Sicknesses of the Human and Laptop Variety

I know I haven’t written in a long while again, but I actually do have quite a bit to write about.  I even have the time to write now, as the girls are all on break for all of December and I have pretty much spent my recent days alternating lying around being nauseous from my second round of giardia meds and painting.  But more on all that later.  I do actually have a valid excuse for why I haven’t written—my laptop has decided that Tanzania isn’t a suitable climate for it to continue carrying out basic functions.

Basically, that means it just randomly decides that it has had enough and shuts itself off.  It can stay on for hours at a time or it can decide it’s had enough after 10 minutes.  Definitely not conducive to sitting down to write a long blog post when I am nervous it might shut off and I lose all my work at any moment.

But, I will save often and try and break this up into more frequent small posts so that I can avoid the oft-occurring laptop meltdown.  I am warning you though, as the speed at which I need to get down information increases, the post quality will undoubtedly decrease.  Anyone who has tried to write a paper the night before it’s due knows what I am talking about (if any of my past high school teachers or college professors are reading this... I promise I never did this in your class sorry).

And here’s a poorly drawn supporting graph of this phenomenon for the visual learners in the room… on the blog… whatever.

You probably can't really tell, but I actually do spend a lot of time editing these because I tend to go on frequent tangents that require me to explain things via shoddy Microsoft-Paint-created illustrations.  Before now those have all just been edited out.  You're welcome.  But rejoice (I know I am)! I will be back to my regular well-edited posts in January when my new laptop from the states arrives.   Shout-out to dad for the incredible Christmas gift, to mom for taking the time to load up all the software and sending it to Dana, and to Dana for agreeing to bring a bigger carry-on so she can lug it back to Tanzania for me after winter break. 

But, anyways.  First things first.

Giardia Medication Induced Nausea and Headaches: a Cautionary Tale.

My first round of giardia meds didn’t work.  Despite being really strong and giving me some seriously wonky side effects, a few days after I stopped I was still having some of the same symptoms I had before starting the meds.  Apparently this isn’t uncommon—if you have it for a long time like I did there can be a lot of it in your system and it can take more than one round of meds to get rid of it all.  So, after consulting the nice lady in the pharmacy, I got a second round of meds.  Well, a different medicine, but for the same purpose.

So, the first day of taking my new medicine, I got a really killer headache and was nauseous.  It was one of the possible side effects of the medicine which is no surprise considering there was a small war going on in my stomach (side note, my roomies told me that I reminded them of the movie Osmosis Jones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeSpW75M2w8).

I shrugged it off and grabbed two advil.  This is a weird place to say this, but LOOK UP DRUG INTERACTIONS ONLINE before taking anything.  I was about to take the advil for the headache when I decided I should make sure that there weren’t any weird interactions.  Good thing I did, because it turns out if you take NSAIDs (like advil) at the same time as the antiparasitic meds I was on it can cause convulsive seizures.  It didn't say that in any of the warnings included in the box.  In all likelihood, that's because it probably doesn't effect most people and nothing would have happened to me. But, those aren’t risks I really want to take. I’ll ride out the headache, thanks.      

UP NEXT: The Circle of Life.  And don’t worry; it’s not a video of me singing the Disney classic.  I have a singing voice that’s really only fit for the shower or the car when the music is loud enough to mostly drown me out. 

Peace, Love, and (hopefully) No More Stomach Parasites,

Carolyn

Graduate Check-ins: Problems and Perks of Being a Mzungu Travelling the Tanzanian Way

I have recently been joking that I have many different hats here at Sega.  I’ve talked about my gardening hat and my art teaching hat… but one of my hats that I wasn’t really expecting to be wearing was my career counselor hat.  I’m not sure if this will be a permanent position for me here—it’s not exactly my cup of tea and it isn’t something I feel like I really know anything about—but it’s a big part of what I am doing for now.  Which lead to my most recent adventure—a weeklong trip all around Tanzania to check in with the girls that graduated last year.

