So I'm at site finally (a school called Sekondari ya Sadani or Sadani Secondary School) and it's lovely so far. My village is a little outside of Mafinga (and by that I mean an hours harrowing charge down a dirt road on a rickety bus) and it's charming. The list of things you can and cannot buy in my village is a little surprising. Fruit is rarity, pombe (the local beer that they brew from bananas) is a ubiquity, but salt, sugar, tea and flip-flop shoes you can almost always find in the tiny little shops that are scattered down the main road.
My house is enormous (two bedrooms and a private courtyard) but has no electricity and until the rainy season I have to carry water up from the river which is kind of a hike. I never make it up the hill with a bucket of water though...someone always comes to help me carry it part of the way. I am trying to learn to carry water on my head with no hands (for now because it's much easier and maybe the local women will stop laughing at me and for when I return to the United States because it will be an excellent party trick).
My other enormous comedy success (the struggling-to-carry-water routine is a smash hit that could basically debut in Madison Square Garden as far as the Tanzanian villagers are concerned) is the fact that I'm scared of rats and bugs. Everyday in Tanzania is a new opportunity to ask myself the question "is that the scariest bug I've ever seen?" and the answer is always "yes... until tomorrow." Yesterday I saw the biggest cockroach of my life outside the staff office during chai break. When I pointed it out to the other teachers and ran away the biology teacher picked it up and started showing me that it had all the characteristics of an insect, which was totally just an excuse to get it close enough to me so I would squirm away and the other teachers could laugh at me more...wherever my brother was at the time I'm sure he was smiling.
Since I'm teaching A-level physics(advanced level is sort of between an AP level high school physics class and the first year of a bachelor's degree: no calculus involved but some fairly advanced applications) I've already taught some classes. The students are all men, all my age or older and they all wear uniforms. They are intimidating and their English is good but not great.
I was lying to you by the way when I said I would be teaching in Kiswahili: all classes in Tanzania past primary school (when the kids are about 12) are taught in the official language of the country, English. That does not necessarily mean that the kids speak English...at least not English as you would recognize it. Here we call it "special English" and when you try to explain something like the Young's Modulus or Stress-Strain curves in it things rapidly tend towards the utterly ridiculous.
What else do you want to know about site? I love it. I'm safe. I'm happy. I'm eating a lot of rice and ugali.
