Im HERE!

MAMBO!


I just wrote an entire post and of course, I go to publish it and it gets deleted. Since I am not going to retype the whole thing, here is the general gist of things:

PLANE RIDE

Long and awkward- the food was terrible but there were touch screens in our seats so we could listen to music, watch tv or movies on demand... it made the 20 hour plane ride a lot easier.


DUBAI

I was only in the air port for about an hour, but it was weird because it was also a mall...? I didn't see the city but it was REALLY hot there, I think hotter than Africa!

AFRICA

BEAUTIFUL! The Indian ocean is barely a ten minute walk from my homebase, and we aren't staying in a town so much as it is a village. We were told we would be staying in a middle class neighborhood, but clearly the US and Tanzania have extremely different ideas of what middle class means! Its safe, so no worries there, but its all dirt roads and severely run down concrete and mud houses with no electricity. Luckily our house does have electricity and is very nice, our rooms even have air conditioning! I have one roomate, her name is Katie, she's from Connecticut and just graduated from Bucknell with an engineering degree. she's really nice. Although there are 47 volunteers, I am mostly sticking with my friends from Monmouth University, so there about 8 of us. We are all having tons of fun, but some of the other girls are extremely homesick because they miss their boyfriends. I don't have this problem. At all.


MY PLACEMENT

I am volunteering at Bagamoyo Living Arts Center, (BLAC for short.) Its a vocational school for women, Mama Pascall, who is my mentor, teaches women from around the area skills like basketweaving, textile making, and different fabric decor to sell for profit to generate their own income. I originally thought I would be working with textiles since I am a fashion merchandising major, but I am actually putting my business knowledge to use by developing a marketing class for this program since they don't have anything of the kind here at all--- and i mean, if women are developing products for income, they need to also learn how to sell them! So during my three weeks here, I will be developing a 24-week sylabus to teach different groups of women marketing and general business skills, so the volunteers after me can continue working with the women in strengthening these areas.


TIME

The interesting thing about Tanzania is that they work on tft, or tanzania flexible time--- so basically doing anything on a schedule is impossible. For instance, I was supposed to be at my placement at 830 this morning- but wasnt picked up until 10! and a lot of the time, when the CCS staff says fifteen minutes, they really mean an hour. It's crazy.


LOCALS

The locals here are extremely friendly, and are always greeting us as we cruise around the village. The children are especially amazing... the first day we were here a little boy ran up to me and latched on to my leg and wouldnt let go! All children here love the volunteers and try to talk to us (which is always fun because of the langauge barrier, although they are actually helping us with swahili so its very entertaining). They also dance and sing around us, its amazing. They are all very sweet, everyone keeps warning me not to bring one home! haha.


INTERNET

My access is generally very limited- the internet cafe here consists of only three working, extremely old, extremely slow computers in a run down shack. Split betwwen 47 volunteers, its not easy to get a lot of time to contact home, which is why I havent been able to blog or even email much. Luckily, my placement, although it is very rundown itself- has wireless internet and a laptop, which I am using now. I dont know how often I will be able to update my blog since I am only generally using it to do research for my marketing strategies, but I will try to stay in contact as much as I can. I won't be able to post any photos until I get home, so I apologize for that, but let me tell you- I have a million already, and they are all really great, So I will be sure to make them available as soon as I get home- I just dont feel comfortable uploading them here.



ACTIVITES

We are taking swahili lessons 3x a week, which is very helpful. CCS sometimes plans things but generally we are on our own- So this weekend, my friends and I are going to a safari, and next we will be at zanzibar. I'm pumped!


WEATHER

Itys hot here, but no where near what I expected. Its a very different kind of heat, less humid, but typically sunny- but of course, and I type this, it just started POURING! I guess thats understandable since this is the last week of monsoon season, ha. But overall the days are hot but the nights can get pretty cool, which is nice.


EVERYTHING ELSE

... will have to wait for another post because I only have one hour left at my placement and I need to get working.



ASANTE for reading!
(OK, i just wanted to practice some swahili. sorry.)