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!
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!
5 comments:
Lil Sis,
Those are some really cool photos - especially those "hip" kids!
Looks like you are having a great time and have everything all mapped out - which comes as no surprise!
We are very proud of you, and, REALLY miss you!
Keep posting - we look forward to reading your blog!
Love,
Dad
Kate! I sent you a letter-on tue. 21st so your dad said it will prob. take like a week or so, i sent it before you just posted your new stuff- and i had made reference to the Lion King (cause i saw your dad and he had said you were going on a safari)- funny-cause u said something about timone and pumba. well let me know that you get it.
love,
Linz
Katie!
Those pictures are amazing!
I sent you a letter the other week. It's like two giant pages of me just blabbering. hahahaha I miss you so much, but I'm glad to hear that you're having a good time. I love reading your blog.
Love,
Erica
safari = freakin awesome! i'm glad that pst seemed to go so well for you! hope i have the same luck!
megan
Katie,
I have really enjoyed reading your blog.
The pictures are amazing!
We all miss you and love you.
Love,
Aunt Angela
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