A Hard Day's Night

Just another hoppin Friday night in the village. I was getting ready to hunker down with a good book, and went to the kitchen to make some tea. Its very dark and the only light I have to guide me through the house is my headlamp. As I turn around to leave the kitchen with my hot cup of tea in hand, I happen to glance down at the floor of the doorway before stepping through. I stopped in my tracks and took in a huge gasp. Seated at my feet was the largest, hairiest, meanest looking tarantula I'd ever seen in my life. It had gotten dark and I forgot to close the back door, so he must have taken it as an invitation. He had me trapped in the kitchen. I turn around to put my tea down and calm down, as I had noticed I had begun to speak to myself...and the hairy beast guarding the door. I tried to come up with a plan of attack. I had to do something. I couldn't very well stay in the kitchen for the rest of my life. Who would teach the kids about safe sex next week? I had to muster up some courage for their sake at least. I grabbed a bowl and held my breath as I crouched dangerously close to the tarantula. I quickly through the bowl over him and let out a sigh of relief that he hadn't eaten me. But what am I supposed to do wityh him now? I decided that a monster of his stature required documentation. Plus, people needed to truly understand the multitude of the situation. I grabbed my camera and returned to the kitchen doorway. As I picked the bowl up to reveal the nasty hairy face of the tarantula (yes, he had a face), I instantly regretted my decision, but iI'd come to far. I had to get a picture of him. I stood as far away as I could and held uot my arm to snap the picture. He hadn't moved at all which was good, but I wasn't satisfied with the angle of the picture. He was still a little balled up from being caught under the bowl. So I decided to nudge him a bit with the broom to see if he wouldn't mind spreading out his eight long beefy legs. I poked him and he began to run across the room. He ran much to fast for comfort and I could hear his hairy legs sweep across the floor as he scurried away. I jumped up and began to speak in tongues again. But he was modeling a much more inviting pose. So I approached him again and got a couple more shots. He ran behind a bucket I had with water in it. I moved the bucket to get a better look at him to find a mountain of ants running arund the floor where the bucket had been sitting. They were quite large, I don't know why all of the insects I encounter are so massive. But I had no time for them. I heard the tarantula run into the next room, and decided he was beginning to move around too much. If he disappeared somewhere, I would no doubt never be able to sleep again in that house. So I grabbed the broom and turned it upside down. I began to chase him around the room. It took me quite a few swings and misses, but finally I whacked him. His back end along with a few hairy legs lay on the left side of the room, while the rest of him lay turned upside down a little ways away. He had been beat. I approached the carcass precariously. There was still a bit of hairy tarantula life left in him, and now he was definitely pissed and I didn't want him to jump up and eat my face. But I was able to get a good look at his huge fangs, so I took a couple more pictures. Then suddenly, headlamp went out. I was in the room in the darkness with the tarantula. I tried to find my way back to where I had left my lantern and my bare foot met some other large insect on the way. I couldn't see it in the darkness, but even if I could I'm sure I couldn't tell you what kind it was. But I can tell you that it made quite a loud crunch noise as my foot crushed it. Once I had the security of the light again, I went back into the room with the tarantula and swept him outside to let him die a slow and painful death. It was just another Friday night in Nanjota. Just me and the prehistoric bugs having a party in my house...Hopefully his corpse will serve as a warning to any other curious creatures that think they can come in and hang out with me in the middle of the night.
The bugs aren't my only guests though. There has also been a large rat who has chosen me as a roommate. I woke up one night only to look up and find him crawling across the top of my mosquito net. He wasn't a very good roommate. He was always making a lot of noise late at night, and eating all my food...So one night I caught him off guard, grabbed my trusty weapon (my broom), and decided to beat him to death. It had to be done! What was I supposed to do? The opportunity presented itself to be rid of him once and for all, so I summoned my inner murderer and killed him. I apolgized to him after, and then swept him outside...The pests I've encountered are quite a nuisance, but I can't say they haven't given me opportunities to work out some aggression.






