Pictures from Uganda

Just a few pictures from the trip...

Sunset over Lake Victoria

The Nile River, in all its glory. Right before we're about to pass through the rapids.

In the 'mist' of it all.

We lost a couple along the way...

A quiet moment on the river.

Monkeys! These guys were everywhere.

Uganda, Part Mbili

And the saga continues....

That night, we spent the night on a tiny (like you could walk the circumference in about 15 minutes tiny) island in the middle of the Nile River. To get there, we took a little dugout canoe from the shore that was so old and rickety, I probably held my breath the whole way (which wasn’t that hard, since it was probably less than a five min trip). The island was super pretty and an awesome place to just relax after the adrenaline-high of rafting and soak in the gorgeous scenery. There was good food to eat, lots of hammocks and a volleyball net in the river to enjoy, and plenty of monkeys to watch when we needed entertainment. We spent most of the next day there before heading back to our original camp just in time to catch our sunset river cruise. Ok fine, I won’t sugar coat it- it was a booze cruise. And of course it was a blast- there was really good food (lots of appetizers, including several different kinds of bruschetta, and toooons of delicious barbequed meat), an open bar with good quality booze (don’t worry, we got our money’s worth), a friendly crew (the captain even let me drive the boat!) and of course beautiful sunset views of the river. The next morning we slept in and enjoyed one more good meal (English-style breakfast complete with cappuccino) overlooking the Nile before starting our long journey back to Tanzania.

This time there were five of us travelling over land/water (either people were more broke by the end of the trip, or our tales of how awesome a journey it was convinced them) and we got a bus back to Kampala. We couldn’t head back the same way we had come, because the Mwanza-Bukoba ferry only runs three times a week in each direction, and we want to sit around and wait for it for a couple days. So we went to the port to see what we could find and managed to convince the captain of a cargo ship to take us back to Mwanza directly. It wasn’t even that difficult- he was a nice guy (with one of those big, contagious laughs), and I’m always amazed how often people here are willing to help strangers on their journeys. We even managed to get exit stamps from Uganda from a tiny little immigration office right at the port. The ship was leaving in just a few hours, so we had just enough time to grab dinner and some supplies for our 22 hour sea voyage back to Tanzania. The captain gave us a room with bunk beds, and we made it a cozy little place where we slept, played cards, read aloud to each other, ate sandwiches from the supplies we’d bought, enjoyed homemade wine, took ridiculous photos, and just generally chilled out. We also wandered around the boat quite a bit, had a Titanic-style photo shoot on the bow, got a tour of the engine room from the ship’s second mate (I think that’s the term for the “vice-captain”…my nautical vocab is a bit rusty), and just marveled at the inability to see any hint of land in any direction for almost a full day and yet know that you’re not out on open ocean. When we pulled into the port at Mwanza, the captain told us we had to hide in our little cabin for a bit while he made sure that there weren’t any immigration officials around (insert bad Mexican joke here), but it was about 6pm so of course no one was working and we didn’t have any difficulties.

Upon arriving back in Tanzania, it felt a bit like coming home. Everything was familiar again and I’d actually kinda missed speaking Swahili. We had a nice dinner at a safi (literally means clean in Swahili, but also slang for really nice or fancy) restaurant overlooking Lake Victoria, got a room for the night, and were up early (like before dawn early- yuck) to catch a bus the next day. From Mwanza I headed to Morogoro where there was a new class of education volunteers in training. I planned and facilitated two PSDN sessions and six sessions on how to teach English in Tanzania to the new volunteers and stayed in Morogoro for about a week before finally heading home. I got back to my site the Monday that was officially the first day back to school (after the two week break), but it usually takes schools about a week to get going here anyways, so I didn’t even miss any teaching time. All in all, it was an amazing trip.


“I’ve got some friends, some that I hardly know, we’ve had some times – I wouldn’t trade for the world.”

Uganda, Part 1

Soo I thought I'd posted this part awhile ago but I guess either my internet or my memory crapped out on me. Either way, here it is.

