Ten Months In

So it's been a while and here I am, ten months into my two years in Tanzania.  Can you believe it?  I think there were times when we all thought it might not happen, but here we are.  I am feeling a lot more at comfortable here these days, or maybe comfortable with discomfort?  I have some real friends.  I can communicate with people.  I feel effective in some aspects of life.  When really awkward or uncomfortable things happen, I don't freak out so much and I know what to do.

Every once in a while I stop and realize that I have some of what was missing beofre... FUN!  A good example of this feeling happened the other day when I was reading The Three Little Pigs to a class of kindergarteners.  I had the ability to go between Swahili and English to get the point across and ask the kids some questions.  I was even able to manage the class (somewhat).  Without even thinking my "big bad wolf" voice came out (who can stop herself, when reading The Three Little Pigs???)  Immediately the kids and I burst out laughing and could hardly continue.  As we were all laughing together, I thought "ya... this is fun."

The picture at the top here is from Nairobi, where Laura, Liz and I kissed some giraffes and had a great time.  I am hoping to write a retrospective on my travels soon.  Miss you all and love you!!!!

Visitors!!!!

Week one of my two weeks off from school was jam-packed with visitors and fun.

Sunday, Cat and Beth, JVs at Gonzaga primary school in Dar came to town.  After a run around "The Rock" we ate dinner and prepped for a night on the town.  We learned that Club 84, the dance club by our house, has LADIES' NIGHT on Sundays!  After some Konyagi and Bongo Flavor, we made it home at about 4 a.m.   Who knew?

The next day, we slept in and then went for a tour of the Village of Hope where I work.  It was pretty low-key there because the kids were napping.  We did go into the dispensary to visit the babies, though which was a lot of fun.  Alice, a British volunteer working in Mwanza came through Dodoma on Monday night on her way home.  Roland came to town and we had a great feast of a dinner including guacamole and velveta cheese!

Tuesday, our first set of guests headed for the bus station and Laura and I began our prep for the next set.

Wednesday, Mary Ahlbach, her nephew Adam, niece Mairead, and friend, Sr. Gaudentia came to Dodoma!  Their main purpose for coming to Tanzania was to visit the Orphan Center near Bukoba that Mary has been working with since 2005.  Generously, they changed their departure city to Dar to be able to pass through Dodoma and see me!  This switch included about 20 hours of bus travel... VERY GENEROUS.  It was so great to see a face from home and make some new friends.  In town for two days, three nights, we made the most of it.  Day one we went downtown, did a little shopping, toured the market, and at lunch at one of my favorite spots.  Then we walked over to the Cathedral where we met a priest who wanted to give us a tour of St. Gaspar's hotel and Radio Mwangaza, promising that it would be thirty minutes.  At this point, I know what that means, but it was pretty cool.  We went home eventually and had a lovely dinner at our house in Area D (thanks Cristina).

The next day we all headed to daily mass at 6:30 a.m. Afterwards, we had a great chai with the Jesuits and sorted out a bunch of the great gifts our guests hauled with them across the world!!  (A volleyball net!?! And LOTS of stuff for me! So heavy!  They are saints.)  We then went to pick up the bus tickets (slight scare there when some were sold out... luckily we have some friends that were able to help us out.) We moved on to St. Peter Claver where Roland gave us a great tour.  It was really nice for me, too.  I'd seen hardly any of the school until this point!  It is a pretty huge place, and a lot of it is still under construction.  Like Mary said, it will be very cool to see that place in about 10-20 years.

We moved on to the Village of Hope and had a great time walking around the beautiful site and again, getting some love from the babies.  Then Fr. Vincent met with us to give us a history of the Village, which is turning 10 years old this year!  He is so humble and truly inspiring to listen to.  I could see the wheels turning in Sr. Gaudentia and Mary's heads, getting ideas for there orphan center outside Bukoba.  We closed up the tour with a quick visit to the church and the new bakery, which is part of the plan to make the Village self-sustaining.  

