It Finally Begins...

Well, it finally happened; I am now officially a Peace Corps Volunteer! This has been a pretty crazy week. It was really tough saying goodbye to my host family. They took me out for a really nice dinner on our last night to a place that had excellent pizza and a playground that I of course made full use of with my 8 yr old and 2 yr old siblings. I gave them a few gifts, including a DVD slideshow with a bunch of the pictures we took together over the last few days, and they really enjoyed that. I’m going to miss them a lot, but we are already planning our visit to Moshe together when I come back to visit them in Morogoro in a few months.

We went back to Dar for 4 days after leaving Moro. It was nice to get to see more of the city, since we didn’t really have time right when we flew in. We did a walk around with a current PCV and she showed us where the nearest Subway was. Oddly enough there isn’t even a McDonald’s in Dar but there are a few Subways. It was exactly like a US one, with an English menu and all. Actually it was pretty weird to be in there ordering such familiar food in Tanzania. We also saw some of the really nice hotels (none of which we’ll ever stay in) and found an actual bookstore which was cool. I got a few more Kiswahili children’s books because I think they’re really fun to read.

Wednesday was our swearing in ceremony at the ambassador’s house. Oh man was it ever swanky. I was smart and planned ahead for the occasion by getting a shiny orange short-sleeve suit jacket (very common here – the short sleeves, not the shiny orange color) made in Morogoro before coming, to match the shiny orange pants I had bought several weeks before. It was extremely hot, but I was happy with how it turned out.  Our whole group put on a little comedy skit, that didn’t really go over with the locals since not too many people here understand American sarcasm, but we all entertained ourselves at least. And Hannah and I gave our speech, which was cool. They televised a lot of it apparently on one of the national TV stations, and the picture of our group swearing in was on Page 3 of the papers the next day, so we were celebrities for a little while. It was funny on the bus on the way to site, one of the people I was travelling with was in the picture, and everyone kept pointing and whispering to each other when they saw him.

Saying goodbye to everyone on Thursday morning was difficult, especially since we had to leave at 4:30 in the morning and I didn’t sleep the night before. And if there’s one place you do not want to be at that time, tired, hungry, and sad, it’s the Dar bus stand. Possibly the most hectic place in the country, though I didn’t lose any luggage. But there are a good number of new and old volunteers that aren’t too far from me, so I’m sure I’ll be seeing many of them often enough.

The bus ride to site was about 12 or 13 hours. But the final hour or so of the trip was absolutely gorgeous. Tons of big forest preserves, which you don’t really see elsewhere in the country too much, and just tons and tons of green hills and mountains all over (actually pretty brown now since it's the dry season). I went with one of the other trainees to his school, since its only about 10km from mine. Both his and mine are a ways off the main road, uphill, so you can see all the hills as you drive up, it’s incredible. Finally got to my house at around 8:30 at night. I got to meet the PCV I’m replacing, Jack, and he’s great. We should have no problems living together for a couple months.

The house is really nice, and pretty big. It has 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, and living room in the main area, but then there is a courtyard that connects it to another part with the bathroom and jiko (cooking room) and bathing room and such. There’s also a patio in front with the most spectacular view of the hills. And a great place to watch the sun rise and set. I really can’t explain how much I love the views, and pictures can’t really do it justice. I thought there were a lot of stars in Morogoro, but here it’s the clearest sky I’ve ever seen. Somedays I may have to just set up my tent and sleep outside. It’s pretty cold now, though it sounds like it’s getting warmer than it was. I like that though, just like good camping weather. There is running water, though it isn’t very clean, and they use a generator on the school grounds from 7 to 10 at night for electricity, which goes to my house too, so I have no problems charging things at nights.

Today I sat in Jack’s classrooms while he taught and introduced myself to the students and teachers. I’m going to start out teaching Form 3 math, but will probably add physics at some point, and also a small computer class of sorts in the evenings when there is electricity. The school just got about 7 laptops to use. There’s about 500 students, so obviously not everyone can use them, but most likely it will be the A-level (form 5 and 6) students who will. The school just started its A-level program a couple years ago, so there are much fewer of them.

It’s a boarding school, so most teachers and students live in dormatories on the school grounds. There’s also a soccer field, and basketball hoops. There seem to be some very smart students in Form 3, some of them are older and are either repeating the classes to do better on the national exams or have gone back after not completing the first time. I will probably start teaching on my own next week or soon after, so I can’t wait to see how it goes.

It is all very exciting right now, though there was a little bit of that “welcome to Africa” feeling when we finally were going to our sites. Training was great, but it wasn’t at all like what I was expecting before I came, and now we’re finally starting what we came here to do. I can see it may become a little overwhelming, just trying to adjust and integrate into the school and community, especially after replacing someone else, but one thing that’s helping a lot is being able to speak the language relatively well. Some people go to sites where they don’t even speak Kiswahili at all, just tribal languages, but luckily mine is not like that so I can use everything I’ve learned up to now. I still love learning the language, but definitely will need to try and teach in English, since the students must learn it.

Soon I should be getting a new, permanent mailing address for my site, so I will post that as soon as I can. Thank you so much to everyone who has sent letters so far, it’s always a great surprise! Can’t wait to tell you all more about site as time goes on. I can tell this is going to be a great location for me.

***Update*** (kinda like those episodes of Unsolved Mysteries for anyone who used to watch that)
I actually wrote this post several days ago, but could just now get it uploaded. Check for some new pics of the house and last few weeks of training. Also, I updated my current mailing address.

The first few days at site have been very good. All of the other teachers are very friendly. The next two days the school has off for Eid, but I will probably begin teaching next week. Right now I'm trying to clean up, reorganize the house to my liking. It makes me think back to when I would stay up all night thinking how to rearrange the furniture in my room, except now I have a full house to work with! I might even try to repaint the inside if I have time. There's also a large supply of scrap wood on the school grounds, so I'm hoping to be able to build some furniture as well, though there's plenty here already for the amount of things I have.

I'm also apparently living in Chicago, Tanzania, because I've already seen several people wearing White Sox attire. The driver of the school car has a Sox hat, and one of my neighbor's kids was wearing a Konerko shirt the other day! I don't think they really know the significance (or what baseball is) but I feel very ashamed that I didn't even bring any of my Sox stuff with, and now I'm being outdone in my own village! I guess maybe I can just paint the Sox logos all over my walls.