So it is: First Report

What a relief to have passed the one-week mark of being at my site, and not be evacuated!  It has been a refreshingly uneventful introduction to my new village.  For whatever reason, I did not bring as many things to my site as I should have.  I have a generously sized house with 3 rooms, but only enough things to fill ½ of one room.  My first two days were spent evicting the spider and dust bunny squatters—never before had I mopped and swept walls.  I also mopped the floor twice but it still doesn’t shine.  Since I didn’t have any charcoal for my stove, let alone any matches, my first night’s dinner was peanut M&M’s.  Finally on my own without Mama Halima, I felt like one of those poor freshman who discovers they don’t actually know how to take care of themselves in the least, they helplessly just need a mom to feed, water and clean them.  The fact that the peanut M&Ms were sent to me from my dear real mom might have underscored this feeling.  Don’t worry, I promptly got charcoal and matches the next day, and have since been managing, in my own way, to take care of myself.

My village is nestled into some low mountains Northeast of the city of Dodoma.  In a breathtaking country like Tanzania, I’m sure there are more beautiful sites than mine, but I sure do think my village is pretty.  There is a spring that is apparently full of water dependably, a blessing that is unusual for this region—many other villages have to dig in empty streambeds to get murky water.  There is also a little stream (might be better called a glade? It doesn’t really move…) that I have to cross every day to go to the village, and I am thankful for the well-constructed footbridge that (for the most part) keeps me from getting worms in my feet.  My house is part of the school’s compound, so my neighbors are primary school teachers and their families.  A little further up the road is a Catholic missionary, where several sisters and two priests live, preach, and run a health dispensary.  Behind my house sits the back of a mountain and just a wall of forest.  One of the sisters, while walking me to my house after a visit, gave me a friendly warning to be aware of the leopard that lives in those woods.   She insisted that it’s much more aggressive than a cheetah or lion (someone want to google it and prove this nun wrong?) I don’t think she realized how much she completely freaked me out with that friendly warning.  Now I both really want to see it and hope I never ever ever see it. 

The whole village actually seems to have undergone a transformation since my arrival because that is also when the rains started.  Everything is green and vibrant, all the trees have leafed out, and the fields are a rich rusty brown with moisture.  The predominant tribe here is Gogo, and some of the villagers have given me the name Mwamvula, which means “rain” in Kigogo.  I find it delightfully cheesy.  There are also Maasai and Sandawe tribes here, but they haven’t given me any Kimaasai or Kisandawe names yet. 

And beekeepers!  Many beekeepers!  There is a women’s group, as well as another coed group.  All around the village there are towering baobob and acacia trees with their expansive domes of foliage.  The beekeepers climb these trees to hang hollowed out logs up on the branches, which the bees eventually move into.  The bigger trees have several of these bee cartridges in it, well-disguised amongst the branches.  The beekeepers only seem to visit their hives when they are ready to harvest honey, and then they seem to cut out everything including the brood, basically evicting the bees.  I would really like to see this, because I have a hard time imagining destroying a hive this way.  The hollowed-out log design in itself makes it difficult to access the hive without destroying it.  These are all things that I am going to try to develop—increased knowledge about the biology of the bee, a shift towards hive maintenance instead of hive robbing, which probably means a shift towards top bar hives, all of which will result in increased honey production and more sustainable beekeeping practices.  I haven’t done any beekeeping here yet, though, this is all what I have gathered from talking to people.  Once I do get to work with the bees, I will have a much clearer idea of the situation. 

The beekeeping should be my primary focus for work, but I will also start teaching an environment class at the secondary school when the term begins in mid January.  I will teach mainly about deforestation, permagardening, soil and water conservation.  The role of an Environment Peace Corps Volunteer is a very fluid one…I don’t technically have any obligations, so for some people, I think it is easy to feel aimless.  I can decide what I want to do, how I want to spend my days, so I will only be as productive as the projects I line up and carry through.  Right now my only job is to make an assessment of the village, get awesome at Kiswahili and integrate into my new community, and the projects will come after I have accomplished these things to at least some degree.

