Every Child Deserves a 5th Birthday

Today is World Malaria Day.  Malaria has a special significance in Tanzania.  Malaria is Tanzania's top killer.  Malaria has an every day presence here: mosquito nets, anti-malarial pills, bug spray.  Not every one is as lucky to have access to such things to protect themselves, though.  I've known too many people that have suffered from malaria.  One of my Form III students last year was hospitalized from cerebral malaria.  It changed him.  He started as one of my top students and after the disease had run it's course, he could not read or write and his personality had changed.  So much of this suffering could be prevented through simple education and behavior change.  Use you net.  Go get tested early.  Take your full prescription of medicine.  Unfortunately, this is not the happening.

To celebrate World Malaria Day at school, we borrowed a projector from a nearby school, and gathered all of the students to watch "Chumo."  This is an educational, yet entertaining, film about malaria that was specifically made for Tanzania.  The kids loved it!  Watching my students watch this movie was like watching people at a live sporting event.  They cheered for the good guy, booed at the bad guy, and laughed at some really weird stuff.  Watching them was entertainment enough for me.  All I can hope is that they took some valuable lessons away and will take measures to protect themselves an their families.  

All the students gathering to watch 'Chumo"

My headmaster leading the pre-viewing discussion about malaria

Happy World Malaria Day everyone!

Peace out!

"Planet Earth" Happenings

So I had some very creepy happenings take place in my courtyard today.  There I am, just minding my own business, when this giant black wasp with blue wings and orangey-yellow antennas starts zooming around.  I go in for a better look when the thing lands near me and crawls in to a hole.  This wasp is actually digging a burrow.  Weird, right?  All I could think was "well this was much less creepy on Planet Earth."  I watched for a while.  After the wasp seemed to get the hole cleared out to its satisfaction, it went walking around.  Pretty soon, it found what it was looking for, a giant dead spider.  Now the pictures do not do it justice.  This spider was about twice the size of the wasp.  Well, after the wasp tracked down its kill, it dragged it back to the hole and took it right in.  Then it started doing what I can only assume was laying eggs.  It would vibrate and then put some dirt in, repeat.  Strange.  It did this until the spider was covered.  Well, with my extensive background in zoology (Plant Earth/Discovery channel) and later confirmation on google, I can tell you that the wasp had stung the spider, thus paralyzing it.  It then puts it in the burrow, and buries it with eggs.  Then when the little creepy wasp babies hatch, they have an instant meal.  This my friends, is the Digger Wasp.

First, the wasp dug a nice burrow.  Home, sweet, home.

The wasp dragging the spider into the burrow

Night, Night, spider

Lastly, the wasp layed eggs and filled in the hole

Critter Update

So this last weekend, I had a not so enjoyable Saturday adventure.  My school has been lucky enough to receive a much-needed Math/Physics teacher.  In preparing for this teacher, the students gave the house next to me a thorough scrub down.  While cleaning, I'm not sure what they poured down our pit latrine, but the cockroaches did not like it and being the scrappy little survivors they are, they decided to escape through the hole on my side of the outhouse.  P.S. Is there an equivalent word that doesn't make my toilet situation sound so pathetic...how about "exterior lavatory?" That sounds so much classier.  Anyway, when I got home from the market, I noticed that there was an unusual influx of cockroaches into my hallway.  When I opened my back door, they were everywhere: crawling the walls, in my shower, under buckets, being dragged kicking and screaming into holes by my giant ant friends.  When I opened the "exterior lavatory" door though, I hit the mother load.  The entire closet-sized room was carpeted with these disgusting little pests.  I promptly went to fetch my industrial strength bug spray.  I'm serious, this stuff knocks wasps from the air, singes the hair in my nostrils, and I would not be surprised will someday be linked to my imminent lung cancer.  Unfortunately, after about 2 seconds of spraying, the can ran dry and I had to resort to hand-to-hand, or in this case more like foot-to-head combat.  It must have been quite a sight, me hopping around a 3 by 4 room, crunching and squirting bug guts everywhere accompanied by my shrieks when I missed and the bug crawled over my foot.  Lets just say it was not pretty.  Luckily, the giant black ants were on my side, waging war against their yummy enemy.  This battle took me all morning, and I am still finding stray cockroaches days later, but in the end, I will prevail.  This is my house, bugs! 

