Kwaheri Kilulu! I'll miss you!

I made the long bus trip back to Kilulu from my haunting shadow experience. The ride was about 13 hours long, but I did get to see elephants, giraffe, zebras, and gazelles right outside my window on the way back home. We stayed at the Mzimbasi Center in Dar es Salaam for a couple nights before continuing to Muheza. We got to go to the Peace Corps Headquarters to set up our bank accounts since I will soon be an official Peace Corps Volunteer! I will be getting 230,000 Tanzanian shillings each month, which is about 230 dollars a month. This is still more than the average villager will make in Mtwara. I will also be getting 390,000 shillings as a moving in allowance. I am the first volunteer in the village of Nanjota, so my house will not be furnished and I will be starting from scratch. All I know so far is that there are two bedrooms, a choo all to myself, the door has a lock, and yes, there will be a roof of some kind...possibly thatch. Other than that, I know that there is a water source "within reasonable distance." I have yet to find out what that means, but apparently its pretty easy to find children who are willing to fetch water in exchange for pipi (pipi means candy in Kiswahili..haha. Also, my house is 0.3 kilometers from the secondary school in Nanjota. It's about 25 kilomters from Masasi, which is the banking twon where I will need to go to get money, mail, and whatever else I may need. All I've heard so far about my region is that it does get pretty hot, and some of the foods that I will find down there are tons of mangoes and cashews. I can't wait to see it and find out more! I've never in my life lived all alone, and I guess I'm choosing to try it out in the middle of the "deep and dirty" south of Tanzania. It will take about two days to get there because the roads are so bad and during the rainy season you can't even get into my region due to flooding. It sounds pretty secluded.
Anyways...back to our stop in Dar. We had an opportunity to do a bit of shopping. It was fun to come back to Dar and try to brave the streets on our own. It was definitely less intimidating, but I'm still getting the hang of those crazy crowded daladalas. I also got a chance to work on my haggling skills. There are no price tags or anything so vendors usually get to charge as much as they want. And as a muzungu, I usually get charged at least twice as much as a Tanzanian would be. Thus I have gotten the hang of negotiatng and trying to talk down the prices. Usually starting with a bit of conversation and trying to dazzle them with my Swahili skills helps a bit. They will often give me some rediculous muzungu price and I'll respond with a "Unaniua Bwana! Mimi ni voluntia!"....Roughly translated to "You're killing me Smalls! I'm just a volunteer!" I got no money! Usually they will laugh at me, but hey it gets the job done. I was able to buy a few going away presents for my host family.
After shopping I met up with a few other volunteers and we decided to split the price of a tazi to get back to the hostel. There were 8 of us and we were negotiating with this guy about trying to get us all into one car.....When I say taxi I don't mean nice yellow sedan. I mean broken downdirty looking car that this guy probably bought cheap and fixed and is now driving around as a taxi. We finally convince him that we can all fit in the taxi and no matter how cramped or rediculously squished we are, let's face it, it would still be a safer ride than a daladala. So we piled in, two of us up front and six of us piled on top of each other in the back seat. Of course, it was around 6:00, almost dark, and during the rush hour traffic of Dar. Our driver decided to try and take the back streets, where the roads may be a bit less congested, but the potholes were enormous. After hearing the car bottom out through a number of potholes, the driver realized his car couldn't take it anymore. He stopped and told us to get out because we were killing his car. So we piled out of our clown car, but we still had some bags in the trunk. OUr driver refused to open the trunk until we paid the full price we had decided on, even though we hadn't made it to our destination. My friend Alli stayed in the car while we negotiated as he seemed to be getting ready to just drive away with our stuff. We paid and he finally popped the trunk and dumped us on a street which looked like one that was not often frequented by tourists. It was getting darker, and we decided we needed to just split up to get back to our safe haven, the Mzimbase Center. We finally made it back!
