Site Announcement

What's up ya'll

So i'm right now i'm in Dar es Salaam and i just recieved my site announcement. I'm going to be living in a village outside Morogoro, which is about three hours drive west of Dar. Morogoro is an awesome medium-sized city. It's lush and green and flanked by a beautiful and pretty large mountain range. I'm really excited to do a bunch of hiking. The town is really great and there are a lot of fun places to go.

I don't know all that much about my site yet except for that i'll be living at a primary school and i'll be the villages first Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV). Apparently being the first PCV at a site is favorable in a lot of ways b/c people won't have expectations of you based on previous volunteers. Though since i'll be the first volunteer there, i'll have to buy furniture and set up my house and such, but hamna shida (no problem).

The closest volunteer to me will be Dorothy. She's in her 60s and really great. She'll be about 10km away, but there are a few others in town who i'll get together with every couple of weeks when i need to go into Morogoro. Apparently there are a bunch of german and canadian girls who Brian, a gay PCV wants to hook me up with. Safi sana.

It's great to finally be done with training and moving to site soon. Originally i thought that i would be living IN town, but i'm happy to be living in a village. I think that it'll be a lot easier to make solid relationships in my community in a village setting. I'll let ya'll know what my site is like and post pics when i get to my site, but i do know that i won't have electricity, which also probably means no running water. That's fine, lights just attract bugs.

Right now, being in Dar is a little crazy. We're a little more used to village life and Dar is really similar to Nairobi in that it's big, dirty, smells kind of like burning garbage, and people really like stealing anything. But we've really been enjoying it (already been here too long?). One distinct difference though that i've noticed is that you don't see as many glue sniffing kids as in Kenya, but there are still plenty of orphans.

We actually had a chance to visit an orphanage in Morogoro where Brian, a PCV is beginning his work. It was a really great place funded by outside sources. They take care of orphans that have either have parents who have died from HIV/Aids or are too sick to care for them. Also, they have begun taking in children with physical and mental handicaps. People in Tanzania with disabilities have a really tough time b/c people dismiss them all as 'chizi' (crazy) and the healthcare system in not equipped to care ffor them. Places like the one we visited are essential, yet so few. Just another one of the possibilities for volunteering my time.

I don't know what kind of projects i'll be doing and apparently most PCVs don't really get much done in the first year. It takes a lot of time and energy to immerse ourselves in the community, which i'm really looking forward to.

Thanks again for all the letters and packages, i PROMISE i'm gonna write you all back as soon as i have more time when i get to site!

Kwaheri!

p.s. what's going on with the election? i get really limited access to news sources here b/c i don't have television and usually can't find english newspapers. yeah, plus sports news and big news in general would be appreciated. thanks.