Hello everyone! I know it’s been awhile since I’ve blogged but I was having some issues with my dongle (the little magic stick I plug into the USB port on my computer that somehow brings all the wonders of the internet to my little tiny African village) and its hard to blog without internet. How is everyone? Is the weather getting cooler or are you having Indian summer over there? I miss summer in California! I truly (and completely unbiased-ly) think that summer is at its absolute best in northern California. The hot days that just beg to be spent in an inner tube on the river. The warm nights that invite laid-back social gatherings that always seem to conclude with small-scale mischief. The fresh fruit everywhere, especially the scent of warm strawberries as you drive past fields and fields of the freshest, sweetest berries imaginable (I’ve been in serious strawberry withdrawal, if you can’t tell). The camping trips and barbeques. The smoothies and jello shots. The flip-flop tan lines and the smell of chlorine…

But enough, you don’t want to hear about what I miss; you want to hear about what I’ve been doing here. So since I’m teaching at a public school, our schedule follows pretty much a standard American school calendar (ie long breaks in the summer and winter), but the schedule was a bit different this year because Tanzania conducted a census. Why would a national census affect the school calendar you ask? Well that’s simple really - because the teachers are the ones that had to conduct it. Which makes sense if you think about it – teachers are government employees and are already stationed all around the country. And they have the skills to be able to count people, compile data, crunch numbers, fill out long government forms, etc. So my school closed for two weeks at the end of June for like a token break when we should have had our regularly scheduled break, then we opened up again for less than a month (which was kind of a joke), before closing for five more weeks for the national census (at which point, while all my fellow teachers were busy census-ing, I went gallivanting around the country). Needless to say, I kept pretty busy during both breaks. During the first break, I traveled up to Uganda with some friends (don’t worry, this was before the ebola outbreak) to the source of the Nile River. But let’s start at the beginning of that story….

So one fine weekend in June, I set out from my site to Katesh, the tiny town (more of a gas stop along the main highway, really) that’s closest to me for a weekend of debauchery. A class of health and environment volunteers was about to COS (close of service, or peace corps speak for being done with their two-year service and going back to the US) and there was a big going-away party for them called Goat Roast. Why was this going-away party called Goat Roast? Well, because we roasted a goat (we’re a cryptic bunch- I know). Goat meat is pretty common here. Goats are tough, hardy animals that will eat just about anything, making them easier to raise than cows. And, goats are also a lot smaller, so slaughtering one doesn’t lead to as much meat, an important consideration in a place where refrigeration is a rarity. So for this going away party, we decided to buy an entire goat (she was a cute little brown and white speckled thing that we named Dinner), dig a shallow pit in which to place charcoal, construct a makeshift spit, and have ourselves a little barbeque, Tanzanian-style. The goat spent the better part of the day roasting, and sending out some of the most delicious aromas, while we spent the better part of the day chilling, drinking, playing corn hole and Frisbee, and enjoying the company of other volunteers while they were still around. Needless to say, a good time was had by all.

The next day, we (myself and two other volunteers) started our long journey to Uganda. We got on a bus and spent about eight hours on a bus to get to Mwanza, a city on the southern shore of Lake Victoria. Long bus rides are such an integral part of travel in this country that eight hours doesn’t even seem like that long to me anymore. And with certain things like good friends as seat-mates, (instead of wailing infants, boxes of pooping chickens, grandmas that pee on the bus floor, sleezy guys that hit on you for hours on end, sacks of fish past their prime, drunk guys who puke into the wind…yes, all of which have happened), avocado sandwiches on leftover bread (aka bus picnic food), paved roads (well except for a relatively short piece that turned out to be a “short-cut”), decent scenery (complete with cotton –who would’ve thought cotton grows in eastern Africa?) and nice kondos who actually do their job, well then the long bus rides really aren’t that bad. So we got to Mwanza about 6pm or so, and had just enough time to buy tickets, grab some dinner, and enjoy the sunset view of the lake a bit before the next leg of our journey, which was the ferry across Lake Victoria.

For those geography buffs out there, you’ll know that Lake Victoria is the largest lake in Africa and the second largest fresh-water lake in the world (second to an only slightly bigger lake in Russia with a much more difficult to pronounce name). That’s cool for bragging rights and all, but when it comes to travel plans that necessitate crossing this giant lake, well, suddenly I wouldn’t have minded if it wasn’t quite as grand. We boarded the ferry at 6pm and arrived in Bukoba a town still on the Tanzanian shoreline of the lake) at about 8am the next day. For those of you who are proud products of the American public education system, that’s 14 hours. And we didn’t even cross the lake, so much as cut the corner (though admittedly a fairly sizable corner). The ferry actually wasn’t that bad – the boat was big enough that you didn’t feel the motion very much, and it wasn’t as jam-packed as most forms of transport in this country. We had arrived too late to get any of the higher class tickets, which consist of little rooms with bunk beds so people can sleep properly, but we had ‘second class-sitting’ seats, which basically just consisted of a room full of benches, but we were able to spread out and get some shut eye. Upon arriving in Bukoba, we’d originally planned to chill out for a bit and possibly get some real sleep, but we decided to power through instead. So we got on a dala (mini-vans that serve as public transport here) and headed to the border town, Mutukula, where we got visas, changed money, had some breakfast, and officially crossed into Uganda.

