Kipilefti

This week is exam week at my school. You know it’s serious because they printed off both a schedule of which exams are when and a schedule of which teacher is invigilating each exam. (Invigilating is one of my new favorite words. It’s British for proctoring, but way better, because it makes you feel like […]

When we stood up from breakfast this morning, we all groaned in unison as our legs complained, and with good reason: yesterday we hiked for eleven hours and descended almost six thousand feet (not counting the extra up we did, requiring matching extra down). (Interesting digression: GPS says that my site’s at 7500 feet, the […]

I went to visit Mama Jully yesterday afternoon. “When are your friends coming?” she asked. “Tomorrow?” “The day after,” I said. She sprang into action: “Then we can go visit my parents today!” Before I’d left for training we’d agreed to visit her village together, and she’d been waiting for me to return to go […]

The tray of food sits in front of me on my bed, the mattress firm enough that my cross-legged weight doesn’t even tilt it. I look at the book in front of me, thinking that my reading here resembles compulsive eating more than anything else: I finished the five Janet Evanovich books my mother sent […]

I think I’ve used up all my mail karma for the next year. While I was in Dar I texted with Jess, visiting Makete to get money, essentials, and mail. She warned me that Posta Mama said I had a lot of packages, but I wasn’t expecting twelve (!!!) packages and as many letters. It’s […]

After spending two weeks away from site in Njombe, I headed to Dar to see Kit, his father, and my father. The bus ride is ten to twelve hours from Njombe to Dar. The countryside is beautiful but that’s far too long to spend on a bus comfortably. It’s on bus rides that I’m especially […]

This morning was the last session of our training. Tomorrow we all head our separate ways. I’d been hoping to get a ride up to Dar in the PC vehicle but it didn’t work out, so I’ll be catching a bus bright and early (actually dark and early, since it will be before the sun […]

The days are exhausting, the evenings are fun. It is, always, a joy to spend time with other PCVs, particularly those in my own group. We have a great group dynamic and have a lot of fun. Last night was a murder mystery. I was Congressman Andrew’s wife and shot him when he wouldn’t give […]

Friday afternoon, after saying goodbye to a couple friends in Makete, I went home to start preparing to leave. Emptied and cleaned my water filter (it was filtering so slowly because of algae in the top: gross!), dumped almost all the rainwater buckets out, washed all my dishes, got rid of the extra fruit by […]

A standard day. I do my morning teaching, cutting the second period short because the power’s out so we can’t do the lab. Skip chai (how un-Tanzanian of me) in favor of heading down to the post office to see if there are any post-birthday packages, but I’m waylaid on the way by Mama Jully, […]