Pre-Thanksgiving Fun

Just a follow-up first: yes, the cows were all released. Turns out there were three different owners. One owned 2, one owned 3, one owned 10. So the 10 cows were released about 35 hours after being imprisoned because that owner had to figure out how to pay the large fee to release them all.

So what have I been up to at school? Well, Form 2 NECTA’s have been going on for the last two weeks. Now they are done with school, so we only have Form 1 and 3 at school. I teach Form 1 in the mornings so I teach, talk to the other teachers for awhile, then return home to work on computer issues and do whatever I want to do. On Monday night I finally fixed the problems with SMILE! Well, on one computer. I am still trying to figure out the other computer. So we did a SMILE workshop on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons with the Form 1 students. They were excited to have it back. Also, their terminal examinations begin in one week. It is weird because they just took their mid-terms about a month ago. I designed my exam based on the units we have covered together and I even told them which topics/dates to study from their notes. Hopefully these tactics will improve their scores. All of the other teachers sit around looking at old examinations or practice exams in books and they choose the hardest questions. It doesn’t even matter if they have covered the topic yet-if it is from a NECTA it must be a good test question. I also typed my exam in an easier-to-read format and saved it in PDF so things can’t get switched around when the secretary goes to print it. First, I need to get rid of the virus on the computer that is attached to the printer so that I can transfer the file via USB drive. There are so many viruses here!

In other news….I did get a cement walkway in my backyard. The fundi built it over the top of an ant hill so they pushed up through the middle leaving lovely little holes. Then as I was trying to hop over the wet cement to go inside I slipped on my rug and landed in the wet cement, making two deep holes. I paid that fundi and he said he would return in the morning to fix the ant holes but he never returned. My Mkuu finally found another fundi a week later so he fixed the hole and kind of smoothed out my mess from falling. But the cement is different colors and looks a little odd. I keep telling myself it is only for functional purposes; if I wanted it to look nice I would have never gotten it done in Tanzania.

I’ve also had a bad week with bugs. I decided to jog a little on my new walkway so I was doing “laps” one afternoon and got bit by something. At first I thought it was a bee but then I saw there were two bite marks. Basically my whole tricep on my left arm was swollen, feverish, and bright pink with a blackish-looking area, which I think was the poison. The swelling started to go down after 3 days and finally disappeared 6 days later. Then one night I had my mosquito net down but decided that it was fine to leave it un-tucked because Tetsuko’s cat had killed my mouse. (yay!) I woke up at about 3am hearing little footprints so I sat up and this giant black spider/beetle came walking onto my pillow! I got up to go get the spray but then he disappeared. I finally found him the next afternoon wedged between the mattress and the bed frame.  Yuck!

This weekend we all went to Mtwara to meet all the shadowers (the new PCVs who are still in training, but will eventually live in Mtwara region) and gather for an early Thanksgiving feast. I left my house at 5:10am and walked a half hour to the bus standi for the 6am bus. I loved the walk. The air was so fresh, it wasn’t hot and not many people were out yet. By taking the early bus I arrived by 10:30am, thus beating the heat. Anyway, we relaxed at the beach house as usual and when evening rolled around everyone was in charge of cooking/reheating their dish. I cooked carrots and we also had canned corn, stuffing, deviled eggs, macaroni and cheese, Tanzanian cabbage, ground beef, rolls, mashed potatoes, and a pie. It was awesome to see what we could all produce in Tanzania! Sadly though I think I am becoming lactose intolerant so I spent the rest of the night in pain or in the bathroom. It was also so ridiculously hot that the only way I could fall asleep was with a wet kanga over my body.

I didn’t really sleep that night so went out to the beach around 5:30am and rested and talked to Drew for a few hours. We all lounged around in the morning. The mama had told us that 10 people were coming to the beach house for the night but we didn’t really make plans. We had 14 people there originally, then 4 shadowers left, and 1 person was MIA. The 10 people showed up and it was a crazy mess but we finally figured it out. In short, only 3 people stayed at the Beach House and the rest of us left our stuff there all day still pretending it was our space, and then slept at Tanya and Gillian’s house. During the day we went to this traditional dance festival which was held at the stadium. It was put on by ADEA which is like an art college. They have really cool products and also have an adjoining museum with old costumes, masks, and pictures of dances. They had some things from the museum on display and a “carnival” which included sling shots, bows and arrows and this game where you hit a spinning top with a whip to keep it up. I got in line to try the bow and arrows and then these kids tried to cut in front of me. I told them to get behind me and they thought I was so weird! Then we got called to the front of the line since we are white. The bows strings were made of twisted animal hide that still had hair on it.  I wasn’t very good, but I’m happy I tried and gave some Tanzanians something to laugh at. There were also a lot of vendors selling some food that I hadn’t seen before. One mama told us to buy her root (it looked like cassava but it was thinner and you could eat the skin) because it was “dawa mpenzi”, or lover medicine. She said if we ate the root then we would get a lover. It kind of tasted and looked like a dirty French fry. We also tried “churros” that were a little too tough and chewy for my taste. We only watched about half an hour of dances. I sat on the main steps with all the kids. My legs were hanging down into the entrance area where the performers came out. My favorite act was the dancers on stilts. Two of them had to go back inside because of technical issues, but then they returned to the stage. Otherwise they were so graceful and were jumping around and spinning!

All in all a good weekend! We woke up at 4:45am today and took a bajaj to the standi. I got back to Newala at 10am! I bought tickets to go to Dar later this week. I wanted to leave Saturday but for some reason the bus doesn’t go Saturday, so we are leaving Friday now. We will arrive in Morogoro on Saturday and be there for 2 weeks for IST (In-Service Training). I’m excited to see everyone and have a break from teaching!