Leaving, sick, spider, water, questions

We are now down to 36 trainees for the Peace Corps. Its pretty rough on all of us, but the Corps is "Early Terminating" one of our group. Reasons: Missing 2 language learning sessions and displaying a bad attitude. This is something that really rubbed me the wrong way. Its not just the attrition, and the missing a friend. This country is begging for teachers, desperately. I would have thought the PC recognized the dire need, and would truly try to fill that need. Unfortunately, we were all reminded that we are in a government organization. This means that it is highly bureaucratic (sp?), and run largely on forms and paperwork. On paper, Brian might not represent himself well. However, in person he's a great guy. He was going to teach me meditation. And so they are sending him home. I suppose it was inevitable, but it still weighs on all of us.
Anyway, I apologize for beginning this post with sad news, but its weighing on me. Now, as to my week. I got sick for one. That was something. For those of you that have been ill in a 3rd-world country...wow. Its really an experience. Mama Mipawa's idea to cure me was for me to drink Coca-Cola and eat cow stomach. I told her water and fruit would do, but thanks. But I have recovered fully now, I have no idea what it was, just that it was like the worst fever/chills, muscle pains, and "other" that I've had in a long time. I have at least one embarrassing story to tell from this, but perhaps a public blog is not the tactful place.
Also, you might recall that I have a sometimes slight sometimes severe case of arachnophobia. Hmm...well, the other day, I reached down to grab my bag off the floor, and something moved on it. Onto my hand. Hello Mr. Big Tarantula. I screamed (loud and piercingly, I'm sure) and flailed until the tarantula was on the floor. It just sat there with no cares at all. It was the size of a tennis ball of so, a nice dark tan, and extremely hairy. And I was probably the most scared I've been in my life, probably. I yelled to Mama "MAMA NIMEOGOPA SANA!!!" KUJA!!" This translates "Mom I am terrified! Come!" She came in, saw the spider, and did the sweetest move she could have done at that point in time. She whipped her sandal off in less than a second, and with 3 or 4 deft swings, the tarantula was defeated. She proceeded to tell me that it was "very bad" to have that in my room, and that they are "very poisonous". Oh good. So, if you are keeping a tally, in 5 weeks I have had a poisonous scorpion and a (very big) poisonous spider on my hand. Now all that is left is a snake. Lets cross on fingers on this one huh? The other day a neighbor of mine killed a black mamba. Yep...
So the water here, despite containing mind-boggling bacteria and amoebae prior to boiling, tastes pretty decent most of the time. I've accepted the fact that my water will always be warm. This is a fact of life. What I have not ceded to is the times that my water tastes exactly like the smoke that I often smell from the plastic fires. I asked about this, and apparently the process of boiling on a charcoal stove leads to this taste in water, occasionally. It is truly awful. Imagine moving from the Pacific Northwest into the beginning of the "summertime" very close to the equator. You get thirsty. And there is nothing thirst-quenching about this smoke-water. My solution is perhaps not better than the problem. I found a syrup mix for water that gives water either orange or blackcurrant flavor. It comes in a big plastic bottle and is quite potent. The reason it is sketchy? Its name: Chemi-Cola. Yes, exactly like it sounds. The first time I saw that name I just started laughing. You know how some products just would not succeed in America, or perhaps were English is just a bit more prevalent? I believe the product Chemi-Cola would fail if Tanzanians understood its name. But they don't, and it tastes better than smoke. So I guess the long and short of it is that I am a Chemi-Cola man now.
My mom wrote a few questions that are worth sharing, also. First, what religions are prevalent? Well, right now its Ramadan, and the country is about a third Muslim. So that has a really interesting effect on life. There is about 40% Christian/Catholic/Protestant... The remaining minority is Animist, tribal, etc... Witch-doctors still exist, and still curse people and provide crazy medicine. But the missionaries succeeded in their goals, it seems. Churches are a huge social thing here (I felt obligated to go, after all...)
What do women wear? Muslims wear the whole body covering. Most other women wear whats called a "kanga". Look it up if you can. They are really brighly printed wraps, with slogans written on them. This is probably 9/10 of the women, always wearing these. The younger ladies wear very American styles of dress- jeans and a blouse or shirt.
That's all I've got time for today. Take care and if you have a question, drop that bomb on me, I'd love to hear it.

