Well it has been a long time since you all last heard from me and I'm oh so sorry. Everytime I sat down to write a blog post I didn't even know where to start, so I just didn't. ha. But now I swear to you my faithful followers that I will do better!
It's been about 5 weeks now since my welcoming party on August 21st. I've been settling into my new life slowly but surely - setting up my house, eating with neighbors, visiting the primary and secondary schools, practicing my new language and hopelessly searching for anyone who speaks english (no such luck yet...), hanging out with the nurses at the clinic, and my favorite pasttime: watching regular soccer games in the center of my village.
I love my village. It's on the main road to Songea, and only about an hour or two outside of town. After debarking from the daladala (amazing van that can somehow hold and infinate amount of people, I counted almost 40 in one last weekend, with actual seats for about 15) in Ngadinda, you see the pool table and duka la dawa (medicine shop) to the right, and follow the main path back towards the village center. One thing I like about my village is how centralized it seems. After following the path lined with homes back about 5 minutes you see the primary school on the right and the health clinic on the left. My house is just behind the clinic and was actually built for the doctor, but they were transfered out of the village years ago and now there isn't a doctor. A good amount of my villagers actually think I'm the doctor, which I can see how they would get that idea, but has led to a few very confusing conversations in which I've been asked to deliver babies or treat a child's burns. Anyways, following the main path still, just after the clinic and school there are two main water pumps, the village leaders "offices", followed by the regulation sized football field and a very german style catholic church. There are about 3,000 people in the village, and the houses spread far, for almost 3 km in every direction from this central part. The village is split into 8 neighborhood/settlements, and I'm working on visiting all of them by the end of the month, 3 down so far.
So my first week in the village was a lot of meeting neighbors, figuring out how to get water, what food is available in my village, and plenty of "what in the world am I doing here??". My VEO (village executive officer, aka Mama Mango) and her husband have taken me under their wing and wouldn't let a day go buy without feeding me massive amounts of ugali (corn flour stirred aggressively into boiling water - google it) and trying to figure out why I keep refusing meat? hmm maybe it's because Tanzanians like eating fat and sucking on bones? They still don't understand and I think they believe everyone in america doesn't eat meat. Sorry about that one. I did my best to explain! There isn't a great variety of food available in my village. Mostly rice, beans, ugali flour, cassava, some tomatoes and small onions. I can also get eggs and little candies at the duka (shop). In town (Songea) I can get carrots, green peppers, spices, apples, oranges, and the occassional avocado which makes me extremely happy. There are mango trees everywhere in my village and word on the dirt path says they start to show up around december.
My Swahili is coming along, it's hard to tell if I'm making progress, but I'm learning new words every day. I carry around a little notebook and my dictionary with me everywhere, looking up and writing down vocabulary and making flashcards (that I haven't actually used yet, but I do make them!) Sometimes I shock myself when whole sentaces come out and the person on the other end actually understands. Those are very happy moments. Like I said, I have yet to find anyone in my village who speaks English, which can lead to very long, exhausing, and sometimes frustrating days of piecing together conversations. There are a few people who know some English vocabulary, and one guy whose english is about like my swahili, so he helped me at a meeting last week. There are a few teachers at the secondary school who speak beautiful english, but it's about 4 kilometers outside my village and they all live at the secondary school. I get along with a few of those teachers really well and am excited to work with them (eventually) teaching life skills at the school. I can't wait for the day where this lovely language flows effortlessly out of me, but until then I'm stickin with the people who speak slow and have the patience to watch me look up words.
So what's a day in the life of Alli in a rural african village look like at this point? Well I'll tell you. The primary school bell rings every half hour starting at 6:30 am which is the most obnoxious alarm clock. Wait, I take that back. The roosters are the worst alarm clock. At least the bell is predictable. I usually roll out of bed around 8 and light the coals to boil water for oatmeal and tea. If i'm not interupted by the swarms of students running by my house, I can usually manage to hide in my house and read until around 10am. Then I wander out waiting for a neighbor, mama mango, or one of the nurses to invite me to chai. I think it's a good way for me to get out of my house, socialize with people, and get chai usually accompanied by boiled cassava, sweet potatoes, or andazi (kind of like a plain donught maybe?). I wander around some more, greeting people with the plethera of greetings this culture employs, maybe hang out at the pool table next to the road, or sit at the mghawa (cafe) and help my (only) friend cook. Then sometimes she feeds me, or I go home to cook rice and beans followed usually by a nap. After my brain has recovered from a morning of swahili, I venture back out to meet more people and just try to stay busy. My Baba (my african daddy) has been taking me to visit different "neighborhoods" in the village and introducing me to people. He has been so helpful in helping me adjust and get to know my surroundings, making me feel at home, telling me who certain people are, and making me laugh. He is an amazing man, he speaks such great swahili with me, is patient, and is clearly respected in the village yet is very humble. My daddy away from home (but no replacement dad, don't worry:)) My villagers have caught on to how much I love watching the village soccer league and come to get me if there is ever a game, or even a practice. My VEO sets up a chair for me in front of her house so I have a front row seat. At the very beginning it was actally a great way for me to get out of hiding in my house and be seen by my villagers without having to talk a whole lot which I was fine with by the end of the day. More recently I've been spending more evening time at home, cooking or reading, and more time during the day out of my house getting to know people. At night I also use my charcoal jiko (stove) to heat up water for a bucket bath (which should probably be happening more frequently than it does...) and am dead asleep by 9pm if I can.
I would like to close this entry with a few things that I love about Tanzania so far: the endless amusement second hand t-shirts from America bring me, one of my favorites thus far has been a purple taco bell uniform. Also, laughing. I know they are mostly laughing at me, but it helps that I'm also good at laughing at me. I am well aware that carrying a 20liter bucket of water on my head is hilarious (and no fun at all) and gladly make light of it by stopping to do a little jig while walking past groups of women peeing themselves with laughter.
So three and a half months down, and a long ways to go, but I'm starting to feel more comfortable in my village and am excited to start my first meetings this week. Although I absolutely have days where I consider going home just because I could get ice cubes there, at the end of the day (well, most of them) I'm feeling good about being here.
Until next time, look out for rats falling from the ceiling as you squat on the choo, those things are rutheless...
