10. TRANSPORT ISSUES. The open-ended truck with a roll bar and barely functioning brakes, which serves as the only transportation to and from Makong’onda, keeps leaving the village at 4 in the morning, instead of 5 when they are supposed to, thus leaving me in the dust (or leaving me waiting until 6am when one of the Mamas finally wakes up, laughs at me, says the car passed, and goes back to sleep (usually to the sounds of me swearing, LOUDLY)).
9. CROC HUNTING. (channel the spirit of Crocodile Dundee for this reading). We start at Makong’onda village, where we bike almost 10 miles to the Ravuma River. There we encounter the half naked boat men who gladly give us rides in exchange for a percentage of whatever bounty we capture. We sneak up on the crocs, but they are tricky to see, trickier when no-one (even the crazy boat men) will go near places where they were sited. Thus, we leave empty handed, to limp the ten miles up hill back home in the heat, defeated once again by the grinning, green, great, gargantuan lizards!
SARCASM. I’M NOT HUNTING CROCS. CALM DOWN MOTHER. J
8. CHICKEN DEPOPULATION PROJECT: MAKONG’ONDA. Here in Makong’onda, we appear to have a chicken problem. They are everywhere…and they get into everything, the gardens, the house, the classroom…We’ve decided to get back at these pesky creatures once and for all…by eating them! Chickens are delicious, and the only source of meat that you can find in Makong’onda, or any village for 10K. Because of our extensive amount of guests, combined our own primal urges for meat, we have been working on thinning the population of chickens in Makong’onda. This is a personal small project, and I believe that the chicken depopulation project has ultimately been very successful.
7. OFFICAL POLICE BUSINESS. Before the final examinations at Makong’onda Day, one of the police men (who slept at the school until exams were over) asked me if I would do him the honor of frisking my female students in their paper thin pocketless green skirts, so that he didn’t have to embarrass the girls by doing it himself. Why am I frisking them you ask? Why, to confiscate all of those high-technology gadgets that all African village girls carry on them to use to cheat on their tests. As I made my way thorough the line of girls (who were howling with laughter, possibly because I did most of it with my eyes closed so that I didn’t have to look at them) I reached the end, and Danford, the first boy in the row jumped up, arms spread as wide as the grin covering his face, “My turn! MY TURN!”. My refusal was loud and apparently devastating, as all of the boys moaned and complained (to my retreating backside) about the girls getting “more thoroughly searched”.
6. BICEP BUILDING. This is actually a personal project, involving me carrying water from my home to my garden, and then back to my home, in 20L buckets. 4 repetitions. I also routinely carry around my students’ biology and English notebooks, (all 110 of them) to and from the school. 3 repetitions. Finally, I lift daily, 20 minutes with each arm, my 6 month old friend Brian, who is just starting to eat solid foots, and thus starting to get really heavy. Repetitions dependant upon diapers and access to milk. Though my favorite buff male students still laugh and my weak arms when I try to invite them “TO THE GUN SHOW”, they are starting to get better…
5. NAPS. We have once again entered that stage in our weather where it is too hot to go out after 12, so I take naps. Lots of them. Until the sun goes away.
4. BREWING BOOZE. My buddy JB (see excuse number 3) and I decided that we would not be outdone by Luke’s homemade coconut wine (indeed, it would be hard to be outdone by this particular wine because it was GROSS!), and thus we decided to make ourselves some ginger wine. I heroically drove JB’s evil bicycle, which left scratches all over my left calve, to Nakarara in order to make the wine. We cleaned a bucket, boiled the water (truthfully, she did that before I got there), put in the ginger, 4 kilos of sugar (to the shock of her neighbors), and yeast, then mixed. We waited 3 weeks to taste…pretty potent stuff!
3. NEWBIE. We have a new girl in the vill who hails from Washington DC named Jenny Beth. She’s awesome, likes to run (and is willing to run painfully slow in order to keep up with/encourage me), and is one heck of a knowledgeable gardener. She can be found on any given day roaming the fields of Nakarara looking for something to whack with her machete or a piece of ground where she can thrust her spade. The good people of Nakarara love her, and the here students behave better for her (which is amazing). I’m super excited about having an awesome person to buddy-up with on new projects….stay tuned for our next escapades.
2. AMERICA! One of my students (Mustafa) was very blessed and lucky to get the opportunity to get into the American Embassy Young Leaders program. When we got the phone call we both jumped up and down screaming. When our eardrums and sanity were regained we realized (and by we I really mean I) that we had a lot to do, such as getting passport papers, non-exsistant birth certificates, borrowing a coat that will defend his heat hardened Tanzanian shell from the Colorado cold...it is going to be a busy month before he leaves!
1. ZA MAISHA TANZANIA (Tanzanian Life). Life here goes by so quickly. I didn’t actually realize until a message from my father (something along the line of “we were wondering if you were still alive…”) that it had been so darn long since I had written a blog. With the garden, exercise, crocodile hunting, guests that come and go, seminars, classes, tests, the library, soccer finals, and peace corps reports, its been a busy 3 months. I promise with the help of my new tiny computer I will try to give you bigger, better updates.
