A Volunteer of Many Names and the Demon Cat

It really is amazing what you become accustomed to being called when living in Tanzania.   If you have ever heard that song by The Ting Tings, "That's not my name," that song summarizes my feelings about living in Tanzania.   The Tanzanian people are very fond of calling people everything, but their actual name.  So far, this seems to not indicate whether that person knows your name, or they just don't like using it.  The following is a short list of names I have been called. 

1. Dada- this is Kiswahili for "sister."

2. Sister

3. Mama

4. Auntie

5. Mzungu- basically "wonderbread," "whitie," or "cracker" in Kiswahili

6. Teacher

7. Madame- how Tanzanian students address female teachers

8. Numerous names of other white, female Peace Corps Volunteers because all white people look alike. 

In further news, I really thought my body was rejecting Africa for a while.  It all started with a rash behind my left knee.  That rash looked like harmless heat rash until it spread all up and down my leg, onto my right leg, onto my stomach, and up my back.  A few days later, I started running a temperature and had extreme nausea.  Then just the other day, I woke up with one eye almost completely swollen shut.  I seem to finally be bouncing back though.  My rash is slowly clearing up, my stomach issues and temperature lasted only 24 hours, and a popped some allergy pills and my swollen eye slowly went back to normal.  Also, I am no longer afraid to stay up after dark because I now have a cat to protect me from the critters of the night.  Unfortunately after 3 days, it is very clear to me that our personalities do not exactly mesh.  The second night I had the cat, I discovered that he seemed to be suffering from some sort of separation anxiety when I shut him out of my room to sleep.  He proceeded to spend the night meowing at my door and chewing up various objects that were left out.  Luck for me, I had only left out some Ziploc bags and empty water bottles.  This cat also appears to be the most vocal cat in the universe.  It has the loudest, alien-sounding meow in the world.  Sometimes, I swear words actually come out of that idiotic mouth.  This morning, that lovely little feline decided my bed was a good place to take a dump.  Needless to say, I am currently looking for a new home for this cat, which is currently the bane of my existence, and am searching the market for a replacement kitten.  That has pretty much been my life for the past almost week, just hating this demon-cat.  Next week we are all getting together for Christmas so hopefully I will have some better updates.  

Karibu Mtwara!

So as you might assume I safely reached my permanent site.  The bus ride down was nothing short of interesting.  We did end up staying all night and at around 4:30 we started loading up all of our possessions.  We then had to all say our goodbyes to each other, which was about as much fun as getting a tooth pulled.  We got to the bus stand at about 5 a.m.  As soon as I got off the Peace Corps bus, someone promptly tried to swipe one of my bags, but lucky for me, one of the Peace Corps staff was on top of it.  Then, the bus people refused to put our bags under our bus so Katherine and I's bags got put up with all of the passengers and my name written all over the bags for a purpose I do not completely understand.  So now, my name is written in permanent marker not only all over my bags, but also Katherine's, including a big "K. Thill" written on her pillowcase.  We finally got on the rode and remained on the rode for the next 13'ish hours.    This would have been around a 10-hour ride if our lovely bus had not gotten stuck in the mud for 3 hours and pried out by our fellow passengers using big sticks and one shovel.  Happy Birthday to me...

