Letter No. 7 ( Lulindi, Home for the next two years), December 7th, 2002

Dear Fam,

I am writing you from my new home for the next two years! After a week of travelling and a week of swearing in stuff, in Dar the week before that, I am so HAPPY to be somwhere that I can stay put for awhile. Cindy, the volunteer I am replacing is here for just a few more days, and now that she's sent most of her things onto Dar with the Peace Corps car, not a lot of her stuff is left that she's taking home with her.

I've spent most of the afternoon unpacking, so now all of my stuff is spread all over the house. It's kind of fun, as there are so many things I want to do to make the house mine, like rearange the furniture, paint my bedroom, start a garden, etc. Really, I'm glad that I have six weeks until the term starts.

The trip from Dar was better than I thought it would be. We had the option to stay in Dar until the 3rd, so I did and opted for that boat instead of the bus ride down. It really wasn't too bad either, even though the boat took 20 hours instead of the advertised 14. We could get up and walk around and since there was four of us, (Fred, Karen, Colleen and myself) there was always someone with our stuff. Once we reached Mtwara, we all went to Karen's house at Mtwara Technical School and spent a few days getting some supplies and generally relaxing in Mtwara. That was kind of nice, because Charlie a volunteer from Lindi and Ben a volunteer from Kilwa were hanging out in Mtwara waiting for the boat to go back up to Dar. It didn't leave until yesterday, so the five of us (Fred had found some missionaries on the boat that were going directly to his site and had scored a lift - free with them) got to hang out. It was nice to be around some new faces for a few days.

So after two days Colleen and I took the bus from Mtwara to Masasi. The trip is supposed to be anywhere from 4-6 hours, but because the bus didn't fill up right away and we stopped and waited for it to do so numerous times along the route, the trip took us 7 hours. What's funny is that an hour earlier Colleen and I had passed up on an almost full bus and opted for the next one so that we could guarantee ourselves a seat. That bus apparently arrived in just over 4 hours. The lesson is to forgo small pleasures for speed, I quess: 4 hours standing would have been much more comfortable than 7 hours of sitting on the hard plastic seats, too small really for the both of us. But, that's the way it goes, and really, I've decided that the attitude to take, is simply to be HAPPY if you reach your destination eventually........

As soon as we reached Masasi, the sky started to pour down with rain. Colleen and I walked the 2km from the bus stand to her house as fast as we could and arrived at her house just as it was getting dark, drenched. We had to laugh at how grateful we'd become for simple things like the instant tomatoe soup packet we made up for dinner (Send More, Please). No way were we going to spend 3 hours in the kitchen making everything from scatch after our long day.

Today my adventure ended, or actually, really just began, depending on how you look at it. I woke up, spent an hour running around Masasi when I found out from one of the local shopkeepers that my school car was in town. This would save me the hassle of waiting for the bus that might take me to Lulindi (the village 1 km from my school), if it actually came today or taking the Newlai bus to the junction at the village of Nagaga and hiking the remaining 7km from there to my school. Even though I only had my day and a half pack, I really wasn't looking forward to the trek in my sandals (I had packed my tennis shoes with the stuff the Peace Corps car dropped off at my site later in the day). So, a huge sigh of relief came over me when I found the school car at 11am this morning.

It's really weird to think that I'm actually here and that my two years of service will start from right now, not two and a half months ago when I first arrived. Those two months both flew by and dragged on. I'm really grateful for the language training though. Even though all the teachers here speak English, they almost never do.

I'm going back to Karen's house in Mtwara for Christmas in three weeks. Hopefully, I'll get to talk to some of you then. The cell phone I bought will have coverage. The number calling from the US is 011-255-744-897-914.and if you put 10-10-811 before it's only 79c a minute.(That's what mum uses)or 10-10- 636+ my number. If this letter doesn't reach you before I leave Mtwara (I'll be there approx.the night of the 21st or 22nd through the 26th) don't worry, as I'll be in Lindi the weekend of JANUARY 17th,18th where I can also get cell phone coverage.

DAY TWO at my new home:

I decided to be ambitious this morning and get up and go running. It was really pleasant, except for the heat. At 7am it's really hot. It gets light here at 5:30 so maybe I'll have to get up earlier if I decide to make this a regular thing. The trail I went on was beautiful. It leads out from the back of the school and goes through the bush towards the plateau and Newala. There's a great view on the way back of the valley, which the town of Masasi is in. I didn't even need my music to keep my mind occupied it was so beautiful.........

The power went out yesterday , so I got to try using the kerosine (jiko) by myself for the first time to boil water. Thank goodness Cindi, and the second Master, invited me to dinner, because by the time I had actually attempted to cook anything I would have been starving. The Jiko hadn't been used in quite sometime, so I had to open it up and clean it replace the wicks, one of which I didn't do so well and it fell out when I went to use it. This meant there was a direct path between the kerosine and the flame and until I fixed the problem, resulted in the flames bursting every few minutes......novice.........

I just labelled a bunch of pictures I'm sending to you, Mum. I have a lot more pictures of animals that turned out really good that i took at the Crater, but I'll send them separately. I'm afraid they won't get there if I make the envelope too bulky...................

Love to you all, Jessica.

P.S HAPPY NEW YEAR 2003. Hope you like all my new photo's.....enjoy... Thanks to Larry for this website.....Keep sending the soup mixes, koolaid..I love you all, you make my life gooooooooooooooooood............Jess.