Rain, Dancing (again), the Lake, Christmas

"Don't worry, I can beat the rain." Spending twenty-some odd years in the Pacific NW, you'd think I would have learned the error inherent in those words. Nope, ever the optimist I suppose. Just this morning, I'm heading out the door of my friend's house. We look at the looming storm clouds, complete with thunder and lightning (apparently Bukoba is the lightning capital of Tanzania), and my friends say "Maybe you should wait until the storm passes." Then I respond with that foolish remark. Well, as it happens, perhaps 2 minutes into the 30 minute walk to town, I feel a couple raindrops. Oh, that's just a fluke, I tell myself. So now I am zero for two on the day, as 5 minutes the later the cloud broke on my head, fierce tropical-style rain. However, I received another shining example of the hospitality of Tanzanians when a vehicle pulled off and picked up me and the few others I was walking near. I think they felt bad for me as I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. So I got soaked, but got a free ride to town. I'd say I came off pretty even on the deal, I've gotten a bit lazy and tired of walking everywhere lately. As I am typing I have to lean back so as to not drip on the keyboard...
As for the rest of my life, I think I have adjusted to living here. The water-shortage/ student-fetching problem doesn't seem to be a problem anymore. I've got enough drinking water, that'll do. I can pronounce many of the teachers' names (to name a few: Kaisarege, Nywawa, Mswaihidi, Tibaijuka, Edwin) and recognize their faces. The cat seems to only attack guests now, especially Aaron. He has a knack for getting in these epic battles against Kali, where neither of them will submit and he ends up looking like he was shadow-boxing in a blackberry patch. I learned the critical difference between corn flour and wheat flour, and learned that banana pancakes taste better with the latter. I went to another wedding, of one of our teachers. I believe that I presented my dancing stamina a bit better at this one (however, Aaron and I left only an hour into the dancing. "Snuck out," as it were. I learned my lesson the first time. The next day one of the teachers told us we had a "nice escape" the night before. I thought so too.) The wedding brings me to an aside: soda. I think I wrote before how Mama Mipawa tried to cure me with Coca-cola when I was feeling sick ("or do you like Fanta?" was what she asked. They all cure equally). I am beginning to realize that soda is the ambrosia/panacea of Tanzania. Like beer in Europe, its both cheaper and easier to buy cold soda rather than water. When we were at this wedding, Aaron and I got two choices when we walked in the door, beer or soda. Keep in mind there is no refrigerator at a wedding. So I chose warm soda over warm beer, call me a wash-out if you must. Well all my neighbors were drinking beer, and the waiter was bringing them out one by one. I expected the same treatment. Apparently if you order soda, instead you get all of them at once. The waiter proceeded to come out with his arms overflowing with a total of five cokes. I didn't really what to do. It didn't help that everyone was staring at us anyway, and then Aaron starts busting a gut laughing. The guy offloads them on me, I don't know where to put five sodas. I don't even think I can drink five sodas. Luckily, my awkwardness was lessened by the fact that Aaron had also ordered soda, and soon his lap was overflowing with bottles as well. I got two bottles deep by 11pm or so, and that was enough. But every five minutes, the waiter would come back and try to open another bottle for me. Even my neighbors would flag him down and look at me like I should finish what I started. No way, man. Eventually I thought the waiter and I would be holding the same bottle, wrestling and jockeying for position as he tries to open it for me. That was about when the dancing started and we made our escape. A good move.
Otherwise, I've just been reading a bunch, and watching movies with Aaron (he brought a laptop. We also just finished season one of "Lost". I want to know what the heck is in that hatch.) We explored our campus and the area surrounding it the other day, and took some really good pictures. I'll try posting them sometime soon. I was talking to Grace (my niece who is turning 7 today! Happy birthday. Enjoy your peanut-butter ice cream cake. You have no idea how jealous I am of that) and she asked me about Lake Victoria. To be specific, she wanted to know how big it was. She wanted to know if it was as big as a house. I said bigger, and we went through the list of: 2 houses, castle, big castle, 1000 houses, some crazy number of houses that was over a million. I said it was closest to the last one. I have never seen the Great Lakes, so a lake this large is new to me. I have an almost one-hundred and eighty degree view of it, and seriously, I can't differentiate it from any ocean I've ever seen. When we were taking the ferry across from Mwanza, you could look in every direction and only see blue. It truly is gorgeous here. You'll see...
Finally, its Christmas time! Let me say that Christmas in 80-degree weather feels a bit bizarre. The internet cafe I'm in is playing some instrumental classic Christmas hits (not as good as Celtic Christmas, UW Club). It seems to me that Tanzanians celebrate the exact same way that Americans do. Presents under the baobab tree and all. Some other volunteers from around the lake region will be visiting us for the holiday. I think we will do a white elephant exchange. Right now my plan is to buy a live chicken for it, they're like $5. Any other ideas?
Take care, happy holidays. Have some egg nog for me.

