My legs are too long

Hello. For the last week or so, I have been on the move. We left Morogoro Sunday morning and took a 3-hour bus to Dar Es Salaam. This is the largest city in Tanzania, with somewhere around 3 million inhabitants. Dar Es Salaam (locally referred to as "Dar", like the main character from Beastmaster, if you are familiar with well-crafted 80's films) was wonderful for two reasons. One- no curfew. At Morogoro our families keep a pretty close watch on us. If we are not back before dark they begin to start a phone-call search party which ends up with us receiving numerous texts from Peace Corps staff. At "Dar" this was not the case; it was refreshing to be off the leash, as it were. Due to this, we were able to be shown the night life of Tanzania by the volunteers who have been here a year or more. Not too different from America, really. Except for the notable difference of the locally-dubbed 'angels of the night' which hover around us Americans like mosquitos around my crappy Peace Corps net. This was so prevalent and blatant we actually were laughing about it. The other reason Dar was great was a little retreat known as The American Club. Quaint name, isn't it? Very inviting... Anyway, the largest perks of this club were A) air-conditioned movie room, and B) swimming pool. I spent an entire day there, rotating between eating BLT's, diving into the pool (which had so much chlorine I think my hair has begun to fall out), and watching DVD's. Ah, the simple pleasures of life. I guess when it's all said and done, I am as American as they come.
We spent a couple of days in Dar, then it was time to section of into our "shadowing" groups. Shadowing is us trainees crashing current volunteers sites for 3 or 4 days to learn about how they live, the things they've done, and so on. Myself and two others visited a Mr. Steve who lives near a town called Njombe. Well, the exciting thing about Njombe is that it is an 11-hour (give or take) bus ride from Dar. I'll be honest, I was dreading this journey. Nothing appeals to me about spending that much time cramped onto a hot, crowded beast. I used to think that the airplane lines perfected giving the absolute minimum amount of leg space to their passengers. Well take a clue airplane lines, because the Tanzanian buses have trumped you. Completely. I pretty much had two options of where to put my legs during this ride. One, I could put both of them in the aisle, thereby getting a charlie-horse any time someone wanted to move about on the bus. I got a lot of stank-eye glares for attempting this. So the other choice was to assume a position which I could describe as an upright fetal pose. My knees, resting on the seat back in front of me, were basically touching my chin. I could maintain this upright fetal for maybe 15 minutes before the lack of circulation became painful. So, for about 11 hours, I juggled between these two horrible, horrible positions. All in all it was a pretty nice ride. Before I complain more, I must say, the countryside was gorgeous. Njombe is in the southern highlands, and the terrain down here is truly beautiful- rocky rolling hills covered in those weird African trees. Also, we passed through Mikumi Nat'l Park on the way. In the park we were lucky enough to see, from the main road, giraffes, elephants, a zebra, some small antelope type thing (dekedeke perhaps?), wild boars, and I guess a baboon or two. Pretty awesome. Unfortunately we were driving around 200 miles an hour, so pictures were out of the question. We got to Mr. Steve's site, spent a few days with him learning the ropes (now yer learnin') and meeting people. It was great to have time to relax and see maybe how life will be for us around here. I am still in Njombe now, but I return home to Morogoro tomorrow. Later today I'll be visiting a famous waterfalls here, and who knows what else... I'll try to get some pics.
Other things. The Mom Question borders on embarrassing this week, but all-important. She was wondering about the bathroom situation. I'll spare you all the details, but basically the toilets here are gaping pits in the ground. Occasionally you will have the luck to find a porcelain throne, but that is most rare. And you must, must always keep TP in your pack, or even your back pocket. We all call this our "emergency action plan". The Tanzanians do not use TP. Go ahead and try to imagine how... It's not the three seashells, I'll tell you that. I think that is enough knowledge on the toilet situation.
Also, a quick story. I found this hilarious. I have found that a lot of Tanzanians draw their English from pop culture, like TV or music, or even movies. Snoop Dogg's way of speech is international for instance (dizzle fo shizzle and so on). But even better than that, one day I was on a local bus with a girl who spoke some English. I asked her how old she was, and she told me she was 18, running on 19. I was confused for a minute, wondering where she got that usage. She preempted my question by saying "You know, like in your movie"The Sound of Music"". Awesome. That happens all the time. Its great, if I see more examples I'll share them. If anyone has other questions, feel free... Take care.