What the Buck-et?

Sooooo let's just get this out of the way. It's been a while. It's been a long time. It's actually gotten to the point where it's awkward even talking about how much I've not been cookin up some Meeshloaf. You might be angry, you might be hungry, you might be asking yourself what the bucket has meesh been up to? It feels good to say this. I feel better. I think we can do this. I think I can do my best to sum up what I've been up to the last six months. Maybe pictures can do a better job. Bottom line, as the Will Ferrell/Chris Kattan parody duo of Air Supply said, "We're back. In a big way."


Not that I'm going to ignore the events of the past six months, but I think that the best place to start would be with the most recent activities and then going backwards. I just got back from Dar es Salaam for the VAC (volunteery advisory council) meeting with Peace Corps staff. I stuck around Dar after the meeting to go to the US Embassy for a 4th of July celebration (which was actually on the 5th of July) This event was really really fun but strange, since it felt like I was back in America. I had yet to visit the embassy, but basically we were outside on the lawn and they had a barbeque, a water dunk tank, bean bag toss, kids running around, US marines as bartenders, and at the end of the night there were fireworks. Real fireworks, which must have scared the crap out of Tanzanians outside the gates of the embassy who aren't accustomed to large explosions of light in the sky in the beginning of July. Most of the people that were there live in or around Dar, far from where I'm posted, so it was shocking to see the number of American families that live in Tanzania! After leaving that little bubble of Americans in the Embassy, literally minutes later I was on a ferry headed towards Mikadi Beach (a stretch of peninsula not far from the city, but a completely less crowded, less sweaty, less hectic atmosphere), elbow to elbow with all Tanzanians, standing next to cars, bajajis (tuk tuks), motorcycles, all thrown together on the same platform, making sure that no one was secretly pickpocketing me. Strangely, I felt more comfortable on the crowded ferry with Tanzanians than I did surrounded by the Americans living in Dar who were having rapid conversations like I used to hear and partake in while living in DC...trying to network for jobs, casually but purposefully dropping names of VIPs, which school they were sending their kids to, generally being careful about what they were saying...all social customs and topics that I had not been used to in a while.

It was during this trip to Dar, however, that I found Diet Faygo Root Beer in a store right in downtown posta area. I was shocked! How had this Detroit company managed to extend its market all the way to Tanzania? Who was buying and let alone drinking it?? There is no root beer in Tanzania. There's barely diet soda in Tanzania..let alone a diet brand of soda that no one drinks in this part of the world. I didn't understand, and still don't. Maybe it's better not to think about such deep perplexing issues such as this. Also, I think it's important at this time to say that there are no soda fountains in this country. I've tried to look for them, but have yet to find it. I love drinking soda in bottles (especially when going to towns that have electricity and having cold sodas), but thing I miss from the states is a giant refillable cup of fountain soda with ice cubes. When my parents came they watched in awe (or horror) at the joy I got from just eating ice with other PCVs at the nicer place they were staying. As I sat there eating ice from the plain glass of ice cubes, it was like that cereal commercial with the crunchy raisin bran or whatever it was...my parents were saying things, and I just nodded, crunching the ice, not really listening, just basking in the glory of electricity and frozen filtered water.

Before going to Dar for the VAC meeting, I ran a week long Girls Empowerment Camp in Mbeya with 6 other volunteers. It was a great success, with about 65 girls participating from all over the region of Mbeya. We got some of the media to come since the place where we had the camp, Mbeya Instititute of Science and Technology, donated their hostel and all facilities, so that they could get some good press and hopefully be motivated to host more conferences like this in the future. Everything went really well with the participants and the PCVs who were facilitating the seminar. We learned a lot about what worked well during the week and what we would do differently next time. There's a ton of great pictures from the camp that I will try to post later, or send a CD back to my brother Frank to upload onto this blog, but all in all it was by far the coolest thing I've done in country thus far. The main goal of the camp was to train girls from each school to be peer educators, so that when they return, they can share what they learned with other kids in the schools, and help dispel myths and reduce stigma towards HIV/AIDS in the communities. One of the most interesting sessions we did was about myth vs. fact of HIV/AIDS. We did condom demonstrations, including one of the PCVs blowing up a condom to show that no air could pass through, since many of the girls believed that there were holes in condoms (some even thought that other countries made condoms with holes in them and gave them to Tanzanians for free in order to try and spread the disease) We were able to have some really good discussions and even though it was difficult at times following the discussion and mediating it (since it was all in Kiswahili), we all ended up on the same page and I think the girls were satisfied with the answers they got. Another main goal of the camp was goal setting and looking at career options for women in Tanzania. We had two female engineers from MIST come and help the girls plan out short term and long term goals, and to talk about the wide variety of jobs they could have if they continued their education. Many girls in Tanzania do not do well in science and math. Actually, most students male and female do not even pass their math exams at the end of secondary school. The girls were so excited to see two women who were actual engineers, one in computer engineering and the other in civil engineering. Each one of them made their own journals (the idea of journaling, creative writing, or writing down your thoughts was completely new and foreign to most of them) in which they were encouraged to write down how they felt at the beginning and end of each day, and what they had learned. One thing that became clear was that they all LOVED learning about computers and getting to use them. The computer lab at MIST could seat all of the girls and they each learned how to use the START menu to find Microsoft Office, and start a new word document. They each wrote out sentences and stories on the computer and learned how to save them. If I am able to link Ilembo with an alternative energy source, I really want to try and find computers that can be donated to the school. It's such a marketable skill and there are many jobs available for Tanzanians with even basic computer skills, like data entry related to health information...in the next couple of years Tanzania is going to try to digitize their health info, so it would be a great field to train young people in now so that they can be ready for it.

