Kipilefti

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 pose. It’s how she cleans the floor, how she washes clothes, even how she kneads bread, in a plastic bowl. I watch, and try to imitate, but after five or ten minutes my back aches and my legs hurt and I have to stand, to lean against the wall panting. Mama will smile up at me and say “polepole”–“slowly”.

And I am learning, slowly, but my legs are killing me!

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 site where we have language training, so we have to drive back and forth to a school perhaps a ten minute drive away. Because of the drive and the timetable, before today we had observed two classes and helped out in the lab portions, but had not had a chance to talk with our teacher after class.

Today we were supposed to observe a class, but the class was canceled for some reason unclear to me, so we got to talk to our teacher for the first time. It was incredibly frustrating.

Not so much because of the teacher, although his tendency to respond “yes” to all questions he did not understand rapidly confused us a great deal, but because of the curriculum. We have been given books for Form I and Form II as well as a national syllabus for topics to be covered. The Form III material is the worst, for me.
Our teacher had an old copy of the syllabus which showed that Form III students should learn programming in BASIC. Not my language of choice, but I could teach it, and they were learning programming skills. In the new syllabus, which seems to have removed all potentially useful content in the name of making the subject matter friendlier for non-science-type people, students instead talk about how technology is used in their lives, what professions use technology…There is no programming. For a good while, computers are not necessary (and we will not be using them). It is all qualitative and fluffy and, to be frank, not useful.

It is not what I imagined I would be teaching when they said I would teach computer science. The Form IIs are learning Excel–teaching is slow, because the computers are old and varied and because the students do not know how to type–but they are learning useful skills! Anita and I have been discussing how we would begin to teach such a topic. That is appealing to me.

I do not want to spend my time standing in front of a chalkboard discussing how a doctor uses technology. I feel that that is wasting my time and the students’. I do not want to teach to this test.

So here’s hoping I get a non-O-level placement.

On the plus side, today we had practice teaching in front of other PCTs and mine went very well. I hate the topic (ICT And You!) and I am worried about class participation–I asked lots of questions and the trainees at least said things instead of staring at me–but I’ll find out next Thursday how I do in front of an actual class. Updates as events warrant.

(On a more self-involved note, if that is even possible, I have gained some weight here! Maybe five pounds. I am irritated with myself, because it is preventable: I find myself eating until I feel rather full, because the food is good and because I don’t want to be rude. I serve dinner to everyone at home, though, so I have realized that I can just serve myself less. Hopefully that will solve the problem.)

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 and what we were told during pre-homestay orientation, I lean more toward the latter.

Walking in the market, Anita and I greeted many of the people we saw. I remember one mzee (old man) in particular. “Shikamoo” I said, to show respect. “Marahaba” he responded, accepting it, and then he tossed greetings at me, one after the other, as though testing me. “Habari za leo?” (“Nzuri.”) “Mambo?” (“Poa.”) “Salama?” (“Salama.”) Satisfied, he moved on, and Anita and I looked at each other. “I guess we passed the test,” she said.

During training, they told us that every interaction here begins with a prolonged exchange of greetings, and I have found that to be true. Walking around with my mama, we pause often to chat with neighbors or greet friends; each conversation begins with several question/answer sequences. Even though the answers are always the same (in training, they warned us not to be honest about a bad day unless we wanted to provoke many questions), they pave the way for a real conversation to take place.

The other day, mama asked me if George Bush was from Israel. In orientation they mentioned that Jews are basically unknown here, so I tried to explain what a Jew was (“Ah, like Jesus!” she said) and then that Bush was not.
She was very surprised. “He is not from Israel?” she kept asking, and I kept telling her no.

Evitha, the two-year-old, has warmed to my presence. She was initially afraid of me, but now she treats me like a sibling. When I sit down in a chair to study, she toddles over and looks at the seat next to me. “Hapa” (here), she will tell me, and I have to scoot over so she can climb up and sit next to me. Not much work gets done while she’s there, but she’s awfully cute.

Lately I’ve had a lot more practice riding the dala-dalas. Once Anita and I got on when the seats were all full and had to stand. I braced my back against the ceiling and pushed my feet into the floor to prevent myself from tipping into the laps of the people around me during acceleration and braking. It was extremely uncomfortable.

But the more recent times I’ve had a seat. On the way home from town today, I got into a conversation with some nice locals that involved a lot of me saying “say again?” and “I don’t understand” in Swahili, and them laughing as though I’d just made a great joke. I did manage to tell them my name, where I was from, where I was staying, that I was a student of Swahili, and that I’d been in the country for two weeks, so I count it as a victory.

