Rain, Rain

Entry Via Letter

While sitting in my friend Gigi’s house in Newala, I noticed she had large wooden shutters covering her windows, she told me that I too would need shutters, or the rain would surely wash me and my things away. I shrugged it off and told her I need not purchase shutters, we would see when the rain came. It wasn’t until after I was sweeping a small lake out of my home that I realized she might be right.

The rain came down in torrents, but forgot to tell the wind to back down, and the result was my flooded home. The rain brought not only a new source of entertainment for the cat, but also students, who had been waiting at the water pump to take water and were now ironically fleeing from the torrents in the sky. My house filled to the brim with students, we waited out the storm and I distributed copies of Si Mchezo magazine, which they quietly read while eating the candy I piled on the table. Soon the reading turned into a discussion about the difference between Americans and Tanzanians, why condoms work, and where in the village I can get my nose pierced (a common practice here). As the students left, I felt very lucky that the rain came and trapped them here, as I felt it helped me make a good connection for the first times as an advisor they can trust. Sure enough the next day students poured through my door to get copies of Si Mchezo (this is an HIV-AIDS magazine for teens), and I met more students than ever. This response excited me to start the peer educators group, a group of students who will teach and advise students on health issues, and also work with primary schools in the surrounding area. Their applications are in and I am just now finishing their oral interviews, soon I will have a large group of 14 students who will work to teach and educate their peers about HIV-AIDS, I am very excited for them to come and hang out more often, as most important discussions occur in the low pressure environment of the home, as opposed to the always uncomfortable environment of the classroom.