In other critter news, I seem to have overcome my crippling fear of mice.  I had a mouse that was refusing to remove itself from my shower drainage hole.  I tried to flush it outside by poking at it with my broomstick, but this guy was not having it.  Instead of fleeing, like any normal mouse, this thing lunged back.  I went to get some students to help.  A boy stuck his machete in the hole and flushed it into the shower, while I swung at it with the stick.  Unfortunately, my stick-swinging aim needs work and I missed.  The mouse escaped into my yard and out through a hole.  I haven't seen him again though and my students got a good show of me running around trying to whack a mouse with a stick, so everyone went away happy.  Side note: I'm actually not so sure this thing was even a mouse...it looked more like a mole, but I wasn't able to snap a picture due to the fact I was too busy trying to kill whatever it was. 

I would also like to give a great big shout out to my grandma, Mum, and here Women's group at St. Thomas in Pawhuska, Oklahoma.  They donated enough pencils and pencil sharpeners for every single student at my school.  No more having to wait for about 60 plus students to share 5'ish pencils.  No more watching them hack at the nubs of pencils with a straight edge razor to crudely sharpen.  The students were so excited and I am so appreciative of their support!  Thank you so much!!

Peace Corps Reality

So, it is so hard to try to sum up our actual experience in Peace Corps.  This was posted by a Peace
Corps Ethiopia volunteer and throughout reading it, I was nodding my head saying "Yea! Me too!"  And yes, that does mean I talk to myself...a lot.  I hope everyone enjoys!

http://waidsworld.wordpress.com/2011/08/07/the-real-peace-corps/

Peace out!

Back to TZ

So what can I say about the holidays? They were nearly perfect.  I got to go home, take part in my cousin's wedding, see friends, and spend every second I could with my family.  A little word of advice to any future or current Peace Corps Volunteer: if you have even the smallest thought of quitting, do not go home.  If I did not feel that me job was unfinished, I'm not sure how I would have left me family again.  My first few days back in Tanzania were just plain depressing.  I missed my family more than I had the rest of my service.  Luckily for me, I did not have to go straight back to my site and wallow in my self-pity.  I hung around Dar and my entire class got together for our Mid-Service Conference, MSC.  It is always amazing to see our class.  I'm sure every group says it, but I'm almost positive that our training class is the best there is.  For almost a week, we had medical check-ups, sessions, yummy food, and good friends.  It really made for a nice transition back to country.  At the end of it all, Peace Corps even flew us back down to Mtwara because the rains have turned the road into a muddy, soupy mess.  Not to shabby.  After a night in Mtwara Town, we loaded up onto a bus and about 7 hours later, VOI LA, I was home.  Now I'm not the type of person to admit this face-to-face, but something about writing it seems so detached.  When I got to my house, I sat on my floor and had myself a good cry.  I sat there until Duck, my cat, started biting me, probably telling me to "shut the heck up," so then I transferred my little water works session into my bedroom.  I was exhausted, my electricity was out, and I was just not too happy about being back.  Luckily, the next day started to look up a little bit.  I went to the market and visited with all of my favorites and handed out presents.  Juice Man is now rockin' an Oklahoma State University keychain.  I also gave Mr. Ubwabwa, a.k.a. the cutest little, old man alive, a pencil for his kiddo that is in school.  He was ecstatic and started running around, showing everyone his cow print, Oklahoma pencil.  Monday, we kicked off school.  The first week was pretty much the same as always, no real classes happening and a lot of kids running around cleaning.  I spent a lot of my week also reclaiming my house from the critters that had taken over.  This included massacring about 200 cockroaches that had taken up residence in my shower room.  My least pleasant houseguest I found at 9:30 at night.  I was opening my door to let Duck out of my room for the night and I saw something long and black and thought, "My that's a large centipede."  I then got the door open enough to see that it was in fact, a black snake about 2-feet-long.  So of course I snatch Duck up and slam the door.  Since I still did not have electricity, I grabbed my handy-dandy headlamp and then went to investigate.  The snake, being the creepy crawler it is, had vanished.  Lets just say I wasn't willing to be the "out of sight, out of mind" sort of girl, so I locked Duck in my room, grabbed my machete from the kitchen, and went hunting.  It didn't take long to locate the sick-nasty creature my couch.  I stood on my coffee table, hopefully out of striking distance, and used to machete to pry all the cushions off the couch.  I was able to flush him out, but he was a quick little bugger and made it behind my bookshelf, no problem.  I then scooted the coffee table over to the shelf and stood on it while I slid the shelf out.  I got the table out far enough and threw a rock that I prop a window open with at the snake, making contact and slowing him down.  I then went to town with my machete.  Lesson learned: I need to get my machete sharpened.  I did manage to kill the snake though in a blunt-force trauma sort of way.  Now I'm not sure if this guy was a Black Mamba, but I think it’s safer to just assume that all black snakes around here are.  The only way to really tell is to see inside of its mouth, its black with a Black Mamba, and I wasn't really to willing the explore that.  Anyways, its dead and gone and I have my house back to myself.  I showed the picture and told the story to all the staff at my school and I got told that it was dangerous and congrats on my kill.  

