My apologies for the length of time that has passed since I’ve last written. However, expect this to be the norm. Internet opportunities and chances for electricity are, sadly, few and far between.
First of all, I’m grateful for being relatively close to two other current PCV’s. My closest “site mate” (which means closest volunteer in the nearest village” is a 20 minute walk from my house. The other close volunteer is another hour walk. It’s just nice to know if I need anything or if something goes wrong (knock on wood), they’re close enough to me to come over and help. However, I’m trying not to think about the future; for they are finished here in Tanzania in July, and the next round of newbies (I won’t be a newbie anymore!) won’t arrive until probably December. By then, though, I will hopefully be all settled in and will have projects underway. Maybe I’ll try to plan some traveling trips during those lonely 5 months.
I’m not sure if I’ve written about this, but the Primary School has been in session for about a month now. Since I live so close to the school, it never fails that I routinely get woken up at 6:30am every morning to the sound of their muffled conversations as they sweep dirt. Sweeping dirt should be a whole separate blog post, haha. It’s difficult to sleep much past then anyway, life in Africa starts even before the sun rises.
To my dismay, mango season is now over. As depressing as this is, I have orange season to look forward to in July and August. Apparently bananas and pineapples are always in season, however, it is a chore to track them down. On a lighter note, I found a cucumber in the market last weekend! Score! The PC Medical Officers would scold me, because I didn’t peel and boil the bacteria (and taste) off of it before consuming. I’m sorry doc, that’ll ruin the cucumber; I’ll take my chances with diarrhea, thank you.
Since lizards like to live in my house and climb my walls, they also like to poop on my floors too. Now, I don’t mind the lizards, they probably eat bugs and spiders that I don’t have to kill myself. It’s deciphering between the lizard poop and rat poop that has proven difficult. However, I figured it out (please don’t ask me how). In case you’d like to know, lizard poop has a white tip at the end of it. Rat poop doesn’t. This comforts me when all I see in the morning is white-tipped poop, this means the rats have stayed away yet one more night.
The rat killing stories I’m hearing from my site mate are horrifying and I hope to never have to use a hockey slap shot move to kill a rat, although I’m sure it’s only a matter of time. His tips will be useful though, to this I have no doubt. Don’t worry, you can look forward to a very disgusting and descriptive post at that time.
I’m traveling to Mtwara on the coast this weekend. Despite what you may think, this is not considered a “city”. From what I hear it’s more like a glorified town. However, there will be internet access there, so you can expect another post about how awesome the Indian Ocean is in the next few days.
Hope everyone’s doing well! Keep in touch. Cheers!
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