Guest post: new mailing address

Kathryn has a mailing address at her site.  She is sharing a post office box with the nearest volunteer.  She can be reached at:

Kathryn Alexander
P.O.Box 12
Kitangali, Newala, Mtwara, Tanzania

She is about an hour walk from Kitangali,  longer than the distance would indicate because there is a very large, deep valley she has to cross and scaling it is pretty slow.   (Note the "l" instead of the originally reported "r" in Kitangali.  She said that "l" and "r" are largely interchangable in Kiswahili and that the "l" is more common for that town's name.)

She likes her headmaster and said everyone has been very nice and helpful. She is making some progress on getting settled in and has managed to get her mosquito net hung from the hard-to-reach ceiling and successfully made a tasty eggplant / tomato / onion meal with her stove.  There is a well outside her house and she said when it is low the students carry buckets of water to fill it.  She still needs to find a way to store her stuff and is thinking she could stack some of the baskets they use for fruits and veggies on their sides to make a bookshelf of sorts.  She likes the other Peace Corps volunteers in her region and some of them have electricity so she can go charge her phone and other electronics.  She is thinking about getting a modem so she doesn't have to make the 4-hour trek to the internet cafe.

[Posted by mom, based on info from phone conversations with dad & sis ]

Guest post: Kathryn on site

Hi everyone, this is a post on Kathryn's behalf by her assistant editor / mom. Since it may be a while before she has internet access (currently a 4-hour bus ride away), I will give a short summary of our phone conversation earlier today.

After a busy day on Wednesday (swearing in day) and only a couple of hours sleep, Kathryn left early Thursday morning for her site, accompanied by the headmaster of the school where she will be teaching. They arrived safely late Thursday evening after a very long and very crowded bus ride on a mostly unpaved road. Even though though the rainy season is just getting started, the bus got stuck in the mud for a couple of hours. They were met by students who helped carry her bags to her new home. She will live in one side of a duplex, with the other side occupied by the other full-time teacher at the school. He is the chemistry & biology teacher and her designated "counterpart". The current school term is just ending, so Kathryn will begin teaching in mid January. She will teach math and physics for forms 1-4 (8th grade through 11th grade).

Her living quarters are almost empty at the moment, containing only a bed and a little table with a couple of chairs. There are no shelves or counters of any sort, so she can't really unpack yet. On Friday, her counterpart helped her buy a few dishes, a small kerosene stove and some food. She has yet to meet the nearest Peace Corps volunteer, a health care worker who lives in a village on the other side of a small nearby town. She hopes he has some hints for how to get furniture and other household purchases home on buses so full that the aisles are packed with people standing. There is no electricity or running water.

On Saturday, Kathryn got up early and used her battery-powered head lamp to get ready while it was still dark. Then she rode the bus (standing) for a couple of hours to get to the town of Ndanda, where she joined some other PC volunteers from the area for a Thanksgiving dinner. She will return to her new home on Sunday and resume the process of settling in.

She does not yet have a mailing address. She can be reached at the same phone number (assuming she can find a way to keep it charged, possibly by obtaining a solar charger).

swearin-in

I added a bunch of pictures from our last week in Morogoro, so check them out from the photo stream.

We've been back in Dar for a couple of days which has been a lot of fun because we're all back in one big group again. It's also nice to have some freedom back. I will really miss my host family, especially Isaac, but am excited to be in charge of my own schedule/life/etc. Anyways we've mostly just been hanging out and doing logistics stuff...All of the headmasters of our schools came to Dar and we met with them this morning. My headmaster seems really nice, but it was a bit awkward to come up with lots of things to talk about...should be even more fun sitting next to each other on the10 hour bus ride on down to site.

Tomorrow I will officially swear-in as a PCV! We recently had one volunteer go home, which was sad but for the best, so there will only be 38 of us swearing-in. We have a big celebration tomorrow morning at the US Embassy, that will consist of taking an oath, lots of speeches and singing songs (American and Tanzanian national anthems), and we are evening putting on a performance of the Beatles song "With a Little Help from my Kiswahili (Friends)" that was rewritten with Kiswahili lyrics...it is probably going to sound pretty terrible but will be fun nonetheless. Then tomorrow evening we are going over to the US Ambassador's house for a Thanksgiving dinner. Thursday morning I'll wake up at 4 am and hop on a 6 am bus ride for Mtwara!

Hopefully I can post some more pics after our swearing-in ceremony. All the guys will be sporting "swearing-in staches" so they should look pretty nasty.

Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

Shadow week

Shadow week was amazing! I like to think I've been on some pretty cool trips, but last week felt like the greatest vacation I've ever had. I was in a group with TJ (one of my best friends here), Glenn, and David and we had a blast. We started the trip off pleasantly surprised; I guess we were all expecting a miserable 10-hour bus ride on something in between a crazy local daladala and a Greyhound, but we stepped onto a nice bus with freezing cold air conditioning. About 15 minutes into the ride a man came around with ice cold cokes (served with straws!) and delicious little cakes (tasted like angelfood!). I think you have probably never seen four happier people in your whole life, and we probably would have been satisfied to just vacation on that bus. And sure enough the giant cheesy grins didn't leave our faces for the rest of the week. The bus ride flew by and we arrived in Mbeya around 8 pm. We were met at the bus station by a health PCV that lives in Mbeya and the vice principal of the Mbeya Institute of Science and Technology (MIST), who drove us all out to the MIST campus. The PCV we were shadowing, Anita, teaches computer engineering there and lives on campus in teacher housing. Her apartment was super safi (clean, nice, upscale) and bigger and probably nicer than any college apartment I ever lived in. She had electricity and running water, an oven, stove, refrigerator, freezer, and, get this, a blender. It was exciting to walk into a kitchen with fancy cooking appliances, after being used to sitting on the ground and cooking Tanzanian food (mostly rice and beans) over a little charcoal stove. Anita is also an amazing host and loves to cook delicious meals for people, so you can probably imagine where I'm going with this story. Anyways, we arrived there and were immediately treated to a giant pot of homemade enchiladas (what?!) and guacamole (what what?!).

So what other amazing things did I eat?! Oh don't worry, I documented all of the deliciousness, so I hope you weren't expecting pictures of anything other than food:
- I bought vanilla yogurt, granola with raisins, and peanut butter
- We made spaghetti with marinara sauce
- We made guacamole (again) and I made pineapple and mango salsa (even had cilantro!)
- We tried to make frozen margaritas but didn't have enough lime so added in mango, pineapple, orange, and konyagi (kind of like gin)...therefore inventing konyagiritas
- Went to out to eat at a restaurant where a fellow PCV told us he ate the best hamburger in Tanzania. It had a giant scoop of guacamole and some sort of cole-slaw type mixture and was served with french fries. It was delicious. We went there twice.
- We made pizza (homemade dough and sauce, veggies, CHEESE!) and a fresh salad with homemade balsamic vinaigrette dressing (perhaps the most enjoyable thing I ate all week), topped off with a couple of glasses of red wine
- I baked peanut butter cookies that we snacked on during our hike
- We cooked spinach lasagna (homemade noodles and ricotta cheese...who knew you can make ricotta cheese so easily?!), served with homemade focaccia bread drizzled with balsamic vinaigrette
- After a long day of hiking we chowed down on some vegetarian chili, served with chopped onions and yogurt. As an appetizer we enjoyed a fresh tomato and mozzarella salad tossed in balsamic vinaigrette.
- Veronica and I cooked an awesome Saturday morning brunch of eggs scrambled with potatoes, onions, peppers, and tomatoes, served with chapati (kind of like oil-soaked tortillas), fresh tomato and avocado slices, and bananas
- Konyagaritas (again, but perfected...more mango plus avocado for creaminess),
- We made SUSHI...No fish but they were still pretty delightful with mango, cucumber, and avocado (never would have though that my first time making sushi would be in Africa). Served it with miso soup and Anita even made homemade chocolate cake with chocolate-coffee icing for dessert.
- I also enjoyed drinking real, brewed coffee (hot and ICED!) all week

Don't worry we didn't just eat. We also relaxed a lot. One day I even took 2 naps. And I wore shorts around her apartment all week which felt so nice, despite making me more aware of how pale, fat, and hairy my legs have become. I even got in a little exercise and went for a nice run with Anita one morning around the farms outside her school. On Thursday we also met up with some of our fellow trainees (Veronica, Justin, Tim, and Paul) that were also shadowing in the Mbeya area for a beautiful hike at Crater Lake. It was actually a pretty tough hike to the top and then down and back up from the water, but it was well worth it.

On the weekend a bunch of PCVs that live in Mbeya region came into town and we met them all and hung out at their favorite bars. I learned that PCVs get crazy and drink a ridiculous amount whenever they manage to get together, so I'll have to try and not become an alcoholic.

In summary, the week was completely unproductive and Anita's site (rumored as the safi-est of all PC/TZ) couldn't be further from what I'll experience at my site, but needless to say it was the perfect vacation! After leaving food heaven, we came back to reality (Morogoro). This week was our last week of training, and we spent each day at our training hub doing final exams, logistics stuff, etc. This morning I took my final oral language interview/exam and this evening we're having a little goodbye celebration with our host families. On Sunday we'll leave to go back to Dar and prepare to be sworn-in as PCVs on Wednesday...ahhh it feels great to be done with training!