Today is a Muslim holiday, Eidd. We learned that it would be today and not tomorrow last night when it was announced on the television. Which day is Eidd depends on when the moon is visible, or something? It is somewhat confusing to me. But at any rate, this means that we are off from school (it feels like the weekend!) so I’ve been home doing chores and hanging out. I finally washed my room! It’s nice to have a clean floor. I also boiled water for drinking and folded some clothes. I’ve been helping to cook, and today I made the beans (with some help from mama). My favorite cooking activity so far is grating a coconut. There’s a special implement specifically for the task.

I want to buy some fabric to have clothes made. I keep seeing awesome kangas and kitenges on the women in town; my favorite motifs are teapots and chickens. Mama says that we will go to the market this weekend (hopefully the big one on Sunday), so I will buy fabric when we go.

Every time I look at a piece of wood here, be it a door or a crudely-made school desk or carefully constructed furniture, I can barely see the quality of workmanship because the wood is so beautiful it distracts me completely. None of the other PCTs or PCVs seem to have this problem; I wonder if they do not notice or if they have adjusted.

It’s very strange to me: I haven’t taken my mandolin out of its case, nor sang, since I started my homestay. I haven’t listened to a song on my computer or iPod since before then.

Music was such a big part of my life back home, is such a part of how I view myself. My voice is as crucial to my self-image as any other part of me (excepting, perhaps, my intellect), yet I barely think about not singing for so long.
Part of it, certainly, is that I’m exhausted from the new environment, from learning all day. I collapse into bed every night and wake up still tired. The rest of it, I suspect, is the new environment on its own: with so many new stimuli, it’s hard to remember that old stimuli are missing. Once I am at site, alone, with time, things will change. Thinking about it now, writing about it, I do miss hearing my own voice (yeah, yeah), but I do not think I could feel comfortable singing here, in a house full of people.

I leave you with instructions for taking a bucket bath, because I know you’re curious…

1. Boil two containers’ worth of water. Dump water into bucket.
2. Add cold water until desired temperature (I like to add four containers’ worth).
3. Change into going-to-the-shower clothes.
   For women, wrap a kanga around your chest (like a sarong; it will cover chest to knees) and drape your towel over your shoulders.
   Men are on their own in this step.
4. Assemble other necessary implements: shampoo, conditioner, soap, pitcher, laundry soap (if wanted).
5. Proceed to shower.
6. Wet hair.
   I like to dip my head into the bucket of water, then dump small amounts of water over my head using the pitcher.
   Once hair is wet, shampoo and condition as usual, washing with small amounts of water.
7. Clean body as usual, working soap to a lather before washing off with small amounts of water from the pitcher.
8. Finish by dumping water over your head until you feel clean and/or water is gone.
9. Bonus: if you have extra water and have remembered your laundry soap, you can wash your underwear with the remaining water!
10. You should retain a small amount of water to clean the shower floor. Clean the floor now.
11. Put everything in the bucket (except kanga and towel, which should be wrapped as above).
    Go back to room.

So that’s that. Salama.

Every day we arrive at Swahili school at 8 and leave around 4 (although we’re technically supposed to leave at 5). With 40 hours of school during the week, you’d think we’d get a whole weekend off, but we have half- or whole-days on Saturday as well (Sunday is off). Today we went until lunch, finally learning present tense negatives (I’ve just been sticking “no” in front of things to negate them, which is icky) and the habitual tense. Then we walked into town. Anita and I quickly outpaced the rest of them, and wound up wandering around the market after several failed attempts to get into Internet cafes (they were very crowded). Eventually we found one in sort of a back parking lot behind the main street. The connection is not the fastest but we didn’t have to wait…

I have all these letters that I’ve written in the past two weeks, but whenever I pass the post office it’s closed. I was really hoping it would be open this afternoon, but I guess the postmaster is really lazy or the hours are very strange, because they were closed again today. I’ll ask our teacher Paul or my mama if he can buy me some stamps if he’s in town during the day at some point.

Other than that, not too much to report. Yesterday we all got together at CCT for our first Friday of boring security and health information. We made our water filters for our sites with two more government issue buckets (we already had one for bucket baths), a spigot, and a ceramic filter. Making the holes in the buckets was an arduous task.

Swahili still going well. Still enjoying my host family. Settling in apace. Over and out.