What else hae I been up to in the village apart from killing things you may ask? Well, I've been teaching English at the Secondary school every Friday afternoon for about 2 hours. I teach Forms 1 and 2 one week, and then 3 and 4 the following week. It is definitely challenging, not only trying to get them to understand the lesson, but also to maintain control of the classroom. One week there must have been almost 70 students in there. And they're no fools. They know I'm not going to beat them for making noise, so they seem to take full advantage of that. I was walking by the primary school the other day, and heard a teacher raising her voice, followed by a loud whacking noise, and a child just screaming like crazy. It was really difficult to witness first hand, and I couldn't even bring myself to look to see what exactly was happening. I knew it happened at the school everyday, but I had never been misfortunate enough to catch a glimpse of it first hand. Corpural punishment is a social norm and is often imposed at the schools in Tanzania. It is not an uncommon occurrence. Many times, the students are even punished for answering questions incorrectly, which explains the lack of participation and timidness I have encountered in the classroom. It was upsetting to see, but there isn't much more I can do about it than to just talk to teachers and peoople and try to open their eyes to better ways to handle those situations.
But I think the students are enjoying the English lessons. I try to organize games to play with them to make it more interactive and fun, as opposed to just being lectured at, which is usually how classrooms work from what I've observed. I'm enjoying getting to know them better. Last week we went over members of the family along with possessive pronouns.
I also teach Life Skills at the Secondary school. We have started talking about HIV/AIDS. We have gone over facts and myths of HIV (such as the myth that having sex with a virgin will cure HIV), and the ways that HIV can be transmitted. At the beginning of every class, I pass around a blank piece of paper for students to write questions down anonymously. I told them to feel free about asking me anything, in hopes that they could find answers to questions that they would otherwise be embarrassed to ask in front of the class. I collect the paper at the end of class, and return with answers the following week. They have asked some great questions, such as "what is the origin of AIDS", "are there condoms that have the virus in them", or "if you use ARVs does it cure HIV/AIDS?" I think they've gotten to know me more and are warming up to me. They don't get opportunities to talk about these things with anyone else, not even from their teachers or parents. So they seem to be happy to have someone to just give them this information without having to feel akward about it.
I also started a women's group in the village. We will learn about good chicken raising practices, as well as business skills. The gender gap is so huge here and I hope that the group will allow these women to gain knowledge and skills about chicken raising so that they can run successful businesses and improve their incomes. One day, I went to the farm with Mama Swaum and we met this women who was telling Mama Swaum about a problem she was having. I couldn't understand it entirely at the time, but later she told me that this woman was telling her about how her husband left her for another wife in another village. He took all the money and everything with him, except for her and their 3 kids. Now this woman has no money, her baby is sick and needs to go to the hospital, and her oldest son who was able to defy he odds and pass the test to go to Secondary school, now has no money for shoes and school fees. This situation was such a good example to me of how the gender roles here feed into so many other problems that are facing the community. It's a hard reality to face, but it made me that much more motivated to work hard to start this women's group, as well as causing me to appreciate the fact that I'm an American woman.
I'm also currently starting a water project in the village, which is stressing me out more than anything. After returning from Morogoro, water was the number one project that the village expressed to me as a priority. The hand dug wells that are there now dry up in the dry season and water is extremely scarce for the 6,000 Nanjota residents, not to mention the innumerable people that travel to my village from other villages to get water here. I met with the water committe, and went to the District Water Engineer's office with Dickson. We received an estimated price of 12 million shillings to build a water pump in the village. After hearing that numer all of my hopes of building a well were lost. But the village said that they would be able to raise 4 million from villager contribution and I am talking with the District more about helping us out with the total cost. Soon, I will begin to work with the water committee to write a grant proposal to Peace Corps, which will only be a request and there is no guarantee. We'll see how it turns out. It is a huge project and I don't expect it to be completed overnight, but the village is definitely motivated to make it a reality, which is a good sign.
