Third Time's A Charm

Yep - 3 posts today. It's a miracle. Decent internet & time to spare. Read below for the other two posts I managed to get up today. First, sorry there's no pictures yet. I have yet to have excess time to wait for them to upload and/or pay for the internet time to wait. Once I get to my site I will have more time and better internet access and I'll put up a bunch of pictures from the past 2 months. Hopefully after that I'll be more timely w/ pictures. Secondly, I passed both my written and oral final exams for Swahili. Go me - I'm still pretty weak in my mind, but I guess I can do enough to survive. Unfortunately it's been over a week of using strictly English, so I'm losing Swahili quickly. I'll be in my village next week, though, so I think I'll get it back then - I hope! Yesterday we spent 8 hours learning how to put a garden in at our sites & how to properly use a minimal amount of space. The point is to help us, but to also help the villagers see how they can maximize the food they grow, even if just for themselves. I'm not sure if I'll be getting on the garden band wagon - it's really not my thing, but knowing I could grow lettuce & other veggies that I can't get here is tempting. We'll see how bored I am in Dec.!

Time is short. One more week to independence & cooler weather!!! Happy Turkey Day to all (ok, I know it's next week, but I don't know when I'll get to internet again!)

All I Want For Christmas...

Ok, so is it bad to ask for gifts for Christmas? Oh well, I'm not really asking for gifts, but if you feel in the gift giving mood, there are some things I'd love to have.... you might want to wait for my new address to send things!! Here's some items I could use at my new place:

1. Lipton noodle packets - any flavors
2. Mac & Cheese (remove noodles from box, place in ziploc bag w/ cheese packet & cut out directions - fits better in padded envelope this way)
3. Granola Bars (Quaker Chewy are my fav.!)
4. CDs (I need new music!! Mama Mia soundtrack, Jack Johnson stuff (or is it John Jackson?), or better yet, burn me a CD of your favorite music!!)
5. DVDs - the same 8 movies for 2 years??? Ahh - need new movies!
6. Scrub bottoms for sleeping in - size L
7. T-shirts - any kind - am sick of the 4 shirts I've been wearing for 2 months! Size L\
8. Long sleeved tees for cold Njombe weather (NO collars!) size L
9. Wall maps - USA, Tanzania, and/or World maps
10. Seed packets (hidden in other things in the package) for lettuce, spinach, asparagus, etc.
11. Seasoning packets like ranch, taco seasoning, etc.
12. Books - DUH, that's a given!!
13. Any other fun stuff you might want to send!! (P.S. Chocolate seems to make it here fine!)

I cannot stress enough the importance of trying to get items into padded envelopes instead of boxes. Priority boxes seem to make it ok, but all boxes are more subject to customs and/or not making it through at all. I've yet to hear of a padded envelope that hasn't made it through in a timely manner! PLEASE try to send padded envelopes - they seem to be making it here better than letters have been! Happy Holiday season to you all. Eat some turkey for me!!

Address Change

My address will be changing shortly. If you want to continue to send items to the Dar address they will eventually make it to me, however it may not be for awhile as PC will send them along w/ cars that are headed to our area. As I'm an 11 hour ride from Dar, it may be awhile. Feel free, though, to still send stuff to that address. I should have a new address around Dec. 1, so if you want to wait a week or so, you can send along items after I get my new address. I hope to post it as soon as I get it as there is good interet near the Post Office in Njombe.

And the Site Goes To...

Well, it's official. I received my site placement this morning. And the winner is....