 In other news, my old club soccer coaches, Dee Friend and Chuck Lynn donated new soccer uniforms for my girls.  We finally got some of the team together last week to model.  I want to thank Dee and Chuck so much!  The girls were so excited and I made them promise that they would not let any boys wear the new jerseys.  No more shabby leftovers, they are lookin' sharp!

On a cute note...my favorite bug in Tanzania

Gangster's Paradise: Mafia Island

First of all, I have officially competed my first grant with the help of my very cool and trendy friends Toni and Ben (not that being trendy made much difference).  For our grant, we conducted 3 days of free HIV Testing and education at our sites.  Overall, we provided HIV testing for over 200 people and education for hundreds more.  We were lucky enough to score the talents of Ben's theater group who put together some very informative skits and a local HIV positive woman who talked about her own experiences.  It was such a good feeling to be able to provide such a service that is normally no as readily available.  

After we wrapped up our grant reports, I peaced out for the beginning of my vacation!  I made it to Mtwara Town and flew to Dar es Salaam.  That's right, instead of the usual 12+ hours trudging through the mud on an overcrowded bus; I spent an hour on an air-conditioned flight being fed juice and sandwiches.  I had better not get too used to that though.  We got to Dar and met up with some friends.  The next day, we set out on an amazing adventure, MAFIA ISLAND!  We caught about a 3-hour coaster to the town where the ferry sets out.  On the way there, I may or may not have discreetly threw-up into a plastic bag.  When we finally arrived, we had missed the ferry so we started looking for guesthouses close by.  After asking a few people, we found one and started our few days of marathon arguing.  We got them down a bit, dropped our bags, and headed out for a beer to recover a bit.  While sitting around, we were approached by some random dude asking if we wanted to make it to the island that same day.  Umm...no, I'd rather sit here in the 100 percent humidity paying entirely too much for a place I didn't want to be in the first place.  Of course we want to go.  After getting him to half his price twice, we had obtained transportation in a smallish motorboat.  Our next goal was to retrieve both our luggage and refund from the guesti that we spent approximately 2 minutes at.  The very not cool lady said that there was no way we would be getting a full refund.  After a while arguing, we got half of our money back and skedaddled for the boat.  We got to the harbor and thankfully received life jackets.  Then we had a merry little 2 1/2 boat ride in the company of a generator, 4 goats, and 3 hookers (all the necessities of an island, you know).  After hitting the shallows and wading into shore, we called up the place we had made reservations at and they sent someone to meet us.  When he showed up, we were told that the reservations had been messed up and we did not have a room that night.  He made up for it though when he spent about 2 hours calling every guesti in town finding us a place to stay for the night.  The next morning, we kicked off our day with some good ol' beans and chapati.  Then, we headed for the resort.  We were in for another session of bartering when we arrived and were told that the prices to stay there were about twice what we had been told earlier.  Because of all the arguing, we decided to go straight out in search of the holy grail of our trip, the whale shark!  We got on the boat with our two Tanzanian guides and a couple Germans.  On our way to deeper waters, we stopped by some dudes fishing in a canoe and our guides asked if there had been any whale sharks spotted.  The excitement was overwhelming when they pointed not far and said right over there.  After a couple more minutes of puttin' along, we say a dark fin cutting through the water.  