Monday, June 23, 2008
The spectrum of Peace Corps housing
When people think of the Peace Corps, they often picture living in a mud hut with a thatched roof, cooking over a fire and fetching water in buckets from a river. And while it's very possible that some environmental volunteers live this way, education volunteers are usually in less remote areas, and live in teachers' houses (which are nicer than the average village house). Here's a glimpse of the spectrum of volunteers' houses.
On one end: concrete house with a metal roof. Concrete floors. No electricity. No water. This is my house. The house itself is great: there's a dining/living room and three other rooms, a walled courtyard in the back, and a pit toilet, room for bathing, room for cooking, and room for storage behind the courtyard. I use a kerosene lamp at night, cook on a charcoal stove or a kerosene stove, and fetch water in 20 L or 40 L buckets from the faucet by my house. It's simple, but functional. And--I should say this before I go on--I love my house. While I wouldn't complain if electricity miraculously reached my village while I leave there, I wouldn't leave my pit toilet, bucket baths, and kerosene lamps for another site.
More in-between: I visited a friend on the slopes of Kilimanjaro, who has running water and a sink, but no electricity. She has a shower and flush toilet, and cooks on a gas stove. The stove is powered by a large propane tank, which she occasionally carries to a neighbor's store so that it can be taken to town and refilled.
Safi sana! (very nice): I've visited two friends who teach at teachers' training colleges. These sites are generally very well set-up. They have both electricity and water in their house, at least in theory (I say in theory because both the electricity and the water can be unreliable). One has an small electric stove he bought for himself, the other a propane-powered gas stove the head of his school bought him as a welcoming gift. And of course, having electricity allows one to get all sorts of useful things, from blenders to refrigerators to laptops.
So there's a sample of the spectrum of Peace Corps teachers' houses. In many ways they're very similar: all concrete houses with metal roofs and concrete floors, and generally furnished with maps on the walls and random piles of books, old boxes that came by mail, and Newsweeks from Peace Corps. And, no matter how many blenders or refrigerators or laptops people have, we all share one more thing in common: no washers or dryers. Some people may be washing clothes while their blender whirs and their plugged-in iPod plays music in the background, but we're all washing our underwear by hand.
On one end: concrete house with a metal roof. Concrete floors. No electricity. No water. This is my house. The house itself is great: there's a dining/living room and three other rooms, a walled courtyard in the back, and a pit toilet, room for bathing, room for cooking, and room for storage behind the courtyard. I use a kerosene lamp at night, cook on a charcoal stove or a kerosene stove, and fetch water in 20 L or 40 L buckets from the faucet by my house. It's simple, but functional. And--I should say this before I go on--I love my house. While I wouldn't complain if electricity miraculously reached my village while I leave there, I wouldn't leave my pit toilet, bucket baths, and kerosene lamps for another site.
More in-between: I visited a friend on the slopes of Kilimanjaro, who has running water and a sink, but no electricity. She has a shower and flush toilet, and cooks on a gas stove. The stove is powered by a large propane tank, which she occasionally carries to a neighbor's store so that it can be taken to town and refilled.
Safi sana! (very nice): I've visited two friends who teach at teachers' training colleges. These sites are generally very well set-up. They have both electricity and water in their house, at least in theory (I say in theory because both the electricity and the water can be unreliable). One has an small electric stove he bought for himself, the other a propane-powered gas stove the head of his school bought him as a welcoming gift. And of course, having electricity allows one to get all sorts of useful things, from blenders to refrigerators to laptops.
So there's a sample of the spectrum of Peace Corps teachers' houses. In many ways they're very similar: all concrete houses with metal roofs and concrete floors, and generally furnished with maps on the walls and random piles of books, old boxes that came by mail, and Newsweeks from Peace Corps. And, no matter how many blenders or refrigerators or laptops people have, we all share one more thing in common: no washers or dryers. Some people may be washing clothes while their blender whirs and their plugged-in iPod plays music in the background, but we're all washing our underwear by hand.
Movies,hikes,and visits to friends
It's been a busy, awesome week. Since I last wrote here, I've travelled from Dar es Salaam to Morogoro, Morogoro to Mpwapwa, Mpwapwa to Dodoma. From the coast to the mountains to the desert. It's a good break and a good chance to see a lot of friends I haven't seen in months.
Dar: went to an awesome Ethiopian restaurant. And to a movie! There must be a wormhole somewhere in Tanzania that transports people from Dar to America. The movie was at a theater in a shopping mall, and felt exactly like a mall in the U.S. Well, except that some of the signs at the clothing stores were in Swahili, and you're assigned a seat in the theater when you buy your movie ticket.
Morogoro: I saw my host family for the first time in six months! And it really did feel like coming home to visit family. I ate far too well, caught up on the family news (one host sister got married!), went out with friends and came back-by taxi-after dark. It's good to know that somewhere in Tanzania, there's a door I can knock on, at any time of the day or night, and be welcomed.
