My village's dog FAQs

Scene: talking to the women down by the road. Their agenda is to get me to marry their cousin. The topic turns to my dog. 

Woman: why is your dog skinny? Have you seen OUR dog? He's gotten fat. Are you feeding your dog?

Me: "of course I feed him, he just hasn't gotten fat yet"

Cousin: (in English): "he has a maintained figure."

~~~~~~~~~~

Questions people (mostly kids but some adults) have asked me about my dog:

"Are you going to take him to America? He's gonna need a passport right?"

"Does your dog have a cellphone?"

"Have you trained your dog yet to take money to the market and bring you back vegetables? Dogs do that in Europe don't they?"

"Your dog needs a female, when are you gonna get him one?"

"Say hi to your dog for me!"

"What have you brought?!"

"Let's go slaughter him!"

"When does he need his shots again?"

"Who feeds him when you're gone? Is that person a Muslim?"

"Have you gone hunting with him yet?"

"Give him soup! He'll get fat!"

(On the bus/ in town): "where's your dog? Why did you leave him at home?"

:)

Ol Doinyo Lengai

At a certain point in your life, you find yourself on the side of an active volcano, legs aching and trembling, being led down in the early morning light by the hand of a Maasai warrior, the escarpments of the great Rift Valley slowly coming into focus, reaching out in front of you. 

Just when I thought I was beginning to understand Tanzania, I go to another part, and once again am bewildered, bedazzled, and humbled by this country, this environment, and these people all over again. 

Northwest of Arusha, the landscape changes. It is a moonscape: grey ash covers the ground; there are entire fields of rounded stones; little vegetation. The terrain becomes more hilly, more mountainous. This time of year is still hot and dry, and lush vegetation is nowhere to be found; only dried grasses, scraggly acacia trees, low sparse shrubs. 

Once you see the volcano, the magma flows that substitute (poorly) for roads and the grey sand that's really volcanic ash start to make more sense. The bus bobs, weaves, and threads its way through the landscape. There are few villages along the way, and even far from houses you see Maasai tending their cattle in the hot sun. Children run up to the bus and beg, and passengers throw them their empty soda bottles or a little change. 

The wind here is fierce, especially at night. We leave the bedroom window open because without a breeze it is still quite hot inside, but the wind gusts and whistles, threatening to tear the blanket and sheets off of your body. I switch to a sleeping bag and am able to relax, listening to the wind whip across this flat part of land. 

We climbed up the volcano in the dark. About three quarters of the way there, one of my volunteer friends and I decide to rest and then turn back, because from there it only got steeper and more difficult as you approach the rim. We had been climbing up old lava flows, gripping our walking sticks and the pumice-like stone that has the unfortunate tendency to crumble under your grip. Your legs ache more than they ever have before, and the channels we follow have a layer of volcanic ash, making you feel like you're moonwalking, as your steps slide backward and you find yourself making little progress. 

So one of the guides remains with us as the rest of the gang continues on to summit. We arrange ourselves in the dark, like mountain goats, trying to find a position to rest in at this impossible angle. We turn off our headlamps and I lie down in a groove, putting my backpack under my head and settling into the ash to rest. Remarkably, the three of us all get a little sleep before waking in the cold and descending, slowly and not without slips and falls in the loose terrain. The evolution of daylight is magnificent; we climbed up in pitch darkness, and now in half-light, we can see the landscape far, far below us, the dark and shadowed patterns of lava flows, the escarpments which mark the edge of the Serengeti. 

Marco, our lodge manager, volcano guide, and Maasai warrior, sings as he capers down the mountain. He sings songs in Kimaasai, he raps, he makes up his own songs about us. He points out the flows from the last eruption, which was in 2008 and which he was here for. 

The three of us make it down without incident, and wait trepidatiously for the rest of the group. There is no cell phone service in this area, not even up on the volcano, so if anything went wrong we wouldn't know until if or when they come off the mountain. And thankfully, around late morning they come off the mountain, exhausted and covered in grey ash, weary and sore, having made it up to the summit. 

In the evenings, from our lodge you can see giraffes passing in the distance, making their graceful way towards water. There are unlikely streams here; cutting their way through sun and ash, they run clear and beautiful, arteries that life is strung out along. Herds of zebras can also be seen in the distance, resting under and around trees. 

The next day we hike up a stream to a waterfall; it is the most beautiful and refreshing thing we could ask for. Coconut palms and lush plants grow high where the water erupts from a spring, then cascades through a crevice and then down to a tall and wide tunnel that opens up again, pools and rushing water, some cool and some warm, massaging your sore muscles. 

I leave a day early to get back to my dog. Marco takes me to the stand to wait until my bus comes. He talks to me about his hopes and fears, what he's done and what he wants to do. He doesn't want his culture to be lost, but at the same time, he says, he's frustrated when he sees men who have an abundance of cattle - hundreds, thousands - at the expense of other things, such as education or good clothing for their children. It is late morning and the sun is already strong and hot, but Marco doesn't seem to notice. In his eyes are obsidian and centuries.

I board my bus and land a seat in the front, next to an older man who is a teacher and speaks good English. We pass vultures eating what seems to be a lion's kill, then a herd of zebras gallops in front of our bus. A family of baboons  moves slowly a short distance away from the road, a baby riding its mother's back.  We pass more children, who are selling an ostrich egg. An ostrich egg! And a short while later we pass a huge male ostrich. "The female mustn't be too far away," the teacher informs me. All this seen from a typically noisy bus on a typically bumpy road. 

The soil segues from volcanic ash back to the red clay I'm used to seeing where I live. But my mind has yet to depart from that land, full of tall, graceful people in their African tartans, gazing out at the mesmerizing sight of cattle walking lazily ahead of them, hides glistening, slowly whipping up a cloud of ash under their hooves. Plodding, peaceful, beautiful beasts. 

Hundreds. Thousands. 

Drying up

I planted my garden which may have been quite a mistake at this time of year. It needs about five buckets of water a day, which I have to carry from the pond down by the road. Even with that much water, only the surface is moistened. Corn and sunflowers have sprouted, but everything else is still contemplating existence under the soil in the hot sun. 

Rains won't start until November, so I can always wait until then to plant a round two to save time and energy in case this round fails. 

Every morning I still go down to the pond to get water, where there is still some clear water in the small springs and sand pits the women have dug to filter out the cloudiness of the pond water. The Chinese road construction company pulls up its two big water trucks on the far side of the raw pond, letting down big hoses powered by generators to pull up the muddy water to fill their tanks. Sometimes it feels a bit like a race; the trucks taking up water rapidly on one side, women with plastic buckets and cans of every color scooping up water by the bowlful on the other. Mechanical advantage is not something to be messed with. 

Things are progressing slowly here; in the past week or so I've been to two village government meetings regarding the water situation. Meetings are fine, except when you get there on time and have to wait an hour plus for everyone else to show up, and then evening is approaching rapidly and all you can think about is how tired you are of trying to understand rapid-fire Swahili, and how you still have to light your charcoal stove and cook. 

At the second meeting, I guess I had a bit of a dazed and glassy look to me as the meeting wrapped up, and I stepped outside as people were shifting, in an attempt to segue back to my house. The leaders called me back in and handed me a thousand shilling note. "Go get soda," they told me. I tried to decline but the sympathetic looks on their faces told me that they knew how I was feeling; exhausted and in need of a sugar pick-me-up. Maybe I should be a little more careful to not let my air of ennui show during these meetings!

Life goes on under the hot sun, shielding your eyes as you pick your way home from the pond, a bucket full of water on your head, and a rest in the shade on your mind.  

Dog jaunt

It is now the hour of alfajiri - the hour between five and six in the morning. I hear the mosque's plaintive calls from nearby, and Kitmeer's breath as it whistles gently through his nostrils as he dozes on his cushion beside my bed. 

Yesterday I took my dog for a walk. The concept of walking just to walk seems strange and foreign to Tanzanians; why would you choose to go anywhere without an apparent reason, on a hot, sunny day?

But I packed some semblance of a picnic (hard-boiled egg, banana, peanut butter bar crumbles), water, and a book, and we set off. Kitmeer is still at the stage where he loves everybody, which unfortunately is not a reciprocated emotion. He loves children, but unfamiliar ones to him will run away and screech at his approach. He will also run up to adults, although he is a little more cautious when it comes to men. If we are out away from people and a man walks by, though, Kitmeer will woof and let out a gentle growl, as if to inform me of what he is seeing. 

We wandered up towards the church and the primary school, then past, where the soil segues from farmable to sandy and desert-like. Spiky sisal plants dominate the landscape, and we roam narrow herd paths to find small oases of tree groves or single large trees who cast their shadow generously. Down into sand rivers, wandering up their water-worn rocks that have seen no flow but the slow trickle of cattle herds for a very long time. 

We turn back to revisit a large tree where to rest from the hot sun. We had been walking in and along a dried creek ravine, and Kitmeer runs ahead and plunges down a side trail, to descend into it once again. A short minute later, I hear his tormented cries, as if he was convinced the world had swallowed him up, whole and alone. I run back to where I see him crying and waiting, a small tan creature, and call to him. He clambers up the ravine again, and we continue, with him being markedly more careful to keep me in his sights. 

