The big news since my last post would be my selection to be a volunteer facilitator in the training of the new education class. It’s always nice to come full circle and be part of passing the torch on to the next group. I got to do it in college being a TA for the introductory meteorology course and now I get to do it again for a few days with the new volunteers. I think the training is a both necessary and important introduction to being a volunteer. It slows the culture shock down somewhat since it’s a shared experience with other Americans, allowing you the opportunity to learn about the cultural differences comfortably together. In addition to easing into the culture it offers time to prepare for your daily activities once you get to site. It’s already enough of a challenge to teach here when the your approach is fundamentally different than those you’re working with, so doing so without going through a bit of training would be nearly impossible. Anyway, I was chosen to assist the staff in the training and I’m thoroughly looking forward to it!

The garden project is continuing slowly. We dug our first few beds and planted them early on. However, a somewhat expected lack of organization has left this part untended and it is looking a little tired. However, after a week, the students chose to expand with their own efforts and raised a little money for seeds to create a second plot that is, for now, still bare. We’ll see how the space does as the next week or so continues and plants should start to grow in. Finally, the headmaster has committed the school to funding the purchase of seeds for growing cabbage. In the next few days, we’re hoping to set up a space to start our seeds and have them germinate and grow for a few weeks. After they are stronger, we’ll transplant them into the larger garden alongside the lettuce, carrots, and local spinach that we have already started.

On a different note, in the coming weeks Tanzania’s power supply is be severely impaired when one of the power plants goes offline for repairs. From what I have gathered, for about 8 days starting mid-week this week the power will be out from 8am until 11pm at night. I think power is one of the biggest things I take for granted in the United States. To some degree, I think the expectation for the power to be on at all times is justified in that we’ve built a system that can capably support the demand and we as consumers pay for each bit of electricity we receive. I suppose there are places where we don’t bear the full cost of the service but in general we get what we pay for. Here, simply getting on the grid can be a significant challenge and once you are, the reward is often too much demand for the supply available. It’s an interesting difference in perspective and a good example of how we adjust to what’s available. When you first arrive in country, power outages often endlessly annoy where as by the end, you have a system and power outages can be some of your most productive hours. Let’s hope that holds true this next week.

In non-Tanzanian news, I’ve been tracking the release of a study done by the Brookings Institution in D.C. It’s been ranking bus systems across the United States on their ability to serve transit dependents and especially if they can get them to their jobs. Somewhat shockingly, Wichita ranks in the upper half of the nation’s largest 100 metro areas by these metrics but I feel like anyone in the city would generally agree that our system is severely lacking. The Wichita Eagle is running a story this morning about the city hiring an advisor to identify citizens’ feelings on the issue and as gas soars towards $4 a gallon, I think an improved public transportation system is going to have significant support. I thought the end of the article had an interesting twist in that it brought forward the idea of a referendum for dedicated funding of the system and capital expansion. If that route should be taken, I think it’s important for the city to identify an endgame. Not just ask do you want to raise taxes for a better bus system, but do you want to raise taxes for THIS better bus system. Those of you who know me well know my passion for transportation and have seen its products, including my own ideas for an overhaul of the city’s transportation system. And while I have opinions on what improvements should be implemented, I would definitely support such an effort. I’m interested to hear what other Wichitans think and I’ll definitely be keeping tabs on the story.

Getting up to cruising altitude...

It’s always a challenge to get myself to sit down for 30 minutes and hash out a blog post. I don’t really know why, since there’s not a whole lot of news to write and a few words are valid posts, but I can never seem to consistently do it. It makes me impressed to think about all the blogs I read on a regular basis where someone sits down to write meaningful work every few days, often with little to no monetary benefit but just to talk through ideas.

Anyway, here in Tanzania, things are starting to accelerate. I’ve begun work with a group of students to build and maintain a garden on the school grounds. We started small, digging about 4 beds and planting seeds for various leafy greens (although we’ll see if we had any success with the chickens picking at it for a week). We ran into a problem with miscommunication between myself and the headmaster in terms of what the goals of the group are, as he was disappointed with the size we started with. I wanted the students to show an ability to care for the food but it seems expansion is the priority at this point. When peace corps trains us in gardening methods, they obviously want us to pass those on to the Tanzanian people to spread awareness. However, it’s a battle for every volunteer to try and get the locals to listen to them when teaching because they will never see us as people who know how to farm. We don’t help the image by using the tools efficiently but still it’s frustrating when you have something you want to teach but no one who respects you on the subject enough to listen. I have a couple students beginning to show interest in the concepts so I think maybe I’ll teach a lesson or two on the side and make that a smaller part of the project as a whole. So from here on, I’m hoping to create a system that can be maintained through the constant turn-over that occurs from the school having students run the program. I think seeing something that functions through several leaders would be a big success, especially in this environment.

In other news, the fundraising is officially a go for the health weekends with the local teachers colleges. We had a gap in preparation due to my site mate returning to the states and the other volunteer we are working with needing to take some time off for a few weeks. However, we’re back in the planning stages and while I’m taking a more passive role with these conferences, it’s still exciting to see necessary education done on such a scale.

As for the girls’ empowerment conference, we’re approaching that time where we’re still far enough away to see it as the distant future but close enough to realize work should be started asap. I’m working with at least two other volunteers on putting together a nutrition education program for the girls. We’re finding we have little time to include it in the regular class schedule, so we’re doing our best to design some sort of entertainment teaching on the subject. Other than that, preparations like selecting girls and getting permission slips signed are time consuming necessities that always seem way harder to do that they should be.

I got asked in class today how I felt about the death of Osama Bin Laden. Given that it has been 10 years since 9/11 the response to it emotionally is lacking a bit. I certainly don’t feel like a New Yorker would feel but it’s not like it is lost on me what a horrific day that was. I’ve stood on those grounds before and after the attacks and one of my most unexpected virulent reactions was driving over a bridge in the city, on our way home after visiting Hannah at Wood’s Hole, and realizing that the towers really were gone. However, it was easy to give a sort of politically correct answer and shift the subject. I asked the student how he felt about it, given that before 9/11 Al Qaeda attacked Tanzanians in the American Embassy in Dar es Salaam. Yes it was an attack on the US and even on US soil technically, but the reality is, the attack killed Tanzanians. It was actually a good reminder of just how universal his hatred was for people unlike him. I think the student would have loved to ask more questions but we ran out of class time but it was still an interesting exchange, despite the fact that I’m certain the student was looking for some sort of jubilant response from me.