"What you share with the world is what it keeps of you."

Mambo marafiki!
First of all, a big thanks to Uncle Ken, Stopa, and Pascale for sending me stuff! I LOVE YOU!
So since last time I have gotten a LOT of stuff done. I finished both my house-to-house surveys and 3 community meetings which involved doing a needs' assessment and a couple other activities to analyze gender roles and resources in the community. Oh, and I think I got rid of the scabies. And Sloopy killed the 1st rat! I also filtered my banana wine which is delicious, hung out w/ people in the village a lot more, met the District Med. Officer and my People Living with HIV group (PLWHAs) again. So I am basically brimming with project ideas but first I need to sit down and write my VSA to organize my thoughts and prioritize. So that's what I will be working on next. Otherwise I have been spending my days playing w/ the cats, wandering the village talking and mooching chai off people who invite me over, hanging out w/ Hadija and trying to jog every night to counteract all the chapati I end up eating while mooching. Trying to study Swahili too but I'm ADHD when it comes to that. Even with all the above activities I have oodles of reading time and am absolutely BLOWING through books (4 in the last 2 weeks) so keep them coming! I will read anything!
Other than that, bear with me through my first shameless plug. 1 thing I'm trying to get off the ground right now is getting support for Orphans and Vulnerable Children's school fees. Education is technically free in TZ but the costs of uniforms, supplies, and activity fees is still a hindrance to struggling families. And if they can't pay, then the kids don't learn. I already have done a census of the children of parent's living with HIV and am getting a list of orphans and other at-risk youth. The total yearly cost varies depending on what grade but for primary schoolers is no more than $50 a year! That's so cheap compared to America! The secondary schoolers pay a little more but I don't have the data yet. So if anyone has any way at all of being able to commit to one year of school fees for one child here, it would help SO MUCH. Not having to worry about school fees would allow these kids' caretakers to free up some of their little income for other things everyone is struggling with- food, water, buying seeds and farm equipment. And for the parents living with HIV, they have to pay bus fares to go to another village to get their Anti-Retroviral drugs. And for the kids, education has been proven time and time again to be the key to getting people thinking outside the box, out of the trap of hopelessness! So tell your parents, tell your friends, your church, anyone you think would want to help. Dosidosi appreciates it! Then if you're serious about it, shoot me an email so I can start making a list. I hope to get this started by the time the new school term starts in January. Asante sana!

