So I was eating unidentifiable meat fat sitting in a wooden hut with a big fire in front of me, a hanging pig skin drying from the ceiling above me and a pigs head in the next room over. This was only a portion of one of the longest days of my life. But how did I get here? Well this day started like any other at about 6AM, which is when I have been getting up lately because I can get a good 30 minute run in before most people are out and about and without everyone stopping and staring at me. Then I return home and start up some water for coffee on my charcoal stove. Then I usually anxiously wait around for the coffee, maybe do a little yoga. So after I had my coffee I got dressed. It's freezing cold at my site so I always wait until the last minute to get out of my paints and put on my skirt. Then Nahasibu (the counterpart of the volunteer that I replaced and the person who will most likely be my counterpart, haven't asked yet!) came over. Our plans were to go visit a primary school and bring soap, pens, and books to orphans that are helped out by an NGO here. Nahasibu had mentioned that the school was a good distance away, but I was not put off by this, I figured maybe an hour walk, two at the most. And wanting to follow Peace Corps protocol I wore my nice flip flops and a nice skirt and shirt (PC really en-grained in us that we need to look nice at our sites, I'm trying to uphold this but sometimes it's so hard because it's so dusty and I wear flip flops everywhere so just by walking out my door I look like I had a front row seat at a Derby). So we started our journey. Nahasibu brought his bicycle and as soon as we got to the road instructed me to get on. I was a little confused at first. But on every bike here in TZ there's something like a shelf behind the driver's seat. Its about 1 foot by 4 inches and composed of a metal. It's not very comfortable. But I hopped on! You have to sit sideways on it, which kind of reminds me of how women used to have to ride horses sideways because it was inappropriate for them to sit properly on a horse. The first mile or so was REALLY SCARY. I was clinging on the metal grate underneath me and holding my legs up. I was bracing myself for a fall any second and just hoping that if we were to flip we would go towards the side my feet were on and not my back! But luckily Nahasibu was a very cautious driver. My village—I should actually say my ward because technically we were out of my village and visiting a school in another village, but I will be doing work within my entire ward, which is quite large—is really hilly and mountainous. Because Tanzanian bikes do not have gear shifters you have to walk up every hill. So every time there was an incline we had to disembark and walk. We passed through a few villages, stopped and talked to some villagers, greeted everyone we passed—of course! And passed some of the most beautiful scenery I have seen (at one point I could have sworn I was in Oregon or Washington because there was a forest of huge pine trees). It made me really wish I had my camera—this always a problem I have because I do not want to advertise that I have a camera, or any other nice technology, but at the same time I always want to take pictures! I think I will give it a little more time and then maybe pull it out because there are too many picture worthy moments to not attempt to capture them. Also, it is not like I am worried about things being stolen because I feel very safe in my village but I am trying to explain to so many people that I do not have a lot of money, which is the truth, and that I am here as a volunteer. And if I out all out my camera or an ipod no one will believe me!—Anyway, so we passed what would have been an amazing picture of cattle trotting in a line, the one in front with a bell and then a small shoeless, shirtless child who could not have been older than 10 herding them with a stick. The background to this shot was this huge mountainside composed a farms fields and plots of trees. It was breathtaking. So we finally arrived at the base of a mountain, which was fine, except that I was in the worst outfit ever to be hiking up a mountain! Trying to remember that PCVs have to be flexible I put a smile on my face and started climbing! So once we got to the top Nahasibu pointed out to our final destination, two mountains over! What?! I was surprised. But it ended up being okay! We stopped at this guy's house who works on a campaign to fight Malaria. Fittingly, everyone calls this man Malaria. So his wife served us chai, with so much sugar as usual, and some fried dough. Nutritious! Then we continued on our journey. Stopping at one school on the way to pass out some soap to 4 orphans there. They were all really excited! And of course very surprised to see a white person. Their village was pretty out there so I do not think they see too many white people. We left the school with promises to return