First, a little background.

A huge part of what I’ve been doing is managing the continuing education scholarships for these graduates.  These girls are mostly in either colleges in a 1-year certificate program, or in “A-Levels” which is form 5 and 6. Managing their scholarships means I frequently have girls text me in all caps that they have run out of money and can’t pay for things like food.  Or toothpaste.  Or notes.  At first, this really stressed me out, as one could imagine. 

I’ve pretty much got the process down now:

1. Receive urgently worded text that they need money THAT DAY.  Sometimes at 6 AM or 8:30 PM.
2. Check the three different files we keep on these girls to see if one of those costs is covered somewhere or if we’ve already given them money for that thing.
3. Ask Pauline (the school’s counselor, and my amazing boss and officemate) if I should give the student money.
4. Ask Polly (the school director and my other amazing boss) based upon Pauline’s recommendation.
5. Fill out a form to request money from Geoffrey (the school’s accountant).  Probably have to redo it at least once because I consistently mix up what part of the form to write in the amount and what part to write in what it’s for.
6. Receive the money.
7. Go into town, and use a system called m-pesa to send the money to the girl’s cell phone at which point she can go withdraw the cash from a number of little shops in whatever city she is studying in.

I still would not say that it is something I enjoy, particularly when I have to tell the girls that, no, we already paid them and they don’t get another payment until X date.  But at least it doesn’t drive me to go on long, solo, stress-relief runs at the end of the day every time it happens.  It also takes a sometimes crazy amount of time and it has definitely limited my involvement in doing a lot of environment stuff which is pretty unfortunate, but that will hopefully be resolved within the next few weeks.

But anyways, at the end of October, Pauline told me one day that I would need to do check-ins with all of the graduates at their schools.  After convincing her that if I did it alone I would probably end up getting incredibly lost and never make it back to Sega, she agreed to come with me.  Which, seeing how our trip went, was definitely best.

It started off in much the same way that these things always seem to—ending up working out but in the most stressful way it could.

The Trip
The night before I was supposed to leave, my stomach woke me up at 2 am for an urgent trip to the restroom.  This had been happening a few times a week since about 3 weeks after arriving in Tanzania so, as uncomfortable as it was, I figured it would be fine by the morning.  And it was, except that I was exhausted from being up half the night and so I slept in late.  I had to meet Pauline at the bus station and had told her to text me when I should leave to meet her in the bus station in Morogoro.  I missed her first text and it wasn't until she called me from 10 minutes away that I realized I was supposed to have left already.  Thank goodness for one of the Sega drivers—he rushed me to the bus station and I literally ran and jumped on the bus just as it was leaving.  I was exhausted and would have slept, but buses in Tanzania do this fun thing where:

1. They drive insanely fast on not so great two lane roads and aggressively pass each other so you’re white-knuckling it the whole way
2. They play a fun mix of Justin Bieber, Jay Z, and Bongo Flava (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttdU19Kwce8) at earsplitting volumes
3. When they aren’t playing music, they show poorly dubbed, cinematic masterpieces like “Jurassic Attack” (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2303110/) at the same earsplitting volumes

It is definitely all part of the experience, but I was still really happy to get off that bus in Iringa.  Now, getting OFF the bus is an adventure in-and-of itself.  Because, waiting at the door of the bus is a crowd of people trying to convince you to buy soda or nuts or cake or a ticket on their bus or a ride on their motorcycle or taxi.  Basically, I would hold onto my bags tightly in one hand and Pauline’s hand with the other as we weaved through the crowd of people shouting “MZUNGU!”  Despite the shouting, which happens pretty much anywhere I go in Tanzania, I really enjoyed Iringa a lot.  It’s a bit smaller of a town than Morogoro, the people are pretty friendly, and the weather is a bit cooler so that you aren’t perpetually sweating.

