08/02/10

Hey everyone!
It is July 31st! I have been in country for a month and a half now. It seems just like yesterday I got off the plane and got on my first daladala. I am currently on a four day shadow experience. I am staying with a current peace corps volunteer who is a teacher. Myself and three other trainees are able to follow him around for a few days to see what life is really going to be like. He is stationed in Mpwapwa which is 3 hours outside of Dodoma. He is in a larger town where he has access to almost everything. He works in a school where he teaches people how to use omputers and helps to fix them when they are broken. Last night we went to a place that cooks goat on every Saturday. It reminds me of a farmers market with goat. You walk around and goats are slaughtered and cleaned hanging from trees waiting to be purchased. While you walk around you see evey part of the body being cooked in some fashion. From the blood to the stomach to the legs and ribs. When you find the uncooked whole goat you want, you bargain the price and then they will buthcer it for you right then and there. If you dont want the whole goat cooked they can separate those pieces and place in a bag for you. The parts you do want cooked they will start cooking right then and there. I was with a groupd of eight so we ate the four legs off of the goat. The rest was brought back to friends and family. You sit at your table and wait for the meat to be cooked. They bring out the goat in pieces depending on what part of the body is ready to be eaten. I have not had alot of meat since I have been here, so this was AMAZING. The meat wasn't seasoned, but cooked to perfection. It was a new experience having someone butcher a whole cooked goat leg in front of your face, but it was so good. Today we might go to a place that cooks pork. It is said to have the best pork in the village. My host family is muslim, and the community I am staying is mostly muslim, so I have had not pork since being in country. I am excited to have some cooked pork. Also, they don't know what bacon is, so we were trying to explain it to some Tanzanians over dinner, but it didnt translate very well. Ok so it took me two days to write this blog so i ate the pig. It was so yummy. We split 1.5 kilograms of pure pig between four of us along with some fried potatoes. It is so nice to eat alot of meat again. The crazy thing is I only had to pay 3000 shillings for the goat and 2000 shillings for the pig. That translates to about 2.00 and 1.50 USD. Things here are so cheap, but the income is so low it makes sense. On Wednesday I will travel back to Dar es Salaam (the capitol city). There I will open my bank account, fill out some more paper work, and have a few quick sessions before returning to my home stay family on Friday. This weekend coming up after I return to my home stay family I am having a party. It is with all the host families in the village kind of saying congratulations and we get to eat lots of good food. On the Friday before we left for shadow I found out where I will be spending the next two years....! I will be staying in a town called Katesh. The more I hear about it the more excited I get. I am actually in the town so I will have electricity and a water spicket in my courtyard. Both I did not expect to have so it is a wonderful surprise. My town is at the base of the 4th largest mountain in Tanzania which is super cool for hiking and such activities. I also heard that it is "cold" in my area. I am curious to find out how cold it will actually be, but excited to not sleep in constant sweet. I am about 4-6 hours from Arusha (one of the biggest tourist spots/prettiest places). That should be nice if I am able to visit. My banking town is the town I will be living in, so I dont have to travel to any other cities to get money or necesitites. I am going to be living up north with three other volunteers from my class all of which are enviornment. There are also five volunteers in the region right now from health enviornment and education. I am so pumped to see the mountain, I heard it is covered in green all year round. It is going to be such a cool scene to wake up to every morning. I love and miss you all! Feel free to email me @ socrswim06@gmail.com