Time

Time is such an interesting concept.  It isn’t linear and it always seems to fly by at different rates, especially here in Africa.  I hadn’t even realized that it had been almost two months since my last blog post, but I was aware that a lot has happened since October.  But let’s see…where to start so I can fill in the gaps of the Peace Corps Tanzanian fabric of time?

Last month marked the closing of the school and the opening of another Peace Corps training, In-Service Training (IST).  One by one, each form of students at Mwatisi took their exams, and form after form, the school emptied, starting with Form IV NECTAs as I mentioned in my last post, Form II NECTAs the first week of November, and then the Annual District Exams for Forms I and III during the last week of November and first week of December.  Teaching peaked after Form IV left because I doubled the number of periods I taught for Form II so I could finish teaching the material for their NECTA, but once those were over, I could concentrate all of my time on the Form III students.  We were able to get through all of the material in the syllabus (Circles, Earth as a Sphere, and Accounts) by the time I had to leave for IST, but it felt like the longest week ever, because the students and I were experiencing symptoms of extreme “senioritis.”  Everyone was anxious for the holidays, but we pushed through it and we came out successful!

When I left my site two days before Thanksgiving, I was able to leave without feeling like I left anything unfinished, so that was great!  I left my dogs with a fellow teacher, who I knew would take very good care of them, and got on a Land Cruiser with my bags to Iringa.  I decided to break my bus ride from Mbeya to Morogoro in half by stopping in Iringa for a few days and go out to Ben’s site.  This was my very first Thanksgiving away from family, so I figured why not spend it with my PCV brother here?  He wasn’t going to be able to leave his site on Thanksgiving day so I decided to join him and cook a Thanksgiving feast for us!

For those that do not know, I am the signified cook for making fluffy mashed potatoes every year at Thanksgiving and I was determined to continue that tradition here in Tanzania, as well.  Also, Ben and I talked about getting another chicken to slaughter in place of a turkey, so I was pretty stoked to get another chance to eat fresh meat.  While Ben was busy at school, I spent the whole morning cooking a quasi-traditional Thanksgiving feast, all from scratch!  I ended up making stuffing, gravy, and creamed corn, which we had part of it with toast for lunch, then finished the Thanksgiving smorgasbord off with sweet potato casserole (with ghost-shaped marshmallows sent from Mom), sautéed chicken, and my fluffy mashed potatoes!

Our Thanksgiving lunch of creamed corn, stuffing, and gravy (left to right)

This sweet potato casserole (with Ghostmallows on top) did not last to dinner…

As usual [“kama kawa”], I feel the need to supplement the statement of slaughtering a chicken with a picture, especially since I was able to be the one to sacrifice its life to complete a delicious holiday dinner.  :)  You can find the other (slightly more graphic) pictures in my Picasa photostream above!  One of Ben’s neighbors gave us the chicken as a gift, so he wanted to help us out with it.  I just made it apparent that I wanted to be the one to do it.

I promise I am not a violent person…except maybe when it’s about food.

Our Thanksgiving spread

I was surprised how well everything turned out!  It felt just like home…except for the fact that it was really hot and I was in Tanzania lol.  I was really happy to get to spend Thanksgiving with family, and it was scrump-delicious!  We went to sleep that night with our bellies full and our hearts warm from the occasion.

Brother and sister at Thanksgiving in Tanzania

The next day, we got on a truck to Iringa town, after waiting by the road for about three hours.  Luckily, we occupied our time with quoting entire Disney movies, namely The Lion King – how appropriate hah.  That weekend we met up with other Mbeyans in our class, and then headed to Morogoro for the start of IST.

IST was a little less than two weeks long but it was incredibly jam-packed with training sessions on HIV/AIDS, Life Skills, Safety and Security (Gender and Sexuality), Permagardening, and one of my favorites (mainly because of the “flashy” introduction), Shika na Mikono [translates to “Take Hold with Hands”].  Shika na Mikono is the Hands-on Science initiative and group that is made up of PCVs that come to our trainings to provide us science and math folk with activities and practicals that we can do with our students.  I hope to be a part of this group later on in my service, but  we shall see!

Being back in Morogoro was so odd…  Although it was only three months since I was back there, it seemed like a different place.  I had gained three extra months of experience with the language, culture, and people, so I was returning to our “nest" as a more seasoned PCV.  No longer was I afraid or uncomfortable with speaking Swahili, handling my own interactions, and just walking around the bustling city on my own.  Of course, because there was a huge group of PCVs in one town, I actually rarely was on my own.  It was so wonderful, but also overwhelming, getting to see everyone in one place again!  Huge non-culturally-acceptable hugs were all around and we exchanged experiences from the past few months.  It was also a welcomed change to be fed SO MUCH and SO OFTEN, for FREE!!  :D

Our class also continued the tradition (which started three years ago) of having an IST Prom!  THAT was a blast and the planning started about a month before IST (shoutouts to Hannah and Amanda), and our dates were drawn randomly, which made it that much more interesting because we definitely had multiple same-sex pairs.  It was SO wicked seeing everyone’s coordination with their dates, though I do have to say that Brian and I totally pulled off the 90s look with our green and purple, his shiny shirt, and my bedazzled Robin Sparkles black denim jacket!  It was a night of fun and fancy free shenanigans, and everyone really let loose.  Prom night was a little bit like a blast from the past, for more than one reason, and fun nonetheless, so it was just the break I needed from time at site.

All of us being together that night reminded me of the fact that Peace Corps is like a time capsule.  While everyone else back at home in America seems to go on with their lives, us volunteers are having an entirely different concept of time.  In Tanzania, we experience many of the same things and can relate to one another, and it is like we are in our own little world where nothing else seems to matter except what we do here and now.  I’m not saying it’s a good or bad thing, but time just runs a little more strangely in Tanzania.  Some days will seem very long, but months go by very quickly.  And before we know it, our two years will be up!  So for now, I just take things day by day…as time goes by.