SIX SUPERBOWL CHAMPIONSHIP VICTORIES....GO STEELERS!!!!! It was a difficult and slightly terrifying couple of hours for me and those around me since I was unable to watch the game, but I want you all to know that I was wearing my Hines Ward jersey when I traveled from Dar through Johannesburg and into Lesotho, and the first evening of the conference. The morning after the game, or actually just a few hours from when it ended in Africa time, I saw highlights on CNN World News and I think I am okay with admitting that I cried a single tear when Santonio Holmes made that incredible TD reception. Moving on before I get too excited/start missing the Pour House even more, for what I have been lacking in words lately I will desperately try to make up by posting pictures. This has been a challenge for me, but seeing as I am around electricity and internet for a couple of hours I am giving it another shot.
And now.....Introducing Mary Ryan Foundation's Class of 2013 (the inaugural class):
Mwisho Luwela, Litiel Kiwoyela, Elisha Luwole, Mwakasita Saimon, Diana Nsahani, John Mwawa, Asia Pachanga, Afeli Juma, Willy Yella, Ebby Mwile, Shila Zakaria, Jeremia Elia, Tabitha Jackson, and Tabia Kaseka.
Many thanks to those of you who have donated to the Mary Ryan Foundation (http://www.maryryanfoundation.org) I know the MRF and the kids of Ilembo will appreciate your ongoing support..there is a lot of work to be done and it really is a unique chance to help an extremely underserved population in Tanzania. Again, I am working as a liaison between Community Based Organizations in Ilembo and the Mary Ryan Foundation, and the money is never going into my personal account, which is good, because it would be hard to do volunteer work if everyone in the village thought I had an endless supply of money. By giving the CBO's and OVC groups different resources to partner with, I hope that these kinds of support programs for vulnerable children could continue for a long time. All of these children are between the ages of 14 and 17 years old, and are living in an extremely difficult home environment. Most of the kids' parents have passed away, so they either live with a grandparent or in some cases a friend of the family or an older sister. When visiting them at their homes, it was such a wake up call as most of them slept in the uninsulated 'kitchens', which means on a straw mat on the dirt floor. It gets pretty cold in Ilembo at night, so seeing these sleeping conditions at their homes, along with the fact that women cook over a smoky fire almost all hours of the day made it not surprising that one of the most common diseases in Ilembo are upper respiratory infections and pneumonia. All of them passed their Standard 7 exams, which means that they are extremely bright because the majority of the Std 7 students do not pass, and therefore do not get the opportunity to go to school. (I am working to start up an OVC committee in Ilembo that would target helping the recent out of school youth who failed their exams, and getting an apprenticeship program going with these kids and the "fundis" in the village, so that the children can learn a skill of their choosing, such as sewing, making furniture, raising livestock, as well as teaching them different income generating skills like making batik, baking different foods that they could sell at the market, and bio intensive gardening/permaculture.
Each of the children above have written letters of introduction in Kiswahili, which I will be working with them to translate into English. In the meantime, I think it would be really cool if we started a Pen Pal program between you all and these kids (and eventually adding more kids if many of you show interest) If you would like to have a pen pal, simply comment on this blog and say that you would like to start writing letters, and I will "assign" you a child. If you are a teacher and would like your group of students to do this, then let me know and we can arrange something with the Coverell worldwide penpal service. This LoafLetters (too much?) thing would be a smaller group and it would be really cool for the first letter to enclose a picture and a letter of introduction, and I would incorporate the Pen Pal into the life skills session. So start commenting and getting your name out there if you'd like to get involved, it's a pretty easy, fun, and inexpensive way to make the day to day life of a child more exciting!
..and now I will try to post some photos of these kids and their caretakers...