The next morning we boarded yet another bus for a 5 hour bus ride back to Muheza. I think I'm getting really good at falling asleep in small cramped spaces. Not that I had too much trouble falling asleep anywhere before Africa, but anyways, We got to Muheza and had some down time before we needed to get back home so we decided to get some food. We tried a new place and my friend, Paul, ordered some chicken. When we were ready to leave, we got the bill and saw that we had been charged 10,000 shillings for this chicken, which probably should have cost half that much. When Paul asked the owner about the bill, he simply stated that this was the "muzungu price" and that he would need to pay it. Lesson learned: make sure you decide on a fair price before eating the chicken...and don't go back to that place ever again. After paying, we stopped by another bar where some other volunteers had been waiting for a ride. It was called The White House. The only reason for this name as far as Icould tell was the fact that the cracked cement walls looked like they had been painted white a number of years ago. We walk upstairs, grab, a beer, and take a seat. As I sat down I thought about how "normal" my surroundings had become at this point. When I say I went into a bar you probably have a very different picture of what was going on. When I say "bar", I really do mean a cement building with no infrastructure which is falling apart. There are no women apart from us, only men drinking and playing pool. There are only a couple of tables and a few plastic chairs. If the bartender has a bia baridi for you, or a cold beer, you should feel very special. And as you sit down, you shouldn't be bothered by the two guys behind you who are cleaning cows feet and tails while a bunch of mosquitoes and flies hover around them. One guy was shaving off the fur of the cow leg with a small razor blade, while the other was hacking at the leg bone with a massive butcher knife. This was a totally normal situation, and I didn't think twice about what was happening. I looked around and thought about writing about going to a bar, but realized that my idea of what constitutes a bar has changed drastically, and that further explanation was necessary.
Getting back to Kilulu that night was great. My family had missed me, and I had definitely missed them. It was weird to drive back up the hill into the village and feel like I was coming home to a place that was brand new to me not so long ago. But I was happy to be back home. The next night was the big village going away party for the 5 of us. Getting dressed was quite an ordeal as my Mama wanted to make sure that I looked good. Apparently my fashion sense does not translate. I needed to be wearing one solid color all over. Everything needed to match precisely, and my hair needed to be pulled back. I went over to Rebecca's house before the party to get ready, and we both thought that we were looking pretty good, until we walked out of her room, and her Dada gave us a signature Dada look and had us turn around to change. Finally, we made it to the party, which was held in one of the small classrooms at the primary school. The village officials were all there, along with Big Boy, our families, the school teachers, and other villagers that we had come to know so well. They had brought over the one generator in Kilulu and had a small boombox, a light bulb, as well as a TV that was on the whole night. It was such a treat to have a bit of electricity that night that it seemed like they just decided to turn some things on just because they could! The village officials said some words and we each stood up and showed our appreciation. Then our families gave us our gifts, and then it was time to eat and dance! What was on the menu? We had coconut rice, another kind of spiced rice, potatoes, tambe(which is like a sweet speaghetti noodle), beans, chapati, and spinach. I'm a little surprised my stomach didn't explode that night. We got our food and sat down at the small wooden desks and ate while the boom box blasted rap music and there was some kind of wildlife show on the TV, in which a snake was hunting a mongoose. I was definitely having an "I'm in Africa" moment right then and there. After dinner, my Mama got out on the dance floor and started shaking it! All of the Mamas got into it, and it was nice for them to be able to have some fun for a bit. They all work so hard. It was a great night, and it definitely made me realize that my time in Kilulu was ending, which was sad. It went by way too fast.
The next day we wandered over to the permagarden to take a look at the progress. The kids had built a great fence to keep the chickens out, and that garden is growing! I can't believe how fast things are growing but everything looks great! Clement, the man who taught us the permagrdening, even came to Kilulu to take a look at the garden and said that the Kilulu garden has been the most successful and should be used as a model for future CBT groups. I can't wait to come back to visit Kilulu and see even more progress. The school has really been taking great care of it.
