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

Here goes nothing

Some Pics

Hope this works

July 11th

I have just put up a blog about my daily schedule, so I hope it gives you some insight to what happens on a daily basis. For the most part Monday- Friday my schedule is the same down to when I fall asleep. On Saturday I get together with the larger group to do health and environmental training. This Saturday we started our own little gardens as a practice. We usually spend most of the day in a lecture setting followed by some short relaxing group activity. Sundays are wide open. I generally have no plans so I take a day to relax and work on homework I have missed over the week. Today I am catching up on emails and blogs and hopefully will be able to walk around the village and take some nice pictures. A few kids came to me two days ago asking if I could help them learn chemistry, biology, physics and math. They are younger kids and they speak English pretty well. I told them I could help them for a couple hours each day if they tutored me on my Kiswahili. It should be a pretty fair trade, but I just don’t know how much time I will be able to commit to them. They also do not have many resources when it comes to studying, so I hope that I will be able to find things that will help them to study. Next weekend the large group is taking a vacation! We have a Kiswahili test on this Friday. It is our first test, it is both written and verbal. After the test our group is going on a vacation. We are heading to a beach on the ocean for the weekend! I am so excited to take a few days away from the studying and just relax. I am going to go to bed now. I hope all is well and I will update soon.

Daily Schedule

Justin’s daily schedule:
6:45 am- Wake up to the sound of multiple roosters outside my window ( they start at 4am!)
7:00 am- Go take a bucket bath with water heated by the stove ( I love a bucket of warm water in the morning)
7:30 am- Sit down for breakfast usually a hard-boiled egg, some form of bread either a roll or few slices of fresh bread and a cup of warm milk or tea
7:45 am- Walk to my classroom which is in the house of someone who lives in the village we are using their front room to hold class. I have to walk by hundreds of kids asking how my day is in English, and me responding in Kiswahili.
8:00am- Arrive at the classroom to practice Kiswahili with 3 other peace corps volunteer and a teacher.
10:00am- Break for Tea. Who would have ever thought I enjoyed taking a break for tea, but when they feed you fried foods with tea I will take a break any day.
10:30am- Go back to learning Kiswahili and studying the culture
12:30pm- Break for lunch. Lunch usually consists of a vegetable either spinach, cabbage, or some other that is found in Africa, most of the time we have beans and rice. Usually we have some form of a fried food like chipate (a fried soft flat bread) or samboosas (a fried triangle kind of like a egg roll, either stuffed with potatoes, vegetables, or some ground beef)
1:00pm- Play with all the kids that sit outside our classroom all day listening to us butcher their language
1:30pm- Go back to practicing Kiswahili
3:00pm- 4:00pm We finish up for the day depending on how much our head hurts from learning new words and concepts
4:00pm Sit and relax with my three other classmates and drink a cold pop in our village. Laugh about how bad we are at the language and how much we want some American fast food, or some CHEESE
5:00pm I walk back to my house to play with my three little brothers and whatever neighbor kids want to play soccer with me that day.
6:30pm The sun sets and I move to the backyard to see if I can help make dinner. Most of the time I just watch as they cook, but sometimes I get to help. I really want to learn more techniques they use to cook. It is over a wood fire, or charcoal usually. They use cast iron pots and pans.
7:30pm I take another bucket bath
8:00pm I come inside and relax maybe read a little before my dinner is served. This is all done by candle light or a flashlight because there is no electricity
8:30pm I eat dinner. This varies a lot from rice and beans, to greens and ugali, to beef and rice. I am always way over fed and need to be rolled to my room to fall asleep.
9:00pm I am in bed and ready to fall asleep, I usually read for a bit, but realize I am not comprehending (because I am so tired) so I give up and go to sleep.

The third week!

Ahh this is crazy! I am half way around the world. It is still a surprise every morning when I wake up, look at my mosquito net, and hear roosters outside my window. I never thought I would see 6am consecutively some many days in a row ( including my day off!) Then to walk outside with no street lights, and chickens running around and the smell of carcoal knowing my breakfast and water for a shower is being cooked. I love all the people in my town. They are so inviting and willing to share thier time and stories with me. I still can't believe this is my life! I had projected I would have more access to the internet during training, but was misunderstood. I am going to try and write a long blog at my house, then transfer it on here in a few days. I want you all to visualize my days. Kiswahili is getting eaiser, and the food is still great! I love that everyone is reading my blog, and commenting, even though I havent been able to update. I have three brothers and ahouse maid that live iwith me right now. I am living the hig life. My dad is a social worker, and travels most of the time, so I am "stuck at home playing soccer with my brothers" Life is good. I have a little over two months left of training, and then I am on my own! I find out where I will be placed in three weeks!!!! AHh this is happening so fast. Thank you all for the thoughts and prayers I truely can feel them! Please keep sending me emails and posts I will eventually get caught up with them
I love you all,
Justin

The first week!

So I tried to type up my blog before I got to the internet cafe, but I guess windows will not let me copy and paste into my blog, so I have to re-type it all. Oh well :) This is my fifth day as a peace corps trainee. This is the first time with access to the internet becasue I am staying at a hostel in the capitol city of Dar es Salaam. The plane ride was pretty long consisting of two eight hour flights but I was able to sleep through most of both. This totally threw off my sleep schedule, but all is well now. The first night was around 80 degrees with 100 % humidity. I thought I ould be unable to sleep, but once my head hit the pillow I fell right to sleep. The next day started at 7am! We recieved some fried wrap stuffed with beef (samboosa) a pink sausage and a crepe like bread. All of it was wonderful. Most of the food here has been fried or seasoned really well. I have grown to love it and will continue I am sure throughout my entire stay. The trainings have lasted between 8-9 hours a day with various topics ranging from language to safety. Lunch and dinner usually consist of rice, beans, a protein and cabbage, again I am LOVING the food. The Kiswahili classes are challenging but are lots of fun. In Tanzania everyone is so friendly and love to teach their language so they dont mind when you attempt to talk to them in their local language. Yesterday we were able to travel off of the hostel property and see some of the city. I was unsure what to expect, but it reminded me of a large flea market downton. It was full of vendors and people buying. We went on Sunday, and I have heard during the week it is packed and people are crammed together prohibiting much movement. We were able to take a Dala dala for the first time. It is a large bus/taxi that goes around the city full of people. On Wednesday the group and I leave for Muheza where we will meet our host family. We will spend the next nine weeks learning the language and the culture. I am so excited to have this opportunity. Thank you all for the supprt and prayers, I can really feel them. I love and miss you all and hope to update soon.
Much love,
Justin

P.S. I am sorry for the spelling and grammar mistakes, I am super rushed.