After resting and snacking, we make our slow way back to the village, where we slip through narrow passageways between brick buildings and Kitmeer capers spunkily around the courtyard of a woman drying pigeon pea pods. We both laugh and I stand at the entrance, trying to call Kitmeer out of her courtyard. After a few loops he follows me out. 

We rested in the shade of our home for the rest of the hot and dusty afternoon. 

Home again

The past three weeks I was away from my village for early service training and water security training. I attended both trainings with my counterpart, who is my village executive officer. I think we both learned a lot during the trainings, and it was great getting to spend time with everyone in my class, but these three weeks were very draining. 

On my way back, I was anticipating being able to get money in my banking town, but as things are wont to go, my efforts at the ATMs were stymied. So yesterday I bussed up to my "other" banking town, and luckily was able to get money there, although the bus ride there was a bit traumatizing as the vehicle must have been violating more safety regulations than usual. Long story short, I have a massive bruise on my knee and an oath never to ride that death trap again. 

After the grueling ride, I was walking through the bus stand, looking for my favorite conductor, when two ladies called me by my tribal name. In town I usually ignore pretty much everyone, unless of course they call me by name. I didn't know the ladies very well, but they knew me, and my sense of humanity started to come back into focus, as the misery of the bus ride subsided slowly. 

I had some time to kill so I got a shortbread cookie at the Indian grocery, bought dried chickpeas, and went fabric shopping and found three kitenge I had been looking for. 

I went back to the standi and found my conductor. We laugh about how we was supposed to bring bread for another volunteer who lives on my road, but due to communication issues that mission failed. We buy her more and wait in the dusty sun for it to be time to leave. 

And I went back to my village. Many are happy to see me and welcome me back and ask about where I was. Night falls and I get chai and doughnuts at my favorite chai house, and walk back home through the field of pigeon peas, shadows falling in the moonlight. 

It takes a village

I didn't have a lot planned today. Make mango chutney, take kanga to my seamstress to be hemmed, ask my village executive officer about a letter I need him to write.

I didn't plan on going to a funeral.

A little after noon I headed down to see my seamstress, but on the way I saw her little brother herding the family's bull, who told me that she had gone into town today. I also ran into her father, my carpenter, who informed me that the furniture he's building for me isn't quite ready, and he can't work on it today because there's a funeral. The burial is in the afternoon, he told me, and asked if I was heading over now. I told him I would go later. 

I dropped by to see my drugstore sister, and even she told me she was going to the burial. I asked if we could go together and she agreed. 

So I went back to my house, put some nicer clothes on, and went to find my dada again, but she was nowhere to be found. I walk to the market to see if she passed by that way, but the ladies there say they think she already went to the burial, but that I should wait for them, they'll be heading over too. So I camp out in the market for a while, and buy some fried sweet potato with "pili pili" salsa fresca, and hang out until three of the women and I finally head down to the house where the burial is. 

There are several cars and people everywhere, many people from my village but also people from out of town - mostly I can tell by the way they dress. There are women cooking, and men standing and talking. I see one man I know from church and he gestures inside, telling me to enter. There are at least two dozen women in the room, sitting on a few couches and on large mats on the floor, singing and reading prayers. The focal point is a small red and gold casket, with a photo and a wooden headboard leaned against it, reading the name of the child, not even six years old, who has died, from complications of a stomach illness, as I can best understand. 

The women are interrupted and we are told that Mass will be said now, and we file outside into the courtyard, while men carry the casket and place it on stools before the makeshift altar. Tarps have been suspended overhead, to provide some shade, and there are some chairs but I find myself with some other women standing on the sideline during Mass, with some large tanks and buckets of water behind me. The priest is aware of the large number of Muslims in attendance, and acknowledges them in greeting. 

Mass is said, then the casket is opened and a procession around it is orchestrated. The mother and close female relatives of this small boy are in poor condition; when they bring up the procession, they can barely walk, supported by other family members and friends, and launch into hysterical crying, grieving even until they let their bodies go slack and they are carried inside. 

When the procession finishes, the casket is closed again and carried a stone's throw away from the house, into the field where pigeon peas are growing, soon to be harvested, where a hole has been dug and a mound of red clay soil awaits. 

Up until now it has been a women's ceremony. I only saw one young male family member shed tears, while many women held their shawls and head wraps over their face, grieving quietly, in sympathy, in empathy. But now the men take over. More prayers are said, more holy water dispersed, and the casket is put in the ground. I stand near the small group of women who have been leading the songs throughout. All the other women except this small group disperse, to help with cooking, to sit and rest, to check on the family who is grieving hard. 

Shovels and hoes appear, and the group of more than thirty men, Christians and Muslims, start to tackle the huge mound of red soil. There are fewer than five tools, but it seems that each man seamlessly offers his help, moving the soil efficiently into the hole. The dull thud of shovelfuls of soil being tossed down is rhythmic enough to sound like a heartbeat, coming deep from the earth. 

They say it takes a village to raise a child, but they failed to mention that it also takes a village to bury one as well. For the first time today my tears are close to the surface. I know many of these men, Christians and Muslims, who are dutifully and carefully burying this small body. Most of them have children, even grandchildren, of their own. They all know, we all know, that this misfortune could have happened to any family. 

Funerals are an outlet for sadness, frustration, and grief, in this culture that seems to tamp down emotions such as these. At a funeral, tears are permitted. Mothers breaking into hysterics, even until they cannot walk, is permitted. 

And the men, still stoic, rain down soil on the remnants of a life gone too quickly. 

Hunger: the expected, but uninvited, guest

I ended my day yesterday exhausted, with what I like to call a "triple S" headache: one that stems from Sun, Smoke, and Swahili. 

Perhaps I should rewind a bit to explain it all. 

Yesterday was Idi, which is the day of celebration after the month of Ramadan. I had some idea of what to expect but nevertheless it was an entirely new experience for me. 

Things were different even from the first thing I do when I leave my house every morning: going to the spring to get water. I knew today was a holiday so I made sure to bring my own bowl to scoop water from the small shallow pools where it collects, and when I arrived I was glad I came prepared, because there were only a few young girls around the water, sent to fetch that morning. So I took water, then headed back home. 

After dropping off my water and swapping my kanga for a nicer one, I headed down to see my guesti sister, and found her eating a beans and corn dish with her four-year-old son and our friend from up the hill. She handed me tea and invited me to finish the dish with them, and I obliged, since I told myself Idi is the one day of the year I don't mind relying on other people's hospitality to feed me, since generosity and cooking pots are overflowing this day. 

We compared henna, which the three of us had applied yesterday, and then we headed out, first to stop at our seamstress's place. I'm pretty sure the poor girl didn't get any sleep last night; despite being a Christian herself, most of the village (and thus her clientele) are Muslims, who have been bringing her swaths of brightly printed fabric to sew all manner of dresses, skirts, and shirts for to wear on Idi. Our friend, a mother of twins, came here to check on her request to sew small hats for her daughters, to match their outfits for today. Our seamstress assured that they would be ready in a few hours. 

Next stop was the market to stock up on vegetables, then we got meat at two butchers who were making brisk business that day. Then we headed up to our friend's house, to cook porridge for the twins, and to start cooking pilau. 

I can't say I was much of a help during cooking; there was only one knife, which passed between the capable hands of the two other young ladies. Mama Wawili ("mother of two") cooked on the charcoal stove burning warm and toasty in the sitting room, while my guesti sister used wood to stoke a fire outside, cooking in a pot balanced on bricks over the smoky fire. I peeled garlic and onions and shuttled the bag of salt from inside to outside, while the grandma kept the twins out of range of fire and trouble. 

Finally the pilau, meat and sauce, and additional rice were cooked, and a pot was put on for tea. Mama Wawili had a small crisis when she realized she misplaced the earrings she had bought for her twins to wear. She and my guesti sister take off, thinking maybe they left them at the guesti, and return some time later, calmed down, and with the newly-sewn hats for the twins in tow. 

We eat, then my guesti sister washes her son, then wraps him in a kanga to walk back home to put on his new suit and good shoes. I head out with them, then strike out for my own home, to cuddle my puppy and take a breather from the cooking smoke and the sun that has started to shine with intensity, burning off the haze of the morning. 

I head down to my "road mama", the wonderful old lady who always beckons me if she sees me head down to the road to catch a bus on days that I travel. One of her daughters is visiting from Arusha, and I am fed again, and asked many questions, struggling, as usual, to keep afloat in this world of Kiswahili. One of the schoolteachers comes by, offering to take a photo for a thousand shillings (about 50 cents), then go to develop them in town and bring back copies. I find myself in the center of several photos, then even more as I accompany a granddaughter up to the health clinic, where swarms of children wearing their Idi best are waiting to have their pictures taken. 