...that didn't work so I am uploading some pictures to Picasa.. the batiks in the pictures are ones that we did during In-Service Training in Iringa with our counterparts..it was really fun and everyone came up with some pretty cool designs..mine is the red and yellow one that has the sun with a circle around it. There are also pictures of us doing permaculture gardening with our counterparts from IST, under the instruction of Peter Jensen aka King of Compost! He Some of the other pictures are from the HIV/AIDS and ICT conference in Lesotho. It was a really great time and I am so lucky to have gone..it was like a mini america! We stayed at an actual hotel, and I had cereal and orange juice and was incredibly excited. Besides the superficial parts that were a nice treat, I learned a lot about ICT and the activities and practices that are going on in other countries and in Tanzania. With everything from cell phone programs that health workers could use to send patient data to district hospitals (which would greatly help the PLWHA's that are awaiting ARV treatment), to anyone with a cell phone being able to text to a program to get information on the nearest Counseling and Treatment center or anonymously ask questions about a variety of health topics, these types of programs are getting started up across the region and Peace Corps volunteers could play a huge role in helping with the capacity building and training of local counterparts to use these programs to help the people in their community. So a lot of ideas were sparked and I'm excited to see how I can integrate the information from this conference with what I have already been doing...I am going to do a project to get just one computer and enough solar power to charge it so that I can start to teach basic computer skills related to health to a few people from the community (and start to transfer data from paper into digital so that it can be shared more easily with the higher levels that are actually providing the support for people with HIV and OVC's. At first I wasn't even considering this but in Lesotho they gave a lot of examples of health clinics in low resource areas where NGO's were able to assist them in setting up with solar power and basic skills training, so it seems like no matter where you are now it's getting easier to find ways to connect even the most rural areas. I hope the picasa album works... Miss you guys a lot, thanks for all the packages and letters, I can't tell you how much I love them. Well I guess I can tell you. I like them a lot..a wholleeee lot. But please visit the Mary Ryan Foundation website and also explore the other blogs of volunteers in Peace Corps, you can get them from the main peace corps website.. everyone is fired up from this In Service Training in Iringa and I know a lot of people from my training group are going to be doing some amazing things. Myself and two other female volunteers from my region are hopefully going to be writing a grant for a Girls' Empowerment Camp in June where we would select a group of young women to do life skills, HIV/AIDS awareness, teaching income generating projects/marketable skills, sports, and just all around good camp fun. Thanks for all your support....GO STEELERS
Monday, February 9, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
STEELERS, SODA, AND REALITY BITES
Okay, it's been an incredibly long time since you've had some meeshloaf..and there are many excuses that involve lack of electricity, time, computers freezing, and downright just avoiding it. But tell your hungry stomachs that everything is going to be okay. Here is just something to whet your appetite so that I can catch you all up on the last 3.5 (wow) months. First thing's first. Please go to the MARY RYAN FOUNDATION website http://www.maryryanfoundation.org My brother Frank (some of you may remember him from his semi-famous swim team magnet from 1992 that was on the fridge and then copy and pasted into the Mt. Lebanon yearbook in 2002) has started this non-profit, along with other family and friends, and the purpose is to raise money to support the OVC's (orphans and vulnerable children) of Ilembo village. I am working with students in the primary and secondary schools, as well as the out of school youth, and villagers to form a committee so that we can identify who needs help immediately and what kind (food, clothing, legal, health, etc) I will be a liasion between the MRF and groups of Ilembo such as the Secondary School, the OVC committee, and others. Please go check out the website and there will be lots of more pictures and stories to come..soon they will be accepting tax deductible donations online. I am heading to Lesotho (dot country inside south africa) for a regional conference dealing with ICT and HIV/AIDS...can't wait to fill you all in. in the meantime.... HERE WE GO STEELERS, HERE WE GO!!!!
Monday, November 3, 2008
Mobb Salad
Literally 2 hours after the erection update was up (heh heh), my phone was stolen. Read on for a tale of mob justice. From Mbeya town, I took the dalla dalla to Mbalizi town, where I would switch to either a bus or a lorie truck that takes me home to Ilembo. Since I was carrying a bunch of things that I had gotten in Mbeya, I wanted to make it to the bus that leaves at 2. I arrived in Mbalizi at 12:45, and got off the dalla dalla and was carrying a box on my head, a backpack, and a plastic bag. I had just received a text message so I knew I had my phone just after getting off the dalla. My phone was in my little eagle creek purse that I keep close watch of because it has all that important stuff in it. When I got off at the dalla dalla stand, some guy offered to carry one of my bags. I have gotten to know a few people in Mbalizi and some people from my village are there sometimes, but I didn’t know this guy and he took my plastic bag from me and carried it for about a minute until I insisted that I was fine carrying it to the bus. He asked for 500 shillings and I said no, and so he put the plastic bag down and as I reached down to grab it (I later realized) he reached and grabbed my phone out of the eagle creek bag. Right afterwards I ran into two people from my village and they helped carry my bags. About 5 minutes later I was at the bus stand about to buy a ticket when I opened my money purse and saw my phone wasn’t there. I had someone call it and it wasn’t ringing. If I had voicemail this would have been one of those straight-to-voicemail situations. Bad sign. Somehow I immediately remembered the guy from the dalla stand and dropped my stuff and sprinted like a crazy person back to the standi. Luckily, I am the only white person in Mbalizi and as if I didn’t stand out enough I was carrying a box on my head, so people remembered me. I busted out frantic Kiswahili saying “Did you see where that guy went?” “He stole my phone!” “Thief!” “help!” The people, had in fact, seen where the guy went and they said he had ran “that way” and that I should go to the police. My stomach sank, I started doing the math in my head of the cost of replacing the phone and how annoying it would be to get a new number and to try to find all the numbers I had lost.
I was in that emotional purgatory of laughing yet wanting to cry in the Mbalizi police station when Inspector Jumanne walked in. (Jumanne is the word for Tuesday) So Inspector Tuesday walks in and I literally had the exact conversation that I had during a simulation in training where we practiced bargaining at the market, talking with village leaders, and explaining a fake crime to police. He was pretty sympathetic, but I started getting worried when he was inquiring more about my personal life than the crime that had just been committed, so I tried to steer the conversation back by saying, “Soo what do we do now? There are plenty of people out there who saw him.” That’s when Inspector Tuesday and I hit the streets and tried to find people who would ‘cooperate’. He literally did a wave of his hand to two groups of people on the corner, and they rounded up more people, and so on and so on, and then he said that they were going to find the man, because if the police went, the guy would get scared and run away. We then went back to the police station, where he suggested I just “wait it out”, like it was one of those afternoon thunderstorms that will come and go and then it gets really sunny and nice out. Which is pretty much what happened.
