Part Two: The One Month Milestone

Part Two: The One Month Milestone

3 November 2012

Today marks the official one month anniversary of my Peace Corps experience. I feel like I’ve been away from home longer; this one month feels like six months. Seriously.

Here is a recap of my daily life in a Tanzania village of Lusanga A

A)   I wake up daily when it is still dark from the following:

1.     Mama working in the kitchen thus making a racket of a noise. The choo (toilet) is straight across from my room and the kitchen is next to it.

2.     The chicken (hen) in our kitchen is crowing. If not, it meant she had been slaughtered and was my last night’s dinner.

3.     The call to prayer, there is a Muslim mosque in this village.

4.     An awful and dangerous smell of mama lighting the stove with either charcoal or kerosene. I fear I will get cancer as I inhale this seriously toxic fume daily. I am able to see the heavy smoke traveling into my room since the walls in the house do not meet the ceiling. There is a big gap. Again, the kitchen is across and near my room where I may acquire the black lung disease.

B)   Mama greeting and telling me that the bath water is ready when she hears me already awake.

C)   I go to the choo for my daily morning bucket bath.

D)   After dressing, I come out of my room and eat my breakfast at the coffee table with tea or coffee. Food items are 2 to 4 of the following and rotated:

1.     peeled boiled eggs

2.     omelet

3.     chapati

4.     sliced white bread with margarine or rolls

5.     maandazi (triangle shaped sweet fried dough)

6.     Fruit (papaya, banana, watermelon or the occasional orange)

7.     Cassava

8.     Plantain

E)   Malaria prophylaxis if it’s a Wednesday

F)    Couple times a week, Swahili language lesson at my village where a 5 minute walk takes me to the classroom. Class begins at 8AM where one teacher teaches one other classmate and I. (the two other have returned home to USA) At 10:30AM it is chai. After our tea break of tea, coffee and something to eat, we continue our lessons until lunch break at 12:30PM. Lunch is usually coconut rice, mchicha, (Tanzanian spinach), and a tiny portion of meat like beef or fish and fruit. This is a typical lunch in which we have to pay 3,000 Tanzanian shilling which is about USD$2 for a day. A woman cooks the food and brings everything to our class in a bucket carried on her head. Most importantly, she also brings a pitcher of hot water and a chunk of soap for our hand washing.

G)   If it’s not language class, then we are at MATI (Ministry of Agriculture Training Institute) in which we are picked up from our villages by a Peace Corps vehicle to transport us for an all day training session on various topics. On these days, I would bring my laptop to charge where there is electricity in the offices and refill my water bottles. Chai and lunch are provided on training days; therefore, I have no expenses on days we go to MATI.

H)   By the time I return home from either Swahili or MATI, it is already late afternoon around 5PM. Swahili class ends at 2 to 3 PM but I dick around in the village talking to villagers or go to the nearest town to get money from an ATM or use the really pathetic internet café with a whopping 2 crappy and slow computers and don’t return home until it’s nearly dark. I sit outside my house with my siblings and neighborhood kids start to surround me. I hang with the village children to talk and play with them. They go crazy when I whip out my Iphone to take photos of them and they go even bonkers looking at their own pics as everyone is grabbing and fighting for it! I need to somehow sterilize my Iphone…

I)     When I am very pooped from an exploding mind of having to think and speak in Swahili, I hide in the sanctuary of my mosquito net covered bed to rest until I am called out to dinner. If I am sitting outside the house for a long time, I am called to dinner and eat straight away. We eat late around 8:30PM.

J)     I eat dinner with my mama on the floor. Occasionally my one or two brothers will join us but I see there are already rice or ugali and beans on their plates. My sister seldom eats with us. Most of the time, I don’t even see her and baba never eats with us either. Dinner is the following and rotated:

1.     1 or 2 starch: rice, ugali, potato, starchy banana, chapati, or bread rolls (main staple of diet)

2.     1 veggie of either mchicha, okra or cabbage (small portion). I basically hog the entire dish and I own it!

3.     1 protein of either beef, fish, eggs or beans (portion of meat is 3-4 bite sized pieces and 1 bowl of beans)

4.     fruit of either papaya, banana, or watermelon. Orange and jack fruit are seldom.

5.     Tea

K)   I bathe either before or after dinner. I’m always disappointed when I am given a half bucket of water for my evening bath which is usually the case. The night bath is the most important as one needs to wash away the entire day’s filth, grime, cooties, dust, and sweat away.

L)    I enter my covered bed and either sketch, study some Swahili or mostly, I am writing on the computer.