Also, I'd forgotten how beautiful the mountains in Morogoro are. I went hiking there for the first time. After living in arid Arusha region, they are incredibly green! Every slope is planted with vegetable fields or banana trees, everything that's not cultivated is covered with the native trees and vegetables. When you hike in the U.S., you're usually in the wilderness, where no one lives. When you hike in Tanzania, even in the mountains, you're often walking past peoples' farms and houses.
Mpwapwa: This is an area in Dodoma region. Dodoma is in the center of the country and is famous for being dry, flat, and boring. It's a false rumor. Dodoma may be dry, but Mpwapwa is mountainous and beautiful. We went hiking again here. The mountains unfortunately had very few trees, and for an obvious reason: there were charcoal-making fires everywhere. People climb up the mountain, cut down a tree, and set it on fire. The burning tree is then buried under sand and dirt, where it continues to smolder and turn into charcoal. Days later, the person who cut the tree will return to bag the charcoal, and drag it down the mountain to sell it. It's hard work. And it's devastating for the forests. But until people have a better, equally cheap fuel to cook with, it's a problem that's going to continue.
Dodoma: the parliamentary capital of Tanzania! It's hot. And dry. But the city is spacious and well-planned. I'm on the way to visit a friend's school, and will write more about it when I return.
Dar: went to an awesome Ethiopian restaurant. And to a movie! There must be a wormhole somewhere in Tanzania that transports people from Dar to America. The movie was at a theater in a shopping mall, and felt exactly like a mall in the U.S. Well, except that some of the signs at the clothing stores were in Swahili, and you're assigned a seat in the theater when you buy your movie ticket.
Morogoro: I saw my host family for the first time in six months! And it really did feel like coming home to visit family. I ate far too well, caught up on the family news (one host sister got married!), went out with friends and came back-by taxi-after dark. It's good to know that somewhere in Tanzania, there's a door I can knock on, at any time of the day or night, and be welcomed.
Also, I'd forgotten how beautiful the mountains in Morogoro are. I went hiking there for the first time. After living in arid Arusha region, they are incredibly green! Every slope is planted with vegetable fields or banana trees, everything that's not cultivated is covered with the native trees and vegetables. When you hike in the U.S., you're usually in the wilderness, where no one lives. When you hike in Tanzania, even in the mountains, you're often walking past peoples' farms and houses.
Mpwapwa: This is an area in Dodoma region. Dodoma is in the center of the country and is famous for being dry, flat, and boring. It's a false rumor. Dodoma may be dry, but Mpwapwa is mountainous and beautiful. We went hiking again here. The mountains unfortunately had very few trees, and for an obvious reason: there were charcoal-making fires everywhere. People climb up the mountain, cut down a tree, and set it on fire. The burning tree is then buried under sand and dirt, where it continues to smolder and turn into charcoal. Days later, the person who cut the tree will return to bag the charcoal, and drag it down the mountain to sell it. It's hard work. And it's devastating for the forests. But until people have a better, equally cheap fuel to cook with, it's a problem that's going to continue.
Dodoma: the parliamentary capital of Tanzania! It's hot. And dry. But the city is spacious and well-planned. I'm on the way to visit a friend's school, and will write more about it when I return.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
What am I doing here?
Something that's been on my mind a lot lately. What do I want to achieve here in Tanzania? How am I trying to change things? What do I want to leave behind? In short, what am I doing here?
It's not an easy question. A lot of people who join the Peace Corps are idealists, myself included. And we want to leave something concrete behind. A library that we built, a computer lab we founded, a science lab we improved. Or we want to know we did something big and useful: started a health club that trained hundreds of students, or founded a school garden that fed vegetables to the whole school. There's a peculiar pressure in being a Peace Corps volunteer, of wanting to do one's job of teaching well, while also wanting to save the world.
Which brings us back to the question, what am I doing here? On a daily basis, I'm not saving the world. I'm simply teaching. I'm explaining the structure of the ear or the meaning of chemical formulas. I'm correcting notebooks or writing exams. My daily life of teaching is not so different from teaching in the U.S. Nor does it feel particularly heroic. It's simply a job-a good job, a job I enjoy, but a job nonetheless.
I'm not coming in with perseverance and expertise to save a desperate school. My school is well run and is considered the best in the district. Most of the teachers are motivated, and most of the classes are taught. The headmaster is there whenever he doesn't have to travel for business, and he's quick to address any problems the school is having. On some days, I'll look out at the school and think, I'm not needed here. And by this I don't mean that my teaching isn't important, or that I'm not having some kind of influence, but that the school would run perfectly fine without me. Which is a good thing and gives me great hope for the future of my village.