So what was Uganda like? Well I know a lot of times when travelling you can barely tell the difference between different countries, especially in border areas. This was not the case at all. Uganda’s certainly had its share of difficulties recently (war, corruption, high HIV rate, etc) but by what I saw, it seems to be doing alright (it's gotten a lot of international aid- who would've thought that'd be effective?). The population is generally better educated than in Tanzania, and English is widespread. Like really widespread – I’d forgotten how easy figuring out travel plans and making arrangements was in English. Another huge difference is the transport systems – mainly that there are guidelines governing it. In the matutas (the Ugandan version of dalas), there are actually limits on how many people can be in a car (which coincides with how many seats are in the car) and these limits are followed. This may seem logical, but in Tanzania this is far from true- I don’t think I’ve ever been in a dala where everyone had their own seat for the entire journey. People stand in the aisles, sit on buckets or other improvised seats, fit five people in a row that is meant for four, and so many other improvisations meant to cram as many people into one vehicle as possible (personal record – in a dala with 12 ‘seats’ as we would think of them in the America, we managed to fit 26 people). So not only does everyone get a seat in Ugandan vehicles, but it’s a plush comfy seat, as opposed to the metal frame always seemingly a day or two from collapse with a layer of ‘cush’ that ranges from absolutely none to almost not completely inadequate. So Uganda definitely has one up on Tanzania when it comes to transport. What else? Oh the food – the food is pretty good- more variety than in Tanzania, but with still some common ground that made it feel comfortingly familiar. And Ugandans have mastered something important that puzzles every Tanzanian I have posed the idea too – the concept of putting certain types of food in or on top of other types of food. You want some of the juice from the beans poured over your rice? Ridiculous. You want to wrap your eggs inside of your chapati (traditional breakfast food that’s kinda like Indian naan)? Preposterous. You want a shaker with holes that aren’t plugged so that you can sprinkle salt on top of your chipsi (French fries), instead of a pile of salt on the side so you can dip them into it? You must be mistaken. I’m not sure why this concept is so crazy to Tanzanians, but it is. Anyways, I digress.

So we crossed the border into Uganda and then got in a really nice car going to Kampala, the capital. I forget how long that leg of the trip was, but it was realllllly hot, so it seemed like forever. When we finally got to Kampala, it had just started pouring. Like pouring down in sheets. We were so hot by that point, we didn’t really mind that much. But we did have all our stuff, and no idea where we were or where we were going (our plan had just been to walk around the city till we found a cheap guesthouse). This plan actually still worked out pretty well – we found a decent place quickly enough, got a hot shower and a good meal, and by then it had stopped raining so we decided to go out and explore. Kampala is a pretty busy city – lots of traffic, lots of shopping, lots of people. We walked around for awhile to get a feel for the place, which I guess I’d judge as likable enough but without anything that makes is particularly awesome (though I guess that’s kinda how most really big African cities are in my opinion / experience). Or maybe I just wasn't there long enough (I was only there about two days). It did have some big shopping malls that are a nice breath of Western air after life in the vill. Anyways, so the three of us who had travelled over land, met up with the rest of our group – all nine of them who had flown into Kampala (those with bigger bank accounts than senses of adventure) before heading to Jinja, a city a few hours from Kampala situated on the source of the Nile River. Yes, that’s right folks – the Nile. As in the longest river in the world, with its origins down in the depths of Lake Victoria, its beginning in good ole Jinja, Uganda, and its end waaaaay up in Egypt, before finally meeting up with the Mediterranean.

