Water, Water, Everywhere... Sort of

One thing that I really wasn't too sure about before coming here was how my drinking water situation would be.  I knew we had running water and a toilet but, besides that, I didn't really know too much.  It turns out we’re pretty spoiled as far as that goes.  We have running water, I can brush my teeth with water that comes from the tap, AND we have a shower.

Of course each of those positives has their caveats:

(1)  We have running water.  Except when we don’t.  Which happens for a couple of hours 4-5 times a week for various reasons.  One common one (particularly when it’s cloudy) is that the power goes out at some point during the night.  No power means the pumps don’t bring water up from the big cistern at the bottom of the hill which, in turn, means I frequently bumble around my room trying to find my giant bottle of hand sanitizer in the dark after using the bathroom in the middle of the night.  The power can also be a problem when it comes back on—a few particularly sunny days last weekend the power turning back on in the morning shorted out something in the control panel on the pumps and, again, no water.  Thankfully, my colleague Daniel is pretty awesome and, in addition to being knowledgeable about organic farming, he’s handy with electronics (and getting nests of baby owls out of roofs, and building shelves for our storage room, and basically everything we need…).

Our well-loved "mama" and "baby" kettles.

(2) I can brush my teeth without getting sick from it.  This was a huge positive that I am pretty darn excited about.  Anybody who has traveled to a country where you have to use a water bottle to brush your teeth every night knows what I am talking about.  But, we do have to boil all of our drinking water.  We have the set-up to have a UV light treat all of our water but, unfortunately, the light burnt out a couple of weeks before I arrived.  Despite efforts, the contractor who installed the system is being incredibly slow about sending a new bulb and he won’t tell us another place where we could buy a suitable replacement.  So, for now, we boil water before going to bed, let it cool overnight, put it into 1.5 liter plastic water bottles, and stick those in the fridge.  Not the most energy efficient system (we have a gas stove that isn't the best and it sometimes takes a long time to get a rolling boil going), but it works. 

Filling up the wash bucket for a shower.

(3) We have a shower.  But no hot water.  So, again, our two giant kettles come in handy here.   We fill a wash tub half way up with cold water, pour in the boiling water, and there you have some warm water to wash your hair with.   It’s actually not a bad system.   We have a pitcher to take the water from the tub and pour over our head, and I think I’ll actually enjoy the cold water once we get into the warmer season.  It’s “winter” right now and while the nights and mornings can be a little chilly, the afternoons are pretty hot. 

Our "emergency" backup water.

Although some of this may seem a bit absurd, it really hasn't been too tough of an adjustment.  It pretty easily becomes a part of your routine and you figure out how to deal.  We have two big buckets we keep filled with water for washing up when the water goes out.  I take fewer showers and generally take them in the afternoon after classes are done.  If we know we have water dirty dishes don’t sit in the sink for long, we don’t leave the water running long, and we’re sure to fill up both our kettles.  It’s not inconvenient, honestly.  It’s just something you’re more conscious of.  And that’s part of the point in being here—challenging assumptions and changing the way I think.  Even in small, daily ways.

And speaking of water, next Wednesday Dana and I are taking 30 of the perform girls (think 6^th or 7^th grade-ish) to the pool in town to learn how to swim.  I will talk more about the preform girls in another post, as they are the students I will be teaching in art and environmental studies for the next 2 ½ months and I am going to get to know them quite well.  It’s only been a few weeks and I can already tell they are quite the cast of characters.

Putting on another pot to boil while I make my art lesson plan for Monday,

Carolyn  

I Guess I'm a "Real Farmer" Now

One of the things I am doing here at Sega as part of my environmental work is working in the organic garden with the girls.  The main garden is basically right in the front yard of the volunteer house, but the guy in charge of the organic gardening program as well as most of the grounds stuff at Sega (Daniel) was away at a conference on organic farming the first few days I arrived at Sega.  Meaning that, this past Saturday evening, I got my first taste of my gardening responsibilities.

The girls that work in the garden are the pre-form and form one students (think middle school and freshmen in high school).  Generally speaking, these girls have the least English so I am extremely thankful that I’m working with Daniel on this one because (a) my Swahili at this point consists of names of animals and basic greetings and (b) I don’t know much about gardening to begin with.  You want me to classify the soil type or label the soil horizons?  No problem.  Write out the equation for photosynthesis?  Can do.  But the specifics of planting seeds, making organic pesticides, or knowing when to harvest… not so much.  So, I’m eager to learn and to get my hands dirty (literally). 

