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.

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/ .