Ipogoro

I'm finally back at a computer. Thank God.

This week we started our teaching training. On Sunday night we were shipped out to a part of Iringa called Ipogoro, which, I'm guessing, translates directly to "hell." We were introduced to 80 21-year old Tanzanians and told that we have a week and a half to find one who we will live with and work with for the next six months.

This is probably the most difficult part yet. It's very hard to find a new best friend in ten days, especially when there is a significant language barrier. It's like speed-dating. The Tanzanian volunteers do speak English, but they get tired after 10 hours of school and just want to speak Swahili and we get tired and just want to hang out with people we know. We are crammed four to a tiny room, (two international volunteers and two Tanzanian volunteers) and among the four showers and two toilets, (which are also showers) only one has a door. This doesn't seem to bother the Tanzanians, who wash freely whereever they can get a bucket of water, but in the morning there's a 10-person line of white girls waiting for the shower/toilet with the door.

Fortunately, I've come to find that most of the Tanzanians are very sweet and open. I'd probably be happy living with any number of them. I've had to push myself to be as social as possible, even when I just want to curl up under my mosquito net and read the January issue of Marie Claire for the eighth time. As the week has gone by I've gotten much more comfortable. We all sing and braid each others hair. It's like camp!

Most of the Tanzanian volunteers are from large cities and good schools, so they have pretty worldly views, (though a lot of them still think you can get HIV from kissing and that homosexuals don't exist).

Our training is interesting, to say the least. We have been told that we have to be incredibly careful about what we do, say, wear, etc. Apparently Tanzanian villagers are huge gossips and if you do anything wrong the whole town will know about it. Since we're teaching about HIV/AIDS there are about a million things that could potentially go wrong. We've been told to concentrate heavily on abstinence. If you run into the village ranting and raving about condoms and burning your bra they will cut off your arms. Like, really.

We also have to teach lot of female empowerment. Polygamy is pretty common in the villages, as is female circumcision and widow inheritance, (if the husband passes away, his brother inherits the wife). And as I've said before, women are very much seen as second-class citizens.

Next Wednesday I will find out who my partner will be and to which village I will be going...and in two weeks I will be shipping off! I'm really excited even though I'm fully aware that it is going to be extremely difficult. I barely know Kiswahili and nobody in the village will speak English. Not really sure how this teaching thing is going to turn out, but it's been done before so I have some faith.

In other (gruesome, so be warned) news!
Last Friday, on our last day of Kiswahili, we all went to our teacher's house to learn how to cook Tanzanian food...and we killed a chicken! Don't worry, I videotaped it so you can see it later. Ali, another volunteer, was the murderer. To kill a chicken, you have to step on its wings and legs and basically saw the head off. And it really does move around for a long time after the head comes off! The disembodied head even let out a little squawk. We were all screaming and jumping around and talking about how sick we were. After the body stops moving, you have to put it immediately in hot water and pull the feathers out. It's not difficult - kind of like plucking your eyebrows! We then learned how to disembowel it, cut it up, and fry it. It was delicious.

Also, last weekend we went on Safari in Ruaha National Park, which was beautiful. We saw so many giraffes and zebras, a few baboons, and three lions. Ruaha is supposed to have the largest elephant population in Tanzania, but we didn't see very many. I'm not sure where (or how??) they were hiding. We got really close to the lions, which was a little scary because the female was crouched down like she was about to pounce on us. But then, just like a housecat, she lost interest and got up and walked away. Our guide, Michael, was a little off his rocker. He would get out of the car and throw sticks at the hippos to get them to come out of the water. Hippos are really bitchy and they kill more people than any other animal in the bush.

I must get back to Ipogoro because our authoritarian supervisor won't let us offsite for more than four hours. We are scheduled to do something called a "Gender Roleplay," which makes me a little nervous.

Until next week...