5/11/14 - 5/17/14

here’s to the last post that will be coming at you from bariadi! 

5/11/14 

Happy Mother’s Day to all you mothers out there! 

typical lazy day here. stayed in bed and read, listened to music, played the gameboy. did a 15 min workout after a took a shower… yep thats real life. i just take a shower whenever we have water. ate my remaining sweet potatoes and then hash for dinner. talked with katie on her first mothers day! and also got to talk to mom too. 

5/12/14 

i guess its my last real monday. i am trying to cram in as much as i can today and tomorrow before invigilating my terminal exam. it is nice that it is early so that i can get all graded and returned and all that. but it probably isn't so great for my readiness to get out. i feel like i should be done this week instead of next. 

morning parade 

packed up my souvenir bad on saturday. my room is feeling and looking good. nick also said we can give our clothes to father kushoka so that will be nice. easy way to give them away without making a scene. 

rooster made up for lost time this morning. over the weekend, it was very quite. but this morning was a different story. 

not gonna lie… i got a little chilly this morning. I'm so tanzanian. 

have to make a market run this afternoon. for what? pb, bananas, and water of course! 

kingi was quite the comedian today in the staff room. i don't have a clue what he was saying but everyone thought he was funny. he had the floor all morning. 

speaking of funny… i recorded some morning talk this morning on my iPhone and it was pretty great. Just the normal shenanigans. And of course, my favorite morning greeting of teachers telling me i am ‘ shinning like the moon’ 

lol at life. such a yolito. it used to bother me but now its just whatever. madame daniella just threw 2 pieces of chalk at me from clear across the room to tell me to fix my dress. i guess i was showing them too much leg again. granted i was spread eagle, straddling a desk leg in this packed prison of a staff room. you just cant win. 

random cultural tidbit… i absolutely love how welcoming tanzanians are. you cant even tell who is a new teacher and who has been here for years. granted, they don't really know each others name but at least they treat them well. 

had to wait for mahumi to take me home today. he wasn't having any of me walking home. we did have a good conversation in his office though a while before we left. he had a globe in there so we were looking for home and we were talking about flights and how long it takes. he was amazed that you can fly so far without stopping. he asked me about an airbus and a concord. we talked about fast jet here and how cheap it is to fly to dar. the only issue is that you have to buy in advance. he said ah that is easy for you but hard for us. why? because it requires them to actually make plans and know exactly what date and time you want to go. i hadn't thought about that. 

micese came back in the staff room while i was waiting to leave and he apologized for last week. apparently he notices that i was not happy with him beating my kids. he said that he is the class master and that these students had been truant for more than 10 days in one month. then he said that they lied to him. what was the lie? well when he asked why, they said they were sick. then micese asked for a note, and they said they went to the witch doctor. well, well, well. how ironic! micese was just going on and on this morning about all kinds of witch hoodoo… driving hyenas, traveling to dar and back in one day, blah blah blah. 

i had mahumi drop me off in somanda so i could get to the market, did a workout, went out to the fields because i saw some kids playing and wanted to give my frisbees away but i didn't see the kiddos i wanted to give them to, came back and took my first real shower in i dont even know how long. had stir fried rice for dinner and it was tasty. talked to mom and looked at baby stuff. did the dishes so i could get the stir fried rice pot ready to boil water in the morning. then sleepy time. i have been so so so tired recently… like more than tanzanian typical. 

5/13/14 

another day down. tomorrow i give my terminal exam. how crazy! dropped off mahumi’s wife at nada, the tuesday market this morning. apparently she is getting stuff to open up a tent at the market in somanda. wore a different shirt today and got all kinds of compliments. hehe probably because i was giving them a little bit more of a scandalous neck line. but but but, that doesn't seem to be that big of a deal here. granted nursing is everywhere so maybe thats why. but shoulders and legs seem to be more prized. 

got a school calendar today. here are some of the sayings… 1. learning has no end. 2. teaching is also entertainment. 3. teaching is humbleness. 4. teaching is about caring. 

hungry today. already excited for my chapati. 

nick texted me that we were going to have visitors tonight. anna, a biologist friend, was coming over. she has been doing rabies research throughout tanzania for the last 6 years and is based in the serengeti. works with the chicago zoo. pretty cool stuff. 

i also found out that sports was happening today too at bariadi day. so thats exciting. i love that. 

i looked at the calendar on my phone and for the first time, my first thought was positive/ happiness/ dang! thats awesome/ thats not far away at all/ I'm leaving next week/ ill be home before i know it! (yes i know that was a lot of first thoughts but i was excited sothey all kind of ran together). after spending so much time in the last 5 months staring at a calendar, it was such an awesome feeling. 

