Kuuliza si ujinga

We're rapidly approaching the end of training. Yesterday, we had a swahili test involving simulations in which we had to pretend to be at the police station, market, school, and bus station (they even gave us a little money to buy fruit at the simulation market, and brought in actual sellers for the market, actual police for the police simulation, and so on). Today we had our written Swahili test, and tomorrow I have my oral test. Then, on Thursday, we leave for our shadow visits. We'll be visiting other Peace Corps volunteers in groups of 2 or 3.

I'll be traveling to rural Iringa with Ross, to visit an environmental volunteer. We'll be an hour away from the nearest city, Njombe, in a village of 1500 people with no electricity. From what I've been told, Iringa is mountainous and chilly. I'm excited. We'll be heading there via a 5 hour bus ride. We'll be taking a commercial bus which will also have Tanzanian passengers, but which will include maybe 8 Peace Corps trainees as several of us are going to Njombe area.

The shadow visits are about 4 days long, then we'll be going to Dar es Salaam for some Peace Corps lectures and a thanksgiving dinner at the country director's house. Also in Dar, we'll be finding out where we'll be teaching for the next two years. By this time next week, I'll know the name of my school, where it's located, what subject I'll be teaching, and what peace corps volunteers will be in my area. I'm trying not to think about it too much right now--it's a lot of information to wait for, and at the moment I'm just excited to leave Morogoro for a few days and see more of the country.