But it does leave me adrift. What is my purpose here? What am I here to achieve? Perhaps more importantly, what do I want to achieve? I'm wandering, searching for a place where my skills will be useful, where I can do something that couldn't have done without me.
Searching. It's a common position in life: searching for meaning, searching for a place. I'll let you know when I find mine.
It's not an easy question. A lot of people who join the Peace Corps are idealists, myself included. And we want to leave something concrete behind. A library that we built, a computer lab we founded, a science lab we improved. Or we want to know we did something big and useful: started a health club that trained hundreds of students, or founded a school garden that fed vegetables to the whole school. There's a peculiar pressure in being a Peace Corps volunteer, of wanting to do one's job of teaching well, while also wanting to save the world.
Which brings us back to the question, what am I doing here? On a daily basis, I'm not saving the world. I'm simply teaching. I'm explaining the structure of the ear or the meaning of chemical formulas. I'm correcting notebooks or writing exams. My daily life of teaching is not so different from teaching in the U.S. Nor does it feel particularly heroic. It's simply a job-a good job, a job I enjoy, but a job nonetheless.
I'm not coming in with perseverance and expertise to save a desperate school. My school is well run and is considered the best in the district. Most of the teachers are motivated, and most of the classes are taught. The headmaster is there whenever he doesn't have to travel for business, and he's quick to address any problems the school is having. On some days, I'll look out at the school and think, I'm not needed here. And by this I don't mean that my teaching isn't important, or that I'm not having some kind of influence, but that the school would run perfectly fine without me. Which is a good thing and gives me great hope for the future of my village.
But it does leave me adrift. What is my purpose here? What am I here to achieve? Perhaps more importantly, what do I want to achieve? I'm wandering, searching for a place where my skills will be useful, where I can do something that couldn't have done without me.
Searching. It's a common position in life: searching for meaning, searching for a place. I'll let you know when I find mine.
From bush to banana jungle to beach
I'm currently on a trip that will take me through several regions of Tanzania. In the last few days I've travelling, I've gotten a good reminder of just how varied this place is.
First day: my site. Corn fields and cows as far as the eye can see. A hazy, bluish Ngorongoro in the distance.
Second day: Masai land. The classic African bush. Plains spotted with low shrubs and the occasional trees, Masai herders who look like they could have come out of National Geographic in their traditional shukas (though they probably have cell phones as well).
Third day: The slopes of Kilimanjaro. A banana tree jungle, steep windy roads, so much vegetation that you never know what's around the corner or what's past the nearest house. And--had it not been hidden by clouds--the peak of Kilimanjaro, watching over the scene.
Now: The coast. Dar es Salaam: large buildings, traffic jams, crowds everywhere. Passing by the Indian Ocean in the morning on the way to the Peace Corps office. Palm trees, humidity. Mall grocery stores selling Kelloggs' cereal and American candy, at double what they would cost in the U.S. A world away from my cows and corn.
Next: Dodoma and the desert. And then back to my site, passing from the desert to the coast to the bush to my cornfields again. Magazines may show Africa as all jungle, or as only an endless savannah. But in Tanzania,you take a three hour bus ride, and you're in another world. And not only is the landscape different, the tribal language and customs could be worlds away from the place you just left.
First day: my site. Corn fields and cows as far as the eye can see. A hazy, bluish Ngorongoro in the distance.
Second day: Masai land. The classic African bush. Plains spotted with low shrubs and the occasional trees, Masai herders who look like they could have come out of National Geographic in their traditional shukas (though they probably have cell phones as well).
Third day: The slopes of Kilimanjaro. A banana tree jungle, steep windy roads, so much vegetation that you never know what's around the corner or what's past the nearest house. And--had it not been hidden by clouds--the peak of Kilimanjaro, watching over the scene.
Now: The coast. Dar es Salaam: large buildings, traffic jams, crowds everywhere. Passing by the Indian Ocean in the morning on the way to the Peace Corps office. Palm trees, humidity. Mall grocery stores selling Kelloggs' cereal and American candy, at double what they would cost in the U.S. A world away from my cows and corn.
Next: Dodoma and the desert. And then back to my site, passing from the desert to the coast to the bush to my cornfields again. Magazines may show Africa as all jungle, or as only an endless savannah. But in Tanzania,you take a three hour bus ride, and you're in another world. And not only is the landscape different, the tribal language and customs could be worlds away from the place you just left.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Mnaada day
Yesterday was mnaada day in town. The mnaada (which may be spelled mnada) is a cross between a livestock auction, market, and county fair. It's held on the seventh of every month, and it's a huge social event. People come from towns all over the area, as much to see each other as to bargain for cheap prices on cloth, pots, used clothes, plastic containers . . . and goats, cows, chickens, and sheep.
