Fievel Goes [south]West

After a long anticipated site announcement, I'm headed to the small village of Ilembo, about 70km (or a 2 hour truck or Lorie ride) from the large town of Mbeya. I'm really close to the border of Malawi and Zambia, and am really really excited to see my new house. I'll be close to the primary and secondary schools, as well as the health center..according to the description, all seem to be within a kilometer of my house. Tomorrow I move out of my homestay, which is very bitter sweet since I've had such a great time with them and my CBT group. All of us trainees are moving to MATI (the agricultural school where we meet every week) and then we have our swearing in ceremony on Wednesday. After that, I feel like it could take a couple of weeks to get all 46 of us installed into our villages. This year they're doing something new, which is Peace Corps vehicles are taking us as far as our banking towns, then current volunteers in the region and the VEO (village executive officer) are meeting us and taking us to our houses. It'll be really interesting to move all of my stuff around, which has accumulated greatly since arriving thanks to the dozens of books and buckets I've picked up in these past couple of months.

Hope everyone's doing well back home...this is my new address (or so I think) although letters and packages still will be received at the dar es salaam PO box, but i won't be able to get them until i go back to dar again which probably won't be for a while.

Ilembo Secondary School
P.O. Box 1731
Mbeya
Tanzania

If you are sending me a package, please write Peace Corps Volunteer under my name so I don't have to pay the $30 fee to receive it which apparently is what happens in the post training life. I should still be able to get cell phone service, but there might be a chance that my number will change if CelTel doesn't work there..I'll letcha know! It's been great talking to people who have called and I've been getting some of your texts too! A fellow trainee's mom, (Kate!) called when a bunch of us were together during shadow week, and it was really cool passing around the phone and talking to her as if it was like we were back in the states just saying hey to Joe and Sheila, Alane Hnath, Jenny Losego or Janet Sodini or the Dorans or PKB. So feel free to call and I plan on writing a great deal of letters once I get to site because I will not have electricity or running water. I don't know that much about Ilembo or Mbeya yet except that the climate is nice (gets decently cold but never very hot) and that there is a lot of great fruits and food in the region. Feel free to google and wiki research (a la Perryville) and send me interesting fun facts (Jack, I think this is your area of expertise).

My site is new, which means I'm not replacing anyone and I'm pretty excited about it. Myself and 4 other trainees are getting sent to Mbeya region, and most of them are new sites. As of right now I think the closest volunteer to me is 4 hours away, but that might be different once I get there and see where the current volunteers are..Mbeya seems to be a region where they're trying to start more sites and place new people, so there's lots of room for creativity which I am happy about. I'm pretty excited to demonstrate and teach permaculture, which is pretty much gardening on steroids and for those who really need it to be able to live without worrying about food, especially PLWHAs. This guy Peter Jensen (great name) came and did a great presentation on it and we got out there trying these new digging techniques and finding out different ways to catch and control water...all stuff that I never thought I'd be that excited about but he showed us actual examples of how it has helped Tanzanian families and it is pretty easy to teach, so I'm looking forward to starting a garden at the school or health center in addition to one in my yard.

In my site description, it says that these are the current community groups: Goat keeping, fish keeping, mama mkubwa NGO (big sister NGO), Timber group, and also the health center is trying to get an HIV/AIDS prevention training going, so it seems like a wide variety of stuff going on.

Also, when I was in Dar (which was such a huge change from being in the village) I got to see DARK KNIGHT!!! Our arrival coincided with the opening weekend here and I saw it on "The Biggest Screen in East Africa" which is what was actually written under the doors of the movie theatre as you walked in. In addition and more importantly, I bought a guitar in Dar once I found out I was moving pretty far out there and definitely not having electricity. Let's hope that bad boy makes it to Ilembo in one piece.

Miss you all a lot, not sure when I'll be on next but please write me and I'll write you a candlelit letter back from MBEYAAAAAAA! Enjoy the rest of your summers!

Meeshloaf con Queso

I'm on the move! It's currently shadow week and I am staying with a current volunteer in the southern highlands, near the town of Njombe. It took a 10 hour bus ride to get to Njombe and then another hour and a half really small bus ride to her village. On the smaller bus, there are these nimble men who can scale the sides of the bus much like spiderman. I was just riding and then saw a shadow outside the window directly to my left that turned out to be a man who was just climbing around, making sure the bags were staying on top. The scenery is gorgeous out here, and the weather is actually pretty cold..kind of like late winter weather. This has resulted in a lack of sweating, which myself and I'm sure those around me appreciate greatly. Another important fact is that Njombe has cheese, and lots of it! I guess I should have put this before cheese, but the president of Tanzania actually visited her small village the day before I arrived, which everyone was pretty excited about. The girl I am shadowing is an education volunteer named Laura, and she teaches math at the local school. Her house doesn't have electricity or running water, but it is brand new and she keeps it in really great condition. Myself, Linnea (a fellow trainee) and Laura all thankfully love cheese and baking so we were able to make some delicious food, including a mexican night where I made guacamole, Linnea made salsa, and Laura made some sort of cheese dip that was pretty much like fondue. It was so good and a nice change from rice and beans. You might also have noticed I was finally able to upload a couple photos (how observant of you). These are some pretty great ones from the safari at Mikumi. Thanks to the awesome zoom on my camera (thanks DGI!), I was able to get some pretty amazing pictures. I wish I could do mass uploads but it seems that the java script is still the enemy of all the computers in Tanzania so far, so I can only do a few at a time.

I'm heading to Dar on Sunday and will find out my site announcement on Tuesday..so I'm really looking forward to finding out where I'll be for the next couple of years, and then for all of you guys who want to come visit, we can start planning some trips. Did Brett Favre really get traded?

Also, HERE WE GO STEELERS, HERE WE GO!! I'd appreciate a text after the pre-season game so I can know exactly how many more touchdowns we scored than the Eagles.

Feels great to have a break from homestay and get to see some more parts of the country...getting really excited to move to site. Hope everyone's doing well!!