You Know You're In Africa When...

1) The electricity goes out while your baggage is going around on the conveyor belt & you have to search for 33 people’s luggage (x 2 each) with flashlights. How did the conveyor belt continue to move? No idea.
2) You can fit 10 people into a car made for 5 & still arrive alive.
3) You have an entire meeting devoted to diarrhea including the four different types, when to call the doctor & when to wait it out, how to take a stool sample, and discussions about the pros & cons of a fresh sample vs. a solution.
4) You dress as a sign of respect to others and not as an expression of yourself.
5) You sleep under a mosquito net at night.
6) You get excited about things like electricity & running water
7) You need vaccines for things like yellow fever, rabies, meningitis, Hep A, Hep B, & Typhoid all at the same time.
8) You have Oscar-worthy dreams once a week courtesy of malaria prophylaxis.

Overall things are going well. Most of the people I’m with are great – sharing similar interests, goals, reasons for choosing the PC, etc. However, as in any group of 33 people, there are few personalities that will either take a while to figure out, warm up to, or just clash with for 2 years. The age range is 22-67. Our youngest member had his 22nd birthday on our first full day in TZ. We haven’t seen much of TZ yet as we are basically sequestered in our hostel in Dar & being shuttled back & forth to PC Headquarters. On Saturday we leave for one of the PC training centers in Morogoro Region. If you look on a map, this region is very large, so it doesn’t give a good idea of where we’ll be, but I cannot post our exact location on a public blog for security reasons. We’ll spend 2 days in Morogoro Region in another hostel before beginning our homestays. We’ve been given a schedule for the full 10 weeks of training, so pick a day & I can tell you what I’ll be doing on that day! You know me, I like a schedule, so I’m just fine with the daily breakdown of events. It looks like we’ll be going on a weekend trip to Mikumi National Park one weekend in October. We are all already looking forward to a weekend where English will be the primary language used & heard.

Apparently I will have to pay to receive all packages sent to me, so keep them as light as possible and/or tuck some cash inside to help replace money I’ll have to spend to pick them up! Remember – not listing valuable items on the customs declaration slip will help to ensure the item’s safe arrival & cut down on costs for me. Also, if Peace Corps is not apart of the address, it will be returned to the US. The address is part of the US Embassy & w/o the PC in the address they don't know which agency we're with & send it back.