The mnaada is held on a field on the outskirts of town. Looking at it from the road, one sees a huge crowd of people, with daladalas (minibuses) and herds of livestock on the outskirts. And there's a haze of smoke and dust, from the countless people trampling on the dusty ground and the many fires grilling meat.
The mnaada is both exhilarating and overwhelming. You plunge into the crowd and shouts from the sellers assault you from all sides. "Kitenge cloth! Kitenge cloth only 4000 shillings!" "Pots! Pots for sale!" "Sugar cane, sugar cane!" It's especially overwhelming if you're white and therefore, clearly rich and interested in buying souvenirs. "Mzungu! Here!" "My friend, bananas!" "Masai beads, Masai necklaces!"
All the mnaada needs is some cotton candy, fiddle music, and a ferris wheel, and it'd be a county fair. It has its own fair food: sugar cane (which is rarely available in town at other times), grilled meat, sodas. It has the livestock and the jostling crowds of people. And, above all, it has the same function of being a social occasion. Realistically, there's not much you can get at the mnaada that's not available on a daily basis. The prices may be better, but they're not necessarily so much better that they're worth the fare to town and back. And sometimes, people will only come back with one or two things: a pot, a cup or two. But you don't go to the mnaada just to buy things, you go there because it's the big event in town, the monthly festival, the change from day to day life. In my mind, that's the main function it serves, and that's why all the students want permission to leave school early and go to town on the seventh of every month.
The mnaada is held on a field on the outskirts of town. Looking at it from the road, one sees a huge crowd of people, with daladalas (minibuses) and herds of livestock on the outskirts. And there's a haze of smoke and dust, from the countless people trampling on the dusty ground and the many fires grilling meat.
The mnaada is both exhilarating and overwhelming. You plunge into the crowd and shouts from the sellers assault you from all sides. "Kitenge cloth! Kitenge cloth only 4000 shillings!" "Pots! Pots for sale!" "Sugar cane, sugar cane!" It's especially overwhelming if you're white and therefore, clearly rich and interested in buying souvenirs. "Mzungu! Here!" "My friend, bananas!" "Masai beads, Masai necklaces!"
All the mnaada needs is some cotton candy, fiddle music, and a ferris wheel, and it'd be a county fair. It has its own fair food: sugar cane (which is rarely available in town at other times), grilled meat, sodas. It has the livestock and the jostling crowds of people. And, above all, it has the same function of being a social occasion. Realistically, there's not much you can get at the mnaada that's not available on a daily basis. The prices may be better, but they're not necessarily so much better that they're worth the fare to town and back. And sometimes, people will only come back with one or two things: a pot, a cup or two. But you don't go to the mnaada just to buy things, you go there because it's the big event in town, the monthly festival, the change from day to day life. In my mind, that's the main function it serves, and that's why all the students want permission to leave school early and go to town on the seventh of every month.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Random stories
The computer I'm typing on has spacebar issues, which makes writing long entries rather frustrating. So, quickly:
-biked the 21 km to town for the first time today. Verdict: exhausting but exhilarating, worth doing once in a while but it won't become my usual way of reaching town. And after biking on a dirt road for 21 km,the paved road in town felt amazing.
-Proctored (here they say invigiliated) 9 out of 10 final exams. Yikes. I think I'm getting better at catching cheating, but there's a lot of it. New rule: one student goes to the bathroom at a time, no taking pens or paper. As the test reaches its end, general panic and a ton of note-passing set in, and I end up snatching a lot of exams out of student hands before time is up. It makes for some good stories, but it's by far my least favorite job at school.
-biked the 21 km to town for the first time today. Verdict: exhausting but exhilarating, worth doing once in a while but it won't become my usual way of reaching town. And after biking on a dirt road for 21 km,the paved road in town felt amazing.
-Proctored (here they say invigiliated) 9 out of 10 final exams. Yikes. I think I'm getting better at catching cheating, but there's a lot of it. New rule: one student goes to the bathroom at a time, no taking pens or paper. As the test reaches its end, general panic and a ton of note-passing set in, and I end up snatching a lot of exams out of student hands before time is up. It makes for some good stories, but it's by far my least favorite job at school.
Six months!
Just passed my six month anniversary at site on June 1. Half a year! These days, my village feels like home and the U.S. feels very distant. It's going to be strange returning to the U.S. 1.5 years from now.
Six months also means the end of my first term teaching; vacation began Friday. Or perhaps I should say 'vacation', as the Form 2 and Form 4 students return Monday, and study through all of break (they have national exams coming up). I plan to travel for part of break, but will be teaching my Form 2 students chemistry on the days that I'm around.
Six months also means the end of my first term teaching; vacation began Friday. Or perhaps I should say 'vacation', as the Form 2 and Form 4 students return Monday, and study through all of break (they have national exams coming up). I plan to travel for part of break, but will be teaching my Form 2 students chemistry on the days that I'm around.
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