Letter 25, September 7th, 2004

Dear Fam,

Hello there! As I look at the date written above it seems strange to think that everyone I came here with will be leaving in just 13 weeks (or less), while I'll be coming home to spend a month with all you guys. It's exciting, yet strange to think how quickly the past two years have gone by. I will certainly miss all of those who came here with me, but look forward to working with a new group next year.

Enough of that, as it seems to be the usual this term, the past few weeks have gone pretty darn busy. My Peer Leader Group went to another secondary school about an hour down the road to do a day of teaching life skills. I was really nervous beforehand as they really didn't seem prepared and we were missing 7 girls, but put all my worries to rest, performing beautifully and making a really good impression on the students they were teaching. I definitely think some friendships were made and they made me proud.

The reason why not all of the girls, who were supposed to teach, was that our school was participating in a Sport and Debate day in Mtwara, with Mtwara Girls School. Of course I was disappointed some of the girls decided not to come to Chiungutwa, but also completely understood why they would decide to go to Mtwara. Being involved in so many activities myself in High School, I sometimes had to choose between band, sports, clubs etc. The girls almost never get to do sports, nor do they get to travel so it was great they got to go. The one thing that frustrated me was that no one told me they were going (Apparently, the sports teacher was supposed to give me the message as that's how it's done here, but he failed to do so). So we planned for all 18 to go - giving everyone responsibilities, but only 11 turned up for the meeting two days beforehand. Luckily, those that decided to go to Chiungutwa to teach did a great job picking up the slack, and it gave a lot of the previously overshadowed Form 111's and Form 11's a chance to shine and become more comfortable in front of their peers. All in all, a bad thing turned out to be very good and the whole day was a success! Depending on how busy things get, we might try going to one more school this year.

The following week continued to be busy with a Peace Corps site visit. As they are expanding the Health Program next year, PC wanted to see my health board and watch me teach a lesson at the primary school. I was really nervous when they came to watch me teach as three of the four spoke Kiswahili fluently and I tend to botch my Kiswahila when I'm around people I don't know. It ended up being just fine though and my Kiswahila wasn't too bad. It amazes me how far I've come with it in two years. It makes me hungry to learn even more languages.

I went all the way to Mtwara with the PC's for an extremely quick and busy visit on Saturday and got back late last night. The trip back yesterday was an adventure in itself. There is a bus going between Ndwika and Masasi these days, but it tends to break down quite a bit. I was lucky enough to experience the bus on one of its bad days, which turned a two hour trip into almost eleven hours. We reached Chiungutwa, the halfway point at about 3pm, when something happened with the clutch, after being assured it would be fixed in about 15 minutes, 1 hour, two and then three hours passed. By this time no more cars would be passing on the road if we were to have gone out to the road.(We had pulled into the village to a "garage"). Finally, at about 8pm, someone made the decision to look for other transport as it began to look as if we would be sleeping in the bus. The only male in the group, a primary school teacher at the other school I teach at found a "cantor" to take us, but for 20,000 shilling (About $20). Considering the fare between Masasi and Ndwika is 1,500 to ask for another 1,000 from each person was a lot, so we spend two hours arguing with the bus drivers asking them to return half the bus fare. Of course, they were quite resistant and even though it was our right to get the money back from them, I felt bad for them. Life is so hard.. They were trying to make an honest living with the bus, but despite all of their efforts it kept breaking down, making them loose business. Now of course, no one wants to take their bus anymore. They finally did give us back half the fare and we all contributed until we had made up the 20,000 shillings, but it was quite an ordeal. I finally got back home just a few minutes before midnight,, safe and sound, but incredibly tired.

During the six hours of waiting around I saw something that really disturbed me, and made me realize just how much children really do imitate the actions of those they look up to. Sitting on the trunk of a fallen coconut tree, reading my book, I looked up to see a herd of goats and cows passing by. This was nothing unusual, something we usually see up to four, five times a day, but this was one of those first times I was not seeing this in passing. The way the "herders" (boys dropped out of school, anywhere from age 6 to 20 or so) hit the cattle to make them go where they wanted has always disturbed me. At this time I was not only watching this, but a group of children (6-8 years or so) stop their play completely so that they could "play" cattle herding. It was as if they were competing to see who could hit the bony goats and cows the greatest number of times. They definitely thought this behavior was "beyond cool". Several thoughts went through my head as I watched the first being "my god - what are they doing"? which eventually continued through a flow of thoughts that ended with "they were emulating what their older peers were doing".

This particular village has only got a secondary school a year ago - before , Ndwika 55 miles away was the closest, and it's really a truck-stop village. Most primary children don't even go to primary school, even though its free. PC is putting a Health educator volunteer there, although it will be tough to start, there are tons of opportunities to make a difference.

So that's it for now. Mid -term exams are next week, so the girls are fairly tied up for that. Miss you all, and I'll see you in about 10 weeks (by the time you get this letter).

Love Jessica