Volunteers

We are now all volunteers! We had our swearing in ceremony today and had lots of fun. I'm way behind on uploading pictures so don't expect any for a while...The U.S. Ambassador was there along with regional bigshots who gave speeches in Kiswahili and Kiingereza (English). Our families gave us leis and gifts. Russ and I received matching outfits yesterday so we wore them to the ceremony. Tomorrow Russ and I are headed to our site...flashback...a few days ago as I was waiting for Russ to return from somewhere I saw this woman who mama said has polio. She was sitting on the ground, talking to people and smiling. She put a bucket on her head filled with items and put slippers (dalas) on her hands and walked up the hill using her arms and legs. Wow...she's such a strong woman.

Also, check out The ONE Campaign which "is a new effort by Americans to rally Americans - ONE by ONE - to fight the emergency of global AIDS and extreme poverty. The ONE Campaign is engaging Americans through a diverse coalition of faith-based and anti-poverty organizers to show the steps people can take, ONE by ONE, to fight global AIDS and poverty."

Dodoma region!

Russ and I have been placed in the Dodoma region. We will be teaching at the same secondary school. I'll be teaching math and Russ will be helping the school with the computer lab and also working at the local teacher's training college. I'm not sure if I should put the name of the village we'll be living in for the next two years on the Internet so email me if you would like to know. The dodoma region is known for wine and peanuts!

Russ and I cooked "American" food for our host family one night and it turned out pretty good. We cooked mashed potatoes, steamed carrots, fried okra, cornbread, and banana crisp. It was actually difficult to come up with things to cook here because of the lack of available foods and jikos. Even though we had to be creative with things like use cracked cookies instead of oatmeal for the crips it turned out fine and the ate everything up!

This weekend we went to Mikumi National Park kind of as a treat to ourselves for passing our Kiswahili exams and making it through training and saw lots of "safari" animals such as elephants, giraffes, zebras, lions, warthogs, etc. Check out the pictures...once I get them all loaded up.

We swear in as volunteers on Tuesday then we're all off to our sites. I've heard Russ and I have a pretty big house with a bathtub! There were two couples placed at our site previously. The first couple COSed (Close of Service after two years) and the next couple only lasted a week before they ETed. Russ and I will make it to COS. The plan for Christmas is for us Dodoma people is to spend it as our house.

As an answer to a question: The things I miss, apart from family and friends who I hope will visit in the coming years, are hot showers, tea garden drinks, and I must admit washing machines. Washing clothes by hand is brutal to the knuckles. I can heat up the water to take a warm bucket bath but that's a lot of work for our host family. Perhaps when we get to site we'll heat up the water if we don't already have hot water.

Things are coming to an end here during training and it's bitter sweet. Bitter because all the people that I've gotten to know over the past two months will be hours and many will be several days away, especially our host family. Sweet because our Peace Corps service is actually going to start now and we'll be placed in our new communities and start the real work of being a volunteer.

Kusafiri

Kusafiri means "to travel" and safari means a "trip" or "journey". Russ and I awoke in our hotel in Dar at 4:45 am to the sound of the call to prayer in Arabic over loud speaker. It happens pretty much everyday in every mosque around. But, no biggie because my alarm was actually set for that time to wake up anyway...because the reporting time for the bus to Njombe was 5:30 am. We left at 6 am with Thomas, Brendan, Rob, and Andrew on the same bus. There are no bathrooms on the bus so you hold it until there's a bathroom break or use Imodium. The bus pulls to the side of the road in certain areas and everyone gets off the bus who needs to go. The men go to the front in the bushes and the women go to the back. I needed to go badly and wasn't sure when we'd stop again so I took my kanga and went. Pretty simple. The road to Njombe from Dar passes through Mikumi Park so when we entered I kept looking for animals. And sure enough we saw giraffes, and elephant, a chimp, and a family of warthogs! [Queue Lion King soundtrack]. I didn't bother taking pictures because our group is going to go to that same park next weekend and I'll get better views then. If you look on a map of TZ you should notice that very few roads are paved. Zambia is a landlocked country and some time ago the "Tanzam" road was built to allow Zambia access to the ocean through Dar. We took that road which has no stop lights, only really big and really small speed bumps to slow people down. We passed the park...then stopped for ten minutes to each lunch and have another bathroom break. Russ, Rob, and I risked getting sick by eating chips with ketchup wrapped in a flat fried egg. It was really good and none of us got sick. Next we went up the mountain and passed green land...then back to dry, dusty land. I noticed at one point that among all the brown there was this sort of strip of green in the distance. I figured out soon enough that in the middle of this green strip that stretched for miles was a river. We passed Iringa and got off before Njombe actually...as our shadow site was not directly in the town. We got to Ryan's site 9 hours after we started the journey, met Ryan, and got to see the place he's been living at for a year now. He's got it very nice...he's the third, and going to be the last, volunteer at that site. He has electricity, fridge, blender, and really nice furniture that a furniture fundi (fixer) made. Ryan gave us some great ideas for when we get to site. The south highlands is quite cold (60s?) and very windy. Dust was blowing everywhere which set my allergies off. I had my fleece on a lot of the time. The next day we toured Ryan's secondary school where he teaches chemistry. We also got to see the computer room that he's been taking care of supervises. The next day we went to Njombe and met up with more PCVs from around the area. PCVs are such awesome people! Then yesterday, we boarded the bus to come home...and passing through Mikumi again we saw zebras!

