Friday, December 21, 2007

MERRY XMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR


Hello from Dar es Salaam. We are passing through Dar on our way to Zanzibar for Xmas and New Year's. After finishing IST (In Service Training) in Dodoma we headed back to Kibakwe with a few of our friends for a little village visit before our Xmas vacation to Zanzibar. Once we got back to the village I started digging the garden in preparation for the rainy season and our dudes, Zizo and Gilbert were totally stoked to start teaching other people in Kibakwe the new farming techniques they learned at IST. Since we were back in Kibakwe for only a week, it was tough to get any type of a permaculture seminar organized before Xmas. We plan to facilitate some permaculture and bio-intensive gardening workshops when we get back to Kibakwe after New Year's. My idea is to have Zizo and Gilbert teach the workshops themselves so that they can feel some ownership for what they're doing for their community. They have a better idea of how and what to teach than non-Tanzanians would anyway. Also, they can continue this work after we leave after two years. All in all, IST was a big success. All of the counterparts of the other PCVs seemed to be really enthusiastic about what was being taught and everybody got along really well. I think that the Tanzanians got a better understanding of Peace Corps and what we're doing here and what's expected of them throughout the course of IST.
I want to wish everyone back home a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year. We'll be thinking of you and missing you.

Saturday, December 8, 2007

TODAY IN DODOMA


Well, this is the first chance I've had in a while to sit down at a computer to post a blog entry. Carla and I have been in Dodoma for the past several days for our In-Service Training or IST. We're reunited with our friends from Pre-Service Training (PST) for a couple of weeks before we have to return to our respective villages. During IST we're learning about orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs), grant writing, permaculture, project design, management, and implementation, and how to mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS on our communities. For the first few days of IST it was just us and our fellow PCVs, then our counterparts and supervisors from our villages joined us. Each PCV chooses a counterpart to bring to seminars like IST; this way people who have more of a vested interest in the community are trained along with us. Realistically, as PCVs, we're only here for two years, then it's up to the community to continue the projects that have been started. Carla and I decided to bring Zizo and Gilbert and it seems like they're really enjoying it and they're getting a chance to meet other counterparts who share similar experiences. Tomorrow is Tanzania's Independence Day and we have no classes scheduled, but we may go to the stadium to see President Kikwete give an address. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday will be all about permaculture gardening and grant writing, and then we go back to Kibakwe with a group of our friends on Thursday or Friday. So, for about a week Kibakwe will be overrun with Wazungu (white people). I hope everyone back home in the U.S. is doing well and I want you all to know that Carla and I love and miss you.

TODAY IN KIBAKWE


I’d like to devote this blog post to my friend Ryan Knudson and his ESL class at Racine Horlick High School in Racine, Wisconsin.
Today in the village of Kibakwe in the Mpwapwa District in the Dodoma Region in the country of Tanzania on the African continent, everything is just fine. The temperature ranges between high 60s at night to high 80s and 90s during the heat of the day. There’s a fair amount of wind every day and the climate is very dry in this region, but the rainy season start here next month. Beginning in January, it will rain every day for about three or four months and everything will be lush and green until May or June. We’ve had a few days of rain over the past month and even that has made a little bit of a difference in how the landscape looks. Peanuts, corn, sorghum, sunflower, and finger millet are the major crops of this area. Papaya trees can be seen just about everywhere in Kibakwe. Most of the people who live in Kibakwe make their livings as farmers, either on their own land or working for someone else as a laborer getting paid in a share of the crop. Most people in Kibakwe live in poverty in modest houses made from mud bricks. During the dry season, from July until December, people who normally work on the farms are unemployed. The biggest obstacle facing the people of Kibakwe is draught. We rely on the mountain village of Wotta for our water supply: if Wotta gets rain, then we get water in Kibakwe. As Peace Corps Volunteers, my wife Carla and I, are in the very early stages of trying to acquire grant money to repair the intake that supplies Kibakwe with water. If the intake is repaired, Kibakwe will be able to get more water more regularly than it does now. We are also in the planning stages of other future projects such as a sign campaign that promotes awareness about malaria and what you can do to protect yourself against the disease, a program that would provide primary school students with a nutritious breakfast, and video nights where the community is invited to watch educational videos about HIV/AIDS prevention. We would like to do some projects with students back in the U.S. that would promote a cultural exchange between our two nations: this is one of the fundamental goals of the Peace Corps. It is the aim of Peace Corps that through cultural understanding and awareness of issues that development will continue in places like Kibakwe, Tanzania. If you would like to learn more about the U.S. Peace Corps please visit http://www.peacecorps.gov/ .

