Opening Day

I don't have much to add since yesterday but I had to come back into town today because, despite standing in line for almost 2 hours at the bank, I was not able to get my money because Peace Corps has not given me my bank card and I only have a copy of my passport because they have the original, but hakuna matata, all's well now.
I would also like to give a little love for my three years of riding RTS around campus for preparing me for the experience that is the daladala ride. A daladala is essentially a dalapadated run-down something like a 15 passenger van that serves as a city bus. Despite having around 15 seats, there is generally about 30 people on each one, there's always room for one more paying customer you see. So as you can imagine, its not the most pleasant experience in the world. However today, depite being smooshed between two ladies with babies and having my knees crammed into the seat in front of me and having the person behind me's knees jammed into my back, I found myself actually being quite comfortable. Its amazing to see how much standards can change here. :)
One standard that hasn't changed for me however is that I am so out of shape! Which I was reminded of this morning at the crack of dawn as I borrowed my neighbor's bike to get into Igoma to catch the 7 am daladala to town. I'm pretty sure its just going to be easier for me to do the forty-five minute walk than to try to ride a bike in these mountains, I really felt like I was about to die. I like to blame it on the altitude and the cold air, but I'm pretty sure its simply because I've been so lazy before coming here. I think that I'm going to buy a bike anyway and keep on trying to make that trek each week and maybe I'll be in marathon-running shape when I get back.
I'm starting to feel more comfortable with my surroundings here in Mbeya and I think I'm already ready to get started working. The people have been so nice and helpful that it really makes me want to do good things for their community. I feel like a lot is expected of me so I hope I can deliver. I think I'm going to spend this week rereading all of my Peace Corps manuals about community entry and such then get going with meetings and see what happens from there.
I still have a lot of setting up house to do. I think I'm getting all my furniture delivered today, which will be nice. Hopefully it will make my house more homey. And if anybody has any pictures or posters or things of the like that you want to send, feel free because I've got nothing right now.
I have a new address now too that I think that I forgot to include yesterday. It is:
Katie Gillman, PCV
PO BOX 2501
Mbeya
Tanzania, Africa

Oh and one last thing... GO GATORS!!!!!!!! It sucks that I won't be able to watch the games this season, but you guys keep me posted and cheer a little extra for me. Maybe have a beer and some tostitos in my honor today. ;)

Ok I’m here…now what?

August 28, 2008

I’m official now. I was sworn in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer last Wednesday. (See picture included to have a laugh at the ridiculously wonderful outfit my family had made for me, which was even better because I was matching both of my mamas.) I left the next morning to head to Mbeya. It was a really nice drive actually. Beautiful scenery. “The Great Valley” from The Land Before Time came to mind as we drove past all the green mountains and sparkling streams. We also drove through Mikumi National Park again on the way and I got to see some more zebras, giraffes, and elephants. Then further along we passed through an area that had monkeys all over the place. We stopped to stay the night in Rujewa to drop off one of the five of us going to Mbeya Region that is staying in that area. We had dinner at a married couple of volunteers’ house. They have a pretty sweet set up where they are: electricity, electric oven and stove, refrigerator, and two computers with internet access in their house. They decided that since they were going to be here for a while they would go ahead and make sure they had everything they wanted.

The next morning the remaining four of us took off for Mbeya Rural District where we all will be staying. We met our VEOs (village executive officers) and had lunch, then I was the first to be dropped off. I’m only about 40 minutes away from Mbeya Town, where I can go to use the internet, bank, and post office, which is nice. When the car pulled up to the school, I almost cried. Not because I was scared off being dropped off, but because THE WHOLE VILLAGE was there to greet me. They were all singing and dancing and drumming and all crowded up to the car to meet me. Then I got all of my luggage out of the car and they left and I sat in the middle of a giant circle of my villagers and watched the school choir sing and dance for me for a little while. I was introduced to some of the teachers I will be working with, including my neighbor Lupogo, who has been a big help settling in. I ate dinner over at his house the first night and met Mama Jasitini (who has also been helping me out a lot). I think that she is he sister-in-law.

I finally got to go to my house after dinner and it is really nice. I have 3 rooms. One is my bedroom, one I use as a kitchen, and one I use just as a storage place for my books and such. I also have two other small areas inside, one being the shower area and one the bathroom. I am sooo happy to have a bathroom indoors. I would have been scared to go outside at night. I’m scared enough just walking across the living room in the dark! It kind of sucks not having electricity, mainly for that very reason, because its kind of scary at night. I guess I just have to get used to it. It is my first time living alone after all. I do have running water however, which is really nice. I have a little sink where I can wash my hands and brush my teeth next to the bathroom area, and I have a spigot in the bathroom and the shower area, as well as a flush choo (which is still a hole in the ground, but it’s a classy porcelain hole in the ground that flushes.) I also have a shower head, but that is pretty useless for the time being because it is FREEZING here right now. Ok, maybe not freezing, but to my standards its pretty dang cold. Especially at night because the wind blows like crazy up here in these mountains. So I have to heat up some water on my little kerosene stove and take a bucket bath like usual. Maybe when it gets warmer I will appreciate a cold shower, but right now I think I would die of hypothermia. Its pretty miserable as it is with the warm water bucket bath because while I’m washing I’m standing there wet and freezing.

