I made it to my village, it's already been a month...
And I am loving it!
I am going to do my best to try and type this, but the computer I am on has a horrible working space bar, so it's not that I don't know howto type! Pole sana(I'm very sorry!)
So, things have been great so far! I want to write so much, butI did not come prepared and once again, I do not have a whole lot of time online. I am within about a 1 1/2 hours busride from the next closest volunteer and so we all stayed the first night together in thetown in between all of our villages. The next day brought some serious butterflies as I loaded my stuff into a truck and headed to my village alone with one of my village leaders, not knowing what to expectat all. He was super quiet, which only added to my nervousness. I wasgreeted by Tumaini, who is now like my Mama, her father in law, Nelson, who is like my counterpart right now, working closely with me to have meetings and get to know my village-he speaks really good English, which is great, but kinda bad because all ofthe time i spend with him, I am not practicing my Kiswahili, which really needs practice. But atthe same time I am learning KiGogo, the local tribal language in my region! So far, I have just gotten the greetings down, and the people justlove that I am able to say even just that!
So my mama and anothergirl helped me mop my house down, clean out my buckets and get water and were with me for most of the day. Tumaini has been great! She has 3 adorable, well-behaved, but kind ofshy children. I spend a lot of time with them, eating ugali and mlenda (a weed thatis cookeddown into the consistency of snot!!! Yum!) Ugali of course is the thick porridge of corn flour and water that is cooked until it turns into a ball that is all stuck together-I am actually really starting to like it-and it's a good thing because some people eat it for every meal! They are always asking me here if I am eating ugali and mlenda and when I say that we don't eat ugali in America, they say, "So what do you do with the corn?"
It was definitely strange, awkward, and a bit uncomfortable being in the village at first, all alone, not knowing anyone or what I should be doing. When I think about that, it seems like it was so long ago because already I am so comfortable to walk all around the village, go the to the small shops to get tomatoes or toilet paper-yes, I can get toilet paper! What a relief! Though I just bought the lastexisting roll in my village-I surehope thatthey restock!!! Also I love to walk around and just beableto stop by any house at any time andbe welcomed in to just chatwith the villagers. There arereally some great people in my village and I have made some good friends already. My village isquite large, about 6500 people, but it is very spread out and so it isdivided into 8 subvillages, which I have started to go around and visit-some a walk away, others a bike ride. We set up a meeting with the villagers to introduceme as the new PC volunteer and they share with me a warm welcome along with issuesthat they believecoulduse some assistance. That is a bit overwhelming becauseof course upon seeing an American, they assume that I have alot of money and that I can just provide them with moneyor materialsto help them. But I think the meetings are good because it givesme the opportunity early on, to establish with them, that I don't have any money really, and that I am here to educate, and to facilitate work of their own doing. Speaking of education, I have started to teach at thesecondary school. I am teaching the form 1 students, which is their first year of secondary school, the kids ranging in ages from 14 to about 18, depending on when they were able to start school, due to various reasons. I am teaching English and so far I really like it, but it's really pretty difficult. I pronounce words very differentlyl from the way that they do and so they really havea hard time understanding me. But we are havingfun together and I am working very hard to build a relationship with them so that they will break out oftheir quiet shell and really tell me when they are not understanding me. I won't be of much help ifthey are just nodding their heads and letting me continueon!!
The region of Dodoma, in Central Tanzania, is extremely dry. Myvillage is very dry, very windy, right now very hot. So far, I have not really had any major problemswith water. There is a generator and pump that the first volunteer in my village got going as a project and it just began to work in full swing shortly before my arrival. I pay about 40cents per bucket of water, andI am lucky that the tap is not too far from my house. So I am able to carry the water, on my head, from the tap to my house. Still,after a month, they all laugh at me asI walk away from the water tap area.I mustjust look really silly!
I have been invitedto church on the weekends, goingthe Roman Catholic and theAnglican,enjoying the experiencesat both, andtheyget so excited for me to join them! Last weekend, at the Anglican, the women made me stand up front with them and dance with them while they sang and played the drums! I'm sure that was a siteto see!
