BRRRR!!! Iringa!!!!!!!!

So!! As great as Zanzibar was, it was good to get back to the mainland and more reasonable prices. Our feeble Peace Corps salary was not made to go to safi tourist places. When we got back into Dar, we hit up Subway. Sandwiches might be one of the things that I miss most! After that, we napped and then snuck into the center where PC had all the new Education volunteers locked down. We spent a few hours getting to know them which was great! Now we just have to wait 7 weeks to find out who our new neighbors are. On Saturday, we decided to sleep in a bit and catch a later bus to Iringa. We got to the standi, and bought tickets. Well it just so happens we bought tickets on a super nice bus. They even served us cold sodas and water! Talk about service. We got to Iringa Town around 6 and met up with another volunteer, Glenn. We dropped our stuff at the guesti and then went out for Chinese food and a couple of beers. Honestly, the greatest thing about travel is getting to see all of your friends scattered around the country. That night, we also discovered just how cold it gets in Africa. I was wearing my North Face fleece and was still freezing. I slept under the thickest blanket I have ever seen, pants, and my fleece and was still a little cold. Glenn had to leave early the next morning so Kathryn and I slept in and went out for a late breakfast. We went overboard and ended up getting omelettes, french toast, and yogurt. After becoming entirely too full, we decided to hike up to a big rock that has a great view of the entire area. We spent a couple hours hiking up and then took a nice nap, well actually Kathryn napped and I fidgeted. Then we went back to the guesti and napped more (writing this makes me realize just how much we sleep!). That night, we did something that I did not even know was possible in Tanzania, we ordered DELIVERY PIZZA!! It was delicious and actually reasonably priced. That next morning, we had cold pizza for breakfast and then two more volunteers, TJ and Carly, got to town. We went for lunch at this amazing place called Neema's. They have amazing food, we got bacon avocado paninis, and also have cool crafts. The entire establishment is staffed by disabled Tanzanians. For example, the entire serving staff is deaf. It was amazing to see a business that allows Tanzanians with handicaps to support themselves. Elswhere in the country, their only option is begging. That day and the next day, we spent playing board games and hanging out at Neema's and spending way too much money on food and crafts. Iringa was a plethra of handmade products!! The motherload for a craft-lovin fool like myself. Also, Iringa is full of yummy food. A Peace Corps Volunteer must! I even had a warm cinnamon roll and homemade yogurt, am I in Africa anymore? Yesterday morning, we loaded up onto yet another bus bound for Moshi and almost exactly 12 hours later, made it! So far, I've had a bacon bagel and 2 cups of real coffee!!! Sorry if this blog seems a little scatter-brained!! Blaim it on my caffeine high! Thats about it for Iringa. Tune in next time for the down-low on Moshi! Peace out!

Island Paradise

So after my ever so exciting bus ride, nothing could have been more welcome than a relaxing trip to Zanzibar. For those of you who are not familiar with this African paradise, Zanzibar is a short ferry ride off the coast of Tanzania. The island is covered with Spice Plantations and white sand beaches. The main town is called Stone Town and thats where we have stayed for 5 nights. The town is amazing! It is made up entirely of alleyways, so it is easy to spend an entire day, walking around getting lost. Zanzibar is such a strange collision of worlds. The island is 98 percent Muslim, so all native inhabitants are extremely conservative. With the boom of tourism in the last 10 to 15 years though, a swarm of skantily clad tours are mixed among the women in head scarves and full covering. When asked about what he thought a booty shorts and bare shoulders, a local Muslim man compared it to drinking alcohol. He said that the first time you taste it, it is not good, but as you continue, it gets better as you get used to it. Now what a man of Islam knows about drinking I have no idea, but he got his point across. Here is a run-down of our days here in our island paradise.
Sunday: On Sunday, Kathryn and I got up and were just going to wing it. It turns out we caught the 9:30 ferry. Of course, we left around 10. Its about a 2-hour ride and I ended up popping a Dramamine. As soon as land was out of sight, my motion sickness popped up and threatened to make it a messy ride. We hit land around noon. We had a friend from Pemba, an island just north of Zanzibar, meet up with us and also another volunteer, Eric, and his friend from the states. Kathryn and I had made reservations at a hotel called Zenji Hotel. We went and dropped our stuff off when we arrived. This hotel is incredibly cute. If I had one word to describe it, I would say "quaint." The best part has to be the roof. They serve a complimentary breakfast on the roof and even met us with complimentary drinks when we arrived. The breakfast is to die for: homemade breads, homemade jams, fruit, fresh juice, eggs, and REAL coffee!! Quite the spread for someone who has been living in the bush for 9 months. After we put all of our stuff in the hotel, our group went to just walk around a bit and hang out on the beach. We ate lunch(Chili Guacamole Burger!!) and the boys got fed up with Kathryn and I's shopping (although you should really call is browsing since our budget doesn't allow us to actually get anything). That night, we decided for just street food instead of a sit-down place. We had some pretty good Tandori chicken and hung out.

