happy holidays from zanzibar!

We're in Zanzibar for our first official vacation! We spent the first 7 nights on the beach in a town called Paje, and it was lovely: nowhere to go, nothing to buy, simple bungalows on the beach, good Japanese food at our Japanese-owned hotel (we found the 1 tiny local cafe, too, because we were missing our usual beans and rice!), almost empty beaches with powdery white sand, more seashells than I've ever seen on a beach in my life, and, of course, swimming every day in the Indian Ocean. Really, really nice. Yesterday we left the serenity of the beach for the chaos of Stone Town, which is the main tourist town on the island. We're staying in absolute luxury: our hotel has air conditioning, cable tv, fluffy towels, and a bathtub! Yep, we're living large before we head back to the realities of our town. Speaking Kiswahili here is a secret weapon, because NO ONE expects that we can; thousands of tourists come here for vacation(for the beauty of the ocean, the great shopping, and the famous doors of Zanzibar), and almost no one can speak the local language, but we can, and people stop in their tracks! I have to admit that it feels really good to have this ability, and it definitely helps when it comes to bargaining for all the treasures I'm dragging home. So we're tanned and relaxed and had a nice time for our first Christmas in Tanzania.

Funny glimpse of Peace Corps Volunteers on vacation: our hotel in Paje had clotheslines on the porches for people to dry their beach towels and bathing suits. In very typical Peace Corps style, we all washed our clothes--all of them--in our rooms, and dried them on the clotheslines instead of our bathing suits. You can spot a Peace Corps Volunteer from a mile away because you'll spot the jeans and socks drying on any available surface.

So tomorrow is New Year's Eve. My plans for the last day of 2007 include receiving a massage (my first in almost 7 months!!), eating Indian food, shopping a little, then putting on a new dress and listening to a dj on a rooftop bar overlooking the ocean while the New Year comes around. I am wishing you all health, happiness, contentment and gratitude for 2008.

on the road again

We arrived in Dar es Salaam yesterday, late in the afternoon, after a 9 hour bus ride from Mpwapwa. Interesting bus ride from Mpwapwa: we came upon a different bus that was broken down on the muddy road, and it broke down right next to a bridge that's under construction so we couldn't pass. After about 45 minutes of contemplating, our driver got the idea to pile rocks up on the not-finished bridge so make it more passable; then he told everyone to get off the bus. We all climbed off and waited in the ditch to see what his plan was: he gunned the engine and, at about 40mph, flew over the not-quite-finished bridge where the rocks were recently laid. It worked! We got back on the bus and waved at all the people who were still stuck in the broken down bus. After we got to Dar, we spent the evening walking around, eating everything in sight (Subway subs, ice cream, Chinese food.) Right now we're at Peace Corps headquarters taking care of some paperwork before we head to Zanzibar on a ferry tomorrow morning. Our plumbing problem is being repaired as I write this so when we return to our site, everything should be ok.

In the spirit of the holidays, I wanted to mention something about our intended projects in our town. For some of the things we have planned, we need to write grants to get the financial support to make things happen. Depending on the nature of the project (repairing a broken water tank, for example), we need to solicit the funds through the Peace Corps website, with something called a Partnership Grant. Tony and I have not finished writing our first grant proposal, but when we do, I am appealing to the generous spirit of our families and friends back home to help us actualize our projects and make our new home of Kibakwe a healthier place for everyone to live. I will keep you posted as this process continues. Thanks in advance for your interest in our efforts here in Tanzania.

Speaking of holidays, this is the first Christmas of my life that I haven't been in a cold, snowy place to celebrate. I suppose lounging on a tropical beach on Zanzibar in my bathing suit will have to be good enough! It's also very strange to be here without any of the Christmas shopping hype that is so pervasive in the US. Truth be told: I don't miss that part at all. So we're on the road (and on the water) again tomorrow--I'll write next time from Zanzibar.