During my free time, I've been visiting with my friends Mwanahawa and Mama Swaum. The other day I went with Mama Swaum to visit her husband's much older sister. We were sitting with her and another younger woman. I don't know how we started talking about this, but the older woman lifted up her shirt and foldd her skirt down to reveal two beaded necklace-like belts around her hips. She told me they were called "shaanga" and asked if I knew about them. I said that I had seen them, but that I didn't understand. If you wanted to dress up and wear beads, why not wear them on your wrist or neck so that people could see them? She told me that nobody needed to see her shaanga except for her husband. Oh ok, now I understood. She was only wearing two, but told me that some women even wear 30 or 40 at a time. I as shocked and asked "How do they walk around?!" They all erupted with laughter. Then I asked Mama Swaum if she wore them for Baba Razak. She blushed and giggled and replied yes. "well how many do YOU wear?" I asked. She replied "Ishirini!" which means 20, and they all started laughing more. Then the older woman asked me if I would wear them. I said "Ya, of course, why not?" She asked me how many I would wear. I jokingly replied, "Hamsini!" or "50!" They began to roll around on the dirty ground laughing. I told them they would see e tomorrow. I would wear my best kanga and they would know I was wearing shaanga because I would be hobbling around. Then I started to walk to show them how I would be strained with the wait of all my shaanga hidden underneath my African garments...I guess I wouldn't be opposed to wearing a few shaanga once in a while. I mean I am in Tanzania now. I don't know that I'm talented enough to pull of 50 of them though.
Now, I'm getting ready for a trip up to Moshi this week for the Kilimanjaro Marathon. No, I will not be running it, but I will be participating in the 5K Fun Run and cheering on my crazy fellow volunteers who are choosing to run the 42 kilometers of the full marathon. It will be a fun trip and I'm excited to see another part of the country as well as some of my friends again. There's even talk of foods such as pizza and cheesecake up there, so it's gotta be a good time! I will report back afterwards to let you all know about it. But I think that's it for now. I'll try to get that tarantula picture posted soon too. Hope you don't have any nightmares!

The Long and Winding Road

After Thanksgiving, we had just a couple of days back in the village before packing up for IST, In Service Training, in Morogoro. Training started on December 4th and it was going to take us two days to arrive in Morogoro from Masasi. Toni, Ben, and myself met up in The Sass and boarded the Najma bus to go to Dar es Salaam for a night before continuing on the next morning for Moro. Somewhere along the way of our 10-hour bus ride, we made a quick stop at the bus stand in Lindi where Toni and I decided we should take advantage of the opportunity to use the bathroom. We get off the bus and weave through the masses of people frantically running to catch their respective buses. We run behind the few small shops at the stand to find the bathroom. We begin to make a B-line for the right side of the small building that reads “Wanawake” when some of the women begin to yell at us and we realize that we had bypassed the line where you need to pay 200 shillings before you’re allowed to pee in the hole in this small cement building. We pay our 400 shillings and proceed to the next line to go to the bathroom. As we get to the front of the line, we step up to the other side of the cement partition in front of the two choo stalls. Women are pushing and shoving us and we turn the corner to realize that there is just a crowd of women that are proceeding to squat and pee on the cement just outside of the choo stalls. When one woman would come out of one of the stalls, three more would run in together. Apparently there’s just no time for everyone to be able to pee in privacy, or even to pee in the choo, and nobody wanted the bus to drive away without them. Toni and I decided to at least wait for one of the stalls to open up. One of the doors opened up and Toni made a quick move and ran in and closed the door behind her. Before I knew it, another woman behind me shoved passed and forced her way into the stall with Toni. As I’m treading lightly outside the stall door wearing my flip flops among all the other women who just couldn’t wait their turn, I hear her say, “Oh..hello…” from inside the stall. A quick minute later, she left Toni alone in the stall and I realized that there wasn’t going to be an opportunity for us to go to the bathroom separately so I just went in the stall with her. The floor was soaking wet, and the choo hole was overflowing. Toni was squatting trying desperately to find an appropriate spot to relieve herself. She said, “Just