Many people have invited me to come visit and eat with them today, but it would be physically dangerous, or even impossible, for me to eat that much food, as they would be disappointed and/ or offended if I didn't eat at every one of their houses. So I stuck to the two meals I had happened upon, and as the day drew to a close, I made a circuitous route to my home, as I didn't want to pass by the health clinic and have to deal with swarms of children trying to take a picture with me. I got back to my house for the most part unnoticed, drank some kool-aid, and fed my dog. I was completely exhausted from a day of loud music, salty food, and bright colors. Talk about sensory overload!

I have mentioned this briefly before, but my tribal name is Kwaari, which means Hunger. I was named such because when I first came to visit my village, it was the season of hunger, before the crops are ready to harvest. This year has been especially hard for my village, so many of whom are farmers, because the rainy season was not a good one and the corn crop, the staple food, suffered. 

Ramadan, the month of fasting, could not have come at a better time, because I think it helped my village forget the trials of the crops. Hunger is normal during Ramadan. Hunger is expected. 

I was talking to a fellow volunteer about Idi. "It's like if Christmas came after Lent," we decided, trying to categorize the festivities in terms of the Christian ones we understand and grew up with.

In my family back home, during Christmas Eve we have a tradition of preparing for the "unexpected guest". When we set the table to eat in the evening, we set one extra place, just in case someone shows up, so that we are ready to invite them to the meal and show them hospitality. 

And on the day of Idi, I found myself here, invited many places but unexpected in others, an unexpected-but-expected guest, never wanting for hospitality. 

Many people delight in my name, "Hunger", but I think that it may be a constant reminder of something that strikes very close to home this year. That kind of hunger, the kind that comes from no rain and shriveling crops, is expected. But it is certainly not invited. 

Chasing skirts/ a holy thirst

This morning I left my house before eight in the morning, determined, as on most other weekdays, to find someone useful (village government, health clinic staff) to ask questions to help garner information for the report I must prepare about my village. But as I made my usual loop passing offices, residences, and the health clinic, not a soul was to be found. Which seems, most unfortunately, to often be the case in this month of Ramadan. My hopes of an eventful morning were rapidly dwindling. 

So I went to my default destination of my old guesti sister's place. I found her cleaning sporadically and huddling inside her bedroom, telling me how cold it was this morning. I laugh and chat with her, and her friend from up the hill arrives too, while the electric crew file in and out and cast their typical joviality over the place. 

My ears perk up when my dada mentions that there is an mnada, or large traveling market, today at a village on the other side of the small mountain range. I have been searching for any excuse to take one of the many paths over the mountains to the other side, so I jump on this opportunity. The female urge to beautify ourselves sets in, and my dada dispatches me and my friend to our respective houses to put on our best clothes for our appearance on that side of the mountain. 

What seems to be about three hours after our first inkling of going, we finally depart. We take a gentle walk through a gradual incline, we pass two low creeks, up some more, sight the village's water tank at the peak, then start the steep and rocky descent to the village and plain below. Over a narrow tree-bridge over a dried gorge, down into a dried gorge of a riverbed, then flat going until we reach the mnada. It takes us about two hours to walk here. 

I don't actually need to buy anything, I've only come to satisfy my desire to cross the mountain range. However as always in these shopping situations, I question my ability to refrain from buying anything. I stop to greet the fabric vendors I recognize from our local mnada, as I consider it very important to maintain good relationships with this gang of people. The sun is brutally hot, and I definitely overdressed for the occasion - I tie my black jacket around my neck and adjust my "thick cotton" kitenge wrapped around my dress. (Though I secretly laugh at the concept of cotton keeping you warm in the cold - many women here tell me that I must keep warm by wearing the "heaviest" cotton possible, which is the wax kitenge that is not very heavy at all. In my opinion, cotton is not really the go-to fabric for warmth or insulation...)

I also question my ability to keep "closed" today - to continue my Ramadan fast. As the afternoon wears on my mouth and throat are going dry, and I feel my breath going stale for want of water. My few packets of koolaid at my house are occupying my thoughts intensely. 

At about three in the afternoon we depart, taking a more direct route this time over the mountain. We climb the rocky surface of the mountain, pausing once, then once again, to rest and to look back at our progress - through the trees you can see the blue tarps of the mnada, far down and far away below us. It is almost inconceivable how high and far we've climbed. 

Most of the way back I follow closely a woman who brandishes an eight-foot-long piece of sugarcane, a common thing to buy at the mnadas. She alternates between using it as a walking stick and holding it horizontally in her hand. Up the mountain I follow her steps closely, the only things in my vision being her flip flops and long skirt, a steep patch of trail about three feet long, and the blunt end of her sugarcane, which comes dangerously close to tapping me in the head on occasion. 

And it is the most natural thing in the world to be thirsty, and to be walking single file through the ups and downs of Africa. But I could be anywhere, as we enter the precious little microclimates of cool oxygen in the shadier parts of the forest. I could be anywhere with anyone and I am here. 

Long days, short water

Today was the first Saturday of Ramadan and a very quiet day indeed. I am continuing to "close" myself for Ramadan, although polishing off my chai thermos at five in the morning when the mosque prayers wake me up and I put the puppy out may be slightly bending the rules a bit. Also I ate some sunflower seeds today - a girl who visited me gave them to me, and I ate two before I realized what I was doing, then justified it, figuring it was more of a pastime than actual food. So I kept eating them. Whoops. 

Our springs are drying up - when I went to get water this morning, like the last few days, the water is very low and dirtier than usual. Once the springs dry up, my village will open a pipe from another nearby village that pumps water here. That water must be paid for, so people pay by the bucket - 50 shillings for a 20-liter bucket of water. 

I made bread for the third time today on my charcoal stove, and I might be getting the hang of it. I'm not using a recipe because I don't have measuring cups and because it's more fun to experiment, figuring out the ratio of flour to water and exactly what amount fits to bake nicely in one of my pots. 

Puppy Kitmeer is in fine fettle. I am now cooking for the both of us, which works out well because it seems I always cook a little more than I can practically eat. So I cook a one pot meal, like a stew or pilaf, take out his portion when it's all cooked, then add salt, curry powder, or whatever seasonings to mine. Then I add a little powdered milk and dagaa (tiny dried anchovy-like fish) to his portion. So far he's not been picky, let's hope he stays that way!

In other news, I finally have a bed! Kitmeer is not a fan because he liked the mattress on the floor, where he could climb onto it. It will be quite some time before he's big enough to jump up on the bed now. Also, he let out a less-than-five-pound-puppy growl at my carpenter's apprentice when they came into my house to assemble the bed. Though he be but little, he is fierce. :)

Ramadan, day one

Today I carried water on my head from the spring (like most days), did laundry, tended to my new puppy, bought a doormat from my seamstress's sister who weaves them out of her fabric scraps, made bread on my charcoal stove "oven" for the first time, and otherwise felt like a great domestic success. I was going to do some data collection in my village but the health clinic was closed, presumably because of the holy day, and the entire village was very quiet. 

So I'm trying to observe the fasting of Ramadan. I've never done it before, seeing as I've never lived around this many Muslims before, but I am giving it a try. Yesterday, the last day before Ramadan, the last thing I ate was sweet spiced chai and two mandazi (slightly sweet fried donut type things). I had come back to my village that day from getting my puppy, and on days that I travel (and sundays, I've decided), I don't have the time or energy to light my charcoal stove to cook for myself, so I go to one of the chai houses. I went as night was falling, and waited as the fresh kettle of tea warmed up on red coals and watched the man fry batch after batch of mandazi. Finally the chai was ready and was poured for me, and two mandazi, still steaming hot, were placed befor me. Dinner of champions. 

And then it wasn't until after the sun set today that I ate or drank anything again. This one day hasn't been that difficult, but then again I didn't really exert myself today - I'm sure I would be saying something different if I had been working on a farm under the hot sun all day, as many people here do. And I'm sure I'll be saying something different in a week or two's time. 

Kitmeer: the dog I named a year ago

Today I woke up dogless. Being dogless wasn't a huge surprise, but this morning was a little frustrating because the evening before, my fellow volunteer (whose village I came to visit that day) and I had unsuccessfully attempted to get a man to sell me one of his puppies. I had lured the friendliest puppy close by dropping chipsi (fries) closer and closer to me, until I was able to pick him up, holding his soft weight for about an hour as we engaged in deliberations with this man until he finally told us that he wasn't going to sell the puppy. So I put the puppy down and we left, with nothing but cold bagged Chipsi in tow. 

In Tanzania, it's important to have contingency plans. So the morning after my first plans were thwarted, I knew that I would stop at a village that's between mine and my fellow volunteer's, on the off-chance that there were puppies there, because there are none in my village (the ones that did exist were eaten by hyenas one night - or so I was told).

I got off the bus around eight in the morning, found a chai mama, and sat watching her roll chapati while the tea heated up on the red-hot charcoal stoves. I had tea and chapati and asked her if she knew of any puppies in this village. She said she didn't really know, so after I finished I wandered around the corner, where I found a man manning a small shop. I asked him, and he in turn called out to a pikipiki (motorcycle) driver who was nearby. They deliberated, asked me if I wanted a male or female, and then the piki driver and a teenage boy took off, a small cardboard box in tow. 