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

No Post Today

I JUST DON'T FEEL LIKE WRITING ON MY BLOG TODAY.
The photo above is of me at a Halloween/Going Away party for our friends who are moving to a different region. My impromptu costume was a Catholic 40 days before Easter. That is all. End of transmission.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

A Great Big Asante Sana to all of our Rafiki

ASANTE SANA IS KISWAHILI FOR THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
I'd like to send a word of gratitude to all of you who have supported Carla and I over the past four months that we have been in Tanzania with your phone calls, texts, letters, and packages. Especially the packages!
I cannot stress to you the amount of joy that getting a package from the U.S. brings us. Even the smell of the American air trapped in the box makes us homesick. When you are so far away from your friends and family, the smallest things can brighten up your day. So, please keep sending us letters, texts and packages, and keep us in your thoughts.

...and now for the shameless plea:
if you would like to contact us or send us packages or donate toys or educational materials, our mailing address is:

Tony Stonehouse
SLP 36
Kibakwe-Mpwapwa
Tanzania

Here are some tips to keep in mind when shipping packages:
  • Try to keep it to 4 lbs. or less
  • Padded envelopes seem to have fewer problems than boxes
  • Don't claim the actual value on the parcel (it's more likely to be stolen)
  • Write NCV (No Commercial Value) on the parcel
  • Write "Vifaa Vya Elimu" (Educational Supplies) on the parcel
  • Definitely ship using a tracking number (we've already utilized this system to find a missing parcel)
  • Salty snacks are only available in the big cities in Tanzania
...and if you would like to call or text, we'd love to hear from you:
Carla: 011 255 782 033 350
Tony: 011 255 784 965 453



What's Goin' On

Over the past 2-3 weeks, we have been trying to make our house a bit more comfortable by painting, hanging things on the wall and mostly trying to create some semblance of the home we left in America. Slowly but surely we are making headway. I've posted several pictures that reflect a bit more of what life is like in Kibakwe. There's a photo of me walking on our main road or barabara kubwa with the bus that we take to Mpwapwa in the background (lime green with a kangaroo on the back). The other pictures are of the path from the main road to our house, women carrying water home from our bomba (water pump), a shot of the soko or market where we buy our vegetables, and a couple of the development of our house.




























As you can see, without a fence around our courtyard, all types of livestock find their way into our lives. These goats were just a bit thirsty after a long day of grazing in the African sun. The other animals that frequent our neighborhood are chickens, roosters, guinea fowl, and cows.

The Moose Analogy

Even though we have been at site in Kibakwe for almost two months now, we still don't know everyone in the village nor do they know us. This brings about an interesting situation. Since there is a koki (water tap) right outside of our courtyard, many people - mostly women and children - come here to fetch water. Most everyone is very cordial and familiar with the wazungu(white people) living in the house by the koki, but occasionally there are children who are taken completely by surprise by our mere existence. When they see us, they stare and their jaws drop struck dumb by our presence. We greet them first in Kiswahili,"Habari za leo?" then in the predominant tribal language Kigogo,"Mbukwenyi?" At this point, we realize there's no amount of language that will be able to force comprehension on their part of our presence in their village. I tried to understand this behavior by putting myself in their place and I developed this analogy: Imagine you're walking down the street near your house, you look up, and there's a moose ten feet away on the sidewalk. It's safe to assume that this situation would render most of us not only motionless but speechless as well. Now, imagine the moose greets you in English,"Good day. How are you?" I think it might take us a while to get over the initial shock of a talking moose. In conclusion, Carla and I (and most white development workers in rural Tanzania), are talking moose.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Today in Tanzania


