Shadows & Morogoro

Hey everyone

I'm now in Morogoro, which is a medium-sized city about three hours drive west of Dar. I'm leaving tomorrow, heading south to Iringa. There i'll be "shadowing" a PCV that has been in-country for over a year now. This is basically the last phase of training. He's a teacher at a secondary school in a village outside of Iringa. I'll be going with a couple of other girls from group and we'll just be living his life for a week, probably helping out a bit at school, and hanging out at the village bar.

Our language training is finished which is nice. I still have a lot of kiswahili still to learn but feel like i'm in a good place and more vocab and such will come with time. Hamna shida (it's all good). Next weekend we'll be hearing our site announcements which we're all really excited for and we'll be having our swearing-in ceremony a few days after. I'm not sure what that all really entails, but apparently is treated as a pretty big deal.

My homestay mother recently took me to a tailor in our village to be fitted for a "shirt." She asked me a few days later in kiswahili if I wanted a coat or a shirt. I told her i wasn't sure, so she brought out my younger brother to model to two types. The shirt was a pretty normal looking African-style shirt that i said i liked. The coat on the other hand was awful looking. It was basically a short-sleeve, stiff, sportcoat that fits like a box and has cargo pockets on the chest. The pattern... yeah, words can't really describe. My mama said that she really liked the coat so she said she's going to get that for me. It's gonna be ridiculous.

On a heavier note Kim's (one of the 4 ppl. in my language class) homestay brother unexpectedly passed away. We went to the funeral and it was quite sad. I didn't really know him, but i had gotten to know her family and bit and they were really great and accomodating people, so it was really hard to see them so upset. Obviously it's never easy to see people mourn the loss of one of their children. The funeral was a cultural learning experience though. For the entirety of the funeral (at their home) men and women stayed seperate. Women sang songs to comfort each other and to cover up their cries. Crying is generally held in their culture. The men just sat and chatted. The burial was really involved as men from the village helped throw the soil on the coffin and the women of the family basically collapsed on the ground crying. Her family is very well respected in the community so a lot of people came out to the funeral.

From one depressing topic to another, my homestay mother has been feeling quite ill lately and she told me that it was malaria. She has very little energy, headaches, cough, sore throat, basically just really bad flu symptoms. All that and still must continue to take care of the kids and home as my father works at his farm. She gets medicine to treat the symptoms, but it a disease she has to live and reoccuringly has to fight. She's a tough woman. Her father died of Aids a few years ago and her mother, who i recently met, is the late stages herself. It's terrible.

Anyway, sorry to be a debby downer. Things have been really great and enjoyable here. I've stayed really healthy (hardly any diarrhea!) and am looking forward to settling in my village in a few weeks time. That's when the Peace Corps experience will truly begin as able to get involved with my community and see what i can do to help.

Thanks for all the packages and letters, i've enjoyed them. If anyone would like to send some orange powdered gatorade, i'll love for ever. Oh and Emily, i wear a size 7 1/2 fitted hat, so if you want to send me some sort of hot 59fifty C's hat or whatever, that'd be sweet. Thanks. It's getting dark so i gotta, but i bought a phone so i call you all with my number realllly soon.

Much love