I really can't write anymore now, butbeforethe next time I am able to come to the city, I will better prepare so that I can share with you some more details! I have a new phone number, that you should use only to call +255659298357. My first number +255782496761 is better for texting. the network is really spotty andweird, the reason for the differentnumbers. Rightnow, for temporary, my mailing address has changed to Randi Walsh, c/o Yue Ke, PO Box34 Mpwapwa, Dodoma, Tanzania,Africa.
I am so very happyhere! I miss and loveyou all! Hopeyou are well!
Randi
Nexttime, I will try to put upsome pictures too!
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Thursday, August 5, 2010
This is my family in Tanzania!
Me holding Batuli-she's not really a family member, but she wanted to be in the picture! Then it's my Mama, Asha, holding my dada, Fatuma. Next to them is my Baba, Hali, then my mom's younger sister Maenda. In the front is my dada, Halima, then my two kakas-Ayubu and Kasimu! They are all amazing!My new home!
So, this time I am not in a panic online, so I figured out what the name of my blog is! How silly of me! So last Friday I found out where my site is. I really don't know much about it yet, but I know that it is a small rural village near (not sure how near) Mpwapwa town in Dodoma region. There are two people from my group who are in the same region as me, as well as a couple people who are education volunteers who have been here for almost one year. I have no idea how close I am to any of them either. Not knowing much about it is making me anxious, but I'm sure that I will love it! I will update when I find out more!
This weekend I went to visit a current Peace Corps volunteer, who lives near Singida town. We all broke up into small groups to travel around to different regions throughout the country to shadow volunteers, practice traveling on our own here in Tz, and just get a better idea of what the life of a pc volunteer looks like. It was a fun weekend! We cooked some really good food and got to eat cheese, which was super exciting! Not much cheese here-however Dodoma is supposed to have some, so that's good to know!
We only have one and a half more weeks at our homestay sites. I can't believe how fast this has all gone by. I am feeling many emotions about leaving. I am so so sad because I absolutely love my family and the children in my village and I feel like I have really been able to integrate well into their community. This weekend there is a big farewell party for our training groups, each in our own villages. I don't really feel ready to leave, to be own my own. They are so helpful in teaching me everything from Kiswahili to ways of living in a rural Tanzanian village. I totally plan to keep in touch with them after I leave. While I was away on shadow this weekend, my Baba called me a couple of times and texted me everyday to check in. It's really weird to have a phone here, but even weirder to be calling and sending messages in Kiswahili!. Also though I am excited to get to my new home and to begin integrating there, getting to know my new family, my new region of the country, and really starting to get my feet wet in projects and work with the villagers. For the first three months, we are told not to start any projects. Instead they want us to just focus on building relationships and getting to know the people of our villages. That is really nice, because I imagine it being very overwhelming in the beginning, which is why I am real nervous. It still is in my village now and soon I am going to be totally on my own. Yikes!
I hope this is not too boring, but I'm feeling a little bit out of it today. I needed to take this opportunity to update a little though. As soon as I know more and am able to get online again, I will update and try to be more entertaining!!
I am extremely happy here in Tanzania, each day bringing new thoughts, new lessons, stronger relationships. It's great! Please remember me on August 18th as I will be dropped off at my site, and spending the night in my new house alone for the first time. It could be pretty intense!
I hope you all are doing well and as always, I would love to hear from you in any form-mail, email, or telephone! Thanks for following!
Randi
This weekend I went to visit a current Peace Corps volunteer, who lives near Singida town. We all broke up into small groups to travel around to different regions throughout the country to shadow volunteers, practice traveling on our own here in Tz, and just get a better idea of what the life of a pc volunteer looks like. It was a fun weekend! We cooked some really good food and got to eat cheese, which was super exciting! Not much cheese here-however Dodoma is supposed to have some, so that's good to know!