To sign off with: my first day, as I was cleaning my house and some of my bags had been partially unpacked, my two little neighbors, 3 and 6 years old came over to see who their new neighbor was. They were fascinated by the few objects that I had out: a tin box with a Victorian painting on it, a tape player, my shampoo… I knew what a situation like this would bring but I didn’t want to kick these kids out right away when I was just sweeping.  Well they wanted to touch and play with everything and it was infuriating because I would be sweeping and turn to find that they had spilled my shampoo trying to figure out what it was.  I’d yell at them, but it went on--they unzipped a bag, pulled things out, saying what’s this? They picked up the toilet paper and asked, “what’s this?” I said it’s paper for the toilet.   They were shocked, you do what with it in the toilet?? (Tanzanians, like a lot of people in the world, use their left hand and water for their toilet needs)  I got cross with them, “NO! DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING! THESE ARE NOT FOR PLAYING.”  They would look really sorry, but then inevitably they’d continue their inspections once their curiosity got the better of them once again.  I was sweeping the walls when I heard a gasp behind me, and turned to see the little 3-year-old, horrified, holding a pair of my underwear.  She quickly dropped it and they stopped looking through my stuff.

Rainy Days

Last night brought a huge rain with thunderclaps and lightning--a mild storm that wouldn’t get a weathered Midwestern gal too excited.  But this Midwestern gal had never before weathered a 3-hour storm under a tin roof.  From 2am to 5:30 am it sounded like there was a damned Metra train passing over my bed!  This evening it is pouring again, and the rain sets everyone in motion collecting the water.  Apparently Mama and my sisters did this last night, too, but I couldn’t hear the activity over the racket of the rain:  Outside the back door hangs a gutter that empties into a plastic bucket.  As the buckets fill up, we fire-line them into the house, emptying them into a large drum.  Once that is full, we fill the buckets (most Tanzanian homes have many, many buckets) and once those are full we fill up pots, and once those are full and we can’t find anything else to fill with water, we watch the rain.  When you typically carry all your water on your head from the well, the gallons flowing freely from the gutter across the ground and no empty buckets to catch them can be a poignant sight.  I was called to my bath this evening during the downpour and Mama Halima made me take an umbrella for the walk to the shower, my bathwater being a bucket of freshly harvested rainwater. 

Only a few days ago, I returned to my host family in Tanga from a trip to the southern highlands where for one week I shadowed a volunteer at her site.  It was beautiful in the small village just north of Njombe, with weather in the 70s, gorgeous amaryllis blooming alongside footpaths, and a confusing coexistence of pine trees and avocado trees.  It was a welcome respite from the heat and the demanding training schedule. 

The highlight of the week in Njombe was our excursion to the “traditional forest,” an ample patch of native forest in the middle of acres of white teak tree farms.  We walked 45 minutes to meet a man who would guide us through the forest.  We waited an hour for him, and when it was suggested that we just go in without him, the volunteer’s Tanzanian friend from the village said, “oh no, no, no.  We can’t go in without him.   The spirits will choke us, because they don’t know us.”  She said there were miracles that happen in the forest. Ohhhh, well no one had told me it was a magical forest!  Well a miracle did in fact occur—the guide showed up after all!  And he was wonderful.  Upon entering the forest, we had to remove our shoes and we walked to the trees where decedents from three families perform rituals and make sacrifices to honor and appease the dead.  The huge tree was wrapped in black fabric, draped in black and white beads, and there were three-legged stools and various traditional tools gathered around it.  He went on to point out the trees that had previously been used for worship.  They were all massive and fallen on the ground—they have been using this forest for worship for over 800 years.  Leaving the forest, we saw the black chickens that are reportedly endemic to this traditional forest; also they are magic.

Then he took us to some caves where people “a long long long time ago” hid during wars.  It was an impressive network of chambers with spring water running through it.  It was pretty fun scrambling through the caves until I realized that the rocks were so soft and cushy because they were covered in bat guano. 

So… my site will be in the Dodoma region!  It is in Central Tanzania, Northeast of Tanzania’s capitol, Dodoma.  This is a semi-arid region, and many communities here struggle with water issues.  I’ve heard that there’s actually a river in my village, so I don’t really know what to expect.  I am very excited that there is a women’s beekeeping group with which I will hopefully be working!  Can’t wait to report back on what my village is like.

Swearing in is in one week, and now I have to say sad farewells to Mama Halima and the rest of the family.