Its amazing how industrious the kids are around here. They just do whatever they are told without asking why or expecting anything in return. Like today, a group of about 25 kids showed up after school and built me a fenced in area where I can garden without the chickens messing with my plants. I hadn’t even asked for one. And they built it fast too! They also dug me whole for my trash. And I needed some kerosene for my lanterns and stove so Lupogo, who was helping with the fence, sent a boy to go get me some, presumably at the store that’s just up the hill from my house that usually sells it. So some time passed, and he hadn’t come back with my kerosene yet, and I almost started to get annoyed because I wanted to heat the water for my bath and cook my dinner. Then here he comes running up, a little out of breath, and apologized and said that he had to go to Igoma to get it, which is the next town away from Kimondo that is about a 45 minute walk. I felt so bad. All the kids just came and did all that stuff for me, a complete stranger. It was really nice.

So even though I know that I’m wanted here and that the people are really nice, its still been a little bit tough this first week of being here. Its just kind of lonely and boring. I don’t know what to do with myself. I feel like they want me to be doing something and I want to be doing something, but I don’t know what to do and I don’t know enough Swahili really right now to do anything. I ordered a bunch of furniture to be made that should be ready Saturday (because right now I only have a bed, a table and 4 chairs). When that gets here, maybe I can occupy myself decorated and setting up house. Until then I try to at least go for a little walk once a day, just to get out of my house and attempt to talk to people. I’ve already at least learned how to greet people in the local tribal language, which people really like when I say it. They’re impressed that I know it.

Today my little walk got kind of interesting. I passed by a little hut and there were a couple of old ladies standing outside of it and I greeted them and we talked for a minute, then they invited me inside. And inside, there was a bunch of older people sitting around the perimeter of the hut and in the middle was a table with about 5 big buckets of pombe, which is their word for moonshine. They gave me a cup to try and laughed when I drank it. I only had a sip, but they thought that was great. They didn’t think that Wazungu drank alcohol. So I sat in this dark hut and hung out with a bunch of drunk old ladies for a little while. It was pretty fun. I’m starting to feel a little better and more comfortable here the more that I try to get out there and talk to people. I know that I’m an impatient person and that makes this a little bit more difficult, but at least in knowing that I’m wanting to rush things along that can’t be rushed along, I’m aware that I need to chill out and just let things happen as they happen. I know its going to take some time to learn enough Swahili to really be able to have conversations. I know its going to take some time to be able to make friends and establish trust and start projects. I know its going to take some time to get used to living alone and without electricity. For now though, its really helping me to get phone calls from home and reading letters. It helps me feel less disconnected from everyone and everything. So keep those letters coming, I really appreciate everyone who is writing to me, and even all of you who care enough even to read this blog. Its nice to be loved. J I think my computer is about to die so I guess I’ll stop here for now and try to snuggle under my three blankets and not freeze to death tonight.

Site Announcements

The verdict is finally in....it looks like I'm going to be living in Mbeya in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania for the next two years. I think I'm going to be really happy there. They said that it is cooler weather and mountainous and there is good food available in town (i.e. I can buy CHEESE!!!) Its everything that I asked for the way it sounds on paper anyway. I will be living on a primary school grounds in a brand new house, and by brand new, I'm talking I hope its finished by the time I get there next week because apparently I didn't have doors or a toilet and other things of that nature the last time my APCD was there a couple months ago. But he said its ready for me now so here's hoping anyway. Its kind of exciting to get there and start all over. I will be able to pick out everything that I want for my house, which is kinda going to be a pain to get everything to my house to start with, but I like the idea of everything being what I want it to be. Not even considering how difficult it ould potentially be to buy and transport the initial necessities like a bed and charoal stoves to my house, its going to be insane trying to carry all of my luggage! I had to much stuff to begin with and now I have all kinds of new materials and books from Peace Corps and 4 lovely and wonderful packages of junk food and such from home (thanks for loving me family :)

I'm insanely excited to get to my site and start making my house a home and meeting my new neighbors and co-workers. I'm not even worried about the fact that I'm not going to have electricity, I'm actually kind of glad that I don't. I'm telling myself it will make for a more authentic experience. And I'll be able to charge my phone and such in town, because I'm only 38 km and maybe 45 minutes from my banking town. And if I get desperate for some movie watching on my computer, I can always look into solar panels. Right now I'm just going with the whole relaxing and cozy reading by candelight picture.

I'll have a new address soon so keep your eyes out for that if you're one of those cool people that want to write me letters. I just want to go ahead and toss in that I really appreciate everyone's support and I love hearing from you, even when its just a comment on the blog. And even if I don't get back to you right away, it still means a lot. :) I should have some new and exciting updates in a couple of weeks as I start settling in to my new home.

