why my posts are not consistent...

I can’t remember if I have mentioned this before or not, but my access to internet is very limited. So many times for the next few months I will probably only be able to post on weekends (and even then very sporadically). Some of this will be due to my changed schedule.

 Although I will still be teaching about HIV/AIDS and Nutrition, where and to whom I will be teaching has changed from what I had originally thought.  As everything here is, this can be attributed to the phrase, “this is Tanzania.” Many times people are hours late, or don’t even show up to appointments, meetings, and classes. This civilization has existed for so long without clocks, watches, schedules, or even electricity that all of this is not only accepted but also expected to some extent. Because of this, it is very hard to plan ahead.

This past week I was supposed to teach a group of adults in a village called Ngurdoto. But upon arriving on Monday morning, we found that someone had died and the entire class had left for the week to go to the funeral. So Kristy and I ended up helping the sustainable agriculture division of GSC vaccinate chickens (kuku in Swahili) against Newcastle Disease.  If nothing else, being here has taught me to “roll with the punches.”

So my new schedule will now look something like this: during the week we will travel to villages far away from Arusha and camp out in the outskirts of the villages. Once there we will teach classes in both schools and education centers and in HIV/AIDS support groups. On the weekends, we will return to Arusha where we will get to do laundry, sleep in real beds (not in sleeping bags in tents) and enjoy our weekend before venturing out to another village (sometimes ones that are hours away). On occasion we will also be teaching in local schools in Arusha. On the weeks that we do that I will get to stay with my homestay on the weekdays also.

Kristy and I will also be revamping the HIV/AIDS lesson plans and curriculum. I am especially looking forward to creating a lesson plan for children in standards 5-8 (grades 4-7 in America) about puberty, reproductive health, and healthy lifestyles .

I have realized that I have not shown you any pictures of where I am living. I have not taken pictures of anyone I live with yet, but I promise the pictures are coming. I have taken a picture of my room (seen here on the left).  It is quite spacious. I have a window to the outside and both a light and a electrical socket so  I can plug things in.  The window does not have glass but has bars over it so no one can climb in and I have wooden shutters I can shut in the evening.  The white draping material over my bed is the mosquito netting that I let down at night.

There are so many things I do every day and I want to share every new insight and experience I have. But alas, I have had far more adventures than I have time to write about.  So forgive me when I talk about things that happened days (or weeks ago). I still want to share them, I just didn’t have time to share them at the time they happened.

So two weeks ago, we visited an orphanage. Most orphanages around here are run by either private organizations or individuals.  There are still many parentless children who live on the streets though, so the children that make it to the orphanages are fortunate to be there.  The one we visited is just outside of Arusha and is run by a middle aged Tanzanian couple.  The children were (of course) adorable and so excited to speak with muzungos  (white foreigners). They sang to us and wanted us to take copious amounts of pictures with them. They got so excited when they could see the pictures of themselves on the displays of our digital cameras.

We have also visited a Livestock and Agricultural college that is in the village of Tengeru.  We learned about how to double dig beds for vegetables and what plants to grow around gardens and farms to prevent insects and animals from infesting the crops. This helps people to cut down on pesticide use so that crops are safer to eat and it’s a much cheaper option for farmers.   The area surrounding the village and college were beautiful, especially the flowers.

On the same day we also visited Peacehouse Secondary School. This is a private high school completely funded by a wealthy American anesthesiologist (he invented some Hug-A-Bear thing that warms people back up to body temperature after surgery..if someone knows what this is ,let me know and I’ll post the information up here).  All of the children at the school admitted to the school come from really poor families. They cannot have the capabilities to go to school any other way (secondary school is not mandatory and the expense is quite prohibitive to a lot of families).  They must also have received very high marks in primary school.  In exchange for this, the children receive free tuition, room, and board  year round for their entire high school education.  The school grounds and buildings were the nicest I have seen of any school buildings so far in TZ.  In their dormitories they slept four to a room, but with plenty of space to store their belongings .  The classrooms are still in the process of being equipped with textbooks, computers, and lap equipment (for the science classrooms) but classes are in full swing and students are making do without.  While the headmistress of the school is Tanzanian, many of the teachers are international with a good number of them being native English speakers (all high schools are taught in English in TZ).