So far I am really enjoying my site though.  I am in a bit of a bigger town than I first thought, but have almost everything I should want locally available.  Since I am in one of the bigger towns, I also have had a stream of other volunteers visiting, picking up supplies.  I have yet to go a day without seeing another volunteer.  Not exactly what I was expecting, but I'll take it.  Everyone in my 'ville has been awesome so far.  Even the crazies.  There is one man, whom I call "Bird-man."  I truly believe that this man is half bird because there is no way that a full human can make some of the bird noises he makes.  Also, the other day, he tried to catch a mango falling from a tree with his mouth, which proved very entertaining.  My site is almost perfect.  I can even see Mozambique from my house.  There is just one thing.  There wildlife has about made me wet myself on several occasions.  Now I'm not creeped out by most creatures, but my house guests are a bit much.  For one, my house and the surrounding area seems to harbor giant lobster-bugs.  These are humungous bugs that look like a cross between a scorpion and a spider and red-colored.  Basically they look like a small lobster.  I was later told that these were "just tarantulas."  Also, I share my home with some very pleasant rats.  I woke up to a living nightmare the other night when I heard a rat in my room.  I turned on my flashlight, trying to locate the culprit.  After a while of looking from the safety of my mosquito net, I finally saw it.  It seems that earlier that day I accidentally zipped a rat inside of my duffel bag while cleaning up and it was now attempting to escape.  I of course immediately slipped into a state of panic and lay in bed, sweating profusely for about 3 hours before I worked up the nerve to leave my mosquito net.  When I finally got up, I ran out, got the broom, used the handle to drag my bag out of my room into the living area, and slam my door, shoving kangas under the crack before jumping back into bed.  The next morning, the first thing I did was throw my bag into the middle of the courtyard and leave it there until someone else showed up to deal with it.  To deal with this problem, I have adopted a killer cat.  His first night in my house was a success.  His hit list included 1 rat and 2 lizards.  Well thats all for now.  Time will tell how this whole owning a cat thing goes.

All Sweared In!!

So today was an extremely successful day...and maybe one of the best days of my existence.  This morning, we made the short bus ride to the United States Embassy for our swearing-in ceremony.  We all got "pertied" up in our Tanzanian finest and became official Peace Corps Volunteers, or PCV's.  There was our honored guest, a member of the ministry of education, and even the U.S. Ambassador himself, Ambassador Lenhardt.  We sang a little song and did a little dance, well maybe not a dance but we did have to sing, and then said our oath.  After that, they shoved us full of food and patted our heads for a job well done during training.   We had a bushel of samosas and meat on a stick, and man was it delicious.  After that, we went back to our hostel for free time, a.k.a. try to nap in my room, but really just lay there in a puddle of my own sweat.  We piddled around for a couple hours, packing, talking, cutting hair.  Yes, I cut more hair today. I think I might have a new profession in my future.  After that, we had to get dressed back up and loaded a bus to go to the Ambassador's house for dinner.  When we got there, we hung out with his wife Jackie who may or may not be one of the sweetest ladies ever, and talked a bit.  Then the food was unveiled.  What lay before us literally brought a tear to my eye!  Ladies and gentleman, the good Ambassador Lenhardt and his wife managed to wrangle us up an amazing Thanksgiving dinner in the middle of Africa.  I ate so much mashed potatoes and stuffing that I was in physical pain and continued the self-torture by serving myself up a plate of pumpkin pie.  BEST DAY EVER!! Tomorrow, we have to get up at 3:45 though and head to the bus station so we are thinking we might not even bother going to bed and soak up the last bits of togetherness before we get separated.  Despite the awful waking hours, I am extremely excited about tomorrow and to finally get to my home for the next 2 years!!

