Tanzanias Really Like Loud Things

I have had a relatively eventful couple of weeks, and at every one of those events, you can bet on the presence of LOUD music. For instance, last week the primary school had a celebration for the students who were graduating Standard 7 (which is about 7th grade and the last grade before going to high school). And they set up a generator to blare their beloved gospel music to entertain us. Yes, gospel music at a school function. Its everywhere here. On daladalas, on the radio in the little stores, on every person who has a television's television,etc.
And of course, at revivals. There was some kind of a revival going on in Kimondo all last week. I just found out that they lady that lives next door to me is some kind of priest at some church that I've never heard of before coming here and their church was having what they called an "mkutano" or meeting. And since I'm their neighbor, they were sure to invite me everyday during the week. I'm not really a fan of religious fanatic gatherings in America, so pair that with the blaring, repetitive gospel music that I'm not so fond of and me not really being able to understand most of what was being said...yeah. But it was a nice cultural experience I suppose. I made the effort and went for a couple hours on a couple of different days, not that I needed to leave my house to hear the meeting going on. It was certainly broadcasted over the speakers loud enough. But I've got to start "getting out there" more and trying to hang out with the villagers and stop being such a hermit. I felt like I was integrating pretty well this week though. I certainly sacrificed and sat through enough church to last me a lifetime. Not only did I have the daily dose of revival but I also went to my neighbor's confirmation in the Catholic church, which lasted 3 hours, and I'm pretty sure we got there late.
I had a few more adventures to tell you all about, but I'm out of time at the internet cafe and I need to head back into the village before dark, so stay tuned...

Found a Pnut, Found a Pnut, Found a Pnut last night...

I feel like I was relatively productive this week. I actually did something related to my Peace Corps assignment finally. I taught a lesson about HIV to my Form 1 Biology class and it went pretty well. It was kind of rough keeping ninety 14 year olds under control when you’re discussing things like condoms, but we made it through ok.
That class actually was easier to teach than my Form 1 Chemistry class a few days before. Apparently the Form 2 students just received their scores from their mock national exam and did not do well. So the other teachers had gathered the whole class together out on the grass in the middle of the school and were calling them up one by one to receive their strokes. Needless to say, this was a bit distracting to my class to see and hear their classmates getting hit right outside of our classroom. This whole corporal punishment thing here is very frustrating. I’ve had several discussions with the teachers at the secondary school about various topics, that being a frequent one. They think that if “you spare the rod you spoil the child” and if they didn’t use strokes that the kids would be crazy and do whatever they wanted and skip school all the time. They ask me what we do in America if we don’t hit children and I explained that there are other, more effective types of punishment, like giving them more work. That way they are punished and forced to learn something useful. They just laugh at me. There are many things that I disagree with concerning the education system here, but I suppose this is not the place to air my grievances.
One topic that I feel ok expounding upon that I have frequent debates with the teachers about is the current election in America. One of the teachers asks me pretty much everyday why I support Obama and says that he would vote for McCain, “because he’s old enough.” That’s the only reason. Old people are untouchable here. If you are old, then you are trusted to know what you are doing. Its so frustrating to get in these long discussions about how its not about age, its about ideology and how I disagree with the Republican party’s ideas, and how George Bush has run our country into the ground and gotten us into a stupid war, and how our economy is in shambles, and how Americans have lost respect abroad, etc. etc. (you guys have been there, you know how things are). So anyway, we discuss all these things, and he agrees with me, and I tell him that McCain is the one who wants to continue all those policies that we both disagree with and Obama is the one who wants to change things, then he just says, “Yes, but I think McCain is old enough.” UGH!
Continuing on the realm of frustrations of the week, my cooking has definitely taken a hit. I’m starting to get lazy when it comes to that. There are times when a refrigerator and a microwave would be fantastic instead of waiting 3 hours for some beans to cook. Speaking of which, I planned ahead the other day and was going to make some beans for dinner so I started my fire and put my beans on early in the day. But I forgot to check on them at one point and after they had been cooking for about 2 hours, I burned them. So I threw them out and had Nutter Butters for dinner instead (thanks Grandparents, those have come in very handy). However my goodies from America are running low and I’m starting to get really annoying with the post office because I know that packages were sent a while ago and they still aren’t here! I have a big zipped up bag that I keep a lot of the snacks from my last packages in and though it is dwindling, I made a wonderful discovery a couple of days ago when I reached in there and found a bag of barbeque roasted peanuts that I had completely forgotten about, and devoured them.
Despite all these rantings, it really has not been a bad week. I’m starting to feel more “normal” here. I’m actually starting to like the quietness of my house, although I will be very happy when my Ipod speakers finally get here so its not quite so quiet. I finally caved in to my laziness and got a couple of “housegirls.” Some people have girls that come everyday to cook and clean for them, so I don’t feel so bad having them come once a week. I just hate washing my clothes so much and it gives me blisters all over my hands. And once I tried washing my blankets, I knew that just wasn’t going to fly. So my neighbor got two of his students who have just finished Standard 7 and they are going to come every Thursday to help me wash and mop and such. They started this Thursday and it was fantastic having their help. They washed my clothes while I finally planted my garden.
Hate to say it, but the green thumb does not exactly run in my family. Unless it skipped a generation. (No offense Mom). I don’t know if my seeds are actually going to grow but at least I tried. My flowers aren’t making much progress so far, so we’ll see how the vegetables go. I got a little ambitious and planted a variety of things: basil, cilantro, oregano, chives, okra, cauliflower, green peppers, and watermelon. Good for the garden, and not so good for the blankets that were hanging out to dry, it finally rained on Thursday. And the saying when it rains it pours really applies here. This is the first time its really rained since I got to my site and it was quite a thunderstorm. At one point I even thought it was hailing, but I think that maybe it was just pebbles bouncing around. It was kind of cool to take a bucket bath to the sound of the storm, almost like I was taking a shower in the rain. It was easy to pretend I was at home with a Florida Thunderstorm and the power out. I did notice a leak in my ceiling already, but its good to see it now so hopefully I can get it fixed before the rainy season starts in a few weeks.
I also treated myself to a badly needed pedicure this week. I bought a pumice stone at the market and it worked wonders. I was finally able to scrub of the layers of dirt that had cemented themselves to my feet. Gross I know, but I thought I’d share anyway. I even painted my toenails to boot.
Before I sign off for the day, I would just like to include to little scenarios that occurred this morning that I feel could only happen in Tanzania. First of all, on my walk to the next village to get to the daladala to get to town this morning, I passed an old woman and greeted here in the tribal language. She stopped and greeted me back, then offered me some pombe (moonshine). This was 8:30 AM. Another thing, when I was on the daladala, I was sitting in the front seat next to the driver, who was young guy about my age probably. Then a Celine Dion song, “I’m Alive,” came on the radio and he got all excited and turned it up and started singing along. They love Celine Dion here. Its great. On that note, I guess I’ll wrap it up here.