By this time it's past nine in the morning. The shop owner informs me that the first puppy litter they found had only females, so they were searching further afield.   There is nothing for me to do but wait, so I stand in front of the shop for the better part of an hour, as a group of teenage boys gather. More piki drivers pull up, also vijana (teenagers). The shop is where they buy fuel, by the liter or half-liter, for their pikis. There are a few bottles of fuel lined up on the shop railing, shining a dull clear reddish color. One young piki driver starts a spirited rant about fuel prices, galloping around and riling up all the boys, while another revs the engine of his piki that is ailing. 

The shop owner finally brings out a wicked-looking machete, brandishing it nonchalantly at the boys, cigarette in his mouth and a few mumbled tribal words on his lips. Most of the boys disperse, and the piki driver cools down. The shopkeeper puts the machete back. 

Finally my wait seems to be over as my piki driver, leather jacket buttoned backwards onto his torso, pulls up with boy and box in tow. I take out the scared creature, and it's a girl. "Did we make a mistake?" They ask, and I tell them yes, return with a male. 

More waiting, then they return, and I lift out a little runt of a male puppy. He is light brown with white on his chest, and he curls up, hiding his face under my jacket. 

"So," I ask the piki driver. 

"So, what price will you pay?" Asks the driver. 

Long story short, I paid 15,000 shillings for the whole situation - technically the breakdown was 5,000 for the puppy and 10,000 for the "fuel". But it all amounts to about $7, so I can't complain. 

One of my few bus options passed as we were deliberating payment, so I had to wait for another bus. I went over to the other shop whose owner I know, and she was very happy to see me. I waited there for the next bus option, and swaddled the puppy in a kanga I brought. But when the bus pulled up, the conductor told me I would have to put my dog in the boot, that I couldn't take him on like that. I refused, deciding I would wait through the afternoon until the last bus, which is my favorite because it's a small bus, typically chaotic, and typically a very friendly bunch of people. 

So we waited through the afternoon, and a friendly guy took me to find a cardboard box to put the puppy in this time. He even cut air holes in it! What a nice fellow. My conductor friend in this village found me, and he called the chain to find out when my bus was approaching. As time dwindled, we put the puppy in the box and tied it shut with some twine. 

As anticipated, my favorite bus people were very accommodating, even to the point of the puppy riding up front, in his box, in the nook between the bus driver and his door! The driver kept glancing down under his arm at the puppy, which made me nervous, because the road has many switchbacks and hills. Everything went well until about halfway though, when the puppy managed to get its front legs out of the box and began to emerge! My bus driver stopped the bus and handed the box back to me, and the conductors and I tried to push him back into the box. Then we were just a few minutes from my village when my puppy couldn't hold it any longer and messed inside his box. Despite the very crowded bus, I think he and I were the only ones who got dirty, and shortly thereafter we piled out, a hot and stressed mess, at my village. 

I was in a bit of a daze, and I walk past people who are surprised and happy that I've gotten a puppy. We get to our house, and I let him out. He looks so small wandering about my courtyard!

About a year ago, I knew that I would do Peace corps, and I knew that I would probably be living in a predominantly Muslim country or area. I knew that I wanted to get a dog during my service, so I started looking into Muslim perceptions of dogs. And I discovered an interesting legend. The coolest thing about this legend is that it is shared by both Muslims and Christians, even though a lot of people don't know about it. 

It is the legend of the seven sleepers, and you can google it, but I can summarize it briefly: it's about a group of people (typically seven), who, in the early ADs, were being persecuted for their faith. They flee to the hills, finding refuge in a cave, where they enter and fall asleep. Their dog stretches out at the entrance, and passerby only see a dog napping in the sun - no cave or refugees to be seen!

The story takes a Rip-van-Winkle turn, and the seven sleepers wake up years later, having slept through their faith's persecution. 

In the Muslim version of the legend, the dog's name is Qitmir, or Kitmeer, depending on spelling. And amazingly, when I arrived in Tanzania, one of the first billboards that caught my eye was for Kitmeer, which is the name of a furniture brand here!

So that is his name. A little obscure, but it means something to me. 

My independence days

I am pleased to say that since Saturday, I have been moved in to my house, since the latrine has been finished being built. Saturday I returned from a trip to the city to attend a memorial service for a health volunteer I trained with, who passed away tragically in a bus accident in the south of Tanzania. Despite the awful circumstances, it was good to be together again with many people from my training class who convened to grieve the loss. 

So Saturday I returned to my village, my emotions tempered, ready to move into my house. My village executive officer suggested that I wait to move in to my house until mosquito screening is put up in the windows, but I told him I would be fine without it (and I'm glad I didn't wait, because it's Wednesday already and still no signs of that project starting.)

It is wonderful to have a new degree of privacy that could not be had living in the guesti... although "privacy" might be a stretch, as I don't have curtains for some crucial windows, and the surrounding children love to come see me in my courtyard many times a day. 

And I can cook! I've made curried fish with potatoes one day, and Chipsi mayai the next - although that turned out more like an egg and potato scramble, but delicious nonetheless. 

Finally got a handle made for my hoe, so now I can start gardening. Mapped out my courtyard, will break ground tomorrow. 

Chai steam and jewel tones

Once again, I am reporting that I still have not started living in my house because the choo (latrine) has not been finished being built. So I have spent approximately three weeks living in a guesti, which for the first week or so was fine, but my main complaints are that I can't cook or start to make a garden while living in a guesti so I'm looking forward to being able to live in my own house. 

One morning when I was feeling particularly frustrated about the situation, my dada summoned me to go get chai with her, and I stepped out of our courtyard to see her chatting with the first person I met in my village during site visit two months ago. I had not seen him since moving to my village, and was beginning to wonder if something had happened to him. But there he was, and just seeing him, though he is for all practical proposes a complete stranger, was like a sign, putting my mind at ease and allowing me to slip into the comfort of constance and continuity. 

My Bibi Afya (health clinic nurse) had several pieces of kitenge and "wax", or really high-quality kitenge, that she was selling, and she asked if I was interested to buy some. I had forgotten about the situation until the next day or so when I was studying Swahili in my dada's front sitting room, with the door open to the road and the white door curtain drifting in the breeze. I hear my dada greet someone who has biked up to her drugstore entrance, and all of a sudden a man pushes back the curtain and holds a piece of wax kitenge imploringly towards me. Which would not have been very significant at all if it wasn't for the pattern of the fabric. 

I love looking at kitenge here because you hardly ever see the same pattern twice. I went to my village's twice-monthly market a week or two ago, and went from fabric vendor to fabric vendor, admiring all the fabrics. There was one that stood out in particular: golden orange scallop shells on a navy blue-black background. I thought seriously about buying it, then decided not to, because I already have several other fabrics I want to get made into clothing. 

I liked that fabric because it reminded me of the Camino, as the scallop shell is the ubiquitous symbol found along the pilgrim routes. So you could imagine my surprise when that man seeked me out, pushed back the curtain, and held that fabric towards me. 

I am often reminded of the Camino, and sometimes I feel like I am still on it. And sometimes it seeks me out. That day, it found me. In a dusty village in Africa. 

Rain season

This morning my guesti dada told me we were going to the health clinic. "Why?" I asked, wondering why our usual routine of heading up to the chai house was thrown off this morning. She said something about going to see a woman who had given birth, and off I was led, along with our neighbor and her two small daughters. 

Swahili side note: in this language, only animals "give birth". Women "open themselves", which is supposed to be a euphemism but to me seems kind of graphic. Going along with human/ animal differences: only people are "killed". Animals are "slaughtered".

We filed into a small dim room that was filled with two beds, a bench, and a chair or two. A young woman languished on one of the beds, wrapped in blankets. It took me a moment to figure out that the birth was over (thankfully) and that the newborn was there next to her, swaddled in kangas and sleeping. The room was filled with other women, many of whom had their own small children. One woman was feeding her toddler porridge out of a stainless steel cup. 

As we left I asked my dada when the mother would name her child, and she said it would be tomorrow. Here in Tanzania they do not give babies names right away. 

The rains are persistent today. Our water drum in the courtyard is full again. 

One week in

I've been in my village a week. That's pretty crazy to be able to say. 

Well, what can I tell you? My house isn't finished yet, so I'm still living out of my various bags and buckets in the guesti. My dada and I spend a lot of time together, I try to understand her Kiswahili and laugh when she chases the huge male duck when it tries to enter her drugstore. 

I've met more people than I ever thought would be possible, was introduced to ~180 secondary school students, class by class, by a hilarious and enthusiastic teacher named Jumanne ("Tuesday"), and was taken to see rock paintings similar to some well-known ones not too far away. 

I was flipping through a history book of east Africa when the topic came up. "Oh yeah," Jumanne said, "we have paintings like that too. They're just down the hill," he said, in so many Kiswahili words. So I said I wanted to see them, and off three of us went. Through parched creek beds, past bewildered children herding donkeys, through brush, past basking lizards. Partway down a steep forested hill, a large rock can be found, on the underside of which there is a small place to take shelter, and ancient paintings in red, of hunters, weather, and elephants. 