come in.” The stall was not quite large enough for the both of us to be in there taking care of business at the same time. I said, “I don’t wanna pee on you!” “Just pee!” she said. I proceed to take my position and go pee, the whole time we are both laughing hysterically at the situation we have found ourselves in. In the midst of the laughing and hysteria, I lift my hand to try and brace myself on Toni’s shoulder, and next thing I know my hand has grabbed her bare bum on the way up to her shoulder. Meanwhile, Toni still can’t find her happy place and just let herself pee. So after I finish peeing and accidentally molesting her, I run out of the stall and leave Toni to finish up on her own. When we both emerge from the “bathroom” there’s no time to process what had just happened to us both, so we just run back to the stand and try to find our bus again. There are at least 10 large buses at the stand, all painted with bright colors and nonsense words marking the sides. We boarded one large bus that said Najma, and began to look for our seats. After a couple of seconds I realized that I didn’t see Ben’s white face and glasses sticking out amongst the many Tanzanians that had already boarded the bus. I ask Toni, “Wait a minute, where’s Waldo?....I don’t think this is our bus!” We quickly jump off the bus and start to run around to try and find our bus. We see another Najma bus a few buses down and jump on. Sure enough there’s was Waldo, and we both let out a sigh of relief, muscled our way back into our respective seats, looked at each other and began laughing uncontrollably. We had reached a whole new level of friendship at that bus stand in Lindi that day.
A few hours later, we reached the stretch of unpaved road that we drive through to get to Dar. It takes about two and half hours on this road before we reach pavement again, and the ride is so rough that the people seated in the back of the bus get up and move to the front to stand in the aisle for the duration of the dirt road. After being knocked around for about two hours on this road, we notice an 11 year old boy who had moved to the front aisle from his seat in the back. He is beginning to pace up and down the aisle with a terrified look on his face with his right hand cupping his mouth. He had nowhere to run and ended up stopping in the aisle right between Ben and Toni. He couldn’t hold it in any longer and he began to vomit into his hand and all over the floor and arms of their chairs. Toni had a look of disgust and astonishment on her face as she noticed the vomit on her skirt and tried desperately to wipe it clean as quickly as she could, while Ben curiously decided to take a closer look, and then leaned over excitedly to inform me that “it looked like he had chicken for lunch.”
Eleven hours later, we pulled into the large bus stand in Dar es Salaam. It had been a long day. Some of had been peed on, some of us had been molested, some of us had been vomited on, and we all felt like we had been beat to death. But Dar had never looked so good, and I don’t think any of us had ever been so happy to finally arrive. Luckily we had a night to recover before getting on another bus for Morogoro. We met up with Tyler that night, and we all slept like babies. The next morning, we got on the bus to go from “DAR MPAKA MORO!” Apparently TMK is a famous music group in Tanzania and they have a song titled “Dar mpaka Moro.” After about four hours, we arrived at Morogoro. I got off the bus and was on a mission to find a bathroom. I had to pee so bad! Even after all these long travel days I have learned to dehydrate myself, yet I still needed to go to the bathroom on this day. So Toni and I proceed on another bathroom adventure, but this time, we have no clue which direction to be going…and it was an emergency. We start walking one way and people point in another direction and tell us “Kule!” We proceed in the next direction and someone else points one way and says in a high tone of voice “Pale!” At this point we were running around the stand aimlessly as nobody had actually told us where the bathroom was but simply gave us a vague idea of which direction it may be. Toni was trailing behind me as I’m power walking to what I hoped was going to be a bathroom. After too many minutes and no more idea of where a bathroom might be, I yelled back to her, “Oh no Toni! This is happening! I can’t hold it!” I run behind a tin shack at the end of the stand, drop my arms full of luggage, lift up my skirt, and begin to pee out in the open while yelling, “Pole sana! I’m sorry!” Toni runs over and tries to cover me as best she can, but I don’t even care. I realized that I really didn’t have any shame anymore. This is Tanzania. I figured if I can walk around The Sass in broad daylight and see guys peeing in the middle of the road, there’s no reason why I can’t do the same in an emergency situation.
