Rain

"Well there's not a lot for you to give if you're giving in. And there's not a lot for you to feel if you're not feeling it. You bring it up and bring it in and we'll get you fixed up in no time..."-Tegan and Sara

Not gonna lie, this week has been tough. I've been going through a bit of a crisis of confidence as far as what I'm doing here. For some reason I just got in this really homesick, depressed mood that I couldn't shake. When I'm in the village I try to be productive and usually am but there's still a lot of downtime and if you know me you know that a bored Carrie is an unhappy Carrie. So as of right now I'm just taking it day by day, sometimes moment by moment, trying to remember that it's not about me.

On Sunday I had a slightly revalatory moment. I went to church w/ a few of my neighbors, about a 40 min. walk away in the next village. It was good to go but church services drag on forever here so I eventually realized I was going to have to leave early to be on time for a scheduled meeting. As I was trying to decide what time to sneak out, I kept hearing thunder getting closer and closer, obviously it was about to rain. So of course I left at the most inopportune time possible and the rain started about five minutes into my walk. So stubborn me, I am not going to turn around and spend all day at church waiting for it to stop, and of course I'm completely unprepared w/o umbrella or raincoat, but I keep going. Now when it rains here, it rains Biblically. So I'm walking down this dirt road as fast as I can in my skirt and Birkenstocks, and the heavens just unleash a DOWNPOUR. I was completely drenched in about 10 minutes and still far from home. At 1st I felt like the world's biggest idiot but then I realized, "You know, there's nothing you can do to prevent this so just give up!" And I started to embrace it. I took off my glasses which were useless and carried my shoes, and kept walking barefoot down the road which instantly became a muddy river. It was the most soaked I'd been since the beach and closest thing I've had to a bath in 5 days. I actually wished I had my shampoo! So it was good for something. Honestly, I kind of enjoyed it because it was marvelous to witness with every pore and every sense how hard it can rain in this place that was a dry desert just a couple months ago. Now everything has become green and lush! As I finally neared home I was splashing through huge puddles and sure my cell phone was drowned (it still works, knock on wood!). I was soaked to the bone but feeling strangely renewed. 'Cause really, Idk when the last time I didn't try to avoid or get through a rainstorm as fast as possible was. How often do we ever completely surrender ourselves to nature and the elements? Not that I want to make a habit of taking long hikes in monsoons with no protection, but this one time it was exhilarating. And maybe exactly what I needed.

2010!

Happy New Year!!!!! I truly hope it's been an awesome one for all of you out there! I beat you to it by 8 hours though! I don't have much to update but I did have an amazing Christmas and New Years and am now ready to start getting some serious work done in my vill (aside from a Dar trip and an Iringa trip already scheduled for this month for meetings and trainings). First up is hopefully a community garden Hadija is helping organize now, starting to teach Life Skills at the primary and secondary school, and hopefully a chicken project to raise money for my orphans' school fees. So for those of you who were interested in contributing to help out with that, I'm planning to write a grant for start-up money for the project ASAP. As soon as the grant gets through it will be posted online and you will be able to donate. I'm hoping that raising chickens and selling the eggs for income-generation will give the kids a sustainable way to raise their school fees rather than just relying on donations from America year after year. So as soon as that is up for donations I will let everyone know. May take a few more weeks though. Things move slowly in Africa and in Peace Corps bureaucracy.
Well, that's about it, time to go waste time on facebook until my Internet time runs out!
Mwaka Mpya Njema!!!! (Happy New Year!)