A Busy Two Weeks!

Hello again from good old Babati! Everytime we come back from the village Babati seems bigger. Even the paved road is a shock to my system. Funny that just a few weeks ago I was saying Babati is a pretty small town. Since Qash has no electricity, running water, or nice amenities like mirrors anywhere, coming here feels like I'm in NYC.

So we've had a busy busy couple of weeks up in Qash! We had our first testing date this Wednesday, and we got 166 people tested. We are also working together with surrounding villages, and many have been tested there too. We have two more testing dates in Qash itself (one is actually on the border with another village and 2 teams are working together), and 2 "Community Days" where all of Qash ward will come to the biggest city for a football tournament ("soccer"), and performances, and testing. So we are still busy, with advertising and teaching and training our peer educators.

We've had a lot of trouble dealing with our secondary school teachers, who sometimes just send the class to another school, or have all the girls in the school take pregnancy tests, or schedule other things while we're supposed to be teaching or planning with our peer educator group. They just don't think to tell us sometimes, and we've had to do a lot of last-minute plan changes. Also our peer educator group is inconsistent with attendance, so we are trying to restrategize with that. Meanwhile we've only got two weeks left in Qash!

A note on my trip from the village to Babati: we took a "dola-dola", which is like a minivan where they squeeze 20 people inside (literally), and it's really cheap but it gets you where you need to go. We had two flat tires on the way, and there was a goat sitting under my seat headbuttiing my friend Abraham (a teaching partner) the whole way. At least its legs were tied up!

Tomorrow is Halloween and us Americans are showing the teaching partners how it's done! They don't even understand the concept of wearing a costume, so it should be interesting. We go back to the villages on Sunday afternoon, and so we get to party it up right now :)

BIG congrats to my sister Sarah on her engagement! So happy for her and Jon!

Loaded with Qash!

I have so much to say in this post, I will probably have to extend my time at the internet cafe. Let me try to start from the beginning:

I found out on the last day of Orientation that I was assigned to Qash village (we are all in Qash ward, but in 5 different villages). My team is made up of 3 American women and 2 Tanzanian men. The women are also all USC Trojans, so we are fighting on against HIV. I live with Ilana, who I have mentioned before since she met up with me in Amsterdam, and Jen, who also graduated this year and is awesome. A 45 minute walk into town takes us to Joseph and Gerald, our Tanzanian teaching partners. I can't say enough about what good teachers they are, how much fun we're having, or all that we have already accomplished. I guess I'll start by describing life in Qash.

If you ever want to know how it feels to be a celebrity, try moving to a rural village in East Africa. Kids (watoto) follow us everywhere we go, and usually just stare at us. I have lost count of the marriage proposals I've received from perfect strangers. Groups of teenage girls call my name and then just giggle when I turn around. It's hilarious.

An unfortunate coincidence involves my name. The Swahili language has much fewer vowel sounds than English, and the first vowel in my name confuses people here. Their "a" vowel is our "ah", and their "e" vowel is our "ay". So most people hearing me say "Becca", will either repeat, "Bahka" or "Bayka". At first I just laughed this off, because I don't really mind the mispronunciation. Until I learned that "baka" means "rape" in Swahili. So my new SIC nickname has become "Rape". In teachings, I make sure to have a teaching partner repeat my name after me so there is no confusion. But I think when I'm on my own here more I might actually introduce myself as Rebecca for the first time in my life. Shocking, I know.

My homestay family is adorable. My Baba (father) is a primary school teacher in the next village. My Mama does work from home as a tailor/seamstress, and is very sweet. Our dadas (sisters) are Alima (age 17), Alima (age 15), and Sham (age 12). Our kakas (brothers) are Hafidho (age 19) and Abudina (age 8). They are pretty strict Muslims, and the women are always covered up, but they are completely accepting and welcoming. Mama Hafidho (the Mama takes the name of her oldest son) is an excellent cook, too, and tries to get us to fill up at every meal. Every night is a struggle to try to communicate because of our language barriers, but we've been keeping vocab lists throughout the day in our notebooks that our siblings all love to read at the end of each day. They laugh at our preschool-level vocabulary, but I think they appreciate that we are trying.