First Impressions of Ihungo

Well, it has been a...tumultuous first few days for me. Aaron and I arrived on Sunday night at our school. I was surprised to find there was already someone in my house, and that my house smelled strongly of fish. Well, the person was my house help (which I am apparently obligated to hire...), and the fish smell was some leftover fish carcass for my cat (which I am apparently obligated to take care of...). The woman helping me has been invaluable, her name is Ester, which seems to be a strangely common name here. The cat's name is Rocky, which I don't care for. I think I will rename Rocky to be Kali, which means "fierce" in Swahili. The cat likes to fight. My arms and legs are proof of this. It won't be malaria that I get here, it will be cat scratch fever... The next day I began unpacking and getting laundry taken care of. Now, I am no longing living out of a suitcase, and I also can wear clean clothes again. What a relief! The last few days have been spent becoming acquianted with the faculty and students of Ihungo, as well as making jaunts down to Bukoba to pick up supplies and so forth. What can I say about everything so far? Well, for one, it would be nice to have an easily accessible water source. As it stands, we have no running water. The nearest place to draw water is a 10-minute walk down a steep hill. Now think about this, just to flush the toilet I need roughly 3-4 gallons of water. I don't know if you have ever carried a full 5-gallon bucket of water, but it is heavy. Up a steep hill, far away, this is a problem. Well, the unfortunate solution that all the other teachers living near me employ is to tell the students to fetch water for them. The weird thing is that the students seem excited when asked to help, like it is an honor to carry a heavy bucket up a hill. We asked the headmaster when we could expect running water to return (because I for one feel terrible about forcing the students to do this labor, even if they are happy about it), and he replied, "when it rains." So I guess it's a good thing that the weather here is similar to Seattle in terms of rain. I seem to have a knack for finding places with high precipitation... Also, about the climate here, I'm not sure I could be happier. We are living one degree from the equator, and yet it rarely gets above 80 degrees here. It is bamly all the time, and cold at night. Not entirely what I expected from Africa. Perhaps I won't be returning with that sweet tan after all (also fake tanning hasn't caught on in Bukoba yet, but I'm spreading the word). Aaron and I have been cooking for ourselves for the past few days, and I am surprised. We have created bachelor feasts, I'll tell you what. Spinach rice with an onion-garlic sauteed sauce. Ginger rice with kachumbali and fresh beans. Eggs, tomatos, bell peppers, and potato scramble. Not too shabby. Let me say that each meal costs us less that fifty cents to buy the ingredients for. I think I'll be able to survive here. If anyone knows any simple recipes that use boiling, frying, or sauteing only, hit me up. What else.... Ah yes, my job. I begin teaching on the 27th of this month. The students are taking midterms now, and then have a short Christmas Break. My first topic will be "Rotation of Rigid Bodies". So I've got a lot of time to prepare and dazzle them with how much I know about the myriad of ways that rigid bodies rotate. I will be teaching 10 periods a week to start, and then in a month or so I will upgrade to 20. Each period is 40 minutes, so I should have my hands full eventually. I also was asked to be the head of their athletic department, probably due to my awe-striking physique. So in a few weeks, I will be running with the students, and coaching basketball, soccer, and volleyball also. Great way to stay in shape and stay sane. I have more to write about the faculty and my feelings (I guess they say it is good to share your feelings. I never knew...) but my headmaster is telling me its time to go. I covered food and weather right? OK good. As they say here, be free.

