Habari za siku nyingi

Hello again,
I hope everything has been going well for the past month or so. Things here are wonderful. The first few weeks of August I got a lot of work done with the bee and fish projects. At the end of August my friend Emily from college came to visit. She has been here for over three weeks and we have had an awesome time.

The first part of the trip we went to Zanzibar. The beaches and towns of Zanzibar are amazing. You can basically point a camera in any direction anywhere on the island and have yourself a postcard. We spent a couple days relaxing on the beach, then the last day we spent in stone town doing some shopping and walking around "the maze". After Zanzibar we went to the village. Here is an email my friend wrote that sums up the last couple weeks pretty well:

I am finally back in an area with Internet! Chris and I came to Iringa this morning in preparation for the safari. Things have been amazing! We were in the village for almost 2 weeks. It has been an incredible experience. Here are a few highlights.

First of all, we left Iringa on this bus called a dala dala. I guess these buses are a main source of transportation. The bus was in poor condition. In fact, the seat I had was partially caved in. Anyway, we started out on the 1.5 hour bus ride with plenty of room, but as the trip progressed, there were more and more Tanzanians shoved in. Chris was the most irritable that I've ever seen him. It wasn't so bad for me because I had a window seat, but it was pretty uncomfortable. Just a heads up to anyone who plans on travelling to Tanzania: if you're on a bus/boat/car and you think it's full, be prepared to have an unreasonable amount of extra people shoved in. Regardless of the bus situation, we made it to Chris' village, Maduma.

The first full day in the village was incredible. We were invited to a wedding during a morning walk around town. I, being a huge dork, had written down phrases and greetings in Swahili and tribal language so that I could greet the villagers. I brought this little notepad around with me. When we got to the wedding, everyone took turns looking at what I had written down and had me saying the same things over and over again. Chris explained that I was his sister (as to avoid the misconception that we were married) and one person actually said that we "look very much alike". I can only assume that they never see white or Asian people.

Chris and I then headed to an eating/drinking hut. They passed me this cup and I almost took a sip of it until it was pointed out that the cup was to pour water for hand washing. I'm glad that the guy stopped me because that would have been the sickest drink ever. They were passing around a big bowl of ugali. Ugali is made of corn flour and water. It is eaten at almost every meal. It looks like mashed potatoes, but is much thicker. It has virtually no taste and is incredibly filling. So...they passed around the bowl of ugali and a bowl of beans. I took a big hunk of ugali (with my hands because you eat everyone community and with your hands) and dipped it in the beans. That turned out to be a huge mistake because the tasteless ugali sat in my mouth like paste and I couldn't bring myself to swallow it. Chris told me that I should take more beans and smaller amounts of ugali because man oh man, did I think I was going to puke! At this point in my travels, I have eaten ugali several times and I actually sort of like it. I also took a sip of a large cup being passed around that was full of local booze. It is made from fermented corn. As I drank the room-temperature corn booze, Chris said to me "and that is how you get giarrdia".

We then went to the dancing hut. It was awesome. A bunch of villagers were singing and dancing in this small room. They even sang a song to welcome me. All in all, the wedding was a wonderful experience and a great introduction to the village.

That night we went to the Kilabunis (local bar-like establishments that have wooden benches, a fire pit inside, one type of beer, soda, and local booze). I got to meet some more villagers, which was hilarious because they were all drunk and trying to talk to me either in Swahili or broken English...both of which I could not understand.

I had my first experiencing getting water on Thursday. Chris usually gets water with his bike, but he was missing his bike in the village, so he had to carry it. He kept complaining that it was "so heavy" and I totally didn't believe him, so I obviously called him a huge sissy. Then...I went with him to get water. The buckets weigh about 40 pounds each. They are "so heavy" and I am pretty much the weakest person in the world. Chris carried the buckets almost the entire way. The kicker is that little girls, probably 8 or 9 years old, can carry full buckets on their heads with no problems what so ever.

We also went to the school on Thursday. The school is just down the road from Chris' house. There are about 400 students there and I think almost every one of them were staring at us as we made our way to the head teachers office. They are fascinated by village visitors. It was decided that the students would put on a little concert to welcome me in the village the following week.

I met the little girls who come over to Chris' house to play and listen to music. They are so funny. One of the girls talks a mile a minute, and even though it was in Swahili, I could tell that she was the bossiest and feistiest little girl ever. She has the most classic case of ADHD I have ever seen.

Another peace corps volunteer, named Lizzie, lives in a village about 4 km away from Chris. We went to her house on Friday because another one of Chris' friends was staying there. We made mac and cheese, read people magazine, and did cross word puzzles. It was definitely an American evening.

Chris installed a solar panel system at his house. It powers a two batteries, which in turn power a stereo and dvd player. He has mostly kept his solar electricity a secret, but some of the villagers found out about it. In one day 4 people came over to ask if they could use it to charge their cell phones. I thought it was awesome because I got to meet more people, but it sort of annoyed Chris. Unfortunately, a few days ago there was super strong wind and it knocked his panels off of his roof and the solar is now "busted". We are looking for solar panels in Iringa today, so hopefully we can get this "system" up and running again.