Shadowing

This past week I have had an amazing shadowing experience in the Kilimanjaro region of Northern Tanzania. It is fabulously beautiful here. I am shadowing a really sweet girl named Hilary who is an education volunteer that teaches Physics in secondary school. Her house is on a mountain and has a great view of the surrounding area, albiet a slightly treacherous hike to get up there everyday.
A couple of days ago me and Cristina, the other PCT that I am shadowing with, went on a five hour hike in the mountains around her house and it was absolutely beautiful. I took some pictures that I will try to post soon, but they just do not do the actual scene justice. Plus it smelled like something that Glade would bottle up and sell at Christmas time on the top of the mountain. I can't even describe how awesome it was. It actually felt kind of wintery near the top as well. And on the way down our guide took us by his grandfather's house and gave us some sugarcane, which I thought was really nice. I was thinking it would be pretty sweet to climb Mount Kilimanjaro while I'm in Africa (Which I can see from where I am right now and it is pretty beautiful) but that is a 6 day hike and I was pretty tired after just 5 hours. Maybe if I get placed in a mountainous region I'll get in shape just walking around.
On another day Cristina and I went to Hilary's school to help her facilitate a session on AIDS transmission and the amount of questions that the students had about that topic and about condom use in general was pretty impressive. You can tell that they have really put a lot of thought into it. For instance, one person asked if you can get AIDS when you get your hair cut, which I guess you can if they use infected instruments then cut you with them. They had a lot of questions about whether or not condoms were actually effective or not. For whatever reason, they all seem to want to believe that they don't work. It made me realize that they already know a lot about AIDS, but I'm going to have to do some work to dispel some cultural myths that surround the issues.
Today we all traveled into Moshi to get some delicious food and go out on the town tonight. This has just been a good week overall when it comes to food. First, when we passed through Morogoro on the way to my shadow site, we all went to this really western style grocery store and stocked up on ice cream, cheese, crackers, nutella and peanut butter, wine, and candy bars. I had the most delicious twix bar that I have ever had in my life. I was really tempted to buy some Frosted Flakes, but they were 10,000 shillings, which is about $10 and is a lot of money here. We also went out to a pretty nice resturant, complete with kareoke and all, and I had some mac and cheese there. Although I'm pretty sure the "cheese" was actually white gravy, but whatevs, it was still tastey. Then later in the week during our shadow, we made some delcious pancakes and veggie omelets everyday for breakfast, and had burritos with guac and refried beans one night and some noodles with a really good peanut sauce another night. And word on the street is that the resturant we are going to tonight has pizza!
So overall this has been a fabulous week so far. Its been so peaceful and quiet and the freedom has been wonderful. I can't wait to get to my own site. And it was interesting seeing how the other volunteers had decorated their houses and really made them home. I'm really excited about that. I'm trying not to expect too much so I won't be disapointed if I don't get it, but I am still hoping for electricity. Hilary's site had electricity and she had a portable DVD player so we got to watch some of the first sesson of Prisonbreak which I hadn't seen. I'm sure it would help stave off the boredom, but we spent the night at another volunteer's site last night who did not have electricity and it really wasn't all that bad. I guess I'll find out on Tuesday! Woo-hoo!

Almost There

July 27, 2008 Almost There

It’s hard to believe that training is almost over. We only have 3 and a half more weeks, and only two of those weeks are here in Kilosa, and not even two of those days are left to be in the classroom. I realized that I’ll only be with my host family for another week and a half if you subtract the time that we will be shadowing and in Dar, so I tried to spend some time with them when I got home from school today.
We learned the national anthem in class today so we all sang that together while we were waiting for dinner. Then of course they wanted me to sing the American national anthem, which kind of sucked, but I did it anyway. Then they were asking me to sing Akon and Ne-yo, as usual, so I suggested that I get out my computer and put on my music, but when I got it out they all wanted to watch a movie instead since they all saw a little glimpse of one that I was watching last week. So I put on The Princess Bride and had my whole family come sit in my room and watch it. It was great. Most of them don’t speak English, so they were just guessing what was going on, but I think they understood that one a lot better than they were following Say Anything the other day. They loved Andre the Giant and they thought it was hilarious when the Spaniard kept repeating, “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” I’m always happy to spread a little Princess Bride love.
Before that happened, we went to MATI for peer teaching from the environment volunteers today. We had the options of learning two of three options: jam making, composting and gardening. I signed up for jam making and composting, but apparently I missed the cue to switch sessions and I ended up staying with the jam making session and made some pretty awesome papaya jam. I think I might actually try to make it for myself when I’m at site. It didn’t seem that complicated, but then again I am kind of concerned that I would end up giving myself botulism by not sealing the jars properly or something ridiculous like that.
I had another rat run-in today, literally. This time when I was outside helping with the jam making rather than inside our classroom though. A little field mouse scurried up and hit me in the foot and ran off and hid. It was interesting. I felt kind of bad for it because I saw it get eaten by a cat a few minutes later. Pole sana panya.
Friday night I cooked for my family. It actually worked out really well. I was kind of worried about cooking for 14 people, but it was fine. I felt kind of bad because we had gone to MATI that day to play sports again, like the 4th of July, and we got home a little later than usual so I didn’t get to start cooking as early as I should have. It took me almost three hours to cook and we didn’t start eating until about 9:15pm and by that time a couple of the younger kids had already gone to sleep. But those who stayed awake to eat seemed to really like what I made. I cooked garlic mashed potatoes, fried okra and corn and we had oranges for dessert. They really like the fried okra once they tried it. They were really confused as they all sat there and watched me cook it because I think that they just usually cook it in a sauce pan with some tomatoes. It was my first time making all of those things all by myself and I’m proud of the way it turned out. Except what you would probably think would be the easiest to cook, the corn, turned out to be the most problematic. Their corn here is just different. I thought it was different when I ate it before just because of the way it was grilled, but that’s not it. It’s just a lot tougher and not sweet like American corn. I still like it, but I don’t think it’s meant to be boiled. It boiled for about an hour and was still really tough.
I finally got my first package from home Thursday. I say finally only because I’ve know that I had Hot ‘n Spicy Cheez-its and Fruity Pebbles in the mail for a month now and the anticipation has been killing me. Now that I have that, plus the glorious additions of animal crackers, honey roasted peanut butter, and Wheat Thins, I’m really trying to save them for when I really need them. I’m not sure how long that’s going to last. I’ve had kind of a rough week and I really thought I deserved some Hot ‘n Spicy Cheez-its, but I’m trying to ration them. I’m pretty sure I’m going to bust into them next week though. Otherwise I’m worried that I’ll just save them until they are stale, and that would be tragic.



