A month and a half since the last blog entry… yeah, I’m not so good at this. Let it be known that I deeply apologize for sucking so bad at everything. June was, well, pretty crazy, and a great deal of it was spent in Dar es Salaam, which was definitely a bit of a shock given how long I’ve been in Songea (seven months… holy crap). Given PSDN training, the 50th Anniversary Celebration, my birthday, and the 4th of July---all of it interspersed with an intensive teaching regimen---I’m very happy to finally have a nice, peaceful weekend, where I can take a deep breath, collect my thoughts, and SLEEP GODDAMMIT. So yeah, a recap of events:
PSDN Training
Within Peace Corps Tanzania, we have a special group of volunteers who are members of PSDN, or the Peer Support Diversity Network. The purpose of this group is essentially to help our fellow volunteers cope with life here in Tanzania via confidential counseling and assistance, and, well, let me just say that it’s a good thing it’s around: as PCVs, we got issues. Moreover, PSDN kind of acts as an additional liaison between volunteers and the Peace Corps staff in Dar, which is also pretty important given that issues tend to arise between those two groups. In any case, I am now a proud member of said PSDN group, although, admittedly, I may have had an ulterior motive in joining (PSDN happens to be in charge of the volunteer newsletter; I figure the Camp Fantastic folks can figure out the rest).
So, being a member of the new PSDN recruits, I was obligated to go to a special training in Dar from the 8th to the 11th of June. Technically, this was during the school week, so I unfortunately had to abandon my students for a little bit… I felt so bad about this that I lent them all of my textbooks and gave each class a gigantic problem set to do while I was gone, which I’m sure they just loved </sarcasm>. I think they know that I have their best interest in mind, even if it means solving a ridiculous number of brutally difficult problems on a day-to-day basis. Don’t blame me if the system sucks.
At any rate, I won’t talk about the PSDN training (nor should I, technically), but it was pretty interesting stuff, and it was cool to see a bunch of folks from my class up there (we were somewhat overrepresented… it was awesome). By and large, the stuff that sticks in my head from that trip is, unsurprisingly, the food: we ate Subway, got delivery pizza (it came in a box!), got kickass Lebanese food, and I had proper bacon for the first time in nine months. Decadence in its highest form.
Not too much else to say about that little jaunt up north. Dar, as always, is ridiculous, and as I rode the 16 hours back to Songea on a bus filled with carsick Tanzanians, I couldn’t help but realize that I would be back up there in literally five days. Exciting.
The 50th Anniversary Celebration, and My Birthday in Dar
So when I got back in Songea on Sunday at 10:30pm, I went to sleep, woke up at 6:45am the next day, went to class, lectured for four hours, helped with homework for another four, argued with the Lab Nazi for roughly thirty minutes (more on him later), went home, wrote more lecture notes, graded some papers, ate dinner, and went to bed late. I then proceeded to continue this schedule until Friday morning, at which point I found myself back on a 16-hour bus ride to Dar… again. I guess, technically, this second trip up was broken up into two days, with a brief stop-off in Iringa, but you get the idea.
In any case, this PARTICULAR trip up to Dar was awesome, and it happened during a week-long school break so I didn’t feel guilty. Peace Corps is celebrating its 50th Anniversary this year, and in honor of this fact, Peace Corps Director Aaron Williams came from DC to visit all of us grunts here at PC Tanzania, seeing that Tanzania was one of the first countries to host Peace Corps volunteers (we’re still arguing over who was truly first with PC Ghana… screw those guys). As a result, following a town hall meeting and a PSDN sit-down session with the Director, we had a huge gala event at the US Embassy; I had to wear a tie and nice shoes and clean clothes and everything! Besides my being blinded by luxury at this event, we had a ton of performances from different volunteers, speeches from government officials, and a RIDICULOUS buffet. I know this post (and this blog, for that matter) is quickly turning into “What Paul Ate and Why It Was Mind-Blowingly Delicious”, but, trust me, this thing was AMAZING: we got T.G.I.F.-sized monster plates and were essentially allowed to go buck-wild over a huge assortment of curries, pilau, steak, cheese, chicken, Chinese-style noodle dishes, whole freaking grilled flounder… wow, I can’t really write about this now. Let me just say that I deeply regretted filling up on a double cheeseburger earlier that day. Which was also delicious, for that matter.