Dosidosi Cast of Characters

Mabojola: the primary school Headmaster and my neighbor. He’s a short little man with lots of energy and a good guy, helps me out a lot, speaks English, and always drops by to ask me random questions about American history or current events other things. He’s the one who helped me order all my furniture and get my cats and everything when I first got here.
Mwajuma: His wife. This lady is awesome. She’s pretty much my new mama. She feeds me whenever I wander over to say hi and feeds my cats when I leave for weekends. She taught me how to greet in Kinguo and pretty much helps me out anytime I need help with any chores or getting anything. If she doesn’t see me for a day she always stops by the next day to check on me. Also, her baby, Maua (Flowers), is the fattest baby I’ve seen in Tanzania so she definitely is a good mom!
Annette: new teacher who’s my age and just moved here from Kilimanjaro so she’s staying with my headmaster and his family. We’ve hung out a few times and we’re getting to be good friends. She’s really cute and trendy and funny. When she first arrived she was crying because of how remote Dosidosi is compared to what she’s used to, so we definitely empathize about that. She already invited me to come home with her in April to see Moshi-town and then again sometime later to climb Kili together.
Wilson: My closest neighbor, another teacher, he’s a young guy, still single. He’s helped me teach the couple times I did and get the penpal thing started. He’s a huge talker and we’ll end up having 2-hour long convos where he just asks me all these questions about America. It’s good for my Swahili, for sure.
Joeli: Wilson’s 18-year-old brother who lives with him. He’s starting secondary school next year but for now I guess he just does all the housework for the 2 of them. He’s a cool kid, always lets me know when my cats run off somewhere they shouldn’t be. They’re both from Lushoto but Wilson got moved here to teach. So they also invited me home with them sometime next year to see Lushoto which is supposedly gorgeous so I’m excited!
Paulo: the Headmaster of the secondary school, another neighbor. He’s been away a lot but from the few times we’ve talked while going to church, I know he’s super smart, super Christian, and really good at English. And he is an absolutely GORGEOUS man. But he’s married and just had his 1st kid born this week actually. Pretty much the only teacher at the secondary school who does anything I think.
The Frat Boys: These are about 5 young guys, single secondary school teachers who all share 1 side of Paulo’s house since the secondary school doesn’t have adequate teachers’ housing yet. I call them the Frat Boys because they’re basically as close as you get to that in Tanzania. They don’t seem to take their jobs seriously at all, or me for that matter. Whenever I hang out with them it’s just a bunch of questions about why I’m not married and don’t I want a TZ boyfriend? Since the government assigns teachers to where they will work I basically think since Dosidosi’s secondary school just opened they sent us all the most inexperienced and unmotivated crew. Oh well, they’re sometimes fun to hang out with.
Stephen: He lives with the frat boys but not really like them. Also new in town, goes to church w/ me and really smart and good English. But he's a huge nerd. He wants to be an accountant instead of a teacher. He asks me the dorkiest questions all the time and I just laugh because I konw I can make fun of him w/o him realizing it. I'm so mean.
Asha and Levasha: 2 married women teachers who live in the middle of the village. I basically go over to school every day and just talk to them while they're grading. They're super sweet and they both also have generators so I've been to each of their houses at night to chill and watch TV.
Maganga: The Ward Executive Officer (gov't guy) of Dosidosi. He got all the official PC scoop and everything. He's a silly-looking man w/ crazy muttonchops but he has a good heart and has taken me around the village and helped me out w/ tonsof stuff. Tracking him down is always an issue since he's never in the office. But usually he can be found cavorting around on his motorcycle or sipping chai and chilling in some cafe.
Stella and Mwanamvua: the 2 nurses at my clinic. They are AWESOME ladies who work so hard. They're always going to conferences and trying to learn more and really committed to improving health. BAsically, they're doing all they can w/ NOTHING and NO HELP so I'm really gonna try to help them out however I can.
Hadija: my Counterpart! This girl is really shy but she's got it goin' on! She's my age and graduated from Secondary School in Kibaya in 2005. She wants to go to college and be a womens' rights lawyer but $ is a problem so she's just at home helping with her family's farm now. She is great at English, so smart and motivated, and has such a progressive mindset and such awesome goals. So she went with me to do all my surveys and my community meetings, and she's coming to IST in Dec. w/ me for official Counterpart training. So basically I have high hopes for what we'll be able to accomplish here together.
Joyce: She's Keith's counterpart in Matui, but I lover her just as much as he does. She's a homebased-care volunteer and speaks no English but she does everything! And knows everyone important around. For income she runs a little soda and beer stand and also brings crates to sell in a tent every 2x/month market in my village. So needless to say she keeps us set on drinks whenever we're with her! One time I came to Matui Keith mentioned that later we were planning to climb this big rocky hill to get a view of the valley, so she just charges us across town and leads us up the steep slope in her flipflops and khanga. And she's like 40! She also loved one of the brownies I made and gave her once! Now she wants to climb 1 of the bigger mountains around Dosidosi with us sometime. Needless to say, I can't wait til IST! I think Keith and I, Joyce and Hadija, will be the Fantastic 4 starting PC in Kiteto!!!

BUGS

First of all, a warning: Don't read this if you ever want to consider me attractive ever again in your life. You've been warned.

