Korogwe Week 2

Korogwe Week 2

23 Jul 2019 Jumanne (Tuesday)               Incredible-we, 51 American PC trainees (PCTs), were sent to 51 host families last Thursday evening, only under five days ago, and left Alexandria, VA, only 14 days, BUT we feel like it is a long time ago when we left American soil.

Mashindei Mtn

My group of five PCTs are in the Mashindei Mountain area, in a village of about 2500 people. The PC training program director came to visit us from Dar. He said we have the best community location. Today, it is shamban, harvest day. The secondary school we are based at sent out the students to pick corn. It so reminded me of the lickanje harvest I participated in October 2018 in Slovenia, another near half-way-around-the-world place.

Homestay farm house living room

Shamban-maize harvest-when the ear is picked, I bend the stalk.

The back porch is the center of activities

Consider the back porch the outdoor kitchen area, with charcoal stove. Host family has gas stove and refrigerator indoors.

The next level beyond the porch is the "backyard", where laundry, some dish washing, and trash burning activities all occur. The garden of many fruit trees are right there also. The farm grows ginger and onions.

Some students (percentage unknown, I will find out details when I am installed at my teaching site later in the year) are too poor to have meals when they attend class. Today, they can get a free meal in school. The school sells the corn to bring in income for the school, to buy more school supplies, etc.

Our training is complete immersion within host family and community to absorb culture and Kiswahili. I am not doing as well as other young PSTs. I know the words, but when I hear them, the processing from hearing to translation is slow, so I don’t understand.

My host family has a lovely large house, and each bedroom has its own bathroom, quite a luxury. Baba, Mama and binti (daughter) are wonderful people. Mama’s brother is high up in the Tanzanian foreign service, though Mama doesn’t speak English. I met more of her visiting family this morning; they were from Dar.

I love the spiced water the people make tea and coffee with; it is ginger and sometimes added lemon grass on top. I had been drinking my tea and coffee with ginger powder before I left, so this is added familiarity, though only a few of my fellow PSTs had experience with spiced water before.

No internet connection for laptop, and no bars, i.e., no mobile wireless service in the village for us PCTs, though we see our host families are connected with their mobiles. So we will have to wait to get into town tomorrow, when we attend classes.

Korogwe Week 1

Moved to Guest House, Farewell Modern Hotel Room

Jul 14, 2019 Sunday                     Four plus hours by motor coach north to rural area for remaining training. On the highway, each big vehicle must be weighed, not only commercial 18-wheelers, and be approved by inspectors  at several check points.  

We arrived at the Korogwe Teachers’ College amid drum, song and dance by the welcome party. Fed, we then went in groups of 5-6 to guest houses in town. My gesti (rooming house) is a 10-15 minute walk to the College. The College is one of the training sites.

My room in the gesti has a giant foam bed with mosquito net, a small table, chair, TV, A/C, fan, and private bathroom. In the bathroom, there is no separate shower compartment, so the floor of the bathroom is wet after a shower. A cold shower in winter (we are in winter)? Well, it is not too bad. Like jumping into a pool—first mild cold shock, then afterwards, it is fine. It is 72oF, up to 82^oF, when we are in an open auditorium, not hot. But the library, where we dine, is hot, even at 6:30 p.m.

Keep private clothes private, even handkerchiefs and socks, we are told, so we will do that. Sometimes if you have to hang your underwear to dry outside, cover the underwear with kanga (or spelled khanga, though not kangha [Sikhism small comb]), a large colorful cloth used for many things by Tanzanian women.

To catch up on news, I watch Alzazeera, which is like CNN, but much better. Alzareera won a broadcasting award.

There are 51 trainees, and a host of program trainers, language trainers, technical (education) program staff. Next week, the trainees will be placed in host family homes.

Korogwe welcoming party as we get off the bus,
with song, dance, drumming

My gesti room

Everything one needs: the latrine with flush, the shower head, the sink, water bucket for additional floor rinse, flip flops to wear inside the bathroom

Walkabout in Dar

Jul 13, 2019 Saturday   We felt like school kids let out at recess, couldn’t wait to run outside to play. We had language class and training overview on the next phase north in Tanga Region (like district). We were told that the hotel stay the previous week was to get us acclimated somewhat. The amenities moving forward would be sparse or non-existent moving forward.