Chris' counterpart is a guy named Taulin. He is like a cartoon character. Seriously...he talks, walks, runs, and eats just like a cartoon. He speaks some English and was very welcoming the entire time I was in the village. Taulin invited us to his church for Sunday service. Chris looks at me and says "Do you want to go to his church?". I quickly respond "What? Do you?". By this time, it is clear that the only appropriate response to the church invitation is "yes". After Taulin left, Chris told me that Taulin is Pentecostal. In Tanzania, this means that church services are sort of an all day event.

The church service was ridiculous. They had Chris and I sit in "special" seats at the front of the church, sort of facing the congregation. There was an obscene amount of crying/sobbing/wailing etc. and praying in Swahili. The good news was that there was a lot of music in the service as well. They performed several call and response songs, which were entertaining. They also had a kids get up and do a song. After the service, we waited for Taulin, who had some "official" church business to take care of. I was taking some pictures and suddenly, there were 35 Tanzanians standing in a clump trying to get in the picture. It was so funny because they move to get in the picture then they don't smile, look at the camera, or stand affectionately with anyone in the picture. Very bizarre. Anyway, from then on, I was the "camera lady". We were even asked to come to this woman's house to take a picture of her in front of it.

After all the pictures were taken, we headed to Taulin's brother's house for lunch. His brother is the pastor of the church. We had a lunch of ugali and cabbage, which was pretty good. Then everyone got up and we walked over to Taulin's house. Apparently, they had planned another lunch..directly after the first one...that we were expected at. This was completely unexpected and unnecessary because we were both really full from lunch number 1. You would think that they would say something along the lines of "Hey...don't fill up here because we have another ENTIRE lunch for you guys", but I guess they didn't think it was important. Anyway, the food was good and the day was quite the experience.

By the way, the pastor is looking for a Pentecostal church in the US to sponsor them. He would like money to help orphans, build an educational fund, and buy instruments for the church. If anyone knows of a church that might be interested, please email me.

On the way back, we stopped at Blastos' house. Blastos is the guy who stays at Chris' house and takes care of his dogs when he is out of town. He is the most awesome person I met in the village next to his wife, who is even more awesome. Blastos is so hard core. I got the impression that Blastos could kill a lion, cut down 5 trees, birth a goat, and drink a case of beer all before lunch. Anyway, we stopped by to drink some local booze. Nothing caps off a day at a Pentecostal church better than getting drunk off of fermented corn. Blastos' wife is also amazing. She is incredibly kind and generous. She has 7 kids and you can tell that she is the best mom ever. We headed to the Kilabunis after Blastos'. They were out of most kinds of alcohol, so Chris orders this stuff. It was milk colored, warm, and smelled like a foot. As you can probably guess, it was soooooooo gross. Chris drink a liter of it.

The next day was labor day and Lizzie came over to Chris'. We made tuna salad and played Yahtzee. We also went to the school to see the welcome performance. It was amazing. There were 400 kids singing at the top of their lungs. They sang 4 or 5 songs. The songs were so cute. I have tons of adorable pictures!

Chris and I had joked around that I must be "healthy like a horse" because I didn't get sick off of the local booze or the food (both of which contain tons of bacterium that my bod is not used to). Of course, I got sick. I had some sort of stomach bug that kept me hovering over the toilet for around 24 hours. I was actually throwing up hard enough to cause a bloody nose. Luckily, I recovered just fine.

Chris held a seminar for the women of the village to teach them about nutrition. About 30 women showed up and they made jam, soup, and bread. They had rice and beans for lunch, which is pretty big deal because eating rice is quite rare. It was lots of fun and awesome to see Peace Corps in "action".

I left the seminar early because I didn't feel well. I couldn't get into Chris' front door because I forgot the combination to the lock. I did what any homeless person would do and crawled through the dog door into the courtyard to lay down on the ground. Seriously...I crawled through a dog door. I thought that that would be the most ridiculous event of the day, but I was wrong. About 15 minutes into my nap, Chris' dogs come running through the dog door. Something falls of out Tenzin's mouth and I see that it is a wing. Then, I see two legs on the other side of the dog door. There is a man standing on the other side of the door waving a dead chicken, entrails hanging out, back and forth, yelling something in swahili. I just made weird noises indicating that I was grossed out. He finally got frustrated talking to me and walked away. It turned out that the guy who was yelling at me through the dog door had witnessed Tenzin killing the chicken and wanted to get it to eat. Tenzin, apparently, developed a taste for chicken because he has killed another since the first incident.

We had some other adventures, but I'm pretty sure you've already stopped reading by now. The bottom line is that I'm having an amazing time. Chris is a wonderful host and very handsome (he made me write that). I hope everyone is doing well.

All for now. Talk to you all soon.