July 28, 2008 My First Bout of Sickness


I finally got sick for the first time today. It seems like a lot of people have been coming down with something lately and I was just waiting for it to get to me. I got to school this morning and felt really nauseous and ending up puking and going back home. Lovely I know. It wasn’t so bad though, I pretty much slept it off. It was kind of funny that it is true that people think any time you are sick around here you have malaria. I came home early from school and told my mom that I was sick and the first thing she asked was if I had malaria. Then the rest of the day they kept telling me to take some medicine (which I don’t think they have a medicine to make you not puke, but they weren’t accepting that explanation that I was just going to let it run its course). So if I wasn’t going to take some medicine, they at least wanted me to eat some ugali (that play-doh like food they eat all the time here that is just corn flour and water), so I finally came out of my room to eat some ugali and okra and managed to keep it down so I think I’m over whatever it was that was going on this morning.
I did however realize that it is going to pretty much suck when I get sick here. Because in the States, I’m a pretty pitiful sick person. I like to lay in bed all day long and watch tv and eat popcicles. It’s going to be really boring to be sick here with no tv to veg out in front of. It wasn’t so bad today because I have power here at my host family’s house so I ended up watching Across the Universe on my computer, but if I don’t have electricity my computer battery isn’t going to last long enough for me to sit around watching movies all day.
Being sick today I missed out on our practice teaching in the schools. We had prepared a pretty fun lesson on how to keep the immune system healthy and showing them how to wash their hands properly and whatnot. I was really wishing that I could show the episode of the Nick Jr. Show Yo! Gabba Gabba that talks about germs because that one was my favorite from my days of working in the Kid’s Club at Gainesville Health and Fitness, but unfortunately they don’t get Nickolodean here. What a shame.
They may not have Nickolodean, however they do have Pretty Woman. Oh yeah, that’s right, I said it. Yesterday afternoon the five people in my CBT went to our friend Kenneth’s house for lunch. He runs a drug store across from our school and he speaks really good English so we hang out with him for a few minutes on most days after school or during our lunch break and he wanted to have us over sometime before we left Magomeni. So yesterday we went over there and had lunch and sodas and sat on some fluffy couches and watched Pretty Woman. He had one of those disks that have like 40 movies on one CD that you can get around here, because don’t we all love a little pirated entertainment? And the whole disk was of Julia Roberts movies in English and/or something like Korean. Good stuff. That certainly wasn’t something I expected to do here in Tanzania. You just never know what this country has in store.