So by the time we got into the camp where we were staying in Jinja it was about 8pm and all we wanted was a decent meal - which was promptly forthcoming. But because it was already dark, we didn’t realize how amazing the location was of where we were till the next day. So waking up and seeing it the next day was- well, it literally took my breath away. We were on a small cliff literally right on the water, with lush green foliage on either bank embedded in deep red soil, contrasting gorgeously with a perfect baby blue sky, and the deceptively lazy-looking river winding its way past us maybe a couple hundred feet or so below. Oh, and there were monkeys swinging in the trees right by our tent – how cool is that? I’m pretty sure it was the perfect beginning for a day of a white-water rafting on the river. Which was a blast. We hit about eight rapids, ranging from class 1 to class 5 (class 6 is the highest, but you aren’t permitted to do those in rafts-only kayaks, for which you need actual skills). The weather was good (we’d been afraid that it was going to rain, since it poured the night before after we got in), and the water was really nice – perfect temperature for swimming, which we did a lot of in between rapids when we got tired of paddling. My boat did pretty good (well, I guess in reality our guide did pretty good since all we did was whatever he told us to do), in that we never flipped over on a rapid, except for one time when the guide purposely flipped us (I think we were starting to get big heads and he wanted to set us straight). Not that we minded – like I said the water was perfect. When we reached the landing point, the rafting company had an awesome lunch and cold beers waiting for us (rafting works up an appetite), even though we’d had lot of snacks on the river (I probably ate half a pineapple by myself, they were so sweet).

....Sorry, this is turning out to be long, I'll have to give you the rest of the story later.

Celeb Writer

Mel has been bad at updating this thing (lazybones) so she asked me (Justin) to step-up and write one for her. I’ve been told that I can’t write anything that might “compromise” her standing with anyone who reads this. I’ll try to be on my best behavior. Before I start, I want to let you know when I write I tend to use parenthesis a lot to throw in my own thoughts or little details. Sorry I’m not sorry I do this. (I would like to apologize for not always keeping my tenses straight and my atrocious grammar though. And I teach English.)

What has Mel been up to for the past 4+ months? According to her, she hasn’t written about a BUNCH of things she’s done. Let’s see…

Well, her school caught on fire 3 times in less than 4 months and was forced to close for a period of time. An investigation was performed, a priest was brought in (not kidding) to... “cleanse” the school, and the pyro-maniac was eventually caught. BUT, because of all the fires and the inquisition that followed, the whole staff at her school was transferred and new ones were brought in. Mel wasn’t a big fan of this. Her counterpart (a Tanzanian teacher us volunteers select to work closely with on any projects we might create) left, the school cook (and Mel’s neighbor) left, everyone left… except the Mkuu (headmaster/principal). It was kind of like an entirely new school was being moved to her. But things have been slowly returning to normal. Her students are slowly but surely returning and she began teaching again.

She also never mentioned that she was selected to be part of PSDN (Peer Support and Diversity Network) here in Tanzania (I was also selected- there were 12 of us total). Basically, PSDN is a group of volunteers who can be called on to help other volunteers with ANY issue/problem/concern they have here in country. We were called to Dar es Salaam in… April, I think, to take part in a training. We had sessions on how to talk through a variety of issues that volunteers may have: from site issues, to alcohol/drugs, to sexual assault, and everything in between. It’s a pretty unique group of volunteers and we are totally confidential about what volunteers tell us, even to Peace Corps staff.

She spent her birthday (25! She’s old) in Morogoro at a training-of-trainers with a bunch of other volunteers, and judging from the call I got that night, it sounded like she had a good time.

She was part of a group of us who went to Uganda in June to go rafting on the Nile. (before the Ebola outbreak.) THAT was really cool. But apparently she wants to tell you about that one herself, so I’ll move on.

After Uganda, Mel headed back to Morogoro for the Pre-Service Training (PST) of a new class of education volunteers. She spent the next handful of weeks bouncing between PST and her site. If you ask me, it sounded like she was pretty busy, but she seems to like (really like) teaching English and meeting the new volunteers, so I think she enjoyed herself.

Umm… what else?

She hosted a new volunteer for Shadow Week. (New trainees visit a volunteer to see how they live, get a little better idea of what to expect at their site, and see how awesome travel in Tanzania is (sarcasm).) It sounds like she and her shadower got along really well: Mel and her cooked food together, explored a little, and had a pillow fight in their underwear. (No? I thought that’s what girls did when they were alone.) But that trainee was placed in the closest town to Mel and I’m sure they will become the best of friends by the time she leaves (awwww).