Today in Tanzania, Carla and I are preparing to go back to Kibakwe after a bit of online time and some fruit and vegetable shopping at the soko(market). Angus has been kind enough to let us use the computers at the teacher's college for a short time this morning. I'd like to take this opportunity to refer all of you to Carla's blog www.carlaintanzania.blogspot.com if you don't already have it. I know, it's long overdue and I apologize for not linking it earlier. Carla is just so much better at documenting our daily activities than I am. For example, check out the past few days for the story of the five a.m. dance party in Kibakwe that we passed on our walk to the bus stand. I try to cover posting the pictures and Carla is very good at detailing the nuts and bolts of living here. Speaking of pictures, I have some new ones to post today. They show what we've been working on for the past couple of weeks at our house in Kibakwe. The young men in the pictures are our helpers Zawadi aka Zizo (the taller of the two) and Gilbert aka Man G. Within the first couple of weeks they started showing up asking us if we needed any help with cleaning or washing clothes or anything and so we decided to try it out for a while. So far, they've been great, helping out with whatever we need and just hanging out with us practicing their English and letting us practice our Kiswahili. You'll notice in one of the pictures that there's some freshly poorly laid tile in our bafu(shower). This is an example of how we're trying to make our house a home here in Tanzania. I've never laid tile before and my resources were limited - no tile adhesive, only cement, no bubble level, no grout, and no previous experience laying tile. This being said, I'm trying to make the bathroom a little more familiar. Word of advice: if you have any cuts on your hands do not mix cement without wearing gloves. I did this and the lime content of the cement aggravated my wounds so badly that I thought I had serious chemical burns. Everything is fine now and my sores are healing. I hope these pictures give everyone a little glimpse of how it is to be living large in the village. What we have is not a typical Tanzanian domicile.

Bust Out the Turd Polish

20 September 2007

“If we can fix up this house, there isn’t any house back in the U.S. that we can’t fix up.” These were the words Carla used to express how much work is needed to create a comfortable living environment here in Kibakwe. Of course, the standards in the village in Tanzania are not as high as in other countries as you will see from subsequent pictures of our "nyumbani."

A Word on Tanzanian Mob Justice

Early on in training, we had heard that wezi (thieves) were not tolerated by the Tanzanian public and that we should think twice about yelling, “Mwizi” (Thief (singular)) if someone steals something of ours. When a thief is run down my an angry mob he will be beaten, stoned, hacked with mapanga (machetes), burned, and sometimes, if the authorities do not arrive in time or a wave of sensibility comes over the crowd, killed by any of the aforementioned methods. We recently saw the aftermath of this type of village justice right in our front courtyard. Carla and I were doing work around the house and Gilbert and Zawadi were sweeping the yard when a group of men, one covered in blood with severe gashes about his head, walked through our courtyard on their way to the clinic which is about 300 meters behind our house. I caught a glimpse of this through the spaces in our courtyard wall and Carla was called by Gilbert and Zawadi to come outside to see the mwizi being escorted to the hospital. Needless to say, Carla was abhorred by what she saw. To the boys, this was nothing out of the ordinary. "How else do you deal with someone who feels that it is acceptable to steal a harvest of three sacks of peanuts from a man who has worked hard to farm them?" In the villages, this attitude is common and nobody has a better solution.

A Word on theTanzanian Culture of Sympathy

20 September 2007

“Pole.” This phrase is uttered, literally, millions of times every day in Tanzania. It means, “Sorry.” However, the gravity that this phrase carries is dependent upon the context, but the word stays the same, sometimes followed by “sana” (very). Here are some examples:

Your goat ran away? Pole.

Your luggage was stolen? Pole.

You dropped something and it made a loud noise? Pole.

You have a touch of malaria? Pole.

Your infant child died? Pole sana.

I was told by a current PCV that the essential meaning of the phrase is, “It sucks to be you.” This is not to say that every time this phrase is said, it’s completely insincere, but nine times out of ten it’s just to fill the silence.