and on a random note about coming home, nick always always always talks about his coming home plan trip as inception. like we make fun of it now. but anyways, he says he is going to use a 200 tsh coin as his token. and everytime, i tell him that i am going to use a 50 tsh coin. do yourself the favor and look up just why i will use the 50 over the 200 tsh :) i just want to make sure the coin falls as quickly as possible. 

what is the difference between a robber and a bandit, you may ask? well, a robber takes money to eat but a bandit takes money and builds a house and is successful. bandits are always successful and they normally take guns and go to a bank, but robbers get killed. well, now you know. 

about to teach my last period before my terminal exam! 

walked most of the way home before osama gave me a lift the rest of the way. he really is such a gem! so sweet. thats the second time he has picked me up when he has seen me and wouldn't let me pay him. 

relaxed when i got back, ate a packet of the hickory smoked tuna, and then a little pb. texted with mom and katie for a second before going outside for the afternoon. oh and i also got another belly video! i cant believe how much you can see him move around in her tummy!! 

bariadi, kidinda, mahaha, and biashara were all playing. it is just so fun to be out there with the kids. i love watching the games and seeing them playing and having fun. i talked to all the headmaster/ headmistresses of all the school. nicks headmistress that i had never met was quite unhappy that i didnt shikamoo here. pretty funny now. awkward then. 

 Me and Mahumi! So sweet! 

 Headmasters/mistresses at Mahaha, Biashara, and Kidinda 

returned to the house just before 6 to get dinner going. rice and beans. anna got here after 7 with her driver chunde. really nice visit. funny. just a side note, apparently the lions are struggling in the ngorongoro crater this year because it is the massai lion killing year or something like that. recently there was one incident where the massai were hunting and things got out of hand and a massai man was speared instead of the lion. yep, that just about makes sense. she left just before 10, way past my bed time. but what can i say, im a trooper. 

5/14/14 

mahumi was a little late today so we got there right at 8 but thankfully they made an announcement at parade and teachers were already recruited to help me invigilate. luckily more students are at school today. i guess they paid their feed. well, when i say luckily, i dont really know how that good that is for my results… but seriously, I am glad they are there. 

oh, yesterday, i was teaching stream b and all my students started laughing. I asked them what they were laughing at and one guy says ‘madame, its marijuana’ but pronounced more like mar-i-ju-uana with giggles. it was pretty funny. sure enough, there were two guys, stoned on the stones right outside the classroom. luckily, the left soon so we were back to the math. 

next week! next week! next week! 

took some pictures of my student bags today while they were taking the exam. perfect representation. by far, the most common type of bag is the drawstring bag. and those bags are split between bob marley and obama. 

as soon as we finished the exam, mahumi called me and said he wanted to go so i took advantage of the lift. i quickly took my tea and chapati and then we were off. 

another sports day so i spent a long time outside. lots of picture taking. they loved trying on my sunglasses. i gave a frisbee to alvin who was everywhere today. it is really hard to communicate with him but i know he was happy. and so cute. i let him pick out his color from my bag. then he kept pointing to my bag again and i thought he didn't understand it was a gift. then eventually, we realized that he wanted to change colors. 

 I could hardly balance this frisbee on my head long enough for Alvin to take a picture... so no worries. i won't be carrying stuff on my head when i get home. 

 Just a casket on the back of a bike. I normally see it on a piki piki. yolito. 

some of my crazy form 3's. hanging out at bariadi day for sports. 

i ate with everyone there. so much rice! i ate the rice that was attached to my beans and a slice of watermelon. i bit down on something super hard. it was either in the rice or the beans… both viable options. and i didn't realize until late that night that i actually chipped a baby bit out of my very back molar. it didn't hurt that bad so i think it will be just fine. yolito, baby! 

did a courtyard workout before showering and eating pasta for dinner. 

5/15/14 

mahumi gave me the okay to stay home and mark my exams since i had completed my duty. it is way to crowded in the staff room to do that. so naturally, i still go up early, and got busy. i ate banana and pb while i marked stream a. really sucky grades. then i went to my room and tried to pack up  more stuff. i packed up a drawstring bag of clothes and that plus a few of my tshirts and 2 dresses to get me through the rest of my time here will be all that i am bringing back. it felt good to clear a few more things from my room. i am trying to bring back as little as possible and to have room for any souvenirs that i want to bring back. i also have to worry with weight limits and number of bags for the domestic fastjet flights. then i ate some oatmeal and graded stream c. the results from this stream were even more disappointing. they were my strong class all year. however, because of the schedule and them moving my exam to wednesday, i hadn't seem them in nearly two weeks and they got zero review so i guess that makes sense. then i read the creepiest book ever before tackling stream b. but happiness unexpectedly showed up so i shelved stream a and just everything ready for her. whipped up cabbage and mchicha for dinner with a cheddar and broccoli rice packet. and i even got beans from jonah. good stuff. 