M)  Every night since I have been in country, I fall asleep easily. I attribute my fatigue from the stale, humid weather and mental exhaustion of having to speak a newly acquired foreign language. There are times when I am truly exhausted and unable to compose a simple sentence in Swahili that I just want to spew English just because I can!

N)   Sunday is my only day off which means I can sleep in a little bit more. I think the chicken has the right idea too because I don’t seem to notice it during the weekend. Sweeping and washing my bedroom cement floor starts off this day to be followed by hand washing clothes. I chill in the village crib with little kids and my siblings. I’m like the Romper Room teacher with a constant entourage of small children ranging from 1 to 10 years old. Early evening is when mama, a brother and I go for an orange Fanta soda drink with visits to families.

I applaud myself for not puking and getting the runs yet. Many trainees unfortunately have suffered GI issues. Considering in my home that there is no soap and easily available water to wash hands, so to speak, and that mama peels my boiled eggs and fruit, I’ve been able to stomach everything so far without problem.

6 November 2012

Today is day 2 of our Mid Language Proficient Interview. This morning I took my oral Swahili test to see where I am in progress. Our conversations have been recorded on a tape recorder and the tester will carefully review the recording to access our level. This will not be counted as a grade. My interview lasted 23 minutes and usually they are from 7 to 30 minutes depending on the speaker and his/her proficiency of the language. Last Friday was our written exam. Instead of “playing safe”, I wrote a lot, which means I have more room for grammatical errors. I don’t care if I made many mistakes, for me, it’s the opportunity to write and practice what I have learned. I’ve never been a “play it safe kind of person”.

Tomorrow will be exciting. Aside from discovering who will be the next President of the United States, we 39 Peace Corps trainees will find out where we will be living and working for the next 2 years of our lives. It’s Site Announcement Time, Folks! Placement is decided upon our strength and weaknesses, our resume, aspiration statement, personal requests, medical needs and preferences. Supposedly, Peace Corps do a great job in assigning sites to volunteers. It’s half science and half art in that they are able to access who will be successful doing what and where. I found out who has requested my site; an older married couple who wants to be in a very cold part of Tanzania. I guess I’ll see who gets this site, them or me. At the end of the day, I know nothing of the geography of the country, nor the house, the assignment, or anything else. What little I know sounds attractive to me: Southern Highlands, great internet connection, electricity in the house, no water shortage, a furnished house, and close to a clinic. This is a replacement site and not a new site.

We are already in week 5, which means our Pre Service Training is already half finished. One group will depart to their site for visit and to shadow a current Peace Corps volunteer on Saturday and the other group leaves on Sunday. These days, I dread riding in a public vehicle. Last Saturday, 3 days ago, our group went to the beach town of Pangani for a much needed break and some relaxation time. Drunken stupor and hook ups optional. The 3 hours bus ride was a torture ride for me. In front of me was a young local man (don’t know who he was or why he was traveling with us) who was desperately in need of a bath with a scrubber, antibacterial soap, bleach, lysol and scalding water for he had the worse stench humanly possible. I tried to breathe through my mouth but I can still smell his intense body odor. I positioned my head close to the window so the air will relieve me of this nasal burden but to my horror, it only exacerbated the intense smell as the wind was blowing his terrible aroma my way. The rain didn’t help. I closed the window because I was starting to get soaked, ironically the stank was less. That’s odd, his smell increased as the window was open but less as the window was closed. His body odor must be so strong if the wind circulated his scent. If the nasal assault wasn’t bad enough, during the middle of the ride, we were driving on an unpaved road. Clearly, the bus has no shock absorbent so to speak. I was in pure misery as the bus seat vibrated like an annoying massage chair gone haywire. It wasn’t comforting or relaxing. It was irritating and as my body fat circulated and jiggled; it made my entire body itch like hell. So I am dealing with having to smell a stinky body odor to the nth degree and dealing with my own itchy body. I tried to meditate and have an out of body experience but that didn’t really work. It’s times like this that I think to myself… This is good enough reason to ET! As a public service, there should be a law requiring to show proof of bathing prior to boarding a public vehicle …maybe this will be my Peace Corps project…How to Control Body Odor in a Public Vehicle to Mitigate Health Risk and Trauma Prevention. I wonder if they’ll accept my grant so I can purchase a boat load of deodorant in which it will be distributed to each passenger who boards a public vehicle.

7 November 2012

The day started great with the news of Barack Obama winning the US Presidential election! You go Kenya…neighbor of Tanzania!

