but again we did not have to show any form of identification, I am still confused about it all.
This week also marks the two month mark I have been in Africa and at this point I feel like I
have really culturally assimilated because of the following reasons:
Today I spent an hour sweeping dirt in my compound
I have no problems dirnking warm/ hot beer
walking 45 mintues jsut to get said warm/ hot beer is something i look forward to
I have come to accept eating with my hands/prefer it because then washing the dishes takes less time
When I see other white people I freak out and refer to them as muzungu’s
I have almost successfully mastered the art of taking a bucket shower and getting all the shampoo out of my hair
Sitting on a bus that was made for 6 people max and craming 15-20 people, chickens, babies, and massive sacks of grain no longer bothers me
And lastly I may or may not have some fun parasite but am not even bothered by it
These are just a few of the things that I have decided make me truly African
Everything else is going great I now only teach 2 classes because of all the student teachers and this week in honor of work week at Arkansas I made the kids learn the lyrics to she was a top tri delt rushee and then filmed them….they loved it they also saw pictures from America on my camera and made fun of my nike shorts . I will post pictures soon I promise
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Mbeya
It has been one of those weeks, where all I wanted was my own car and a microwave. To start things off last weekend like I said I went to Mbeya with the two other volunteers who living in the dirty dirty South about an hour and a half away from me. It was great I was able to by some of the things I really needed and could only find in a “big” city. We went to the gas station/truck stop that randomly sells American products and I was able to buy peanut butter and chocolate, the two things I had been dearly missing. While we were in Mbeya I was even able to break with my daily feeding of rice and beans and got some pizza and iced sweet tea!! It was amazing to say the least, the pizza tasted like one of those ones you buy at the grocery store and then warm up but at this point I wasn’t complaining. While we were in Mbeya we also meet with some of the Peace Corps volunteers who are living around Mbeya. They were pretty cool, although the Peace Corps volunteers tend to have this superiority complex about them which can get annoying, but these guys were pretty chill.
Everything that weekend was going well until it was time to head home. On the way to Mbeya I had arranged a private car to sketchily drive me at 5 in the morning to Mbeya, and I was just going to take a bus back. Little did I know how hard it would be to get back. The bus station in Mbeya is kind of like the streets of Las Vegas in that all those annoying people in Las Vegas are out on the streets with their cards for strip clubs and prostitutes and want you to take them. The people around the bus station in Mbeya are just like that the minute you get out of your taxi the swarm you wanting to help you, wanting to know where you are going, they try and get you to go with them. Luckily we had an awesome cab driver who took us right to where we wanted to be. The first bus was okay it was just a normal bus with a typical amount of people on it. We then got to the town where we needed to change busses. This ois the part I was worried about because my two other friends were going to a bigger town and I was going to a smaller more remote town and wanted to be sure I had a ride there. All the sudden a land cruiser pulls up and this man tells us to get in, naturally we do and are super pumped not to be on a bus driving down the dirt roads. Our excitement quickly faded as we realized we were about to roll 19 deep in the land cruiser. Let me say I would like to think that I have piled the maximum capacity of people into a car, (one night in particular stands out sophomore year piling who knows how many into Stock’s hoe) but this was on a completely different level. At one point there was a guy holding on outside the car as we are pushing 65 miles an hour down t he unpaved rocky dirt roads. This went on for about an hour and a half, it was the most uncomfortable I had been in a long time I will sya that but in the end it was all about the experience. When we got to the town to drop the other volunteers off another problem arose. The car and driver that had reassured me would get to my small town was in fact not going there. The driver did make a deal with me he would drive me half way there and then we would arrange for a piki piki to take me the rest of the way. At this point I hated the driver but as the ride continued just me and him and a 91 year old lady he actually became really cool and wants me to hire him to drive us to Malawi when we go in a few weeks. The drive to Mbeya took me only 2 and a half hours the way back took me close to 10, by the time I got home I was exhausted and cursing Africa.
Other than that adventure the week was pretty chill. I subsequently got sick this week probably due to all the weather changes that have been happening here. I continue to eat rice and beans daily with a little flavor thrown in there to spice things up sometimes. I have gotten pretty good at cooking the green bananas and making them taste like potatoes and this week I even learned how to make the good kind of chipati (picture a cross between a tortilla and a crepe). This week our school is supposed to be getting 10 new teachers from the university to do their teaching practicum for the next month, I ma really hoping there are some girl teachers that come. For now that is all hopefully next week I can put some pictures up.