Dance Dance Revolution

Been a hectic week. First off, I began teaching this week. I am interning at a school where I will be teaching 150 kids physics for 3 weeks. Really, its just kind of a warm-up for when I reach the site which I'll be at for 2 years. They don't want me to look like I don't know how to teach, I suppose. Teaching here is challenging, although I don't have any true comparisons from back home. It's really hard to get a group of kids who hardly speak English and are brick-layers in their free time to become enthralled with the subject of static electricity. Well, I had trouble motivating myself in college for a lot of subjects, so I can understand their disinterest. Nonetheless, I am trying to present it by being as fun and exciting as possible. We have done a few experiments with charging pens and moving nails with them. That's something. Anyway, I can tell that it will take an insane amount of work to get the students motivated to learn here. On the upside, they all seem truly taken with us Americans at the school, and outside of class they are very happy and welcoming. I'll be walking in town and someone will shout out "Masanja!" from down the street, its pretty nice.
So that's the working week. Last weekend, I had my first foray into the nightlife of Morogoro. I went with a couple other volunteers and their siblings to a club/bar/restaurant/hotel. The lounge was outside, which was really nice, and they had some live band playing all night. Everyone was dancing to their tunes, so of course I had to join. The truly excellent thing about Tanzanians is that they are really lazy dancers. I wouldn't say bad dancers, because they can keep rhythm, but they just don't move around much. The whole dance is to keep your arms relaxed in front of you, at the waist, and then make small steps back and forth. First, you step with the left foot forward and back, then the right foot. Really, that's it. I have found a culture in which I am a good dancer. In fact, as my foot-alternation techniques were so amazing, I got challenged to a dance-off. By some guy who was like 60 years old. He came up in the middle of a song and stood across from me, measuring my skill I think. Then, when he felt his chi, he came a little bit towards me and then slowly turned in a circle to the music. Then he went back to his side to wait for my response. I could tell that a lot was at stake, so I felt inclined to defend both my skills, and the skills of America in general. So I dance-replied by giving him a circle right back, which I think might have stunned him. He had to recuperate his strength for a bit before his next circle. This time he came at me with his arms behind his back. However, I'd had time to plan, so I came with a circle with a dip in the middle. Yeah, I know. This move was unprecedented. He got a big old smile on his face, and then the song ended. I got maybe a 15-second hug, which I assume meant I was the winner. We got a smattering of claps, and then I sat down, confident I had proven myself.
That's not all the dancing I did this week. Last night Mama Mipawa asked me if I wanted to go to a send-off. I was like "sure, what's that?". So it's like the first half of a wedding, with the presentation of the bride couple together with a bridal shower (I am assuming here, I have not yet been invited to a bridal shower...). The ceremony started at 7pm, with the introduction of the bride. Then there were speeches and singing for maybe 2 hours. This was alright, I was practicing Swahili with the old guy sitting next to me and we had a good time. Then we ate for awhile. All ok by me so far, it was all fun and new. At around ten we began giving the bride gifts. The way you do this is you have to dance your way to the front of the building and stylishly put the gift in a basket. There were about 200 people there, so it took awhile. I danced my gift(money, I'm lame) to the front right away, not knowing how long it took for this gift giving. Here is where I became unsure of what was happening. For the next 4 hours, everyone just stood in the center of the room and did that slothish dance. I was all down for the dancing at first, because of my success with the dance-off, but after an hour of it I'd had enough. I don't know if I mentioned my general bedtime is 10pm or not. Mama said we would get home at 11pm. We stayed until 2am! I didn't know people could half dance for that long. And it was strange, at some indiscernable cue, all the ladies would make that sound with their tongues "Ayiyiyiyiyiy"... Then everyone would half dance a bit faster for a minute or two. Anyway, I ended up called my brother at about 2am just so I could remain awake and complain about the excess of half dancing. He was very understanding, although he laughed at me for not having the half dancing stamina of my 50-year old mom. So maybe I have the style, but they've got the endurance.
The only really crappy part about getting to bed so late was that today I was getting up at 5am to go mountain climbing. This hike was a bit more strenuous than the last one with Claude. A group of maybe 10 of us made it to this remote little eco-village called Morningside. I don't know what eco-village means. However I was tired when we got there. Hiking on no breakfast and 3 hours of sleep = evil. Anyway, the view was pretty nice, and I had a good time talking with some of the other volunteers I don't get to see every day. I took a few pictures from this place which I am too tired to describe, so maybe in that future imaginary date when I upload all my pics here, you can see a nice mountain view to go with the nice sunrise.
On the whole, things are pretty awesome. I asked Mama Mipawa to let me help out around the house more next week, so I will know how to cook and clean. Family's good, school's good. I have made some pretty interesting observations about the way of life here, I will have to write later about that. One last thing, I got a cell phone now (thanks dad!), so you can call me if you don't like cheap phone calls. It's free for me to get incoming calls though. My number is 011 255 748 254 271. The first six are for Tanzania, the rest is my number. If you want to call, awesome, just remember the time difference. Take care and rock like a hurricane.