We only have one and a half more weeks at our homestay sites. I can't believe how fast this has all gone by. I am feeling many emotions about leaving. I am so so sad because I absolutely love my family and the children in my village and I feel like I have really been able to integrate well into their community. This weekend there is a big farewell party for our training groups, each in our own villages. I don't really feel ready to leave, to be own my own. They are so helpful in teaching me everything from Kiswahili to ways of living in a rural Tanzanian village. I totally plan to keep in touch with them after I leave. While I was away on shadow this weekend, my Baba called me a couple of times and texted me everyday to check in. It's really weird to have a phone here, but even weirder to be calling and sending messages in Kiswahili!. Also though I am excited to get to my new home and to begin integrating there, getting to know my new family, my new region of the country, and really starting to get my feet wet in projects and work with the villagers. For the first three months, we are told not to start any projects. Instead they want us to just focus on building relationships and getting to know the people of our villages. That is really nice, because I imagine it being very overwhelming in the beginning, which is why I am real nervous. It still is in my village now and soon I am going to be totally on my own. Yikes!
I hope this is not too boring, but I'm feeling a little bit out of it today. I needed to take this opportunity to update a little though. As soon as I know more and am able to get online again, I will update and try to be more entertaining!!
I am extremely happy here in Tanzania, each day bringing new thoughts, new lessons, stronger relationships. It's great! Please remember me on August 18th as I will be dropped off at my site, and spending the night in my new house alone for the first time. It could be pretty intense!
I hope you all are doing well and as always, I would love to hear from you in any form-mail, email, or telephone! Thanks for following!
Randi
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Entering the "real world" tomorrow!
Karibuni Rafikis! (Welcome Friends!)
It is only day six or something and it feels like I have been gone for so long already, however it still doesn't really feel like I'm in Africa. I have moments each day where I stop and think, holy smokes, I'm in Tanzania!!! As I said before, we have been staying at the Mzimbaze Center in Dar es Salaam since Wednesday of last week. It is some sort of compound, all gated in and we are not allowed to go beyond the walls. There are hostels inside that we are sleeping in, each in our own room. There are also classrooms that we have spent a lot of time in, and also a cafeteria type room that they cook food for us in each day. Breakfast is very interesting. White bread, hot dogs, plain crepe-type things, fruit or hard-boiled eggs if we're lucky, muffins that are like cupcakes, and then some different fried options. Everyday the options are different-needless to say, I am usually pretty hungry in the mornings! At ten o'clock everyday they have chai time. There are always different snack offerings and chai. Lunches and dinners are pretty yummy and pretty similar. Always rice, beans, and some sort of meat options, which I couldn't really tell you what they are because I have not had any yet. It kinda scares me a little bit! Every meal there is some kind of cabbage and greens mixture that is yummy and exciting cause it's the only source of vegetables. Also we have potatoes sometimes, plantain stew, fried potatoes. I am very interested to see what kinds of food we will get at our home-stays because I'm sure it will be different and also there will not be so many choices at each meal. And I still haven't tried ugali! I'm definitely not complaining!
We did get to go into Dar on Sunday and walk around with two current volunteers that have been in service for a year. It was a fun day, but quite overwhelming and overstimulating as our first time in the city and after being "locked" up in here for a few days. Small world moment though-one of the current PCVs that is here helping us this week is friends with Hollie Romei, who is a friend in Twisp! We have a mutual friend! It was pretty fun to see her right away because Hollie had told me she was going to be in Tanzania but I had no idea she was already here and that she was with the Peace Corps! What are the chances that she would be one of the first people I meet!
So, tomorrow we are leaving Dar and heading to Muheza, which is in the Tanga region. We are dividing into small groups and going into different villages within Muheza, about five of us per village, but we are each going to different homes with separate families. I am so very excited to really start the experience, but it is going to be really awkward because we have only had three language classes and we really don't know all that much yet. We have done greetings, how to introduce ourselves, and we just got a bunch of phrases today to to help us try and communicate with our host families. So I have a good picture of me having questions for them and pulling out my flash cards real quick to figure out how to say it!! I have great expectations to be laughed at hysterically for the next several months and so I'm just ready to begin the process!!!
