Don't TANZ Me Bro!: H.U.M.I.D.I.T.Y.

MAMBO! Well I haven’t really had a real Swahili lesson yet, but I heard that’s hello.

I made it. I survived, but man alive is it humid here. They don’t have the weather readily available so I’m sure you guys know better than me, but let me tell you it has been a hot and sweaty couple of days.

So right now we are staying in a hostel just outside of Dar Es Salaam, the biggest city in Tanzania. The hostel is run by nuns, so I like to call it The Convent, some people call it the compound, but you can call it whatever you want. Bottom line is we aren’t allowed to leave. So for the next week we are stuck in this place getting fully indoctrinated into the Peace Corps life.
We have guest speakers, going over rules, and of course (on Friday) are more shots. Always a fun thing. We actually had an hour and a half presentaion on diarrhea. Did you know it was actually an illness? I just thought it was a little case of the trots.

Anyways, after this week we head to our home-stay host families. We are headed to the Tanga region which is up north-east, pretty close to the Kenyan border. We will be living with those people for the next 9 weeks. This is where we have our intensive language classes from 8-6, Monday through Saturday. Funn.

Those are all the logistics, as far as life is concerned I am having a great time. Aside from the fact that it is super hot and ridiculously humid, things are cool. The hostel has a toilet and a shower in our rooms. But don’t be fooled, its not the 4 Seasons. When you flush the poop doesn’t always go down (you have to pour water into the toilet to help it on its way) and the shower is freezing cold water through a clogged up shower head.

I think this will be a great way to assimilate us for what is to come. You gotta start with baby steps!

The food here has been nothing but amazing, I am actually loving every bit of it. Lot’s of beans, lots of rice, but also great meat and potatoes as well. Unfortunately at dinner tonight they gave me a little switcharoo. I loaded up my plate with what I thought was steak. I proceeded to take a huge mouthful, turns out it was the gizzard of some animal. Granted, its not the craziest thing to eat in the world, but definately caught me off guard. Lets just say I ate a lot of rice that meal.