First Week

My first blog in Tanzania! The first time I had the opportunity to use the internet was on Saturday. I rushed to my room after class and wrote up a blog, only to find out the internet café had randomly closed early that day. Now I’m at Peace Corps Headquarters. So much has happened in the last week and there is so much to write, so please excuse my fragmented thoughts.

June 3^rd I left Modesto and flew to Philadelphia. I arrived and met 3 other PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers) in the airport. Two of them were going to Burkina Faso and Alice is with me now in Tanzania. She is one of four “older” volunteers. I picked up a cold or something on the plane and she gave me Emergen-C right away (not that it helped…I’m just starting to feel normal). Anyway, got to the hotel. Met Emily, my roommate. Met about 15 other West Coast volunteers (they sent us all in a night early because of travel time) downstairs for a late dinner/drinks.

June 4^th-Staging Day! Emily and I met about 6 other volunteers downstairs as they arrived from the airport. We walked around in search of the steps from the movie Rocky. No luck. Staging started at 12:30 and we basically turned in paperwork, got our official passports (I’m now an employee/volunteer? of the federal government!), a travel debit card, and travel reimbursements. We met everyone, talked about core values  and expectations(check out the Peace Corps webpage), did some situational skits, talked about anxieties and aspirations. It was such a great feeling knowing that 46 other people in the room had been feeling the SAME way for the past month/year about our upcoming departure. We all knew why we were there and what we were there in spite of. About 15 of us went to dinner together at a sushi place and literally had the whole restaurant to ourselves. It was a great time! We went back to the hotel and I called people to say my goodbyes. Although now I’m reassured communication won’t be that bad, it was still hard to say bye. I took my last shower in America and finished packing. We all met in the hotel lobby at 2am.

June 5^th-The buses left at 2:30am to drive us to JFK airport. We arrived at 5am…3 hours too early to even check in to our flight! We had a crazy camp with 47 people, and their crazy amounts of luggage. Some guys even started playing Frisbee. Our flight left at 11am for Johannesburg and that’s when I lost all sense of time. I think it was a 15ish hour flight? Since I was sick I slept about 10 hours.

June 6^th-We got to Johannesburg and had another 6 hour layover. Yay! The airport was FREEZING, I was not feeling my finest, and it was just a long wait. Then it was another 4 hour flight (which I slept completely through again, thanks to my cold!) until we arrived in Tanzania! Peace Corps staff literally met us as soon as we stepped off the plane. They helped us through immigration and to collect our baggage. The airport in Dar es Salaam is probably just a little bit bigger than the Long Beach Airport. I didn’t see any planes pulled up to the building-they were all just parked on the tarmac. We had a huge truck and two vans to take us and our luggage back to the Msimbazi Center Hostel where we are staying. While driving we saw the passing daladalas (vans which have about 30 seats) PACKED FULL of people. The joke is “How many Tanzanians can you fit on a daladala?” “Always one more.” So we felt pretty lucky to have our own transportation. They did a brief introduction of about 15 PC staff members and got us started on malaria meds. I’m taking two at the moment: Doxycycline daily for the first 10 days and Mefloquine weekly for forever. I swear I thought the doctor was calling it “METH”loquine for the longest time and I was thinking that probably wasn’t a good drug choice.

June 7^th -An interesting start to my first day in Tanzania…I thought we had the entire 2^nd floor of one of the dorms for Peace Corps. The night before we decided that I would do a wake up call for everyone. I had slept in my underwear because it was so hot and I was about to shower, so didn’t think it was necessary to get dressed. I was just supposed to knock to make sure people were awake. The third door I knocked on this Tanzanian came out without a shirt, stared at me, and started talking to me in Sawhili. He knows English too. Still really bad because my shoulders and knees were showing, I was in a towel in front of a man and it just was bad all around because of my lack of Swahili skills. Now I see him everywhere and he says “Alllyyyy, come here. Sit. Hujambo”. It turns out he is a traveling soccer coach and he and his friends are eager to talk to us every night.

We follow pretty much the same schedule every day and so much stuff has happened I really don’t know which day it happened. Anyway, normal schedule is: Breakfast 7-8. Class. Chai (tea break) 10-10:30. Class. Chakula (food) 12:30-1:30. Class until about 5. Rest time/Frisbee/Studying/Cards. Dinner 7-8. Hanging out/Studying/Cards. Sleep around 10.

