Well I had a sweet blog all written out to type up but I lost the notebook so....yeaaa. I have been at my site for a little over a month now! I LOVE my village. I am becoming mildly obsessed with the Tanzanian lifestyle. I enjoy going out to the village square in the evenings when everyone gets done farming and chilling in the coffee hut or just alongside the road in the grass for hours upon hours with my villagers.It's perfectly normal to see 2 guys or girls walking down the street holding hands or embracing but you will never see guy/girl pda. I fully take advantage of this with all my girlfriends. It's also a sign of respect to call an old man just that -Mzee, I like it.I now eat dinner around 9pm or later. During homestay I thought eating at 8pm was late. Now eating before 9 feels strange.Also, around 10am everyday everything closes for a chai break, and trust me, my belly knows when it's time for chai. How did I/will I ever live without the daily chai break? I also cant imagine sleeping without a mosquito net.
So a couple weeks ago I go into my banking town to meet up with one of my site mates. I arrive at the bus stand to meet her a couple hours early so I find a spot in the shade to read. One of the bus conductors (who I do not remember ever meeting) comes up like "Hey, Maria!!! Your friends bus gets in at 10 so come inside our office to pumzika and wait for her." When her bus arrives he says "oh she is right near the front so she will be off soon." It was so random. How does he know who I am waiting for and that she is in the front of the bus? It's so random but I suppose they always know what the wazungu are up to. The conductors must call each other as soon as they see us. I have to admit it's really convenient though.I will always know if a friends bus is running late or had problems. Also, so soon as I walk into the standi I hear "Maria Maria, njoo njoo(come here) So I never have a problem getting where I need to go and I pretty much get VIP treatment. Bus rides are always very interesting....packing 200 people onto a bus that holds 130.
It's not all fun and games here though. As much as I love my village I defiantly feel really isolated sometimes.I know I have said it before but it's a rollercoaster ride. The things I worried about when living in the US seem so petty now. Waking up in a village that wonders where they are going to get their water for the week makes "who Betty was with last night" seem really insipid.
Right now my daily schedule is something like wake up around 7am, buck bathe(maybe about twice a week), boil water to drink for the day, make oatmeal on the jiko, head over to the clinic around 8:30 to weigh babies, fill out charts or sit with the nurse as the sick & injured some in and help distribute medicine, have chai and chapati around 10:00 then back to the clinic, head to the primary school around 12 and visit the students and the teachers,eat lunch around 1:30 (ugali, beans, chai). Then the rest of the day I read, visit the villlage sit on my front porch with visitors,visit the youth at the pool table, hit up the coffee hut and learn the local language. Sometimes I go into the subvillages with the nurses to weigh babies. In February i will start giving presentations at the clinic about importance of boiling water, malaria, typhoid fever etc. I start teaching life skill sat the secondary school in late March /early April. I really want to work with the youth outside of the classroom as well. On my daily pool table visits the youth have manged to steal a place in my heart, so I def want to start a youth club. We can meet up once or twice a month and talk about safe sex, stds, drug abuse and possibly start some income generating projects. Thursday I am also going to a womens group the previous volunteer started, I have lots of ideas for projects for them as well.This is all I have time for now! I lost my Swahili to English dictionary (kind of a big deal) so I am off the look for one. I miss everyone!!!
I'll keep you posted
-Maria
