Email No. 17: October 27, 2005 And so it goes....

Dear Fam,

I’ve just come back to Mtwara from the little village of Maguu, nestled in the Hagati Valley up in the Livingstone Mountains, very near to Lake Nyasa. Although Maguu is technically in a valley and one does look up to mountains on all four sides, it’s still at an elevation 6500ft. It’s certainly a bit different from Mtwara, which is right on the ocean. It’s beautiful up there in Maguu. I probably don’t need to repeat that bit of information as I know I expressed the same thought when I was here in March and July, but it’s such a powerful beauty it takes my breath away every time and therefore is more than worth repeating. I used the last of my “vacation days” to go back up there and I seriously couldn’t think of a better way to spend them. I’m tired of the “tourist stuff.” How terrible is it that I complain that I’m tired of going to Zanzibar, Zambia, Uganda, seeing animals? I know that I’ve been incredibly lucky in all that I’ve been able to see and experience here and while I thoroughly enjoyed all of the geographic features of East Africa those outside of it might possibly recognize by name (Kilimanjaro, Victoria Falls, Nile River, Lake Victoria), I know that for my part, what I will remember the most are the places not so well known, like Maguu.

Anyhow, like I said, it’s beautiful up there, but also, there’s no phone coverage, no post office, nothing but a single radio call and it was nice to be somewhere that PC would have more than a bit of a difficult time in getting a hold of me. My phone never seems to stop ringing. I was able to be more relaxed during my week up there than I had been in months, getting to sleep in, eat simple meals of ugali (stiff porridge made of corn flour) or rice and beans, uji (sort of like cream of wheat, made of corn, peanut, millet and wheat flours) with bananas and talk to people and walk. One of the walks that I went on with one of the PCVs that lives up there was particularly nice. First we walked up to a hill just forty minutes or so from his house, where we were supposed to be able to see Lake Nyasa. It’s the dry season just now so there is a lot of dust in the air, limiting how far we could see. So, we kept going for another hour and a half or so until we reached the edge of the mountains (They seriously go pretty much straight down into the Lake from there). We sat there for a good forty minutes or so not saying anything and just taking it all in. Since being here I’ve discovered that I really like to do that. When I went back to Newala for the first time in months back in August, I took the new PCV out to the tree house Fred built that overlooks the plateau, the Ruvuma River, Mozambique, monkey’s playing in the trees and if one’s lucky, and there are few clouds, a spectacular sunset. I was amazed to find that she couldn’t keep quiet and just sit and enjoy it for more than about 90 seconds, literally. She was so afraid of silence, even with the natural beauty around us there to justify it. I hope that with time she is able to slow down a bit and do so by the time she leaves here. Actually, she will have to be able to do that and adjust in order to survive. For my part, I used to go to the edge of the plateau or ride my bike out the back of Ndwika or now, go to the beach in Mtwara and just sit there contemplating the beauty of it all and the physical and same time mystical power of nature, which put it all that way. If anything, my love for the outdoors has been solidified here.

Once we had taken in our fill of the view of the Lake and the Mountains, we walked another two hours back to Hagati via a different path. Unwittingly, we ended up walking by the house of an mzee (old man) who the PCV I was with had been to visit once before with one of his fellow teachers. Excited to see us, he called out the PCV’s name and invited us in. We chatted for a good while and had a good laugh over the fact that while we really up to that moment had no idea where we were, it was pretty much impossible to get completely lost in the valley. People are incredibly friendly in Tanzania and, I think, especially up there. Politely as possible, we excused ourselves from offers of food that upon reflection, we probably should have stayed for, and continued on our way. People love to treat their guests well here, no matter for how short a period of time or how little they have to give.

It was so simple and yet that was a part of what made it such a nice day. I think that I shall certainly feel a bit of a strain when I go back at first- life will just be too busy for me- but that’s also a part of what this hiking trip I’m taking with Colleen and Heidi soon after coming home is all about. Somehow, having something like that to look forward to, which comes a bit closer with each day, lessons the sadness of leaving here as that day also too comes a bit closer.

I was able to spend one of my day’s up in Maguu with Mzee Mahai, an old man who was actually the technical trainer/ coordinator for my Pre Service Training three years ago now. It was through him that PC originally found out about this mountain paradise where there are schools suitable to place a PCV. He grew up there, went away to school, became a teacher, then worked for the Ministry of Education, worked for Peace Corps for a long while and now has returned to the Hagati Valley to retire. He is the cutest little old man, and although I have no idea as to how old he actually is, I would assume that whatever I would guess would actually be much younger than what holds true; you can still feel the energy coming out of him to the extent that it inspires and motivates me, someone, perhaps just a third his age. I feel lucky to have met so many people like him in my life and can only hope to be half as much an influence in other people’s lives when I reach their age. Over the course of lunch, beer and an afternoon we talked about the Tanzanian Education system, improving students’ English, the beauty of the valley and what it’s like to come from a small place, go away and come back, the beauty and necessity of that idea in itself (the importance of leaving, yet the necessity of then bringing back what you learn on the “outside” to home) and so many other things. It was just one more afternoon to remind me as to why I love this country and these people and how hard it is going to be to leave and all of that. It was truly the most excellent afternoon. We even figured out how to completely change this country around and make the education system work all that much better for everyone (The most basic skeleton of that idea being to use Kiswahili and only Kiswahili or add an extra year to Secondary School, making Pre-Form I English mandatory for everyone). Now the only challenge is to implement it, which is where those ideas would, as usual, get caught up in a round of politics that are ever present and an impediment to real progress, even a new (in the grand scheme of things) country like this. =0) Oh it all seems so easy… I’d forgotten just how nice it is to sit down, relax and talk about something, or even nothing with these people. It was refreshing to be able to exchange ideas and theories as to what was to be done with someone that was from the area. Even in a remote valley like Hagati, there’s a problem of population growth and overcrowding, leading to deforestation as the residents clear the land to make room for more crops. This lead to a discussion about better family planning, the benefits of people leaving and then coming back to the valley once they had something to bring back to it and also polygamy. I found out that even though the majority there is Christian by faith, they are polygamous by tradition (whereas in other parts of the country, it is mostly just the Muslims that are polygamous). Also, the joke is that the people there do do a type of family planning… they only have two children… but with each of their wives. Anyhow, it was the most interesting afternoon to say the least.

I’ll finish up another couple of weeks here in Mtwara before heading up for the last weeks of training. Someone from this new group gets to go to my old school, Ndwika, which is very exciting for me! Those are good people up there and they really need the help of a PCV. Tanzania is having its presidential elections in just a few days on the 30th. As a result, PC has us all on high alert. I feel completely safe and that there shouldn’t be any problems. There actually hasn’t been in the past- on the main land, but on Zanzibar it has been a different story, with violent demonstrations afterwards and claims of faulty ballot counting. The PCVs who were on the island have been pulled off for a couple of weeks now and the rest of us won’t be allowed to travel there, lest we get caught in the middle of it unaware, for probably about a month after the elections. Rather than being nervous about it all (which the PC office is trying their best to make us), I’m pretty excited about seeing how it turns out. Is it terrible for me to have such a nonchalant attitude about it all? We’ll all stay in our little communities and villages, hear about the results on the radio and when’s it’s all over there will be a new president that probably won’t make a lot of changes in the end (it’s most likely that the ruling party’s candidate is going to win). Nevertheless, I feel more connected with this election than I have with the last two I voted in back in the states.

Love to you all,

Jess