5/16/14 

got up and saw an anniversary post on facebook from katie. that a big fail. i totally forgot and it wasn't like i spent my usual forever staring at the calendar. technically, on their time i was only 12 minutes late… 

got ready for school but never got the phone call from mahumi so i guess thats another day off. 4 day weekend. works for me. i just finished grading my exams. stream b… my all-stars. they are getting the calculators i brought. 

booked my room at the twiga home in moshi and then stared at my room and decided i couldn't pack up anything else. i put on my bathing suit and got some sun in the courtyard. hadn't been out here in a long time so i spent a while just listening to my music and catching upu on journaling. 

and i pondered about my readjustment to home/ america life. so heres what i came up with… 

water! besides seeing family and friends (obviously what i am most excited about), water is what i am most looking forward to. i cant wait to always know that i will have it, that it is safe to drink, and that it wont have salt dancing around in it. 

energy - i dont know how or where but i am looking forward to finding it again. i am so lazy here and am just so used to not doing anything. i lay in my bed all the time. 

people - i am also so used to spending my time alone. i know i am going to be on people overload. even when i am around other people at school or in town, everything is in swahili so i just block it out. 

stuff - speaking of people overload, i cant even imagine the sensory overload I will experience. lights, buildings, electronics, english, food, clothes, …. 

laughing - i cant wait to genuinely laughing again. like gut giggles. humor here is so different and i just miss laughing a lot. 

hygiene - heres your warning. im just putting it out there. it may take a minute for me to adjust to/ learn to shower more often, wear different clothes every day, wash my hands, use a napkin, etc. 

music - my music has been my saving grace and i will have to get used to not having it whit me and playing it all the time. 

food - excited for some new food and also nervous that it will wreck my stomach. i apologize for the obscene amounts of peanut butter i will probably consume. but apples, salads, yogurt, cereal, sweets, and really just some real good. with that said, i will definitely miss some of our meals here and definitely the veggie sauce but rice… i dont care if i never see it again. 

temperature - im sorry if im a pansy in the ‘cold’. i have always been cold natured but i have felt myself becoming more ‘tanzanian’ now. 

connectedness - always have a phone and internet on a relatively unlimited basis. and it will always work. overwhelming. 

daily comforts - not gonna lie, im pretty excited about this stuff. electricity and water obviously but a couch! a toilet seat, a bathroom inside the house, non-cement floor, dishwasher and laundry machine (in all honestly i kinda enjoy this though), english, sports, … 

no mosquitos - well at least there will be no life threatening malaria -inducing mosquitos. bring it on US mosquito. no annoying noises at night when you hear them flying around your room trying to get to you. and so therefore, also no mosquito nets. side note to any of you hopeless romantics, nothing about mosquito nets are romantic. they are a pain. 

time - time is pretty much irrelevant. i will miss that. also there is no planning in advance. 

clothing - it make take a while for my definition of scandalous to reform. i am excited to wear shorts or a shirt without leg gins or a dress without a shirt under it. 

greetings and handshaking - sorry if i go in for the handshake, its just what we do. 

houses - ill be excited to not have rat, bat, and lizard shit coating the walls and floors along the edges of the room. to have walls that block sounds. to not have people walking past your house while you think they are inside. 

sky and weather - cant say anything other than i will miss it like crazy! 

and, finally, being a mzungu - one of the 2 or 3 in a whole town. people staring at you all day. people talking about you all day. people asking for stuff from you all day. people hating your language all day. people waving, whistling, yelling, and honking at you all day. although i have joked around about me being on a pedestal with family and friends at home this year (admittedly true to a large degree), i am ready to go back to being a nobody. a plain jane. unexciting. I have realized that no matter what I do here to live, eat, work, play, shop, walk, talk, etc like the locals, i will always be the mzungu. 

so that enough on my sunbathing reflections. i had a great, super long talk with katie this afternoon. so fun! cant wait to be able to talk to her all the time like today! 

showered then waited to go to father kushokas for our goodbye dinner. he was so sad about especially nick leaving that it was a little awkward. he was so quite and nothing like his normal exuberant self. good food and i crashed right when i got back. 

5/17/14 

reading, blogging, eating, resting, boiling water, etc. you know the drill. went on a long walk this afternoon and stopped back by somanda to get some grub. bananas, pb, water, chapati, sweet potatoes. chapati was excellent. thick, bready, not oily. superb. came back and talked to mom while downing a chapati and a 1.5L dasani. then i ran out of internet time. so it time to get dressed again and go back into the soms life and get more airtel vouchers. i also copied my terminal exam results to give to the ministry of education as a record of the students i taught, or at least the ones that took my terminal exam. played the lottery with my vouchers and had an intense internal dialogue/ argument with airtel for a while but finally got the internet. got back on to talk to mom again and then fixed dinner. lentils tonight with a steak rice packet.