At home with my Host Family

Are You Afraid of the Dark...MEAT? (and red, white and blueloaf leftovers)

Let’s travel back in time to a Saturday night, circa 1994. The sinfully late hour of 8pm is approaching at a snail’s pace. You are in the awkward can’t-be-categorized age range of 8-12. Like most things at this point in your life, nothing is made to fit you just right and you feel like nobody can or wants to understand you. Your job of babysitting or cutting lawns was enough to go to the movies once every couple of weeks and buy some cheese fries or a snicker’s ice cream bar at the YMCA pool snack bar. There was only one perfect solution in this goldilocks dilemma of weekend evening entertainment, and that was Nickelodeon’s brainchild, SNICK. Ever heard of it? If not, you might want to just not read this post or waste a few minutes on wikipedia and then feel good about the fact that you just learned about something new that you’ll be way too embarrassed to mention in public, or even within the comforts of your own home or mind.

One image comes to mind: The Couch (was it pink, peach, orange? Ahh they liked to keep us enthralled from the start) amidst a plain black background, just waiting to tell the awkward pre teens that everything was going to be okay. As my older siblings and parents went out to parties to rejoice with friends, family, or loved ones, I watched them drive away with their perms I so desperately wanted (thank you mom for deceiving me with our hairdresser and friend, Sharon Strezlecki by saying that I had to legally be 12 in order to get a perm at Sharon’s and that we were too loyal to her business to go anywhere else).

My parents would wish me a good night, but in the back of their heads they were counting down the years until I could get my learner’s permit and be the family’s designated driver. Until then, it was known that I couldn’t really contribute to the family in any substantial way. Luckily, Gram lived with us and since my parents cleverly told both of us individually that we were in charge of the other, the balance of power was stable. We’d each make little decisions/demands that we would claim would be in the best interest of the other. When diabetic Gram wanted the regular mint chocolate chip ice cream, I suggested the sugar-free Edy’s cookies and cream because “I liked that flavor better.” I had a different strategy when it came to SNICK. I knew Gram’s “I’m just gonna rest my eyes” nap stage would approach at about the same time every night…around 7:45. On Saturday nights if she and I were alone, I would make sure to play about 10 rounds of the keep it up balloon game. If it was right after a birthday party, the slightly drained helium balloons were great because they took such a long time before it could ever hit the ground. Whether it was me running around in circles throwing the balloon in front of her so that she could get it every time, or whether it was because of her insulin levels, that nap came around like clockwork so the problem of “bedtime” or arguing what to watch on TV never arose.

There were many shows that encompassed SNICK. ‘All That’ was like a pre-teen SNL that actually popped out some C and D listers like Amanda Bynes, Keenan and Kel, and the one very large woman who recently had a cameo as ‘that’ cheerleader in Dodgeball who fell on the guy’s face during tryouts. Then there was “The Secret Life of Alex Mack”, the telling tale of a coming of age woman, Alex Mack, who could inexplicably turn into a metallic puddle of mysterious magical liquid. Even though she could transform between stages of matter in seconds, she was still just that girl next door going through the same struggle to be accepted in middle school. The star, Larissa Olenick, hasn’t been seen since the movie “10 Things I Hate About You” (may you rest in peace, Heath Ledger). Then there was “Are you Afraid of the Dark?” The thing about this show was that, despite what you might have admitted out loud at soccer practice, it was actually a pretty scary show. The introduction itself (the leprechaun, the creaky attic) was terrifying and the whole campfire ending with the dust being thrown into the fire…wow I am getting chills just thinking about it. I know some people (me) would watch AYAOTD with one eye ready to be covered just in case something crazy happened. After all, this was before the FCC put out those ratings…we had no idea what could happen! I think if AYAOTD were to be re-released today, it would fall under the TV-14 or dare I say…TV-MA category. I don’t know..I guess we never will.

Soooo I had a point and everything but apparently I needed to get those feelings about SNICK out there in the open. I feel so exposed, but I also feel ready to move on with my life. It feels nice. Anyway the SNICK/Training in Kilosa, Tanzania parallel came into play when some people started asking me if it was scary at night here or what creepy noises I heard, thus ALMOST asking the question “are you afraid of the dark? Also, training is a lot like middle school and being in that awkward stage again since there are a lot of rules, you can’t drive, and you can’t always understand what people are saying.