Sorry its been like ten thousand years since I've posted.  Things are still great.  So since last time we found out our sites.  I will be moving to Mtwara and teaching at Newala Day Secondary School.  Mtwara is in the far south of Tanzania, on the Mozambique border and along the coast.  I am supper excited about my site!  I have a 2 bedroom house, pretty much already furnished, with a courtyard.  There is a passion fruit vine, mango tree, and papaya tree in my courtyard.  And the best part? ELECTRICITY!! Yes friends. I will be living on the coast, able to see Mozambique pretty much, with a plethra of fruit and electricity, so basically in the lap of luxury.  Anyone want to visit?
In other news, I am done with training!  The week before last week, we went to shadow current volunteers.  I got sent to Singida.  I was told that Singida was the desert of Tanzania and was dreading it.  It turns our Singida is absolutely beautiful.  It is dry, basically sand, but the sky is huge because the land is so flat.  Our adventure began with the always exciting Tanzanian bus system.  To start, the but was almost an hour late.  When we were getting on, we basically sat wherever our bag was thrown by the conductor.  I sat in between Doug and a gangly, rather pungent Tanzanian man.  Most of the ride, the bus was flying.  To avoid hurling all over the extremely crowded, swerving death-trap of a bus, I tried to stay passed out the entire ride.  I was so unaware of my surroundings most of the time, I had no idea, until told by Doug later, that apparently my stinky friend next to me monopolized on my current state and used me as a pillow.  After a whole 8 hours on awful roads, and at one point no road at all, we reached Singida Town.    After getting to town, we met up with some PCV's.  They had gotten hotel rooms and we went and dropped our stuff and went to the next door bar for drinks and dinner.  They are all well acquainted with the owner who just loves "wazungu," or whities.  He made us maybe the best meal I've had since arriving in country.  The next day, we hung out in town, grabbing breakfast going to the internet cafe and later on lunch.  After all this, it was time to catch our bus to her village.  The ride was ridiculously bouncy.  Imagine riding a charter bus across a field.  Consequently, I spend the ride ready to stick my head out the window to hurl.  I was in a better boat than my fellow volunteer though who was having stomach issues and about to poop his pants the entire ride.  Apparently, this is not an extremely uncommon issue in Peace Corps.  Our host said she had pooped her pant four times in the last 30 days due to a gnarly stomach issue.  We finally reached her village and walked to her house.  For the next 2 and a half days, Colin and I pretty much did nothing but work on a puzzle and occasionally help cook.  It felt pretty awesome to just do nothing.  While we were at Amy's house, we celebrated her birthday, making banana pancakes, omelets, and mango.  Uma, Jordan, Doug, and their host Carol walked from their village, bringing chocolate cake.  After vegging out, we spent the day laying on the concrete talking/reading/playing cards/puzzling.  It was pretty wonderful.  That night, Amy, Colin , and I went into the village to visit and eat dinner.  We hung out chatting with her village, drinking what was meant to be homemade mango wine.  After what seemed to be too much yeast, too little sugar, and too little mango, you get pretty much mango vodka'ish jazz. There are really no words to describe.  The next day, we hiked 2 hours to Carol's village to spend the night with Jordan, Uma, and Doug.  We played games and drug mattresses out on the front porch and slugged around all day.  The next day, we again had bus adventures.  So buses might bery well be the most interesting/scary part about my Tanzanian experience.  We took a bus from Carol's village to Singida Town.  We get smooshed on, fighting for our seat and breath in an often exhaust filled bus.  This particular bus ride, I literally saw a man shove two live chickens into the overhead bin.  Apparently the chickens just shut their eyes when the bus starts moving. Maybe we share the quality of getting motion sick and they just close their eyes to avoid tossing their little poutlry cookies.  When we reached Singida Town bus stop, we then had to fight off the hourds of people selling mangos, water, baskets, and plastic crap.  These vendors are all over the new buses rolling into the station like stink on poo trying to sell their goods.  After a bit of confusion, we figured out that our bus did not leave till 1:30.  It was currently about 8:30.  We then went into town to waste time, avoiding the usual children screaming "give me money mzungu."  After wasting time in town, we went to the bus stop and our bus was actually there.  the bus ride seemed off to a great start: a normal amount of people, no animals, and actually leaving on time.  Well then, we stopped 10 other times before leaving town and crammed as many people on as I though possible.  Well I was wrong.  The bus then stopped on the highway the entire way to Manyoni, cramming more people on.  At one point, I had about 4 people half-sitting on me.  Another time, some lady literally sat her baby on my shoulder.  I am thankful I wasn't in one of the other volunteer's seat where he had to stay our of pecking reach of the chicken held right at his eye level.  After a day in Manyoni, we headed home.  It was then that I saw yet another sight that was extremely unusual.  I saw a petroleum tanker with a live goat tied on top.  Strange.
This last week, we had to go to CCT everyday.  We had numerous tests, over teaching technique, security, etc.  Thursday, we learned to make a permagarden.  I really enjoyed this from about 8 to 3, but after that lost all concentration.  I was entertained by playing with a machete for most of the day though.  We would take pieces of banana tree and throw them at each other, trying to slice them out of the air.  Basically it was like that Wii game, but real life.  Friday, I had my final language test, which went awful.  Friday night, we had our family good-bye party.  My family gave me a dress.  I am so ready to move on to my site, but will miss my host family so much.  Tomorrow, on Sunday, we head back to Dar es Salaam where we will stay until we are sworn in at the embassy on Wednesday.  Then on Thursday, I move to MTWARA!!

