1. The Indian Ocean is the warmest ocean I’ve ever set foot in.
2. According to the teachers at Mary Goretti Secondary School, by Tanzanian standards, I am a phenomenal dancer.
3. Hand-washing clothes takes FOREVER.
4. Goat meat may be my favorite kind of meat.
5. When there is an engine problem on your bus and “it should take 15 minutes to fix,” you’ll probably be sitting on the side of the road next to a rural village for 2+ hours.
JVs are patient people!
As my blog title states, this past month has been one of lots of travel and lots of transition, with an abundance of highs and lows, which I will try to cover briefly below.
After starting to feel a bit restless and stuck in Moshi with nothing really to do, retreat came at the perfect time. Our Moshi community trekked five hours by bus, half hour by dala dala, and another half hour on foot to arrive at the retreat center in Tanga, beautifully set right on the Indian Ocean. We spent the next few days with the JV community from Dar, lounging in the unfathomably warm Indian Ocean, exploring the surrounding beaches, and enjoying the time to get to know one another better.
Retreat Center in TangaWe then journeyed on to Dar to celebrate the Christmas holidays, spending Christmas day visiting neighbors in Mabibo, singing and dancing at the Swahili Christmas mass, and exchanging Secret Santa limericks (the one for me included the rhyming of “gruff” and “not so buff”). It was interesting to spend time in Dar and recognize the differences between communities: the crowded neighborhood feel of Mabibo vs. the space and freedom we have in Moshi; the sweltering heat of Dar vs. the more temperate Moshi weather; the history in the long lived-in Dar house vs. our new and still slightly sterile Moshi home. Day trips to downtown Dar and out to the slice of paradise called Kipipeo Beach highlighted the trip. It’s a real blessing to share our two years with a sister community in-country and I look forward to seeing them a few times each year for our various retreats.
Returning to Moshi, we spent New Year’s Eve at the Jesuits and rang in the new decade as a Moshi community (along with Christen, a JV from Dar, and her father). Beth and I spent the first few days of the new year at a homestay in Uru village, a village at the base of the mountain outside of Moshi. We hiked through forests to waterfalls and cooked meals over open flames, making friends with our wonderful hosts and some of their neighbors (I fell in love with a little boy named Isaiah, who they had dance for cookies and who would hug me while calling me his “mzungu” – Swahili for white person).
Since returning to Moshi, I have begun my work placement at Mkombozi Center for Street Children. It is a wonderful organization with a very vibrant and energetic staff (who I look forward to getting to know much better as my Swahili improves). I share an office with Anna, our Swedish communications director, and we wage battle daily with a flock of chickens who try to invade our office and constantly make their looming presence known right outside our door with incessant clucking and cuckooing (the rooster is the worst). My role here will be split between working with the director to manage the fundraising and create a full time fundraising position (60-70% of my time), and in a few weeks I will begin working with the children’s programs as well, probably in sports and arts (30-40% of my time). I am hoping that the combination of the two will provide a good balance of learning about and contributing to the organizational aspects of an international non-profit, and getting involved with the direct social work aspect of the organization.
My second week of work I was presented with one of the harsh realities of life on the streets for our children, as one of our former kids (who I had met a few times the week before) was found beaten to death one morning. He had been in a school in Nairobi for children with mental disabilities, but was home on holiday and came to our center often as he found it more of a refuge than his home. Unfortunately on the streets a lack of understanding about his disabilities may have led to a misunderstanding about something he said or did, but I’m not sure we’ll ever really know. I am still processing the truths that such a tragic accident reveal about the struggles of life for children here, the blessings of my own childhood in the states, and everything in between.
Even with all that’s been going on, I still find myself missing Boston and missing home at times. Being away from friends and loved ones during the holidays was a new experience (I even missed the freezing Boston winter!), and I continue to adjust to the separation caused by living thousands of miles from the States. Call it “culture shock” or simply adjustment, it’s all a part of the transition. While these two years will eventually “fly by,” days in Africa can at times be long. But I can feel my spirit beginning to settle as work picks up and Moshi starts to feel like home. Friendships continue to grow as we meet more people, and I eagerly anticipate the day when I really feel established here.
I hope this New Year is treating you well, wherever you may be, and I will try to be better about updating my blog with more frequent (and shorter) posts.
Amani na upendo! (Peace and love!)
P.S. For a taste of music still popular in Tanzania, find here the playlist from my recent bus ride from Arusha to Moshi: Celine Dion power ballads, old-school N’Sync and Enrique Iglesias, and a smattering of 90’s of hits from Boyz II Men (it’s easy to forget how good they were). Then repeat this three times over, and you have a Tanzanian bus ride playlist. A Peace Corps friend of ours looked slightly horrified when she thought this was not the bus driver’s playlist, but my own personal playlist for the bus ride. Sadly, my personal taste in music is not so refined.
*I may write more about this later as it was probably my favorite day in Tanzania thus far, but for now, I'm including one more picture from this past Saturday when our JV community went hiking to the Marangu Falls (mini-cliff jumping/diving included).
Moshi JVs in Marangu
