We're still in Africa
Hello to everyone and thank you for your patience. We have finally arrived at our permanent site, and even though we have more spare time now that training is over, we are actually further from internet than we were before (a 3 hour bus ride to the capitol city, Dodoma.) We are hoping internet access will come soon to the nearer large town, Mpwapwa. Until then, we'll do our best to update every few weeks. Please note that our email address has changed forever to olneycox@gmail.com and won't be changing again! We will only be including general information on this blog, for security reasons.
OK! Now for the news. It comes in 2 parts:
Part 1: Peace Corps Training (The short version, by Christy)
We were trained in a group of 40 health and environment volunteers in the Kilosa region. We stayed in a small rural village along with 2 other environment volunteers. The characteristics of this village were: population 2000; one sisal rope making factory owned by Chinese national (employing 500, and therefore pretty much supporting the town); lots of rows of sisal plants; a nice view of distant mountains; lots of cows, goats, and chickens; a couple of tractors; and a lot of very patient and welcoming babus (grandfathers), bibis (grandmothers), parents and children.
James and I stayed with a family that included: a mom who works hard (including while she was sick with malaria) all day processing food harvested from the family's shamba (cultivated field), cooking outside on a charcoal and/or firewood stove, carrying buckets of water on her head from the relatively-nearby hand pump well, washing clothes by hand, caring for children, and generally keeping the household running smoothly; a dad who runs a bar in a nearby town (also a PC training site) and undoubtely works hard, but we can't say for sure because we generally only saw him late at night, early in the morning, or when we visited said bar by bicycle; a brother, age 9; a sister, age 7; a sister, age 5; a niece, age 15, and an adorable babu and bibi who lived next door; and two young teenage boys who herd the families goats and cows and sleep in a building which also happened to be our temporary school for learning Swahili with the other two trainees in our village.
In the village we learned, among other things, how to cook ugali and other Tanzanian food dishes, how to bathe regularly out of a bucket, the basics of Swahili, and how to feel comfortable in a culture where you are generally always surrounded by people and always expected to greet and engage anyone anywhere however often you see them (basically we unlearned our expectations of privacy). We also dipped into a range of topics during technical training, from beekeeping to jam making to permaculture to giving vacinations to livestock.
Part 2: Why are you where? (by James)
As many of you are itching to know where we are and what the hell we are doing in Tanzania, Christy and I are trying to figure these questions out for ourselves.
About a month ago we finally reported to our permanant site in the region of Dodoma. Our small rural town is population of about 2000 people spread out over a large area. Land is very, very dry and suffering from two years of drought. The people are very hungry and thirsty and many dont have seeds to plant when the rains do hopefully come between November and January. We are struggling to live responsibly as their neighbors and helpers.
Water is definitely the most important issue in our town.
OK! Now for the news. It comes in 2 parts:
Part 1: Peace Corps Training (The short version, by Christy)
We were trained in a group of 40 health and environment volunteers in the Kilosa region. We stayed in a small rural village along with 2 other environment volunteers. The characteristics of this village were: population 2000; one sisal rope making factory owned by Chinese national (employing 500, and therefore pretty much supporting the town); lots of rows of sisal plants; a nice view of distant mountains; lots of cows, goats, and chickens; a couple of tractors; and a lot of very patient and welcoming babus (grandfathers), bibis (grandmothers), parents and children.
James and I stayed with a family that included: a mom who works hard (including while she was sick with malaria) all day processing food harvested from the family's shamba (cultivated field), cooking outside on a charcoal and/or firewood stove, carrying buckets of water on her head from the relatively-nearby hand pump well, washing clothes by hand, caring for children, and generally keeping the household running smoothly; a dad who runs a bar in a nearby town (also a PC training site) and undoubtely works hard, but we can't say for sure because we generally only saw him late at night, early in the morning, or when we visited said bar by bicycle; a brother, age 9; a sister, age 7; a sister, age 5; a niece, age 15, and an adorable babu and bibi who lived next door; and two young teenage boys who herd the families goats and cows and sleep in a building which also happened to be our temporary school for learning Swahili with the other two trainees in our village.
In the village we learned, among other things, how to cook ugali and other Tanzanian food dishes, how to bathe regularly out of a bucket, the basics of Swahili, and how to feel comfortable in a culture where you are generally always surrounded by people and always expected to greet and engage anyone anywhere however often you see them (basically we unlearned our expectations of privacy). We also dipped into a range of topics during technical training, from beekeeping to jam making to permaculture to giving vacinations to livestock.
Part 2: Why are you where? (by James)
As many of you are itching to know where we are and what the hell we are doing in Tanzania, Christy and I are trying to figure these questions out for ourselves.
About a month ago we finally reported to our permanant site in the region of Dodoma. Our small rural town is population of about 2000 people spread out over a large area. Land is very, very dry and suffering from two years of drought. The people are very hungry and thirsty and many dont have seeds to plant when the rains do hopefully come between November and January. We are struggling to live responsibly as their neighbors and helpers.
Water is definitely the most important issue in our town.
posted by James and Christy at 1:56 PM
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