• Eastern-style toilets. I will have much stronger leg muscles when I leave Tanzania than when I arrived.
• The fact that it’s rude not to greet someone if you walk by one another.
• Actually enjoying learning for the first time in a long time. Swahili is really fun, like a puzzle.
• Wearing a skirt all the time (the next point is helping with this adjustment.
• Keeping money/valuables in my bra.
  (This was recommended by several PCVs and is apparently done by local women as well, to make up for the lack of pockets.)
  Paper money I can do fine, although newer bills can be a bit itchy, but it’s difficult to imagine keeping my cell there, which many women do.
• How quickly the sun goes down! The transition from afternoon to night lasts no more than half an hour.
• The Call to Prayer. There is a mosque nearby and I can hear it very clearly…and very early!
• Not having any time!
  I leave for class at 7.30, arrive at 8, leave around 5, eat dinner, study, go to bed.
  Is this what high school and college were like for people who cared and put effort in?!
• Being so close to mountains. I love it! I keep walking outside and going “oh, the mountains!”
  I’ll be very sad if we’re not allowed to go hiking.
• Wearing flip-flops around the house! I have never worn them before.
• Drinking soda, out of politeness! When possible, I stick to Fanta and ginger beer.
• Apparently German is filed in the “non-English-language” part of my brain, so I keep wanting to switch to it instead of Swahili.
• There is no glass in the windows, which leads to a great breeze in the afternoon, from air coming down off the mountains. At night it gets downright windy, and in the morning it is still.
• I am slowly mastering the African handshake.

The days of easy Internet access are at a halt (subiri in Kiswahili), at least for now. Once I reach my posting in late November the Net will once again be freely available. For now, I am in my host family’s home (nyumbani) and learning Kiswahili slowly and incompetently. I do well in the classroom but when it comes to application–actually talking about it–I freeze up. Paul, our teacher, pointed out today that we have only been learning for four days, which is a comforting thought. Also comforting is the fact that all the PCVs we’ve seen speak fluently in Kiswahili.

Arestha, my host mama, is wonderful and very understanding of my difficulty retaining vocabulary. My small language-learning group is Anita, Bill, Andrew_blond, Theresa, and Shannon, and we get along very well. I will not see the other PCTs until Friday, for the most part (we will meet with another small group on Thursday). I am missing them already, and I saw them yesterday!

To get into town from our house, Arestha and I took a dala-dala. Imagine twenty people in a minivan and you’ll have an idea of what the dala-dalas are like. It is quite an experience, and one that will take some getting used to.
The house is very nice! Electricity, hot water, an electric stove (but I will have to learn to cook with a charcoal burner, in case I do not have electricity at my post). I have my own room and three host-dadas (sisters) and one host-kaka (brother). Arestha and Harold are very nice.

So far, mental-health-wise, I am doing fine, but I can certainly imagine that this learning of Swahili will become a strain. So we’ll see about that.

No pictures so far–I haven’t uploaded any to my computer yet. When I do, you’ll need to be a Flickr friend of mine to see pictures of people, so you should friend me now rather than later, so I can friend you back next time I’m online.

I should go now–the sun sets very suddenly here, and the time when it does is approaching. Useku mwema.

I woke up at 1.30 this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep, my punishment for oversleeping yesterday. Wandering around my room, later around the compound, lying under the mosquito net with the fan on full blast. The flourescent light in my room reveals me as glowingly pale, grey-eyed, with hair an unreal color that’s orange tinged with magenta.

The sky is just turning pink at the edges when I leave the building. The moon glows overhead; gruff, talkative crows fly above. A rooster crows.

White-clothed nuns walk around me like ghosts. I sit still, watching the day break.

As it gets lighter, the birds wake up and the frogs go to bed. It gets louder, and brighter. The moon loses its glow. Day has broken.

Not dead! Landed in Dar at 10 last night and (aside from a power outage that made things hard to see) got through customs really smoothly. Today was the beginning of our pre-service training (PST). I overslept (the alarm didn’t work! Hopefully a new battery will make it fine…) and was awoken by one of the current Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) who’s helping us learn the ropes. Everyone was nice about it, though…. Otherwise today has been good and informative. I’m very impressed with the level of preparedness that all Peace Corps Tanzania (PC/T) people here have, and they have lots of experience (the PC has been in Tanzania since 1962).

I learned that ICT volunteers (which is what I am–there are only three of us out of 33) are likely to be posted in large cities (Morogoro was mentioned as a possbility) and will definitely have Internet, which is a mixed blessing! We’ll be teaching at Teacher Training Colleges (TTCs), which are A-level rather than O-level.

On the 22nd of this month we go to our homestay with a local family in Morogoro and begin our intensive language training. On the 27th of November we’re sworn in and go to our posts (we learn where we’re going the week before).

Staging finished, I walk the now-familiar path to my hotel room in a haze.

One of the women running the staging said the words “when you arrive in Tanzania on Wednesday” and suddenly my stomach was full of butterflies. This is something I’ve been looking forward to for a while, but not quite something I actually thought would ever happen. It is at the same time the bravest and scariest thing I’ve ever done.

But I’ll calm myself, re-pack, and wake up at 5.30 tomorrow so I can shower before we go to get our vaccinations. Then a bus to the airport, plane JFK -> Amsterdam -> Dar es Salaam, and then I’m out of Internet range for a while. So unless I’m around in the airport, this will be the last post for a week or two.