We had a class today on etiquette for home-stays. There is so much I am learning and so much I have to still learn over the next few weeks. How to bathe with a bucket of water, how to use the choo or the pit latrine, how to wipe with my hand (though many of you know that I was already practicing that at NOLS) and actually they say that most PC volunteers just BYOTP-Bring your own toilet paper!!!) Hand-washing clothes, using a charcoal iron, cooking on a charcoal stove and probably lots more that I'm not even aware of yet.
The thing that has been stressed the most so far is appropriate dress, especially for women. Tanzanians are very conservative and they take their appearance very seriously. It is very important to be clean, and for certain parts of the body to be covered-the knees and below, and the shoulders are the biggest ones. We have already begun to acquire khangas, which are wraps that you can wear as a skirt or use to wear over pants or shorts and over your shoulders. It's not appropriate in many situations to wear pants alone-something about the rear end that is to be covered up. The khangas are beautiful though and they sell them all over the place.
These next weeks of training in Muheza are going to be pretty intense. Monday through Thursday and Saturdays we have classes from 8 to 5 with our small village groups and then Fridays we meet as one big group to work on things together. The first four weeks are going to focus more on the language so we can get a good grasp on it and then the last four weeks will be more on technical training in Environment and Health education and how that will look in our villages. We will then be placed in our sites and spend the first three months just getting to know our communities and assessing the needs of the village. Then we go back to have a week of in-service training where we will bring ideas to the Peace Corps facilitators and then begin working on projects. We did a bit on permagardening the other day, sort of an intro. and I got so excited! Another point of excitement was yesterday we had a session with Brian Connors who is the Assistant Country Director for PCTanzania. It was on sustainable development and the approach that is used in Peace Corps. It was so inspirational and it was beautiful to see how passionate he is about his work.
It is winter here right now, which is good so that we can acclimate slowly-so it's only 70-80!!! And really humid! That's actually what's taking getting used to. Go for a run in the morning and are dripping with sweat and then even after showering, you're still just drenched! It really makes the mosquitos come out! But we're all on anti-Malarials and sleep with mosquito nets on our beds, so I'm hoping for the best!!
That's all that I've got for now, but I'm sure that even after tomorrow I will be filled with so many stories! I'm not sure we are going to have much internet access during our training and actually it sounds like most PCVs only have access during their town-time, not at their villages. That totally makes sense to me and I actually prefer that. It would just seem too weird to be out in a small village in Africa on the internet. But I will still keep you updated when I can!!
I love you all and hope that things are going well in your lives! I hope that summer will be arriving shortly cause it's time! Take care and thanks for being a part of this journey with me!!!
Asante! Kwaheri!
It is only day six or something and it feels like I have been gone for so long already, however it still doesn't really feel like I'm in Africa. I have moments each day where I stop and think, holy smokes, I'm in Tanzania!!! As I said before, we have been staying at the Mzimbaze Center in Dar es Salaam since Wednesday of last week. It is some sort of compound, all gated in and we are not allowed to go beyond the walls. There are hostels inside that we are sleeping in, each in our own room. There are also classrooms that we have spent a lot of time in, and also a cafeteria type room that they cook food for us in each day. Breakfast is very interesting. White bread, hot dogs, plain crepe-type things, fruit or hard-boiled eggs if we're lucky, muffins that are like cupcakes, and then some different fried options. Everyday the options are different-needless to say, I am usually pretty hungry in the mornings! At ten o'clock everyday they have chai time. There are always different snack offerings and chai. Lunches and dinners are pretty yummy and pretty similar. Always rice, beans, and some sort of meat options, which I couldn't really tell you what they are because I have not had any yet. It kinda scares me a little bit! Every meal there is some kind of cabbage and greens mixture that is yummy and exciting cause it's the only source of vegetables. Also we have potatoes sometimes, plantain stew, fried potatoes. I am very interested to see what kinds of food we will get at our home-stays because I'm sure it will be different and also there will not be so many choices at each meal. And I still haven't tried ugali! I'm definitely not complaining!