NEW PICS! (58-109) http://picasaweb.google.com/KathrynBAlexander/PCTanzaniaPST#

SITE ANNOUNCEMENT!!!!

Today was quite the exciting day! Our Country Director, Andrea, came in from Dar with a couple other PC staff. After morning chai at our training hub, CCT, we all gathered under a mango tree with a beautiful view of the mountain in the background. They brought in traditional African dancers and drummers and we watched a dance and then all joined in. We all sat down and they brought out a big map of Tanzania. Everyone's pictures were covered up with post-its and strings were pinned from each picture to their future site. One of the PCTs got to go up to the board and uncover the first person's face and then that person came up to hear a little about their site and then uncover the next face, and so on and so on. It was all very dramatic and exciting and happy!

So now the news you really care about...I'll be spending the next 2 years in Mtwara region in southeast Tanzania at the border with Mozambique!!! I'm on the Makonde Plateau, so I'll have fairly cool weather which will be a nice change from the heat. I've heard its really beautiful and is famous for its cashew nuts! I'll be about halfway between the towns of Mtama and Newala, at a school called Maputi Secondary School. It's a pretty new school (opened in 2007) and has never had a PCV before. That means I don't know much about my site except for that it an O-level (forms 1-4 -> ~grades 8-11) rural, co-ed day school has about 250 students. It has a headmaster (principal) and 3 diploma teachers (just have high school diploma), only 2 of which are full-time. It looks like I'll be teaching physics and math.

One of my good friends here, Katie, will actually be in Newala town and I think we are just a 2 hour bus ride away from each other which is really nice. Another friend from my CBT, Leslie, is also in the region but closer to the coast. Several good friends are spread far around the country so it will be sad to say goodbye but hopefully we will be able to see each other on occasion. It sounds like there are/will be 15-20 PCVs in the region so I will have plenty of opportunities to meet/see other volunteers. I've already spoken with a couple of current volunteers down there and I'm getting so excited! It sounds like I'm pretty much out in the bush, with no electricity or water (water in this region is a big problem). In general this part of Tanzania is one of the least developed, and has very few paved roads (as one PCV that lives there put it...there's one kind-of-paved road). During dry season it takes 8-10 hours by bus to Dar and during rainy season it takes over a day. It is home to the Makonde tribe, which I've heard is one of the most "traditional" tribes (they also used to be cannibals) and also predominately Muslim, so it is a fairly conservative area.

Anyways, I'm so relieved to finally know where I'll be and to get down there!! Tomorrow I'm off to Mbeya for shadow week...hopefully I return with lots of good pictures!

mikumi, teaching, etc.

Sorry for the delay, but PICTURES ARE UP!! Check out the photostream above or visit http://picasaweb.google.com/KathrynBAlexander/PCTanzaniaPST?feat=directlink.

LIVING:
My homestay family is still great. My mama has pretty much blown every conservative stereotype that PC told us out the window. I came home the other night and she told me that she had just remembered that today was her birthday. Remembering that she told me she was 25 the first day I moved in, I mentioned that she turned 26, to which she responded that no, she had turned 24. So I guess I'm still not sure how old she is, but it looks like she's just 6 months or so older than me which is amusing because homestay is conducive to being treated like a child (here's how you use the toilet, take a bath, cook, wash your clothes, clean your room, etc.). I also found out that her and my baba aren't actually married, but live together and have a child which is extremely untraditional for Tanzania. And after every warning given to me about how religious Tanzanians are and how they will not understand you if you say you don't have a religion, of course my Mama isn't religious at all. Of course village life will be much different, but it has been neat to see a broader picture of modern Tanzanians.

Flora, my house dada (house sister = live in housekeeper/cook) ran away about a week ago. It’s a pretty long story that I won’t go into because I still don’t really understand what happened myself. But long story short she is gone and now its just me, Mama Isaac, my kaka Isaac, and my dada Betty. It has been pretty crazy without Flora because she really did most of the work around the house and stayed home during the day with Isaac. I’ve had to pitch in a lot more around the house, which means waking up earlier and staying up later to help with the chores. My personal favorite (read: NOT) is sweeping the dirt around outside the house; I’m not sure I’ll ever understand the reasoning behind it, but I can say with pretty high certainty that I will not be waking up early to do this once I’m in my own house.