My First Safari

July 17, 2008 Getting Antsy

I’ve definitely been slacking on the blog writing. Sorry about that. I just feel like pretty much the same old stuff is happening everyday so I can’t think of anything new and exciting to write about. We’re going to Mikumi National Park on a safari this weekend so hopefully I’ll have something to report about that. But until then, I guess I’ll try to bring you up to speed on what has happened the past couple of weeks.
Yesterday I had my one-on-one interview with the APCD (the program director). Its purpose is to see what kind of experience you’ve had before the peace corps, how you feel about your training and skills at this point, what type of projects you have in mind to implement at your site, and to discuss any preferences you may have for them to consider when placing you. I’m not sure how much the later is taken into consideration. I know that they want us to be happy here and will try to place us in a place where will want to live for 2 years, but I also know that their main consideration is to place us where our skills match the community’s needs. I have faith that wherever they place me is where I am supposed to be. I’m a big proponent of fate.
However, I figured that it wouldn’t hurt to let them know what may potentially make me happier. I only mentioned a couple of things. Number one of the list? I want to be in a region where I can buy cheese and a variety of fruits and vegetables. Yeah that’s right. I said it. Cheese was my top priority. To that they said, “So if you were placed in a more rural area that didn’t have it readily available, you would at least want to be close to town so you could get it.” I thought that seemed fair enough. Here’s hoping anyway.
I said if I could choose the weather for my site, I would prefer a cooler region, but of course I can handle the heat being from Florida and all, to which they didn’t say anything. Which kind of makes me feel like they have a warmer site in mind for me, but I could be reading to far into what was left unsaid. When it comes to weather, I really feel like either way has its costs and benefits. I’ve always liked winter in Florida, but then again winter in Florida is always short and not that cold. In some regions here it gets really cold. I heard it was 0 degrees Celsius a couple weeks ago in the Southern Highlands. That’s pretty intense. I’m not sure if I could handle that. I definitely did not pack for that. And it would suck to take a cold bucket bath in freezing weather. However, I’ve heard that is a prime spot for cheese buying, so I may be able to sacrifice. ; ) As far as the warm weather goes, that’s just what I’m used to so I don’t really think it would be that big of a deal. And in that case, a nice cold bucket bath in the middle of the day would be pretty nice.
I mentioned that electricity would be nice, but I can live without it if I need to. I want to have it so I can use my computer whenever I want to write these blogs or pre-write emails so I don’t have to pay to use time in the internet cafes and of course so I can watch movies. It will be kind of sad not to have the battery power to watch a whole movie. I finally watched one of the movies I brought for the first time the night before last. I watched The Princess Bride and it was great. That one is a classic. I’m glad I brought it. I’m considering watching Say Anything later tonight. The APCD told me that only 4 out of the 46 sites are in more urban areas so they are the only ones that he knew would for sure have electricity. But most of us will be very rural and not have electricity so I’m trying to go ahead and get used to the idea now. It will be kind of unfortunate, for the reasons mentioned above and because I’m such a nocturnal person so I will be spending a lot of time in the dark trying to read by candle light. But I also think that I would somehow have a more legitimate Peace Corps experience without electricity so either way I can get by.
We had our Mid Language Oral Proficiency Test today and I feel like it went pretty well. The conversation flowed well enough between me and the tester and I felt like I understood everything she was saying to me. I kind of struggled through explaining how to cook rice in Swahili because I couldn’t think of the vocab for grating coconut and sifting through rice to pick out the un-husked ones, but I did the best I could with what I had and managed to pantomime the rest. We are only expected to score Intermediate Mid on a scale from Novice-Intermediate-Advanced-Superior with low, medium and high at each level except for superior, and we don’t even have to score that until our final test 2 weeks from now. And even if you don’t score that it’s not like they fail you and send you home. I hear you get a tutor for a few weeks then you’re good to go.
I’m sad that we have to change LCF (Language and Cross Culture Facilitators i.e. Teachers) next week. I love my teacher Loyce. She is so funny. And she’s really flexible. Seeing how we’re going to be health teachers, we’ve learned a lot of vocab about the human body and sexually transmitted diseases and such, and we make up a lot of impromptu skits and role plays to practice using our new vocab, so you can imagine the ridiculous things that we come up with and she always laughs right along with us. But we really only have about 2 more weeks of learning Swahili. After that we shadow a current volunteer for a week (which I am very excited about) and then we’re in Dar for half of the next week for site announcements (which I’m even more excited about), then we’re just wrapping everything up at the end of that week and saying goodbye to our host families. We also get to learn how to garden at the end of that week (which, you guess it, I’m excited about). The week after that we swear in and move to sites! I can’t wait!



July 20, 2008 Mikumi Safari


I had a fabulous weekend! Our whole group went on a trip to Mikumi National Park and it was so nice to be able to get away. Nothing against Magomeni, but it was nice to be able do something different and to stay up as late as we wanted to, which ended up being pretty ridiculously late.
We took two rickety old busses the 80 Km to Mikumi, which took about 3 hours because the roads are so horrible. When we got there, we walked across the street to eat some lunch and were almost offended by how much more expensive things were in Mikumi than in Kilosa because Mikumi is more tourist friendly I suppose. Everything cost at least double, in some cases triple what it does in our village. For instance, in Kilosa Town, rice and beans is about 1000 Tanzanian Shillings and chipi mayai (this potato omelet like food that we eat a lot here) is around 800 Tsh. In Mikumi, the rice and beans were 3000 and chipsi mayai were 2000. It is kind of funny when you look at it in perspective and realize that 1200 Tsh is about $1, but we’re living on a budget here. And something exciting happened when I was walking around waiting for people to finish their lunch… I found ice cream! It was just a tiny little scoop of something like soft serve strawberry in a little baby cone. It was only 100 Tsh, so I got two! ;)
There was also a snake park at our hotel, not sure why, but it was there and it had a lot of scary snakes. They had spitting cobras, and green mambas whose venom can kill you within 40 minutes, and black mambas whose can do it in 3. I took some pictures so I can recognize them if I see them around and be sure to avoid them, because that would be really freaking scary. They had some pretty big crocodiles that were chillin behind about a three foot wall that you could walk right up to and peer over and see them laying right beneath you. Very safe. (Don’t freak out mom, its not as bad as sitting by Lake Alice, where there’s no wall.)
After that great start, we made our way to the park and actually got to see a lot of different animals. We saw elephants, zebras, giraffes, wildebeests, impalas, crocodiles, hippos, and buffalo. We went up to a really cute little bar on the park grounds to watch the beautiful sunset then made our way back to the hotel, which was really nice. We had a really really delicious buffet dinner. I mean, I would think it was delicious in the States, but here, holy crap, you have no idea. We had warm fresh baked bread with real butter, like you might find at a nice restaurant like Bonefish or something like that. Then we had a really good creamy peppery vegetable soup. The main course was some type of vegetable curry with herb spiced potatoes and other vegetables on the side. And we even got dessert! I don’t know what it was exactly, but it kind of tasted like bananas foster. It was a banana that looked like it was fried in funnel cake batter then sprinkled with powdered sugar. Ok, I need to stop talking about it, I’m making myself hungry and I know I’m not going to get another meal like that for a while. But it is nice to know that food like that is available in this country.
After dinner, we all hung out in the courtyard of the hotel around the bar until the wee hours of the morning and really had a good time. Minus it being the coldest night I’ve experience here and not having brought a jacket with me, it was really fun. We woke up early this morning, about an hour after going to sleep for some of us, at around 5:30 AM. We had a nice breakfast of toast and scrambled eggs and bacon then headed back into the park again. We were trying to get there early to see some lions because they tend to come out early in the morning to get water, but we didn’t end up seeing any unfortunately. We mostly saw the same stuff today, but we also saw some monkeys, a baboon, and some warthogs (like Pumba, without Timon or Simba). We did see some zebras mating and that was interesting.
So overall, it was really a great weekend. It was fun and relaxing and a nice break from doing the same old same old everyday. I have a feeling the second half of training is going to go by so fast now. I just can’t wait to find out where I’m going!