Now training is starting to come to an end. Tomorrow, Monday, we find out where we will all be living for the next two years, take our final exams in Kiswahili on Wednesday and Friday, then we swear in as actual Peace Corps Volunteers, then we're off to our sites in early December!

fishbowl

Wow! There's nothing like being in a major metropolis in Africa. There are so many people and they all look at you like you're in a fish bowl. We have eaten Indian food for dinner for the past few days and I'm loving it! We've met current health PCVs in town for their first IST (In Service Training) including Jen and Tait. Dar is a different place at night. Most of us PCTs and the health PCVs met at a local bar and had some drinks. Last evening just a handful of us went to the Storm, a local bar/night club. I swear I could have been in England...the room was so nice and clean, the AC was blasting, and the deco was like things you'd see in Europe. There was no one there, probably because we were early having drinks at 8:30 at night. I guess the crowds don't show up until midnight and that's too late for me. Anyways, getting back to Dar at night. For safety reasons we always walk in groups. It was pretty scary last night when we went off the main road (four of us) to try and find a bar that people were at. It got dark and there were no people around. Eventually we found the place we were looking for and all was cool. When we got out there again was no one around and the city was quite. Thankfully the electricity was up so the buildings provided lighting to walk home. In TZ rich people hire security guards to guard their homes and buisnesses at night. In Dar every other store or so had a security guard sitting outside. Most of the time they are older men so Russ and I say "Shikamoo" to them and be on friendly terms with them. I hope it's not a false sense of security but I feel safer walking around at night with these "security guards" chilling outside every hundred feet.

We got to spend a day at the US Embassy which was pretty cool. We also visited the PC office and got to see the PC lounge, storage, offices of workers, etc. It was especially great because we got mail!!! Thanks Hannah! I hear there's another package for Russ and I and it's at our training site.

Sink or swim

We are in Dar es Salaam for a few days now before we head off to shadow a current PCV. Russ, Thomas, and I will be going to Njombe (south west) for a few days before we head back to training and find out where we will be living for the next two years!

Thanks for the mail everyone! David, the star chart is great!!

Each of us had to find our own way to Dar and that was a little intimidating but really, PC knows what's best for us and the "sink or swim" style is alright to me. We went in groups and as far as I know we all made it to Dar safe and sound. It was actually pretty simple. Buy your ticket as you get on the bus. But if you're going farther then you buy your ticket in advance. There's a lot to think about on the ride over. I saw people living on the side of the road with nothing more than mud and branches for walls and a thached roof. People working day in and out to make bricks just to scrape by and others selling mkaa (charcoal) because everyone uses charcoal stoves.

All of us trainees visited different NGOs and created a seasonal calendar. But the trip for me was more of getting to know what type of NGOs are in Tanzania and what their major problems are. My group went to a non-profit that educates people with and without HIV/AIDS and help those who have HIV/AIDS and want help with some medications and foodstuffs. Our discussion was mostly in Kiswahili but one of our language instructors was with us to help out when needed. The NGO I visited said their busiest and most difficult time of the year is between January and May when the rainy season causes an uprise in Malaria and it's harder to get to the people that need help (mud is a major transporation issue). What they really need is a loan so they can have the capital to build a farm which the workers will manage. They plan on using money made from the farm to use to buy medication and foodstuffs (flour, sugar, etc.) for those most in need. The organization has about 200 members and they also try to help over 400 orphans but getting them together to do fun activities or giving them whatever foodstuff they have available.