Monday: Monday, we got up, filled our bellies with breads and jams, and went on a Spice Tour. For something that sounds extremely touristy, it was well worth the money. They bus you about 30 minutes north of Stone Town and you visit one of the several local Spice plantations. You walk around the grounds and are shown more spices than I have ever seen: pepper vines, cinnamon trees, vanilla, ginger, tumeric, star fruit, nutmeg. Basically everything a well stocked kitchen would have. While showing us, they let us taste everything and told us about processing, harvesting, and even traditional medicinal uses. After the tour, they took us to some ruins, and then lunch. Lunch was pilau (spiced rice) that was prepared with all of the spices we had just seen. After lunch, they took us to this extremely secluded, beautiful beach and we explored a cave where they used to illegally hold slaves before shipping them out. After all of this, we showered back at the hotel, and went out for a nice dinner for the boys' last meal on the island. We found a rooftop restaurant called House of Spices that processes all of their own spices and makes DELICIOUS pizza in a brick oven right next to the table. After dinner, the boys left to catch their overnight ferry back to the mainland and Kathryn and I enjoyed a relaxing night on the roof of the hotel.

Tuesday: On Tuesday, Kathryn and I decided to shop. Well for normal people, this would not be a problem, but most of what we saw exceeded our meager Peace Corps budget. All the same, it was fun to just walk around the narrow alleys and have no clue where you are. We did find a lady that was amazing at henna and would do it for a reasonable price. So after getting henna, we met up with Claire and her visiting boyfriend, Rob. We had lunch at a fun little Indian restaurant. After that, we headed back to the hotel to nap and play on internet. That night, Kathryn and I went and had some beers on the beach and then decided to try out Zanzibar pizzas. This is not like a pizza at all, but really tastes like a hamburger. They take dough, fill it with meat, vegetable, and mayonaise and cook it in a wok. Sounds weird, but it was pretty tasty.
Wednesday: Wednesday, we decided to take a day trip out of Stone Town. We hopped on a dala dala to a town on the northern tip of the island called Nungwi. We spend the day relaxing on the beach at a resort. It would have felt like a completely different country, enjoying sangria and guacamole, if it had not been for the Masai that had parked his cattle on the beach next to the sun bathers. It was an intersting sight. After our skin got about as much sun as it could handle, we caught another dala dala back, showered, and went out for seafood. Kathryn started not feeling great and I was tired so we headed in early (we are such party animals, right?) and internetted and went to bed. Just give a Peace Corps volunteer wifi internet and they are satisfied.
Thursday (today): So far today, we have slept a lot and eaten breakfast. I think I might try to make it to one museum called the House of Wonders later, and also buy our ferry tickets for tomorrow. Tonight, we have plans to meet a volunteer that lives on the island for dinner. As an overall assessment, if you ever have the chance or for some reason are in Tanzania, visit Zanzibar. It is a beautiful place and a unique experience. Thats it for now! I'll try to keep you updated on the rest of our travels. Peace out!