Aaaaafter that Mel was supposed to come visit me on Pemba (an island off the coast of Tanzania that’s part of the Zanzibar archipelago) for a little bit (we both had extended breaks from school), but the ferry she was supposed to take was shut-down (for “maintenance” I’m guessing, as there’s been 3 ferry sinkings in the last year….yeah, Tanzanian transport systems are awesome, I know). So I came to the mainland and we headed to her site for a little while. We didn’t do toooo much. Lots of sleeping in, cooking gooooood food, reading, and watching TV shows and movies. I did build her a dresser (glorified bookshelf) so she’s no longer living out of her suitcase. She seems really happy with it, and I’m just happy she’s not living like a nomad anymore.

After about a week at Mel’s, we went to a little town called Bagamoyo, just an hour or two north of Dar (where we had to go anyway for our MSC the following week). We met up with three other volunteers there who were also on break and also not in America at the time (‘cause it seemed like everyone else was visiting the states). Bagamoyo was pretty cool: a sleepy little beach town with only a few resorts, which was perfect because it was just touristy enough to have good/western food, but not too touristy to have the place overrun with tourists. We chilled on the beach, saw some old ruins from when the Sultan of Oman ran things here, went to a museum (the area’s got a loooooot of history to it), ate really good fish, saw some cool art, closed down several bars, and just generally had a good time. Oh, and we discovered that the ocean there is full of bioluminescent micro-organisms - so when you go swimming at night (the Indian Ocean is super warm), the water around you lights up as you move. Very cool.

We were in Bagamoyo for about four days before we had to head to Dar for MSC. If you ask me, the Mid-Service Conference (MSC) was kind of a waste of time, and an even bigger waste of money (I’m broke!). MSC was a week-long and consisted of medical appointments, dentist appointments, and a handful of sessions put on at the Peace Corps office regarding teaching, our second year of service, safety and security, blah blah blah. (Like I said, I didn’t get much out of it.) But it was great to be able to hang out with everyone from our training class again and get some non-Tanzanian food for a week (Shawarma, burgers, salads, iced coffee, sushi...soo many delicious things). After MSC, everyone from our class was still on break from school so we rented a bus to take us to a town in the southern highlands, Songea, for an annual volunteer party.

Songea Fest was a good time, even though it was only a day and a half long. There was a BBQ, dinner, drinks, a dance party, even a talent show. One night we rented out an entire club and filled it with nothing but Peace Corps volunteers – there were over 70 of us there….yeah, we just kinda took over the town. It was a nice town too- mountainous and green and generally likable. But once that was done we headed back to Mel’s site. (I had a week to kill before a conference I had to go to, and I was broke, so I went back to her site). The trip back to her site ssssssuuuuuckkkkeeeeedddd (imagine 4 days of travel, sitting on a sack of beans for 7 hours, kondos that were blatant liars, spending too much money, the “comforts” of a Tanzanian bus) but we eventually did make it there.

That visit was very much like the previous one: housework (for me), good food, TV and movies, sleeping in. I hung a couple shelves in her house, switched out a busted door-lock, and we made some improvised poutine (a Canadian treat!). All the things I built/hung/fixed in her house are things she claims she could/would have done on her own (yeah, ok) but just hasn't gotten to. It’s been super dry at her site (prime for snot-rockets), and the water from the pipe is kind of salty, so we made a lot of kool-aid too (she says ‘thanks Dad!’). Her school re-opened so she’s back to teaching now.

I think that about sums up the last 6 months of Mel’s life (probably not). You all can heckle her some more to actually write her own blog-posts a little more often, instead of farming it out. Hope this wasn’t too compromising for her. Take care, everyone.


“All the soldiers say ‘It'll be alright, we may make it through the war if we make it through the night.’”

Lessons in Improv

I believe it was Einstein who once said that ‘necessity was the mother of invention’ and if there is one lesson that I will learn during my time here, I would venture to say it is resourcefulness. The amount of things that I have seen improvised by my villagers is truly astounding. Don’t have a hammer and nails? These carefully selected stones will do the job. Have something stuck in your teeth but don’t have a toothpick? This large thorn will take care of it. Don’t have a level or straight edge to use for that table you’re constructing? Just place it in the shadow of your house. Don’t have paint or wallpaper but want to spruce up your house? Simply draw on the walls with ash and seal with a coat of bee’s wax. Don’t have the nuts or bolts you need to reattach that bus axle? This stick will do the trick.