A funny story...so my host family knows I don't like to drink beer so for Joline's confirmation they bought a small bottle of Konyagi for me. I used about half the bottle that day putting it in soda. So a few days ago mama and baba got some beers out and Russ and one and I just had a soda. Then Russ reminded me that there's still some Konyagi in the cubbert so I went to get it. What I found was an empty bottle! I showed mama and she cracked up laughing...she was trying to say that accidentally the rest of the Konyagi fell into her cup! I didn't care it was just so funny that they would leave that empty bottle in the cubbert.

Oh, and baba got a computer! It's pretty good...10 GB drive, running XP, etc...and we put our pictures and video on the computer and mama was just blown away at the video of her at Joline's confirmation. I haven't had enough time to upload it to the gallery (18 megs). Oh well, it's really short anyway.

T.I.A.

T.I.A. = This is Africa.

I've been hearing this phrase a lot lately. Our daily schedule in the PC changes all the time so we don't know what to expect sometimes. Things happen that are out of your control. But you have to be flexible and remember...T.I.A....

Wow! Time is going by so fast! We find out where we will be living for the next two years on Nov. 21, we take our final exams (written and oral) in Kiswahili in two weeks then we swear in on Nov. 29!

We visited NGOs today and will return to them tomorrow. Basically we're evaluating the needs of NGOs and seeing what we can do to help them achieve their goals. This will be good for our secondary projects when we get to site. My group visited an NGO that helps people living with HIV and AIDS to life the best life they can live. They provide counseling to people with HIV/AIDS, people in the community who do not have HIV/AIDS and to orphans of parents who died from HIV/AIDS.

I've uploaded more pictures so check them out.

Wish List

Many people have been asking how they could help PCVs. Friends and family members have sent packages with goodies that we miss from the states and while we appreciate all of that, our real work here is to work together with the people of our host country to help them achieve what they want in life. In that case, there are many PCV projets which need funding. Go to the Peace Corps website and click on Donate Now then click on Volunteer Projects to see a list of all PCV projects that need funding globally.

Russ & Lisa, May 2007

Storms in Africa

The storms in Africa are great. Since we live near the mountains (at the moment) I watched as the clouds got progressively darker and consumed the mountains. This occurred as I was walking home from town. It began to rain but I made it home before the big downpour. I have listened to the song Storms in Africa by Enya before and now I can "feel" the music...

On the last day I asked my students to write two things: 1. What they liked about my class and 2. what they didn't like about my class. The following are what the students wrote word for word. Keep in mind that this is the first year they are being instructed in English in all their classes.

In Lisa's class I like the way she teaches you get well understand and she's charming too. One thing is that I didn't like was that the students were too quite in class.

One thing which I liked about Lisa's class is that:
1. she is teaching well
2. she is very charming
3. she shows us true love.

The thing which I mostly liked about Lisa's class is:
*she tried her best level to teach in Swahili language so that everyone were able to understand. Congratulation!

One thing that I like most in Lisa's class is that she is carpable of her work and charming to her pupils. She is also understood in class and loving to all students in class.

One thing I lied about Lisa's class she is teaching very well, peacefullae smile etc.

One thing I liked about Lisa's class is more examples which she gave is so I can understand well. She is helpful so she make sure everyone can understand a subject.

and my favorite...

She's always smiling and that simplifies our task of asking questions

Let me say a few things about the Tanzanian school system. I can't remember all the facts so if something is wrong, please tell me! Basically the education system here is based on that of the British school system. There's primary school (elementary) which there are seven "Standards" (or grade levels). Then if you pass your exams and are selected you move onto O-level (middle school to lower high school) where there are "Forms" (or grade levels). Forms 5 and 6 are called A-level (last two years of high school). You take exams in Forms 2, 4, and 6. If you pass your exam in your form you move onto the next form. After Form 6 you go onto University if you are selected and can afford it. Every week during training we have the PCV of the week and they have told us many stories. One of the stories is that many students are not able to afford to go to school (in some cases the fees can be as little as Tshs. 20,000 ($20) for non-boarding schools to Tshs. 70,000 ($70) for boarding schools per semester). Everyone in my training group will be teaching Forms 1-6 (either Math, Biology, Chemistry, or Physics) besides the ICT people who will be at teacher's colleges. Now if you don't pass your exams there are a few options. One is to go back to the farm, say you tried your best, and live the best life you can. But you can also try to go to the growing number of teacher college's where you can get training on becoming a teacher. Teachers are greatly needed in this country. Many of them die of diseases or go to work outside of the country because the pay might be better and therefore the demand cannot keep up with the growing number of students attending school. Right now there are about 300,000 students in 2,000 schools and the board of education in Tanzania wants to increase the number of students in primary and secondary schools to 1,000,000 by the year 2010. If they do that schools will need to be built and teachers trained.