Before leaving Kilulu, I paid a visit to the local fundi, which is basically like a seamstress. I had bought some fabric in Muheza and needed a dress made for the swearing in ceremony. He measured me and took the fabric. I tried my best to explain what I wanted the dress to look like, and said that I would come back in a couple of days to pick it up. I have since learned that as my language skills get better, so will my dresses. The dress is great, but not quite what I had pictured in my head. I told the fundi that I would like the dress to tie in the back and he went ahead and sewed a full on bow to the backside of the dress. Hamnashida (Oh well, no worries). As long as I have a dress to wear. We have to put on a performance at the swearing in ceremony, and in my absence, for some reason my group volunteered me to be one of the dancers....We will be singing and dancing to an African song....I will be wearing my fabulous new dress...there will be about 200 people in the audience....I can't wait. It should be interesting, and I'll let you know how it goes.
Before that though we had to say goodbye to Kilulu! My last couple of nights I spent with my family and with the village kids. I gave my Kaka Dula a pack of cards and was able to teach them a couple of American games. Once I told them I knew some card games from America, they were so excited and eager to learn. I taught them Go Fish, or "Nenda Samaki" as well as Crazy Eights, or "Nane Chisi." They love Go Fish and now every night, I can even hear the neighbors playing and yelling "Nenda Samaki!" from the next house over. It's good to know that even after I'm gone they'll be screaming "Nenda Samaki!" My last walk home through the village was hard. I had to say goodbye to the kids and all the villagers that had been so friendly and greeted us every day as we walked home. On my last Sunday I went to the farm with my Baba and helped him shuck corn all morning. A couple of days ago, Rhamadan started, so my family has been fasting all day. This meant that instead of feeding me dinner once at night, I now got two dinners at night. I'm in Africa and I feel like I never stop eating! So many times I have to tell them to please stop feeding me. One night, they gave me this hunk of pure cow fat the size of my fist, which they referred to as meat. I knew that if I tried to bite into it, I wouldn't be able to break it with my teeth. It was so tough, and literally...just fat. I couldn't do it. Mama said Eddie wanted some, and I told her to please just let her have the fat.
My last night in Kilulu, I went over to Sarah's house to play some Nenda Samaki with her and her kaka and dada. There were a bunch of other village kids hanging out in her courtyard as well. Sarah decided that tonight was the night she needed to break out the 8 glow sticks she had brought with her to Tanzania. We turned on the glow sticks and the kids went wild. It was pitck black outside and they were swinging them around. Sometimes they would smack themselves or each other in the face, but it didn't matter! They had never seen anything like it. On top of that, Sarah brought out her ipod and small portable speaker. We started playing "Push It" by Salt n Peppa, while the kids danced and swung their glow sticks. So there we were, in the bush of Tanzania, dancing with the village kids, rocking out to Salt n Peppa with some glow sticks. I will definitely miss Kilulu.
But I am excited to start the next part of this journey. Things are definitely going to change and I will soon be faced with all new challenges. I finally started to feel like Kilulu was my home here and now I need to go start over again somewhere new. Except this time I have to do it all on my own. We just got back to the Mzimbasi Center today. Tomorrow is the swearing in ceremony where I will be making my dancing debut and I'm really sorry that all of you will be missing it. And Thursday I will begin my long journey down south. It will be a long trip and I think we'll have to spend a night in Masasi before getting to my village. Its very possible that my first night all alone in my village will be my 24th birthday :( I'll have to make some new friends pretty quick. Luckily, I'll get to celebrate with my fellow PCVs in Dar before we all have to split up and go our separate ways. I will be sad to leave them all :( From my CBT group, Sarah will be going to Lushoto and Rebecca will be living in the cold mountains of Mbeya, so the three of us will be pretty spread out. But I'm looking forward to meeting my new villagers, and the other volunteers who have already been placed in my region. I can't believe the time has come to move to my site already! I'll let you all know how it goes when I get there! I don't know what the computer situation will be like until I get there but I will update as soon as I have a chance. Also, I will know my new address once I get to town and am able to set up a PO Box down there, so please keep sending me mail! I need it! Hope all is well back in America. I miss you all!