In less than an hour, a group of 50 people had found this thief and brought him to the station. My phone was miraculously recovered and returned to me in perfect condition. I was amazed. Tanzanians hate thieves and it apparently is not uncommon for mobs of people to beat up, kill, or burn thieves they catch so I was at least grateful that this man was brought to the station and he still had all of his fingers and was not on fire, but I felt really badly thinking about what might lie ahead for him. I had to face him immediately afterwards to identify him and the policeman was slapping him in the face. I thanked the police for helping me, filed a report, and since the bus left late, I got on it at 2:30, my cell phone safely stored inside my bra.
I was in that emotional purgatory of laughing yet wanting to cry in the Mbalizi police station when Inspector Jumanne walked in. (Jumanne is the word for Tuesday) So Inspector Tuesday walks in and I literally had the exact conversation that I had during a simulation in training where we practiced bargaining at the market, talking with village leaders, and explaining a fake crime to police. He was pretty sympathetic, but I started getting worried when he was inquiring more about my personal life than the crime that had just been committed, so I tried to steer the conversation back by saying, “Soo what do we do now? There are plenty of people out there who saw him.” That’s when Inspector Tuesday and I hit the streets and tried to find people who would ‘cooperate’. He literally did a wave of his hand to two groups of people on the corner, and they rounded up more people, and so on and so on, and then he said that they were going to find the man, because if the police went, the guy would get scared and run away. We then went back to the police station, where he suggested I just “wait it out”, like it was one of those afternoon thunderstorms that will come and go and then it gets really sunny and nice out. Which is pretty much what happened.
In less than an hour, a group of 50 people had found this thief and brought him to the station. My phone was miraculously recovered and returned to me in perfect condition. I was amazed. Tanzanians hate thieves and it apparently is not uncommon for mobs of people to beat up, kill, or burn thieves they catch so I was at least grateful that this man was brought to the station and he still had all of his fingers and was not on fire, but I felt really badly thinking about what might lie ahead for him. I had to face him immediately afterwards to identify him and the policeman was slapping him in the face. I thanked the police for helping me, filed a report, and since the bus left late, I got on it at 2:30, my cell phone safely stored inside my bra.
Monday, October 6, 2008
MeeshRoaf's 2008 Presidential Erection Update
I love learning new languages. I also love listening to foreign peoples’ English accents. The first one I became familiar with was German in 8th grade, which really drew me in with its great songs, the best one of course being “Ich woll ich war ein Lebkuchen mann, oh JA!” (“I wish I were a Gingerbread Man, oh YES!”) I have never met a German person who has actually heard of this song, but the point is that it was catchy and made you more comfortable with the language. Plus it’s just awesome..the thought of being a gingerbread man, that is.
The next was a little bit of Czech while studying abroad in Prague. Czech peoples’ English accents were great because the v’s would be pronounced like w’s. (read: The willage was wary big) This was always a lot of fun, as was saying "Ahojjj" pirate style as the informal "hey".
The Greek vocabulary I learned while bartending on the pirate boat was pretty much limited to “do you want ice in your drink?” or “ good morning, psomas” (psomas = breadman, the local hero at Ios Bakery which was frequented by hundreds of hungry drunk people looking for greasy croissants between the hours of 5-7am.
Kiswahili is rapidly rising on the language likability scale. This is due largely in part to current political climate in America, most specifically the Presidential election between Obama and McCain. Why, you silently ask yourself? Well, the Tanzanian English accent pronounces R’s like L’s and vice verse. (kind of like Kim Jong Il in Team America... 'I'm so ronery..') In fact, the two letters are pronounced so much alike that many Tanzanians will spell Kiswahili and English words with the letters mixed up since they sound so much alike. With that being said, here is a common conversation that can take place between myself (me) and a Tanzanian (tz)
TZ: So, there is a very big erection coming up between Obama and McCain in America in November?
Me: Yes, all the Americans are very excited about the erection. It’s probably the biggest erection we’ve seen in years…much bigger than Bill Clinton’s successful erections.
TZ: Are you going to be able to participate in the erection?
Me: Yes, thanks to the internet and technology these days, it’s easy for anyone to have a hand in the erection. In fact, I think more people will take part in the erection this year than any other erection in history!
TZ: But during Bush’s two erections, were people really happy with the outcome?
Me: Not really, it ended up creating quite a big mess.
Yeah, so pretty much any election conversation brings a smile to my face. Tanzanians are all really excited about Obama and I love their no BS approach and direct way of asking who I support and why. Oh, and I am actually going to be able to participate in the election. I mailed in my absentee ballot application about 3 weeks ago, so assuming Delaware County board of erections follows through, I’ll be able to vote.