Up in flames...

So yesterday, I got up bright and early and went to church with my host brother Felix and Mama Happyness.  The music was greta, but I understood absolutely nothing.  There was the long sleep-filled sermon and then the entire congregation got up to give a donation.  After that they auctioned off kitangas (Tanzanian cloth) and a pair of shoes to raise money for building the church.  Right now, the church is basically just a cinderblock building with wooden benches.  Pretty much, the auction was like half-time entertainment.  I was actually pleasantly suprised when chuch only lasted an hour and 40 mintues considering my friend Doug's experience a couple weeks ago when church lasted 7 hours.  After church, Doug came over and ate breakfast with my family.  After we finished breakfast, we went to Veronica's and sat in the shade while she finished her laundry.  Then, we picked up our friend Eric and went to the local market.  Going to the market is definitely my favorite way to practice my Kiswahili.  You just feel so good about your skills because everyone is so excited that the whitie can speak Swahili at all.  I even ran into some of my students from my school and talked to them for a bit.  We then went back to Veronica's and Eric, Veronica, and I cooked lunch.  We made guacamole, chips, sauteed potatoes, and an omelet.  The chips we made were from plantains.  We sliced them and fried them in oil and they were pretty much the greatest thing ever.  The potatoes we sauteed with pepper, salt, and fresh ground cumin.  In the omelet we put onions, pili pili hoho (bell pepper), to tomato, and spinach.  Over everything, we poured pili pili sauce (just hot pepper sauce) that Veronica's host sister made.  Overall, I was pretty impressed with the way everything came out.  The most entertaining part of the day happened right before we cooked the omelet.  We washed a bowl and put it on the jiko (charcoal stove) to let the water sizzle off.  Well, there must have been grease or something on the bowl because all of a sudden, the entire pot went up in flames.  Veronica pulled it off the jiko and I was doubled over laughing.  The flames were huge, like almost as high as our heads at points.  She kicked to bowl and it skidded across the floor, coming to rest beside a wooden table with a tablecloth hanging off.  I grabbed the bowl and put it away from anything flammable.  We were looking for baking soda when Eric decided that flour would work-WRONG.  That just made the flames even bigger.  We then just decided to ignore the "don't use water to put out a grease fire" rule and problem solved.  The pot was pretty charred, but still usable and thankfully, Veronica's host sister had run to the store so we still had our pride.  By the time we ate and cleaned up, the process had taken 7 hours.  It had been a long day so Vero and I went to the bar with our friend Colin.  There, over beers, we had a long discussion about how Physics is far superior to Chemistry.  Essentially, they believe that Chemistry is the bastard child of Physics.  Overall, a good, but exhausting day.