Well, sometimes they might take the ‘mend and make do’ attitude a bit far for my liking. But overall, they are genius and I am completely their student. So far I have managed to improvise an oven, several door and window latches, a loufa, curtain rods, candle holders, a hanging fruit dish, a coffee maker and probably half a dozen other things that I can’t think of right now.

And armed with baked goods, a weekend hiding place from the early morning sun, and above all coffee, my life is greatly improved.


“It’s the little things and the joy they bring”

Rainy Season and the Critters it Brings

I’ll have to continue with my holiday adventures later next time, cause the sound of the rain on my tin roof has been urging me to share the glory that is rainy season with you all evening. Before you read any further, go get a spoon. Not a teaspoon, but one of the big ones you might use to eat soup. I’ll tell you why later. Just do it.

So, weather in Tanzania- the Cliff Notes version. Or actually I should say my region of Tanzania- for a relatively small country, there’s a surprising amount of diversity in geography and weather patterns. But here in good old Manyara region (roughly central, north-ish of the country), the seasons essentially alternate between wet and dry. The rainy season is from roughly October to January, with a dry break from end of January through March, and then rainy again but with a bit more oomph from March till May. Then we get a windy dry season, from June till October, before starting over again. I know, the seasons here don’t have very creative names. But what they lack in that christening, they make up for in character.

Right now the rainy season has just started up again, which is….interesting. The wetness outside makes all sorts of critters find their way into my snug little house. There’s definitely more bugs around now and they seem to be bigger now; I'm reminded of these toys we had at the pre-school I used to work at that started off as little indiscriminately crinkled bits of sponge until you soaked them in water for about an hour and suddenly you had an army of giant dinosaurs. And there's mosquitoes now which suck (literally). There are more spiders too, though those don’t seem to bother me as much as they used to. I get lizards in my house all the time, even during dry season, but there’s more of those guys during rainy season too. Usually I just let them be and hope that they’re eating some of the bugs. Although I did come home one day in need of an after-school nap and found a lizard lying on my pillow enjoying the sunshine streaming through the window. That somehow seemed to cross a line, and he got scooted outside.

My least favorite is probably the scorpions. Aside from just looking really mean (which I hold as a completely ‘good-enough’ reason to not like them), they’re crazy fast. They’re not very big, which I thought was their one redeeming factor until a friend of mine pointed out that the smaller they are, the more toxic they generally are. Great. I’ve managed to avoid being stung so far, but there’s a fair number of them, so I feel like it’s just a matter of time.

I’ve also got bats. My house has a slanted tin room on the outside but a flat ceiling inside, and there’s a bunch of birds and bats that live in the triangle-shaped space in between. I can hear them rustling around above my ceiling and usually don’t mind too much as long as they keep the noise levels to a minimum after I go to sleep. But recently, the bats have started trespassing across our ceiling boundary and entering my domain. I’ve searched my house thoroughly and fruitlessly for holes in the ceiling and have decided that the existence of some sort of secret bat portal is the only possible explanation for how they’re getting in.

The first time one got in, he really freaked me out. I’d been sick that day and was all tucked in with the covers around me and my mosquito net around my bed by about 8pm. It’d been a long day of vomiting and diarrhea and I was thoroughly depleted. I was just drifting off to sleep when I heard a flutter of wings that sounded alarmingly close. Not sure if I’d dreamt the sound or not, I sat up, reached for my light, and see that there’s a bat hanging on my mosquito net less than a foot from where my head had just been, staring right at me. Naturally I begin to curse profusely. I knocked him off the net and manage to escape from my net to turn the overhead light on. He didn’t seem to like the light (or perhaps he took offense to the long string of explicatives still streaming from my mouth) cause he started flying around my room like crazy, running into walls, knocking things over and making his creepy shrill bat noises (which are way louder than you’d expect, btw). I had an empty bucket in my room (to use as a hospital bin, just in case), and I grabbed that thinking maybe I could trap him under it. As I approached him, he flew at me, grazing my arm and coming disturbingly close to my face, before continuing to fly around running into walls. By this point, I was convinced that he was either the stupidest bat ever (exactly how many times can you run into the same wall before figuring out that you’re not going to manage to fly through it?) or he was rabid.

