Jambo!

Shea and I in our new Ketange (African fabric made into clothing) + braided hair!

Jambo! (Response: Sijambo!)

Happy Holidays to everyone! I hope that you are all doing well in your respective places. Life has been incredibly busy for me lately, and I apologize for any lack in communication. I wanted to update you all on the major points in my life in Tanzania thus far:

I had a homestay with a wonderful family about four weeks ago. They overfed me, taught me more Kiswahili than I can remember, gave me LOTS of gifts, and showed me incredible hospitality. It was beautiful and their generosity is astounding; so much so that during my second week in country, it was beautiful, but a little overwhelming. For example, I really tested the stamina of the muscles in my neck and the pain-receptors in my head when they insisted that I have my hair braided in the African fashion. I had 35 little tiny braids on my head that took about 6 hours to complete. It was fun, but they didn’t last long and I took them out about a week later. My homestay went so well that my Tanzanian family asked me and the Jesuit who organized the whole thing if I could live with them for the full two years! While I had to decline, I have been able to see them a few times since my stay there, including a delicious Christmas dinner, and a visit to the shops that my Tanzanian mama owns.

Two weeks ago we met up with the Jesuit Volunteer (JV) communities from Dodoma and Moshi for a retreat in Tanga, a city on the northern coast. The retreat center was beautiful and a perfect spot for reflection and solitude in nature. The Indian Ocean has incredible tides that allow you to walk out on the ocean floor for about a half of a mile in the morning without getting even your toes wet, and then to swim in water high above your head on that same path in the afternoon. It was such a beautiful and rejuvenating retreat space.

After the retreat, all nine of us boarded the bus and went back to Dar es Salaam. We celebrated Christmas, explored the city together, and generally introduced our new home to the other JVs during this time. It was wonderful to have the other communities see our home and our schools, and thus have a basis for supporting us throughout our time here. One fun activity that we did was to visit a sort of museum that had life-size replicas of homes from the different tribes in Tanzania. Tanzania has MANY different tribes, and people still highly associate with and take much pride in their tribal ancestry. In rural places, one can still find Masai and other tribal villages existing in ways similar to life one-hundred years ago. In the cities, while all tribal rituals and customs cannot always be practiced, a sense of the culture seems to be cherished and kept by people from each tribe. I sometimes get asked what tribe I come from in the United States. It can be quite an ordeal to explain that I do not come from a tribe in this Tanzanian sense.

After our time in Dar, the nine of us went to Dodoma for a short trip to celebrate New Years and to see the new school that Sean and Laura (two other JVs) will be working at. Dodoma is a beautiful place and I am so excited for the new school and Jesuit Volunteer presence there. The weather is decidedly cooler and drier in Dodoma than here is Dar... and it was a little bit of a luxury to feel cool enough at night to want to use a sheet!

It was crazy to celebrate the holiday season in such heat. Christmas didn’t quite feel like Christmas without some snow, hot chocolate, and a fire in the fire-place (not to mention being without my family for the first time in my 22 years).  However, I was able to celebrate in this climate with a more extended idea of family, while still missing mine terribly! Our JV community exchanged Christmas cards, listened to Christmas music, and brought in the New Year with some games and dancing. We also were able to celebrate this time with our new Tanzanian community that will become like family over the next two years.

I start school on January 10^th! Exactly a week from now I will be standing in front of 3^rd-5^th graders, expected to teach English, science, and religion. I am pretty nervous for this task of exciting little minds to learn, especially at such a young age. However, I am also INCREDIBLY excited! I can’t wait to fall in love with my students, their families, my co-workers, and the larger community. I look forward to getting into a more established routine and diving into what will be my life for the next two years.

A few last thoughts:

PLEASE READ my community-mate’s blog (Shea) if you would like a beautiful and much more creative spin on our lives thus far: www.sheapatrickintanzania.blogspot.com

If you would like to send a package, here are a few tips to ensure that it gets to me: 1) Keep it under 4 pounds, otherwise I will have to pay an arm and a leg for it 2) Try to put it in plastic packaging rather than paper. This will make it less likely for it to “accidentally” be broken-into. 3) When declaring the items in the package, put the lowest possible pricing for each item (think, “garage-sale prices”), again so that the package is less likely to be tampered with.

Life here has been an intense adjustment that I am still gently working through every day. I am starting to be able to do little things on my own, such as walk to the duka (little corner store or colmado for those that have been to the Dominican Republic) and buy food for us to cook for meals, walk to the Jesuit residence for the occasional morning run, and do the general tasks of personal-care and up-keep of the house. I am starting to make friends in the larger Tanzanian community and am making a plan to learn much more Kiswahili (the word for Swahili in Swahili... much like Espanol for Spanish) to help me build relationships. I am becoming more and more excited about this experience as the initial shock and trepidation wears off.

Please keep sending me letters and e-mails! Keep the conversation alive! I LOVE hearing from you all, and I will hopefully be more consistent in responding while stepping into a more structured lifestyle.

Thank you for reading and have a WONDERFUL day! Loving and missing you all.