later! Nahasibu does a really fabulous job of explaining to everyone that I am first of all not here to pass out money and that I am a volunteer who has come to teach about health, and also that right now I am just trying to improve my swahili and learn more about what work I want to do. He worked so closely with the previous volunteer that he knows all about PC and the schedule of everything. (Now I am supposed to be working on a report about the challenges and success of my village and then after a training in December I will start projects). It's really nice to have someone who already understands why I am there and can explain it to other people. So we continued our hike, having picked up Malaria and one of Malaria's friends. We went down a mountain, across a river, passed a dead snake, up another mountain, down, and then up again. Phew! I think these shoes may have to be retired now. We finally got to the school and the children greeted us with a a beautiful song! We meet with the three teachers who work there. Sat through an incredibly long meeting with the School committee, from now on when I say I go to a meeting you can just assume that it is over 3 hours, and then we passed out all the loot we brought with us. We ended up having some extra soap so we gave a few bars to a few widows who were on the school committee who actually host orphans at their houses. All in all it was a good time! So I figured we were ready to return home. I should have know better. The head teacher of the school asked us to come over for lunch. So our group headed on over to his house, chowed down on some ugali, eggs and soda. At this point I was feeling really dehydrated and was offered water but turned it down (I had no idea whether it was safe or not and I did not want to risk it, I knew whatever feelings of dehydration were better than the consequences I would pay later if I were to drink dirty water). Then of course the day continued! The head teacher insisted that we go check out the market in his village, which was even farther up a mountain and in the opposite direction of home. Yikes! When we got there it was the least impressive market I have seen, a few wooden shacks and then some women selling corn. I was a little confused about why we came. But then he insisted that we go visit this store cooking meat, which is how I ended up eating unidentifiable meat fat sitting in a wooden hut with a big fire in front of me, a hanging pig skin drying from the ceiling above me and a pigs head in the next room over. At this point I was full, really dehydrated, blisters on my feet, a layer of dust on my face, seriously seriously sunburned (even after all my best efforts I think I will look 34 and not 24 when I come home), really tired mentally and physically, especially because so many people had been talking to me all day and I was just to the point where I did not want to ask “I'm sorry could you say that again a little more slowly”” or saying “I'm sorry I do not understand, please wait while I look up a word.” So I was just saying yes to everything. I think Nahsibu sensed this a little because we said that we should probably return home. This was like music to my ears. I knew that the journey home would not be fun but I was ready to get it over with. And at this point, considering it took us a really long time to get there, I was concerned that we would not get home before dark (darkness falls in Africa really quickly and when you do not have electricity it gets REALLY dark). The head teacher tried to insist that we go to another place and drink more soda but we turned him down. And we started walking. He suggested we go a different way because it would be a “short cut” I'm not sure if it was any shorter because of course we got lost. During one part of our hike I could have sworn I was in the Amazon jungle. It was so random! And if I had seen a snake swinging from the trees I would not have been surprised. Finally we made it back to the road, at least we could do some biking at this point, but of course I felt awful for Nahasibu because he was still working hard, while I was just sitting on the back of the bike. I was to tired to be concerned with having an accident on the way home. In fact I'm not sure I even remember the last hour of the trip. But I do remember that as soon as I got home the headmaster brought me a package that had been mailed to me from the mom of my good friend. It contained chocolate bars, magazines, and a pesto packet. Needless to say I devoured one of the chocolate bars and made pesto pasta for dinner. It was the perfect ending to a long day! I was happy to be home. And as much as my feet hurt, as dehydrated as I was and as dirty as I was, I was so happy about everything we accomplished—I was really just along for the ride. I learned a lot, got to see some beautiful scenery, listen to meet more people in my ward, and play with kids. What could be better?!