This being Mary's sixth visit to Tanzania, I thought it was about time she got on a daladala, so we took one part of the way home.  We took a taxi for leg two of the journey, not because they couldn't handle it, but because we were pressed for time.  We wanted to do our hike of "The Rock" before sunset.  We made it about half way up and saw some stellar views of Dodoma.

Mary then treated me, my roomies, and Fr. Sossy to one of our favorite dinners... the swanky pizza place by our house!  It was great, fun, and delicious.  Then it was time to pack up and get to bed, as taxis were set to pick us up for the bus stand at 6:15 a.m.

Though the visit was a little hectic, it was so great to have visitors!  I had some wonderful talks with each visitor and really appreciate each one's advice and perspectives on life here.  It is so refreshing to see things through someone else's eyes.  Also with Adam being a second grade teacher and Mary having taught primary before, they had really good tips and advice for me.

Having visitors also helped me take some ownership of my life here by sharing it with others.  Introducing my friends around town and speaking Swahili really helped me see how far I have come in this experience.  These six months (almost 7 now!) have been really hard, but with encouraging words and perspectives from my visitors, I am thinking it will only get better.  I can't thank them enough.

The Dodoma Meat Tour

So my friend Erick, bus driver from Maria De Mattias, is also a butcher.  For a few weeks now he's been asking me to visit his shop and I've given him the excuse that I am too scared.  I ran out of excuses and found myself on a tour of meat processing in Dodoma.  I talked to Mom the morning of and she told me "channel your grandfather."  I did my best.  It was nuts, but it was actually a lot of fun, and something I will never forget.  Here's the summary:

We started at mchinjoni (the slaughterhouse) at 8:00 a.m. Thank god Laura and I were together for this.  After a brief tour of the facilities (luckily you can't go inside without a uniform... but the goat processing is visible from windows from the outside) we went across the street where there is a market for the less desirable parts of the cow.  "We're walking on hooves..."  Laura murmured to me as we kept smiles on our faces and greeted the people there.  At the market, the feet and heads of the cows are broken down (image: man hacking at cow head with a machete on a tarp) and made into soup.  The horns are apparently sent to Dar where they are processed and made into things like buttons and earrings.  Laura and I enjoyed some cow foot soup (Erick ate the foot, we just couldn't do it... but we ate the broth) sitting across from an inspector from the slaughterhouse.  He was in his uniform that was not exactly clean, which only added to the experience.  After that we enjoyed some chai and chapatti with some of the other workers.  Not really sure why, but the words "goats sound like children when they cry" came out of my mouth at one point.  My comment was met with a simple "yep."

After the slaughterhouse we moved on to see Erick's butcher shop in town where they package the meat to be shipped to Dar.  They had done all the butchering the day before, so they were just cleaning up.  After that, we saw a vocational training slaughterhouse that was not currently functioning, so we got to go inside and walk around.  It was very modern and pretty cool to see.  It was clean at the time, but it was easy to imagine it working!

We took a break then and went to Erick's house.  His nephew is one of my students, so it was fun to surprise him! We looked at photo albums and relaxed a bit.  Then, we headed out for lunch with Erick's brother to a place Laura and I hadn't been yet.  We ate delicious mshikaki (meat kabobs) and chips with a couple of beers.  Two beers (they are big here) at one in the afternoon will get you... We had some good laughs, saying that next time we'll have the beers first and actually go into the slaughterhouse.

Then we moved on to check out Erick's brother's house in a place called Nzuguni outside of town.  A lot of Maria De Mattias kids live there so I heard a lot of "TEACHER!" shout outs.  There is also a small meat market out there where they roast goat on Saturdays.  Naturally, we stopped by.  It was a good thing we had the beers, because then we were served roasted goat intestines.  They serve this with the stomach bile that they mix with salt.  It's green.  I ate it.  'Nuff said.

With a roasted goat meat goodie bag, we headed home.  Exhausted with the smell of meat permeating our skin, we gladly gave the goodie bag to Cristina and Sean for dinner.