A Fireworkless yet Fun Fourth

June 30, 2008 Oh the Joys of Peanut Butter

My issue with the food here is starting to get a little better. I’m getting more used to eating rice and beans everyday, so it’s not as bad for me anymore. I wish that I was getting more vegetables and less carbs and fried stuff, but I figure I’m eating less overall than I was in the States, so hopefully my weight will stay about the same. My typical day of eating generally consists of 2 vitumbua (basically a fried piece of rice batter, which is delicious) and a banana with hot tea at 7am. Then at 10am, we take a break at school and have more tea and usually some type of little omelet with whatever else on the side, whether that be more vitumbua, or some peanuts, or fruit or whatever. Lunch is at 1pm and we either have another omelet like thing that has potato chunks in it with spinach and sliced tomatoes on the side or rice and beans and spinach. Either option is usually followed by papaya or more bananas. Then I usually don’t eat again until about 8:30pm, when I almost always have rice, beans, and spinach or cabbage, followed by an orange and a banana that I split with my host sister. At home for dinner, I sit on a mat on the floor out in the courtyard with the other females while the males of the family eat at the coffee table inside. They all eat off of a communal platter, but they give me my own little bowl to eat out of. I do eat with my hands though, which I have gotten a lot better at might I add. On the weekends for lunch, I eat ugali, which is a really thick porridge made from corn flour and water. Its really not all the scrumptious, but I’ve found if its eaten with the right side dish, it can be a welcome break from rice and beans twice a day.

However, today I made a wonderful discovery. I found some peanut butter in one shop in town and a loaf of sliced bread in another and I am so excited about bringing a pb and banana sandwich for lunch tomorrow, because I’m pretty sure we’ll be having rice and beans seeing how we had the potato omelet today. My baba also just returned from a business trip and brought my back some apples and pineapple, which is hard to find and expensive in my region. I also found a little shop that sells individually wrapped little pieces of chocolate in town so I’m pretty excited about my new options.

I’ve found that I am really missing milk and cheese here too. I haven’t seen any cheese around, but I found out today that you can get powdered milk. It’s expensive, and I’ve heard tales from my mom about how gross it is, but I’m thinking I’ll get desperate enough for it eventually. Word on the street (i.e. my parents told me) that I’ve got some Fruity Pebbles in the mail and it would be pretty awesome to have some milk to pour on them when they get here. This week’s PCV of the week said he can find milk near his site in the Southern Highlands, so I’m going to make it my mission to tell the people that decide the placements to get them to put me in a place that has cheese nearby.

Things are looking up in other matters as well. I got a phone last weekend, so that makes me feel a little more connected to the world. So far I’ve only been able to talk to my parents because its pretty expensive for me to call America and our weekly allowance is not enough to be calling everyone everyday. But I’m hoping that everyone else back home can figure out a way to call me that’s not too expensive and I’ll be able to stay in touch with people that way, because it is free for me to receive calls and texts. Regardless, it’s nice to at least have the option to connect with people when the opportunity arises.

I had a pang of homesickness for a little while last weekend one morning, but I wrote in my journal for several pages to get out all of my frustrations then took a minute to remind myself why I am here in the first place. I thought about what I would be doing if I was at home instead of here right now and decided that I’m in the right place and I’m here at the right time. I really need this time to decide what I want to do with my life, if I want to go to grad school and which program I want to apply to, what career direction I want to pursue, where I want to live, who I want to be… There’s so much to be gained from this experience. I know that I just have to be patient and take things as they come. Being the daydreamer that I am, I often find my thoughts wandering to far into the future and I’ve wondering about what I could potentially be missing by not being in the US for two years. But then I think about what all I would be missing out on if I never came to Tanzania. Who knows what’s in store for me here? I don’t know, but I’m excited to find out. As many times as I doubt her, I know fate does her thing and she does it well.