What was perhaps cooler than the 50th celebration, however, was hanging out with all the other volunteers who were in town. Roughly a third of Peace Corps Tanzania showed up for this event---everyone from different classes and locations---so it was a real mix of PC culture. It was truly surprising how many folks I straight-up didn’t know… I guess my acquaintances only range from Iringa southward, with the exception of my training class.
In any case, hanging out with a bunch of the seasoned veterans in Dar was an awesome experience. Believe it or not, this was the first time in my service that I truly got to see Dar as a city; all of my previous forays into the metropolis were fleeting at best and disastrous at worst (the very worst involving a number of AK-47s… ahem). Moreover, this trip to Dar was the first time I truly got to see the Peninsula portion of the capital, which is somehow both incredibly safi (it’s full of huge, gated compounds and is where the majority of the expats live) and incredibly dangerous at the same time (if you walk along Toure Drive at night, you will be robbed or kidnapped). Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of our combined Peace Corps exploits around the Peninsula and Dar proper during this time were centered around food: during the course of my stay, I ate an unreasonable amount of foreign (i.e. non-Tanzanian) meals, each of which I still remember with utter clarity and tender longing. My obsession over food even freaks me out a little bit.
Perhaps the coolest day I spent in Dar was my 24th birthday, which happened to be the day after the 50th Anniversary celebration, when everyone was still in town. As a kid with a summer birthday, this happenstance was divine retribution in its sweetest form: after a lifetime of having only small celebrations due to summer camp absenteeism and family vacations, I now found myself celebrating my birthday during the unique few days when literally everyone was around… it was a pretty big ego boost. So, true to form, a bunch of us went to the Mlimani Centre (it’s a legit American-style mall… in the middle of Dar es Salaam), where I had a McDonald’s-style fast-food chicken sandwich (!), got caramel corn (!!), and went and saw X-Men: First Class in a freaking legit movie theatre (!!!). Okay, I know this birthday sounds totally lame to you folks back home, but, trust me, this was so awesome I could barely contain myself the entire time I was there.
After this particular awesomeness, a bunch of us decided to hit up Las Vegas casino in town to take a crack at increasing our pitiful Peace Corps salaries. Now, to be totally honest, while I technically have been in casinos before, I was---and still am---a complete gambling neophyte. I mean, I know how the system works in principle, but I am still far from understanding the various nuances and intricacies of the practice---which games to play, when to hit, when to stay, how to comport myself in an appropriate manner when I win, how to comport myself in an appropriate manner when I lose, etc. But man, I gotta say: after that particular night, I can see why this crap is addictive, and I am very, very glad I had some fellow volunteers help show me the ropes. I owe those guys a huge debt of gratitude, because Lord knows I would’ve been screwed otherwise.
In any case, to give you all an idea of what went down, I started the night with 50,000/=, which I promptly lost in about 30 minutes. I then cashed in an additional 20,000/=, which I again promptly lost in about 10 minutes. I then proceeded to sit at the table looking sad until one of my friends decided to throw me a bone and lend me 10,000/= from his winnings. From this, I somehow was able to win 165500/= by the end of the night, putting me at a net gain of 95500/=. This was huge; to give you some perspective, I make 230000/= a month as a volunteer. Throw in about five or so chicken-and-cheese sandwiches as well as multiple beverages---luxuries in their own right and all of it comped by the casino---as well as the fact that literally everyone in my group came out on top, and I can safely say that, by the end of the night, I was happier than a pig in shit. So yeah, I’d say it was a pretty excellent birthday.
So, after a number of other Dar shenanigans in the following days, I finally boarded the 6:00am bus back to Songea. Granted, I was horribly sleep-deprived and about five pounds heavier, but I was happy---happy I had a good time with good friends in the capital, and happy to go home and sleep in my own bed. I have no idea when I’ll next be up there, but the collective awesomeness of my two trips there this past month will be hard to top.
The Great Flood and The 4th of July
With my return back to Songea two weeks ago, my life began to regain a bit of its normalcy---and by normalcy, I mean work. I’ll write up another post complaining about my most recent teaching woes later (it’s really not that bad… I do, in fact, enjoy my work here), but for now I’ll just focus on covering the major events that have been going down in the past few weeks.
