Tumekwenda sokoni!

October 7-8

Hamjambo! (How are you all?) Hope everyone is doing well? We had our first presentations yesterday at the CWCD that Whitney told you about. The seven new volunteers (including Whitney and I) split into two teams, and we presented several issues to a group of “college” (actually high school or trade school) students who were learning to be teachers. Our topics included pollution, hygiene, pregnancy, spread of disease, first aid, sexual health, and nutrition, and we taught to two different classrooms. I couldn’t believe how interactive and curious the students were; they were not embarrassed to ask questions about issues that are normally very hard to talk about. I have presented to students in a similar manner many times in Wyoming and often get no questions. Many people in America don’t want to embarrass themselves in front of friends, especially when they can just go home and Google any questions that they have; I was the same way through a lot of my schooling. But yesterday, the students had a pure desire to learn, and even though we are by no means experts in anything that we presented, we had very valuable information for these students. Having such interactive listeners makes presenting difficult topics much easier.

It seems that students who have the chance to learn don’t always take advantage of it, and those who lack schooling (like those at CWCD) have a great desire to learn and take advantage of every chance they get. Even though these students went to an English medium school, there was still an obvious language barrier as we had trouble understanding their questions, and they clearly had trouble understanding some of the words and concepts that we tried to teach them. This was even more motivation for me to keep learning Swahili, and Whit and I are giving it our best shot.

The charger that we ordered for our small camera battery ended up being the wrong charger and both of our batteries are dead. So Nelson (one of our orientation coordinators) looked for one while he was downtown. He did find one, but it was 130,000 Tanzanian schillings, which is over 100 dollars for a small charger. Apparently that is how electronics are, along with other things that don’t sell very well in Arusha. Another example: we went into a small shop and found a 1 kg bag of oats (the size of Quaker Quick Oats that sell for a couple dollars back home) and they were asking 25 dollars for one bag and a smaller bag of pine nuts was 50 dollars. We are stuck eating what the locals grow, and I have no problems with that because everything that we have tried has been very delicious, although not near as spicy as we usually like.

We had our first shopping experience at the central market this morning, and it was quite nerve racking trying to bargain for the first time for our food. We know the basic bargaining language, but it is still a very new concept. At the market, there are hundreds of vendors selling the exact same produce, so we just had to ask around about prices (in Swahili) and find the areas where people give the best deals. I always feel like what they ask outright is reasonable, and downright cheap, but we still have to bargain. Whit and I got tomatoes, avacados, hot peppers, bananas, carrots, and onions for less than 5 dollars.

We also visited our hospital for the first time today, but were not able to take a tour or meet any of the doctors. It was a big bummer because I have been so ready to get started at our placement, but we’ll have to wait until Monday to really see what the hospital is like. We did walk past the maternity ward though, and it looked like there were about 15 new mothers and their babies in a 20’ by 20’ room. If that is any indication, the hospital will probably be pretty cramped for space and quite busy, but we have been expecting that.

I guess that’s about it for now, but we are going to try and put some pictures on the blog shortly and maybe send some through e-mail. Hope you all are enjoying reading as much as I’m surprisingly enjoying writing it. I can’t believe I’m do so good at keeping up in my journal. We’ll keep you all updated. Kwaherini (good-bye all).

Written by Zach