July 3, 2008 Busting out the Camera

Today I decided I could wait no longer to take some pictures. I see a Kodak moment pretty much everyday and it has pained me to keep my camera kept away for this long. I tried to keep it in my room because I know that crime is opportunistic here so if people know that I have it and where I keep it then it is more likely to be stolen. And they kids loooooove getting their picture taken so once they know you have a camera they all want 5 million pictures taken of themselves. But oh well. I keep my room locked when I’m not here so I’m not too worried about the theft (knock on wood) and I’ll just have a bunch of adorable pictures of a crowd of random kids cheezing.

Its funny how I’ve already noticed some correlations to some things that we talked about in my African Pop Culture class last semester when we were discussing photography, like the use of props to convey an image of the person being photographed. For instance, one of my brothers acted like he was reading my English-Swahili dictionary in every picture I took of him tonight. And Amina wanted to have her picture taken while cooking the rice. And Mama Mdogo wanted to have her picture taken while making the dough for mandaaze. And the kids all just try to get as close to the camera as they can, which makes it kind of difficult to capture the whole group, but makes for some nice shots of just a mouth or an eye or things like that.

Besides the picture taking, everything else has been going really well too. The first couple weeks I would generally experience a little dip in my mood for no reason in particular for a little while at some point during each day. But this week has been going really smoothly. I’ve been in a really good mood and I feel like I’m really starting to get into the swing of things. I’ve actually found recently that eating rice and beans everyday isn’t bothering me as much anymore. I’ve actually even started helping to cook the rice most nights. I’m understanding more Swahili while listening to my family talk to each other in the evenings and we finally got our Swahili to English dictionaries today which should help things along even more. I got my first letter from home today (thanks fam) which was pretty exciting. Even though I have a phone now and have talked to them a couple of times, its still just fun to get mail. So everyone feel free to send me letters, even if you don’t really feel like you have anything important to talk about. Just in case you don’t have my address for during training it is:

Katie Gillman, PCT

Peace Corps

PO BOX 9123

Dar es Salaam

Tanzania, Africa

I did have kind of a strange and slightly scary experience the other night though, only because I am ridiculous. I woke up around five thirty AM in the dark and saw a light flashing outside my window. My first instinct, strangely enough, was that someone was trying to shine a flashlight into my room to get my attention, which kind of freaked me out so I started thinking that it was probably just heat lightning. So I let my mind rest with that idea for a minute or so then I opened my eyes again and noticed that this light was flashing a little too much to be heat lightning and sometimes it stayed on a little too long. So then my mind went back to the flashlight idea and I started pondering that. I was thinking to myself, would this be another Volunteer in my village trying to get me to come out or someone in need trying to get some help. So I peaked out from behind my curtain and saw that it was indeed a light flashing from the front of the house and not heat lightning. And then I started thinking about Morse Code and what the pattern for an SOS was. And I could swear that I picked out a 3 long 3 short 3 long pattern. I don’t even know if that’s the pattern or visa versa, but I convinced myself that if there was a pattern, then that’s what it was. I kid you not people, this was my thought process. Even though I’m pretty sure the average person in my village has no idea what Morse Code is, much less the signal for an SOS. It starts getting light around 6:15 here so I pretty much just stayed awake until it was time to get up because that intense and absurd thought process got me pretty pumped and awake. And just so everyone knows, everything is fine. I’m completely safe where I am, and no one was sending an SOS so don’t freak out….mom. I saw that there is a fluorescent light in the front of my house and that was what was flickering because the bulb was burning out. I thought it was kind of funny how deep my thought process went all because of a dying light bulb.

The only other negative thing that I can thing of, not that I’m trying to dredge up as many negative things as possible or anything, is that I feel like I’m going to barf pretty much every time I ride in a car here. The roads are so terrible and everybody drives cars like one might drive a train. Pedestrians do not have the right of way, ever. Cars slow down for nobody and nothing. If they are driving through a crowded area they just blow their horn to let people know that they are coming and keep going full speed ahead. And you know how most people like to try to go really slow over pot holes and such, well that is definitely not the case here. I’ve tried to start sitting a little closer to the front of the car and that seems to be helping. Other than that, I guess I’m just going to have to get over it.

July 4, 2008 Who Says You Have to be in America to Celebrate the 4^th of July

Today we had a very welcome break from our Swahili studies to all meet together at MATI, no work, just play. We divided into 6 teams and did a relay race (which my team won might I add), played some ultimate Frisbee (which my team also dominated in, I think they score ended up being somewhere around 12-0), some mpira wa miguu, i.e. football, i.e. soccer (which ended up being tied 0-0 but I must say that I was much better than I thought I would be for playing in my first soccer game ever) and last but not least we also got to play some volleyball. (Notice I don’t include a score for that one).