On top of the rock, you can see for miles. 

First full day

Chai taken this morning with my guesti dada at the chai mama's up the road. Steaming spiced sugared tea, fresh chapati, and a bowl of beans cooked into deliciousness. We spent the late morning in the sitting room next to the drugstore my dada runs, in addition to the guest rooms in the back courtyard, one of which I'm staying in. I did exercises in my Swahili book while she pored over my dictionaries and folded tiny envelopes to dispense pills in. The sun made its way slowly through the clouds that remained after rain this morning. It was probably in the sixties all day, quite cool. 

We went to Bwana Shamba's (literally "mister farm", village agricultural officer) for lunch. As soon as I walked in my eyes were drawn to two images on the wall: the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the Last Supper with the slightly awkward but even more poignant translation "I am that Bread of Life" inscribed below. Funny how some pictures on a wall and a familiar blessing before a meal can make you feel at home instantly. Also, the chicken I was served was probably the best I've ever eaten. (Although that might not be saying much, coming from someone who was vegetarian most of her life. :) )

Had soda and cookies at the nurse's house, watched kids play a complicated game for what seemed like hours, was taken by a slightly intoxicated woman to drink tea and talk about God and her children at her house, and then was rescued by my dada to take dinner at Bwana Shamba's again. 

The pressure's on to learn Chasi, the main tribal language here. There is another tribe here in the village that speaks Kirangi, but the majority speak Chasi. Everyone speaks Swahili as well, but when they are conversing it is usually in tribal. Even if I learn a few words it will delight them to no end. I'm on the lookout for a good teacher. :)

All by my onesie

I have been dropped off on my village. I cannot live in my house yet because the latrine isn't finished, so my village chairman is putting me up in the guesti here until I can move into my house. My guesti dada is an awesome girl who's taken me under her wing. My chairman and "bwana shamba" agriculture officer have been attentive to my needs today, namely food and potable water. 

It is raining a lot today. I have been told that I have brought the rain, as it is raining a lot today, a lot more than usual. Many places in this country are struggling at the tail end of a very long dry season and rains that are starting late and light. 

I can't help but feel a bit cosmic and purposeful what with my role as rainmaker. Hopefully this is a good omen of fruitful things to come. :)

Travel days

Yesterday we signed a written oath at the Peace corps office, had our swear-in ceremony at the U.S. embassy, and wrapped up travel logistics for the following day. Our day today started in the wee hours, as our bus from the center we were staying at departed for the main bus station at 3:30 in the morning. We arrived at the bus station, with dark buses turned off and dark kiosks and chai stalls, many people and little light to see by. Peace corps staff ushered us through puddles and past people to our bus, which we boarded and waited until 6:30 to depart on. Our district supervisors boarded this bus as well, as they will be accompanying us to site. 

Needless to say, I did not get much sleep last night, so our bus ride went by in a very long and hot blur of changing scenery, decreasing humidity, and Tanzanian pop music. We found a PCV in town whom we had met before, so we hung out with him for the rest of the afternoon and evening. 

A cool night is calling me to a good night's sleep. 

Changing days

The sun has set on the last day of training. Tomorrow we will become volunteers. 

The day was filled with meeting our district supervisors, attending workshop type lectures, and hanging out with these fellow trainees who in a few short days will be spread throughout Tanzania. 

I wrote letters, we practiced our song medley performance for our ceremony, and one of my fellow trainees gave me some clothing she no longer wants. 

It is hot and humid, and the lethargy of the day caused us to move more slowly than usual. The glass bottles of drinks sweat faster. 

Long sips, slow conversation. Soon we will all be apart. 

We are the waiting

Back to the friendly surrounds of the compound where we first stayed upon arrival to Tanzania. We arrived yesterday evening, after a long journey, the second half of which seemed to be spent sitting in city traffic. It is pretty surreal to have electricity and running (if not entirely potable) water again, after about two months of homestay. Those of us who will be continuing to live without these luxuries are savoring every moment of these short few days before installation at our sites. 

Today several other trainees and I were able to go to a nearby mall to do some shopping. I got a SIM card and groceries - here in Tanzania, when you see an actual grocery store, the it-might-be-weeks-before-I-see-one-of-these-again mentality sets in, and you find yourself reveling in the sprawl of the aisles and the (seemingly) lavish selection of products. There was also a mini bookstore of books in ENGLISH and Swahili, and I picked up a book because I am in desperate need of reading material. Collected popping corn, some brown rice, instant breakfast porridge packets, and all ingredients for a proper cup of tea, and I was on my way. 

When I get to site, as long as I have the necessities to make a good cup of tea and some semblance of breakfast, I have confidence that everything else will fall into place. :)

Last homestay day

Today, it rained. I think today is officially the first day of long rain season. It rained at four in the morning and woke me up, it rained as I took a bucket bath, it rained when I ate breakfast, chai, and lunch, it rained when I washed my dishes. 

As I ate breakfast, it was downpouring, and a small dilapidated chicken came to stand just inside our doorway. Our hall is about ten or fifteen feet long, and connects our front and back doors. On any given day, there are chickens parading through our hall, as it's their favorite shortcut from the courtyard to the great outdoors for some reason. 

This chicken was somewhere between being a pullet and being full grown. It had wet feathers, big feet, and a small, forlorn head that looked at me distrustfully. Mama has been cracking down on the hallway chicken parade because they make the hall all dirty. 

But I drank my tea and the chicken stood there and we both waited out the rain. 

There were between one and two dozen women filtering in and out of our kitchen all morning until afternoon when we went to the party. At any given moment, there were approximately six women helping to cook. Women took turns cracking open coconuts with machetes and scraping the meat out on an mbuzi, or "goat": a small stool with a sharp serrated protrusion on which you scrape coconuts. A very specific tool which is oh so necessary if you live in this part of Tanzania where there are coconuts everywhere. Mamas washing kilos upon kilos of rice, mamas sifting flour for ugali. 

All the morning I was pretty much completely useless because my mama insisted I reapply henna AGAIN, so there I was sitting helplessly, waiting for my henna to dry so I could brush it off. 

We had lunch and went to the party at the village up the road. The village executive officer had bought us matching striped polo shirts which we had to wear today, so there the eight of us were in a row, wearing our matching shirts, and we were plied with Anjari (Tanga soda) and had the seats of honor. There were drums, a dance troupe, and a microphone involved. We all had to introduce ourselves, and presented our framed photos of us with our host families as gifts, and then each of our families gave us gifts to take to site, which was so generous of them. Most of the items are cooking ware, which will be SO useful to have right away. 

We were cajoled into joining the dancers for a few dances, much to the delight of everyone in attendance - at least a hundred people, probably more. 

The party actually ended in a timely manner; I was planning on settling in for the long haul, but I returned home and had a fairly low-key rest of the evening. 

Tomorrow is an early start. 

The readying

We finished our training here in homestay land today. Tomorrow we have our packing/ saying goodbye day, and the day after, we leave. I think we are all ready for homestay to be over - we know we have bigger fish to fry elsewhere. 

My mama insisted once again that I reapply henna tonight. She says I have to do it again tomorrow too. She will not be satisfied until it is literally black. It's a dark reddish brown currently. So once again I have kanga paw, which of course gets sweaty and awkward in the hot African night. 

This morning, around three a.m., there was a torrential downpour. Like tropical downpour serious. So intense it actually woke me up - that and a few huge drops splat on my cheek; there must be a leak in our roof somewhere. 

Humidity, singing, riding in land cruisers on bumpy red dirt roads. 

A walk in the dark

Never underestimate the odds of having something little and unexpected and awesome interrupt what you anticipated your routine would be. 

Tonight I was resting a bit in my room when my mama called me out. One of my favorite older mamas was there, and was asking me when I had to leave, because she didn't think she'd see me again. We clarified that I'm not leaving for a few days, so we will see each other, but, as they say, one thing leads to another and my mama and I decide to walk her home. We get halfway and my mama turns back, but I'm undecided and our friend laughs and decides I'm going to come visit her. 

My mama gives me her small flashlight, and our friend takes my hand. We walk in pitch darkness, past houses with the front door open, lit only by small oil lamps inside. She greets neighbors as we walk into a part of the village I never actually knew existed. 

We get to her house and meet her neighbor relatives. She invites me inside and summons her thirteen-or-so year old great nephew (is that a thing? Side note: at this stage of my Swahili and cultural comprehension, understanding how people are related to each other is nigh on impossible.) she asks me what kind of soda I want, and I quaver. "Anjari?" The boy asks, and I agree. She unties a bill from the corner of her kanga, and hands it to the boy who goes off. 

We perch on the edge of her bed and I look around her room. She has a beautiful cabinet full of dishes and cookware, and I ask her about the corrugated tin rolls propped against the wall. She says they are for roofing a building nearby. 

