Pancakes

October 22, 2008


There are five chickens that live with me now. I am not sure where they came from. They sleep at night huddled together in my choo along with the baby mice- who Josh says I should kill because they are really rats and they will come into the house. But we all know that I haven't touched them and am choosing to believe that they will stay baby mice and stay in the choo- we shall see who is right... The chickens peck around the compost pile during the day and are great company, however, I had to put a stop to their activities when they started coming into the house. I am hoping they will start to leave some eggs in the choo room, but sort of seems weird to find food where you do your business... I spent most of the day today trying to rid my bed of the bed bugs that have moved in there. We think it is so cute in the states to say "Sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite". The reality is not quite so cute. Washing my giant blanket in a bucket was a chore that got me tired, soaking wet, and broke my clothesline- oh well, hopefully they are gone for good.

I have discovered that some people read this that I don't know- I have gotten emails from all sorts of people- which is great. Many of them are applying to the PC. I didn't really think about people like that reading this and I feel like sometimes my writing is a bit depressing. So in order to not scare people from joining the PC, thought I would explain more why I have had trouble at site. So I am the first volunteer in my village. They have no experience with white people, or the Peace Corps. They really have no idea what I am doing here. I think that the former head teacher was who applied to have a PCV but he left before I arrived. You might think- "Great, so she can just hang out in Africa for two years." But the actuality of this is not so great, I need something to keep me busy. We were taken to site for the first time by our Village Executive Officers (VEOs), they are basically like a mayor. Most PCVs have their VEO as their best friend, they introduce them to the community, help them call meetings, check on them, etc. Ummm... not the case in my experience. I haven't seen my VEO since the night he dropped me off. The good news is: I hyave found out that my community is pissed. Mzee Ngoda- my wizard neighbor- who is super-prominant in the community was complaining to Juster that he didn't think it was right that I wasn't formally introduced to the community, I guess he wanted there to be some sort of party. So I have not had the suppost system that was supposed to be here.

I went to school today, saw more kids get beaten... this time boys were forced to lay down and were beaten with sticks up their back and behinds. I had an open discussion with the teachers in our office about it. I told them I didn't like it and didn't want any part of it. They wanted to know our methods in the states. I explained report cards going home to parents, parental punishments: groundings, no tv, no friends, no sweets, summer school, etc. This turned out to be hilarious to them because as they brought up how would this ever work here? No one has tv, regular sweets, summer school doesn't exist and parents encourage children to skip school to work on the farm. This is going to be an uphill battle. I don't know how to change any of this. Change- a weird idea because what works for one culture will not work in another.. However, I am still too American to accept this as an appropriate form of punishment. They are doing pretty poorly in school, with girls underscoring boys by a lot in all subjects- showing me the need for the girls group even more. Oh and the English exam- the highest school in any level in the whole school was a 64%- a "D"- by a boy, of course. I am going to try to teach some English, but really I just speak it, I don't know why things are the way they are. I need my Dad, the English language guru to explain to these kids how it works.

One skill I have adopted from my Dad is how to make pancakes. I eat pancakes now for about one meal a day. I blast Bob Dylan on the ipod and make mango or banana pancakes. However, different from my dad I make them over a fire, without a spatula or frying pan- tricky, I know. But I have become an expert. I top them with peanut butter or jam- which would be a bummer in the states and I don't think Tanzanians know about maple syrup. But when you live in a country that grows peanut and makes the best peanut butterihave ever had and has jams that include mango, passionfruit, guava, pinneapple, peach- by the way, that is ONE type of jam all together. The toppings are pretty good. Thanks for the inheritance, Dad. :-)