I don't even know what to say.......

Okay, so last time I left you guys I had just gotten back from Dar from my COS conference and Evan’s trip. I didn’t think much had happened since then; it was just only about 4 weeks ago, but a lot can happen in a short time here!

First, electronics seem to hate me these days. I really hope this stops when I return to America because it is so frustrating!! I think I may have mentioned some of this in previous blogs but here’s a summary: my computer, ALL my flash drives, my external hard drive, and my camera’s memory cards are all WACKED OUT from viruses; I dropped my camera when it was open, so it’s not working; I accidentally dipped my ‘Tanzanian’ cell phone in the water, so it’s broken for good; and my 5, maybe 6 years old blackberry is on the frizt and gets awful service, but I’m just hoping that it lasts for the next 7.5 weeks. Like I said, technology has turned against me.

On a good note, I have found homes for almost all my kittens/cats. My site-mate took one kitten and another friend up North took the other 2 kittens!! I am so relieved that I found all the babies homes!! It took so much pressure and stress off my mind. I also found a home for Sparky, but she changed her plans without telling me. Another friend up North planned on taking Sparky and I again was so happy to have found her a home!!! So I packed her up and took her to my site-mate’s house the other weekend where I was going to meet my other friend from up North. He was coming down to visit, go to town, and pick up Sparky. But, while we were hanging out at the house, Sparky decided to split. She left and hasn’t been seen yet. I feel so bad about it; I’m still hoping she comes back to my site-mate’s house so my friend can take her on his next visit. But if not, I know she’ll be fine; she was always the toughest cat. And she’s the one who ran away! I was trying to give her a home for when I left! Last on the cat news, I have decided that Frik and Frak will be staying here. It still breaks my heart to leave them here, but I must. I don’t know where I will be staying in the states, for how long, and it will cost too much to bring them home. Plus, they are used to being outside all the time and roaming around. It wouldn’t be right to bring them home to the city and keep them cooped up in an apartment or house. I am going to give my Mama money to feed them for a few months until the next volunteer arrives. I just hope she actually uses most of the money to feed them and that the next volunteer arriving in August will like them and take care of them :)

That same day of the whole Sparky fiasco, I spent the night at my site-mate’s house. We had a great dinner of squid, fish, and shrimp that had been bought fresh in town. Our other friends visited for the day and prepared the whole meal. It was delicious! Along with the seafood we had salad, rice, carrots, and green beans. So good!! After that we had a TV show marathon that continued the next day until I left in the afternoon.

Alrighty, my friend who took 2 kittens had come down to my house for a few days to teach. He works for an NGO and teaches about the importance of planting trees. Note: people cut down a lot of trees here for building and especially for firewood, but they don’t plant trees, so deforestation is becoming a big problem. Therefore, he came down to teach at my Primary School and my Health Group. First, I showed both my Standard 7 English Class and my health group a video on permaculture, planting gardens, and making natural fertilizer. When my friend arrived, we did some prep work and went to the Primary School teach. To begin, he taught a lesson in the classroom on the importance of trees, why we need to plant them, how to plant them, and what we were going to do that day. Then we went outside to begin the dirty work. We had such a great time planting trees with the kids!! We made a mixture of sand, dirt, fertilizer, and water with our hands. The mixture was put into small tree bags where we planted the tree seeds (shade trees). We got super dirty and had a wonderful time planting about 200 seeds. And if any of you saw my status on FB, I ate a worm just to get a rise outa my students. They thought I was crazy haha. They were supposed to bring my candy or chocolate for eating the worm but I keep forgetting to ask them. I want my prize!

The next day we did the same lesson with my Health Group. We began in the office with a lesson on planting, farming, trees, and what we were going to do that day too. Then we went to one of my group member’s house and made two practice beds where we planted trees. We planted different trees than at the Primary School. These trees will primarily be used for firewood and planting around farms as a fence. We also made the same mixture to put into the tree bags. These we just prepped and will plant seeds into later. We also had a great time!! I took a lot of pictures that I will post as soon as I get them from my friend (remember my camera is broken blah).

I have mentioned this project before but it has been ongoing for quite some time. Last year I started asking NGOs for donations of books, pamphlets, informational packets, etc. about health issues. For the past year, I have been slowly collecting materials. The materials were to be used to install a small Library/resource center at the village hospital. A few months ago, I finally had collected enough materials to get it started. I asked a local carpenter to build a book cabinet. This I bought myself as my own donation (it was only about $37). He took a long time to build it (about 2 months!), but he finished last week!! I was super stoked to get this project really underway. The cabinet was brought to the hospital the next day and the doctor, nurses, village government, and I all met for a small celebration of the resource center’s opening. They really put a lot more effort and thought into the celebration than I was expecting and I really appreciated it. They were all so excited about its opening. So for about an hour and a half, we sat outside the hospital and the doctor and I spoke about the purpose of the resource center, how it came about, and that everyone is welcome to use it. Then some of the village officials said some words of appreciation and we took a bunch of pictures handing the keys over, opening the cabinet, and putting the books and materials into it. It was a lovely day! I am so proud of the resource center! I will be putting pictures up this weekend. (Note: this was part of my ‘perfect day’ for those who read my status on FB). Short history of the hospital and purpose of the resource center: so there is one ‘hospital’ in the village. It is located in the center of the village and it is not much bigger than my house. It has only 1 doctor and 3 nurses and serves the entire village of 3,500 people. With so few people on staff and so many to serve, patients often have to wait for a long time. Also, in general, getting health information (aka books) of any kind are hard to come by. Therefore, when I presented my idea to the doctor last year, he thought the resource center was a great idea and that the patients would really benefit from it, so that’s when I began the project. Now that the resource center is open, patients can read about all kinds of important health information while they wait. The topics covered are vast, such as maternal health, HIV/AIDS, malaria, children health, effects of drugs/alcohol/smoking, nutrition, puberty, etc. Many topics are covered, so that the patients can become informed about making good behavior changes concerning their health :)


Secondary School: Last Friday May 27th, we closed the school for break after completing the exams. It was really weird because it was the last time I was going to teach at the Secondary School. The school will be closed until July 18th. And with me leaving July 20th, I obviously won’t be teaching when the school opens again. Today, I just turned in my grades, so I have officially finished working at the Secondary School. It is really starting to sink in that my time here is coming to an end.