Everything that weekend was going well until it was time to head home. On the way to Mbeya I had arranged a private car to sketchily drive me at 5 in the morning to Mbeya, and I was just going to take a bus back. Little did I know how hard it would be to get back. The bus station in Mbeya is kind of like the streets of Las Vegas in that all those annoying people in Las Vegas are out on the streets with their cards for strip clubs and prostitutes and want you to take them. The people around the bus station in Mbeya are just like that the minute you get out of your taxi the swarm you wanting to help you, wanting to know where you are going, they try and get you to go with them. Luckily we had an awesome cab driver who took us right to where we wanted to be. The first bus was okay it was just a normal bus with a typical amount of people on it. We then got to the town where we needed to change busses. This ois the part I was worried about because my two other friends were going to a bigger town and I was going to a smaller more remote town and wanted to be sure I had a ride there. All the sudden a land cruiser pulls up and this man tells us to get in, naturally we do and are super pumped not to be on a bus driving down the dirt roads. Our excitement quickly faded as we realized we were about to roll 19 deep in the land cruiser. Let me say I would like to think that I have piled the maximum capacity of people into a car, (one night in particular stands out sophomore year piling who knows how many into Stock’s hoe) but this was on a completely different level. At one point there was a guy holding on outside the car as we are pushing 65 miles an hour down t he unpaved rocky dirt roads. This went on for about an hour and a half, it was the most uncomfortable I had been in a long time I will sya that but in the end it was all about the experience. When we got to the town to drop the other volunteers off another problem arose. The car and driver that had reassured me would get to my small town was in fact not going there. The driver did make a deal with me he would drive me half way there and then we would arrange for a piki piki to take me the rest of the way. At this point I hated the driver but as the ride continued just me and him and a 91 year old lady he actually became really cool and wants me to hire him to drive us to Malawi when we go in a few weeks. The drive to Mbeya took me only 2 and a half hours the way back took me close to 10, by the time I got home I was exhausted and cursing Africa.
Other than that adventure the week was pretty chill. I subsequently got sick this week probably due to all the weather changes that have been happening here. I continue to eat rice and beans daily with a little flavor thrown in there to spice things up sometimes. I have gotten pretty good at cooking the green bananas and making them taste like potatoes and this week I even learned how to make the good kind of chipati (picture a cross between a tortilla and a crepe). This week our school is supposed to be getting 10 new teachers from the university to do their teaching practicum for the next month, I ma really hoping there are some girl teachers that come. For now that is all hopefully next week I can put some pictures up.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
My first Place
This past weekend marked two monumental moments in my life. First a saga a decade in the making came to an end and I have yet to get my closure. If you guessed Harry Potter you would be correct. While the rest of the world gets to have some closure I am left wondering how the last movie was until Ican illegally buy it off the street. The second and more important event that happened was I moved into my first house. It took a week of living in Isoko but finally our place was ready. Without any further adieu I will give you the description of the place.
Our house is situated on the topish of the mountain and looks out to banana trees and the lush mountain landscape. Right across the street there is a primary school that provides me with a daily wake up call in the form of a two minute long ringing of a cow bell at seven am. Moving down the hill you come to the front door of our compound. Yes thats right I live on a compound, not everyone gets this lucky with their first house. Once you enter the front door you are immediately in our living room/ dining room/ den. It is complete with two comfy chairs, a wood table and 4 wood chairs, its pretty roomy if I may say so. Right off of the living room/ dining room/ den is my roommate Gretchen's room. As you continue to move throught the house you come to the kitchen and right across fromt he kitchen is my room. The kitchen is a piece of work. Our host school was nice enough to provide us with lots of food to start out with along with two stoves. Our counter space is lacking slightly as is our storage. My room is great it faces out toward the compound. I have a desk and my bed and a lovely place to keep all of my clothes. Moving out the back door to the compound you see our washing machine and dishwasher as well as our dryer. Many may question how i got so lucky in Africa to get a dishwasher and a washing machine, its because the people like me so much. There are also four doors which lead to our extra kitchen, storage area, shower and bathroom. My first house is one I am sure I will never forget. One of the most unique featurs of my house is that it has what I have termed the veranda which offers a great view of the mountains at sunset. One other fun fact is that this lovely piece of work does not have electricity. It is going to be a learning process but I will survive.
This week was also a long week at school. Lots of teaching and getting to know the students took place as well as the people in town. We now have a boy who comes over almost every night. He just walks in the front door and hangs out while we cook dinner. He speaks little english and my Swahili is minimal at best but I have found out he is 11, his name is Autpele and he loves Micheal Jackson and my headlamp. He helps me start fires and teaches me how to cook some of the local food.
