Email No. 9: January 31, 2005 : PC Travels & Site Visits

I am so happy to finally be able to sit down for a minute, take a deep breath and relax for a minute in my own house. Since I left the states almost two weeks ago now, I haven't had a minute to do so and infact have only spent one night in my house since then. Because I missed my flight back to Tanzania (don't worry, I eventually got on, as you can see), my whole schedule here that the office had planned for me while I was away was turned upside down. So here's the run down of what happened. I arrived in Tanzania the night of the 19th, spent two days at the office Thursday and Friday trying to get everything figured out as to what office type supplies they wanted me to take down to the south to have in my house. The only problem was the Friday was a holiday here in Tanzania, so the office was closed and I was only able to see about half the people that I needed to. Knowing this was going to be the case, I spent an extremely jetlagged Thursday doing as much as I could. Saturday, the driver and I started our journey down to the Deep South to be immediately followed by a week of site visits to the new volunteers. The Peace Corps drivers are actually pretty fun people to hang out with, and Morris was no exception. I'm really glad that I had him along for sanity's sake in the end as he could offer a great and Tanzanian perspective to the different issues the volunteers were going through as they came up along the way.

So yes, Saturday, we made it as far south as Kilwa on the Dar es Salaam - Lindi road. I was really excited to stop of there and see Chang, a second year education volunteer, as I had never been to Kilwa before. Kilwa is in our region, but it is actually quicker for Chang to get to Dar es Salaam than Lindi because of the road conditions, so we never see him, and nor do we get many opportunities to go visit him.

Kilwa, founded upon the old slave trade is a beautiful, remote town about halfway down the coast from Dar. It has two beautiful beaches and a few islands close enough to get to by dhow (the local fishing boat), where a lot of the ruins from the old slave trade can be seen. They are trying to turn it more into a tourist destination, but will be hard pressed to do so until the road between there and Dar is tarmaced. I personally love the town as it is and sincerely hope that if they do manage to build up some sort of tourist trade there, they will be able to do so with the focus being more of that of eco-tourism. From the two hotels that have been built there, I think that it might be possible. Actually, progress on the road has been made between Dar and Kilwa so that now there are just two sections of road that have not been tarmaced, which is a pretty big improvement from over a year ago. I wish that I could say the same for the section of the road between Kilwa and Lindi.

On Sunday, we left early in the morning in order to try and get all the way down to Mtwara in a reasonable amount of time. This section of the road has been worked on for well over a year now and so my hopes were high. I was very disappointed to find that actually, the road was much worse after it had been worked on compared to when I had last seen it in June. A South African company is doing half of it and a Chinese company is doing half of it. Both have seemed to tear up the road, re-grade it, but not pave it before the rains came and so now all of their work is ruined. Should we dare suggest that it might be smarter to tarmac the road in much smaller sections than 200 km at a time? It will be interesting to see how the failure of the road affects the upcoming elections in the fall, as CCM, the incumbent party was going to try to use the road as a platform for their success in the past ten years. Sorry, it's not going to happen. Anyhow, we arrived to Mtwara (and my new house!) safe and sound Sunday evening, but incredibly tired. I took some pictures along the way to show you guys just how bad this road was (you should have seen the look on the driver's face when I told him that people actually go looking for this stuff off-roading for fun in the states).

So yes! I got to sleep in my house on Sunday, which actually wasn't all that bad considering that a million volunteers had been passing through and staying there while I was gone, and that I hadn't even unpacked my things before I had left. We unloaded the car, and again, I didn't really get time to unpack my things but just place them into their appropriate rooms and we were off for a round of site visits early Monday morning. I hadn't seen a few of these sites yet, and I was anxious to do so, but I am hoping that I won't ever have to see 14 volunteers in a matter of 6 days again! Monday we took off up the Newala road, stopping off to see Lucy in Nanguruwe, a small village with a very busy health center, Brian, an education volunteer, in Tandahimba, and Jesse in Newala. All seemed to be doing well, especially Brian, who seemed to be loving life in the village as a Peace Corps Volunteer. It didn't surprise me at all that there were twinges of jealousy as they each told me their stories as to what they'd been up to and how they were integrating (or not). I am very removed from the village life where I am now, which definitely has its perks, but also lacks that sense of community. I stayed the night in Newala, which was wonderful as it always is, with Jesse. (Some of you might remember that Newala was where Fred, my nearest neighbor at Ndwika, was). Unfortunately, soon after Jesse got there, someone stole the wood from his tree house and he had to rebuild it. The sunset off the plateau was still beautiful and the moon rising from behind the plateau was even better.

Tuesday, I took off down the hill to see Michelle in Nagaga, just 7 km down the hill from my old site (and the home of my safi clothing fundi), Erica in Chiungutwa, and finally to see Josh in Masasi. This was lots of fun for me, as it was like I was revisiting parts of my old site. Each place was a center for me in someway while I was at Ndwika, whether it be for getting clothes made, a Life Skills seminar or the bank and posta. It was really neat to see that these volunteers had made a lot of the same friends I had made at these sites, plus a few others. It was interesting (and I think a relief for them!) to see that they were going through a lot of the same problems I had at these sites as well, such as getting food and really having to adjust my diet to that which the locals eat. Andy came down from Chidya to Masasi and so I also got to see him.

After two nights in masasi, I was finally back onto a tarmac road and headed out to Mahiwa and Mtama to see Johanna and Tony on Thursday. My backside was loving a good road, in a good car. Finally! I'm really beginning to think that 34 days in the states made me a bit soft. I used to be able to go on all of these roads for days without complaining! Both volunteers were doing great! And so we pushed on to Lindi, home of probably one of the safiest (nicest) volunteers houses and volunteers Sean and Jacob. Sean has got a huge house, with an almost American kitchen and a beautiful ocean view and breeze. It's always lots of fun to stay with him and we fill our time listening to music and playing lots of scrabble. He's a second year volunteer, so I wasn't really supposed to be doing a 'site visit' with him, but he has a great place to stay, so I did.

On Friday, I took off back into the bush to see Allison, a health volunteer. She lives about 25 km off of the Lindi- Mnazimoja road up towards the Selous and has an incredibly beautiful site, which looks out over a lake and the rondo plateau. Seeing her site made me anxious to see even more volunteers' sites around the country, which I sincerely hope that I will get a chance to do in the next year or so. Friday afternoon I saw Jacob in Lindi, who was doing well, and then took off Saturday morning back to Mtwara. I was definitely anxious to get home! And even better, I got the front seat in the daladala the whole way from Lindi to Mtwara. Score!

So, now I'm here a bit bewildered by the task infront of me. When I was in Dar, I had a meeting with the Femina magazine people, trying to give a bit of structure to all that I'm supposed to be doing down here. It will be interesting, because it will be a lot of talking to people and searching people out. I also have to get my house in order and get all of this stuff out of boxes. I think that in the end it will be good though. Lots of love to you all things should be slowing down here a bit soon and so I'll try to write a bit more often. Also, I have email and phone access ALL of the time this year. I sent an email out to everyone with my phone number yesterday. Talk to you all soon!

Jess