We did get to go into Dar on Sunday and walk around with two current volunteers that have been in service for a year. It was a fun day, but quite overwhelming and overstimulating as our first time in the city and after being "locked" up in here for a few days. Small world moment though-one of the current PCVs that is here helping us this week is friends with Hollie Romei, who is a friend in Twisp! We have a mutual friend! It was pretty fun to see her right away because Hollie had told me she was going to be in Tanzania but I had no idea she was already here and that she was with the Peace Corps! What are the chances that she would be one of the first people I meet!
So, tomorrow we are leaving Dar and heading to Muheza, which is in the Tanga region. We are dividing into small groups and going into different villages within Muheza, about five of us per village, but we are each going to different homes with separate families. I am so very excited to really start the experience, but it is going to be really awkward because we have only had three language classes and we really don't know all that much yet. We have done greetings, how to introduce ourselves, and we just got a bunch of phrases today to to help us try and communicate with our host families. So I have a good picture of me having questions for them and pulling out my flash cards real quick to figure out how to say it!! I have great expectations to be laughed at hysterically for the next several months and so I'm just ready to begin the process!!!
We had a class today on etiquette for home-stays. There is so much I am learning and so much I have to still learn over the next few weeks. How to bathe with a bucket of water, how to use the choo or the pit latrine, how to wipe with my hand (though many of you know that I was already practicing that at NOLS) and actually they say that most PC volunteers just BYOTP-Bring your own toilet paper!!!) Hand-washing clothes, using a charcoal iron, cooking on a charcoal stove and probably lots more that I'm not even aware of yet.
The thing that has been stressed the most so far is appropriate dress, especially for women. Tanzanians are very conservative and they take their appearance very seriously. It is very important to be clean, and for certain parts of the body to be covered-the knees and below, and the shoulders are the biggest ones. We have already begun to acquire khangas, which are wraps that you can wear as a skirt or use to wear over pants or shorts and over your shoulders. It's not appropriate in many situations to wear pants alone-something about the rear end that is to be covered up. The khangas are beautiful though and they sell them all over the place.
These next weeks of training in Muheza are going to be pretty intense. Monday through Thursday and Saturdays we have classes from 8 to 5 with our small village groups and then Fridays we meet as one big group to work on things together. The first four weeks are going to focus more on the language so we can get a good grasp on it and then the last four weeks will be more on technical training in Environment and Health education and how that will look in our villages. We will then be placed in our sites and spend the first three months just getting to know our communities and assessing the needs of the village. Then we go back to have a week of in-service training where we will bring ideas to the Peace Corps facilitators and then begin working on projects. We did a bit on permagardening the other day, sort of an intro. and I got so excited! Another point of excitement was yesterday we had a session with Brian Connors who is the Assistant Country Director for PCTanzania. It was on sustainable development and the approach that is used in Peace Corps. It was so inspirational and it was beautiful to see how passionate he is about his work.
It is winter here right now, which is good so that we can acclimate slowly-so it's only 70-80!!! And really humid! That's actually what's taking getting used to. Go for a run in the morning and are dripping with sweat and then even after showering, you're still just drenched! It really makes the mosquitos come out! But we're all on anti-Malarials and sleep with mosquito nets on our beds, so I'm hoping for the best!!
That's all that I've got for now, but I'm sure that even after tomorrow I will be filled with so many stories! I'm not sure we are going to have much internet access during our training and actually it sounds like most PCVs only have access during their town-time, not at their villages. That totally makes sense to me and I actually prefer that. It would just seem too weird to be out in a small village in Africa on the internet. But I will still keep you updated when I can!!
I love you all and hope that things are going well in your lives! I hope that summer will be arriving shortly cause it's time! Take care and thanks for being a part of this journey with me!!!
Asante! Kwaheri!
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Leaving in 3 days!
I'm off on Sunday! First a couple of days in Pennsylvania for staging and our flight to Tanzania is on the 18th. Suddenly time is really flying. This week has been a bit hectic, but I am getting so excited! I'll do my best to keep this updated as often as possible!
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