So I’ve realized a lot of you are probably wondering what a typical day is like in PC TZ. Well, the answer is that there is none. Each day is full of incredibly random occurrences that either frustrate, amuse, or inspire. To illustrate this point, allow me to tell the tale of October 7, 2009, or as I like to call it: WAR ON SCABIES DAY. I wake up at 6 am after a fitful night due to bats squeaking and my skin itching and realize it’s time to face facts. The facts being, unfortunately for unlucky me, that I have scabies. I’ve come to this conclusion finally after almost a week of itchy red hives on my knees, waist, and elbows, countless consultations w/ my medical handbook and Where there is No Doctor, a speculative conversation with the PC Medical Officer, and several days of popping Benadryl trying to deny reality, all to no avail. Since I just had my sheets washed, I’m sure I caught this lovely gift from one of the guestis I’ve stayed at in my travels. Oh, thank you TZ. So despite my revelation, I still have to do something productive, so at 7:30 I’m off to do the last two surveys with Hadija in one of the sub-villages. It turns out to be an hour walk each way, so that’ll be my exercise for the day. I struggle to pay attention during the surveys because there’s some really cute puppies playing at the house next door and I’m so tempted to ask if I can have one. I resist the urge though and we walk back. Before going home I run some errands, ordering a sweet outfit from a tailor and buying some beans and veggies. So I get home, still procrastinating dealing with my skin problem, and start sweeping my house. And what should I sweep into my dustpan but a random half-paralyzed bat that must have fallen from my roof behind my cothes cupboard last night. So that’s gross, but I take it outside and watch my cats have fun playing with it, although apparently they don’t eat bats, or they’re full. Next thing I know Mwajuma (my school headmaster's wife...basically my BF here) comes over and I figure it’s time to do something. So I ask her if she can help me get my sheets washed again because I have “a bit of a rash.” And she freaks out, of course. They cannot have the white girl being sick you know. So for 4000 shillings she washed my blanket and all my sheets again, as if she had no other work to do, bless her heart. So since that’s happening, I figure I need to go all out TODAY and get this problem solved. So I drag my mattress, pillows, and all my couch cushions (which I stole from the junk room rather than buy my own so they could be the culprit too) into my yard to lie in the sun all day. Then I douse myself in some medicated lotion I got at the only drug store here again and start laundry duty. I already had tons of dirty clothes but now I realize that anything I’ve worn since rashville prob needs a rinse. So I put my iPod speakers on loud and start doing my least favorite chore, washing by hand with my 2 little plastic basins and bar of soap, sitting outside my back door. Even if I wanted to do everything I couldn’t because a) someone “borrowed” half my clothespins and b) I pay a pretty penny for water in this drought land and need to save some of the little I have for the rest of the week’s cooking and dishwashing. Plus the last time I had water delivered it was basically Mississippi mud so I’m not excited to pay for that again. So I wash enough clothes to last a few days (heck, this is PC, a few weeks) and am starting to get my hopes up that I will get this infestation eradicated once and for all (knock on wood.) By now it’s afternoon and all of what was going to be a productive day working on my VSA has gone to my battle plan. When I do sit down to start tabulating survey results, my friend Annette, one of the teachers who’s my age shows up at the door and says she’s come to help me “piga deki”- basically mopping the floor except no one has mops so they just bend over with a piece of fabric and wash the floor. So basically people are talking about my little problem and are probably concluding that I’m an incompetent mzungu living in filfth. So I tell her I can do it myself but she insists and basically has my whole room scrubbed in 5 minutes. Then she makes me spray everything down w/ my bug poison even though I already did. So she’s awesome. So later that day she comes back with my neighbor friend Joeli to listen to Celine Dion and the Backstreet Boys on my iPod (TZs love their 90s American pop), look at my pictures from home, and hang out. I show them the Michael Jackson People my mom sent and they marvel at the picture progression showing all the stages his face went through. We all agree that he was crazy, but still the King of Pop. So after that I bring all my stuff inside, hoping the sun has worked its magic and killed all insects, please please please. Then I realize I’m starving and I have vegetables I have to use before they go bad so I make some delicious salsa and start cooking beans to make homemade refried beans. That’s like a 2 hour process so in the meantime I finish my survey writeup and Mwajuma comes over with my sheets all clean. She basically tells me she feels horrible that I’ms ick, tell her if I need help with any other chores any time, or if I ever am too busy or don’t want to cook tell her and she’ll bring me food. “Sasa sisi ni ndugu, wewe mdogo yangu” she says. “Because we’re relatives now, you’re my little sister.” I freaking love that woman. So to end my long day of battle I eat my delicious dinner (trying not to miss Chipotle), then heat up some water and take a bucket bath by lantern light because I had to leave the lotion on for 8 hours before washing it off, according to my handy books. So finally through with my arduous day of pest control, I look up at the sky. Maybe it’s just the exhuberant hope of a scabies-free future making me delusional, but I swear the stars are more beautiful then I have ever seen anywhere. There’s no moon so I can see millions of them SUPER bright. One of the benefits of no light pollution from land. So basically, I can deal with a night sky like that for as long as I live, but I cannot be itchy like this for 2 years. So here’s hoping my efforts succeeded. And I know, TMI, I know.

EDIT: So last night I talked to my dad (a daktari) and he said he does not think it sounds like scabies, probably just an allergic reaction. and it's going away now. but i had already written this so i figured might as well post. more later.