I will be in Iringa Region in the district of Njombe living about 8km outside of Njombe town. This is a good thing! I'm closer to the town than any other PCV and there are a lot of PCVs in that area. This means I'll be visited a lot by PCVs who're coming to town. I'll also be able to get to internet fairly easily (like once a week or so). The town also has a store that sells cheese!!!! This is a big thing! The weather is really nice there, too. I was there on my shadow visit last week and it was the "hot" season - I was comfortably wearing jeans & a t-shirt. Guess I'll have to load up on warmer clothes for the cold season in June/July when they get frost. Keep in mind that the houses are not insulated or heated! I'm excited, though. I'd like to get my haircut as soon as I move down there since I won't need to keep it tied up anymore! My site is a new site, so we don't know too much about it. The sheet provided by the headmaster says the house has electricity, water & a "western" toilet, but since no one's been there before we really don't know what it'll have. PC has checked the house out for safety, security, etc. so it'll be livable. The school is a boarding school for about 550 students, 8 teachers, and my house is on the school campus. That will have its own benefits & drawbacks, I'm sure. Don't get excited about the "boarding school" name. Many TZ schools are boarding schools because the kids have to walk for hours to get there and/or there's little transportation & BAD roads to the school, so they just live at the school. Some of my friends from training are nearby (like 25km to 110km which is hours by TZ travel standards), but they'll have to come to my town for banking & better groceries, so I'm guaranteed to see more of them than others will. Some of my other good friends are further away, but visitable, while others I won't see for a long time :( That's just the way it goes I guess. I'm not replacing another volunteer. This means my house will have minimal things & I'll have buy most everything (like kerosene/charcoal stoves, buckets, pots/pans, dressers, couch, etc) and figure out how to get it to my house. That part is a pain, but I guess it'll give me something to do in Dec. plus the school has no one to compare me to! Another benefit of Njombe? No mosquitoes, no bug spray needed & no mosquito net needed!! Yeah! I still have to take my malaria meds each week in case I decide to travel to other regions & there are some mosquitoes in Njombe, just very very few! I'm so sick of bugspray & being claustrophobic under my net!


Tomorrow we head back to Morogoro to our homestays for about 5 more days. Then we move into a training center for a day or two for our swearing in. Then back to Dar to catch buses to our sites w/ all of our crap! Basically I have to drive 3 hours one way to turn around and drive 11 hours back the other way. Grrr - doesn't make sense to me, but oh well.

Other than that, I'm doing well. Tonight PC is having Thanksgiving Dinner (a week early) for us because on Thanksgiving Day we'll be on buses traveling to Dar (I think)or to our sites.

Oh, went to a dentist in Dar yesterday. It was a Swedish dentist in a Swedish hotel - weird, but a totally normal dentist's office - smelled like all dentist offices do! He took impressions of my teeth & recommended I get a Maryland Bridge (had one about 10 years ago) instead of another flipper so I didn't have to worry about it breaking "out in the bush" as he called it. He has to send them to Nairobi to get it made, so, after I get to my site I'll have to come back to Dar sometime in Dec. to have it installed in my mouth.
Yippee - more 12 hour bus rides w/ no bathrooms & by myself - YIKES!

Until I get my new address keep sending stuff to Dar - should be a new address w/in the next 2-3 weeks.

The Toughest Job You'll Ever Love

This slogan from PC from years ago is SO true. However, what the general public might not understand is that the "tough" part doesn't really refer to living w/o creature comforts, cooking over charcoal stoves, squatting to use the bathroom, bucket baths,etc. That sort of stuff isn't really tough. The tough part comes from the daily emotional exhaustion. First you can't communicate well, then randomly waves of "I want to go home" wash over you for unknown reasons. Then, an hour, minute, etc. later, you're fine & the prospect of staying here for 2 years is perfectly reasonable. The cycle continues constantly and it wears you out. It really is tough. However, at the same time I'm loving being in Africa & realizing that I might possibly make it here. Currently I'm in Njombe (see TZ map) and it's nice here. The weather is cooler & there are lots of volunteers around to hang out with. We're staying in a hotel for the last little bit of time here so all volunteers & shadowers can hang out together. We get REAL toilets & hot showers. It's so nice!!! I sent a post about my trip here to be posted from at home, so Iwon't repost it - it'll just be posted after this one& be a little out of order. Oh well. Anyway, I got my hotel room for last night all to myself (awesome) and there were no lightbulbs in it. Not a big deal until it got dark while we were out. So, we returned from our adult beverage consumption & my room was DARK. (Africa is DARK - can't explain). Anyway, I was able to go to the desk& tell them that I needed light in my room now (as opposed to later when they usually do things) in Swahili, I was understood & the guy came up & got me a lightbulb & showed me how to get the lightswitch on the wall into just the right position so that the light in the bathroom would stay on. Moments like that make me feel like I'll make it here. One day at a time is all I'm promising myself or anyone else at the moment. I'll find out in 3 days where my permanent site is, so be on the look out for new address, new info, etc.