A Word on Tanzanian Food

20 September 2007 Continued

Common to the Tanzanian diet are cooked rice(wali) or rice cooked in coconut milk(ubwabwa), ugali(a stiff corn flour porridge similar to polenta or modeling clay), kidney beans(maharage), tomatoes(nyanya), onions(vitunguu), cabbage(kabichi), peas(njegere), okra(bamia), potatoes(viazi), sweet potatoes(viazi vitamu), local spinach(mchicha), fish(samaki), beef(nyama ya ng’ombe), chicken(nyama ya kuku), goat(nyama ya mbuzi), and on occasion pork(nyama ya nguruwe or kiti moto). Some of the traditional foods include chapati(similar to tortilla, flatbread, or Indian naan), sambusa(triangular pastry filled with meat or potatoes similar to samosas), mandazi(donut-holes), bagia(savory deep-fried snack similar to hushpuppies), and vitumbua(oil-soaked sponge-like rice fritter). Bagia is our favorite, closely followed by sambusa and mandazi. Fortunately or unfortunately, bagia are not available in Kibakwe. However, our friend Mathayo in Mpwapwa has offered to periodically send us bagia via the Kimambo Company bus that travels between Mpwapwa and Kibakwe every day. Also available in our village is a dish called “chipsi mayai” which is essentially french fries and eggs. It's potato wedges fried and then eggs are added and fried till done and you put salt and hot sauce on it and it's delicious! If I'm feeling especially good about the meat in the village that day, I'll order “nyama choma,” too which is literally “meat roasted.” Imagine beef or goat shishkabobs without the skewers or things other than meat. I cannot continue on this trajectory for obvious health reasons, but on occasion it is quite satisfying. I never thought I'd be in a place where I would look forward to fried potatoes and eggs and charred meat.

During homestay, there was always rice, beans, spinach, cabbage, and ugali on the table. On occasion there was beef, fish, okra, sambusa, and chapati. And we always ate with our hands. Dinner would be served when Mama would say, “Karibuni chakula” (You(plural) are welcome to food), and at the end of dinner we would say, “Nimeshiba. Asante kwa chakula, Mama” (I am full. Thank you for the food, Mama). I feel very fortunate that we got such good food during homestay. Many of our friends would complain each week about how they only got rice and beans or rice and mchicha.

Now that we are in the village, we're cooking for ourselves and even though we're using the locally available ingredients, we're not always cooking Tanzanian food. I like to think of it as a type of “fusion” cooking – Tanzanian, American, and California Cuisine – TanzAmCaliCu is what I like to call it. Carla has continued to be a very inventive and resourceful chef and baker even with limited means and resources. Pasta and popcorn, I have discovered here in Tanzania, are my two most crucial comfort foods. Both of these foods are reminders of childhood – pasta because it's what we ate at my house at least once a week if not three times a week, and popcorn because of my memories of my Mom making three to five batches of popcorn at a time in the stir popper, dumping it all into a disposable aluminum roasting tray, salting it, and storing it inside the oven so it would “keep” longer. On those really bad days where I hate being here, and I don't want to speak the language or leave the house, I know that a batch of pasta or popcorn will make everything better.

Bringing Everyone Up To Date

20 September 2007

I decided to use this blog entry to summarize what our first ten weeks of training were like. First of all, we arrived at night in Dar es Salaam and went straight to the hostel. Basically the first week in country was spent traveling from compound to compound. First, the hostel, then Peace Corps HQ Dar, then MATI Ilonga (the Kilosa training compound), and finally homestay which was still somewhat insular. Being dropped off by the Peace Corps car at Mama Chacha’s house in Kilosa was one of the strangest and most awkward feelings I’ve ever experienced, but looking back on that house in Kilosa, I miss the comfort of familiarity. With us speaking almost no Kiswahili and Mama Chacha refusing to speak any English, we communicated through contextual pantomime and our small photo albums from home. We were told by other PCVs(Peace Corps Volunteers) that this is a great icebreaker, not to mention that the pictures do all of the talking. The biggest adjustment we made to the Tanzanian way of life when we were at homestay was in the form of dinnertime. In the U.S. we usually ate dinner around 5 or 6 p.m. Here, most people don’t eat until at least 8 or 9, and there were many times we wouldn’t eat until 9:30 or 10:00 or saa tatu na nusu au saa nne (3:30 or 4:00 Kiswahili time). Don’t ask me why, but the Tanzanians thought that Western time was too confusing, so they changed it by six hours. Oh, did I mention that all of the clocks and watches in the country still show Western time, which means that Tanzanians are constantly doing the math in their heads.

