Week 3

This last week flew by! We were at our CBT site Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday so I didn’t really get to see everyone as much. It poured here on Wednesday and a lot of the roads got pretty muddy. The two days we were at CCT I took different routes home to mix it up a bit. One way just passes by the bar and is a very short walk, but then adds a daladala to my route. The other way is a “shortcut” into town (which still takes about 30 minutes to walk). It was really pretty though and there were more people passing by. We even walked through a soccer game!

I’m feeling a little bit discouraged about my language. My Baba was in Dar this whole week for work, so I thought I was getting better around the home. He usually speaks to me in English if no one else can understand me. But then on Saturday we did a practice LPI (oral test) that I was unaware of. I started making flashcards, but that takes forever just to make in the first place. I get the grammar but my main problem is just having a limited vocabulary. Our real LPIs are next Tuesday and if we don’t score “intermediate”, we supposedly get sent back to America. I don’t think they send anyone home though. I do feel confident enough to try to start conversations with people, but usually I hit a block and just start laughing because we can’t understand each other.

I have now started wearing a fake wedding ring. Why, you might ask? Well, I’m tired of being asked about my bride price or asked to marry someone. At our school we were told to go into the staff room to interact with other teachers or else they might think we are snobby. So after talking for 5 minutes to a 25 year old student teacher from the University of Dar, he said “Do you want to marry a Tanzanian?” It became really awkward and all the staff members and other volunteers were all staring at us. So, now if anyone asks, I am married. When I told my mama this story in my broken Swahili she almost fell off her stool she was laughing so hard. When my Baba came home on Saturday he said, “I left for a week and now you are married??” He thinks it is funny I’m still a “child” in America and thinks that is why I am so taken aback by marriage proposals.

I still love my family. I’m pretty sure Catherine peed right before I picked her up the other day. She doesn’t wear diapers…they instead change her clothes about 10 times a day! It must be exhausting! They already invited my parents and Saleh and whoever else is going to visit me to come stay with them. And we will go to my Mama’s tribe for one of the holidays!

I made my family guacamole for dinner. I made myself a taco! I also had made the whole batch of chapatti (fried pancakes) thinner and with less oil, so it was kind of like a tortilla. They liked the guacamole a lot! They marveled at my “skill” of learning how to make chapatti so fast. I’m supposed to make a cake sometime soon. Not quite sure how that will work out with the charcoal stoves.

Michelle is the only Asian one in my CBT and also the shortest so everyone’s families talk about her. When my family was talking about her (the short one) I told them she is from China (even though she is actually Korean and Phillipino). They started saying “Hu-Ha Che-Chaw” and doing karate moves. Michelle thinks it is hilarious. I was laughing so hard because I didn’t know what else to do and it was pretty funny.

I was one of the coordinators for Sports Day on Saturday! It was so much fun to finally run around and be free. We played soccer, kickball, Frisbee, relay races, slack lining, jump roping. We were in a private field so allowed to wear pants instead of skirts. Whew! A lot of people fell and got scabbed up from the dirt. My sunglasses scratched under my eye. It was a lot of sweating but a lot of fun.

Just some other random things: A butt is called a wowowo and a tako is one butt cheek. Most of the fruits have really fun names to say. I bought a small thing of ice cream for 3,500 Tsh. Totally worth it! It takes about 2 hours to wash my laundry and mop my floor every Sunday morning. Then I have to wait for the clothes to dry, take them in, fold them right-side-out, and put them away. Less people are staring at me now…maybe the news has traveled about the mzungu in the village.