Site Announcement and Shadow Week

I just got back from my week-long shadow trip to Iringa, which is about a 5 hour bus ride south of where we’re staying in Morogoro. But before I talk about that, I can also finally say where I’ll be living and teaching for the next two years. The closest major town is called Songea, though my site is halfway between Songea and Njombe, the next closest town. It’s waaay south in the country, actually not too far from the border with Mozambique and pretty close to Lake Malawi also. I don’t know a ton about the area, but it’s called the “southern highlands” and apparently there are a lot of beautiful hills around there that resemble something like the Irish countryside. It will also be a bit cooler which I am excited about. I'm soo excited!

I mentioned this earlier I believe, but a lot of the trainees from our class will be in a different situation this year (myself included it turns out) where we will be living with the volunteers we’re replacing for a couple months, before they finish their service. So I’ll be replacing another math teacher and will live with him until mid-late ish October I believe. I know I’ll be teaching Form 3 Math, just like in my internship teaching, and may possibly add other levels or subjects as time goes on. My school has around 300 students, most of which are boarders, so it's a pretty small school. And it’s coed, which is the only thing I really asked for in my placement interview.

I’m really excited about going to site, especially after this week of shadowing. It was awesome to just have a less structured routine and to see daily life for a current volunteer. The woman I shadowed is an environment volunteer, so her life is much much different from what mine will be, but that made it really cool to see for a week’s time. Her village is about a 40 minute walk up a hill from the tarmac road. It was interesting because I guess before coming I had kind of a stereotypical image of what an “African village” looked like, with clay walls, straw roof, water pump for the whole village and all that, and this place kind of fit that stereotype perfectly. All of the places we’ve been so far have been more developed for sure, so we hadn’t gotten to see that true village setting.

We had an awesome time, it was me and one other shadower, and then the PCV we stayed with, though there was another group relatively close by that we did some things with as well. We went to the primary school in the village to introduce ourselves and answer questions about America. Also, we got to shuck corn with the students, while goofing around with them and singing each other’s national anthems. They loved it. Got to meet a lot of the other people in her village too (there aren’t too many) and went to a meeting for their cow project. The two PCV’s in that area are trying to bring cows to the villages in order to improve their diets and generate some income. HIV is a really big problem in that area, and most of the villagers are just subsistence farmers who grow corn, so they end up eating nothing but ugali every day. It’s really sad because there were tons of orphans in the village because of that.

Our shadowee was also a master cook, so we ate like kings all week and learned how to make many tasty dishes, like cinnamon rolls, deep dish pizza (close enough), banana pancakes, cookies, a pineapple cake of sorts, and other things. Learned how to master the art of baking with a charcoal stove. They give us a Peace Corps cook book before we go to site apparently, and it looked pretty fantastic. I'll have to try to come up with my own recipes too!

 There was also an amazing view of the sunset each night since she was a ways up the hill. In Iringa town we did this hike the first day up to the top of a giant rock and you could see the entire town. Iringa apparently is also the dairy capital of Tanzania because in town we got ice cream, yogurt, and milkshakes. And we got to meet up with quite a few other PCV’s passing through the town, and I met a few who I’ll be living nearby at site.

So yea, now that I’m back in Moro, we’re be here until Sunday morning, doing things for site prep and taking our final language tests and such. Then we go to Dar for 4 days or so, and our swearing in ceremony will be August 24th. It should be a lot of fun, it's a big party with all the PC Tanzania staff and also all the heads of the schools we'll be going to. I guess each year they have the volunteers do a sort of talent show with singing and dancing and whatnot, and also make a speech in both Kiswahili and English. Another girl and I were picked to do the speech, so we'll see how that goes. And then the next day we go to our sites, they don't waste any time. I’m so excited, just can’t believe training is already almost over. Can’t wait to see my village and school!