So someone told me that I haven't written often enough so I'll really try and pick it up. Sorry for my shortcomings. Things are still great. Life has really become routine. Up at 6:15, school from 7:30 to 5:00, cook dinner, eat, bed. Because of this really exciting pattern, it’s always really exciting when I get to do something different. The Thursday before last was a national holiday for the first Tanzanian president. Because everyone else had a free day, we went to CCT and played sports. Physical activity is good. My daily exercise has basically only consisted of walking to class and home every day. The Saturday before last, we joined groups with another Kihonda group and went to the market and cooked. It was so much fun to put our market-talk practice into action and I was able to score us some nicely priced cucumbers. We were out in the backyard of a friend's house for hours, learning to cook traditional Tanzanian dishes. We cooked beans, ugali (similar to tasteless mashed potatoes made from flour), pilau (rice made with spices like cinnamon, potatoes, peas, carrots, etc.), and a few other dishes. We then ate ourselves silly and then did dishes in the yard, which seems extremely counter-productive. Sunday, we got up early and climbed the mountain here in Morogoro. We met up with our guides, which you have to have or else you'll get robbed (story of my life here, basically if you are white you run a high risk of getting mugged everywhere you go). The mountain was awesome though. So beautiful. The mountainside is a covered with forested areas, farms, banana tree groves, and small villages. We hiked for a few hours and reached an old building that used to be a resort when the Germans controlled much of Tanzania. The building was beautiful, covered in flowering vines with awesome architecture and overlooking a cliff. We rested there for a while and then took off for a few more hours. When hiking, we passed through the type of villages I thought I would be living in when I used to think about coming to Africa. The houses were made of basically sticks and mud and the people spoke tribal languages. We finally reached a waterfall, rested for a while, and then headed back down the mountain. Overall, we were gone about 9 hours. I was so extremely tired, but so glad I did it. The 2 straight days of being outside took its toll though and I do believe that I got the worst sunburn I had ever gotten in my life. Having no lotion or aloe vera to relieve it, I had to take Advil in order to sleep. After the hike, we all headed home, but found out the next day that one of our fellow trainees got hit by a motorbike on her way home. She was walking, about to turn off the road, when she got hit from behind. She had on a backpack with a metal water bottle in it. The bottle is crushed pretty good, but absorbed a lot of the blow to her back. She is pretty bruised up and ended up with tissue damage to her legs. She is using crutches and got about 13 stitches in one leg and 3 in the other. From the looks of the stitch job though, there should have been about twice that in each leg. This last Tuesday I started teaching and my first lessons went awful. It turns out they were not where I was told they would be so all my planning went out the window. One of the classes also said that I looked like a baby, meaning I looked young. One kid even guessed I was 15-years-old...awesome. Last Wednesday, we had the written portion of our language mid-term. We had nothing to do after that so we played Pictionairy for hours. Our tactics got pretty ugly and nobody guessed a clue for about an hour. This was due to the fact we were giving each other clues like "Edward's Syndrome" and "Giarrdia." We left early that day though and took a daladala ride downtown. We all had some much needed banking and post office errands that needed taking care of. We then had time so we went to the market, visited my host mom's tailoring shop, and bought a birthday present for our friend. We then headed back to Kihonda to meet our friend, Veronica, for her birthday. We had a couple beers and then went to her house or a birthday dinner. Her host mom prepared both a "traditional cake" and a modern cake. The modern cake was just a regular cake. We sang, she cut the cake, and then Veronica had to feed everyone a bite in the order of importance to her. I was awesomely awkward. Then, her host mom unveiled the traditional "cake." This turned out to be a whole, raw chicken with a large number of hard-boiled eggs spilling out of its butt. Her mom had prepared a ridiculous amount of food and we ate an uncomfortable amount of food. Thursday, we had the oral part of our language mid-term. It actually went better than expected. I understood everything and was able to answer. I also taught again and it went tons better. We got out of class super early and I never thought I could be so content just lying on my bed, headphones in, staring at the ceiling. When I finished my staring session, I went and played cards for a couple hours. I honestly believe that meeting my friends, playing cards had helping keep my sane. I am becoming a pro at all sorts of new card games. After cards, went home, cooked, and had a Michael Jackson dance session with my host brothers. Friday at CCT, the Peace Corps Headquarters delivered all of our mail. I would like to personally thank each and every one of you for NOT sending me anything. It really made be feel all tingly inside. Just kidding...but really. The last weekend, we went to Mikumi National park, which was one of the coolest trips ever. We saw all sorts of animals: elephants, baboons, zebras, hippos, and giraffes. We were even lucky enough to see some lions feeding. We really lucked out. I took a ridiculous number of pictures so just let me know if you would like any of them. Well "Happy Halloween!!!" Kind of sad that I won't be celebrating it really, but Hamna shida (no worries). I'll try to update sooner next time...Peace out.

"Don't the sh*t bricks yet.."