After being here for a little over a month, I am still loving it and am very happy with how much Kiswahili I am picking up and the wide variety of topics on which we are being taught/trained. Each week 2 different Peace Corps Volunteers (PCV) currently serving come to training to talk to each of the groups to see how everything’s going and answer any and all questions that we might have. Their official title is PCVOTW (Peace Corps Volunteer of the Week). I love the obsession with acronyms the peace corps has, because back in the days of g-chatting every day all day, it was always fun to just list a random set of 4 or 5 letters and see how many different acronyms you could come up with. Jack Gaynor and Tim Naylor had a great aptitude and skill for this incredibly difficult and mentally rewarding brain exercise. Saturday I had a test on Health terms and the Tanzanian Health system, and the first section was just a list of 15 acronyms that we had to decipher. I actually knew most of them, but when I didn’t it was fun to make them up. For example, one was CHAC which apparently has to do with home based aids care, but I wrote Community Health Action Committee. Just sounds great doesn’t it? I wonder if any of the made up ones that people came up with will replace the real one because it is a level of cleverness they have never seen before.

Last Sunday my host mama taught myself and the 4 other girls in my group how to make chocolate cake! The ingredients were a tub of the “blue band” margarine butter that is ubiquitous in this town, some sugar (sukari), flour (unga), vanilla (no translation) and yeast (?) and cocoa powder. The tricky part was actually cooking it since there are no ovens, but what basically happened is the pan was heated on the charcoal stove outside for a while, then a thin coating of oil was poured into coat the pan, and then a large flat try was put on top of the pan with the batter in it, and the charcoals were moved to the top tray pan, so it created a convection oven type deal. It worked out really well and was a fun Sunday treat. Since there are a bunch of coconuts around, I’m thinking the cake could be spiced up by mashing up some peanuts in a mortar and pestle and trying to make a chocolate peanut butter icing with coconut shavings that normally get wasted since most families just use the milk from the coconut shavings after draining it out. Besides the very nutritious chocolate cake, we had a whole morning last week during which 4 of the health groups, led by one of our medical officers, Edith, cooked a traditional Tanzanian lunch of rice, ugali, beans (maharage), beef (nyama), mchicha, karambachi salad (tomatoes, onions, deliciousness), chapati, and I led an entire hot sauce movement where we made enough PiliPili to feed all 30 people. Edith wanted us to make sure we knew how to boil water and clean our vegetables (we soaked them in bleach) so that we could avoid getting the lovely diarrhea that makes its way around these parts pretty frequently. I don’t think anyone got too sick after that meal though, so that was encouraging.

The next day, however, I was brought by my teacher to a random place in town that specialized in making “kitimoto” (literal translation: hot seat….real translation…pork) Seeing as my send off party in Perryville involved an entire pig roast, I could not turn down this opportunity. After Neema, my teacher, took myself and Mary, the only other non-vegetarian from my group (the rest ate lunch far away this day) to the kitimoto place, I began to wonder if I should actually go through with it. There were just grills and 2 men behind them with fresh pig meat hanging behind them. It was less than a dollar for a half kilo and about 1.50 for a half kilo of meat grilled with tomatoes, onions, and the like. Since we eat the same thing everyday, I was excited for the variety but they forgot our order and my stomach was getting hungrier by the second. Right as they were bringing out our plate of so much pig meat, my teacher got a call saying we needed to go to a meeting with a local NGO at that very moment. We ate for a couple minutes, since time in Tanzania is completely different from that in the US. Here, they say “time is the servant and tool of the people.” Apparently it is not uncommon at all for meetings to start 2-4 hours after the original time. Even still, since we are Americans, we didn’t want to let a little bit of dark meat prevent us from getting to this meeting that were already late to. So, the kitomoto people were kind enough to wrap the heap of pork in newspaper and put it in a plastic bag. And yes, we brought this bag of meat to the meeting and tried not to offend the Muslim women who were on the board of the NGO called WAHUJA. Their organization is really great—it’s a mamas group that started out with 27 members back in 2004, but now only 7 women remain because you have to pay fees to support the orphans and sick in the community and the members could not afford it. In a couple weeks we are going to visit PLWHAs (people living with HIV/AIDS) in the area and hopefully get to see what some of the challenges this particular NGO faces (outside of the obvious funding) and see if there is anything we can do to help. I was surprised to find out at the meeting that my Host Mama is a member of WAHUJA..I was so proud to see her up there! Some of the women can’t even tell their husbands that they are doing this or else he would get mad and demand that they keep the money. My mama’s case isn’t like that, but now my language skills are okay enough to ask her about it and I’m looking forward to visiting people at home or in the hospital with her.