I also liked Iringa because, despite my initial nervousness at the bus station there, people really didn’t try to mess with me too much.  I found out the next day that it was because of a story called Mzungu’s Bag.  Mzungu means “white person” in Swahili, and pretty much anywhere you go in Tanzania that isn’t on the tourist circuit you are guaranteed to hear a few shouts of it come your direction.  I wouldn’t say that it’s enjoyable—a part of me is tempted to respond with sarcasm and go “WHERE?!?!” and look around dramatically—but it isn’t threatening or anything.  Honestly, I think they’re just surprised, more than anything.  Pauline also informed me that they think that because I’m white, I have a lot of money and so I should be able to buy anything.  I told her the joke is on them—I’m a volunteer and spent all my money on the plane ticket getting here. 

But, anyways.  Mzungu’s Bag.  So, the morning we were leaving from Iringa to go to Mbeya a woman from one of the buses offered to carry Pauline’s suitcase, but gave me one nervous sideways glance and didn't offer with my duffle.  I was fine with that—it wasn't heavy and I was still pretty wary about my belongings.  Turns out I didn't need to be.  We got to the bus station and upon seeing the woman carrying Pauline’s suitcase and not mine the bus conductor busts out laughing and turns to Pauline to tell this whole long story in Swahili.  I stood there quietly, with no idea what was going on, as per usual.  At the end of it Pauline busts out laughing and as we get on the bus she explains it to me—

Apparently, about a year ago, there was an American travelling on the buses in Iringa and her bag was stolen.  She reported it to the police and the police showed up every day for 3 weeks looking for the bag, checking all the buses, and generally giving everybody a rough time and delaying things.  It’s now a longstanding joke at the Iringa bus station that nobody should ever touch mzungu’s bag.  It certainly worked in my favor.

Unfortunately, one bad thing about being mzungu is that I am not used to the germs here—our first night in Mbeya I got really sick again.  I was then fine again for a day, and got really sick again the next night in Dodoma.  At this point, Pauline told me that I really needed to go to the doctor as soon as I got back to Morogoro.  She was also nice enough to let me skip out on one of our interviews so that I could sleep in the hotel for a little while.  Unfortunately, this sleep was interrupted when one of the ladies from the hotel front desk came into the room and told me I had to check out.  She spoke about as much English as I spoke Swahili, so there was a lot of confusing gesturing and I ended up sitting on the front stoop of the hotel waiting for Pauline to return. 

When she got back she sorted out our room situation so that we could leave our bags at the hotel and have a room in Dodoma when we got back.  We then had to rush to get on a bus to Singida—it was only supposed to be a 3 hour bus ride and it was before 11 am at this point.  We were sure that we would be able to make it to the girl’s school and back without any problems.  But, when we got to the bus station, we found that the only buses for Singida weren't leaving for another hour.  So we bought tickets and cookies (which ended up being the only thing I ate that entire day) and waited.  One hour, then two.   Finally, at around 2, the bus shows up.  And the ride ended up taking closer to 4 hours than 3.  So we arrived at around 6, interviewed this poor graduate across the street from the bus station, and rushed back to try and get a bus that was returning to Dodoma. 

There was only one bus.  It was leaving at 8.  And there were no seats left.

But, (A) our bags were in Dodoma, (B) we had already paid for our room there, and (C) neither of us had brought enough money to pay for a hotel in Singida.  We would have to go back that night.  And we would probably have to stand in the aisle the entire 4 hours.  After waiting for an hour and a half, a miracle happened—another bus had broken down en route to Dodoma, so they were sending a different bus from our station to pick those people up.  And there were seats on this bus.  AND it was a really nice bus.  So we boarded and off we went.  Now, if I thought being on buses in the day was terrifying, night is a beast of a whole ‘nother color.  I won’t go into it, but at one point I just put my head down and tried to sleep because flinching every 30 seconds was exhausting.  After around an hour and a half, we made it to the bus that had broken down.  It took about 20 minutes for those people to shuffle onto our bus, find their seats, and settle their luggage.  And then OUR bus wouldn’t start.  After another 20 minutes, they finally got the engine to turn over and we were on our way. 