Young teen returns with soda - it's cream soda. He is instructed to find me a glass, and rummages through the cabinet by the light of his phone until he finds a small German-style beer stein. It's hard to tell in the light of oil lamps but I think the cream soda is green. It tastes pretty delicious and I can't remember the last time I had two sodas in one day. 

Once I finish, she says that my mama will start to worry if I don't come back soon. We make a quick stop at my mama's sister's house, and she shows me photos of trainees she has hosted - two of them. 

We walk back, the stars incredibly bright on this clear humid night. We stop to greet an old woman near a house, and a tiny child is instructed to greet me. She proffers her hand shyly - her grasp doesn't reach past three of my fingers. 

Dark nights, oil lamps, women full of grace.

School's out

Let me describe my situation right now: I'm typing this with one hand on my phone, because my left hand is swaddled in a kanga. My mama insisted a third installment of henna application was necessary, so about half past six, in the fading light, I reapplied henna to the designs on my left hand. We moved inside as it got dark, my mama brought food from mama Fatuma's house, and I ate with one hand (which is pretty normal because it's considered rude to eat with your left hand, which is your choo or bathroom hand). Then I retired to my room, and since henna is most effective if you let it dry completely and then brush it off, my hand is now wrapped up to keep it from getting on my off-white bedsheets. So this is a little challenging to write. :)

Today was the rather uneventful last day of language classes. To think that we're done with that portion! Only two more days of wrapping up loose ends and presenting our community reports, then host family farewell, and we mobilize for swear-in and installation!

Rains on and off throughout the day. Dramatic skies behind hills and coconut trees.

The last free Sunday in village

Today was the last day we will have, until the day before we leave, that was completely unstructured, where we could hang out with our homestay families and not have to go to class. My mama decided that today was henna day, and prepared two types of henna. Women here use henna to dye their fingernails, as well as make patterns on their skin. The base henna is a light brown, and the second henna you apply is orange, going to almost black the more times you apply it and let it dry on your skin. My mama dyed the tips of my fingers on one hand, and then I decorated my palm. 

My mama also made me pinky swear that I would come back to the village to visit. Now that's a promise I can't break now. :)

My fellow trainees and I got cold soda today, then tried to find certain people to interview for a report we have to write, but none of them were to be found. 

A lazy day. Laundry, henna, cold soda, a tiny cloud rainbow, one of the coolest I've seen.

My toad friend is back! I thought my cats might have eaten him. But no, he's here. :)

Study hard dance harder

Yesterday not a lot happened except for I got LETTERS in the mail (thanks to two people, you know who you are!), which completely made my day better because yesterday was a hard day. We had our LPIs, or Language Proficiency Interviews. These are our interviews where we are expected to have reached a certain level of Swahili, and we are assessed and scored on how well we speak. Luckily I was able to sign up for the second time slot, so I took it in the morning and had the rest of the day to relax. I think it went okay, we will probably get results on Monday. 

Yesterday I was eating dinner and heard something walking on the roof. Then we heard meowing, and it turns out our teenage kitten couldn't figure out how to get out of the rain gutter. I tried to help him, but he's still scared of me, and every time I reached for him he would duck back into the gutter. So I gave up, and I guess he eventually figured out how to get down, because in the morning I saw him walking around on the courtyard wall. My mama and I laughed about that poor cat.

This afternoon we all got together for a talent/ fashion show and cultural exchange. It was an awesome time of decompressing together as a group, relaxing, and dancing. Now if you know me, you know that I'm not a big dancer. But this music, man! Granted I cannot hold a candle to Tanzanians' dancing abilities, but the music is so good, and no one is judgmental, you just have to dance. And it feels great. :)

The speed of village

Today my three fellow trainees in my village and I found out that technically, we don't live in a village - we live in a hamlet. A HAMLET! It sounds pretty mystical and brings lots of images of medieval/ feudal Europe to mind. I must say the reality of our hamlet isn't nearly so glamorous, but it's a fun fact to know. 

After lunch and taking a quick test regarding our readiness to serve, I walked back to my house to get some cord we needed to build a tippy tap at our "school". No one was in my house, but as I was leaving to head back to school I was summoned by my mama, who was sitting inside mama Fatuma's front door, having lunch. (I think my mama, like me, likes vantage points where she can see everything that's going on. :) ) "Kata! NJOO!" Come! My mama yells after me. A lot of people call me Kata, which is actually a verb meaning "to cut", along with several other meanings. 

So I enter mama Fatuma's house, where I find my mama, mama Fatuma, her husband, their son Mustafa, and some other teenage boy who might work for them (there are so many teenage boys everywhere and often it's hard to tell where they come from and what they do exactly). Mama Fatuma tells me I must sit down and eat (this being just about an hour after I already ate lunch at school), and I know it would be a losing battle for me, and there's fresh-cooked ugali and beans so I cave. After a fair amount of ugali and a small bowl of beans, and after chatting and watching Mustafa struggle determinedly and good-naturedly to peel an orange, they finally let me go, probably almost half an hour later, when my mama realizes that my teachers might have wondered where I went off to.

The moral is: never expect to get anywhere or do anything in a timely manner, and if someone is offering you good food, take advantage of it. Especially if they're good company, too. :) 

Transect walk

Today the agriculture trainees took a transect walk with our Peace corps agriculture expert. We started on our training grounds, looking at interesting and important trees, then walked to a water source, then walked to a nearby village to look at farming practices there. 

One of the most interesting trees here is the neem tree, whose name in Swahili translates to "forty" tree, because it is believed that parts of the tree can cure forty different diseases. The second half of the day we learned about integrated pest management, and you can create a tincture or solution from crushing the leaves in water that can be sprayed or applied on plants as a natural pesticide. It also prevents intestinal parasites in goats who eat the leaves, and I believe our instructor said that you can also dry and crush the seeds and feed them to chickens, for the same purpose. We also made different solutions from the giricidia tree leaves, onions, garlic, and vegetable-based soap, as well as learned about using wood ash as a means of controlling pests. 

We walked to a pond that was originally built in the 1970s by foreigners who owned the sisal plantations nearby. Their main purpose for it was to grow fish, which must have at least partially succeeded, because there were some teenagers sitting on the bank across from us today, waiting to fish. The only water source to the reservoir is rainwater, and it has never gone dry, even in the dry season, so it must have been designed and sited well. 

Then we walked to one of the nearby villages, where we mostly looked at methods of raising livestock in confined areas: dairy cattle and donkeys, goats housed "second story" to reduce disease and mite prevalence, and rabbit hutches. Chickens are everywhere, as usual, and ducks are around but less common. 

Learning lessons under the hot sun.

Easter Monday, Easter Tuesday

Yesterday was Easter Monday, and although we had class, we finished after lunch, so a few of us headed into town to hang out before returning to our villages. Riding on the daladala is always interesting: I was the last one to fit into the tiny bus (more like a van, really), and I was pressed against another trainee and several strangers, standing practically in the sliding door well, hunched over with my neck bent because the ceilings in daladalas do lot allow for tall people to stand upright. Luckily, about halfway to our destination, one of the other trainees and I were summoned to go sit up front, so there we were sharing the slightly-wide seat, me in the middle, the driver bumping my knee every time he shifted gears. 

I bought more kitenge (fabric), this time because its pattern reminds me of the Camino. Once I get to site, I will find a fundi to make something out of it - maybe a skirt or shirt. We walked around in the heat, shopping languidly, and eventually making our way to the duka that has ice cream and cold soda and juice. 

I followed the trainees who knew a back way, slightly uphill, almost into the residential part of town: clay buildings, melting brick, thatched roofs. Palm and banana trees everywhere. Wooden boards bridge small ruts and ravines, and suddenly you see more vendors along the path, tucked in small corridors alongside buildings and among the tropical vegetation. It is a very strange juxtaposition of nature and the world of brightly-colored plastics, shortwave radios, and cheap clothing. We climbed some more and found ourselves at a corner of the bus stand. We got ice cream and found we still had time to kill, so we headed to a bar, where we got cold Safaris and relaxed in the shade, a football match playing on the tv several yards away with many young boys watching, sitting in plastic chairs they pulled up close. 

After long chats and relaxation, we headed back to our bus station, and were happily reunited with the daladala that drove us here and the sweet young boy who was manning its door and fares. We found seats and watched the outdoors fly by: row upon row of sisal, cows grazing by the road, teenage boys on motorcycles passing by us. The upper half of the daladala windows block out light, so you dip your head to see outside, then raise your head, losing vistas, and seeing only asphalt speeding by. 

Today is Easter Tuesday. I watched one of my language teachers kill and clean a chicken. Seeing someone take an animal's life capably, knowledgeably, and respectfully is a pretty amazing thing. Although I prefer not to eat animals, seeing him slaughter a chicken today instilled in me a lot of respect, maybe even awe, for people with this capability. 

Then I went home and ate potatoes. :)

Today was a day just like any other

Today is Easter. I would never have known, except I found out on Friday that it was Good Friday. The only sign of Easter I have experienced today is it being mentioned a few times on the Tanzanian radio station my baba was playing most of the day ("Pasaka" is Easter in Swahili).