Village life is going really well. My tribal nickname is Shali (sounds like Shari, too), which is a common Kimalila name for a woman. I love it, people just yell "We, Shaliiiii!" wherever I go and I go shake their hand (the handshake is the shake, squeeze, shake, snap method..i hope to add a video of it later for full effect) Apparently Shila is the name for a man, so when I say that my mother is named Sheila, that often causes some laughter or confusion..as if someone had named a daughter Bob or something. I did not leave site at all, even for the day, for over two weeks. I’m getting in a little bit of a routine, but no day is ever completely the same. It continues to amaze me how the people here have close to nothing, but will offer you everything they have in a heartbeat. When you have a guest, you are expected to offer them something. They LOVE inviting me into their homes to eat ugali for lunch and to just talk or sit awkwardly. One woman braided my hair into four braids, people in my village were ecstatic and started asking me if people in America braided their hair too. I said yes, but sometimes a little different (picturing little girls with french braids in equestrian clubs riding horses or something) I've been trying to keep chai, bananas or random things in my house so the people who visit me don't leave empty handed. When I first got to site I wasn't cooking because I didn't have anything to cook in, but now every night I've been trying out different styles of the same food. As shannon fitzgerald would say, "The things you're doing with bananas is delightful". Bananas have come in handy, because you can eat them plain, cook the plaintain ones like potatoes, and the sweet ones with some peanuts and sugar for dessert. Getting the jiko lit was an arduous task at first but now it's a lot easier, and I'm starting to use firewood more especially with boiling water because it gets hot a lot faster. Rice and ugali are the staple filler foods, but luckily for me there are a lot of vegetables around here so I don't have to rely on just starch. In my village I can usually get tomatoes, onions and fish on most days, along with some sort of vegetable. So I normally just fry some onions, add some chopped tomatoes and any kind of spices around to make a sauce. Then add the greens and you have your little veggie sauce mixture to go with the rice. Crushed red pepper is used in every meal (thanks to the wonderful alberto's packets sent by dc's finest) Instead of pot holders, I use thick sticks to go under the rim of the sufuria and lift and move charcoals that way too. Baking is even possible--I made brownies! I bought some cocoa powder and did the same type of baking method that my mama taught me in homestay. Always have to crack eggs in a separate bowl from the mixture, though, because there are lots of fertilized eggs that can pop up and a little dead bird just doesn't make baked goods taste that great. I'm usually eating dinner around 9pm and then play the guitar or continue to knit this scarf that grows bigger with every row..it's like the blob, I don't know how to stop it and I'm not sure if I want to!
Since for the first three months we're just supposed to meet as many people as possible and get to know the village before we start actual projects, every day I just walk from the school or health center or peoples' homes. It's actually pretty exhausting but paying off pretty well because I'm realizing I can understand more and more things when I go to village meetings or to the different churches. Went to the Baptist church last week, it was great--they have a choir for OVC's and play the ngomba (drums). I’ve had several meetings in the vitongoji, or hamlets, or sub-villages that are technically a part of Ilembo but more isolated from health and education services. These meetings consist of myself and a teacher, Joseph, from the secondary school who is interested in teaching life skills and gender analysis/community development, and we facilitate/ask questions and the villagers do most of the discussing. Or at least that’s theoretically what could be happening. I have found a couple people who I think would be good committed counterparts, but for now doing these meetings and using PACA tools (participatory analysis for community action) is a good way to find out what villagers in different areas, genders, and ages think are the biggest problems in the community and how their daily activities differ. For example, the women and men are both working in the farms from 7am-2pm, but the women are also choting water, carrying babies on their backs while they work, and preparing the meals while the men pumzika, or rest. The women in the village so far have been kind of afraid to talk about what they think are the biggest problems in the village (many have told me after the meeting that they want to learn about family planning, which I am working with the health center to create a health library and weekly mamas group meetings there. The consistent answer for both men and women as the top health problems in the area are that there are lots of orphans due to HIV/AIDS and that many PLWHA’s cannot afford the trip to town to receive ARV treatment. The doctor at the health center is trained to administer ARV's so I think that later on we should be able to bring the ARV's to Ilembo health center and that way soooo many people would be able to walk here and receive treatment. I have a feeling that it could take a while, but when I have mentioned the possibility to people who are HIV+ but not taking ARV's, they were really excited and said that they would definitely come to receive treatment. Thanks to everyone's interest in supporting the orphans here!! I am trying to get a web site together, but the first step here is to actually mobilize a group and community volunteers who can be trained to counsel and work with them. The money would go to school fees, notebooks, and uniforms so that at least they can stay in school, and then later doing life skills training, girls' empowerment, and permaculture. There is a lot of space next to the primary school that during the rainy season should be able to catch plenty of water and if the kids themselves started a garden and maintained it well, they could really have great access to a ton of vegetables and not just eat ugali.
This amazing nurse from Hawaii and founder of a really really small (herself + 2 other people) but cool group called Every Child, Every Village (Everychildeveryvillage.org) is leaving in a few months and gave me 6 copies of a Kiswahili version of Where There is No Doctor. She has been doing projects with kindergarten classrooms where herself and volunteer artists and some local artists do educational painting in the classrooms. The finished products are incredible, I want to post some pictures later but the main point of her project is to not just have kids learning through memorization alone. There are paintings that can allow them to practice counting or identifying colors, animals, body parts and letters. And the greatest part is that it makes the classroom look so so much better and a more effective learning tool for young kids, since most aren’t lucky enough to have a whole bunch of books to practice with at home. I hope to start a project like this since there are plenty of empty walls and there could be so much potential to do a more health related model or ones geared towards different age groups..like one in the health center area and one in the primary and secondary schools. Some of the kids in the village have already demonstrated talents for drawing, acting (graduation party skits) and even gymnastics.