I was pretty convinced that nothing else could possibly happen on that bus ride.  I was wrong.  At around 12, the police pull us over.  After some frantic conversations between the police and the driver, the conductors, and other bus patrons we are still stopped.  Pauline told me to stay in our seats as she went to figure out what was going on.  She came back and told me that the police said that it was too late and that the bus wasn’t allowed to be on the road this late.  They wanted us to pull over and spend the night on the bus in the middle of nowhere.  Meanwhile they let another half dozen trucks and cars pass through.  Pauline said it was probably because they wanted us to pay them off.  

At this point I was exhausted, hungry, delusional, and I needed to pee.  So we got off the bus and Pauline was nice enough to hold up her kanga (piece of Tanzanian fabric) for me while I peed.  I was not in any rush to get back on the bus (there were a lot of crying babies on there) so we stood outside and joked about how insane this trip had been.  As we stood there, I noticed the police officers kept glancing my direction and talking between themselves.  A few minutes later they went to go talk to the driver and they had changed their tune—we were allowed to leave.  Pauline looked at me and told me thank goodness I was there.  Turns out the police are a lot more worried about leaving a bus on the side of the road when there’s a mzungu on board. 

We were about half an hour from Dodoma at this point, but that didn't stop two more groups of police officers from trying to get us to stop.  We didn't make it back to our hotel until 2 AM.  We slept in late and headed back to Sega the next morning.  Thankfully, this bus ride was much smoother and incredibly uneventful.

Our meetings with students were definitely the things that made all of the crazy trips worth it.  Most of them were so excited to see Pauline, and a lot of them are doing really well and working really hard in classes.  Generally speaking, they are extremely grateful for the opportunity that they have been given and they really understand that Sega’s support is giving them a chance at a better future.  They’re motivated and driven to succeed.   Not all of the girls are like that, but enough are that it makes it feel like what I am doing is worthwhile. 

P.S.  In case you were worried about my health, don’t be.  On Monday I went to a really good doctor in Dar to try and figure out what was wrong with my stomach.  Upon hearing my symptoms, he told me I probably had giardia.  So I’m on the last day of these anti-parasitic meds that make my abdomen twitch and my pee highlighter yellow.   Good times.   

In the Art Room with Preform Students

My apologies for the long break in between posts—it’s been a busy and sort of crazy few weeks.  I wanted this next post to be a sort of “overview” of my daily schedule at Sega so I was waiting, hoping I would settle into a routine.  But, I can’t really say that I have a set daily or even weekly schedule—things come up last minute a lot and there is constantly something new.  Instead I decided I would talk about the thing I most enjoy here—teaching art to the preform girls.

Before I get started, I should probably explain a little bit about how the Tanzanian school system works and where the girls I teach lie in this.  First is seven years of primary school, which is taught in Swahili, divided up into what are called “standards”, and is mandatory for all children in Tanzania.  Because it’s mandatory, girls don’t usually drop out until secondary school, which is where Sega comes in.  Although Sega is technically a secondary school, girls are selected during their Standard 6 year based upon how likely it is that they might drop out once they reach secondary.  They arrive at Sega at the end of their Standard 6 year and take all of Standard 7 at Sega which helps them get adjusted to Sega but also ensures there isn’t a gap between the time they stop primary and start secondary school.  At the end of Standard 7, all students take a national exam which they need to pass to get into secondary school.  This exam is taken in September and, usually, primary school students have a break until the next January when they return to school. Secondary school is 6 years total, divided into what is called “forms”, and is split into O-Levels (Form 1-4) and A-Levels (Form 5 & 6).  Sega is an O-Level secondary school so (not including the primary school girls) there are students from Forms 1-4.