Primary School. This week we have our last classes and then we begin exams next week. After June 10th, I will be finished teach at the primary school too. Wow.

This past weekend, my site-mate came to visit me at my place and we killed chickens for dinner! Yep, that’s right, I killed a chicken with my own hands and a knife!! To kill a chicken, you hold on to the wings under your foot then you hold on to it’s head and cut its head off at the neck. My Mama was there the whole time and she helped us clean it after, i.e. cut off it’s feet, take off the feathers, skin it, take out the guts, etc. After that, we cut it up, cooked it, and ate for dinner along with rice, cooked carrots, and rolls. It was a delicious dinner! And now I know how to slaughter a chicken!

The next morning we went on a short but good hike up my mountain with a bunch of villagers. We went up to the water tank where everyone (but us) proceeded to clean out the tank. The tank is really big and it was full of algae and stuff. It was pretty gross inside but it was fun to watch all the water, mud, and grim be let out. It could have been on Dirty Jobs haha.

Currently, I am‘wrapping’ things up. I have decided the Frik and Frak are staying here, found homes for the others, finished teaching at the secondary school, finished teaching at the primary school this week, just have exams left next week, I have started packing/cleaning out junk, I have started to say ‘pre-goodbyes’ to my students who are leaving for the break and who will return just before I leave, I am taking pictures of all those ‘little’ things that I want to remember, I preparing speeches for my going away parties, giving a few things away, doing some things for that last time, and just soaking up everything I can in the time I have left.

Hard times: I have my going away party with my Health Group June 25th. I am going to A MESS!!! Lots of crying will be involved on my part. I have already cried a bunch of times about leaving, especially when writing my speech.

Fun times: I have plans for July 4th with 20 of my friends from around the area. It’s going to be great times and kind of like a Going Away party for a few of us. We are going out to Toten Island off of Tanga. We are going to go boating, see the island, walk through ruins, go to a sandbar, barbeque fish and make lunch on a sandbar, go fishing, and snorkeling. Then party hard that night haha. Whoo-hoo.

The only real work I have left is my meetings every week with my Health group and a 6 day Business seminar provided by an NGO for my Health Group. This is something I have been working on for a long time, aka it has taken a long time to get the grant (which is a lot of money) approved by Peace Corps. I am really pushing it with this one because I am getting so close to my leaving date, but I know I can pull it off. It’s really important to me and the group because it is going to teach them business skills of all sorts and how to make jam, juice, and tomato paste. All of which are products that are used a lot here, so they will be able to sell them for a profit and make money on their own without the financial support of me, the Peace Corps, or various NGOs. Our hope with Peace Corps and my Health Group is that they will be completely self-sustainable. This seminar will take place July 4-9 and will be my last project of my service.


July 20th I will be heading to Zanzibar for the last time (for now) for a bit of relaxing and mind-clearing. Then the 24th I will arrive in Dar for COS (Close of Service) July 25-27th. After that, I will leave the night of July 27th at about 2am and arrive in WA at 9:50pm July 28th. Unbelievable.

My mental state: In general, I am doing really well as usual. But lately I have had bouts of stress and bad moods, which I have pretty much gotten over now after some long hard thinking. However, preparing to leave here has got me all wigged out. I CANNOT believe that in just 7 weeks I will be saying goodbye to my village and in 8 weeks leaving Tanzania. I have been here for 2 years and I don’t want the time to be over yet. It’s so weird to think about how the first few blogs I wrote in my village, things were so hard and I couldn’t wait to come home when I finished but now it’s the opposite. I don’t want to leave here and I am nervous about coming home. I can’t wait to see my friends and family in the States, but it is also going to be really odd and so many things I don’t expect are going to be really challenging. Returning to America is going to be such a huge adjustment, just like coming here. And beside all that, if you throw on figuring out what I am going to do when I get home and for the next year before I start grad school…its stresses a girl out!! But I have taken some time to think about things and I am just going to calm down, focus on my last few weeks here and what I want to get out of them. Then deal with America and all that comes with it when I get back. All in all, I’m just taking it one day at a time. I mean really…it is not that big of a deal that I won’t be starting grad school until next year (it took me awhile to come to that realization). I will get to where I am going when I get there. And in the meantime, I will take my year off and do whatever it is I want because I can. I am in no rush to grow-up and settle down… hello, I still haven’t seen Southeast Asia!

Other lil’things:
- This blog is a mess just like me, no rhyme or reason, so outa order
- 53 days until I leave Tanzania
- I have read 55 books
- I have been here for 94 weeks
- I may have a mental breakdown leaving this beloved place
- But I am looking forward to my home-coming party when I get back to America…so you all better come!!
- This is not my last blog…you will hear from me again :)
- I will actually being seeing you all soon!

With love,
Jessica