The neglected story of coming to site

I received a request to tell the tale of my arriving at site recently, so here is that story. I apologize if I have forgotten a few details you were interested in.

The day before heading to site is swearing in. For our event, we had a ceremony on the lawn at the US Ambassador’s residence in Dar es Salaam. It was a motivating ceremony as we were all gathered together to commit ourselves to service for 2 years and everyone is excited to see where they’re going. After the ceremony, which was on the day before Thanksgiving, we went to our Country Director’s house for a thanksgiving meal. At some point that evening, I think it dawned on us that we were not going to see the majority of our group members for a long time. We knew who are site mates are, so we know who we were going to be on the bus with. But the realization that it could be over a year before seeing friends you was kind of a difficult one. Not only because you’ve developed relationships but because you rely on them to help you deal with the challenges of living in another culture and it’s scary to see that support leg headed out the door.

The bus tickets were purchased so that we would sit next to our school’s representative, but given that we had met with these people just one time, it didn’t take us long to formulate a plan to sit together as volunteers. In retrospect, this seems kind of childish but at the time it seemed like a dramatic improvement on our situation. It’s funny how when you’re a kid you assume all those nerves and concerns go away as you grow. To some degree they do, but the reality is, put yourself in a challenging situation and you find they haven’t disappeared at all, they’re just lying dormant. Anyway, we ended up sitting as we were assigned and nothing went wrong...surprise!

When we started the day, we knew it was going to be a long drive…we just didn’t realize it was going to be THAT long. I still complain about the bus ride but the reality is that I can do it without much trouble now. I remember only a couple parts of the actual ride. I spent the entirety of my training in the northern half of the country, only leaving the Dar-Morogoro corridor twice; once on shadow to Kondoa and once on our trip to Mikumi National Park. Entering the southern highlands is rather impressive. You pass through the Mikumi area and then head up a big hill. From there on things get very hilly and you begin to careen along the side of ever increasing hills that become mountains with a massive river below you. Traveling at full speed and passing these massive buses is quite scary and it really doesn’t end, save one 15ish kilometer stretch of flat, until you’re just outside of Iringa. It was my first realization that there was something more to Tanzania than the semi-arid grassland in the middle of the country and the coastal plains of Dar. How little I knew!

I remember being disappointed I slept passed Iringa. I truly enjoy traveling through cities. I don’t know for sure why but I have always liked to see each place pass by instead of sitting on the same rural-looking highway passing around it. Knowing Iringa as I do now, you don’t go into the city so I hadn’t really missed much. Shortly after Iringa we hit a dog in the middle of the road. Considering the pack of dogs that had been there moments before, it was a surprisingly low mortality rate.

Nothing much of significance passed after that until coming into the Mbeya area. Given that I have a really good sense of direction and map memory, I didn’t fall into the trap of thinking I’d almost made it to Tukuyu but it was dusk and it served as a unfortunate reminder that I still had further to go. Just outside of the “suburb” (it’s really just all one massive conglomeration of urban poverty, just different names for different parts) of Uyole, the road climbs a mountain to get into our valley. I remember watching the headlights of the bus against the curves as we went down and around all these hills because by this time I couldn’t see anything else.

When we finally arrived in Tukuyu, I got off to a well-lit and relatively active bus stand and only did what I was told. Collect all my stuff, and put it into a cab. We were trained all of training that we have to be in charge of all our stuff or it will probably get stolen. In Ubungo, that may be true, but away from the biggest cities con artists and thieves are much harder to find. However, not knowing that at the time made me quite nervous. After we got everything into the cab, probably a 5-10 minute affair, we loaded ourselves and rode the perhaps 1-1.5 minute ride to my house. I think at the time it was probably the best approach given how much stuff I had, but that is the only time I have ever taken a cab for that trip.

My second master, who had accompanied me from Dar, brought me to the house and helped me get settled inside. It was a large space, considering at no point in my life had “my space” consisted of anything more than a bedroom. So naturally, I put my stuff in my bedroom and headed to the headmaster’s house for dinner. He was out of town for the night and I had only Mama and the kids to eat with. After dinner, I found my way home and went to sleep.

The next morning, I spent about 3 hours setting up some of my house, specifically my bedroom, finding what was in the room that had been locked and generally rearranging until I felt like it was a least slightly my house. About the time I was ready to relax, I got a call from Theo, who realized he had no food or things to do in his house. He found his way into town, an hour and a half long affair, and we started to figure out what was where. We found lunch at a restaurant that has since become one of our mainstays and began shopping for both food and home items in the market.

Of course, we didn’t get everything in those first few days and the process of outfitting a home continued for several weeks. Now however, everything seems to have happened right away but it was a process that took time and planning. My house is very much mine now, even though wall decorations are scant, and those that exist are not mine. I’ve adjusted the arrangement of things several times but that’s part of who I am. It’s all a matter of perspective of course, but now the process of arriving seems like a small step in the process, but it absolutely was a massive shock to my self-comfort as I had never been so alone before. Actually, I doubt I’ll ever face such a substantial challenge alone again….Interesting. :)