For one, at about noon on the Wednesday after I got back from Dar, I was getting out of my ice-cold shower (given that it’s cold season right now, the water in my shower is so cold that it literally gives me a headache and makes my teeth hurt... taking a shower during midday helps this a bit), when I noticed that there was a small amount of water leaking from the hot and cold taps of my bathroom sink (although, in reality, they’re both actually cold). Not having the foresight to put clothes on and then investigate, I poked the hot tap hose lightly, at which point the connection between the rubber hose and the metal pipe (which had practically rusted through) exploded, snapping the hose completely off and causing a four-foot-high jet of water to arc across my bathroom. This explosion was enough to cause the cold water tap to also burst at the same time, sending another jet of water arcing in the other direction across my bathroom. Luckily, both pipes were fairly small in diameter, so I could stop both with my thumbs; however, after frantically looking around my bathroom for a little bit, I realized that literally every valve that could technically stop the flow of water to the sink had been encased in concrete. So, in essence, I was stuck---cold, naked, and shivering, my thumbs pressed on two broken pipes, kneeling in what had become a small lake of ice-cold water in my bathroom.
My first logical thought when presented with this dilemma was that I needed to turn off the water to my house. I knew where the meter was... this would, in theory, lead me to the main shut-off valve. The primary issue was that my water meter was located outside, and, given my current state---wet and naked---and the fact that I have neighbors who are conservative Christians, simply running out nude and turning off my water would prove… problematic. Yet, I had no other recourse (save for the nude part), and so, after muttering a quiet curse on all Tanzanian plumbers, I let go of the pipes, raced into my bedroom, threw on whatever clothes I could find (track pants, a sweater, and flip-flops), and sprinted outside my house to my water meter. As it turned out, I was correct about the main shut-off valve being connected to the meter, but, as I was horrified to discover, the handle had been broken off, meaning that I couldn’t turn the valve without the help of a pipe wrench, which I didn’t have.
So, after a brief moment of panic, I raced to my neighbor’s house, banging on her door and yelling something along the lines of “HELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPME”---not my most dignified moment in Tanzania, I know. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a pipe wrench, either, but she sent her son over to see if we could do anything about the situation. Luckily for me, her son was pretty handy, and, over the course of fifteen minutes or so, we were able to fashion some makeshift stoppers for both pipes out of a few plastic bags and a lot of duct tape. At this point, however, the damage had already been done: five minutes of unchecked water flow had left my bathroom, bedroom, closet, and main hallway all submerged in about an inch-and-a-half of water, meaning that the majority of my clothes and my shoes were completely soaked, not to mention my backpack and the books inside of it.
After doing some preliminary damage control (and opening all the windows), I ran over to the school to see if the school plumber was around. After being laughed at by all the other teachers (Tanzanians aren't big on sympathy), I finally managed to get a hold of his number, and he agreed to come check out my situation right away. It took him about two hours to finally show up (even though it’s a 15-minute ride from town), so, in the meantime, I went ahead and taught my scheduled Form VI class in my (now sopping wet) sweater, track pants, and flip-flops, using my (also sopping wet) textbooks and lecture notes. Needless to say, my students got a real kick out of that.
So the plumber came, turned off my water, assessed my situation, made a parts list, and pledged that he would fix it. Unfortunately, given that I still had a large, full storage tank located in my ceiling constantly applying pressure to my improvised plastic-bag stopper, I had to front the initial cost since I wanted the pipe fixed immediately; getting the school to pay upfront would take more than a week. Luckily, the plumber was true to his word, and after a brief visit the next day, followed by a lot of mopping on my part, my house pretty much returned to its original state. All I have to say about the entire ordeal is that it’s a good thing that it’s still dry season; I don’t think all that water would’ve ever evaporated otherwise.
As for the 4th, I feel it’s worth mentioning since I have a few goofy pictures to go with it. We had a pretty subdued celebration overall down here in Songea: a few folks out in the bush came into town and we hiked up Matogoro, after which we had a decent little gathering at my house and made some patty melts, which, for lack of a better term, were crotch-grabbingly delicious.
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| The pinnacle of Peace Corps culinary art. |
Oh yeah, and Mom and Dad, in case you’ve ever wondered if we truly appreciate your gift packages:
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| Don't judge. |
So yeah, it was a pretty good 4th overall. I’m not gonna lie: I’m a little jealous of you folks back in the States, but I think we pulled it off fairly well here in Songea. To be fair, I was also pretty exhausted at this point from Dar and indoor floods and whatnot, so I was perfectly happy to keep things low-key for the weekend. But yeah, even though it’s a week late, I hope you guys all had an excellent Independence Day, and I promise to update a bit more frequently in the coming weeks!
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