But the real and true excitement for us today is to learn of where we will actually serve in the Peace Corps. Site announcement was originally scheduled after chai but since the top dog staff hasn’t yet arrived from Dar es Saalam, the pending discovery would have to wait after lunch.

Peace Corps makes a production of the day when site is to be announced. There is a bit of pomp and circumstance involved and we all happily partook. African dancers and drummers performed for us and we can join in on the dance if we like. I’m thinking this is a good way to calm our nerves and mostly, to appease any disappointments assuming you had your heart set on a specific area. Or it could simply just be wholesome entertainment and fun. For future Peace Corps trainees, I won’t ruin the surprise of how site is announced but I can say that I was completely not expecting the location of my site. When I heard my name called out from a classmate, I was surprised and wondered if I heard right because I was distracted with something and didn’t pay full attention to what was going on. Njombe! What happened to Mbeye or Iringa? Njombe is still in the southern highlands but a different region. It’s the land of cheese!! Yes, I can eat cheese and a ton of potatoes! And it’s cold! Terve Suomi…I’m back in Finland, again. From the 1 photo of my future Peace Corps house, it looks big. Are those chimneys I see on the roof? From afar, it looks like a French chateau. No joke! I’m told there is electricity in the house, which is hydro powered. I’ve yet to find out if there is reliable internet connection in or around the house and at site. Here is what I know: cold at nights since it’s hilly and mountainous, food is cheaper since they grow food, land of cheese and potatoes, ability to get veggies and some fruit…most importantly, people love it there. I will be replacing a former Peace Corps volunteer and will work in a clinic/ dispensary and a primary school. That’s cool, I dig watoto. This Sunday, I will depart to the site to visit my home and to shadow a current Peace Corps volunteer in the region. I am very ready to leave my homestay and begin to live on my own. I’m truly tired of living with a family. I yearn for privacy and not be on the current schedule of people telling me what I have to do next. Eat now, go here, go there, eat again, etc. I’ll miss someone cooking for me though….and the village of Lusanga A.

11 November 2012

In three hours and 15 minutes, a Peace Corps vehicle will pick me up from my home at 3:15AM to take me to the bus station where we will all leave to our respective sites. This one week away from our homestay will be shadowing a current Peace Corps volunteer from our region and then off to our individual site where we will finally visit the house we will be living for the next 2 years. This will be our highlight of the trip, to finally check out our Peace Corps crib! I am excited and totally looking forward to seeing what kind of ghetto house I’ll be living. From what a current volunteer told me via his conversation with the last volunteer who lived in the house I’m to live in, I’m told there is no or little internet. This was absolutely upsetting to me. Like a broken record, I told Peace Corps numerous times that I need to have reasonable accessibility to communication. This coming week I’ll get more information and see if this will become a problem. The nearest banking town from me is 60 kilometer, or a 2 hour bus ride to Njombe town.

I scored the highest at 98% from my class on the Mid Language Written Exam. Swahili is an everyday task now where I have to think it and speak it. No wonder I go to bed exhausted and sleep like a mtoto. (child)

This afternoon, I went to my second wedding celebration. It’s all about the dancing for me. What a sight to see women in their kanga with an assortment of color and design. It amazes me how they can sway their African fanny to the beat of the drums. There’s no ass like a black ass. It’s some ass! It’s high and it can move! My dancing probably ain’t too shabs if I always get money when I dance. I absolutely love the camaraderie and communal festivity that is a village wedding. You don’t see the bride or groom. As a matter of fact, the groom is never there nor is the bride. I think they only come out at night and dance to the music blasted from a loud speaker. Wedding food is a plate of beans and corn cooked in coconut. I witnessed something interesting and wondered if this was standard traditional fare or something different like a novelty. Three women came out wearing their bra and underwear and started to dance provocatively with one of the women wearing a dildo with a condom. The three simulated sex acts while we, the crowd gathered around to cheer and laugh. From my observation being one month in Africa, the majority of women here have saggy deflated breasts as they breastfeed their children at a recommended age of up to two. They’ve sacrificed their esthetic for the health of their children. I admire this, as it’s the only way to handle proper nutrition. Speaking of children, you rarely see babies cry or are difficult. Children in third world countries are extremely cooperative. I don’t think brats really exist because parents don’t have the time of the day to deal with their whims. Parents are busy fighting survival so kids gotta go with the flow and take care of themselves for entertainment.

Peace Corps was an hour late picking me up. Had I known, I could have slept an extra hour! It’s site visit time, folks! Stay tuned….