Since it was the Fourth of July we decided to sing the national anthem to kick things off and hung an American flag on the side of the volleyball net. No fireworks, but hey, we did our best. It was really fun to be able to relax and run around outside a little after 3 weeks of 9 hours a day of learning. I sustained a few minor injuries, but it was worth it. First, I pretty much got tackled while playing Ultimate and cut up my left knee a little, but that was no big deal. Then on the way to the soccer field I stepped in a hole and twisted my ankle, but I got over that too. I’m actually really surprised that I haven’t broken my leg yet being the clumsy person that I am and having these fields and roads that I walk through daily rife with opportunity to hurt myself. And lastly, I was tackled once again while playing soccer and got a knee slammed into the inside of my right knee and have a pretty sweet bruise forming there. If I was anything like the professional soccer players I see on TV I would have writhed around on the ground until they carried me off on a stretcher just to come back in the game 2 seconds later, but seeing how I’m not, I took it like a G and kept playing.

I got a few more pictures of the beautiful landscape today too so hopefully I will be able to upload those soon. The green mountains, and orange sky spilling over a field of sunflowers, it really looks like a page from National Geographic.

Looks like its time for dinner. Guess what I’m having, yep, rice and beans! Woo-hoo!

July 6, 2008 Playing with Matches…literally

For the past couple nights, the power has gone out for about an hour around dinner time. Its not that big of a deal, we just get out the kerosene lanterns, and I get out my flashlight (that they all want to hold and shine in each other’s eyes) and we just keep on keeping on. It’s kind of nice because the stars shine so much brighter when the whole village is dark. However, I’m still thinking that I would like to have electricity when I get to my site. Mostly because I want to be able to keep my electronics charged and use them whenever I feel like using them, but also because it really is so much darker. The kerosene lanterns work fine for some things, like seeing what you’re eating, but when I tried to read or write by the flame in my room it was a little difficult to see. And since I like to do that for about an hour every night before I go to sleep I could see how that might cause a little bit of a strain on my eyes. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to see how that goes.

So anyway, back to the lanterns. I’ve come to the conclusion that these kids here can do whatever they want and not get hurt. For instance, the 1 year old Sakina kept grabbing matches, or even the whole box of matches, and sticking it in her mouth. And then she kept trying to stick her hand in the flame of the smaller, uncovered lanterns. And she would hold it there for a second without getting burnt. Everyone in my family seems to have a high tolerance for heat. There’s no such thing as oven pads here. My mama will be cooking with a metal pot directly over lit charcoal and when she needs to take it off the heat, she just grabs in with her bare hands and moves it. And sometimes when we start eating (we eat with our hands) the rice is really hot and burns the tip of my fingers when I try to grab some, but it doesn’t seem to bother anyone else. Maybe I’ll learn to desensitize myself to heat the same way I’m learning to not be as concerned with germs as I used to be.

Amongst all of the progress we are making in our Swahili learning, I’ve noticed something kind of fun about the language. There are a lot of words that either are the same word with two very different meanings, or words that if you change just one letter or sound become something that you would not want to use in everyday conversation. For instance “kunywa” is to drink, “kunya” is to poo. “Kuna” is the verb to have, “kuma” is a slang term for a woman’s vagina. And just a little side note on that one, I’ve already almost messed up there. We had formed some questions to ask the district government officials, and one of them was “If we have an idea for a project, who should we see about it.” The word for if or like is “kama,” but I had written “kuma”. Fortunately slang terms that we had learned randomly came up in conversation before we spoke with the officials and somebody mentioned that word and I checked it in the dictionary, and sure enough, I had written the wrong thing. Wouldn’t that have been an interesting thing to say to a government official. Let’s see. What else is there? “Zina” is a conjugated form of “to have,” but “zinaa” is adultery. And the word kojoa could mean either to urinate, or to reach orgasm, depending on the context its used it. And just so everyone knows, I wasn’t just searching for the dictionary for inappropriate terms. Since we’re going to be health teachers talking about sexually transmitted diseases and HIV, we learned some of this vocab in class the other day.

Even though today is my “pumzika day” (rest day), I better get going. Its 9AM and I’m still in my room so my family probably thinks that I’m being really lazy and antisocial. I was going to try to sleep in today, but when I heard kids playing rather loudly outside my window and it was lighter than usual outside, I thought that maybe I had slept in too long… it was 7:15. But my host sister just knocked on my door to ask me if I was going to wash my clothes this morning so I guess I’ll go get on that and get a fresh set of blisters on my knuckles. My poor skin, it’s not very well suited for Africa. But hopefully it will toughen up along with the rest of me.

Addition: I just climbed a mountain with some rafiki and might I say, all I could hear was Bear Grylls in my head as we wandered through the tall grass and braved the potential disasters of the wild. But no fear, we made it up and back down unharmed, and even passed a guy hanging out in front of a mini hut on the middle of the mountain where he apparently lives. Good times.

And the pictures at the top are of me with some of my brothers and sisters here in the courtyard of our house, my CBT group from left to right Luke, me, Catherine, Teri, Korie, and our teacher Loyce in front of our "school" and some of the scenery at the place we stayed in Morogoro before heading to Kilosa. I'll try to add more pictures later, but it kind of takes forever.