Zanzibar is Wunderbar

I guess its a good sign that I have been so busy doing things that I've been unable to post an update. As it stands, the last two weeks or so have been really hectic. I don't think I have any crazy anecdotes to share, but I can at least say what I've been up to.
First and foremost, I'm done with training. That was 10 weeks of wonder, it was. The language sessions were great though, whenever I use Swahili the Tanzanians get all amazed and impressed. Goes a long way, knowing the local language. Who would've thought...? Anyway, we had a big "swearing-in" ceremony to formally conclude our training. The American ambassador came, as well as some Tanzanian govermental officials. To me, it felt like a lot of pomp. Seriously, we've only been here 10 weeks, and all we've done is sit in classrooms, really. But hey, if they want to pat us on the back already, so be it. After the speeches, I said my goodbyes to Mama Mipawa. That was pretty hard, I couldn't say that I would visit, as I will be 2-days' travel from her. She gave me a goodbye gift of a local shirt, I'll try to get a picture taken of myself doing something fabulous in it.
The day after the ceremony, Peace Corps began to drive us to our sites. However, they only have so many drivers, so they had to take us in stages. The lake region group (of which I am a part) was going to be the last group to go. That means that we had an entire free week in Dar. And what does anyone with a free week in Dar do? Goes to Zanzibar! We had to brown a few noses, makes some promises, and fill out some forms (I have been assured that I will be no stranger to forms by the time this two years is over...), but we were granted 4 days to stay on the island. We took a ferry across (we got it for 1/3 of the price by knowing a little Swahili; man do tourists get the shaft...) and then a two hour bus ride to the northern tip of the island, to a little beach area called Kendwa. Look at the pictures, but I will try to explain anyway. White sand, that clear bluish-green water color, palm trees everywhere. Let me say this, when I signed up with Peace Corps, I was not expecting to have a paid (yes, they gave us a substantial per diem) trip to a resort. We were laying on the beach, laughing about what a difficult job we have now. We went snorkeling one day, ate fresh fish, squid, prawns, octopi, and got tan, all on the Corps' dime. Sweet deal, no? After two days at Kendwa, we went to the old capital of Zanzibar, Stone Town. That place was crazy, from the stories I've heard of old Italian cities like Milan or Venice, I think this might have been similar. There were these tiny alleyways that served as the streets for the entire city, spiderwebbing everywhere and surrounded by multi-story buildings blocking out the light. I believe the word is labyrinthine. We wandered around for a good three hours, taking random turns and getting lost. The exciting part (mom, dad, don't read this) was that cars and mopeds would be just flying down these alleys and we would have to plaster ourselves to the walls to get out of the way. We stumbled across an old church that once served as a slave auction house, and we passed by Tippu Tip's former residence (slavery is/was a huge part of Zanzibar's culture). In Stone Town you could see the impact of the Arabic people that came from Oman and wherever else mixing with some Indian influence, and also colonial British occupation. Here more that anywhere else in Tanzania did I feel the weight of history and culture, it was pretty powerful. By the way, the mainland of Tanzania was formerly called Tanganyika. In the early '60s, it became independent and merged with Zanzibar. This (TANganyika + ZANzibar) formed Tanzania.
After we (reluctantly) returned from this little vacation, we got all ready and packed, and this morning we headed out from Dar. We are staying the night almost smack in the middle of the country, in a town called Singida. The roads have been dirt, rock, and severely potholed for the last several hundred kilometers. Good times. One thing I discovered that might strike you as being a bit obvious is that developing countries are bad places to be prone to motion sickness. The car ride today was bad, but the ferry back from Zanzibar, wow. The ocean was really choppy, and for two hours it felt like we were on the worst rollercoaster ever designed, like someone designed it to make people sad instead of happy. At one point the staff passed out little bags for everyone, since so many people had asked for them. Again, good times. In three days' time, I should be at my school, Ihungo Secondary, getting all moved in. Everyone who has seen Bukoba tells me how jealous they are of where I will be. So that means you all should come visit (unless you are prone to motion sickness, or dislike really awkward bus rides).
Oh yeah, I forgot. As a group, before we left Morogoro, we spent a weekend on safari at Mikumi Nat'l Park. Again, I posted some of the pictures. It was cool to see all the animals that we did, but what I enjoyed more was all the singing our group did as we drove around the park, mainly Bon Jovi or Journey. It was one of the last times we were together as a group, so maybe the animals took a backseat (figuratively). We saw two lionesses just post-hunt and feast. They were funny, at first we thought maybe they were dead from how still they were. Turns out that lions just eat until they can't move. Like I will do at Jack-in-the-Box when I get home.
That's it for now. My new mailing address (please please please send me letters) is:
Ihungo Sec. School
c/o Robert "Masanja" Farris
Box 95
Bukoba, Tanzania

Take care, and be well. Let me know whats up in your lives. Blogging is a two-way street, people.