The Preform students (the ones that I am teaching) are girls that already took their Standard 7 exam but are waiting for their national exam results.  Because secondary school is taught in entirely in English, Sega uses these few months for an English-intensive program which is mostly taught by me and the other U.S. volunteers.  This is both good and bad.  Since most of us speak very little Swahili, they’ve definitely been completely immersed in English.  However, there’s no curriculum for these girls, a lot of them are at very different levels as far as their English, and they don’t really have any exams to study for so they can be pretty undisciplined.   It’s been a challenge for a lot of us.  

Although I had taught a lot of craft classes via girl scouts throughout middle and high school, teaching art to 31 34 middle school aged girls who don’t really speak the same language has been… well it has been a lot of what you would probably call “trial-and-error” teaching.  This basically means that I have been figuring out how to explain things using mostly gestures, what skill level they are at, and how to manage supplies.  It’s also a lot of remembering that these girls have really never had any art classes and probably have had really limited access to supplies.

It can be stressful, but it’s also really rewarding.  The girls do some really good work and many of them seem to really enjoy it.  Some things work better than others and it’s always sort of a surprise as to what works and what doesn’t.  Here are a few of the projects we’ve worked on:

Learning about primary, secondary, warm, and cool colors.

This was a really messy first project, but definitely fun.  We put different primary colored acrylic paints on each of our hands and then rubbed them together to learn about mixing primary colors to make secondary colors.  Also I had two visitors from the U.S. who came to help out in the class which was pretty cool.  I think they enjoyed the class and they took some pretty incredible pictures (some of which I already posted to Facebook, but here they are again).

As for warm and cool colors, the girls traced their hands and drew lines through them, breaking them into geometric shapes.  The object of the lesson was to do warm colors inside the hand and cool colors on the background, butttt that kind of got lost in translation and they just ended up painting them all different colors.    They still turned out pretty nice and they look really good hung up all together, in my opinion at least.

Learning about Value, Highlights, and Shading

This one was definitely tougher to explain with the language barrier, but I do think they turned out really nicely and they look pretty neat.  I also think that the girls got it by the end and I have seen some of them apply the things we talked about in this project to later projects.  Basically, I had premade sheets with different 3D shapes and they used colored pencils to shade their shapes depending upon the light source.  Then they used black sharpie to create a pattern in the background and pencil to create shadows on the background once they pasted on their shapes.  They turned out sort of like “op-art” and, again, looked pretty good all hung up together. 

“Stained Glass” Flowers

For this I was really just trying to figure out a way to re-use toilet paper tubes.  This was definitely pretty tough for them and probably too complicated of a project, but I still think it turned out okay.  I had the girls draw a series of geometric shapes onto tracing paper in colored markers and then trace them with black sharpie.  I had cut and put together all of the cardboard tube flowers earlier that week, so the girls just had to trace around the flower, cut them out, and then we taped them together.  Taping was definitely a challenge and required me to help everybody individually which is always problematic with such a big class.  I think they look cool, but maybe better suited for a Pinterest-y DIY preject than for an art class.  You live and learn.

 

Figure Drawing

In our most recent class we practiced figure drawing.  Again, not an easy concept to describe to the girls.  Despite that, they really enjoyed the lesson.  I think their favorite part was getting to be “models” for the rest of the class.  We had 8 different models come up and I gave them about five or six minutes to draw each person.  They didn’t really get it at first, but I stressed that you focus on drawing the general pose or position of the person and not on the details and they seemed to catch on by the end.  

Student modelling for figure drawing practice.

Despite the challenges, I really do enjoy teaching these girls and I do enjoy teaching art.

Until next time,

Carolyn

“I Don’t Know, Probably a Four-Legged Mammal”

The trusty Noah.