We grabbed a taxi to the CCT, Christian Council of Tanzania, where our training for the next two weeks was going to be. Rebecca, Alli, Sarah, Ben, and I got our own little house at the center for the next two weeks. It was really good to see them all again, after spending the past three months apart. We were all very excited to see our entire training class all together again. For the next couple of weeks we could be waking up bright and early for training seminars from 8:00 am until 5:00 pm. The second week our chosen counterparts from our respective villages arrived to complete training sessions as well. My counterpart, Mama Swaum, was very excited to be coming to Morogoro. She was always participating and taking notes very diligently during training sessions, which got me even more excited about working with her. The first day at the training center during a break she asked me to come with her to the bathroom, which was a little confusing at first. But then I found out that she needed me to show her how to flush the toilet. I guess the tables had been turned a bit, and now she was the fish out of water. I told her she could call her husband later and tell him she had arrived in America today, which she thought was pretty funny. For the next two weeks we learned about project implementation and management, working effectively with counterparts, grant writing, as well as specific project ideas, such as chicken and goat raising projects, teaching life skills and environmental education within the primary and secondary schools, more permagardening techniques, and HIV/AIDS education. We worked together with our counterparts to come up with a 3 month plan for projects in the village. After talking with Mama Swaum, we decided that we would start by talking to the teachers at the primary school about incorporating environmental education into the curriculum. We want to talk to the secondary school teachers about beginning to teach life skills to the Form 4 students. Also, we want to start by working with the women’s AIDS group who are interested in doing a chicken raising project, as well as looking into getting a well built at the secondary school.
The two weeks at IST went by quickly and before we knew it, it was time to say goodbye to everyone again. We took the trip back from Moro mpaka Dar and the next morning, we continued from Dar back to the Deep South. Unfortunately, there were no more seats available on the reliable bus and we were forced to board the infamous Akida bus line. As expected, the bus broke down about half way through the drive and we sat on the side of the road for three hours just outside of Lindi. We left Dar at 6:00 am that morning and we didn’t arrive at the bus stand in Masasi until 10:30 pm. It was a long travel day, and luckily my friend, Wambora, was able to arrange for a couple rooms at a guesti for us for the night. The next morning we all parted ways again.
We were able to come together again briefly to celebrate Christmas down in the Mtwara region. My mom had been kind enough to send me a small fake Christmas tree in the mail along with a stocking stuffed full of great goodies. We all decorated the tree together and exchanged Secret Santa gifts.
On the way back to my village, I passed through Ben’s village, which is up n the Makonde plateau. It was interesting to see the difference between the two villages. His village is much smaller, with a population of about 1,500 people. And while I knew water was an issue for my villagers, it’s even more of a challenge for the villagers of Nakachela to get enough water. There is no well in Nakachela, so many villagers are forced to go all the way to neighboring villages in order to get water.
I was able to go with Ben and his counterpart to a village celebration called ngoma, which is one of the many celebrations held each year for the tradition f unyago, which is the traditional education that many children in the village receive growing up. Today this was a party for the whole community, celebrating the coming of age of a number of boys.
I was happy to finally return to my village after all those long travel days. Pulling into the sokoni and getting off the bus, there were many familiar faces waiting there to greet me. The village chairman, Kilian, was seated nearby the drop off, and he greeted me with a big smile. Dickson came by my house later to say hi. It was nice to see them all again, and I really felt like I was coming back home. After returning to my village, Mama Swaum and I began talking about building our own permagarden together, and using it as a teaching tool for the women’s AIDS group. So now we’re gathering materials. I’m going to Masasi to see what seeds I can find to plant.