Watch Out For That Tree

So I know that I have always said that transportation here in Tanzania is bad. Well this level of bad just hit rock bottom last Friday on my trip to Dar es Salaam. Due to no other buses leaving my village, I was forced to take a bus company with an extremely poor reputation. A friend bought my ticket for me, and so I ended up in what we volunteers refer to as the "kill zone." This is the very front seats of the bus and the dangers the present with the travel situation here. At first I was worried about this, but shook it off thinking "Ahh...nothing with happen." Then, once I got on the bus, put my backpack in front of me, and was still able to stretch my legs out completely, I thought I was in for a good ride. Every thing started out fine, we only left 30 minutes late (right on time by Tanzanian standards), and were making good time. Then, a couple of hours into the trip, we stopped for about an hour while they worked on some unknown mechanics of the bus. After an hour, we were on our way again. Now the first thing you need to know is that I live on the Makonde Plateau, which is about 900 feet tall. The second thing is that this particular bus line goes a back way down the plateau, winding through small villages and descending down a road that the locals call "the dirty way." This road is extremely steep, winding, and rocky. Because of this, we were slowly making our way down the road when all of a sudden we started to gain speed at an alarming rate. By the time we had reached a rate that people were getting tossed from seats into the aisles, people began to panic because is was very obvious our breaks had gone out and we were out of control going down a cliff. We continued to gain speed and very quickly approached a sharp turn. Our bus driver then did probably the best thing he could have and did not attempt to make the turn. Instead, we careened through the forest, blazing out own path until 3 large trees were good enough the stop us. Right before impact, I grabbed the 2-year-old in front of me, put me feet on the barricade in front of me and braced for impact. At this point, everyone in the bus was thrown to one side of the bus, landing in a huge pile. Once we were stopped and even before we were out of our pile, everyone on the bus was screaming versions of "Asante Yesu!!" which means "Thank you, Jesus!" We then began to slowly untangle ourselves and stand up. After standing, the bus began to smoke and everyone started to panic and chaos errupted and a stampede towards the front doors began. There was no way to quickly exit that way, and so I called a Babu (grandpa) over to the window, handed about 4 small children out, and then climbed down one of the trees that stopped us. By the time everyone was off, it was obvious the bus was not exploding any time soon, so I went back to get me backpack and then made the almost 100 yard hike out of the forest where we had stopped. We all then got to sit on the side of the road and hope that some sort of vehicle passed on this scarcely used road. After about 3 hours, I was able to pay a vehicle to take me to the nearest volunteers house, and then caught a bus onto Lindi where I procured a ticket for another bus to Dar the next day. The next morning, I got to hop on another bus, yeah! The ride went amazingly smooth. I would just like to point out though that I have the worst transportation luck because even on this bus, only one person on the entire bus got hit by luggage flying off the overhead rack, and that person was me. I got whacked by a flying bag, which ripped my pants and cut my leg and hand. We then broke down for about 3 or 4 hours overall, finally making it to Dar after 12 hours. I was at least greeted by good friends and Lebanese food. Overall though, I was extremely lucky. The big man upstairs was really looking out for me. Now, after all of the drama, I am enjoying my first real vacation in 9 months, relaxing on Zanzibar, an island of the coast! More to come on that later! Peace out!

Epic Battles and Birthday Parties.