A Day Synopsis

It appears that they have bestowed extra free time upon me this week. Since I already covered the defining events of my week (bo to the jangles), I thought maybe I would drop bombs about my daily routine. I suppose it is a pretty solid sign of my acclimation, that I have a routine. Another is that I now cannot foresee a day without unripe stewed bananas. My body goes into unripe banana withdrawals, I'm pretty sure.

So I wake up at maybe 5:30 or 6 am every day. Yeah. Big change number one. It gets light out at about 6:15 or so, so the family is up and going a bit before. They are not quiet in the mornings. But its nice, I got some great sunrise pics which I will post if I can bust my camera out around here without getting mugged. Anyway, first thing is my morning chore- sweeping the outside area around the house. I call this 'sweeping the dirt', because I am sweeping the dirty dirt off of the cleaner looking dirt. Since they told us to only bring necessities to our 3 month training, I left my running shoes in Dar Es Salaam for the time being. Thus, the sweeping of the dirt is my only true daily exercise. So I sweep the dirt really hard, and really well. I usually manage to work up a sweat doing so. It takes me about 20 minutes, and by that time, my bath water has had 5 minutes on the burning corncobs, so its slightly warm (I have become more skilled at the bucket shower- now I can use only half the bucket and be...clean). I shower up, get all good to go, dressed and whatnot. Sometimes after the shower Mama Mipawa is real proper and has breakfast ready for me. Other days I have time to relax for a bit, so I go converse with Claude or I write in my journal. After breakfast (tea, and maybe maandazi (like unsweet doughnuts), noodles, stewed bananas) I head off to school, a five minute walk in which I dodge the insanely fast moving cars on the crappy dusy dirt road. School starts at 8, but the students get there early to sing. All the teachers hang out in this staff room type place. They always call in and play 20 questions about what's up in my life. They are all pretty supportive, and for the most part speak really solid English. The resident physics teacher is only 24 years old, which is comforting. In fact, he is not really a physicist, he only had one quarter of college level physics, and he is teaching all 4 grades. He is charming and preps well though, so the students get a half-decent bit of it. I haven't taught yet (Monday!), so we have Swahili lessons until lunch. "We" is myself, two girls and a fella, and our Peace Corps appointed teacher. Our little group is becoming pretty friendly with each other, so the lessons usually fly by. In the afternoons we usually have to go meet with everyone for more general training, about Tanzania and its culture. This is always, always the worst part of the day. People say the training is the hardest part of Peace Corps. It's because they make you, for one, sit through 3 seperate 4 hour lessons on gender equality. I'm not kidding. Seriously, it seems like they teach to the lowest common denominator sometimes. Gender equality is not that complex... Another rant there, but I'll spare you all. I usually head home around 5pm. Then, I do one of several things. Perhaps I try practicing the language with Mama Mipawa while she cooks the bananas, or I go to my room and relax. Or I go get a beer with all the others (some things never change?). They have one called Castle Milk Stout that is a little slice of heaven after those long gender discussions. At around 6:30, right when its getting dark, I take shower number two. This is usually interesting. The younger sister, Esta (I think its derived from "Esther"..), prepares my evening bath water. I think she is trying to be the perfect little sis, because she gets a little overzealous on the whole heating the water thing. I cannot describe in words how hot the water was two days ago. I honestly believe it was boiling right before they gave it to me. Honestly. Picture me with a little scoop next to this bucket, holding it very gingerly with a sad, scared expression on my face. I know how much this scoop of water will hurt. As much as the last one. My face and body unleash a silent scream with each little splash of cleanliness, and I twitch on and off. Yeah. Anyway, after that I have another hour or two to study and read (right now -"Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game, by Hermann Hesse...anyone read it?). Then is dinner by lantern, in which I cannot see exactly what I am helping myself to. I know the general feel of banana stew now, and I know that it is safe, so I tend to feel around for that and rice. I had some pork product the other day which I believe was the worst thing I have ever eaten. I think it was the Monarch Vodka of food. I really did chase it with other bites of stuff, because Mama had a vested interest in me eating it. Ugh. The food knocks me out usually, as Mama also has an interest in heaping seconds on my plate. So I retreat to my room after dinner, at about 9 or 9:30. Then I am asleep by 10, always. I sleep the sleep of the good, although the malaria medications give me some awesome dreams. Like, awesome dreams, vivid and insane. That's for another post though, as I have concluded my day and I have written way too much.
I hope life is this good for the rest of you, because every day is interesting and rad in its own way. Take care, drop me a line. LOVE