I went to The Sass the other day to get on a computer. I was waiting at the bus stand at 6:00 am as usual for my crowded daladala to come barreling around the corner of the dirt road. But today, my bus didn’t arrive, and I learned that it had recently broken down so they weren’t running it at the moment. This didn’t surprise me as the bus had broken down on the last two occasions that I decided to go into town. But I knew that there was also a lorry that would be coming through my village that morning. Sure enough, a few minutes later, the lorry came around the corner and screeched to a halt. A lorry is basically a large truck with a large iron cage in the bed where people load in and stand up, hanging onto the sides. This lorry was already pretty full of people, but the conductor yelled “Tuende!” and I grabbed the rope hanging from the back of the cage and hoisted my self up in to the bed of the truck along with the sea of Tanzanians already packed and standing. I made my way to the middle where I figured my chances of survival were the highest in the case of an accident. As we made our way towards Masasi, I could see people’s astonished faces at every stop as they picked out the white blonde girl crunched in the lorry with all of the Tanzanians, as we barrel down the dirt road. It was definitely a new experience and one which I suppose I better get used to because that bus doesn’t look like it will be going anywhere anytime soon. I did learn that good footing and a good grip on the cage is key. Sometimes I try to make it more fun by pretending I’m surfing in the ocean as I try to maintain my balance as opposed to crammed in the back of the lorry trying t stay standing and not falling on the bibi seated below me.
I got to see my good friend, Mwanahawa, after returning from IST. She came hobbling into my house and I asked her why she was limping. She showed me a large gash in the bottom of her left foot and said she had cut herself with her jembe at the farm the previous day. She said she would have to be going back again the next morning. So I told her that I wanted to go with her in the morning to help her, little did I know that we would be heading out at 6:00 am. I woke up bright and early the next morning and we made the walk out to the farm together. After coming back to my village from IST, everything looks so different. The rains had started, and everything had come alive again. Grasses had started growing everywhere, and everything looks much greener than it did when I left. It was a nice walk out to her family’s plot of land through the fresh new grasses and cashew trees. I could see that many families had started farming while I was away. The cashews had been finished and now people were preparing their land and planting cassava, rice, corn, and peanuts, which we would be planting that day. We took the ground with our jembes in one hand and our handful of peanuts in the other. After three hours of being bent over, digging small holes, and places a single peanut in each one, we had finished for the day. As the sun is beating down on us and I start sweating uncontrollably I begin to understand why we needed to wake up so early to plant. As we’re walking back to the house to make chai, I inspected my hands to find that I had some of the biggest blisters covering my fingers and palm.
We get back to the house and I collapse on the ground. I probably could have fallen asleep right there. But Mwanahawa is still going. She proceeds to get some firewood together to make tea and roll out dough to fry up some chapatti for us. She amazes me! She really never gets tired and she works incredibly hard everyday.
This week I started teaching Life Skills to the Form 4 students at the Secondary School, which was so fun! They were all a little quiet and shy, but I think that once they get more used to me they will be more open about talking. We are going to work on communication skills, decision-making skills, and relationship skills. Life skills is intended to give them more information about how to live healthy lives, as well as how they can utilize that information and set goals for themselves for the future. There are also lessons on safe sex and HIV/AIDS that we will talk about. Each class I pass around a paper so that they can write down questions anonymously in case they are too embarrassed to ask. We’ll see what kind of questions we get next week…
I also started teaching English after school to those students at the Secondary school who are interested in getting a head start. This past week, the room was packed and it was a little overwhelming. But I started ff by teaching them a few English slang words and then having them write sentences about their families and what they were planning to do after school.