Six Months In

So, I suck at updating this blog!!!  I’m so sorry.  As in all things, I am trying to be better.  Since March though??? Yikes.  Anyways… Dearest Molly Nora Callaghan emailed me asking these questions about my experience now that I have been here for SIX MONTHS!!!!!  I can’t believe it.  It feels like 6 days and 6 years.  I’m one-quarter of the way home kids…

I decided that the answers to these well-formed and thought provoking questions (thanks Moll) might be interesting to a wider audience, so here you go!

How’s life in Africa?

Life in Africa is at once difficult, beautiful, painful, fun, new, old, and just nuts… in varying ratios.  I definitely have good days and bad days, more dramatically than I’ve experienced before.  Some days I feel overwhelmed and that even at this point I have not progressed and things have not gotten any better for me here… then I remember that I did not feel that way yesterday. 

Also, when thinking about returning home, I used to only feel excitement and longing.  I definitely still look forward to going home, but I am starting to feel like I will miss it here when I go.  Bittersweet. 

What’s been your favorite part?

Too hard… but here are some fun things.  Kilimanjaro half marathon, retreat in Tanga and swimming in the Indian Ocean, shopping for beautiful vitenge and khanga, silly conversations with kids, learning to cook chapatti in the village and laughing the whole time, getting the words AND dance moves down for a choir song…

A really great experience I will never forget is having kids in the library at school for the first time.  Until a couple weeks ago the room and the books in it were off limits to the kids.  Now each class has one forty-minute library period per week.  I gave some brief instruction on being quiet in the library and returning books properly, but then just let the kids at it.  It was so cool to see how excited and engrossed in the books they were.  Most of them have never had a storybook before.  I have lots of ideas for creating a library program that includes reading comprehension, fluency, etc, but my main goal is to keep that excitement level up and get kids to love reading.

Least favorite?

Also too hard… but probably feeling lonely.  You get used to having lots of friends and family around always planning the next fun event, and then bam… you’re living in stark contrast to your previous life.  It’s getting easier, but keep the updates coming!

Navigating the use of corporal punishment in school has also been really really hard on many levels. 

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve eaten?

Cow stomach in banana soup.  The banana soup part was delicious, but I’m really not that brave when it comes to eating meat.  There is usually a process where I try to identify 1) what animal, 2) what body part, and 3) meat, fat, cartilage, or bone.  A boneless skinless chicken breast chicken breast is sounding pretty good about now.

I often try to sit next to Cristina and dish some to her… she will not only eat, but like nearly any type of meat.  A true champ.

What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen?

Two images come to mind with this question.  The first is women carrying things on their heads.  It is truly incredible, and it’s usually with a baby on their back too.  I’ve seen three tables stacked on one another, GIANT bushels of reeds, a four year old child in a basin carrying the gospel (at a celebration at church), giant suitcases, and more. 

Another one is accidents on the road here.  I’ve seen a person lying immobile in the road.  One person gathers branches that serve as what we would use flares for at home: warning the other cars to slow and go around.  Almost immediately a large crowd of people gathers around the person.  I’ve never seen an ambulance at one of these… I have come to realize how far we keep ourselves from our mortality at home.  Here, death is really part of life. 

Where your favorite place you’ve travelled?

Of course I would love Moshi, right?  The views of Kilimanjaro are stellar.  I think I need to get to the top of that at some point.

Also, Morogoro is incredibly beautiful.  We had a retreat there just before Easter.  See pictures on Flickr.

Do you drink coffee now?

Not yet.  I do, however, eat lots of peanut butter.  So strange.  I’m still having some cognitive dissonance around it. 

Do you have a favorite kid?

Of course.  I have a few, and often it depends on the day.   There is a kindergartener named Smart who I think looks like Taj Mowry (The Smart Guy…), which of course I’m obsessed with.  There is a first grader named Benson who is so sweet and tries so hard, but is also just a clown.  A couple pre-one girls, Rehema and Sabrah who seriously crack me up with their facial expressions (on purpose).  Also one of the littlest ones, Kevi Mdogo, (Little Kevin… there are two and the other one is tall) who is so little that the baby fat in his cheeks bounces up and down when he marches. 