Another fun event that took place was the school blood drive yesterday. No matter where I go I cannot get away from blood drives. Due to an unfortuneate experience freshman year of college at a blood drive, I refuse to give. The people in charge of the blood drive could not comprehend this. They kept telling Me I had good American blood and I should help the Tanzanian's who need it. The blkood drive consisted of one land cruiser pulling up with a huge load on top. Underneath the tarp on top were 2 normal chairs you would find a blood drive and all the other supplies. One look at that and all i could think was disease. Needless to say I threw out every excuse I knew and they finally left me alone.
Today I ventured to Mbeya to get some much needed supplies, seeing as how they are severly lacking in Isoko and because of this get to use the fast internet and can upload some pictures of my house and some other stuff. Enjoy!!!
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Welcome to Isoko....Be free
Well I made it to my site finally after the 13 hour bus ride and 4 hour off road adventure. My site is pretty much the furthest south you can get in Tanzania. On the ride here the driver stopped and made us get out at this skank bamboo bridge across an intense rive and said on the other side is Malawi. I have decided to refer to this area as the dirty dirty south due in part to its location and also because there is not a paved road in site, it is all red dirt roads. The area around here is AMAZING though it is absolutly beautiful. The mountains are extremely lush and there are banana trees and avacado trees everywhere. On the down side however, the person who has put the lies in our heads from a young age that all of Africa is perma hot needs to be put in their place. It is FRIGID here. I am rocking my sexy long skirts with leggings underneath a top and my patagonia and a scarf everyday and im still cold. The mornings are the worst on the way to school, but it does eventually warm up I am told.
I mentioned htat we had made it to our site, that is in fact partially true. This being Tanzania and all something had go wrong. On Sunday we arrived at our school and meet our headmaster who is extremely smart and conversational in English. He took us to our house and right as we were about to get settled informed us that our house was not done and that we would need to go stay at the hospital in town for 2 or 3 days. We had no other choice but to agree. They told us we should only take a few things and that we could come back to the house as needed. Our ride down the mountain was ridding three deep on the back of a piki piki aka a dirtbike, it was a scene. We arrived at our temporary home only to find out that it was actually a mission hosptial..that was weird in the first place. Before you go thinking we are sleeping in hospital beds I will tell you we are staying off to the side in this guesthouse like place that we have all to ourselves. It has electricity a tv and best of all internet at this point I don't even care that it is slow.
Monday morning we got to meet various peopel in Isoko town before heading up to the school. At school we were given our timetables I am going to be teaching form 2 and form 3, it adds up to 6 differnt classes of kids which have about 50 kids each in them. Tuesday was my first real day of teaching, I taught the form two kids and of course they found my name extremely funny and laughed at me multiple times during class when I was giving examples of words.
Today my roommate and I got done with schol early and decided to go exploring. On our way out of town we ran into a man who had been showing us around and his friend a pastor, the pastor infomred us there was a market and was going to take us to it. Let me preface this story by saying that today was a big eating day. So we get to the market and he buys us this huge bunch of bay bay bananas and makes us eat all fo them. Then he buys us sprites because he thinks we are thristy. By this point I am starting to feel real sick, but this is not even the end of it. We are walking and talking and he then invites us to his home because we were passing it. In Tanzania if someone invites you into their house you go in and they always must provide you with something to eat or drink. We knew this going into and were dreading it. We sat down and he is talking he intorduced us to his mother who looked like the the grim reeper was knocking on her door. He brought us this big plate of this starchy root and a glass that looked like it was filled with milk. I am not a huge milk drinker in the states, needless to say I am not about to drink milk at some strange mans house. Well he is urging us to drink it and so i took two sips. This was the CHUNKIEST and most SOUR milk iIhave ever tasted. My roommate vomed in her mouth twice. It took all I had not to projectile vom all voer the 90 year old mother. She knew what was up though and was tellling the son we did not like their milk. She then criticized me for writing with my left hand..I was over her.
We finally got out of the house and thought we were going to able to continue our walk alone...but no he wanted to show us more we met all these people in "town" one of whom was a lady with a beard (weird yet strangely awesome at this point), finally he left us on our own informing us to be free and enjoy Isoko. We got kinda lost and ended up at another house with people outside who again invited us in. My stomach was dreading another native concoction but they only served us coffee and again welcomed us to Tanzania and informed us that we just need to be free. Everyone here is obsessed with telling you to be free and enjoy things. They also have no idea where America is but the moment you mention Obama they freak out. They had Obama flashlights (which im thinking about buying because they also feature the American flag) Obama gum, Obama backpacks, Obama beltbuckles etc. Its craziness. Today has been one crazy yet typical day. I hope everyone at home is doing well and love getting emails from everyone there. I miss everyone and will update again soon.