Oh yeah, graduation parties. Graduation parties of all sorts were had over the past 2 weeks. The first party I went to was thrown by TYCS, a group of Christian students. Apparently my mzungu status makes me an automatic member of the High Table, or Meza Kuu, along with the headmaster, village leaders, teachers, and guests from out of town.
During our swearing in ceremony in Kilosa, we were the ones graduating and I remember being so jealous of the guests of honor at the Meza Kuu drinking sodas or bottled water during the several hour long ceremony, and then being the first ones to eat. As I stood in the line with my host family and about a hundred other people, I remember feeling envious of the Meza Kuu, their hands greasy with chicken meat, scraping up the last remains of the mchicha/tomato/onion sauce with heapfuls of rice or pilau (spiced up rice), well before I was even within reach of a plate. Now that I have experienced the Meza Kuu, I realize that my envy was justified and I felt really badly being treated so well as a guest, but the good thing was that sitting at the Meza Kuu offered a great view of the gymnastics or "acrobats" section. The gymnastics performance during one of the graduation parties literally came out of nowhere. The form3 students were doing back handsprings, back flips,diving through bike rims and they even had a ring of fire which reminded me of Old School, but fortunately and remarkably no one was injured like Frank Ricard. (KEEP YOUR COMPOSURE!!!) The ceremonies were so much fun though, lots of dancing and people wanting to take pictures with the mzungu. Tanzanians don't look into the camera when pictures are being taken. In fact, they will be smiling every second of the day but when a photo is taken, it is time to be serious and stare into the eyes of the person with whom you are being photographed, or just stare blankly off into the distance. At first I was smiling in every picture but now I am starting to like the idea of this non-conventional picture pose.
So thanks to those who have gone through the painful process of placing an international phone call or sending letters and packages, it’s so fun to be able to talk to friends and family many miles away as I walk past goats/pigs getting slaughtered (scariest sound EVER), chickens trying to run into my house and cows with intimidating horns. It is incredible that cell phone service is available in incredibly remote parts of the country. I was able to charge my computer while in town so I hope to be able to type as I go and then upload entries whenever I come in every couple of weeks. My house is starting to feel like home (Kelley Price: Making a House a Home) thanks to the addition of furniture (wooden couch and chairs and table) that a fundi in my village made..it's nice having guests over now because we all have a place to sit.
I’m pretty sleep deprived right now so I’m just going to say good night and I hope that the excitement of this big elrection has enough stamina to last until the first Tuesday in November.
The next was a little bit of Czech while studying abroad in Prague. Czech peoples’ English accents were great because the v’s would be pronounced like w’s. (read: The willage was wary big) This was always a lot of fun, as was saying "Ahojjj" pirate style as the informal "hey".
The Greek vocabulary I learned while bartending on the pirate boat was pretty much limited to “do you want ice in your drink?” or “ good morning, psomas” (psomas = breadman, the local hero at Ios Bakery which was frequented by hundreds of hungry drunk people looking for greasy croissants between the hours of 5-7am.
Kiswahili is rapidly rising on the language likability scale. This is due largely in part to current political climate in America, most specifically the Presidential election between Obama and McCain. Why, you silently ask yourself? Well, the Tanzanian English accent pronounces R’s like L’s and vice verse. (kind of like Kim Jong Il in Team America... 'I'm so ronery..') In fact, the two letters are pronounced so much alike that many Tanzanians will spell Kiswahili and English words with the letters mixed up since they sound so much alike. With that being said, here is a common conversation that can take place between myself (me) and a Tanzanian (tz)
TZ: So, there is a very big erection coming up between Obama and McCain in America in November?
Me: Yes, all the Americans are very excited about the erection. It’s probably the biggest erection we’ve seen in years…much bigger than Bill Clinton’s successful erections.
TZ: Are you going to be able to participate in the erection?
Me: Yes, thanks to the internet and technology these days, it’s easy for anyone to have a hand in the erection. In fact, I think more people will take part in the erection this year than any other erection in history!
TZ: But during Bush’s two erections, were people really happy with the outcome?
Me: Not really, it ended up creating quite a big mess.
Yeah, so pretty much any election conversation brings a smile to my face. Tanzanians are all really excited about Obama and I love their no BS approach and direct way of asking who I support and why. Oh, and I am actually going to be able to participate in the election. I mailed in my absentee ballot application about 3 weeks ago, so assuming Delaware County board of erections follows through, I’ll be able to vote.