For ten weeks our routine was to start language classes at 8:00 a.m. - Carla’s classroom was right in the courtyard of our homestay house and mine was a 5-10 minute bike ride away in Manzese-B. This was our life Monday through Friday. Saturdays were spent at MATI in nearby Ilonga where we were presented with loads of technical and bureaucratic information by Peace Corps personnel. Sundays were our day of rest, which most of spent doing laundry…outside…by hand…in buckets. Saturdays were great only for the fact that we were able to reconnect with our fellow trainees whom we would not have seen otherwise. Our group of 25 was divided into five CBTs(Community Based Training modules): Manzese-A(Carla’s), Manzese-B(mine), Mbumi, Magomeni, and Msalambani. Each CBT has one LCF(Language and Culture Facilitator) who lives in the same village as his/her students, and after five weeks, they rotate to different CBTs. The breakdown of CBTs, LCFs, and PCTs(Peace Corps Trainees) was as follows:

Manzese-A: Jumapili/Petronilla(LCFs) Carla, Jerusha, Caitlyn(Pendo), Linda, Rashad

Manzese-B: Paul/Peter/Vicki/Petronilla/Immanuel (LCFs) Tony, Steve, Keenan, Lacey, Bibi Jan

Mbumi: Petronilla/Jumapili(LCFs) Mike, Nancy, Saraben, Kate, Carolyn

Magomeni: Peter/Vivian aka Big Boy(LCFs) DeeDee, Wyatt, Stephanie, Jimmy, Mick

Msalambani: Vivian aka Big Boy/Paul(LCFs) Jess, Charlie, Amy, Ben, Mannis

None of the CBTs were more than a one hour bike ride away from another. Over ten weeks we all became very close, but especially so within our respective CBTs.

Each week during training, a current PCV would come to Kilosa to be our PCV of the Week and they would hang out with us, come to our CBTs, organize tech sessions, and give us some idea of what to expect when we got to site. Mostly they were around to encourage us through training and to give PC administration an idea of where we would best be placed.

By the end of the ten weeks of training, we were all ready to be done with the rigorous schedule and to be set free in a sense and we were all anxious to know where we'd be living for the next two years. Of course, we'd miss our homestay families and farewells are always difficult, but being American, we were missing our privacy, too.

I will probably write more on the subject of training, homestay, and the swearing-in ceremony as time goes by and I remember details worth mentioning. This will need to suffice for now.


Friday, September 14, 2007

Tunazoea mazingira - We are controlling our environment

Over the past week, we have seen President Kikwete speak in Mpwapwa, cemented our tiny dirt courtyard, and visited with our nearest PC neighbor Ben, who comes to Kibakwe regularly to buy supplies. As you can see in the photos, a presidential visit in Tanzania is much different than one in the U.S. This took place on the soccer field outside of the primary school in Mpwapwa and he spoke for about two hours, mostly about the importance of building schools.



When we returned to Kibakwe, the work began on our patio. First, dirt was dug and carried bucket by bucket from the field across from our house to grade the base for the cement. Then, cement, sand, and rocks were mixed in a pile outside our courtyard and carried in bucket by bucket ( this is how most work is done in Tanzania) and finished. The entire process took about three days - a landspeed record for a Tanzanian fundi (caraftsmen). There was only one day of lag time between grading and cementing.



















As you can see, Carla and I decided to put our mark on our home in Kibakwe.

Our closest PC neighbor Ben, who lives in Kingiti 11km away, regularly rides his bike to Kibakwe to buy supplies and to visit with the other Wazungu (white people). The picture above shows how Ben is able to haul sundries back to his village using the available resources. Keep in mind that the road between our villages is not tarmac, but dirt. So imagine taking this load on an American style mountain bike trail and you get the idea.
We just bought a ton of supplies in Mpwapwa yesterday, so the next few weeks will be filled with tiling the bafu (shower/bathroom), painting, planning and building the vegetable garden, and furnishing our house. We spent the night at our friend Angus's house - he's a VSO volunteer from England who teaches computer technology at the teacher's college in Mpwapwa. If you'd like to know more about Angus, visit: www.angusinafrica.co.uk . Our friend Matayo, who has a stall in the market here, has been such a great help to us, and to all of the volunteers in the region. Yesterday he went with us from duka (shop) to duka to buy tiles and paint and furniture and cushions and helped us tremendously. Our friends Lisa and Russ (PC education volunteers who live in Mpwapwa) are in Dar es Salaam and Morogoro for a couple of weeks working with the new education volunteers and they're presence here is missed. To learn more visit: http://lisaintanzaniapcv.blogspot.com
Well, that's all I have for right now. I'll try to post again before we leave for Kibakwe tomorrow. Also, I will try to post many pictures on my Shutterfly site. Tutaonana baadaye (We will see each other later).














Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Our New Home






I'm taking the opportunity of uninterrupted internet service to publish two posts in the same day! I wanted to show all of you back home what a typical Tanzanian house looks like. Keep in mind that this is on the higher end of the economic spectrum in the villages. We have a long way to go before we can really call this home, but we're doing what we can with what is available.





Monday, September 3, 2007

Since My Last Post...




Since my last post back in July, we have finished "shadowed" with current Peace Corps volunteers, Russ and Lisa in Mpwapwa in the Dodoma region, finished training, received our site announcement, bid farewell to our homestay family, celebrated one last time with our training group, and moved into a new house in a new region. We are currently setting up our house in the town of Kibakwe, in the Mpwapwa district, in the Dodoma region. The climate is similar to high desert in the US - Colorado or New Mexico - very dry, dusty, and windy. Over the next several posts, I will attempt to convey what it has been like living here for the past two months. We'll have access to the internet about once or twice a month in Mpwapwa town which is about a two hour bus ride or a four hour bike ride from Kibakwe. This first month is going to be very tough because we need to get our house up to a level where we'll be comfortable living in it for two years. The main challenges that face our village are lack of water, low crop yield, lack of knowledge of small animal husbandry, a higher HIV rate than the surrounding area, and alcoholism due to lack of work. For the first three months we are not allowed by Peace Corps to start any projects or write any grants. We are expected to get to know the people of our village and learn the language better. These first few months will be the most challenging since we need to assess our needs and the needs of the village and see what we are able to do here. I've posted a few photos depicting the past couple months to give you an idea of where we've been living. We hope that everyone is doing well back home and we miss all of you! And would it kill you to send us a text every once in a while?

Friday, July 20, 2007

The Past Week in Tanzania






Last weekend's Safari at Mikumi National Park was very cool! My best quote: "Isn't it great that a bus full of adults gets so excited when they see zoo animals in nature? " I didn't realize until after I said it that I referred to giraffes, zebras, and elephants as "zoo animals, " but up to this point that was my only frame of reference. I'll post the pics next time. It was a much needed break from studying Kiswahili and everyone enjoyed the time away from studies.

Monday, July 9, 2007

Tales of the Nightbird of Manzese A

Nightbird is a bird that I've only seen once. Rarely does he fly during daylight. Rather, he prefers nighttime activities. As I mentioned before, I've only glimpsed him once, but I've heard him nearly every night since arriving in Manzese A. His call is a cross between the quack of a large duck and what a Pteradactyl might have sounded like. I imagine that he hunts small prey at night under the cover of darkness. When I did see him, he seemed to be the size of a turkey vulture and he did a full flying roll, as if he knew I was watching.
I'll keep everyone abreast of Nightbird's adventures as I deem fit. After 9-10 hours a day, 6 days a week, of learning Kiswahili, this is my creative outlet. As it is nearing nightfall here, I must return to my home for dinner. Not to mention that it is against PC policy to ride my bicycle after dark. Carla and I are both doing well, however Kiswahili is the most difficult language I have attempted to learn. While pronunciation is very straightforward, conjugation and structure are next to impossible to master as a non-native speaker. Also, there is no gender, but there are 6-8 noun classes instead. Needless to say, we have been quite frustrated. I will try to post again this week, but I have written and spoken language tests this week. Also, Saturday we leave for a one-night safari in Mikumi National Park. Until next post, baadaye!

Monday, July 2, 2007

This week in Tanzania

Did I already write about the South American soap opera dubbed into English on Tanzanian TV? If I didn't, it's one of the coolest things I've seen here. There's a main character who wears super cool Guayabera-style shirts and an eyepatch! Other things from this week: 1. I bought a bell for my baiskeli. 2. We work on Kiswahili homework everynight for hours. 3. I started doing research on a tree project I want to introduce here, and 4. I learned a cool way of composting for gardening. I know, this is all super boring, but this is my life in Africa. So that's all suckas!

