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Peace Corps Training

I just finished week 6 of my 10 week training program here in Morogoro...4 more weeks to go. There are now only 37 "trainees" left in my class (we started with 41). One left after the first day here for personal reasons, another was sent home for medical reasons in week 2, and we just found out yesterday that one of the two married couples in the class went home for personal reasons also. The class of 37 is broken up into CBT(community based training) groups which consist of 3 or 4 trainees and a Tanzanian instructor. Each CBT group is assigned to a secondary school here in Morogoro, but we are somewhat spread out. I'm in an area called Kihonda which is about 4 miles from town. I would guess that the population of Morogoro is about 200,000 but it's hard to say. The "downtown" area is an insanely busy place with hundreds of tiny shops selling everything from fresh produce to cell phones. Cars, trucks, motorcycles, minibuses, bikes, and pedestrians are everywhere. There's also a main outdoor produce market and a few modern buildings which are mostly banks and government offices. The only shopping where I live, in Kihonda, is at little shops called dukas, which are in front of peoples homes. The dukas are about the size of an American magazine stand and usually sell only one type of product, fresh produce, stationary or soaps and household items. Some have signs with interesting claims like,"Fresh Hardware". The nice thing about Kihonda is that it's quiet and peaceful compared to downtown. We hardly ever have cars going down our narrow, dusty dirt roads. To get from Kihonda to town, I usually take a daladala. Daladalas are minibuses that look like they were dropped from a 10 story building, left to rust in a junkyard for a few years and then sent to Tanzania to be used for public transportation. There are only about 12 seats in a daladala, but they usually squeeze in about 25 people. Fortunately, I only need to go into town about once or twice a week.

A typical day of training usually goes something like this. I wake up between 5:30 and 6:00 AM. My alarm is always set for 6:15, but the rooster outside my window is on a different schedule. I take a cold shower every morning (only very rich people have hot water in their homes). I've gotten used to the cold water and find it wakes me up better than drinking coffee. After putting up my mosquito net, making my bed and getting dressed, I eat my usual breakfast of bread and butter, tea, and maybe a banana. After breakfast, my host sister, Sama, and I polish our shoes to remove the red dust (or dirt) that collects on them every day. At about 7:00AM I leave the house and walk to school. It's only a 5 minute walk, but I always stop to chat with my neighbors and some of the young kids in their school uniforms on their way to school. Sometimes the neighbors who don't know me that well just shout greetings from their windows. Each week they try to stump me with Swahili phrases they think I won't know and they always laugh when I reply correctly.

The school day starts at 7:30 AM with Morning Parade. For Morning Parade the students assemble outside the school for morning prayers (both Christian and Muslim), the National Anthem, speeches from members of each class on topics they're studying and then announcements from teachers. The students have class from 8:00 AM until 2:20 PM with just a 20 minute break from 10:40 until 11:00. There are no other breaks between classes and each class stays in the same classroom all day and the teachers rotate. Anyway, back to my training. Our CBT group usually has Swahili training from 8:00 AM until 10:30. Since there are only 4 of us, we get plenty of practice speaking the language in class. From 10:30 AM until 11:00 AM we have our Chai (tea) break. During Chai break, the school "Babu" (grandfather), who is the janitor, nurse, groundskeeper etc, brings each teacher a big mug of hot, sweet tea. There's also a little stand outside the school where we can buy hot homemade snacks to have with our tea. They're greasy but they taste great and only cost 2 cents each. I'm only earning $23 a week, so I have to watch my spending. After tea we usually have more Swahili training until 1:00 PM. At 1:00 a local "mama" brings us a hot lunch that she's prepared at home. We each pay her $1.00 a day. 4 out of every 5 days lunch consists of rice, beans, spinach and a piece of fruit. The students and Tanzanian teachers don't have a lunch break because they finish at 2:20 PM, but we have classes until 5:00. After lunch we usually walk to another school nearby and join up with 2 other CBT groups (11 total trainees) for classes on the Tanzanian education system, teaching techniques, Tanzanian culture etc. We finish our day at 5:00 PM. Also, in the past 3 weeks I've done actual classroom teaching at my school for 3 days a week. I teach math to 3rd year students which are equivalent to 10th graders back home in the U.S.. I have 51 students in my class and they seem very excited to have an American teacher. They have lots of questions about everything from schools in America to American "professional" wrestling and they were even VERY interested in our presidential election last week.

On Saturdays our whole class of 37 trainees is together for more training on safety/security, health, adapting to Tanzanian culture etc. These classes are usually pretty fun and lots of times involve us putting on skits or singing songs we've made up about our "hard" life here. I'm always home before 7:00 PM because that's when it gets dark. There are no streetlights where I live and it would be very hard to find my house without a flashlight. I usually study a little before dinner and then we eat around 7:30 PM. 5 out of 7 nights dinner consists of rice, beans, spinach and fruit for dessert...usually bananas or oranges, but sometimes mangoes, passion fruit, papaya or watermelon. After dinner I study for an hour or so and then go to bed around 9:30.

Also, as part of our training to learn more about Tanzania, the Peace Corps took our whole class on a two day trip to Mikumi National Park. Mikumi is the 4th largest game reserve in the country and it's less than 100 miles from Morogoro where we are living. Even before we got to the main gate of the park we saw zebras and giraffe grazing right near the road we were on. Inside the park we also saw hippos, buffalo, elephants, impala, crocodiles, wildebeest and a leopard. Unfortunately, we didn't see any lions. It's so amazing to know that all those wild animals are living such a short distance away from my home. It was a really great trip.

Sunday is always a day off from training. On Sundays I usually get my laundry done first thing in the morning so it has time to line dry. I wash my clothes by hand, behind the house, using several big buckets of water and powdered soap (bar soap for the touch spots). My hands are wrinkled and sore by the time I finish, but the clothes come out very clean. After laundry, I usually go to the internet cafe to catch up on my emails. I also try to exercise on Sundays either by going for a run in my village, or a hike in the nearby mountains with friends from my class. On Sunday evenings, my host mother gives me lessons on how to cook local dishes using charcoal so that when I get to my permanent site I won't starve. These cooking lessons are a part of my official training, but I'm hoping I'll be able to hire a cook at my site.

The training so far has been challenging but fun. We had our Swahili midterm last week which consisted of a 2 and a half hour written exam and a 30 minute oral interview conducted entirely in Swahili. I did fine on both. The Peace Corps has everything very well organized and I'm definitely starting to feel ready to go to my post and be on my own. If all continues to go well, my classmates and I will be sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers on December 2nd.

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