Village life is going really well. My tribal nickname is Shali (sounds like Shari, too), which is a common Kimalila name for a woman. I love it, people just yell "We, Shaliiiii!" wherever I go and I go shake their hand (the handshake is the shake, squeeze, shake, snap method..i hope to add a video of it later for full effect) Apparently Shila is the name for a man, so when I say that my mother is named Sheila, that often causes some laughter or confusion..as if someone had named a daughter Bob or something. I did not leave site at all, even for the day, for over two weeks. I’m getting in a little bit of a routine, but no day is ever completely the same. It continues to amaze me how the people here have close to nothing, but will offer you everything they have in a heartbeat. When you have a guest, you are expected to offer them something. They LOVE inviting me into their homes to eat ugali for lunch and to just talk or sit awkwardly. One woman braided my hair into four braids, people in my village were ecstatic and started asking me if people in America braided their hair too. I said yes, but sometimes a little different (picturing little girls with french braids in equestrian clubs riding horses or something) I've been trying to keep chai, bananas or random things in my house so the people who visit me don't leave empty handed. When I first got to site I wasn't cooking because I didn't have anything to cook in, but now every night I've been trying out different styles of the same food. As shannon fitzgerald would say, "The things you're doing with bananas is delightful". Bananas have come in handy, because you can eat them plain, cook the plaintain ones like potatoes, and the sweet ones with some peanuts and sugar for dessert. Getting the jiko lit was an arduous task at first but now it's a lot easier, and I'm starting to use firewood more especially with boiling water because it gets hot a lot faster. Rice and ugali are the staple filler foods, but luckily for me there are a lot of vegetables around here so I don't have to rely on just starch. In my village I can usually get tomatoes, onions and fish on most days, along with some sort of vegetable. So I normally just fry some onions, add some chopped tomatoes and any kind of spices around to make a sauce. Then add the greens and you have your little veggie sauce mixture to go with the rice. Crushed red pepper is used in every meal (thanks to the wonderful alberto's packets sent by dc's finest) Instead of pot holders, I use thick sticks to go under the rim of the sufuria and lift and move charcoals that way too. Baking is even possible--I made brownies! I bought some cocoa powder and did the same type of baking method that my mama taught me in homestay. Always have to crack eggs in a separate bowl from the mixture, though, because there are lots of fertilized eggs that can pop up and a little dead bird just doesn't make baked goods taste that great. I'm usually eating dinner around 9pm and then play the guitar or continue to knit this scarf that grows bigger with every row..it's like the blob, I don't know how to stop it and I'm not sure if I want to!
Since for the first three months we're just supposed to meet as many people as possible and get to know the village before we start actual projects, every day I just walk from the school or health center or peoples' homes. It's actually pretty exhausting but paying off pretty well because I'm realizing I can understand more and more things when I go to village meetings or to the different churches. Went to the Baptist church last week, it was great--they have a choir for OVC's and play the ngomba (drums). I’ve had several meetings in the vitongoji, or hamlets, or sub-villages that are technically a part of Ilembo but more isolated from health and education services. These meetings consist of myself and a teacher, Joseph, from the secondary school who is interested in teaching life skills and gender analysis/community development, and we facilitate/ask questions and the villagers do most of the discussing. Or at least that’s theoretically what could be happening. I have found a couple people who I think would be good committed counterparts, but for now doing these meetings and using PACA tools (participatory analysis for community action) is a good way to find out what villagers in different areas, genders, and ages think are the biggest problems in the community and how their daily activities differ. For example, the women and men are both working in the farms from 7am-2pm, but the women are also choting water, carrying babies on their backs while they work, and preparing the meals while the men pumzika, or rest. The women in the village so far have been kind of afraid to talk about what they think are the biggest problems in the village (many have told me after the meeting that they want to learn about family planning, which I am working with the health center to create a health library and weekly mamas group meetings there. The consistent answer for both men and women as the top health problems in the area are that there are lots of orphans due to HIV/AIDS and that many PLWHA’s cannot afford the trip to town to receive ARV treatment. The doctor at the health center is trained to administer ARV's so I think that later on we should be able to bring the ARV's to Ilembo health center and that way soooo many people would be able to walk here and receive treatment. I have a feeling that it could take a while, but when I have mentioned the possibility to people who are HIV+ but not taking ARV's, they were really excited and said that they would definitely come to receive treatment. Thanks to everyone's interest in supporting the orphans here!! I am trying to get a web site together, but the first step here is to actually mobilize a group and community volunteers who can be trained to counsel and work with them. The money would go to school fees, notebooks, and uniforms so that at least they can stay in school, and then later doing life skills training, girls' empowerment, and permaculture. There is a lot of space next to the primary school that during the rainy season should be able to catch plenty of water and if the kids themselves started a garden and maintained it well, they could really have great access to a ton of vegetables and not just eat ugali.
This amazing nurse from Hawaii and founder of a really really small (herself + 2 other people) but cool group called Every Child, Every Village (Everychildeveryvillage.org) is leaving in a few months and gave me 6 copies of a Kiswahili version of Where There is No Doctor. She has been doing projects with kindergarten classrooms where herself and volunteer artists and some local artists do educational painting in the classrooms. The finished products are incredible, I want to post some pictures later but the main point of her project is to not just have kids learning through memorization alone. There are paintings that can allow them to practice counting or identifying colors, animals, body parts and letters. And the greatest part is that it makes the classroom look so so much better and a more effective learning tool for young kids, since most aren’t lucky enough to have a whole bunch of books to practice with at home. I hope to start a project like this since there are plenty of empty walls and there could be so much potential to do a more health related model or ones geared towards different age groups..like one in the health center area and one in the primary and secondary schools. Some of the kids in the village have already demonstrated talents for drawing, acting (graduation party skits) and even gymnastics.
Oh yeah, graduation parties. Graduation parties of all sorts were had over the past 2 weeks. The first party I went to was thrown by TYCS, a group of Christian students. Apparently my mzungu status makes me an automatic member of the High Table, or Meza Kuu, along with the headmaster, village leaders, teachers, and guests from out of town.
