Service
Mt. Kilimanjaro’s Mt Kibo, one of three peaks https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9084438 |
7/7/19, a group of volunteers will fly from our home states to Alexandria, VA, and get our special Peace Corps passports. The fact that special passports are issued for Peace Corps really impressed me.
We are expected to attend 6 hours of orientation (breaks included), no T-shirt, no jeans, wear business casuals.
We leave the hotel at 5 a.m. next morning for a 11 am flight to Dar es Salaam from Dulles airport on 7/8/19. Dar is the biggest city in Tanzania on the coast of the Indian Ocean.
We stay there for 3 months of intensive pre-service training.
We don’t know where we are assigned yet. During the 7th week, we are expected to travel to our assigned village and look around, set up a postal box for mail.
Tanzania https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33843808 |
Kiswahili (Swahili)
Ki means languageJina lanko ni nani? What is your name?
Mambo, Alice? What’s up, Alice?
Habari nyumbani? How is your home?
I have sort of mastered the Swahili pronouns, now I am onto greetings…
Haven't learned how to count from 1 to 10 in Swahili yet.
There are 65 modules
(including tests) levels of the language in Duolingo. I am only up to level 4 (:-
Are you impressed that Peace Corps made a request to have Duolingo host Swahili? I am.
Tanzania factoids
Tanzania is 8 hours ahead of Minnesota, 9 hours when we have daylight savings time.1 USD is about 2300 TZS (Tanzanian shillings)
Tanzania is known for wildlife safari, besides South Africa and Kenya (the oldest).
Dar es Salaam was the capital city, now it is a big commercial urban city. Dodoma, further inland to the west, is now the capital. But most of the foreign embassies remain in Dar es Salaam.
Over 100 different languages are spoken in Tanzania, making it the most linguistically diverse country in East Africa. Approximately 10 percent of Tanzanians speak Swahili as a first language, and up to 90 percent speak it as a second language. English is used in foreign trade, in diplomacy, in higher courts, and as a medium of instruction in secondary and higher education.
Tanzania is south of the equator. The country has only rainy
and dry seasons, not like the rebirthing and rejuvenation that we see as spring
in Minnesota. In 19th century (1848), two German missionaries reported
snow-capped Kilimajaro (Kili). This initiated hot debate across Europe – because
westerners think the equator and snow did not go together. In 1889 German geographer
Hans Meyer climbed Kili and witnessed snow.
Weather:
Up in the highlands, climate is not bad, less
humid, and less mosquitoes. About 84oF high in summer (January), 48oF
low in winter (July) (more about weather when I get there). Two returned Peace
Corps volunteers I met confirmed that. Coastal regions are always hotter and more humid.
The highlands are where the marathon (long distance) runners are from, in Tanzania and Kenya.
Is Africa a country?
Binyavanga Wainaina, Kenyan author, who died 5/21/19, sarcastically and hilariously advised writers: “In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country” in his Granta article in 2005. We have all done that in one way or another.
Sometimes people tell me they
are from West Africa. I want to know which country since Africa is so huge and
diverse:-
West African cultures are
different from East African cultures, and North Africa is different from South
Africa, and I am not talking about the country of South Africa.
For example, Benin is
different from Sierra Leone. And Uganda was not the country where teenage school
girls were kidnapped by Boco Haram in 2014. It was Nigeria.
In North America, it is so
easy because there are only three countries. In the continent of Australia, it
is even easier, it has only one country.
Communication with you, the reader
There is likelihood that I will
not have telephone or internet access for a few weeks after arrival. I will be called a trainee, and get assessed 3 time during the 3 month pre-service training (PST).
Around week 8, I get to go site-visit to the assigned school (can be a remote village) and report back to HQ around week 8. I may need to go the next banking and get into an internet café to check my emails.
Around week 8, I get to go site-visit to the assigned school (can be a remote village) and report back to HQ around week 8. I may need to go the next banking and get into an internet café to check my emails.
Since I will not be able to notify you of any
updates. please bookmark this site and check any of my Tanzania updates yourself.
Peace Corps has a message for family and friends
Below are repeats to this Home page.