There is also a group of older girls that I hang out with at lunch sometimes… they are hilarious.  Tausi, Zena, and Edina. Zena must be about 5’11 and Tausi is maybe 5’0.  Of course they are besties.  They have taught me a lot about language and culture here, and laughing the whole time. 

How are the roomies?

The roomies are good.  Sean’s family just visited us here in Dodoma.  They have all just set off for Zanzibar together.  It was so cool to see them all share in Sean’s experience here together.  Also, it was great to have an “outsider’s” eyes on things that I hadn’t even realized I’ve started to get used to.  They also brought some really great gifts, including PRETZEL M&Ms!!!!

Laura’s siblings are arriving in a few weeks at the beginning of July.  They will be here in Dodoma and then set off for a siblings safari!!!  Even I will have some visitors with Ms. Ahlbach coming at the end of June!

Cristina and I have so far have had very different experiences in our first year.  She mainly started in a very blissful honeymoon period, that is unfortunately starting to wane.  As for me, most of you know that I have struggled quite a bit here, but things are starting to look up.  It’s kind of nice now that we are meeting in the middle.  I’m glad we are sharing this experience together. 

Are you excited/nervous/both to have new ones in December?

Yes.  Both.  Roxanne and Jamie will make us a power-house of all females.  At first I was really nervous about it, but on reflection, I think it could be really fun.  Growing up in a family of three girls should probably have prepared me for this, right? 

I am really excited to get to know them, nervous to be a second-year for them, and sad to say goodbye to Laura and Sean.  But then again, it’s not for six months, so why worry!

As always, thanks for reading and thanks for the love.  The internet is going too slow to upload pictures, but check some out on Flickr (hannahbrosnan1).  Missing you all terribly.  Try not to forget about me!!!!!!

A Day in the Life (Part One)

-Wake up!!! (Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays 5:00 a.m., other days about 5:45)

-Boil water for shower/breakfast.

-Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays (if it’s not raining) I run with Laura, about 3 miles in the dark.  Other people are out running at this time, too, though so it is pretty safe.

-6:00-6:45- Shower, eat, get ready for school.

*A note on the bucket shower:  I say this only because it confused me...  This may have been very clear to everyone else.  I thought a bucket shower entailed some sort of rigging system where there is a hole or many holes in the bottom of a bucket that you hoist over your head.  Wrong.  It’s a bucket with water in it.  You use some small container to pour the water over yourself.  Duh?  I think my imagination got the best of me. 

-6:45-7:00 Walk to the bus.  We walk by a primary school on the way, and the kids love to practice their English “good morning’s” on us.

-7:30 arrive at school, wander about, greet kids and teachers.

-7:50 “Parade”  This is kind of an assembly where the kids stand in lines and respond to commands such as “attention!” “at ease,” “about turn,” etc.  This is usually followed by the national anthem (I almost have it down), maybe a song in English, and morning prayer.  Then the kids march off to class (singing “marching, marching, marching like a soldier…” they love it?).  At first I found this very odd, but now it is one of my favorite parts of the day!

-8:00-12:20- Classes.  This is the time when I rotate between the four “English Medium” classes.  Lately I’ve started to go to only two classes per day to try to develop some continuity in the classroom and have time to do something a little more meaningful.  Every day is different and I’m still not quite sure what I should be doing, but I’m trying.

Typical classroom activities include singing songs (If you’re happy and you know it, 5 little monkeys- Molly they LOVE this one!!! Thanks!, twinkle twinkle, etc), writing the alphabet and numbers etc.  I also do a lot of grading, which mostly involves checking if things are written correctly, e.g. is that capital letter Q acceptable?  I’m pretty much a hard ass.  The first grade kids do a lot of copying from the blackboard.  For a lot of them, I’m pretty sure school is just a drawing activity.  I’m trying to figure out ways to get them to actually understand what they are doing.  Suggestions in all areas here are MORE than welcome! 

Honestly, school is really, really hard for me.  I’m going to go into more depth in another post to try to explain it. 