I also had a meeting with the headmaster of the school and the Village Water Committee to talk about the possibility of a water project. This will be a big undertaking and I will have to talk to the District Water Engineer first to see how feasible this would be. But getting water to the secondary school would open up so many doors for them, such as building a garden for the school, so I definitely want to put some focus into it.
My house is starting to feel more like a home. I started doing a little work out routine in my back yard in the mornings, so that I don’t just turn into one giant white blob of ugali. Every morning the primary school girls let themselves into my backyard to get their brooms to sweep in front of my house. I usually hear them arrive at about 7:00 am. This particular morning I started my little work out a bit late, so I was cooling down in my backyard, zoning out listening to my ipod. Oh ya,I forgot to mention that I live in Africa and I sweat uncontrollably when I’m sitting still, so why would I rationally be putting on extra clothing if I’m planning to be exercising? I’m no dummie, so of course I was bouncing around my courtyard with nothing more than my sports bra, my undies, my running shoes, and my ipod blasting away. So when I was finishing up this day, I failed to hear the herd of girls funneling into my backyard until I looked up and saw their little brown faces stunned with a look of astonishment as they beheld my naked, and I must say extremely whiter than usual, body. I froze for a minute and ran to hide in my house. I poked my head around to tell them in Swahili that I was just exercising and that maybe next time if they knock I could put some clothes on for them. Although I thought the experience was traumatizing enough, they still open up my side door all on their own. The only difference now is that I start working out at 6:00 instead of 6:30.

Good Day Sunshine

Well, the seasons are changing, the mangoes are ripe for the picking, villagers are preparing their farms for planting, and it is hotter than Hell in the village of Nanjota these days. Most of the day I just try to find shade and keep myself from sweating uncontrollably. I am glad that there aren't any thermometers to tell me how hot it really is. The mangoes are ripe now and everywhere I go in the village, if a mango falls from a tree, the moment it hits the dirt and you hear the thud of the mango, swarms of children come running out of nowhere fighting for the ripe mango. Mangoes are pretty much the only fruit that's available in the village. Luckily I am a huge fan, and I could eat mangoes all day. I'm so happy they're ready!
This week there was a soccer game at the field in front of my house. The secondary school students played. It was the boys from Form 1 versus Form 3. Meanwhile the girls and I played volleyball nearby without the net.
The Country Director came to visit the village this week and talk about progress. She said that my house looked like something out of Hansel and Gretel and she was very impressed with the chai that I had cooked for her. She was very nice and helpful with answering questions about future work and making sure that I was doing well. She gave me some magazines to hand out to the kids later, which almost turned into a riot at my front door when I ran out of them and there were still many kids who hadn't gotten one.
The next day, I was sitting outside the front of my friend Mama Tupatupa's house with her as we shelled some cashews that we had just roasted. Sidenote: There was one day when I roasted cashews and shelled them and ate them on four separate occasions with four different families. I can't leave my house without someone feeding me cashews, or asking me to help them roast cashews, or go with them to their farm to harvest cashews. All I ate was cashews that day, and it was enough. Cashews have become a major part of my diet. Luckily I like them. Anyhoo, back to the story...Mama Tupatupa's brother wanders over to say hello, and begins to tell me that he would like to have an American wife, so I needed to keep my eyes out for a wife for him when I go back to America. I said okay and asked him what his criteria was. He's looking for a taller white woman with long hair. So if anyone is interested in a totally eligible, Kimakuwa-speaking, cashew-farming villager from the deep and dirty south of Tanzania, I found him! Please contact me. I've also gotten to learn a bit of the tribal language of Kimakuwa too. The villagers are always happy to hear me speaking Kmakuwa, even if its only a few random words here and there.
