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#