Training might have been only 10 weeks long but it features strongly in my internal narrative so far so I’ll spend a bit more time on it.
After the initial settling in period I (mostly) got used to the necessity of two bucket baths per day, the grueling 9-10hrs of Swahili and education lessons (7am to 4-5pm) and my host family speaking at and around me only in Swahili. I learned that if I skipped any sleep and tried to ignore the equatorial sunrise and sunset schedule I would be surrounded by Charlie-Brown-adult-esque speakers jabbering away, with my brain parsing not a word. Occasionally I sat outside my Mama’s duka after class and all the neighborhood kids would crowd me. After requisite respect greetings all around we’d practice my new, profoundly basic vocabulary. If I was feeling too exhausted I’d stay inside and hang out with my host family’s kids. Often the PC staff would give us even more work to do at home and I’d pencil at that until nilihitaji kusinzia (I had to sleep) Zz. One time I even found time to write a letter home to America, I was thrilled, the next day I realized I had missed an assignment, oops. When lessons switched to pure swahili I had a bit of an issue because my brain would drop whole sentences it wasn’t making sense of, often these included assignments.
Shadow Visit
Peace corps gives us 3 days at a semi-randomly selected volunteer’s site to kuzoea (become accustomed to) life as a Peace Corps volunteer and to get some tips on setting up shop and getting things done. Mine was up to the mountains of Tanga. Through opportunities like this I have climbed (or been around) mountains from 5 different regions of Tanzania already. Climbing up into Leshoto town in a dala (minibus), continuing deep into the mountains and finally looking out onto the plains of Kenya on the other side of all of them–fantastic.
Besides the beauty it was very lush. My area can be quite lush but only during the rains which are slowly ending now at the beginning of April. After the rains stop they stop and there are only monthly sprinkles, or so the residents tell me. There are downsides, along with all the rain comes an impossible transit situation during the rainy season. The previous year my shadow host had been stretched by an 8hr walk from the nearest hospital, volunteer, bank and internet cafe. After arriving in Leshoto town there was 3 hours of dala rides, and then a 40 minute walk to my host.
She had no power and no running water anywhere near her house–simply a dirty spring which turned out to be enough. We visited the village center, bought some and for the first time really got out into a community to talk to neighbors. Somehow such core conversations do more for my Swahili than anything else. The next day the other 8 shadowing volunteers and their 5 hosts came together and we hosted a gathering without power–a daunting task. Many of them had hiked 3 hours through the mountain pass. We managed to bed all of the people into the 3 small rooms of my shadow host and I achieved the malaria-prophylaxis-disturbed sleep typical of training. The next day we ended, as I mentioned, over the plains of Kenya in the terminus mountain village of Mlalo where one of the PCVs had lived, until this year, at a mission church with the memorable vista. Another sparse night, this time with electricity, and the next morning we caught the bus back to Dar Es Salaam.
Site announcements
In the last few weeks of training we finally learned our site and the loose details of our situation. It was a tense ceremony there was a little crying but I think it was only from happy people. I was placed into the semi-arid Dodoma region. I was assigned to a college for teachers in an ICT post to help teach about computers and technology to student teachers and professors alike. I can’t go into specifics on the public side of the blog but as I love maps I might post some privately one day soon after I fix the troubles with the private login.
My sitemate Ben holds an illustration of a huge Baobao Tree welcoming the selected few to our new, often sparse and dry region. The education volunteers go to high schools in practically every region of Tanzania–from the desert, from plains to the coast, from the mountains to the highlands, and (until recently) to the lakes. My Host Country National (Peace Corps Lingo for Tanzanian) coworkers are also transferred from every corner of Tanzania by the government–a nice parallel.
Since that day four months have passed, I’ve now been in Tanzania for 6 months. Hard to believe. I’ve spent more time living in Tanzania relative to any other US state besides Ohio. The past four months have gone so much faster than those first two and it still seems that I’ve accomplished so much personally and so little generally in the country. I look forward to the next 18 months and fully appreciate the extra year that Peace Corps demands from volunteers compared to other volunteering endeavors–I can see it is impossible to get to full productivity in one year only. More time is good.
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