One day this week, I visited the secondary school and talked to the principal there for a while about possible project ideas. The secondary school in my village is the only school for the entire ward, which includes 6 separate villages and approximately 13,000 people. But there are only two permanent teachers at the school and there is no nearby water source at the school. So many times, students have to leave the classroom to walk a couple hours to go get water for the school, which takes away from their study time. Also, they still don't have any water to drink while at school and no food, so it is difficult for them to study. So I talked with the teachers about maybe doing a water project there, whether that be looking into water catchment for the school buildings or building some kind of well near the school, I don't know yet. But eventually they want to build dormitories and a kitchen so that students can live at the school since many of them come from far away. However, none of these things can happen if there isn't first water readily available at t he school. I also talked to them about doing an after school peer education and life skills club, as often times many of the students have to teach themselves, and there is an overwhelming problem with girls leaving school due to pregnancy.
The other day there was a massive thunder storm in the village. Luckily I had made it back to my house from the village office before the rain started. I was sitting in my house shelling peanuts that a neighbor had given me as a gift the day before. It started to downpour, and the rain was so loud when it hit my tin roof that I thought my whole house was going to cave in. I scrambled for some empty buckets to set up in my courtyard to catch water coming off my roof. It was a really good feeling to see those buckets fill up with water all by themselves. Then in the front of my house there was a herd of goats running past my front door. They all got scared of the thunder and began to scatter. They started to crowd and kick at my front door trying to get shelter from the storm as I sat inside shelling my peanuts.
Last Saturday, I visited my friend, Maimuna, who is one of the women in the women's AIDS group that I've been talking to. She farms and sells upupu, which in English I've been told is cow rash beans. They taste a bit like lima beans, but they take two full days to cook before you can eat them without becoming intoxicated. So I helped her finsh up the cooking and then we sat outside her house on a mat yelling "buy upupu!" together until people began to stop by to buy the delicious and nutritious upupu! I talked with Maimuna more about helping the group to collect and manage money to start a chicken project that they would like to do to help generate income for the 12 group members.
In addition to cashews and Kimakuwa, another characteristic of Nanjota is the number of rats that one will encounter in the village. I found out recently that my neighbor, Uncle John, catches rats at his farm and brings them home to cook up with ugali for dinner every night. At first I thought that the rats and I could coexist peacefully, but they have gotten out of hand. One night I couldn't even sleep because the rats in my house were apparently throwing a party. Why? I don't know, but I didn't get an invitation and i didn't want one. The next night I'm laying in the dark and I hear a noise coming from my bedroom door. I turn on my light and take a look to find a rat gnawing away at the corner of my wood door. I think fast and grab the can of bug repellent I keep under my bed. I jump out of bed and proceed to run around my room in my underwear spraying this rat in the face with my bug repellent while he scrambles and tries to find an escape route. He finally disappears into the wall and I go back to sleep. A few minutes later, he appears again and proceeds to chew at my door. So I start spraying him in the face again. I couldn't bring myself to beat the rat to death in cold blood, so I figured the bug spray was my only other option at the time. After the second spray, he didn't come back. The next morning my neighbor came to visit and I told her about my rat troubles. She was kind enough to give me some rat poison, and later that night Tupatupa himself came to help me put the poison in some tomatoes and place them around the house. I awoke the next day with the excitement of a 6 year old on Christmas morning to find two dead rats! I was very excited.
This week I also had a village meeting. The meeting was scheduled for 12:00 but didn't start until 3:00 because well this is Tanzania. Fifty people ended up comng which was great. I introduced myself and told them I hadn't come to Nanjota to hand out money, but rather to work alongside them to find solutions to problems of life within the village. I had them split up between men and women and makes list of the top five challenges they face everyday in the village. Water was definitely number one on both of the lists. But the guys focused more on electricity, tractors, and a new road, while the women wanted help starting their own businesses and forming groups for orphans and vulerable children. Overall, the meeting was a success. Now I am getting ready for IST (In Service Training) where I will get more training for the projects that I want to carry out, as well as get to see all my great Peace Corps friends again which is exciting!...I think that's all I got for now. Until next time!