Hali vipi,

The month of rain. It started, appropriately, on the first of the month and rained everyday until the 10th. Then a little on the 11th. Poured on the 13th...and so on. It came at a great time. Lightning knocked out the water meter which costs about $100 to fix but the district engineers were reluctant to fix it because the same thing happened last year and the school took no precautions to prevent lightning from striking it again. So we were without water for a little over 2 weeks but since rain came nearly everyday I was able to keep two 60-liter buckets full most of the time. The Weekend of March 4th and 5th was to be my first full weekend at site since school had started so I planned to walk to the Mwiti River, which I had passed during my bike ride to Ndwika last month...

Adventures in Chidya...

Everyday it has rained since I got here it has been early afternoon or night. This fact made me very happy as I prefer to do outdoor activities in the morning. So I packed a nice picnic lunch, a good book, and my camera for a hike to the Mwiti River the next morning. I woke up to the sound of rain. Hmmm...well there's always tomorrow. I cooked pancakes, dumplings, and cookies. The next morning I woke up already alert-no rain. I got up and did a quick wash since the rain was making it impossible to dry my clothes and kept it humid in my house so they just hung damp on my indoor clothes lines and started to smell. I began walking promptly at 6am. By 6:15 a light sprinkle had begun. I put on my raincoat and hoped for the best. By 6:30 it was pouring. I stopped and weighed my options: keep walking and return soaked-even though the path was well covered by trees or turn back and eat a picnic lunch inside. I decided to keep going. I almost turned back as I came to a steep, clay decline where every step was softer and muckier than cow patties. I reached the river an hour and a half later and the rained let up. I walked downstream and enjoyed my picnic lunch. The bank was to muddy to enjoy a nice read so I hiked upstream a ways then began my ascent back to Chidya as the rain appeared for an encore performance. I saw some beautiful sites of fog and mesa but it was too wet to take out my camera. I returned wet but satisfied.

The Assistant Peace Corps Director for Education in the southern regions came this month but didn't get to watch me teach. His name is Pat and he served in the Peace Corps some years ago. We had a good talk and he was impressed with my site. He's been here before but it's quite different. Andy, the volunteer before me, was the first volunteer at this site and when he came they had no running water and electricity was not nearly as consistent. I also started planning my first school break at the end of the month to go visit my friend Anna in Dodoma. The road from here to Dar es Salaam is almost all dirt and gets very bad during the rainy seasons. I thought I would have to travel alone and find a hotel, because travel to Dodoma takes 2 days, but Peter's (who lives with my counterpart Geofrey) brother, Francis, was in town for his school break-he's a Form VI student in Dar. I talked with him and we decided I could stay at his house overnight in Dar before heading on to Dodoma the next morning. Then I found out Peter was leaving for Dar the same day as me and the heading on to Mwanza, just south of Lake Victoria. So I secured a travel partner and a place to stay which made me very excited.

I also took one weekend to visit Tony at his site just 2 hours from Masasi. I biked into Masasi in just an hour and a half-15 minutes slower than the car-and then took a bus from there. Tony's a health volunteer in Mtama and we get along real well. Matt from Lindi was there and an education volunteer from Tony's training group named Matt who's up near Arusha. We had a nice relaxing weekend just hanging out.

It's been a very quiet month in Chidya. Teaching has gone well-Baseline English is finished for the Form I's and we've started the syllabus. They know a lot of the introductory material real well so we've been moving along quickly. Form III came to a halt at domain and range of functions and the weekly test I gave them in the middle of the month did not go well. I'll probably offer night classes sometime next month to help. Form III A has gotten a little better but I'm still not satisfied with their participation. Kidogo kidogo-little by little. I did teach 2 night classes this month. These kids really have an advantage being in a boarding school where we can do additional lessons-whether they like it or not. At other schools some kids walk 2 hours to get to school everyday. I've gotten into a grove teaching but the language barrier is still a problem.

My Kiswahili has been coming along real well. I visit my counterpart almost every night still and words are starting to stick and my speech has become more fluid. But since I listen to mainly teacher-highly educated people-I sometimes have trouble understanding people in town because they speak a lot of slang and are not always grammatically correct-they mix up noun classes and don't say the entire word sometimes. Again kidogo, kidogo.

Also, this month I got a letter informing me I would have to travel 6 hours one-way to get a flu shot-something that would only take a few seconds. But the trip was totally worth it. I got to hang out all weekend with Steph and see Marisa, Tony, Danielle, Josh, Jen and Michelle. On Sunday as we were waiting for our respective buses to head back to site Steph and I got to talking and agreed; the experience we had traveling was the closest we've felt to truly being in Africa and it was awesome to share it with each other.

African Weekend...

My alarm rings at 4:50am on the Morning of Friday, March 17th-time to prepare myself for a full day of travel; 2 hours by car on a road severely damaged by 2 weeks of heavy rain and then a 6 hour bus ride to Mtwara. I arrive in Masasi and I easily find Steph at the bank. She would later comment, "It'll be so different in the States. Here I can just agree to meet Justin in a crowded bank and I know we'll find each other." We check mail but there's nothing for either of us...strange, one of us usual gets at least a letter. Marisa meets us at Josh's and lets us know why we don't have mail-the road to Mtwara is 'broken': A section of sturdy, gravel road has been washed away by the heavy rains. The local Missionaries, Wayne and Betsy Duke, are meeting guests at this break who have flown into Mtwara and are taking a taxi. So we're able to get a ride from them to the break and the taxi, who has no one to take back-and no Tanzanian would use a taxi when they could just take a crowded bus-will wait for us. We arrive at the break and thank Wayne for the ride. The 'break' is about 20 meters long and 15 feet deep. Kids are playing in their new river and the locals have come to watch expensive machinery fix this big problem. It was so awesome hiking down the slope of the road, watch the kids play, and cross a river over sticks with Tanzanians passing by, some in full suits, some trying to make a some money by selling crops. A tiny community had formed around this new problem. This was the first time I really felt I was in a third world country. The taxi driver easily finds us and we negotiate the fair from 70,000 Tshs. to 20,000 Tshs. because he's desperate. We get to Mtwara very quickly and get our flu shots then head over to Danielle's for a St. Patrick's celebration with corn beef hash, chili, and green food coloring for our drinks. Awesome.