So I try again to trap the bat and when that fails I start insulting him, telling him that he’s an idiot and that he’s gonna pay for his stupidity. As it turns out, I was all talk. He flies out of my bedroom and into my living room, and the warrior in me flings the door shut behind him- essentially giving him full reign of my house and trapping me inside my bedroom. Definitely not my proudest moment, but in my defense I had been super sick all day. Anyways, I take a few deep breaths, call a couple other volunteers for some much needed squealing induced empathy, and try to work up the courage to leave the safe haven of my bedroom and go face the little devil. But again, I fail and I end up crawling back into bed, pull the covers over my head, and try to convince myself that I’m not being a coward, but strategic. Bats are nocturnal, so when I go out in the morning, he’ll be sleeping and easy to capture. Or if not sleeping, at least weak from not eating all night. So I spent a troubled night of tossing and turning every time he decided to test the solid-ness of my walls again, but still managed to wake up the next morning very much rejuvenated and willing to take him on. I grabbed a broom handle to use as a weapon, slowly open my bedroom door, and creep out into the hallway. I search the entire house several times, but he is nowhere to be found. So I just assume that he must have used the same secret bat portal to let himself out, and go about my day trying not to think about it except to be glad that he’s gone.

Fast forward to that evening. Its about 8pm again, and I’m relaxing with a book on my bed. When guess who decides to finally show himself? Yes, my little flying friend decides to zoom down my hallway right past my open bedroom door and into my living room. For a moment, I’m just completely shocked that this is really happening again. But then I spring to action. I grab broom-handle-turned-bat-swatter, dash into the living room, and spy him hanging on my curtains. He starts flying around as I get close, so I swing at him as he’s in the air, make contact with a satisfying thud, and watch him fall to the floor. But he gets back up and flies directly at me screeching his bat battle cry so loudly that it makes my ears complain. I tell him how sorry he’s gonna be that he didn’t stay down, and follow it up with another swing that brings him to my feet. This time he doesn’t get up, but just kinda drags himself along the floor, continuing to make my ears reel with his high-pitched bat noises. I give him a couple more good whaps just to be safe (I’ve learned that you have to go in for the ‘double kill’ on this continent, after too many times of thinking that a bug or something was dead only to have it start coming towards me again), and then flip a bucket upside down over him, sit on it, and continue to trash talk him. At about which point I realize how much I’ve been talking to this bat, and think that perhaps another person would be a better conversationalist, so I call up the friends I’d phoned the previous night when I was freaking out to share my victory before scooping him up with the bucket and throwing his body outside to serve as a warning to other bats. Which turned out to not be effective – I’ve had a couple other bats use the secret bat portal into my house, but I’ve managed to either kill or chase them all outside (apparently not all bats are as dumb as this one was) with much less hassle and drama.

Even with bats and other critters in my house, overall I really like the rainy season. For one thing, it makes everything green and gorgeous. The whole region just comes to life and everywhere you look life just seems to be thriving. And it also means I can just put out buckets and collect rain water instead of having to haul water to my house. Water is heavy. And in a place where there’s no running water, having it essentially delivered to your door is pretty awesome. Though I really shouldn’t complain – I’ve got a tap on my school grounds, and a lot of people here walk literally miles to their water source. Plus rain water reminds me of Outkast, its just so fresh and so clean. Usually I have to boil my water to make it safe to drink, wait for it to cool, and then filter it to get the debris out. And then it still has salt in it, which means its neither thirst-quenching nor tasty. But rain water requires none of this hassle and is delicious. I think having lots of good water more than makes up for all the extra creepy-crawlies around.

And then of course there’s just the deep down comfort of days where I just curl up with a good book and a cup of tea, and fall asleep to the sound of the rain on the tin roof. Or the grand comedy of racing the thunder that warns of the coming storm to see how many buckets I can put outside before I'm thoroughly drenched to the bone. Or the humbling sense of awe of sitting on the porch with my neighbors to watch the lightning come in purple flashes or cartoon-style jagged lines to illuminate the little valley below us. You really can't beat that.

The internet gods have smiled upon me today, which means that I was able to upload a few photos...

The scorpions all around my house that I'm not a huge fan of.


Did you ever grab that soup spoon? Probably not...but in case you did, take a good look at it compare how big it to how big these bugs are.



One of the local homes- mud bricks supported by a wood frame with a thatch roof. I actually really like them cause they stay nice and cool inside.


The volcano that overlooks my village, Mt. Hanang.


Down by the lake, about a 10 min walk from my house :)




Alright folks, that all for today. And if I don't post again before then, have a happy Easter!