Hello All! As usual, things are great on my side of the world. I honestly think I love my village a little more with every passing week.
This last week at school, I was Teacher On Duty. This is my least favorite job at school, but at least its on rotation. In this role, you have to make morning announcements, record all school attendance, and give sick students permission to leave. Its really not that bad, its just incredibly dull. Also, I don't know how its even possible, but I'm not very good at this duty. Let me begin by saying that Tanzanians are especially careful record takers. If there is a record to take, all lines are perfectly spaced and straight. Also, the DO NOT have mess-ups and if they do, will start over instead of crossing out these mistakes. I am just not up to their standards. Most of my lines are all over the place and you would be hard pressed to find a page that I did not have a mistake that I just scratched out. Whenever I hand over the book, I am waiting for someone to ask what 3-year-old I let record attendance. They have all been very gracious so far though.
This last weekend, a bunch of volunteers came to town to celebrate Toni's birthday. Friday, we hung out at the bar/restaurant for about 6 hours and just caught up on everyones' lives. Saturday morning, everyone converged on casa de Katie for pancakes. I also took one over to my neightbors for them to try. They liked it so much, I agreed to have a pancake making lesson on Sunday afternoon (P.S. I can not even tell you how tempted I was to teach them the word flapjack instead of pancake). After everyone had their fill, we went to tour the old German fort that police use for extra office space. They originally said no picture taking, but then the police man showing us around said we were able to take pictures if we could reach an "agreement" with money or phone voucher. No thank you, sir. We really don't want pictures that bad. After that, we went to the market for some shopping. Kristi, another volunteer, is about to go back to the states and wants a new Tanzalicious outfit to wear while giving talks in Elementary schools. So we were on a mission for some rockin' fabric. While shopping, we witnessed the epic "Battle of the Crazies 2011." So if you refer to my previous catalogue of colorful people in my ville, "Wewe," plays a key role in the tale. There is another man who walks around rather quickly, yelling at no one in particular, and occasionally making barking noises. Well, apparently he encroached on "Wewe's" turf. So, in response, "Wewe" chased "crazy, barking man" with a huge bucket of dirty water, finally catching him and soaking him. "Crazy, barking man" then picked up a brick and chases "Wewe" a short way with his weapon overhead, but was unable to catch him. Fortunately, no one was injured in this skuffle and everyone went their crazy, little ways. After the show, we went for a refreshing glass of juice at Juice'man's and then grabbed lunch. Then it was time for my all-time favorite activity, napping. After my nap, I cut Kathryn's hair and then we did dinner and beers with the group.
Sunday, we went for chai and then partook in our normal Sunday shopping. After everyone left, I took another nap, made a tuna sandwich, cleaned, and just piddled around, being very productive. I went into town to give some stuff to Claire as she passed through on the way to her ville. She had been in Mtwara picking up her visiting boyfriend. Let me tell you though, nothing puts a smile on my face like hearing "Madame Katie, What's up?" from a student on the way to town. It was one particular Form III girl who loves that term and uses it every chance she gets since I taught it to my class. When I got back to my house, I brought my neighbors over to my house to learn how to make pancakes. Joyce, my neighbor and pancaking pupil, wants to perfect this American dish so she can make it for her husband. So that's pretty much my updates in a nut shell. Until next time! Peace out!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!!

So life around the ville this weekend was pretty awesome! My students are getting pretty ansty in school since we are almost done, and this is making me ansty, so I was especially grateful for the weekend. Thursday night, I met up with some of the local doctors, the bishop to send off the British medical students. Their time down here is done and now they are going up north to travel. Friday, Kathryn came into town a day earlier than usual. This is because another volunteer, Tyler, was coming with his secondary school for a day of competition against my school. This day of competition was cut extremely short when their bus was about 4 hours late. By the time they arrived, there was only time for the boys to play soccer and the girls to play netball. Netball looked a lot like basketball, except you are not allowed to dribble or run once you have the ball. Our girls got creamed. At least it was entertaining, because many of the students and village children that were watching did marching/dances and chants around the field. My favorite was started by a bunch of my girls. It went a little like this, "Sambusas (stomp, stomp) Sambusas (stomp) Sambusas (stomp stomp)" and so on. We were losing, but they still loved their yummy fried food gosh darnit! While we were clobbered in netball, our boys managed to dominate and bring home a win for Newala Secondary in soccer. They rocked it. And after the netball game ended, the girls kindly brought their entertainment over to the soccer field and were chanting and marching the rest of the game.
Saturday morning, Claire came into town early and we commenced our plans to celebrate Cinco de Mayo in Africa. We started the beans and then made rounds around the market for the rest of the food. We even picked up a little something extra when we all bought matching tie-dye moo-moos. Its not as bad as it sounds though, we are having them altered into not matching styles, because that would be totally uncool. Around this time, Ghee rolled into town and our fiesta participants were all gathered. We made beans, queso, fish tacos with tuna bought from a momma off the street, salsa, and chimichangas (which are actually a lot easier to make than I thought they would be). We all gathered around the table with a bottle of my homemade wine and had a legit Mexican feast. The one disappointment was our intended dessert of brownies. I just got a new solar cooker that was supposed to be amazing. Well, apparently I do not know how to use it because after 3'ish hours it remained a gooey mush. So then, we stuck it on the kerosene jiko (which is not the best for baking) and it all burnt.
The feasting did not stop there though. The next morning, was had a good ol' American breakfast. We made syrup, pancakes, coffee, and had juice. Then after breakfast, we had our normal trip to the market. I have been really wanted to show off my posse of little old men though so I actually took pictures. Lucky I had my camera though because my friend Dudu had his brand new baby (2 months old) at his store! One of my favorite old men though that sells degaa wasn't there, but never fear! Picture to come soon! We then went to talk to Mr. Jaffer. His store sells only in bulk so normally he has nothing that interests me. But then I saw he carried toilet paper in bulk!! Holler!! I bought a 40 pack of toilet paper for 12,000 shillings. That means I paid 30 shillingi per roll instead of 300!! I was pleased as punch!! After that, everyone left and I went home to clean my house, nap, and talk to my mom for Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers of the world, but especially my Momma!! You are the best mother I could ever ask for and put up with way more than you should ever have too!! I love you so much! So everyone give their moms an extra big hug. And if you see my Momma, give her a hug for me! Peace out!