Bojangling

Since I last posted-
Went to a catholic church for Sunday mass.
-The music was amazing, there was singing with percussion for most of the service. The church itself was amazingly hot. I'm not familiar with a typical catholic service, but there was a lot of bending, kneeling, and standing involved. My 4-year old sister wanted to leave after two hours. I wasn't able to sit near Mama Mipawa, so I took the executive action of carrying her home (I wasn't sure if it was an 'emergency'...). It's funny, the looks a white man gets carrying a child around these parts. Anyway, I dropped her off with the older sister and returned to church just after it ended. Then I had to walk home all over again. Oh, I was a 30 minute walk from church to home. So I've been walking a bit...

Talked politics with a local teacher for 3 hours.
-It's really interesting the views that even the educated class have about America, both as a country and as a people. I hope you all are aware that you are morally corrupt. I found out, and now so have you. But the talk was pretty awesome, we got into philosophy and morality as it pertains to our respective countries. That is a really hard conversation when you have a language barrier. A really hard conversation, indeed.

Got a plastic bucket and some sticks, joined in on a traditional drum circle type thing.
-The kids were pretty excited to have an "mzungu" join in. Seriously, the rest of the drummers were about 10 years old. The dancers were older, and drunk. They dance like Elaine in that one episode of Seinfeld. I'm not kidding. Also, I think I managed to prove that not all white men have no rhythm. I wasn't going all Phil Collins on them, but I handled myself admirably, I think.

Coined a new phrase
-Myself and "Stevesie", another of the volunteers, decided this one guys shirt was pretty amazing. Not like scrumtrilescent style, but up there. We decided it was "bojangling". As in the song, but way more intense. Try it out, see if it fits you. I think perhaps it is the best word the English language has to offer.

Thats it for now. Other than that I've been doing the same old. Learning and surviving.
Take care. Hit me up on the two-way.

Don't drink the water...