The next day Steph and I must travel back to Masasi by regular coaster bus. Marisa stays in town to fly up to Dar the next day. Travel takes about 7 hours but we try to soak in crossing the broken road again because it's such a unique experience and I really feel my words have not done it justice. When we arrive in Masasi, Steph informs me that her students are playing a local school in football, both just girls teams, and we decided to go watch. As we walk up the hill we hear singing and arrive to the local schools 'dig': The girls who are not playing sing and dance to pump up the crowd and players. We are quickly given seats next to the headmaster and Steph goes off to talk with her counterparts. I have not realized it but the 'dig' has moved behind me and all the sudden the girls with the players burst through the crowd. I watch Steph get surround by the swarm of cheering students and then be left in their wake. She looks at me and we just smile and laugh: wow, we're really in Africa experiencing a local sporting event that is somehow so different from those in America. She sits next to me and tells me which players to look out for. Her team threatens several times but no goal is scored. Suddenly the opposing team breaks away and scores. The rest of the girls rush the field and little kids do multiple cartwheels and back handsprings in celebration. Suddenly rain is upon us and the game is postponed to another day.

On Sunday Steph and I shop and reflect on a truly amazing weekend in Africa. Simply awesome.

At the end of the month we had our midterm break and I went to visit my friend Anna in Dodoma-the middle of the country. The bus ride was awful-it's unpaved road most of the way and it rained all day. The rains have already washed away a lot of the road but nothing as serious as in my previous story. The ride is usually 11-12 hours but the roads were so bad-and we got stuck in the mud once-that it took 16 hours, only 2 of which are on paved roads. I stayed the night in Dar es Salaam and caught an early bus to Dodoma the next day. I met Anna at the stand and then we went to her closest PCV site-mate, Courtney's, for the night. Courtney has a concrete house with electricity and water among a village of mud huts, so her place kind of sticks out a little. She also has a table top oven and we cooked pizza!!! with bacon!!! and had a salad!!! with carrots!!! and she made no-bake chocolate, peanut butter, oatmeal cookies. To top it all off my parents had just sent me 'Harry Potter 4' on DVD and I brought my laptop so we watched the movie and it almost felt like a normal, American evening which is nice from time to time. The next day we said goodbye to Courtney and left for Anna's site. She has no electricity or running water but it has been raining so much she's filled a 250 liter tank of water, four 60 liter buckets, and two 20 liter buckets full of water. It poured the first night and drizzled much of the next day. She does not have break this week and so had to go to school on Monday.

I walked with her and the rain had come down so strong the previous night that the river we crossed the day before at barely ankle level was now at waist level. So we took a round about way that took us over a bridge which was still flooded to just above ankle level. Also, on Monday she works at the local dispensary until noon and so I got to go with her. Many mothers show up with new babies up to 3 year olds for the necessary weighing and medicines. To weigh the babies they use a meat hook weigher that hangs from the ceiling. The mothers wrap there babies up in a material called a khanga that can be worn for a dress, used to strap a baby to one's back, a towel, and a variety of other things including making little hanging hammocks to weigh the babies from this hook. Pretty cute I thought. The older kids don't enjoy it as much because they are wrapped up like a harness and most don't find it too fun. However, there was one older kid who just jumped, grabbed onto the hook, and hung there until we got the weight. I also go to watch the nurse give girls birth control injections using a needle almost 2 inches long! And she also had to give small children shots in the leg using the same length needle. All of the kids cried.

After Anna finished teaching that day we walked to a small boulder hill and along the way saw the most amazing clouds. I'll try and do them justice...

Overtaken...

Anna and I are walking along a narrow path to enjoy a nice sit on a large hill with a wonderful, 360 degree view of the area. The day is overcast and rain is drizzling down making for a slightly difficult trek through mud and water. We catch site of the clouds and stop to comment on how incredible they are. The lowest clouds are formed in a ring and its edge looks like the underside of a boat but instead of the front being curved like a bowl it juts out in front like a knife turned upside down. It seems to cut through the upper layer of clouds which are formed like water parting as you may see underwater to add to the effect that the cloud IS a boat cutting through the ocean. The bottom layer of clouds is moving faster and leaves the upper layer behind giving the illusion of a submersible diving. The ring is approaching us. The wind is picking up. We hear the rain becoming stronger in front of us. We wait. Within seconds we are taken by the wind and a strong rain begins to fall down on us. The ring of clouds is thin and soon it is behind us and we just look at each other thinking the same thing-that was awesome.

The rest of the week Anna taught and we just hung out at her site. But today, March 30, 2006 (yes, I'm a day early at the internet) we will have dinner with the U.S. Ambassador to Tanzania, Christine, our Country Director of Peace Corps for Tanzania, and some other PCVs from my training class. Details next month...

Baadye,

Justin