The next day I woke up early and helped way babies at one of the clinics in my village. This was a long process. But so much fun! All of the moms have a chart where they can keep track of the weight of their children. It's pretty easy to understand, which is great for those who do not read. They bring their children once a month and then you just mark their age and their weight on the graph to see if they are in a healthy range or underweight. Also, it helps to track if the children have lost weight or gained weight. It was really fun to interact with all the Mamas and their babies. For those of you who have seen the movie “Babies” you know that African babies are adorable. They all have huge eyes and beautiful facial features. Most Tanzanians have very pronounced check bones and jaw bones, but it is so cute to see the chubby faces of all the babies. Some of them were very new as well! A few just a month or two old, weighing between 5-6kilos. They were so small! The scale is kind of like what you see at a grocery store to weigh veggies, hanging from the ceiling, except instead of a basin connected to place the babies, there's just a hook. And then there's this piece of fabric with straps that the babies put their legs through and then you attach the straps to the hook and the babies just hang there. It's really funny to watch. Some of the babies are asleep, these are the easiest ones to way, some of them are just hanging there smiling, some of them are really upset and crying and shaking their legs around. This makes it really hard to see their weight so their mamas usually have to try and calm them down a little so the scale can stay still. The hardest ones to way are the ones that are too big to fit in the swing. They just have to hold on to the hook and hang there, these are kids who are over 15-16months. But they have trouble holding on, its a little uncomfortable but most of them were good sports about it. It was really a great time! I learned a lot!

Okay, so I feel like I have a lot more to say but I have already written a lot so you probably don't want to read too much more. I'll try and briefly sum up what I have been up to since I last updated my blog. The ride back from town last time was interesting to say the least. I had so much stuff with me, including 4 cans of heavy paint. It was such a pain! I ended up having to pay someone to carry it back to my house just because it was so heavy! I was one of the last people to buy a ticket for the bus so I got the seat all the way in the back row, but in the middle, stupidly thinking that this would at least allow me to have some leg room because there were no seats in front of me. So I wedged in between some teenage boys, bought a bag of peanuts, which I immediately spilled on the floor because I opened the bag too aggressively and because of course I wanted more people to be staring at me. By the time we left town the bus was packed to the brim. I don't think we could have fit one more thing on there. The good part of everyone being so squeezed on to vehicles here is that it provides good security if you get in to an accident. I was so wedged in I think it was probably safer than wearing a seat belt! So about half way in to the trip all of the sudden I see a pair of feet hit the window in my row. What?! Why is there are person there! And then the boy opened the window and the guy stuck his feet in, then his legs, and then slid right on in to the bus. I was shocked. This was my first time seeing this happen (since this time I have seen this happen a few times and now know that one of the people who work on the bus actually ride on the roof most of the way with the luggage).

Anyway, for the most part I have just been trying to get settled in to my village, meet people, visit schools, health centers and meet the villagers. I have successfully baked bread a few times on my charcoal stove by making a dutch oven. I even made banana bread! It was so good! And cookies too. On market day, Friday, you can buy a lot of food items in my village, but every other day tomatoes, onions, avocados, and randomly pineapples are available. Also, my village is famous for it's milk and it is well deserved because the milk is delicious! It's become a new love of mine and it is so nice to be able to have fresh milk on a daily basis, you have to boil it first of course, but if you leave it outside overnight it will be really cold in the morning and warm milk is a good after dinner treat! Especially when it is so cold! Also, I have been doing a lot of reading. Since college I have always been a big reader but with so many other technological distractions I could always find excuses to only read a few pages or not finish a book. Here reading is such a pleasure. It's such a great way to escape from everything and now I find myself craving that time of day when I can put on some pajamas and jump in to my sleeping bag and read a book. I will not tell you how many books I've read since I've been at site, but it is a lot! Last weekend I went to visit another volunteer who is even farther from town than I am! And on the same road. So I hoped on the bus when it swung through my village and rode it to the end of the line, her village. And spent two nights. It was really fun to see another village. We even made cookies and egg rolls! She also has three little kittens, one of which I may steal, who could hold my attention for days on end. I ended up hiking back to my village which took about 3 and half hours and was really beautiful. So now I am in town for the weekend to do some banking, relaxing, and shopping. It's a nice treat to be able to stay somewhere with electricity and running water! I think I will conclude here for now and I may try to update again before I head out of town tomorrow afternoon. I miss everyone so much! This place is slowly starting to feel more and more like home, now if I could only understand what everyone is saying to me....oh well, as long as I keep up my sense of humor I think I will be okay! Talk to you all soon! Also, thank you so much to everyone who has sent me mail. I really cant express how wonderful it is to receive mail here and I feel so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family. I really could not do this without all of your support and please know that it is your encouragement that keeps me motivated! Miss you guys!