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Greetings From Kilosa

The language is coming "pole pole" (slowly, slowly), but the Tanzanian people are very patient and warmhearted. Even being in the internet cafe here, I am able to practice my Kiswahili with someone who is patient and understands that I am learning the language. Yesterday we ran into one of the current volunteers in town and we invited her over to meet our host family. We had a great time visiting and since she speaks the language much better than we do, we got more insight into how we're perceived buy our host family - we are loved. Doing laundry is probably the biggest obstacle to overcome right now. Most Tanzanians, especially in professions, take much pride in their attire - everything's ironed and clean. Anyway, I'm running out of time on the computer. I'll post again this weekend. Kwa Herini.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Hamjambo Kwa Tanzania (Hello to All From Tanzania)

This is the first opportunity I've had to use a computer since arriving in Kilosa . Carla and I moved in with our homestay family on Sunday and everything's going great. Our Mama is super nice and patient and no one speaks more than a couple of words of English. Everyday we go to our separate Kiswahili classes and learn all day. If anyone would like more information on what's been going on with us see Carla's blog: www.carlaintanzania.blogspot.com . The language training is SUPER intense, but really good. My friend Steve and I were labeled "Wazushi" (rabble rousers) by our instructor today(jokingly) . I'll write again soon. The Internet Cafe is closing as I write.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Map of Tanzania


Here's a map of Tanzania, so everyone knows where we are in the country. We're currently in Dar es Salaam, and we'll be travelling to Kilosa in a few days to begin our Pre-Service Training and homestay. I don't know when I'll be online again, but I'll try to post again ASAP. Oh, I forgot to sign off with a snappy comment last time; so I guess I'll owe you three the next time I post because I can't come up with one right now.

Arrival in Tanzania


Due to time and jet lag, this posting will be in monsterspeak/telegram form:
Left Philly. Flew from JFK. Forgot fleece at hotel in Philly. Damn. Got to Amsterdam. Got to Tanzania Tuesday night. Very tired. Woke up in Tanzania. Still very tired. Went to orientation at Peace Corps office in Dar es Salaam. Everyone very nice. Still very tired. Got yellow fever shot. Got petty cash. Got ID picture taken. Now, online. Everything's very good, but still tired. Will post again soon when not so tired. Enjoy the picture.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

DISCLAIMER

The following applies to all previous and all future postings on "The Rocky Woodbridge Journal:"
THE CONTENTS OF THIS WEBSITE ARE MINE PERSONALL AND DO NOT REFLECT ANY POSITION OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT OR THE PEACE CORPS.

The City of Brotherly Love

I'm in Philly for Peace Corps staging and I leave tomorrow for Tanzania via Amsterdam. Everything's falling into place. I can't wait to get to TZ. It hasn't hit me yet that I'm leaving friends, family, and home for two years, but I'm sure it will in a few weeks. I wish there were more time to explore Philly; it seems to be a pretty cool city, at least what I've seen of it. The itinerary is as follows: 10:45 Leave for JFK, 1:30 or 2:00 Get to JFK, 5:45 Fly to Amsterdam, Tuesday A.M. A few hours at the airport in Amsterdam, then off to Dar Es Salaam via Kilimanjaro (refueling). That's it for now. I'll try to post again soon. Sorry it's not the best material, but I'm confident that it'll get better once I'm in TZ. One last thing : I'm using the computer in the basement of the Hampton Inn in Philly and their stock music in the lobby (which I can hear through the open stairwell) is Elvis Costello's "Veronica." Go figure. I'm signing off.

Thursday, June 7, 2007

I normally don't do anything like this...

Well, I normally don't. That is, I don't normally write for other people or at least not since I was in school. In a couple days I'll be leaving my home in the midwest for Peace Corps service in Tanzania, and I felt that this would be a great way to keep up with a lot of people easily. I'll admit right now that I probably won't be a daily blogger; partly because I may not have easy access to a computer in Africa and partly because I procrastinate. However, what I'll lack in quantity, hopefully I'll make up for in quality. I'll try to make the posts at least halfway interesting and mildly amusing if at all possible. Also, I'll probably try out several greetings and farewells over the next few weeks. Having said that, I'll sign off with, "TTFN."