At Dar, it was bustling, thriving, and I already spotted at least two Chinese restaurants while we were walking about. We followed leaders who showed us how to take the bus, the DART (like BART, rapid transit), and more bus to get to where we need to go if we are in DAR for training or medical visits.

And guess what, the DART is a joint collaboration of the Chinese and Tanzanian efforts. I was told by the Chinese-Tanzania Security not to take any pictures of the DART system. I only wanted to do show and tell to folks back home, the interconnected bus, rapid transit, and buses to other parts of Africa. Wow! That someone might think of sabotaging DART structures?

Women carry things on their heads

The "White House" in Dar

See KFC?

Roadside kitchenware stand

Wakala stand at bus station: person who sells mobile phone services.

First Few Days in Dar es Salaam

Day 2 Pre-Service Training

Jul 11, 2019 Wednesday              We are referred to as trainees. Today, we were not at the hotel training, we were at the Tanzania Peace Corps headquarters. Lovely trees and flowering plants abound.

Breaks are called chia (mid morning), chakula (lunch), soda break (mid afternoon).

As usual, I am still recovering from my lack of sleep, and I struggle not to fall asleep during the sessions.

We got our medical kit, mosquito net and a travel kit of meds.

We either got our sim cards for Airtel carrier or loaner phones, and we get our banking done, per idem is 10,000 TSH/day, i.e., USD $5. This means we have to budget…Some of the pay right now is to pay for cell phone carrier service. It was confusing for me to configure and purchase air time (data). People are kind to me, the oldest in the group.

PC TZ trainees at Sea Scape Hotel 7/10/19

Medical kit, travel kit to carry at all times, mosquito net

Flying over to Addis Ababa and Dar es Salaam

Jul 8, 2019, Monday      5 am we boarded two buses to Dulles Airport, for Ethiopia. We arrived 13+ hours later, stiff, and tired. But I always watched my three movies, dozed off here and there while reading. It was time to catch some z’s after another two non-sleeping nights packing/cleaning.

There was a five plus hour-delay at Addis, but we finally boarded a plane, arrived in Dar, and were greeted warmly by Peace Corps Tanzania staff. Ethiopian Air fed the passengers a nice chicken curry meal in the lounge because the flight was delayed. Then after we finally boarded the plane, we were served dinner again. Then when we went to the hotel, we were fed again, at 9 pm.

Going through customs at Dar airport was a waiting process. I was the second in our group to be in line, but ended as the last one to complete the passport control because I didn’t fill out a form. So back I went to do it, and started over again.

When it came to luggage inspection, I was so disappointed. Starting in June, Tanzania banned plastic bags. The US State Department listed this on their web site, and we were warned about it. My two pieces of luggage were just put on a giant machine for scanning, nothing like opening and searching through the luggage—and I had carefully not brought anything in plastic bags, only zip lock bags. Of all the trouble I had gone through not to separate things in plastic bags, the inspector didn’t even look!

When one sees the local language, plus English, plus simplified Chinese on airport and store signs, one knows that the People's Republic of China had pervasively spread into Africa. At Dar airport, the Chinese red passports were treated by a different custom control line.

Departure and Orientation Day

Jul 7, 2019, Sunday       4 am the taxi came. I had no more time, all the incentives (rewards for the Tanzanian teenagers if they earn good grades) were not packed. And I agonized over whether I remembered to pack the power cord/adaptor to the laptop in my luggage.

At MSP airport, I lost an autographed book while I was readjusting balance to pull two near 50-pound suitcases, plus backpack, plus a heavy bag/purse stuffed full of things.

I arrived at Reagan Washington Airport, and waited 2.5 hours for the hotel shuttle to pick me up. When I saw another woman with two pieces of big luggage, I ventured to ask her if she was going to Peace Corps. Sure enough.

At the hotel, a large group of us had to take a pre-staging survey and then a post-staging survey, all expected to access via internet with our own devices. I hate the tiny typing keyboard on a phone.

After many tries, finally without any typos, I completed my tasks, the second last person to finish. The group of volunteers were mostly young people.

Staging orientation in Alexandria, VA, 7/719 

A few days before, I did not wake up on time to meet with the estate planning lawyer, because I had not been sleeping for two days, trying to pack up my possessions in the house like I was moving.