I kinda like my life...

Well howdy doody everyone! I cannot believe that May is already here. It is amazing looking back on the time I have already spent here and looking forward at my remaining time left. It really seems like it will all be over before I know it. So after our long Easter Break, it was back to the grindstone of trying to inspire my students to care about science and learning English. Some days, it really feels hopeless, but then just when you are about to lose all hope, a student will do something amazing. I have always had respect for teachers, but after this 2-year stunt, my respect is out of this world. To all those teachers out there, you are amazing (and a little bit crazy).
So during last week, Claire and I set up a soccer game between our school's girls' teams. It started out all right. My girls were there on time. They even had a ball. But then stuff got crazy. I ran around for about an hour and a half trying to track down the game ball, my whistle, and jerseys. Finally, all was sorted out and we got the game going. Claire even bribed some of my male students to ref the games so we could yell from the sidelines. I was ready for pandemonium. My girls had never played a real game and really hadn't even been practicing for that long, but I was oh so pleasantly surprised. A couple minutes in, my girls find the back of the net! They weren't the Premier League by any means, but they kept the ball at their feet, connected some passes, and for the most part played their positions. There were even some honest to goodness crosses. So at half, we were winning 1-0. Then in the second half, they scored again and we ended up winning the game 2-0. After the game, I got everything put up and then went to the market to see Claire and her girls off. I meandered my way back home, stopping to get degaa, dried sardine like fish, for my cat and a to-go bottle of juice from the one and only juice man. He even had made a debut flavor, stakafelli (actually have no idea how it is spelt). I do not know what this might be called in English, but I've been told it might be related to breadfruit. All I know is that when you mix it with Passion fruit juice, it results in an explosion of deliciousness in your mouth. So after these stops, I slowly made my way home. As I was about to walk up my front steps, I saw a very strange sight, a whole car full of wazungu (whities). They waved, so I waved back, and then crazy enough, they stopped and got out. It turns out that they were five medical students from England accompanied by the Anglican Bishop. There had been in Masasi for 4 1/2 weeks working in the hospital and were now going to be in Newala for around 10 days doing more clinical work. The Bishop invited me to meet them for lunch, and despite the temptation to just stay home and take a nap, I agreed and joined. Then they jetted off to visit a nearby hospital, but then I met up with them when they returned for some beers. They even wrangled me into attending church. Now its not that I am some horrible person, I just don't particularly enjoy church here. I have yet to go to a service that is under 3 hours long, I really don't understand most of what is being said, and they always, and I mean always, make the whitie, i.e. me, get up and give a speech. And this service was no exception. While the med students got to politely wave while being introduced by the Bishop, I was forced to go to the front and had a microphone thrust into my face for a speech. But overall it was all right. I do love the music here. This service had about 4 small choirs who each got their turn to stand and sing, always with an accompanying dance. I love it. And to make things even more entertaining, "Wewe," remember him from my catalogue of Newala crazies, tracked me down and followed me into church that oh so fine Sunday morning. He then proceeded to join in every song with his own rendition of the dance. It was great.
P.S. The Bishop called me to make sure I knew Osama Bin Laden was dead (glad he's got my back and I have now apparently have friends in high places)
P.P.S. If my neighbors don's slaughter their new chicken soon, I'm gonna go over there and do it for them

A Beach Bum Easter..