Delicious Food and The Chaotic State of the World

This past week I had a visiting volunteer come stay with me and its been nice having someone to speak in English to. We’ve mostly passed the time cooking delicious food all week. We made bean burgers with guacamole, meatless meatloaf, pineapple upside down cake, chocolate chunk cookies, falafel and pitas and all kinds of other delicious spicy soupy concoctions. Its been good times.

Other than that not too much to report. Still been teaching biology and chemistry and that’s going ok. Just kind of frustrating that the kids have been taught with rote memorization style for so long that its almost impossible to make them think outside of the box and come up with any answer that is not a direct dictionary definition from their notes. But we’ll see how that goes. I have an interesting lesson planned on HIV for next week with my Form 1 (9^th grade) biology class so hopefully that will liven them up a little.

This weekend I’ve come into town for a fellow volunteer’s birthday so it should be fun hanging out with a bunch of other volunteers in the region…and hopefully I’ll start feeling better eventually. I’ve been kinda queasy feeling all week (too much delicious food maybe). Plus all the dust in the air has left me with a month long upper respiratory infection that for some reason really makes my ears hurt when I swallow, but I suppose there are worse things one could obtain in this country.

I’m sending in my absentee ballot today (BARACK THE VOTE!!!). I’m pretty excited about that. And while I’m at it, I might as well throw in my two cents that if I can get my vote in from the other side of the world, then all of you need to make sure to get out there and vote in America! Its not that hard. As long as you are voting for the right person that is… ;) And from what I hear the country is going to hell in a handbasket over there. Jeez, I’m gone for four months and you all let the Great Depression 2 hit, and UF loses to Old Miss in the Swamp…ouch! I’m glad me and my little bit of money are safe on another continent with no televisions to watch this torture! I did watch some coverage of the Capital by BBC right before the Senate Voted on the Wall Street bail out package, and I might I say if you didn't pay attention to how scary it was, it was quite funny. The Brits were interviewing the most ignorant sounding Senators from the Midwest saying things like, "Isn't this package completely Un-American for rewarding failing businesses?" When you're starved for News Coverage its awesome though. I'm going to try to get a radio so I can listen to the rest of the debates and hear the election results as they come in. Until then, you guys keep things under control over there!