Red White and Blueloaf---belated 4th of july edition

The internet was not doing so well this week, but let me just say that we had a FIELD DAY 2008. Yes, that’s right. 6 teams of 11 people, Americans and Tanzanians all mixed together. It was really nice of them to let us do this. I of course volunteered to help decide events and teams and such. After all, it was only a year ago that Field Day 2007 occurred, only under much many different circumstances in Washington, dc. Here, I had the day before at lunch to figure this out, but all worked out well. We had a RELAY RACE in which you had a raw egg in your hand the whole time that you passed off from partner to partner, and the first person had to spin around 6 times dizzy bat style, then put on 2 kangas and a hat, throw a Frisbee to their teammate on the other side, and then run backwards with a bucket with a huge water bottle inside of it, pass the egg to the next teammate, and so forth. The very last person to run to the other side had to do an egg toss to the first person on the other side. At this point, most people’s eggs were half broken in their hand but the rule was that if your egg broke on the toss you had to do 10 kicks of the can can, which one group did and looked fannntastic. Most of the Tanzanian staff (some were 70+ years old) had never seen a relay race, and they LOVED it and want to repeat field day every other Friday, if possible.

After the relay race, we did a team rotation of 20 minute soccer, volleyball, and ultimate Frisbee games. Ultimate Frisbee is now another favorite of the Tanzanians..our team won all 3 games and completely dominated in Frisbee..we were passing like crazy and it was pretty incredible to see people pick up the game so fast. Even for those people who didn’t want to play in any of the sports after the relay, it was a really nice day outside just to relax and take a break from class and regular training for an afternoon. We also had to sing the star spangled banner at the request of the Tanzanian staff, some of whom knew all the words.

The finale: TUG O’ WAR…pretty much the most perfect ending to a tug of war I have ever seen. Since there are only about 11 guys in our program, the first tug of war was Tanzanian men vs. American men. After all the anticipation and build up, the rope BROKE within 2 seconds. It really was such a wonderful ending to a ridiculous day.

I heard some great 4^th of July stories from some of you but I hope that everyone had a great time..let me know how you’re doing! People are getting mail here so definitely write me letters. It’s pretty fun to get them. Mary Beth and Frank Monastero win the award for first letter received and it only took about 12 days. Thank you guys!

P.O. Box 9123

Dar es Salaam

Tanzania

Keep your Pets close, but your sense of Detachment to African Pets Closer

Also, wanted to save some bad news for last: remember Pili Pili, the adorable little kitten that lived here with my family? Well, about 10 days ago, pilipili got eaten by the neighbor’s dog, whose name is SIMBA. Simba is now on the death list… Niedermeyer…DEAD…. Simba…DEAD! Haha the best/worst part about the story is how I found out. I came home from school one day and said “wapi pilipili?” and the kids just started laughing and said one of maybe 3 english words that they know “haha pilipili DEAD!!!” over and over again. I still have pictures of pilipili on my camera and they will be posted, so I just wanted to prepare you for that. Lots of PCVs have pets at their sites so this was a good lesson to learn now..not to get too attached to pets in Africa. Also, a couple nights later, one of our guard dogs, Peggy, was stabbed in the ribs with some sort of knife. It wasn’t a good week to be a pet in the Kondo family. We have no idea who did it but Peggy is a trooper and seems to be doing fine. Anytime your pet starts acting up, just kindly tell them that at least they’re not getting eaten or stabbed and they should start behaving.

I go to Mikumi National park this weekend which is a trip that we organized and we get to go see all the safari animals that you think about when you hear Africa, so everybody go watch the lion king and I will let you know how it compares and if there are any young adult sambas. Love and miss you all!