Happy Friday! Let me introduce you properly to my latest (and greatest) Fluffy Butt. This is Fat Marie. She’s a sweet bird, but gives best stink eye ever. All the other girls are intimidated by her because she’s so huge! (Notice how ALL the other hennies give her wide berth a wide berth. She’s a Red Star, which is a sex-linked breed. This means you can tell sex at birth based on color. She’s 3 and apparently her laying skills have diminished, but I believe her eggs will be brown should she grace us with one. Meanwhile, she’s making best efforts to keep the rest of the flock in line. 🥚#fluffybuttfriday #fbf #backyardchickens #chickensaspets #eggmachines #redstarsexlinks #homegrowneggs #freerange #besteggs #thedirtonorganicgardening (at Pasadena, California)
Thanksgiving came and passed by without much thought. I got together with a few of the volunteers in the Iringa region for the weekend and had a real American Thanksgiving dinner. A chick even found Turkeys in her vil (village) and was able to cook it at my friend Zac’s house. He’s got a pretty modern setup with electricity, running water, and even an oven! It was the most delicious/freshest Turkey I have ever eaten (sorry mom, gotta kill the Turkey a day ahead to give it that extra somethin-somethin)
After Thanksgiving I made an unintended detour and traveled to Njombe to go to the lake (again) and the waterfall with some peeps. Traveling to Njombe is amazing because it’s so green and beautiful. Its the complete opposite of what people think of when they think “Africa”. Njombe is apparently one of the coldest places on the African continent (fun fact provided by my friend who lives there).
After hanging out in Njombe, we got on a 8 hour bus ride to Morogoro for EST-Early Service Training. So Peace Corps has 3 main trainings where our whole class is required to attend- PST, EST, and MST (Mid-Service Training). These are the only times when our whole class is together at the same time. There are other trainings known as IST (In-Service Training) but those are smaller and overlap with other classes.
I enjoyed seeing everyone (well mostly everyone). At times it got to be a little overwhelming but I just kept reminding myself of what little time we actually all had together. Overall I probably got 1 full night of sleep during the 2 weeks I was there but it was worth it. (hashtag noregretz)
The first week was just our class together where we had sessions for 6 of the 7 days (from 8-5). Looking back, I’m not really sure what I learned during that week (shrug*). The second week of training was done with our counterparts. Each volunteer was required to ask a teacher (PC calls them “counterparts”) from their school to come to Morogoro and participate in trainings for the week. At first I wasn’t sure how that all was going to be, thought it might be kind of awkward but.... It was great!
Edra Nyahenge teaches social studies and has been teaching at Madibira for 2 years now. His wife is a fundi (she makes clothes) and she made me a beautiful blue flower dress (will post pic). During the school riots, his house wasn’t touched which was a positive indicator that he is well liked by the students. He was the counterpart for the girl who stayed for a short while before me and was kind of “assigned” to me by the headmaster of the school when I arrived. He is always ready to help me with anything and everything. I think at the beginning (and maybe even a little still) he was thinking/worried I would leave at any moment but I could never leave Madibira, this place rocks.
Edra was so excited and participated in all the sessions. It was nice to see him so engaged and willing to learn. His attitude reminded me that as a Peace Corps Volunteer I’m not here for myself (or that instagram/facebook pic). We are here to facilitate the community to help themselves. Doing projects on your own here will never work. As soon as you leave there’s no one to “pick up the fallen torch”. Without your school or communities support, any project done will be short lived and a waste of time. Since I’m only here for 2 short years I need to make sure the projects I facilitate are able to be sustained after I’m gone, or whats even the point.
It’s still pretty early on in my service to have any real project started. Most volunteers will generally wait about a year before starting anything big. The best part of the training was the Project Design and Management which was done with our counterparts. This was extremely helpful because Edra knows more about the schools problems than I do. We’ve got a list of ideas and it’ll be interesting what we’ll be able to accomplish in the next 2 years.
So after training I headed back home to find my house in a bit of a mess. Lots of dog shit but I’m used to that. My travels were pretty uneventful, I’m becoming a pro here. My Swahili is pretty strong (crazy to think I only started to learn it 5 months ago) but it’ll inevitably decrease a bit with the coming weeks of traveling and being around Americans. I’m not too worried though, my goal is to be fluent by the year mark. I’ve got time.
The puppies..... Well I’m down to 3. The vet STILL hasn’t come yet, he’s somewhere. It’s a perfect example of a phenomenon known here as “kesho ya Tanzania” (tomorrow of Tanzania, where tomorrow can mean tomorrow... or the day after... or the day after that, or never). I don’t think they were being fed enough while I was away and it seems that Simba started eating the other puppies food because Pumba was looking a little skinny when I got back. They have also started killing and eating my neighbors chickens (the death count is at 4 so far) . The first day back Nala brought back a medium size chicken and Simba challenged her to a duel over it. I, being a dumbass, tried to stop them by getting in the middle of it and Nala latched onto my leg. Not fun. The bite looks fine but after a couple days I called PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer) since my mom would be so pissed if I got rabies. They’re sending me to Dar to get some exposure medicine. I was going there anyway for my travels so I’m just going earlier than planned.
I’ll be spending Christmas in Mtwara (also known by PCVs as “the dirty south”) with a bunch of other PCVs. After Christmas I’ll be heading to the island of Zanzibar for some New Years Eve celebration. After all that fun I’ll be returning back to my site (the “real world”) where I’m looking forward to teaching and getting some chickens (aka egg machines).