This is getting long so I will continue with the PM hours another day!  And by they way, to tell time here, subtract 6 hours… For example, 12:00 p.m.  is really 6:00 (or saa sita in Swahili).  7:00 a.m. is 1:00 (saa moja asubuhi... the first hour of daylight).  It definitely makes sense if you think about it because the days here are pretty much always the same length, but needless to say it is a little confusing to ask someone the time. 

xoxoHB

I Wore Tights?

It was a little chilly; I was wearing a longer dress; I decided to wear tights. No big deal, right?  Wrong. I noticed we were getting a little more attention than we usually do on our walk to the bus stop in the morning.  Cristina and I were both looking at each other trying to see what might be drawing the stares.  We racked our brains, but thought nothing of my tights. 

I didn’t find out until I got to school and talked to my friend Nanja that my wearing black tights happened to be confusing and HILARIOUS. Why are her legs black?  What is that?  Are those socks?  She is very dark today.  Half African?  Children, adults, and everyone in between gave me a second look that day.

I’m not sure if I’ll wear tights again, but if I do, at least I will be in on the joke.

Kilimanjaro Half Marathon

For the past two years, Christina Baladi, Alicia Ranney and I have been participating in the Kaiser Half Marathon in SF.  We had a blast running our hearts out and then proceeding to Kerry and Chris’s to gorge ourselves “all-American” style at their Superbowl party.  Needless to say, I missed it this year! 

However, I did have a replacement activity to console me.  When I thought I would be headed to Moshi, I read the blogs of the current volunteers and saw their pictures from the Kilimanjaro Marathon held in town.  Obviously, I thought it was the coolest thing ever and couldn’t wait to participate.  Luckily, a little re-location to Dodoma wasn’t able to stop me… 

Cristina, Laura, and I did it!  We traveled to Moshi for the Kilimanjaro Half Marathon where we were warmly welcomed by Moryah, Andy, and Liz, or as I like to call them, my surrogate community.  We had 100% participation in the event, with Andy running a FULL marathon.  I still can’t believe it.  Everyone did great, with Cristina and Laura both completing their first half marathons!  What a way to do it.

Rain clouds obstructed the views of Madam Kili during the race, but honestly, I was thankful.  The race was exactly half up, and half down.  Literally.  (j-sway… it was kind of like our extreme hiking experience…)  I’m not sure I would have made it in the African sun.  One of the greatest parts of the out-and-back course was seeing the lead pack coming down the hill as I was on my way up.  INCREDIBLE!  I don’t know how they do it, but the runners are so graceful and make one of the most challenging feats look simply effortless.  I gave a few extra fist pumps and “tuende dada!” cheers to the lead ladies as they held their own with the men in front.

The event organization was not the greatest, so I never found out my time, but I think it is for the best.  It certainly wasn’t my fastest, but I felt so accomplished, and maybe even a little bit cool, having just crossed the finish line.

After the race I ate a bunch of mangoes from the trees in the Moshi house’s yard and lazed about nursing a decent blister.  I wore my medal the whole time, of course.  After a little rest, we headed back to the stadium for a beer (Kilimanjaro!  For the picture, really.  Not my fave beer here.)  There was live music playing, and there were lots of people enjoying the festivities. 

When we got back to the house we chowed down on a “chips mayai” (this french fry omelet delicacy best enjoyed with chili sauce and ketchup).  Then the Moshi folk shared the secret of their favorite treat:  CHOCOLATE MICE.  I’m not really sure why it is in the shape of a mouse, but I do know that it was delicious.  I might compare it a brownie, sort of, with the taste of a ho-ho. 

Exhausted, we set off to bed.  Thinking in advance, I popped a couple Tylenol PM, so sleeping in a tent on the floor and getting eating by some bug that snuck in didn’t phase me.  Cristina was not so lucky.  Though both of our legs were riddled with bites, at least I slept through it. 

The next day we set off for the 12 hour bus ride home to Dodoma.  Definitely not the best way to recover after running thirteen miles the previous day.  The three of us were walking pretty funny, but we survived.  During the bus ride I had my first glimpse of a wild animal.  I SAW MONKEYS!!!!!! They were just sitting there on the side of the road.  It felt a liiiiittle surreal. 