During our swearing in ceremony in Kilosa, we were the ones graduating and I remember being so jealous of the guests of honor at the Meza Kuu drinking sodas or bottled water during the several hour long ceremony, and then being the first ones to eat. As I stood in the line with my host family and about a hundred other people, I remember feeling envious of the Meza Kuu, their hands greasy with chicken meat, scraping up the last remains of the mchicha/tomato/onion sauce with heapfuls of rice or pilau (spiced up rice), well before I was even within reach of a plate. Now that I have experienced the Meza Kuu, I realize that my envy was justified and I felt really badly being treated so well as a guest, but the good thing was that sitting at the Meza Kuu offered a great view of the gymnastics or "acrobats" section. The gymnastics performance during one of the graduation parties literally came out of nowhere. The form3 students were doing back handsprings, back flips,diving through bike rims and they even had a ring of fire which reminded me of Old School, but fortunately and remarkably no one was injured like Frank Ricard. (KEEP YOUR COMPOSURE!!!) The ceremonies were so much fun though, lots of dancing and people wanting to take pictures with the mzungu. Tanzanians don't look into the camera when pictures are being taken. In fact, they will be smiling every second of the day but when a photo is taken, it is time to be serious and stare into the eyes of the person with whom you are being photographed, or just stare blankly off into the distance. At first I was smiling in every picture but now I am starting to like the idea of this non-conventional picture pose.
So thanks to those who have gone through the painful process of placing an international phone call or sending letters and packages, it’s so fun to be able to talk to friends and family many miles away as I walk past goats/pigs getting slaughtered (scariest sound EVER), chickens trying to run into my house and cows with intimidating horns. It is incredible that cell phone service is available in incredibly remote parts of the country. I was able to charge my computer while in town so I hope to be able to type as I go and then upload entries whenever I come in every couple of weeks. My house is starting to feel like home (Kelley Price: Making a House a Home) thanks to the addition of furniture (wooden couch and chairs and table) that a fundi in my village made..it's nice having guests over now because we all have a place to sit.
I’m pretty sleep deprived right now so I’m just going to say good night and I hope that the excitement of this big elrection has enough stamina to last until the first Tuesday in November.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Ratatouille..the dead kind
I can only wish that the rats that lived with me could cook like that little lovable cartoon chef of a rat. Instead, they are offering the spices of feces and urine which unfortunately don't go well with my rice. So, to put it nicely, I fed them a form of poison that ultimately resulted in their death. This is the only time i'm going to use the poison, though..I've got a kitten coming my way in a couple of weeks from the secondmaster, so we'll let nature take it's course after that.
I'm trying to attach a picture of one of the orphans, Anna, in my village. There are apparently many many orphans and whenever I ask where they live, people just respond in the local language by saying "they exist." This has made my search a little difficult, but thanks to the headmaster of the primary school I have a good start..many of the children's parents died when they were only 2-5 years old, and they are living with bibis, babus or aunts that barely have enough food and money to take care of their own kids, let alone to send the orphaned children to primary school. So I am trying to start a group for the orphans and their caretakers..eventually hoping to do sustainable projects but for right now I am trying to find sponsors (like you guys) to help those who are finishing up primary school secure funds to go to secondary school. (Primary school is free, but secondary school isn't) Otherwise, being an out of school orphan puts you in pretty much the highest risk category there is for a kid in Tanzania to get pregnant, STI's, HIV or all of hte above. So let me know if you are interesting in sponsoring an orphan, just so I can get an idea..I think there are about 30-40 in my village.
This is a short entry but just wanted to throw in a pic of my house (its the one in the center there in between all those trees) I am going to try and upload more since this one worked, maybe I'll be back next week for some quality photo upload time. Glad to hear the Steelers are 2-0, and thanks to those who have already written letters to my new home..I got them pretty quickly! (Jenee, mom and pat oswald...thank you!) Alright this is rambling so I'm gonna go and try to find some more orphans. Bye bye!
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Processed Meat
Processing is a term that Peace Corps liked to use during training after we had a session or an activity that was worth discussing. It usually involved a flip chart, markers, and maybe some "I felt" statements. Believe it or not, even you may have "processed" something once or twice or many times in your life under the guise of remedial terms like "recapping" or "reviewing" or "talking about". Most specifically, a lot of processing was done during college on Saturday and Sunday mornings after a fun night out. This type of processing was best served hungover. Now that you may or may not know what "processing" is, it is time for me to start the process of processing my first week at site.
During my first week at Ilembo, I:
During my first week at Ilembo, I:
- Went to a funeral
- Witnessed the delivery of twins (circleeeee of liiiifeeee)
- Learned how to knit from a how-to-knit book from the 1970's.
- Played Shania Twain's "You're Still The One" on the guitar upon arrival at site at 11:30pm for my headmaster, village executive officer, and site supervisor. I'm glad that this song has been in my repetoire for almost 10 years and could be useful finally.
- Had a mouse jump out of my box of granola bars and run over my hand.