As you know, all updates and stories are TOTALLY worth the wait!
Peace and Love from Tanzania!
Mirinda
9. CROC HUNTING. (channel the spirit of Crocodile Dundee for this reading). We start at Makong’onda village, where we bike almost 10 miles to the Ravuma River. There we encounter the half naked boat men who gladly give us rides in exchange for a percentage of whatever bounty we capture. We sneak up on the crocs, but they are tricky to see, trickier when no-one (even the crazy boat men) will go near places where they were sited. Thus, we leave empty handed, to limp the ten miles up hill back home in the heat, defeated once again by the grinning, green, great, gargantuan lizards!
SARCASM. I’M NOT HUNTING CROCS. CALM DOWN MOTHER. J
8. CHICKEN DEPOPULATION PROJECT: MAKONG’ONDA. Here in Makong’onda, we appear to have a chicken problem. They are everywhere…and they get into everything, the gardens, the house, the classroom…We’ve decided to get back at these pesky creatures once and for all…by eating them! Chickens are delicious, and the only source of meat that you can find in Makong’onda, or any village for 10K. Because of our extensive amount of guests, combined our own primal urges for meat, we have been working on thinning the population of chickens in Makong’onda. This is a personal small project, and I believe that the chicken depopulation project has ultimately been very successful.
7. OFFICAL POLICE BUSINESS. Before the final examinations at Makong’onda Day, one of the police men (who slept at the school until exams were over) asked me if I would do him the honor of frisking my female students in their paper thin pocketless green skirts, so that he didn’t have to embarrass the girls by doing it himself. Why am I frisking them you ask? Why, to confiscate all of those high-technology gadgets that all African village girls carry on them to use to cheat on their tests. As I made my way thorough the line of girls (who were howling with laughter, possibly because I did most of it with my eyes closed so that I didn’t have to look at them) I reached the end, and Danford, the first boy in the row jumped up, arms spread as wide as the grin covering his face, “My turn! MY TURN!”. My refusal was loud and apparently devastating, as all of the boys moaned and complained (to my retreating backside) about the girls getting “more thoroughly searched”.
6. BICEP BUILDING. This is actually a personal project, involving me carrying water from my home to my garden, and then back to my home, in 20L buckets. 4 repetitions. I also routinely carry around my students’ biology and English notebooks, (all 110 of them) to and from the school. 3 repetitions. Finally, I lift daily, 20 minutes with each arm, my 6 month old friend Brian, who is just starting to eat solid foots, and thus starting to get really heavy. Repetitions dependant upon diapers and access to milk. Though my favorite buff male students still laugh and my weak arms when I try to invite them “TO THE GUN SHOW”, they are starting to get better…
5. NAPS. We have once again entered that stage in our weather where it is too hot to go out after 12, so I take naps. Lots of them. Until the sun goes away.
4. BREWING BOOZE. My buddy JB (see excuse number 3) and I decided that we would not be outdone by Luke’s homemade coconut wine (indeed, it would be hard to be outdone by this particular wine because it was GROSS!), and thus we decided to make ourselves some ginger wine. I heroically drove JB’s evil bicycle, which left scratches all over my left calve, to Nakarara in order to make the wine. We cleaned a bucket, boiled the water (truthfully, she did that before I got there), put in the ginger, 4 kilos of sugar (to the shock of her neighbors), and yeast, then mixed. We waited 3 weeks to taste…pretty potent stuff!
3. NEWBIE. We have a new girl in the vill who hails from Washington DC named Jenny Beth. She’s awesome, likes to run (and is willing to run painfully slow in order to keep up with/encourage me), and is one heck of a knowledgeable gardener. She can be found on any given day roaming the fields of Nakarara looking for something to whack with her machete or a piece of ground where she can thrust her spade. The good people of Nakarara love her, and the here students behave better for her (which is amazing). I’m super excited about having an awesome person to buddy-up with on new projects….stay tuned for our next escapades.
2. AMERICA! One of my students (Mustafa) was very blessed and lucky to get the opportunity to get into the American Embassy Young Leaders program. When we got the phone call we both jumped up and down screaming. When our eardrums and sanity were regained we realized (and by we I really mean I) that we had a lot to do, such as getting passport papers, non-exsistant birth certificates, borrowing a coat that will defend his heat hardened Tanzanian shell from the Colorado cold...it is going to be a busy month before he leaves!
1. ZA MAISHA TANZANIA (Tanzanian Life). Life here goes by so quickly. I didn’t actually realize until a message from my father (something along the line of “we were wondering if you were still alive…”) that it had been so darn long since I had written a blog. With the garden, exercise, crocodile hunting, guests that come and go, seminars, classes, tests, the library, soccer finals, and peace corps reports, its been a busy 3 months. I promise with the help of my new tiny computer I will try to give you bigger, better updates.
As you know, all updates and stories are TOTALLY worth the wait!
Peace and Love from Tanzania!
Mirinda
No comments:
Post a Comment