So, this week wraps up my second month at site. I don’t know how it’s been for you guys back in the states, but time has flown by here… I can hardly believe I’ve been in country for over four months, and I’ve finally settled into a real rhythm of work, play, and concertina. Lots of concertina. I’ve seriously gotten really good. But more on that later. For now, here are a few snippets/updates regarding my life so far in Tanzania:
1. For the majority of my being in Songea, I’ve spent most of my free time away from site and in town. There was a practical reason for this---namely, I needed to furnish my house from the ground up, and most crucial items (stoves, buckets, toilet paper, contact with people who speak English, etc.) can only be found in the town proper, 15 kilometers from my house. Lately, however, I’ve taken to meandering around my home village, and I’ve come to the realization that I may have the best damned site in all of Peace Corps Tanzania. I literally live right on the edge of town and countryside. Exiting my front door, if you turn left, you’ll hit the school, some shops, and the daladala (minibus) into town; if you turn right, though, you hit endless farmland---green, rolling hills eventually giving way to a particularly statuesque mountain (Mt. Mletele) rising in the east. About a 30-minute hike away is the cone-shaped hill of Unangwa (I think that’s its name), which offers a beautiful, 360-degree panoramic view of the entire Songea district, with tons of boulders to climb on and all the mangoes you can eat. Top it off with some local maduka (shops) that supply all the essentials and, more importantly, reliable electricity/running water in my house (working >50% of the time = “reliable”), and you have a pretty awesome place to live. The only real downside is the bugs, but once you murder your first hundred or so, the next hundred don’t seem so bad.
2. So, I have a confession to make: I may have entered another facial hair pact with a few of my PCV classmates. That’s right… I had so much fun growing a crust-stache for swearing in that I just had to do it again. Over the past month or so, I’ve grown out pretty much everything my half-Asian heritage will allow me---a moustache, coupled with a little soul-patch/goatee number. I affectionately call it my "ronin-stache," since (a) it kinda reminds me of the mustaches I’ve seen some Japanese guys sport, and (b) it evokes much more romantic imagery than the name "dweeby Asian-stache." What’s nice is that most Tanzanians don’t really know what American facial hair looks like, so I could rock the lamest pencil-stache in the world and still have it be considered socially acceptable (well, mostly). In truth, the heretofore-dubbed "ronin-stache" was born out of laziness... shaving with cold, muddy water is no picnic. But, over time, it's grown on me (pun definitely intended), and I now thoroughly enjoy stroking my goatee pensively or tweaking my whiskers Snidely Whiplash-style in front of my students every day during class. The response from my peers regarding my new look has been decidedly mixed: I’ve had people say that I look older, younger, “like a pirate,” “like a wannabe cholo,” “like you grew out your peach fuzz and dyed it black,” and, of course, “really f***ing stupid” (thanks, Veronica). Couple that with my flowing locks (I have yet to cut my hair in country), weight loss, and perpetually dirty clothes, and you can see that I’ve thoroughly adopted the “shabby-chic” look so popular among Peace Corps volunteers around the world.
3. Teaching has been a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, it’s fun: I really like geeking out about physics stuff in class, and I really love it when some of the brighter kids geek out with me. On the other hand, though, it can be frustrating… there’s nothing like grading ~200 midterm examinations, especially when the class average is around 50% (even though you made the test non-cumulative and gave liberal partial credit). It doesn’t help that the teaching schedule is a bit on the relaxed side, last month in particular. The first week in January, everyone was coming back from the holiday break, so we had to take a few days off to re-acclimate ourselves to the school environment. The second week, we had Zanzibar Revolution Day on Wednesday and midterms on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, so normal classes couldn’t be held then, either. The third week, we had a giant, day-long staff meeting, which wasn’t terribly meaningful for me since my Kiswahili still needs work. Finally, last week we had the graduation ceremony for the Form VI students, and so the whole school had to prepare for the occasion (cleaning, mopping, cutting grass, etc.), which means classes couldn’t be held again. I’m not saying that the Tanzanian system is bad, per se (and I’m not saying that I love the American education system either), but it certainly takes a little getting used to.
4. My cooking ability, while still lacking, is coming along slowly. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been attempting to diversify my palate by cooking things aside from fried potatoes---a task that has been helped immensely by the spices (thanks again, Mom and Dad!) and other food products (thanks again, Ah-yi!) I’ve received from the US. The only real downside to my continued culinary enthusiasm is that my electric hot plates (and, in fact, most electronic appliances in my house) have developed a nasty habit of shocking me whenever they’re plugged in, even when the outlet is switched off. It’s gotten so bad that I can’t crack my eggs over my frying pan anymore, since the pan is made of cast iron and the current travels through the yolk and into my arms, giving me some unwanted defibrillation. I’ve told the electrician at my school about this, and he assures me that there isn’t anything he can do. Looks like I either have to find a new electrician or prepare my food in rubber gloves from now on.
5. While I can say that my cooking skills are improving, my gardening skills are still languishing in the doldrums of mediocrity. I embarked on a major campaign two weeks ago to transform my garden from “utter trainwreck” to “not a complete disaster,” re-digging all the burms and beds while desperately scrounging around campus for any and all manure I could get my grubby, blistered hands on. In other words, there was literally a three day period in which I would finish class, go home, put on my (particularly) dirty clothes, grab a 10-liter bucket and a shovel, and go out stable-raiding for a few hours… dignified, I know. The result, at least initially, looked pretty good: I had four nicely dug beds, freshly planted with both local seeds and seeds from home (again, thanks Mom and Dad), with a nice border of matembele (sweet potato) surrounding the garden. Within 24 hours, however, literally all my matembele was dead---a fact that still astounds me since matembele is essentially just a particularly edible weed that grows pretty much anywhere. This was followed by a two-week drought, which cut off my water supply and ensured that I didn’t have nearly enough reserves to spare for my garden. As of now, it’s just begun to rain again, but I’m quite confident that everything in my garden is either dead or has fallen victim to the merciless talons of rampaging chickens (if Tanzania has taught me anything, it’s to hate chickens with a fiery passion). Regardless, I still have a few seeds left… maybe I’ll try again this week or the next.
6. If you feel like it's been too long since you've giggled uncontrollably like a little schoolgirl, have your local Tanzanian say the word "chlorofluorocarbon" or "parallelogram." The results may surprise and delight you!
Okay, that’s enough of an update for now. Later!
That shock from hotplate and electrical appliances sounds seriously wrong. No laughing matter! Please take care of it ASAP!
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