So since it was a normal day off, I did much-needed laundry (hadn't been able to since two weeks ago, before site visits), cleaned and mopped my room, helped cook, and tried to study but ended up napping sweatily in the heat of the day.

What I ate today: breakfast: tea, mandazi (slightly sweet fried bread), and a hard-boiled egg. Elevenses: tea, a bread roll, mandazi. Lunch: beef broth soup, ugali, potatoes with beef, and mchunga (bitter spinach-like plant). Dinner: stewed plantains with potato, a banana, tea. 

A few notes on the food: yes, it's pretty much carbs, carbs, and more carbs. Also, when I say "plantain" I really mean just green banana. I find it a little funny that cooked plantains and ripe bananas often have a way of appearing in the same meal. :)

Typical food, typical day, in a tiny Muslim village in the heat of Tanzania. 

Reptile ramblings

We were sitting in our school today and it was raining. Now that we're in long rain season, when it rains, it pours. It will rain for a while and then stop, and you go outside and the top three inches of red clay is saturated, your shoes sinking in and sliding every which way. 

Today, when it was still raining, we heard someone outside and our teacher went to see who it was. She came back in, asking if we had talked to someone about a turtle. We all laugh, remembering yesterday, and go outside to see the man from yesterday, who apparently had found a turtle and brought it to us! It was a small box turtle, very cute and sturdy. He placed it on our railing, told us we could take it, and left a few minutes later. 

So then we had two class animals for a few hours: the turtle, and Mhitaji, our dear house cat (the name we gave him translates to "Needy", because whenever we are eating he comes in and begs incessantly).

We took turns checking on the turtle, who mostly hung out on our front porch, getting stuck in the holes between the bricks of the railing wall. After class was over, one of my fellow trainees took the turtle back to the river from whence he came. 

Another day of finishing class early and none of us wanting to go home just yet. We followed the pattern of yesterday: heading to the village up the way for some of us to play Settlers of Catan, heading back down through my village after for cold soda, then heading to the river, to poke around, look at tadpoles, and breathe river air. 

The insects are loud tonight.

All weather, no seasons

It is a very strange thing to realize that Lent is over, and that I wasn't really aware of it at all. I realized it was Good Friday today around noon. It is strange to be so distant from and unaware of the passing of the Church year. Maybe my failure to observe Lent this year can be made up for, in part, by joining in Ramadan this year, as I will be in a very Muslim community, similar to the village I am living in now.

When you are living on the other side of the equator in a different culture with different religions and holidays, all of a sudden all the markers of the passage of time, such as winter, spring, Lent, and Easter, aren't relevant anymore. You think in terms of hunger seasons, long rain seasons, mango seasons, and the season the river will be so high that the crocodiles will come back. 

Every day is only a little less hot than the tea you drink, cup by cup, sweating and thinking you made a mistake, until all of a sudden you don't feel quite so hot anymore.

We had the afternoon off, so the eight of us (from our village and the next) decided it was time to go to the river and look for the crocodiles we heard live there. Red clay rutted trails through the bright greenery, downhill all the way, getting cooler as we descended into shade and cool air, and we saw the river. A group of women downstream washing their clothes greeted us. A dog rested next to a pile of harvested sticks and a machete. We peered into the slow water, then walked along a trail upriver, finding a man and two boys washing their clothes too. The man was gutting two catfish he caught, and told us the river was too low for crocodiles, but that there were turtles around. He offered to go get one, leaving his catfish on the flat rock and running up the trail.

We chatted with the young boys for a few minutes, waiting until the man returned, empty handed. "The turtle ran away," he told us. We laughed, thanked him, and made our way back to our villages.

This is Tanzania, where life slows down so much that even tortoises have a fighting chance. :)

Simulation day

"Don't forget that everything you deal with is only one thing and nothing else."

-Paulo Coelho, "The Alchemist"

Today was simulation day, also known as a somewhat stressful day for us trainees. Peace corps brings in professionals for these exercises: immigration officers to interrogate us, police officers to write up the "crimes" we are reporting, and "youth out of school", or young adults who we give mini-lessons to about life skills or other fun topics. 

It was a little stressful waiting for my turn and trying to keep all the Swahili I would need in the front lines in my head. But all went fairly well, and although we were scored on our performance, we couldn't have really failed as it doesn't really count for anything. 

This is the final stretch of training, where the assignments are piled on, the activities are more intense, and you're trying to find time and energy to do everything that needs to get done. When you look at the whole picture, it seems nigh on impossible that in three weeks we'll be sworn in (God willing) and departing for our sites. 

It's too much when you look at it all together, so you have to remember that everything you deal with is only one thing and nothing else. And then it starts to look a little more feasible.

These are the days

We did our family picture this morning. As soon as the volunteers from down the road arrived with their camera, my mama hurriedly put her pretty black shawl on, and summoned my baba from his room. We waited a few more minutes, to get our neighbor couple and their daughter into the picture. The six of us posed, me with the only toothy smile (many adults here take having their picture taken very seriously).

We had more Swahili lessons this morning, then went up the road to the next village to learn how to make tippy taps. Tippy taps are a simple construction to provide hand-washing stations wherever needed, such as a home or school. It is basically a water jug with strategic holes that is suspended on a simple frame, that, when made properly, will tip out a sprinkle of water when you step on a foot pedal. My homestay actually already has one, but it was good to see how one is made from scratch.

Today was very hot, and after our learning session several of us decided it was a soda baridi day. So we walked the mile or so to get cold soda. Always worth it.

My village trainees split off on the way back to take our last trainee's family picture, as we need to submit them tomorrow, to be sent to the city, printed, and framed to be gifts for our host family. The sun fell hot on his courtyard, but we spent a few minutes relaxing on the mat on his front porch, the breeze and shade taking away the heat.

Our final task for the day was to build a fence for the garden we have started to build near our "school". We gathered our tools and started to formulate our plan, hammering poles into the ground surrounding our garden. We were soon assisted by a young boy, probably ten or eleven, and another guy about our age, who live nearby. The boy schooled us on machete skills, and the guy took charge of our slow decision-making and directed us in the construction. Building a fence had never been so much fun as the six of us speaking two different languages, not really understanding what one another was saying, but understanding the project we were working on.

The sun set and we headed home. The mountains were beautiful in the distance. 

Someone noticed

Today we got "report cards" regarding how we have performed on various assessments so far in training. Mine was pretty good news, and there was even a note on it that said I had "wonderful flexibility in where to be placed". I must admit I was a little happy to see that they acknowledged and appreciated that. 

As we had site visit debriefing today and as I heard more about everyone's sites, I am very thankful for the living situation I will have (God willing). I will be living in my own new house, with my own new courtyard I won't have to share with any other people, and there is no one currently occupying my house who I will have to worry about moving out before I move in. My community seems enthusiastic and up for the experience of being home to a Peace corps volunteer. In general, everything I have heard and experienced about my future village has been positive.

One of our ducks hatched her eggs today. She rested in the coop today, and I caught glimpses of bright yellow ducklings huddling under her.

Back courtyard life

I am reading in my room after a long day of language and technical training. I hear our neighbor come into the backyard and greet my mama. I knew he came by yesterday evening, asking if I had returned, but I had been too tired to go out and greet him.

He and his wife live a stone's throw away, with their three kids. I close my book and head outside to greet him. He looks genuinely happy to see me, and asks about my travels last week. He is dressed for the mosque and soon leaves for prayer.

Mama asks me to sweep while she gets ready for prayers. I sweep the courtyard with a grass broom, cleaning up after the chickens and ducks that run amok all day, and the coconut tops and the spilled charcoal and ashes from the day's cooking.

There is nothing more satisfying than the swoosh of air whipping through the broom every time you swing it back to brush the red dust and debris off the hard-packed clay.

Reeled back in

Don't get me wrong, homestay is fine and our training, both Swahili and technical, is important, but it was hard today to come back to our community-based training and homestay village. We had a week to roam, with some degree of freedom, seeing our future sites and having a taste of what will hopefully very shortly be the life we will be enjoying.

So I got two vitambua (fried coconut-flavored creations) this morning in the early morning light of the bus stop, and took the nine-hour ride back to our villages. My mama let me rest this evening. And my dress is done! I realized I made a "rookie mistake" by forgetting to ask my fundi to make pockets, but I guess if I really want them I can add them later. It will be nice to have some more clothes to wear as my wardrobe has been rather small.

I raided the shelf of the volunteer I was shadowing, and came home with The Alchemist. It's barely half past seven and I am exhausted. Time to read until I fall asleep.

One day off

The four of us sit in the gathering darkness at the shawarma place in town. The sky is still light in the west, and I get a seat at our outdoor table that faces that direction. The remaining light in the sky shines through the mosque's minaret, and there is a cement building closer to us, with two stories and rows of small square windows, glowing many different jewel tones: red, pink, blue, green.

I order a chocolate milkshake and the trainees and volunteer I am with order shawarma. The breeze is almost chilly when it is dark, and the smoke of cooking meat wafts up and over our table from inside.