- Ate two consecutive twin hard boiled eggs
- Saw a thief get tried in the village court
- Helped over 800 kids in remote villages near mine get vaccinated for measles and take vitamin A and mebendazole as part of a national campaign for vaccination sponsored by unicef and WHO. There was a great deal of off-roading in ambulances and hundreds of screaming, crying terrified children. The fear of getting shots is universal. One kid actually hit me and a health center staff member on the head in hopes of escaping.
- Painted two walls of a room in my house a color called "Apricoat"
- Made a water filter.
- Accidentally went to a CCM (the ruling party) meeting and played the TZ version of UNO, "last cardi" with them.
- Played soccer on the top of a mountain
- Drank approximately 30 bottles of Pepsi that people in the villages kept on force feeding me.
- Bathed once. It's really cold and I have to chote wat
- Rode on a Lorie truck to town (takes about 3.5 hours including dalla dalla) next to a woman who was 9 months pregnant
- Made mac n' cheese.
- Learned some of the tribal language Kimalila.
- Made at least 15 kids cry because they have never seen a white person.
So, yeah. Pretty standard first week moving in stuff. A little bit about Ilembo: It takes about an hour from Mbeya town to Mbalizi by dalla dalla, then 2.5 hours by truck or bus to Ilembo. I'm only about a 10-15 minute walk from my house to where the bus comes. It's a bumpy dusty ride but the scenery is absolutely gorgeous. It's like lord of the rings (lots of rolling green mountains), but no midgets. Almost everyone in my village is a farmer, and there is no electricity in the village at all. The health center has a generator and a few people have solar panels, but for the most part it's incredibly dark at night and you can see a million stars. (BIOBAY style!)
By day, the weather is so nice and great for going hiking and walking around introducing myself to everyone. When I first got to site, I was the last person to get dropped off in my region by my Village Executive Officer (VEO) and site supervisor, whose name is Danston and who I like to call Ted Danston. He actually looks a lot like Jamie Foxx. Anyway, it was dark the whole ride to my site and I was basically dropped off in refugee fashion. I showed up, there was a lantern in my home, a bed, a jiko charcoal stove outside, and a table and some chairs. That's it. It was about 11:30pm when I got there, and they asked if I was okay to spend the night there or if I wanted to go to a neighbor's house. I said I was fine, and following the refugee delivery format they told me to stay put and they'd come check on me in the morning. This was of course after Ted Danston asked me to play a song on the guitar, which is when good old Shania Twain came in handy. Somehow I slept pretty well and got a taste of the noises of the house..I'm on top of a small hill that's a part of a valley, so there's a lot of wind that blows through but I really love my view and the area around my house. I'm very close to the secondary school and my next door neighbor is a teacher at the primary school who has an adorable 2 year old daughter named Gloria. Everyone in Ilembo is very religious, and I am strategically placing the mass cards and medals that people gave me before leaving the US in my home because there are many people who are Catholic and are ecstatic when I say that I was raised Catholic as well. Most of the kids here have been spared the influence of American pop culture, so I received a lot of blank stares when I tried to play the Shakira or 50 Cent card upon meeting some of the students. I'll have to brush up on some gospel tunes. There is a man in the village who is a pastor at the baptist church, but also owns a hardware shop and makes and plays electric guitars! He has rigged this interesting battery powered amp system and I don't know how to translate "jam out" I have said that we should teach one another songs and he could be a part of Blue Band.
My house does not have any electricity or running water or ceilings. It's brick on the outside, cement walls and a tin roof. When you walk in the front door, there's a room that will eventually have a place to sit and hang out, and then there is my bedroom on the left. There's about a 10 foot hallway with a room on each side, and then a door that goes to the courtyard. My choo, kitchen and bafu (shower) are all outside, but I'm really happy I have an enclosed courtyard. The nearest water sources are a well and a natural spring, only about a 5 minute walk from my house. Thankfully, when any of the students see me leave the house with buckets, they run and grab them from me and carry them on their heads for me. I will learn how to do this, but since I have to go up and down a pretty steep hill to get the water, it's not the ideal place to practice, so I welcome the help. Some of the other volunteers have been swamped with people coming to their house and cooking and cleaning for them, but I feel lucky because the people of Ilembo are so friendly and excited about me being there (and also a little confused), but they haven't been overbearing (except with sodas!) and many come by my house to talk or just see what I am doing, but no one has been too forceful or invasive. Kids just come knock on my door and I let them in and give them trail mix and peanuts since that is all the food that I have in my house thus far. On Fridays, there's a huge market that for every other day of the week is completely empty, but every Friday people from all over the area come and it's absolute dusty chaos. I just withdrew money from my bank yesterday and so now I am able to pay for some furniture to be made and to buy things on market day, which I'm excited about because I'm looking forward to making the place feel more like home. This has been rambling, but hey, that's processing for you. Hope to be able to come back in a couple of weeks to use internet, and also sorry if you are trying to call me and not able to reach me...the service is usually good but since my solar charger adapter for my phone is broken, I can't keep my phone on all the time. if you are trying to call, maybe send a text and then I will text back when I have it on. Hope everyone had great finale to summer last weekend and I expect Steelers updates on Sundays now!
New address:
Ilembo Secondary School
PO Box 1731
Mbeya
Tanzania
Sunday, August 17, 2008
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!
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!
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