And the girls definitely know that.  After the initial period of me standing there awkwardly waiting around to figure out what we were supposed to be doing and the girls staring at me and being incredibly shy any time I looked in their direction, they were eager to watch me mess things up.  There were frequent calls of “Madam!  Come help!” and then incessant giggles as soon as I tried to water, plant, or swing a pickaxe.  But it was all in good fun.  Our first session ended rather abruptly as a rain storm blew in while Daniel was explaining an interesting technique called “basket composting” to me and the students. 

From what I gathered before the downpour, it’s a way to aerate, increase soil fertility, and decrease erosion and runoff.  Basically you dig a hole, fill the bottom three quarters with straw, put a thick layer of either green vegetation or compostable kitchen waste on top of that, and then cover it with topsoil.  The hole itself was a square and you plant it sort of like the five on dice—one in the middle and one in each corner.    

Drenched and covered in mud, but still one happy farmer.  

The next day I was in the shower when they started working but, when I realized they were working, I went out to join.  It promptly started raining again but we hadn’t finished planting a new row of tomatoes and spinach.  So, two of the girls and I finished the planting in the pouring rain.  By the end of it I was soaked to the bone and my hands and flipflop-clad feet were covered in mud.  Daniel, Kini, and Dana were out on our front porch and all laughed at me as I goofed around in the mud and rain.  Daniel joked that I was a “real farmer” now and told me I need to figure out where I’m going to put my farm when I go back to the states. 

My next task: helping Daniel find someone who’s willing to donate cow poop to the school so we can make charcoal.  

Unrelated but still fun: I taught the new Mkundi 6 (think like 5th/6th grade) girls the Hokey Pokey yesterday and how to fold origami paper frogs this morning.  They don't know much English, but we're already using art as a teaching tool there-- today we learned "We fold green paper frogs" and went over shapes, colors, and other English vocab.  Also they got a huge kick out of making their frogs "hop" and were super excited that I let them keep them.

Until next time,

"Farmer" Carolyn  

Hello from Sega Girls School!

The view from our front stoop!

On Tuesday night I arrived in Morogoro after a warm and bumpy 3.5 hour drive.  We picked up another volunteer, Kini, from the Dar airport beforehand and then headed out with our two drivers Mudi and Robert.  The constant banter of Swahili going on between the two of them made me really wish I knew more of the language.  Something to definitely work on.

We made it to the school just before dark and a bunch of the girls helped us bring our bags to the volunteer house where we’re staying.  I didn’t quite know what to expect, but was pleasantly surprised—the beds are comfortable, there is a fridge and a stove in the kitchen, a nice shower, and a western toilet!  And, biggest pleasant surprise of all, we have Wi-Fi!  

There are four of us living in the volunteer house right now.  Dana—the volunteer coordinator—has been showing Kini and me the ropes around here, introducing us to staff and the girls, and making sure we don’t get too overwhelmed.  She’s super friendly and sweet and has definitely made me feel at home here so far. 

Veronica is a Peace Corps volunteer who starts teaching here in October.  She’s from California and will be teaching bio and English classes.  She’s been in Tanzania for almost 2 months as well, but most of that time was spent in Peace Corps training, so she only arrived on campus a couple days before Kini and I arrived. 

Kini is going to be teaching English as a foreign language to the “non-form” girls (basically the younger ones—I’ll explain the Tanzanian school system in another post once I understand it a bit more fully).  She’s from Vermont, played field hockey goalie (!), and will be here for 10 months. 

My bunk.  Settled in and feeling right at home.

Right now Veronica, Kini, and I share one room with Dana in another.  The room I am in is pretty spacious (a lot bigger than my “triple” from freshman year at Davidson).  I kind of packed a lot, so fitting it all into one cabinet was tough—there’s a lot of my “extra” stuff still in my suitcase under the bed.  I’m actually going to probably end up moving into the brand new “staff house” when they get the electricity run to that house, but unsure how long that will take, so I’m here for now. 