We have come so far in this week in distance and visions of the future - if not in our Swahili capabilities, as much of my time has been spent in English conversation with other Americans. 

I'm rested and I'm ready for training to be over, now that I've caught a glimpse of my future home.

Travel images

Getting up when it's still dark, walking to the bus station here in the city. It is pitch dark - there are no floodlights anywhere, just the headlights of humming coach buses, smoke from drivers' cigarettes and engine rubber, and everyone moving, walking through crowds of young men, asking if you need a ticket or a ride on a pikipiki (motorcycle) somewhere. You find the man from your bus company and you follow him, weaving between and past the heat and hulk of worn buses, running lights and flashlights and yellow headlights lighting up the colorful, sometimes garish colors that the buses are painted. You manoeuver through luggage, crates of chickens, and piles of bananas, through steam and smoke. You haven't eaten breakfast but you smell the tea and the chapati frying at the stalls of the chai mamas. All you want is to take the bags off your shoulders and hands and drink hot tea and eat a fried coconut creation that you had the other day.

The bus is here and you dig the small ticket scrap from your handbag.

The steps to climb into the coach are steep, and the handrails warm. You know your hands will smell like metal and cooking oil.

You find your seat and peer out at the entropy that continues without you.

What you can buy from a bus window

Today I took a nine-ish hour bus ride to the capital for the first leg of my journey for my site visit. Here in Tanzania you can buy a lot of things from your bus window as you pull into each stop:

Live chickens (the bus driver asked the price for a hen, and apparently anything more than 7,000 shillings, or about $4, he considered too much.)

Cashews

Small decorative tables

Blocks of sugarcane

Roasted sweet corn fresh off the grill

Newspapers (in Swahili or English)

Shortbread biscuits or chocolate cookies

Beaded flip flops

Woven baskets

Massive bunches of bananas

To name a few items.

Dinner at an Italian restaurant, pizza and  time to decompress with two other trainees and the volunteers who have come to escort/ host us this week.

Tonight, a nice clean room in the place we're staying, with our own bathroom that is 1. Inside and 2. Has a toilet! Oh the luxuries. :)

And it's long rain season

Let me tell you what doing laundry looked like today.

After breakfast this morning, probably around 9 a.m., my mama called me to the back courtyard and told me it was time to do laundry. I was a little confused because it looked like it was going to rain, but I went and got my clothes from inside.

My mama's sister, who's visiting from Dar es Salaam, helped me wash my clothes, and I was giving them their first rinse when it started to rain. Mama Fatuma came over, and she started giving my clothes their second rinse and hanging them up. By the time all my clothes were on the lines across the courtyard, it was seriously raining. And rain here doesn't mess around: when it rains, as they say, it pours.

Luckily I had the wisdom of three women who know this weather and knew that by evening my clothes would be, for the most part, dry.

A most unstructured day for me, as this is an odd Saturday off before I leave for my site visit. A cool (60s F) day, cloudy and a good day to sit on the front bench, try to read a book, and get distracted by the hilarious village kids for hours.

I accompanied my nine-year-old neighbor Fatuma to the fruit stand down the way, on a search for bananas. My mama gave us money to buy me bananas, because I think Peace corps implores our host families to provide us with fruit. In this area, and in this season, it seems that eating fruit at meals, or even at all, is not very common.

Fatuma took one look at the forlorn, tiny bananas at the stand and walked away. When we got back my mama asked what happened, and then sent us to the second-string stand on the other side of the village. They had closed for the day, but a neighbor shouted across the way to the shopkeeper, who replied "hamna!" None.

Not a suitable banana to be found in my village today. A pretty hilarious situation.

On another note, my aunt made chipsi mayai for dinner that was out of this world. :)

I have been measured

Today we got our scores back for our mid-training LPI, or language proficiency interview. The goal for this point in our training was to be at the intermediate-mid level in Swahili, and I am happy to say that I am in the middle of the pack and reached that benchmark! I also did well on the written test we had last week.

The excitement is building for our site visits. The first group leaves tomorrow, and I will leave the next day, because I only have ~1.5 days of travel, instead of two or more.

It rained today, a lot, and I was glad because we got our mango and orange trees in the ground yesterday. My father insisted on digging the holes, even though I offered to help him. Our neighbor friend came over and helped us as well. I watered the trees last night and the rain watered them all today.

Today the fundi (tailor) came to take my fabric and measurements for the dress I'm getting made! I bought the fabric (called kitenge) when we were in town. It's mostly green with fish swimming in rows across it. It's pretty beautiful.

I was expecting our fundi to be female, but no, this is fundi Ijumaa. My mama has a dress we're modeling this one after. We will see how it turns out. The total cost of the fabric and getting it made will be about the equivalent of $10. Pretty awesome. It will hopefully be ready and waiting for me when I get back from my site visit. :)

Every day it won't rain

I sit in the growing dark with Mustafa, my six-year-old neighbor and contemporary. Mustafa and I love hanging out because he's at an age where if he says things that actually make sense, they're pretty non sequitur - not unlike most things I try to say in Swahili. Most of the time he's coming up with excuses about why he shouldn't have to start going to school, playing with charcoal or tree branches or anything he can get his hands on, and chasing our cats and chickens. When he appears at the gate of our back courtyard, his mama wearily tries to get him to "shikamoo" me, however he's young enough to get away with not greeting people, and his shy, hilarious smile makes up for our shared lack of communication.

Yesterday my mama explained, very rapidly, that she wanted me to get coals from mama Fatuma's house. I only caught the coals and Fatuma part, and I thought I needed to take coal TO mama Fatuma's house. I poked around in the kitchen, but all ashes were cold. I walked over to mama Fatuma's house, and asked if she needed coals. She looked confused, then told me to bring something from my house. I didn't know what it was so she sent Mustafa with me. Which was, of course, a mistake, because we spent our time poking around the courtyard, laughing at each other, and clearly neither of us knew what we were doing! Eventually we got it sorted out that I was to bring a metal lid to carry some hot coals back to our house. Mustafa instructed me how to put the charcoal in the jiko (stove), and my mama came to the backyard and turns out we had actually done our task right.

I sat in the growing dark with Mustafa, waiting as the potatoes cooked on the jiko and the mosque called to prayer. Mustafa chose a charcoal bit that had fallen out of the jiko one by one, bringing them over to the wide concrete step where we sit, cook, and relax in the back courtyard. He spoke and laughed to himself as he drew his versions of numbers, buildings, and figures, wiping the surface continuously with his small hand to make more room for his charcoal ramblings. Every so often he would look up with his ever-entertained, bright eyes.

My mama came back outside after praying, and it was time for Mustafa to return home. He stood up and struggled to pull about a dozen more small pieces of charcoal out of his tiny pants pocket. He scattered them across the clay courtyard, and ran home.

Site announcements

I'm sure a lot of things happened today, but they all pale in comparison to the fact that we received our site announcements this afternoon.

I have received an agriculture assignment in eastern central Tanzania, and it is a new Peace corps site - I will be the first volunteer at my village. (I know you might want to know more specifically where I will be in-country, but Peace corps advises not to disclose specific locations on public blogs. If you want more information, feel free to contact me personally.)

I am the only new agriculture volunteer in my region, but there are two new health volunteers in my region: one shares a banking town with me, and the other is in our region but in a different district with a different banking town. (A banking town is, incidentally, where one goes to withdraw money from the bank, seeing as most villages operate on cash only.)

During my placement interview and in the questionnaire we filled out, I was very open to where I was willing to be sent - many people said they wanted cooler, mountainous regions, such as Kilimanjaro or the southern highlands. The only things I said I wanted were that it would be nice if there was a Catholic community I could get involved in, that I was interested in learning more about beekeeping, and other than that, put me where my skills (working with animals) could be best used.

So I got stuck with the hot, flat, semi-arid, animal-herding and grain-growing middle zone of the country. And I couldn't be more excited. :)

From the little description Peace corps has given us, my region has opportunities with animal husbandry, water projects, and nutrition education, all of which I'm excited about. Other possibilities include tree planting, gardening, and environmental education.

Did I mention my region is the winemaking capital of the country? Bonus.

Mid homestay

I step into my room in the late afternoon and see my bats chasing each other silently. I move very slowly to the center of my room and they continue to fly around me, circling and darting, flying under my bed and back out again. They fly so close but do not even brush against me.

In the growing dark my mama sends me with pots of food to mama Fatuma's house. It's one of the houses across the way- I'd only actually been there once, on the first or second day. I stand outside what must be her house and call her name. There is a dim light inside and I hear people chatting. After a minute I call her name again, and her daughter, also Fatuma, appears behind me, with a bucket balanced on her head. She "shikamoo"s me and takes the pots, smiling. I see Ijumaa and then mama in the front doorway. She thanks me and I walk back to our backyard a stone's throw away.

My mama bought me and a bunch of the young village boys ice cream from the ice cream bicycle man this afternoon. I have been warned about the quality of his products, but in the heat of Africa and the moment, I couldn't turn it down.

Raining a little more each day.