Safi Sana! (very clean!)

So I had a whole long blog typed up, but Karibu Tanzania, it's not looking like I'm going to be able to upload it anytime soon. No worries, I'll just give the cliffnotes. Pretty much my experience so far can be summed up with a single story, which goes something like this...

I got a cell phone! Then I dropped it in the pit latrine. Then my Mama decided it was a good idea to build this ten foot long pole-with-a-bowl-attached contraption thing to literally scoop it out. Of the giant underground pool of human shit. I thought that was a brilliant idea at the time. So did the 50 or so kids from the village who all came over to laugh in my face. Word travels fast. We got the phone out. It was gross. I bought a new one anyway.

This was an important cultural lesson. I'm aware that the normal American response to dropping your 30 dollar cell phone into a giant pile of shit ten feet below the ground (not that that's a normal American thing to do, but you know what I mean) is to think, "Well, guess I'm down 30 bucks. Sucks." But for people living on less than a dollar a day, it would be insane to not go to absurd lengths like taking the roof off of the bathroom hut (don't ask, it was necessary) to extract the valuable item.

Besides exemplifying the differing perspectives we have on money, which are pretty obvious, some more subtle cultural lessons were hidden in the drama. I recently learned that there is no Swahili equivilant for the English construction "to have" as in "to possess." In Swahili, you never "have" an item, you say that you happen to "be with" the item. It doesn't get much more collectivist than that. My host family, despite being desperately poor by pretty much any standard, showers me with gifts and delicious meals on a daily basis. They also went out of their way to extract my disgusting piece of unnecessary electronic-ness from their pit latrine. And they did so while smiling and laughing with me.

I have so much more to write but I only have 4 minutes before the internet shuts off! I also want to let everyone know that I have my site information!! After training ends and I'm officially sworn in as a volunteer, I'll be "installed" on August 18th in a very remote village at the base of Mt. Hanang. I couldn't be more pleased with my placement, it is everything I could have hoped for with a cool/dry climate to boot! Send me warm socks and bring your hiking boots if you come to visit!! I'll give more information later, I'm not sure I'm allowed to post the name of the actual village on this blog but if you're interested you can email me.

I'll be posting my new address in a few weeks, but you can send things to the old one and they'll make it to me eventually. Big thanks to everyone who has sent me letters so far. They keep me going.

so much love,
Lauren