Most people are interested to hear that I eat dinner almost every night with my hands. Well really hand, because you're left hand is reserved solely for wiping yourself (don’t worry, I use toilet paper). At the beginning I was pretty paranoid about using my left hand for something I'm not supposed to and offending someone. For example, have you ever tried to peel a banana using one hand? I have, and it is not easy. Of course after a couple of minutes my mama's friend just started laughing and told me that I could use my left hand to hold the banana peel. I think about it a lot less now and so I've forgotten plenty of times and used my left hand to grab food. My mama and her friends also laugh at me a lot because I haven't really mastered eating rice and beans with my fingers. They're really good at like rolling it into a ball in their hands and eating it but I mostly just make a big mess and my hands are covered in food at the end of the meal. It is pretty amusing. In general, Tanzanians appreciate you even trying to fit into their culture and give you tons of slack because you aren't afterall Tanzanian.

About every other afternoon/evening I'll meet up with some of the other volunteers in the area for a (cold!) beer or soda. I know I won't have that luxury once I'm alone at site, but it's been really nice having other PCVs to talk to that know exactly what you're going through and to just be able to completely relax and be yourself.

TEACHING:
I’m about to finish my third and final week of internship teaching. It has gone alright, and it is definitely hard to take over a classroom for just 3 weeks, but it has been really interesting and I feel like I've learned a lot. English is by far the biggest challenge. Most of the students english skills are not where they need to be to be learning all subjects in English (most Tanzanian teachers teach primarily in Kiswahili which means that the kids can learn the concepts but then fail the exams which are written in English). The hardest part is definitely forcing myself to slow down my speech as much as possible, over-pronounce every syllable, repeat myself, and use really simple vocabulary. Students don't have textbooks and so everything you write (and only what you write) they copy into their notebooks and study from. It takes a long time for them to copy boardwork because they all want to write and draw really perfectly (they seriously use rulers to draw every single line). Besides the language barrier, you generally recieve very little feedback and it's hard to get a lot of class participation. Posing open-ended answers to students and having them feel comfortable answering them is a big challenge and a highlights a pretty huge difference between the Tanzanian and American educational systems; in general, Tanzanian students are not encouraged to think for themselves, but instead to memorize and regurgitate answers. But if anything, internship teaching has made me more excited to have my own class for an entire year, where I can set rules and expectations and really get to know my students. We've had some really great sessions given by current PCVs with really practical information about differences between American and Tanzanian schools, how to manage a classroom, how to encourage critical thinking rather than memorization, etc. Last week we also had a really cool session by a 4th year PCV (a lot volunteers here extend past 2 years) about hands on lab activities. It was a lot of fun and he gave us a lot of great information and ideas that have made me really excited to teach science as interactively as possible, and all of the cheap and local materials you can use to do so.

TRAVELLING:
Two weekends ago we went to Mikumi national park, which was about a 2 hour drive from Morogoro. It was a really great weekend and just the break we all needed from training. We did a late afternoon safari on Saturday and then a very early morning safari on Sunday morning. It was a really amazing experience and really the first time that it hit me I was actually in Africa and how lucky I am to be in Tanzania and experience the things I'm experiencing. I'm not even a huge animal person and I must say that it was so cool to see all of the elephants, giraffes, zebras, impalas, warthogs, a hippo, etc. Watching the sunset in the park was also incredible. We partied a bit on Saturday night and actually managed to stay up until like 2:30 in the morning which is really incredible when I think most of us go to bed around 9:30 every night. Anyways, the weekend went by way too fast but it was a lot of fun!

Training is starting to drag on and a lot of us are getting pretty antsy to move on to our sites, be able to cook and clean in our own houses, etc. Luckily this week seems like our last real week of training because on Sunday we’ll leave for shadowing current PCVs. I’m headed to Mbeya region, in southwest Tanzania close to the border with Zambia. It is one of the furthest sites and takes about 10 hours by bus from Morogoro. There are four of us going there, and I feel really lucky to be in the group I’m in (PC seems to like splitting us up completely arbitrarily); one of the guys is one of my best friends here and the other two are really cool and laidback so it should be a fun trip. I’m extremely excited to see some more of the country, and have heard good things about Mbeya (green and lush, cooler, tasty rice, etc.). It will also be really helpful to see how a volunteer lives, works, eats, sleeps, etc.

On Saturday we find out our site placements so it should be a crazy day filled with lots of emotions! I’m super anxious and it is pretty much torture waiting to find out where I’ll be living for the next two years and which volunteers I’ll be nearest to...stay tuned!!

Oh ya and it’s also been pretty crazy here lately with all the excitement surrounding the presidential election, which happened on Sunday. The current President, Kikwete, ran for a second term and won, which was expected. However, his party, CCM (which has dominated for a really long time) lost a lot of their seats in parliament to other parties which was also expected because there are a lot of people that think CCM has been in power for too long and want to see what other parties can deliver. Anyways, it was expected to be a peaceful election, but as a precaution we were on standby from Peace Corps (stay at home and don’t go into town and be ready to hear from Peace Corps with further instructions, etc.).

Ok, that's all I can think of for now...badaaye (later)!