Overall, the weekend was a much needed respite from my normal day-to-day here, and an absolutely great time.  

P.S. The T-shirt for the half marathon says "If you can't run it, drink it."  The full marathon tee says "If you can't climb it run it."  Love it.

Pre-School/Kindergarten Teacher? Why Not.

1/28/2012

In the last three weeks I have been figuring out my job placement at the school associated with the Village of Hope, Maria De Mattias Pre and Primary School.  It has been at times overwhelming, fun, terrifying, educational, exciting, and stressful.  I am still working out all the details, but as of now, I rotate between four classrooms: Pre-Standard One A&B and Standard One A&B.  In the U.S., that would probably mean pre-K to first grade (approximately). 

My first day of school (the same day I found out that I would be teaching the young ones) I was left alone in a classroom with 70+ children (two classes combined because a teacher was delayed in Dar ) from 5-8 years old.  It was bad.  My mindset changed from “let’s learn something!” to “please just don’t hurt each other” pretty quickly.

However, things are improving.  I still don’t know what’s going on pretty much ever, but I’ve definitely had some good moments and am learning so much everyday.  The kids are quickly starting to understand me, and I am starting to understand them (not quite as quickly). 

Still missing you!

Hannah

One Month Down, 23 to Go

I can’t believe I have been in this country for a whole month.  Today I have the day off as my roommates begin the school year at St. Peter Claver High School, so I thought I’d catch up on my correspondence!  I apologize for the delay as we’ve been traveling with limited internet access!  This entry will be pretty long (sorry) but I’ll try to keep the rest short and frequent. 

Tomorrow I will start my placement at the Village of Hope.  All the details are not yet clear, but I will find out more when I go tomorrow!  I’ll save all that for the next entry and fill you in on the past month instead…

Part 1: Visit to Ihumwa

Laura and Sean made friends with a wonderful family last year that lives in a village outside of Dodoma called Ihumwa.  Charlie, the dad, is a cook at St. Peter.  They generously invited us to come stay the night in their home.  It was so cool to spend time in the village, playing with all the kids, preparing meals, showering/using the bathroom outside, going to the market, etc.  We definitely stood out as “wazungu” (white people) there even more than we do in Dodoma.  A hilarious moment was when Laura tickled a baby that was staring at her and he jumped and cried as if the monster under his bed reached out and grabbed him.  Don’t worry, all the mamas around laughed and thought it was hilarious as they consoled him! 

I am excited to visit Ihumwa again, especially when I know more Swahili and can hopefully learn a little bit of the tribal language, Kigogo. 

Part 2: Retreat in Tanga

The 11 American Jesuit Volunteers came together for a week in Tanga for a beautiful retreat.  The location was AMAZING.  We each had our own rooms located right on the coast.  I hadn’t realized that I’d never seen a sunrise over the ocean, being from the West (best) coast.  It was gorgeous and inspired me to get up early to run!  Our time in Tanga was spent getting to know each other and our intentions for our greater time together in this country. 

Part 3: Christmas in Dar

After our retreat, we traveled together to Dar es Salaam (2^nd years: Shea and Cat, 1^st years: Cait and Beth).  While we were in Tanga, massive floods in Dar es Salaam, taking many lives, homes, and infrastructure.  The volunteers were very lucky and their house only had a little water.  However, the primary school (Gonzaga) where Cat and Beth work was inundated.  Although we arrived only a day or so after the floods, the Sisters who run the school were already at work determined to have it ready for the children to come to school on the 9^th, showing true resilience that I am coming to find is characteristic of many in Tanzania.  Our group helped in the little way we could by washing the hundreds of uniforms that were muddied in the floods.  I will contact the Dar volunteers for an update on the school and community to let you know how they are doing. 

The experience of the floods showed me how truly isolated from information I am, even within Tanzania.  None of us knew of the floods until we arrived in Dar, whether it be because of our lack of access to information or the media and governments efforts to keep news of the devastation quiet.  To stay informed, I’m going to have to been proactive.