When we got right next to it, they dude said jump, and Jordan and I didn't even wait to ask "How high?”  We just jumped.  Talk about scary.  Never in my life did I think that I would be swimming towards that iconic Jaws-style fin.  When we jumped in, the shark had switched direction and we couldn't catch up.  After we hauled ourselves into the boat, we got to try again.  The first time I got a good look at the shark, it creepily appeared out of the plankton thick water coming straight at me.  I got out of its way and swam besides it.  When it dove, I tried to go with it, getting entirely too excited, forgetting that my snorkel didn't reach that far and choking on tons of salt water.  The entire experience was just extremely amazing.  It is hard to believe that I was swimming along with a 30-foot shark.  At one point, I was swimming by the tail and realized that the fin was taller than me.  We developed a pattern.  Get in the boat, spot a fin, zip that way, and jump.  We continued this for a couple of hours until I was missing the skin off my elbows and the rains were coming.  When the winds come, the sharks dive so you can't play with them, so we headed in.  We decided to just stay that one night since we did what we came to do, and headed back the next morning.  The ride back was not quite as safi as our ride to the island.  To get to the actual boat, we loaded about 30 people into a tiny little boat and poled out to another slightly larger boat with a motor.  Next, we loaded two tiny boats worth of people into the slightly larger boat and slowly putted out to the ferry.  It was mass chaos trying to get into the boats, but we made it.  The ferry itself was very pirate-esque.   This "ferry" was a wooden ship that they stuck a motor on to.  We all loaded on and took off.  On the way, we passed through a storm and rode some of the biggest waves ever.  I loaded myself up with Dramamine, so I was fine, but the Tanzanians didn't handle it too well.  At least 2/3's of the boat was vomiting the entire way and we were getting hit in the face with waves coming over the side.  Can you say exciting pirate (and a little bit refugee-esque) adventure?  We did finally make it and then headed on to Dar.  Overall, amazing time that makes me feel so incredibly lucky to be in PC Tanzania.  Next stop, AMERICA!  Peace out peeps and if you in OK, come see me!

Holidays in Africa

So holidays are always though in Africa.  Being far away from family and friends just takes away some of the spirit.  Luckily, I am surrounded by a group of amazing friends that have morphed into some strange hodge-podge family. 
Halloween: For Halloween, we all gathered at a volunteer's house in our region.  We all worked on our costumes and most were Tanzanian themed.  We hung out, played games, and ate (as usual).

Its me...Ghee!! Love dressing up as other people.

Voodoo Priestess

Cashew Nut

Chili bottle...as seen at every bar in Tanzania

Primary School Student

Bus Stand Hard Boiled egg Salesman...and yes, thats an exact title

Creepy dude?

Overall, it was a pretty big success and fun to celebrate in a somewhat normal style.

Now Thanksgiving is my absolute favorite holiday and it just kills me to not have the normal fixins.  Because our region is awesome though, we had almost a perfect Thanksgiving dinner.  We all helped out and actually had the normal turkey (killed that morning), dressing, mashed potatoes, giblet gravy and some other awesome sides.  As per a usual Thanksgiving dinner, I completely over ate and was miserable, but it was completely worth it.  Ben and I also got a red velvet birthday cake.  It all made me pretty darn happy.

Dinner has arrived!

Thanksgiving Mtwara style

Fortunately, I will be spending Christmas with my family!  That's right people, I'll be back in 'Merica from Dec. 13th to Jan. 2nd.  I cannot wait to see friends and family and stop sweating for a bit. 

Peace out folks!