The volunteers went on our first “big adventure” last weekend—camping in Mikumi Wildlife Park.  Saturday afternoon we packed everything up into the trusty “Noah” and were on our way.  As with most cars here, the Noah is trusty in the sense that you can trust it pretty much always has something wrong with it and will potentially break down and/or not start at any point in time.   Right before we left, we were informed that it probably had an oil leak.  So, following the rule that “if you have it you won’t need it” we stopped at a gas station and were directed to the fundi (translation: mechanic) across the street where we got oil (which came in an old 1.5 liter plastic water bottle).  And then we were on our way.  Mikumi is an easy hour and a half drive down the road from Sega and has all the perks of the big northern parks without the big crowds, so we were all pretty excited.

The Noah was pretty trusty after all, and we ended up getting to Mikumi all in one piece and without problems.  After paying our entrance fees we drove through the park to our campsite which was well-equipped and super nice.  Polly, the director of our program, had a bunch of tents and camping gear for us to use, so we hurried to set up our tents before dark.  As I went to set up the tent I would share with one of the other volunteers, Dana, she told me that this would be her first time camping.  And what a first time it would be.

We set up camp pretty quickly and still had some light so we jumped back in the Noah and did a quick mini game drive out to the hippo pool.  As soon as we pulled up we saw a pair of elephants drinking from the pool.  No matter how many times I see elephants, I think I will always get excited and this time was no different.  We jumped out of the Noah to walk around and get some pictures.  With the sun setting, the silhouettes of the two elephants, and all of it reflecting in the hippo pool it was quite a beautiful sight and a really nice note to start out our trip.

We got back to camp and fixed the fire and had our dinner of rice and beans (what else) and a few bottles of red wine that Polly had brought for all of us.  As it got dark we talked for a while, played a few card games, listened to music, and enjoyed the fire.  At one point we looked up and noticed a glow in the distance—a brush fire.  There were a few trees that were blocking the view and it was hard to figure out how far away the fire really was from our campsite.  We walked around the group of trees to get a better look.  It was still hard to tell exactly how far away it was, as the land is so incredibly flat and tree-less you can see for a lot further than any of us are really used to.  But it looked big.  And it looked like it was moving our direction.  We were all a little nervous about going to sleep with the big brush fire, so we decided to try and stay up for a little while to keep watch.  And then we started hearing animals. 

Now, last year when I camped in the Serengeti with my study abroad program, we heard hyenas at night sniffing around our tent, lions making their strange yelping calls, and even a big cape buffalo snorting.  But there were 40+ of us and we had askari (guards).  So, when we sat back down and heard a loud animal noise that sounded fairly close, the six of us jumped up from the table and scuttled towards the car.  We all stood there, staring intently in the direction of the noise, pointing our headlamps into the little woods to try and find the source, but not wanting to go any closer.  I had told the story about hearing hyenas the previous year and everybody was asking what kind of animal it could be.  I had no idea so, jokingly, I said “It’s probably a four-legged mammal.”  In reality, it was probably a baboon and it was probably not as close as it sounded.  But after a few minutes of us standing close to the car “just in case”, we settled back down at the table.   

Polly and Alice (the outgoing Peace Corps volunteer) went to bed, but the four of us other volunteers stayed up playing cards and talking.  The animal noises seemed to occur more frequently after that: hippos, birds, bats, and other unidentifiable four-legged mammals.  At one point Dana and I heard something that sounded like a dog howl and I was pretty convinced it was wild dogs.  Wild dogs are virtually extinct in Northern Tanzania, but they do have them in Mikumi.  Despite common conception of lions as the “kings” of the jungle, wild dogs are actually much more successful hunters.  While lions have a kill rate at around 60%, wild dogs are somewhere closer to 90%.  Not thinking, I shared this statistic and definitely freaked poor Dana out.  Quite the first camping experience.  We went to check the brush fire again and, thankfully, it had died down by then so it was off to bed.  It was around 2 AM at that point and, apparently, within the hour Polly and Alice woke up when lions started roaring relatively close to our campsite. But, we all woke up the next morning no worse for wear and excited to make another trip soon.  I see a lot of fun camping adventures with this group in my future. 

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