Most importantly, we are making huge progress in our village. The first day we were there we started talking to a group of mamas coming from a funeral and it turned into a huge teaching with 60+ people listening. The second day we went to a football (soccer) match between the Secondary School students and the villagers. After the game we rounded up 125+ people on the field and did another impromptu teaching. We teach in the primary and secondary schools, which takes up all of our weekday mornings, and we are training peer educators in the Secondary School (a privilege unique to our village since people come from all over Qash ward to come to this Secondary school). I have made contacts with the Drama Club and am hoping to work with them over the next month. We also have been teaching this amazing women's drum and dance group, and meeting this group of young men at a pool table outside of our favorite duca (shop) almost every day. The duca owner, Chulo, also gives me Swahili lessons in exchange for English lessons.

Some interesting obstacles to what we're doing:

1. Not one duca in Qash had condoms in stock when we arrived. For the ones that were interested, we provided a free box for them to see if they draw any business in. However, many that were close to mosques said it was bad for business, and others declined without giving a reason. We've done condom demos during a few of our teachings, and most people say they don't know how they work. Our village dildo for demos is malariously large, by the way.

2. Here is the story we keep hearing: The Red Cross came to Qash earlier this year, claiming they would be doing HIV testing. But when people went for the test, they took half a liter of blood, and some people never found out their status. Others heard back 3 weeks later. Now, obviously it sounds like the Red Cross was collecting blood donations, but did a poor job of informing people what it was for and how the collection worked. Nevertheless, people are terrified to get tested now, because they think we might be doing the same thing. It's a myth we really have to fight when talking to people.

3. There is no government right now. This seems pretty ass-backwards to me, but a month before the elections on October 25th the local government just stops to campaign. So in meeting with village leaders trying to pick testing dates and plan community teachings, a lot of them said they hoped they would win so they could work with us. But we want to work NOW, so this is frustrating. But the elections fall two days before our first testing day (Oct 27th), so they will be a good opportunity to talk to people at the polls.

Despite these challenges, I love Qash. The villagers are incredibly welcoming and willing to talk to us, people want to know about what we have to say, and I feel like we've already made progress with our goals.

I have much more to say but I have to go! I was hoping to go on yesterday but there was no electricity in Babati until late last night. Hopefully it will work next time I'm here, on the 31st.

Nina hamasisha kuhusu UKIMWI!

Hello again from Babati! Orientation is coming to a close in 2 days, and we've gotten a lot done. One of my favorite things yesterday was a panel with HIV+ speakers from Babati who also provide care for HIV patients. It helped to remind us of why we're really here.

I have made good friends with the other volunteers and teaching partners, and it's crazy that in two days we'll be split up into different villages (though I'll have 4 or 5 others living in the same village).

Today we picked up the skirts we had made out of kangas and kitanges. This was particularly exciting because they were custom made for us, with fabric we chose, for the equivalent of about $8 per skirt. One of mine is a Barack Obama skirt, with Obama's face on the front, and two maps of Africa, one on each hip. Above his face it says "Hongera Barack Obama", and across the bottom it says something about him bringing peace to the world. I also have one with zebras and one that's a little more fancy with a pretty purple pattern.

Our cook for orientation, Mama Sia, takes very good care of us. She always tries to pile food onto our plates even when we try to pull the plates away. She usually cooks ugali, which is like a thick cream of wheat - like substance, or rice, and there is usually a serving of beans to go along. Vegetables are usually spinach or cabbage. We sometimes have this thick bread called chapati that is like a thick oily tortilla. One night I had chips miai (probably misspelled), which is like a french fry omelette. I am a fan. With all of this food, though, it's good that we are walking a lot too. Not eating meat has not really been a problem. Meat is so expensive here that it is rarely the main course. There are three volunteers who are vegetarians, and we've been told it should be okay with our homestay families.

Walking down the street, kids usually yell "mzungu" at us, as if we were unaware that we are white people. Our Swahili teacher told us to respond with "mafrica", but it feels a little funny to me to yell "black person!" My favorite response is "Eco wapi?" (where?).

One of the teaching partners has fallen ill with malaria, and it is a sobering reminder that we need to be careful. However, our new favorite phrase regarding African humor is "malarious". As in, is that funny? No, it's malarious.

I'm not sure I'll make it back to the internet cafe before I leave Babati, so if I don't have an entry for a little while don't worry, I will on my first weekend trip.