Hello. Is it me you're looking for?
The last week has been alright. On Sunday I went on a mountain hike with my neighbor. The only bad part was that early that day I had walked into Morogoro from where I am staying, and then walked home. Just so you know, that is about a 5 mile walk each way. So by the time I got home at 3:30 or so to go hiking, I was exhausted. My neighbor was just too damned excited to go hiking with an American though, and I couldn't get out of it. Anyway, as it turns out, I had plenty of energy to keep up, and got to see some pretty cool areas to boot. We walked on main roads for an hour or two, generally heading up this local mountain (check wikipedia for the Uruguru mountains...maybe they are there...). This was cool, the best part was practicing my Swahili while we walked. Eventually we came around a corner to this old water pumping station that was abandoned. The baobab and palm trees had grown into the area and through the concrete, making a very surreal image, especially when coupled with the sounds of continually dripping water. While my neighbor Claude (pronounced "Cloudy") and I were wandering around here, we came across two locals who were only too eager to show us the cool spots to go. So we found this two foot wide path going up the side of a hill...great... I was a little apprehensive, mainly due to my not knowing A) the language, B) anyone I was with, really, C) the area. But anyway, these two guys ending up being awesome. They took me to this place littered with waterfalls and foliage. We hiked along the source stream for a ways, and we eventually came to a camp. Now, this shocked the hell out of me, but up here in the middle of the jungle in Tanzania was a Boy Scout camp. I'm not kidding. Bahati Skauti Camp. There was posted on a welcome board there an English description of the camp, and of the scouts in general, and a few pictures of some scout gathering. I just started laughing, and the two locals got all excited and kept repeating "Skauti" over and over. Anyway, while we were tramping through this crazy camp, I got my first sighting of true wildlife (besides those evil guinea fowl). Three monkeys were cruising around on the trees above us. Again I got all excited, pointing and shouting and all. They taught me how to say this particular monkey's name in Swahili, and we watched them for awhile. It was getting dark by this point, so Claude and I headed home. By the time we got to the main road, it was completely dark out. I got my first true view of the evening in Tanzania that night. People were everywhere, just hanging out on the main roads. I couldn't see more than 5 feet in front of me, but that didn't deter large groups some idling along the road, laughing and all. On the walk home I tried explaining some astronomy to Claude, but man, it just didn't translate. Eventually all he got was that the stars I was seeing here are different than those I saw in America. Oh well.
As far as the rest of the week went, not much to report. On Tuesday the seniors (called form 4) of the school I'm training at had their formal graduation ceremony. I got to watch a lot of traditional local dancing and singing. Some of it was beautiful, like a fugue or something with a crazy drumbeat. The odd part was in between these acts, the speakers they were powering from a car battery were blaring American rap music. Nothing like hearing "Candy Shop" in the middle of Africa... I got to say a few words for some reason, so I gave the school a "what's up, nice work" kind of comment. They seem to really like hearing us foreigners speak Swahili. I dunno whether it's just because we sound ridiculous, or that it is something new and cool. The students have taken a shine to us though. I go and talk with those that speak enough English in my free time during the days. They keep asking me if I have ever met 50 cent or P. Diddy or Nelly. Most of the time I say no. Other than that, I had to practice teaching a sample lesson to my classmates. If any of you have ever heard of "special English", you know to hate it. Basically what it entails is speaking extremely slowly and using simple simple words. For some reason the entire secondary school system is conducted entirely in English, which is some of the students 3rd language. But that's a beef I will need more time to get into. Anyway, I had to lecture for 40 minutes about static electricity using this special English. I know that I am pretty bad at telling stories, but I have never felt like I was boring someone to death as much as I did during this. I truly felt like apologizing and buying the listeners/victims a beer afterward. But they all said I did great and used special English well. Ugh. This is the way I will hav to teach for 2 years. Slow, with repetition. Basic. I might see if I can teach a higher level, just to be able to speak more quickly and truly teach. Also, my penmanship is pretty lackluster. Being lefthanded and using a chalkboard might be the biggest challenge of my young life. Do you all remember that squeaking sound that chalk makes if used incorrectly? Picture listening to that and special English for 40 minutes. Yeesh.
Home life is pretty stable. I get home, do homework, bathe, eat, and sleep. Mama Mipawa keeps me well fed, although the bananas are still ruining me. I got to try ugali, the Tanzanian food par excellance. It was cool. Tastes like a mix between dumplings (from chicken and dumplings, of course), and tofu. You grab a chunk of it and squeeze it into a ball like dough. Then you use your thumb to turn it into a Frito Scoop type shape. Then you swoop up whatever's nearby and repeat. One day I had the Nyamwezi specialty (my Mama insisted, because Masanja is a Nyamwesi name -means peaceful uniter by the way), it takes like peanut butter. Except it was green and had the consistency of glue. Dunno what it was, hope I don't get it again. I'm still cleaner than clean, fresher than fresh. Although now in the mornings I have been given the task of sweeping the outside area. The broom is a 2 foot bundle of sticks. The outside is a giant dirt patch where the chickens frolick. So I sweep dirt with sticks for 1/2 an hour every morning. It really wakes me right up.
Lastly, I learned from example why we boil the drinking water. We Americans apparently have very timid, easily disturbed digestive systems. One of my group members was really thirsty in the middle of the night, and made the executive decision to brave the tap water. The next day he was all proud of himself, like "whatever, Africa can't hurt me". The next day he didn't show up. Or the next. Apparently he was incorrect about his immunities. He told me it got so bad he almost called up the Corps and asked to go home. So I have been boiling my drinking water. I think that perhaps I will continue to do so.
As far as everything else goes, I am still enjoying myself. My language gets stronger all the time. I am making good friends, both locals and volunteers. I met a currently active volunteer whose grandmother lived less than a mile from where I grew up (Whistlers Lane!!! crazy!). So thats something. I am really excited to be on my own eventually. Thats it for now. Congrats if you read all that and you aren't immediate family. I still miss everyone. Hope I'm not forgotten just yet. Peace love and happiness.