I mentioned htat we had made it to our site, that is in fact partially true. This being Tanzania and all something had go wrong. On Sunday we arrived at our school and meet our headmaster who is extremely smart and conversational in English. He took us to our house and right as we were about to get settled informed us that our house was not done and that we would need to go stay at the hospital in town for 2 or 3 days. We had no other choice but to agree. They told us we should only take a few things and that we could come back to the house as needed. Our ride down the mountain was ridding three deep on the back of a piki piki aka a dirtbike, it was a scene. We arrived at our temporary home only to find out that it was actually a mission hosptial..that was weird in the first place. Before you go thinking we are sleeping in hospital beds I will tell you we are staying off to the side in this guesthouse like place that we have all to ourselves. It has electricity a tv and best of all internet at this point I don't even care that it is slow.
Monday morning we got to meet various peopel in Isoko town before heading up to the school. At school we were given our timetables I am going to be teaching form 2 and form 3, it adds up to 6 differnt classes of kids which have about 50 kids each in them. Tuesday was my first real day of teaching, I taught the form two kids and of course they found my name extremely funny and laughed at me multiple times during class when I was giving examples of words.
Today my roommate and I got done with schol early and decided to go exploring. On our way out of town we ran into a man who had been showing us around and his friend a pastor, the pastor infomred us there was a market and was going to take us to it. Let me preface this story by saying that today was a big eating day. So we get to the market and he buys us this huge bunch of bay bay bananas and makes us eat all fo them. Then he buys us sprites because he thinks we are thristy. By this point I am starting to feel real sick, but this is not even the end of it. We are walking and talking and he then invites us to his home because we were passing it. In Tanzania if someone invites you into their house you go in and they always must provide you with something to eat or drink. We knew this going into and were dreading it. We sat down and he is talking he intorduced us to his mother who looked like the the grim reeper was knocking on her door. He brought us this big plate of this starchy root and a glass that looked like it was filled with milk. I am not a huge milk drinker in the states, needless to say I am not about to drink milk at some strange mans house. Well he is urging us to drink it and so i took two sips. This was the CHUNKIEST and most SOUR milk iIhave ever tasted. My roommate vomed in her mouth twice. It took all I had not to projectile vom all voer the 90 year old mother. She knew what was up though and was tellling the son we did not like their milk. She then criticized me for writing with my left hand..I was over her.
We finally got out of the house and thought we were going to able to continue our walk alone...but no he wanted to show us more we met all these people in "town" one of whom was a lady with a beard (weird yet strangely awesome at this point), finally he left us on our own informing us to be free and enjoy Isoko. We got kinda lost and ended up at another house with people outside who again invited us in. My stomach was dreading another native concoction but they only served us coffee and again welcomed us to Tanzania and informed us that we just need to be free. Everyone here is obsessed with telling you to be free and enjoy things. They also have no idea where America is but the moment you mention Obama they freak out. They had Obama flashlights (which im thinking about buying because they also feature the American flag) Obama gum, Obama backpacks, Obama beltbuckles etc. Its craziness. Today has been one crazy yet typical day. I hope everyone at home is doing well and love getting emails from everyone there. I miss everyone and will update again soon.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Picture time
As promised here are some pics of what has been going on. I wanted to upload more but the internet goes EXTREMELY slow so I will upload a few at a time
the guesthouse we stayed in for 2 weeks in Lushoto
the Obrey family, my host parents for the weekend
My form 2 class during the Practicum
Standing at the top of the Irente view point in Lushoto
My Masai friend on the beachThe final part of the journey to my site has started. I survived the 13 hour bus ride yesterday just barely. We stopped 4 times the entire time. It was weird we knew we were going tog et a stop for lunch but once we got tot he place we found out we had 10 minutes to get food and go to the bathroom. This "stop" we will call it was a madhouse every bus that is going south stops there because the drivers get free food. I barely made it back on the bus as it was pulling away. We stayed last night in Mbeya which is the closest big city to where I will be living. It seems like a pretty hopping place. In a little bit we will be meeting our district education officer who will take us to our sites. I am really hoping we get internet up there and be able to get electricity somehow. Thats all for now I will update once I get to my site and figure things out
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