As for Christmas, it was great to be together!  However, I very much missed home.  I had a few “woe is me” moments thinking about how I was hot and sticky and uncomfortable and didn’t understand the language and missed my family and missed my friends and on and on.  Having the perspective of the 2^nd year volunteers really helped.  They said the first Christmas away is MUCH harder than the second and they felt the same way one year ago.  They still miss home, but in a different way having created another home for themselves in this country.  I am hopeful that I will do the same!

Part 4:  New Years in Moshi

My almost home… Maybe it was because of all the mental preparations I had done, or maybe because there were hills, but I felt very comfortable in Moshi (2^nd years: Andy, Moryah, and Liz).  It also helps that Liz did a JV Domestic year in San Francisco and Moryah is from the East Bay!  The town is much quieter than Dar and has a much more western feel, most likely due to tourist influence. I was able to go for runs in the morning in Moshi with views of Mt Kilimanjaro.  Definitely had a “moment” there and am excited to visit again.  A few of us are looking into traveling for the Kilimanjaro Marathon, Half Marathon, and Fun Run at the end of February. 

For New Years, we had ourselves a raging dance party wearing moo moos and having a few mixed drinks.  It was not a trolley in SF, but it was a blast!  Please see facebook for more pictures!

On New Year’s Day, we were invited to share in the Silver Jubilee for three Christian Brothers celebrating the 25 years since their ordination.  During the celebration, I had concurrent and opposite feelings: being so happy to be there and excited about learning traditions and having new experiences, and having the overwhelming feeling wanting to go home and be somewhere where I know appropriate things to do and say.  It will be interesting to see how these types feelings wax and wane as I continue my time here. 

Part 5: Back in Dodoma

Happy to be back!  I think part of the intention of having us travel so much is to make somewhere you’ve only been for a week feel like home already J.  We had our beds put together and are currently working out the kinks of being “new home owners.”  We have had a couple of floods from pipes bursting, and are working out the bill-paying, trash, rent, cleaning, cooking, etc. systems.    I think we are all excited to establish some routines and get to a “normal schedule” here! 

A NOTE ON TRAVEL:  In Tanzania, one travels on a bus, and it takes forever to get anywhere! Examples: Dodoma to Tanga: 11 hours, Tanga to Dar: 7 hours, Moshi to Dodoma: 16 hours (normally about 12, but we were delayed about 4 hours when the police decided to stop ALL the buses to check licenses… it was a long day).  However long/uncomfortable these trips are, I have been EXTREMELY lucky (knock on wood) that I haven’t been getting carsick at all!

If you made it this far, bless your patience and thank you for reading!  Please feel free to ask questions about things you’d like to know!  I thought it would be obvious to me what to share, but it is trickier than I expected.  So please help me out. 

Peace, love, and hugs,

Hannah

A Lot Has Changed

Since my last entry, my placement site has changed from Moshi to Dodoma.  Also, I have been in Tanzania for a week and a half! 

While my site placement change was a huge shock and pretty upsetting, I am very happy to be here in Dodoma.  I am currently job hunting at two places: St. Ignatius Primary School and Kidiji cha Matumaini (Village of Hope).  Both are wonderful and beautiful locations.  I’ll keep you posted on developments there, but in the mean time, please enjoy a random list of impressions and thoughts on my first few days here:

1.     -I MISS YOU! Homesickness is nowhere near debilitating, but it’s there.  I think of you often!

2.      -Laura, Sean, and Cristina (my community mates) are great!  (Watching True Blood together already.. what more can I say?)  I am so lucky to have two people who have paved the way for me and are willing to help me adjust to life here. 

3.      -Karibu sana! The people I’ve met have been very, very welcoming.

4.      -Kidogo Kiswahili. I know very little Swahili and I need to learn ASAP!

5.      -I need to practice with drop toilets.  I’ll spare you the details J

6.      -Rain here is incredibly beautiful.  I will enjoy it for the next couple months until Dodoma becomes dry again.

7.      -I am re-learning how to clean everything!  Hand washing laundry, showering from a bucket, doing dishes, etc. 

8.     - I have rhythm, but it’s not Tanzanian rhythm.  It will come.

I love you and miss you all very much and am excited to have more to share soon!