So we all made it back from our wonderful Easter excursion. The beach house was so amazing that we decided to stay an extra day. Every day, we would swim around 10 until the tide went all the way out and we were sitting in just 5 inches of water. Then we would shower (IN A REAL SHOWER!!) and hang out. Then we would swim again around 5 when the tide came back in. Saturday morning, we discovered that Msemo, the nice resort a little way down the beach, had a bomb breakfast. It had cereal with milk, sausage, Spanish omelets, crepes, and juice. It was pretty gosh darn amazing so we ended up doing this breakfast both Saturday and Sunday morning. On Saturday, we went for lunch at Msemo, down the beach. There we were, having a good classy lunch and having a good classy discussion when one of our fellow volunteers rolls up looking like a crazy, hobo man. He had gone to the fish market for lunch and had found a great deal on crab. He was so excited, instead of taking the road home like any clear-thinking human being would, he took the most direct route and waded across the cove carrying a big bag of live crabs in a burlap sack and rolled up soaking wet. He looked psycho, but having gigantic fresh crab was pretty exciting. So we finished up lunch and headed back to our house. That night, we went for a swim and the beach was packed with Tanzanians. The water was swarming with boys, ages 8 through 15. A vast majority of these boys, we figured out, after they came way too close, were stark naked. Now that's quite alright for the young boys, but there is just something not right about a 15-year-old flaunting what the good Lord gave him at the beach. Some of the nudity even snuck up on you, incognito. One of these older boys went swimming by about 6 inches from us and at first looked fine. He was wearing a short sleeve, sweatshirt material top which was a little weird, but whatever. Then we realized that he was sportin nothing on the bottom half and that was not okay. Regardless of the nudity, we did have an awesome Justin Beiber sing-along with this group of boys. "Baby, baby, baby, OOHH!! Like baby, baby, baby, OOHH!!" That night, we cooked up a feast of crab, spaghetti, fish, pineapple, and garlic bread. It was pretty legit. The next morning, we got up for the Msemo breakfast feast again. Then, Claire and I went into town to hit up the bank and get food for that night's fixins. Also while in town, the most amazing thing happened. We were sitting talking to a sidewalk fundi (a.k.a. a clothes tailor). We were talking about religion and it came up that we were Christian and he was Muslim. He said that how he saw it, we all worshiped one God and were asking for the same things so it really didn't matter. I love this philosophy and if all people thought along those lines, this world would have a lot less problems. While we were chatting, we met some older Indian gentlemen. The conversation then came around to the fact that we were returning to Newala on Monday morning. It just so happened that they were going to Newala in a private car and offered us a lifti! Heck yes! Hmm...a 9 1/2 hour sweaty, crowded bus ride, or your own seat and at least half of the time. That's a really hard choice. So after this exciting development in the conversation, we exchanged numbers and it was decided when they would come pick us up to head back to Newala the next morning. My month had been made! A weekend of real showers, beach, fresh seafood, and a safi ride back home? There's nothin' better. After Claire and I returned back to the house, we all went swimming. Then after showers, most people decided to head to the fish market for lunch, but I decided a nap sounded better than lunch. When everyone returned, we started on that night's supper, boiled shrimp, tuna steaks, pilau (rice with spices), and a sauté of pineapple, green pepper, and onions. And then to top it all off, we had hotdogs. Nothing goes better with seafood than hotdogs. The original intention was to build a bonfire on the beach and make seafood kabobs over the fire. All of our dreams of an awesome beach bonfire were crushed though when some really not cool police came and told us this wasn't allowed. They also tried to tell us that fish wasn't meat, but that is besides the point. Eventually though, we got everything cooked and it turned out amazingly. Maybe the best tuna I've ever had, but that's just a result of picking it out and buying it super fresh at the fish market earlier that day. So this morning, Claire, Kathryn, and I hauled our bags down to Msemo to wait and hope that this ride actually came through, and HALLELUJAH it did! We were on the road about 7 a.m. and made it back to Newala in 4 1/2 hours! It was legit! There was only one little hiccup in the ride when we got stopped by the cops. They got a ticket for not having a fire extinguisher in the car. That is apparently some law and just goes to show the state of most of the vehicles. There are so many at the point of exploding into flame that this is a law. That is very comforting. After we got back, we went to visit Mr. Jaffer, a little, old, Indian man that runs a duka. I had bought another modem from a missionary couple that was moving back to the states and they had left it with him. Then Claire headed home and I took a nap while Kathryn watched a movie. After a superb nap, we went for dinner and actually got my modem working when we got back to my house! I now have internet again!! BEST. DAY. EVER. I hope everyone else's Easter Holiday was as wonderful as ours. Peace Out!