Speaking of electricity, that’s been a kind of interesting adventure here already.  The school is completely off the Tanzanian power grid—everything here is run via solar power.  It’s pretty awesome as far as sustainability goes, and I am definitely all about it and it is super exciting to see alternative power in action at a really workable scale.  However, it does mean that, especially on cloudier days, the power can go out pretty early in the evening.  There are a few different sets of solar panels on campus, and last night the girl’s dorms and common space lost power at around 5 pm.  Unfortunately, two of the grade levels have their midterm exams this week so that meant that around 7 when the sun went down they didn’t have light to study by.  The volunteer house still had power so, at around 7:30 a group of a few girls asked if they could study on our front stoop.  Within the next 10 minutes there was a group of 20+ form 1 girls there, all studying for their exams.

It seems weird that today was only really my second real day here.  I won't say that the days have been really packed, because we've had a good mix of down time and activity.  I haven't had any real jobs so far, but I'm working on doing inventory for all of the art supplies which has been cool.  That in combination with seeing the awesome, brand new art classroom has made me really excited to get started.  30 new girls are arriving on Saturday  for their orientation and I planned out some fun art activities to do with them over the next week while the rest of the older girls are home on break.  Really excited about that!

Bye for now from a cloudy and windy Morogoro!

Care 

One Book, a Half-Asleep Request for Egg Salad, and a Really Long "Quick Nap" Later: I've Arrived.

That's right, me and my two three checked bags made it to Tanzania.

After standing in line to check into my flight for over an hour on Sunday morning (everyone in line had about 4 huge suitcases per person) I found out that there was a weight limit on your carry-on luggage-- 20 pounds.  Unfortunately, my duffle weighed around 30 and I knew there was no easy way for me to shuffle around that weight between the three bags.  So, we had to pay the fee for a third checked bag.  Which, while it was nice to not have to lug around the duffle with me through Dulles, was actually pretty annoying.  Especially because there were a lot of people who brought bags that looked way heavier than 20 pounds and didn't have to check them.  Rude.
Although a little more rushed than I usually like, I still had time to grab a Chipotle burrito, eat some of it before boarding, and shove the rest of it in my bag.  We actually boarded a little late and ended up leaving about an hour late.  I wasn't really paying attention, so I don't actually even know what caused the delay, but I'm guessing that it was the crazy amount of time it took everybody at check-in and that they were waiting for passengers to get through security.  I had a 4 hour layover in Ethiopia so I wasn't overly concerned.
A nice, older couple sat next to me.  They were friendly, but the kind of friendly I like to sit next to on 12 and a half hour flights-- they smiled, said hello, and then we did our own thing with no painful small-talk required.  The woman who sat next to me was nice enough to wake me up when the flight attendants came around with food at three really oddly timed intervals (not timed with U.S. meals or with east African times...) which led to the whole egg salad deal.

Either a bunch of ice or some really low clouds...

I had napped, finished my first kindle book, taken pictures of clouds (ice?), and eaten some of my leftover Chipotle so I could take my malaria meds with a meal.  So, I napped again.  I was asleep for about an hour when the woman next to me woke me up.  The flight attendant asked me "chicken or vegetable" but I thought she said "chicken or egg salad".  It led to a very confusing 30 seconds where I kept asking for egg salad and the flight attendant just stared at me clearly very confused and then we both just burst out laughing.  In the end the vegetable sandwich was surprisingly good anyways.


But, anyways, the second flight was uneventful, I got through getting my visa without issue, and was happily surprised to see all 3 of my checked bags waiting for me on the other side, no worse for wear.  I got to my hotel which is pretty nice and have been enjoying the shower, wifi, and mostly the bed.  In fact, last night, after I checked and made sure nothing in my bags had broken or exploded (success-- no toiletry disasters there), I laid down for what was supposed to be a quick nap before grabbing dinner but ended up sleeping until 11 pm.  I woke up for about an hour to shower and eat a quick power bar, then went back to sleep til this morning.  I guess I was tired.

This morning I put on my first skirt of the trip (this is still going to take a little getting used to) and went to breakfast.  I would say it has all felt a little surreal so far, but sitting down to breakfast, drinking tea and eating a lot of the same stuff I ate daily last summer I had a weird sort of "Oh yeah, this is where I am" moment.  I guess it's because I didn't spend very much time in Dar es Salaam last summer, so it's not as though the sights of this area were super familiar to me.  Until I sat down to my breakfast of watermelon, chapati, baked beans, and tea with milk and sugar, I could have sort of been anywhere.
I get picked up around noon to go back to the airport and pick up another volunteer, then it's off to Morogoro.  Not sure how soon I will have the internet situation settled there, so bye until then!