Warning to men who don't like talking about periods: the next paragraph deals with talking about periods, aka, menstrruuuation
One of my sister Christy's friends, Heidi, sent me the description of a project she had done with women in Tanzania related to reproductive health dealing with sewing your own menstrual pads and also making cycle beads. This project went over really well at the camp. Each girl sewed her own menstrual pad and made cycle beads. Cycle beads help with knowing which days in a girls' menstrual cycle she is most likely or least likely to become pregnant. Since most of these girls at the camp had just gotten their period for the first time within a year or two (and some had yet to get it), the calendar method is not as reliable but it was a good way to initiate discussion about how they feel when they have their period, physiology and where the blood comes from, and what supplies they use during that time. It was really interesting and it was the first time many had ever spoken about their period at all. Many had said they were not warned about getting their period (like in the movie Blue Lagoon with Brooke Shields), so they thought they were sick and were afraid to tell anyone. Sewing menstrual pads is such a great project idea because many of the girls do not use sanitary methods because they cannot afford pads that are sold at the dukas, and therefore they are more likely to get infections or miss school if they are too embarassed that they might leak through their clothes. After translating Heidi's lesson into Kiswahili, we gave it to every girl at the camp so that she can teach other women in her village how to sew these pads too.
Okay, period discussion is over.

Obviously, at the end of the camp we had an OLYMPICS day (complete with a relay race and tug of war similar to the one we did in training last year) and a talent show. The girls were so competitive with both the sports and the talent show, so it was hard giving the "you did your best speech" at the end to my girls who didn't win, even though their skit and song was by far the best from the group (not biased at all). I brought 9 girls from Ilembo, 5 from secondary school and 4 from Primary school. They were incredible. I was shocked at how well they participated and how creative they were...it made me so excited to work with them and their new peer education groups once they start up the second term of school next week. I'm trying to figure out a way to use a recording studio in mbeya, Iringa or Dar that some Tanzanian musicians I know have talked about so that they can make CD's and tapes and we can sell them or give them out to buses. They pump out beautiful songs about HIV/AIDS, life in their village, friendship, god, and almost anything in the blink of an eye. And they always have perfect harmony thanks to predetermined vocal placements that I'm pretty sure are given the minute they come out of the womb. 'Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Mwampamba on your beautiful baby girl, she's 7 lbs, 20 inches, and an alto.'

I've gotta leave this internet soon but before the Girls Camp, my parents, Joe and Sheila, came to visit me in what will be known as the greatest Santoro African adventure in history. It was during their visit that my father and i killed two chickens in my courtyard and then cooked and ate them. It was during this adventure that Joe and Sheila saw how useful buckets are at every second of the day. It was also during this time that my mother danced with my widows group after eating ugali, bean leaves, spinach, pumpkin leaves, and being presented with homemade baskets. Her dancing skills (the side to side step and clap move worked really well here) impressed all of the women, who still ask where she learned to dance like that and if I can dance as well as her. I told them there was no way my skills compared to Sheila's, the former aerobics instructor. My dad, at this same party with my friends in the village, sang Fields of Athen Rye like he has done on so many other occassions, but I dont think any of them were as quite as memorable as this one. They sat at the meza kuu (head table) at world family day in my village, got Tanzanian kitenge clothing custom made for them in less than a day, and spoke in front of the catholic church and got a standing ovation. They were treated like movie stars and everyone in Ilembo is still asking about them, greeting them, and hoping they will come back again so that they can give them more food and soda. After the village, we went up north to Ngorogoro Crater, Serengeti, and Lake Manyara park for an amazing safari where I got to have a real vacation without worrying about travel, food, or anything and we all just got to relax and try to find animals. We saw everything! Black rhino, cheetahs, leopard, lions, and the migration of the wildebeests. My dad, by the end of the 4 days in the 4x4, had perfected his narrator voice on his new video camera...most used phrase... 'it's just....incredible' or 'very cool' while concentrating on steadying the digital zoom. Our guide, Hamza, was rewarded for his superior animal spotting with a Pittsburgh Steelers baseball hat that really went well with his yellow Zara tours shirt. To top it off, we ended up in Zanzibar until the day my parents flew home. The food in Zanzibar was incredible, and I got to have a massage and sushi on my birthday which was fresh and tasty and it felt like I was worlds away from the village I had been in just days before. So, in short, it was the best vacation I think any of us had ever had (who would have thought me, sheila and joe, veteran trio travelers of the Pennsylvania Turnpike from '98-'03, would be doing a safari in the Serengeti???), and my parents did it all without a hitch..they were incredible and I hope they inspire more people to come out and visit, it really meant a lot to me and of course to all of my friends in the village.

I'll have to dig deeper in my brain to remember things from before my parents came, because that took up a lot of memory space. Maybe I'll just post a picture montage instead. Spread the word. Dinner's ready, and everyone's invited to have some more Meeshloaf.....BOOM.