poop

Poop is an unpleasant thing to think about, but it's been at the forefront of my mind since we returned to our site last week after our workshop in Dodoma. We returned home with some Peace Corps friends who wanted to visit our town, and the first two days were good. Late Saturday night I noticed a foul odor coming from our sewage holding tank, which has been slowly oozing for the last 2 months; upon closer inspection, with a flashlight, we noticed it leaking sewage in a steady stream. Tony grabbed a shovel to dig a little hole for it to run into until we could see properly the next day, and the corroded pipe burst and sewage began flowing. Oh boy. Our houseboy/friend, Gilbert, heard the commotion (he lives next door), woke up, grabbed his shovel and helped Tony shovel dirt over the leak to absorb everything. We knew our sewage system was really old and in terrible shape, and we've been waiting for proper support in fixing it. The time has come--no more procrastination. It burst again the next day, unprovoked, and early this morning I noticed another slow ooze. Now everyone really believes that we have a problem. Everything will be fixed, finally, while we're on holiday in Zanzibar, so we'll return home to a proper toilet situation. To add insult to injury,on our way out of town this morning, all I could smell was the manure from the farms. Enough poop for me.

one last tidbit

We're getting ready to leave Dodoma and just stocked up on the essentials: avocados and passion fruit. Do I think about food constantly? Yes, particularly since I live in such a tiny town where a wide variety is simply not available.

I forgot to mention something really interesting that we did when we first got here last week. We had the chance to visit an orphanage called "Village of Hope" (or "Kijiji cha Tumaini" in Kiswahili.) This particular orphanage is run by an Italian Catholic priest, and has 150 HIV+ kids under the age of 15 living there. In one word: inspirational. He told us the story of his orphanage, then took us on the grand tour. The facilities are amazing, but more important than that was watching him interact with these kids: the love in his heart knows no boundaries, and he hugged and kissed and cuddled every child he passed. They were equally happy to be with him, too, jumping into his arms or holding his hands. He originally started the orphanage to give these kids a place to die peacefully, knowing what love feels like. With proper love, nutrition, health care, and a clean roof over their heads, the kids started thriving, not dying, so he has had to keep expanding the facilities (first a primary school, now a secondary school which opens next year.) His mission on earth is to give these orphans love, and it's working. I left with high hopes of working with him at some point during my Peace Corps service.

Ok, back to food. It's time for Indian (we found the secret Indian restaurant here in Dodoma) and I'm hungry. Not really--I just ate more yogurt. But that won't stop me.

yogurt & ice cream & avocados

Howdy from Dodoma! We're here for a Peace Corps conference and will be leaving in two days. We got here 10 days ago; that means we've had 10 days of hot showers, tv in our hotel room, TOILETS, fans, air conditioning during our lectures, yogurt, ice cream, and avocados. Wow. I think I've re-gained 5 of my lost pounds (only an American would say that.) It's so nice to be here with all our PC friends, exchanging stories about our sites and catching up on all the PC gossip. It just poured rain and I'm covered in mud right this second because I couldn't wait for the rain to stop before I went to the market to buy avocados. So we're all here together, learning about grant-writing and permaculture gardening (better health through small gardens near your house.) After the conference is over we go home for about a week with a bunch of our friends who want to see our house; then, a group of us are going to Zanzibar for Christmas and New Year! Christmas on the beach=perfection. We are so excited!!

So what's new at our site? Not much. Fence is almost finished, water tank is awesome, garden is planned. We have a lot of ideas for projects in the new year and I'll keep you posted. Our Kiswahili is coming along slowly, but since we've been in Tanzania now for 6 months (can you believe it?), I'm amazed at how far we've come. I am infinitely more comfortable in the sketchy situations (bus stands, specifically) and I'm feeling attracted towards working with at-risk groups (like the sketchy young men who frequent the sketchy bus stands.) We continue to have ups and downs, which I have to believe is completely normal for a "stranger in a strange land." Most important to us is that we are well-liked in our town.

Funniest moment of the workshop: learning to say, in Kiswahili, "This person here, in the toilet, is my friend."
Funniest thing at our site: Zizo, our houseboy/counterpart, was looking especially sleepy one afternoon. We had a lengthy conversation in Kiswahili about his sleepiness. Out of nowhere he said, in perfect English, "I am physically fit and chemically balanced." Out of nowhere.