"I wonder what it's like to be the rainmaker"

Roast Turkey Entree with a Side of Thankful Musings

Yes, you read that title correctly. Yes, this post is about Thanksgiving. And, yes, I know that it’s now March. Criticism is welcome, although it should be known that it will be largely ignored.

Despite the fact that Thanksgiving is solely an American holiday, I managed to attend two different Thanksgiving celebrations this year in Tanzania. The first was held on actual Thanksgiving Day, at the home of some missionaries that live in Katesh town. There are a couple families from the same church in the US that have been in this area for many years, and they are just plain some of the kindest people I’ve ever met. Every holiday they have a big celebration and invite all the Peace Corps volunteers and other development workers in the region, and any other Americans that happen to find themselves away from the mother ship for the event. Since I had been moved into the region literally a matter of days before Thanksgiving, I hadn’t had a chance to meet the missionaries before showing up at their door on Turkey day with nothing but a litre of soda. Needless to say I was a bit apprehensive, but they were so incredibly warm and welcoming that turned out to be completely unwarranted. Stepping into their home was like being transported into a mini-America. The house was decorated in all harvest colors, and came complete with wonders such as a refrigerator (complete with an ice machine!), flat screen TV playing a clay-mation Rudolph Christmas special, and scented hand soap in the bathroom. There were men sitting around discussing the merits of their favorite NFL players, and little blonde-haired, blue-eyed kids running around with Buzz and Woody dolls. And there was a table complete with a cheese plate, deviled eggs, chips and dip, and a veggie platter full of novelties such as broccoli and celery (which are just about impossible to find in this country). None of this may seem particularly amazing to you, but imagine you’ve been in a world where none of these things exist for six months, and suddenly they become true marvels.

We all went around and said what we’re thankful for and I think that message really hit home for me this year, on several levels. First off, I’m extremely thankful to be surrounded by such awesome people here. My fellow volunteers are some of the most amazing people, and I’ve made some really close friends here. We support each other through this experience in such a huge way that I doubt most of us would have gotten this far without it. And then there’s people like the missionaries, who just kinda take you in, no questions asked, and offer you everything they have. That kind of hospitality just makes me pause in awe. And Tanzanians in general are extremely generous and welcoming, and I’ve literally been offered the shuka (a blanket worn as part of traditional Barabaig dress) off someone’s back.

So I’m thankful for not only being with such great people here, but also just for being here. Ordinarily we have just plain so much in the US, and being surrounded by people who have never known this excess, kinda just makes it all seem ridiculously silly. For the most part, Tanzanians live simply. Entertainment consists mostly of ‘piga story’ (sitting around and talking) with your neighbors while watching the kids and the roosters chase each other about. The food consists primarily of what each family can grow on their farm, and is cooked in a no-frills manner. Homes are simple and straight-forward, but perfectly sufficient. People have what they need, and not a lot extra. But all the other stuff is just that - extra. And this holiday, I found myself being thankful for not only coming from a place that does have so much extra, but also for having the opportunity to experience a lifestyle that doesn’t.

As well as of course all the delicious things we were about to eat, and my, did we have a great meal. The missionaries managed to cook up a feast that would have been epic in the US, much less in Tanzania where so many ingredients (like oh, say, turkey) are extremely difficult to come by. In true American style, we stuffed ourselves past the point of comfort, sat around feeling like we were going to pop for a while, and then proceeded on to coffee and dessert.

On to Thanksgiving celebration number two. The next day (Black Friday for those of you remaining fully submerged in the depths of American consumerism) I traveled back to Singida region to the village of my old sitemate (the Peace Corps volunteer closest to me, and thus almost by default one of my closest friends). She hosted a Thanksgiving celebration for about 20 volunteers, mainly from our training class, some of whom travelled over two days to get there. It was absolutely great to see so many good people again, and again the food was amazing. We shared the meal with a handful of Tanzanians from my friend’s village, who we can now proudly say have a solid understanding of a tribe of people called the Pilgrims. Oh and watching Tanzanians poke canned cranberry repeatedly to watch it jiggle is highly amusing. Score two points for cultural exchange.

We repeated the same process of stuffing ourselves silly, an intermission of swapping site stories and general catching up, and then a round of desserts complete with an African-flavored fruit salad and a special Alana twist cake, the thought of which still makes my mouth water. We rounded the evening out with a crate of beer, some guitar playing and sing-a-long, another crate, and some card games.

All in all, a great double-feature holiday.



“Like Snickers guaranteed to satisfy.”