Hello all!  So far, I haven't been stupendous at updating this thing, but I'm trying.  My days are incredibly packed.  I have a feeling it will be a lot easier to find the time to update after training is over.  Just to quickly catch you up.  I have officially moved to Morogoro.  When we got here, we stayed at another compound-like place.  We were sometimes allowed out of the walls of this prison at times though.  While we were here, we were split into CBT's (Community Based Training groups), and our language training began.  My group consists of Doug, Uma, William, and Carolyn and our legit language-culture facilitator is Rehema.  So we really dove right into language.  Since then, our days have pretty much consisted of nothing but language training from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.  I can honestly say that this method seems to be working.  I think I can officially speak Swahili better than Spanish, a language I studied for years, but with no real dedication.  I am loving having Rehema as a teacher.  She speaks mostly in Swahili and really has a calming presence.  This really became apparent when we had a sub one day when she was sick.  Our sub was great, but something about her teaching style turned me into a spaz.  I literally had a panic attack in class...awesome.  Needless to say, I was grateful when we got Rehema back.  During these days, we also had sessions about moving in with our host families.  They gave us the do's and dont's of living with a host family.  Some of them were pretty obvious, others were good tips, such as don't smell your food.  The entire time, they would get us worked up and stressed about moving in with our families only for the homestay coordinator, Jumapili, to tell us to "don't shit the bricks."

So the Sunday before last, we moved in with our host families.  That may have been one of the most awkward experiences of my life.  Basically, they load you onto a bus with all of your bags, knock on your family's gate, and leave you there with a Swahili-speaking family and a pile of bags.  So here is a run-down of the family.  My mama's name is Happyness and she is a taylor, or fundi, for a living.  She is married to my baba, Emmanuel.  He works for World Vision and is gone to Dodoma during the week.  My oldest kaka or brother's name is Felix, who is 16.  He speaks excellent English, which has been wonderful!  My next oldest kaka's name is Alex.  Alex is 14 and also speaks very good English.  I also have a dada, or sister, named Glory who is 8 and absolutely adorable.  When I first got here, she just wanted to follow me around and hold my hand.  We have a house girl who we call Dada named Sarah and a bibi, or grandma, who speaks not a drop of English and frankly frightens me a bit, for no good reason.  The family has 3 dogs: Jet, Kok Kok, and Jim.  And a week after moving in I found out we also have a cat, which really doesn't have a name, but people kind of call him Neow.  The food is amazing which I was really not expecting.  They have ways of using bananas that I could not even imagine.  There is also a lot of rice and beans, which honestly I am all about.  When I get home from school everyday, I help cook dinner and do homework.  By 9 o'clock, I am all pooped out and only want to go to bed.  I am actually breaking my strict 9:30 bedtime to write this and save to my hard drive so I can possibly post tomorrow at the Internet cafe (yea for sticky key boards and uber slow internet).  This last weekend marked my one-week anniversary of moving in with my host family.  I celebrated by learning to perform household chores.  I learned to sweep and mop (because I would have never figured that one out), light a kerosene lamp, and do my laundry in a bucket.  It took me about 2 hours to wash 3 skirts, 5 shirts, and 2 bras.  The result of all the hard work was clean clothes to wear, but also no skin on the knuckles of my left hand.  If I return home with only a nub for a left hand, you know why.  Also this Sunday, I rode the dala dala by myself for the first time ever!  For those of you that don't know, dala dalas are the buses around these parts.  Basically, they are the equivalent of a church van and seem to have all been imported from Asian counties (judging from the Chinese symbols on the sides).  The manufacturers seemed to design these vans having in mind that they would hold about 18 passengers max.  Once I was riding on one, and decided to count how many people were on the bus; I lost count at 30.  Every time you stop, you are thinking "there is no freaking way that we are going to get more people on this bus!" then 7 more people cram on.  People are crammed in, sat on, hanging from the ceiling and leaning out windows.  It is honestly hilarious mayhem.  So needless to say, my first successful solo dala dala ride made me feel incredibly accomplished. 

Well I'm exhausted...way past my bedtime.  I'll try not to wait so long to write next time. 

Tutaonana baadaye!!

(See ya later!)