Bananas. Shocking.

What's up. Finally have some time to sit back, relax, and write a bit. I have been pretty well swamped with tasks since I arrived in the country a week and a half ago. It's actually kind of shocking to think that I have only been here for that amount of time. I speak the language passably already (good teachers, I suppose), and I'm used to living in what I would have considered primitive conditions. But hey, Mama Mipawa requires me to take at least 2 bucket showers daily, and I think I'm actually more clean now that I was back home. So that's something.
The weather in Morogoro is kind of tame so far. So far... Towards the end of this month is when the rainy season kicks up. Right now think Florida but less humid. It should reach tropical-level in a few weeks. Surprisingly, I am becoming less tan being here. Men all dress quite well, its expected to wear button down shirts and slacks at all times. And here I brought all these clever t-shirts... I learned how to wash my clothes with a bar of soap and iron without electricity this weekend. It took me about 3 hours to wash and iron 3 pants and 4 shirts. Ugh.
Life around town is pretty cool still. Everyone in my community knows me now, and I have quite a few conversations (as far as I can with my limited ability) when walking down the street. Mama Mipawa gave me the name of her grandfather. I guess its from this tribe called the Nyamwezi, in the Tabora region of Tanzania. I don't know if I deserved the honor, but hey, it was given. So now, I introduce myself as Masanja. Pretty tight name huh. All my teachers and neighbors all say "what's up, Masanja" (in swahili) when I see them. I'm getting used to it...
Being so close to the equator, the day's length only varies by about 20 minutes throughout the year. Thats really cool, because almost the whole country seems to be on the same schedule. Getting up just before six, and going to bed at 10pm or so. It's light from 6 to 6 everyday, and some crazy chickens and guinea fowl make this insane amount of noise to wake me up every day. It gets way dark by 7, and we usually eat at 8 or 8:30. We have to eat by lantern, and sometimes the light it puts out is so feeble that I can't really see what I'm eating (which usually is bananas. I have seriously eaten a shocking amount of bananas in the last week. Shocking.). The rest of the food is pretty chill, we have rice all the time, and beans, cabbage, spinach, some fried bread thing, and oranges. Nothing "gourmet" but its filling and the cabbage tastes like mild sauerkraut, its awesome.
My elder sister had a baby two days ago. That was interesting to come home to. I think the entire female community managed to fit into her room to see the baby. The baby is a boy, his name is Octaviani. So now I am uncle Masanja. The baby also does a good job waking me up in the morning. And throughout the night. He's a charming little fellow though, all the girls in my training group all want to come meet him.
Anyway, I think I've written enough for now. Thanks for reading. I'll post more as I find the time. Take care.