Kipilefti

My father did visit; it was awesome; he was a great hit with my family and the other PCTs in my CBT group; sadly the bag of awesome stuff they packed was mislaid by the airline; hopefully it will be retrieved by my father at Heathrow and sent thisaway; things are good.

It’s the first thunderstorm of the year. “In America,” I tell mama, “when it rains like this it rains for maybe thirty minutes.” “Here,” she says, “maybe a day, maybe more.” I can totally wait for the rainy season, wait as long as necessary! This is the “short rains” season, which means it doesn’t rain […]

I realized that I haven’t written much about the food here, which is a terrible oversight because the food is delicious. So I’ll give you a little outline of my average day, as exemplified by today because I can remember it, with a focus on food. I woke up this morning at 6.45, making a […]

There is a cow outside in the road with opinions that it wants to share. Since it’s midafternoon and not late night or early morning, when dogs and roosters tend to share opinions, I’m inclined to be pretty receptive. Not too much of note has happened lately. The Mikumi National Park trip was last weekend; […]

So the ICT folks have learned that our placement options are Mbeya, here in Morogoro, or Njombe. Knock yourselves out with Wikipedia.

One of the first things mama said to me when I arrived at my homestay was “you must learn to bend”. I looked at her, confused. “To bend?” “Like this,” she said, doubling over so her legs were straight but both hands touched the floor. “I’ll try,” I told her. She does everything in that […]

Part of our training to be teachers here in Tanzania is working with local teachers to observe and then teach some classes. Us ICT folks (for those of you just tuning in, that’s Information and Communcations Technology) have only one teacher between the three of us. Unlike everyone else, our teacher is not located at […]

The Swahili word for “no” is “hapana”; for “yes” it’s “ndiyo”. I mention these not only for your edification but to point out that the Swahili words are both three times as long as their counterparts in English. This could be an insignificant detail or a profound statement about the culture here. Given my experiences […]