TZ Twins

I’m in Morogoro right now at in-service training (IST), which is kinda like Camp Peace Corps Part 2. After spending the past three and a half months alone in our villages, all 39 members of my training class are back together for training and to share our site experiences. The first day we all drew creative, artistic, or graphical interpretations of our experience over the past six months. I drew a color coded line graph that depicted my happiness, feeling of success, and integration. Apparently I'm a little left brained. The lines were all over the place, and also tended to be pretty aligned with one another--I can't integrate if I'm not happy, I don't feel happy when I don't feel successful, etc.

Some of the more creative volunteers drew pictures. Katie, who spent a lot of time traveling due to medical and administrative issues, drew a map of Tanzania and outlined her emotions on each of her many bus rides. My friend Justin titled his y-axis "craving for taco bell." One girl just balled up her paper and taped it to the wall. And we all knew what she meant by that, because we've all felt that way too at some point or another. It was comforting to realize that we're all going through this crazy experience together.

Last night, our “counterparts,“ people  from our villages that we’ve chosen to be partners and advisors over the next two years, arrived. This next week seems likely to be a sort of “worlds collide” type experience.

The first activity we did was for each PCV to introduce their counterpart and then be introduced by her or him.  It was immediately evident that we have all chosen what can only be described as our Tanzanian clones. Quiet people choose quiet people, class clown types used their introductions as an opportunity for a duet standup act, the academic types tended to choose students or teachers, and a girl I’ve always described as an “old soul” chose an adorable and sprightly 70-year-old man.

I’m no exception. My counterpart, Mama Ashura, was the first woman in the group to talk (in this culture, women are usually pretty quiet in groups when men are present). Like me, she has a tendency to dominate conversations, always has an opinion, and frequently raised her hand when a question was asked, eager to show off that she had an answer and unafraid to give a wrong one. We did a group activity that involved writing on big poster papers and I looked over from my group and saw that she, like me, had taken on the role of scribe. And anyone who’s been in a class with me also knows that I have a nasty habit of chit-chatting to my neighbors during lectures. Mama Ashura was constantly leaning over to whisper things to me, give her opinions, giggle over inside jokes, or ask me for translations when the speaker lapsed into English.

Creepy, right?

During the session today, our counterparts had an opportunity to list some of the myths they have heard in the villages about Peace Corps. Among the highlights (and lowlights) were:
- We are CIA spies (the classic)
- We are photographers intending to take pictures of Tanzanians to either sell in America for large sums of money or to share with our friends back home so we can laugh at how poor people are here (if you laugh at the pictures I post online, unless they are of people being funny, I will be very angry at you)
- Our parents lived in Tanzania many years ago and we have come to retrieve the things they left behind (this weird myth exists in my village, apparently--Mom, Dad, anything you need to tell me?)
- We are here on a bioterror/business venture in which we will spread strange diseases, and later return with an expensive cure (this terrifying rumor was also a Mama Ashura contribution)

Most of today was spent clarifying what Peace Corps is and what it isn’t. For the record, none of that is true.

After this training, I'm heading to Dar Es Salaam (the capital) for a few days to do some administrative stuff, shopping, and most importantly to see the new Harry Potter movie!!! I'm taking a slightly longer route back to my village (the shortest possible route would be 2 days anyway) because apparently the rains have started so once I'm there, I'll be stranded in a muddy mess of roadlessness for a good long time. Hopefully I'll be able to be in touch somewhat, but if I seem to have gone quiet for a few months, that'll be why. (And now I can't get "I bless the rains down in Africa" out of my head. Awesome.)