The times, they are a rollin' by

I don’t think it has been much more than a month since I last wrote a blog but I seems like FOREVER ~ So here we go….
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As usual this is not going to be in order of occurrence :)
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Dates and time. It is August and as of August 20th I will have been living in my small little village for a year and Tanzania for 1 year and 2 months. Also, at the end of this month I have my Mid-Service Conference. At the conference we will discuss what we have done and accomplished over the past year and how to make our projects sustainable over the next year. When I get back from the conference it will be September and I will have less than a year until I return to America. Weird, just plain weird. I will also be home to visit for Christmas in about 4 MONTHS. Again, weird. I have also had to start thinking about what I am going to do next, as in after Peace Corps because the fall is fast approaching and grad school applications will be due before I know it. I’m not even done here yet and I have to start planning for my return to America. Also, coming up is …. MY MOM IS COMING (MAMA YANGU ATAKUJA). I AM SO EXCITED! She will be here in less than 2 days. FUN FUN FUN! Again, the time she is here is going to go by way too fast. Time should really just slow down.
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AIDS Education Day. I recently put on an AIDS Education Day Event with my Health Group. It went wonderfully!!! I was so excited everything went very well and so many people came. We invited many villagers and even more came to participate than expected. Representatives from the district and local government and from Peace Corps also came. YAY. The whole day went smoothly with introductions, songs, dance, a skit (that was put on by my health group and it was SO funny), dramatic poem, and 7 HIV/AIDS topics covered during the lesson. After the event, we provided lunch of the normal rice and beans (and meat!) with water and soda. That evening we finished the event with cinema. There is a local NGO that I invited to show educational films about HIV/AIDS, malaria, and cleaning your drinking water. Everyone REALLY loved the cinema. The NGO started by showing music videos as we waited for it to get dark enough to show the films then showed the films that were actually educational AND entertaining. The whole event really went perfectly!
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Wedding. Two of my friends recently got married. The met in our group that came here to Tanzania together. So I went down south to the wedding and had a wonderful time. We spent time on the beach and relaxing. I also went on a hike to a waterfall that was about 1.5 hours hike from the beach. It was absolutely beautiful. The waterfall was SO HIGH! It was super cool. Every day we were there was so much fun…even the traveling to and from the south and the beach was fun! And it’s a long way for me to travel to and from south TZ. On the way down to the south I went through a national park and I saw sooo many animals, like zebras, giraffes, elephants, and others but I can’t remember what they are called because my mind has drawn a blank. The wedding was great too. It was very simple but beautiful. And the wedding night was out-of-control FUN! Pictures of everything (wedding, waterfall, beach, after party) are up on facebook. Enjoy :)
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Sparky. Uh, so Sparky (I just realized) is actually a girl. Oops.
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Secondary School. Teaching is going well, but the kids have been bugging me more lately. There are just so many of them to keep track of and keep a handle on. And discipline is just a funny issue considering the student to me ratio is about 100 to 1. Ha-ha. But I am happy because I have stopped teaching my Health Class because I am going to start a Health Club at the school. That was a very smart move for several reasons. It was good timing because last semester I cover everything about HIV/AIDS and all the students got that information. Now I don’t have to teach the Form 4 (seniors) students, who I never liked because they are just arrogant seniors. I also only have to be at the school Monday and Friday to teach my biology class which I actually like. It frees up my time Tuesday thru Thursday to work on my other million projects and go to my village health group meetings. And the Health Club will be more sustainable because only students who want to participate will be in the club and the teacher that begins the club with me will be able to keep it going after I leave. Good times.
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Soup. I’m going to have to take this moment to brag a little bit. Since being in TZ and having to cook over fire I have been making a lot of soups because they are easy and only require one pot. And recently, I have made what I call a ‘sweet potato vegetable stew’ and I must say it was quite delicious.
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Sports. As you guys know I applied to get a donation of sports equipment from a NGO in America and we were accepted to receive a donation. Well, I am happy to say that 3 of the 7 boxes have arrived and 2 more were just put in the mail. WE ARE SO EXCITED!!! My headmaster at the school has decided that the occasion must be celebrated. So after all the boxes arrive we will have large celebration to open the boxes. There will be music, drumming, dancing, all the students and people from the village government. I am so excited; it is going to be so much fun!!
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Mt Kilimanjaro Marathon. I have decided that I am going to run the ½ marathon in February. Yes, 13 miles; I am going to run 13 miles…and no, there is no prize of a year supply of steak and dark chocolate at the end of the race, but I am still going to do it!! I have already started training and I’m doing great. I am going to slowly increase the amount of time I run every week until the event. I have been running about 3 days a week and do a strength training workout indoors about 2 or 3 days a week. I am up to running 50 minutes. YAYA! I’m feelin’ good!
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New PCVs. As I have mentioned, there were new Peace Corps Trainees in my area training for 2 months. They are finishing this week and will be going out to their respective villages next week. I am very happy to be getting one health volunteer in the village next to mine. We can even walk to each other’s site it’s so close! FUN! The soon-to-be new volunteers also came to my village the other day to visit a Health Clinic and a Secondary School. What a funny day!?!?! I led about 25 Americans around my small little village. Oh so funny! What chaos!!
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Bad news. My safi duka (cool store) has been out of dark chocolate for several weeks now. Obviously I am still alive to write this blog, but my sanity is slipping. Thankfully, the newbie volunteers have been close by so I can go to the training site, work my magic, get a fix, and survive another day :)
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Good news. MY MOM IS COMING TO VISIT!! BITCHIN’!!
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Love,
Jessica