Tomorrow I take a 12 hour bus ride to Dar for some adminstration stuff & to go to the dentist - yuck! Thurs we head back to our homestays for 5 more days.Thanksgiving day they ship us off to our sites where we can't travel from for 3 months - yep, Thanksgiving,Christmas,Hannukah, New Years all on our own! We plan to get together w/those who live close to us, I hope! School starts 2nd week in Jan, so it'll be a long 6 weeks alone, but I hope to enjoy the solitude & being on my own again after living w/ a family.

New book ideas I'd love to get:
Look Me In the Eye (don't have author on me)
Dewey by Vicki Myron
Going Hungry (again, no author w/me)
Duchess (i think?) by Philippa Gregory
The Longest Trip Home by John Grogan

I've finished Twilight #3 (Eclipse) and am about to finish Second Glance by Jodi Picoult. I've now read all of her books- send new ones if she comes out w/them!

Miss you all!

Yes, We Can.

YES! Obama WON!!! I am SO excited. This morning PC drove us to town to watch the results come in at a hotel w/ satellite & CNN. The rain here messed up the satellite & kept us from seeing McCain's concession speech, but we did see Obama's speech. It was so fun. (saw McCain later on a rerun of the speech). There we were 33 Americans in a Tanzanian bar cheering on our new leader, singing the National Anthem, celebrating, etc. It was such a fun day - even if I did have to get up when it was still dark out! The international reaction was almost more fun that being in the US for this historic event. TZ shares a border w/ Kenya, so everyone here is overly excited. Apparently all of our names are now "Obama" because all day walking around town we'd hear "Obama" yelled at us from all corners, newspapers shaking our direction w/ his picture on the cover, etc. They are as excited for us as we are. It's a good day for our country & our history.

Onto PC things. I'm doing well & not necessarily thinking about coming home all of the time, but it is still a thought... Swahili still sucks beyond belief, but I'm just coming to terms w/ sucking at it. Oh well - we can't be good at everything. I'm learning a lot of humility here! Our favorite thing to do while sitting around relaxing & not practicing Swahili is to talk about food. Although TZ food really is very good, it's monotonous and we miss the variety of food here - especially cheese. Funny story that maybe only my family will truly get, but here it is. I was swimming w/ some friends at a hotel pool last weekend and we started talking about food as usual. The conversation lead to cheese & a friend was talking about how she missed Laughing Cow Cheese. This is a big thing in my family, so I commiserated missing Cow cheese. Afterwards we went to Pira's - this westernized small grocery store (about the size of a large walk-in closet) and wouldn't you know it - they had Laughing Cow Cheese! So, of course we bought it (for 1900 shillings, about $1.90) and ate the entire wheel! Training is all but over. I have some tests left, shadow week where we visit a current volunteer for a few days & then some final things before being shipped off into the unknown parts of TZ by ourselves - YIKES! If I ET anytime soon, it'll be during Dec. when I'm all alone w/ nothing to do for an entire month!!!! Buy calling cards & call me!

The hot season is in full swing. It's HOT. Like over 100 in the sun during the day, but still cool at night. It's a heatt I can't explain. The sun is literally right on top of us being so close to the equator. The temperature difference between the sun and shade is 15 to 20 degrees, though, so we just head for shade or sit inside a lot and it's tollerable.

Please keep letters & care packages coming. They truly are the lifesavers of the week when they arrive. Books are great, gummy candies, whatever you can think of! Letters, too.

One final thought - there really is a color called "sky-blue pink" - If you don't believe me, come to TZ and watch the sunset. There is no other name for the color than "sky-blue pink". Dad - all those years you thought you were being a smart aleck. Wrong.