Class the first day was just intense. Very inspirational and really made me think about why I’m here. Formula of the day: Small Doable Action with Immediate Measurable Visible Results=Sustainable Behavior Change. Basically, grassroots is key and 1 strong relationship is more important than 100 acquaintances. We had a whole session about how to avoid diarrhea. We also had a great 10 minute conversation about distinguishing between a pet chicken and an egg chicken. Still not sure about that…I think we are allowed to have chickens. Someone from the US Embassy came to talk to us about safety and security. He freaked us out as to what COULD happen, but statistically nothing of the sorts happens to volunteers, so I think I’m safe. Integration, Mitigation, Response. We started language training on Friday. We have had a total of 5 hours and I feel that is basically a semester of language skills right there. I’ve been practicing too with the soccer coaches. I’ve been asked for my bride price, my contact info, and told by many people their name/their dad’s name, etc is Aly. I say no, it is Ali. If any of you get a chance to search for a YouTube video “Better Days”, a PCV made it when she returned, urging people to volunteer. Our director, John, played it for us. We spoke about religions, cultural differences, homestay expectations, etc also. We got assigned to our Community Based Training (CBT) groups. There are 5 volunteers total in my group. We also got assigned host families whom we will meet on Tuesday! Apparently my host family has two kids, one who is “about this age” (as Jumapilee put his hand to mid-thigh level).

We went for our first steps outside the compound on Sunday. Since Sunday is a day of rest it was apparently very calm. I thought it was crazy. It is hard to remember to look the opposite ways for traffic. Then some guy on a motorcycle on the sidewalk almost ran me over. Lots of people on bikes on the sidewalks too. There is trash, rubble, uneven pavement, buildings that look like they are about to fall over, beggars, tons of bank security with AK-47s, crazy traffic. It hurt for my to breathe because the air quality was so horrible. Anyway, we took a daladala into town. There were maybe 50 of us in the van? It actually wasn’t as bad as I’d thought, but it definitely got quite warm! I bought my first kanga. It is really pretty-purple and white with leaves and little suns. It says “SIJA CHOKA BADO NAKU PENDA SANA.” This means something along the lines of “I will never get tired of loving you.” Kangas are pieces of colorful fabric (about the 3’x6’) have “101 uses”…skirt, head cover, shoulder cover, towel, bag, privacy shield, blanket, etc. There is always a phrase printed on it so it’s really important to have someone fluent double-check. You don’t want to buy one with a provocative or political message. Others were “You are unhappy, but He put me here”. “Praise the power of God.” “A gift from my Mama.” “Hello to you all.” We also saw some guy about our age recording a music video. We ate at the YWCA. I watched two other volunteers return their kuku (chicken) to be re-cooked. I don’t really eat the chicken even though it is served at every meal. It really creeps me out for some reason. As we were coming back on the daladala, there was another daladala next to us with drums playing and two girls’ butts hanging out the window “dancing” to the music. It was definitely an experience to walk around Dar, but I wouldn’t say that it is my favorite city.

LOVE YOU ALL! I’m getting a cell phone and internet dongle in a few hours. I’ll post more information then. Basically all I know now is that all incoming calls and texts are free. So things like Skype (you’ll have to buy credit for skype to call my mobile), an international SIMcard (Saleh?), or regular calling cards are all good options. Also, there are a lot of websites/apps/programs that offer free international texting. If anyone has any information about any of this, please comment on here or email me!

Random things: Our Homestay Coordinator, Jumapilee LOVES to say “shit the bricks” and “shit hits the fan” and then laughs like crazy.

Apparently if you are ever alone in a room with anyone of the opposite sex, if the door is closed, you are “doing it”.

Chai means tea. There is no other type of tea, so it isn’t chai chai, it’s just chai.

Rats and roaches will probably be new roommates at my homestay.

It is currently 84 degrees in my room-feels cool.

I have now used a choo (pronounced cho) 3 times [pop-a-squat hole in the ground bathrooms]. We will pretty much only be using choos from Tuesday on.

The entirety of Peace Corps has the same budget ($350 million) as the US Military Band. “You may just get a dollar, but you can still make change.”

Mzungu means white person, but it is not rude for people to call you a mzungu.

About 1,600Tsh is equal to $1. I’ll be living on about 5,000Tsh per day. So even though something converts to being only $0.40USD (like a soda), that is really a treat.

Clumps of my hair are falling out. Not sure if it stress or change in diet? Pretty much all we eat is starches, some meat, some fruit, and tea.

Roosters wake me up every morning around 5am. There is also a call for prayer at 5am for the Muslims. It sounds like it is right outside my window, but we are in a gated Christian affiliated compound.

The word for brother is “kaka”. Sorry Jackson.

My favorite phrase to say is “lala salaama”, which means “sleep peacefully”.

So far we have only gotten 3 vaccines: Rabies #1, Meningacocol and Thyphoid. The thypoid really hurt and hardly anyone could lift their arms higher than their shoulders.

We created our own Gatorade mix, called ORS (Oral Rehydration Supplement). Add 6 teaspoons of sugar and ½ teaspoon salt to 1 liter of water. Shake.

I got about 30 mosquito bites on my legs last night. I didn’t feel any mosquitoes on me though.