Nasema Kiswahili kidogo!

I apologize that it's been so long since my last post; things have been very busy here. I get up at 5am every morning and don't get back home from the school until 6pm, and I have to be back in bed by 9 or 10pm or I'm a zombie the next day. It's difficult getting used to the schedule because I have never been good at going to bed early (my parents are probably nodding vigorously right now).

Because I've settled into a routine here, though, it means that I have fewer big stories to tell, but more to say about daily life. I learn a little more every day, and fall more in love with the country and the people with the more time that goes by. I won't lie, last week was very difficult as far as adjusting goes. I found myself often thinking that 6 months was going to be a very long time.

But it is getting better daily- I know when I leave here in July it will be a difficult goodbye. I am becoming close to the other teachers at the school (in particular Joyce, Dorcas, and the athletics teacher whose name is too complicated to remember yet) and Mr. and Mrs. Kawishe (who have done wonderfully in making me feel welcome and at home) and Jackson (it's a little like living with Eli again) and Dada (she is remarkably quick at picking up English- when I came here she didn't speak a word at all, but now she is forming small sentences!).

Jacqueline came home this weekend and she and I and Jackson went to the Mlimani City Mall to get groceries. It was a bit like grocery shopping at Big Lots or Roses, but that was welcome in comparison to having to fight with the salesperson for everything. I even found a box of Oreos! It wasn't hard, I just had to follow the choir of angels and gold light shooting out of the "biscuits" section.

We went to a bookstore in the mall as well. The selection of leisure reads (in English, anyways) was very limited, but I bought a colossal English/Swahili dictionary, "The Green Hills of Africa" by Ernest Hemingway, and a book by Nora Roberts called "The Reef" that looked promising but turned out to be a disappointingly soppy romance novel. The shopping experience took me home for a little while, and I really enjoyed feeling like I was back in a first world country again, until the power went out and we had to hastily finish our shopping in the dark. Jackie told me that it is very dangerous to shop when the power goes out, because the security cameras aren't functioning and anyone can steal anything from anyone.

It rained for about five minutes today, bringing the cumulative rainfall time to about thirty minutes since I've been here. Today was different though somehow; the rainy season is only a few weeks away, and it shows in the clouds. I had been out on the fields at school after classes ended, where the athletics teacher and a group of students were teaching me how to play Netball (like basketball combined with ultimate frisbee). We looked up and there were dark, angry clouds forming just to the east, right over the ocean. The wind was starting to blow a little cooler, and in all honesty the effect was quite pleasant, with softer light and a nice breeze. However, when we boarded the buses a little while later, it was plain that these clouds meant business.

All along the route home, the clouds followed the main city street, Bagamoyo Road. Dar Es Salaam was gripped with a sort of daring haste; the same feeling I imagine one would get on a courageous battlefield when the bigger, badder enemy was on its way. People were hurrying to get their work done, walking quickly along the sides of the road. The Maasai shepherds had their flocks in full retreat, pushing their goats (Mbuzi) and cows (Ng'ombe) along at a good trot towards the groves of trees in the outskirts of the city. It had started a good steady shower by the time I was let out at my stop, but by the time I got back to the Kawishes, less than a quarter-mile away, it had slowed to little more than a drizzle. I hear that when the rains start coming regularly in a few weeks, some of the roads to the school will get too bad to drive on, in which case we will have 'Flood Days'. Takes me back to my sophomore year in high school, when Asheville was under 5 feet of water and I had to postpone getting my braces off for two disgustingly long weeks.

Everything else is going; it is hard to say everything is going well because I really do feel like I live here now, and as with anywhere, there are positives and negatives to living in a specific place for any length of time. I am thoroughly enjoying teaching- I can communicate with the kids so much better than I can communicate with adults, for some reason. Perhaps it's my considerably terrible sense of humor, or maybe I just relate to the kids better because I am also antsy and get bored easily.

Additionally, I love being able to put things into good metaphors for the kids. Today one of the teachers sprung a class on me, asking if I could fill in for him as a "guest speaker". As it turned out, the subject was HIV/AIDS, something I know next to nothing about (they don't teach much about it in American schools, because it isn't as much of a problem there as it is here) and I had a sneaking suspicion that he simply felt too awkward having to explain about safe sex to a bunch of fourth graders, and that I was a delightfully eager new teacher who would be happy to fill in on a class. He gave me the science book, which did have everything I needed to know to teach the subject, and when I asked when the class started, he looked at his watch and said "I think about five minutes from now," and walked away.

So there I was, half an hour later, comparing the immune system to a human's personal little military. I described a virus as an invading army, and related antibodies and the immune system, saying that if a virus is using a new weapon, like a gun, then the body might sustain a few losses before it realizes that it can protect itself against the new virus, using something like a bulletproof vest. I was pretty impressed with myself until I realized that they were fourth graders and couldn't understand a word that was coming out of my mouth, and I resorted to writing definitions on the board and asking them questions to make sure they understood what I was teaching them. They seemed to have picked up on it rather well, although I thought my clever metaphor might have been better received in an older class.

I have been learning Swahili quite quickly, though, to the delight of everyone here. The hardest part is remembering words and names, because they all sound so similar. It's a bit like going to a party and having to remember the names of everyone there all at once, but all the names are fourteen syllables long and start with K.

Fun tidbits of information:

- I saw a snake charmer on the street the other day. I was delighted to know that snake charmers are real and not something Disney created to make Aladdin more exciting.

- I heard a song on the radio today in Hadza language, the infamous 'click' language. I almost wanted to laugh because it sounded so bizarre, and I could see the looks on some of my friends faces if I started singing lyrics in Hadza.

- The Kawishes got a dog today, to use for security purposes. She is a 3-month-old German Shepherd/Rottweiler mix and is very cute and sweet. Mama Kawishe wants me to name her- I like the name Kenna but I think maybe a good generic American name would break the pattern around here nicely.

- I know I'm not supposed to have favorites as a teacher, but since he's really part of the nursery program and not one of my students, I think this doesn't really count. A little boy named Elias has become my absolute favorite child here; he's only about 4 years old, but he is the cutest little kid ever. He has this great big smile and the only word he'll ever speak to me is "Yes", no matter what I ask him. He copies everything I do, and we have funny face contests on the ride home. I'll see if I can't post pictures of him soon.

- One of the teachers asked about chicken pox, and I told her how some American parents have chicken pox parties for their kids. It may be a few more weeks before they stop making fun of us white folks for doing that. (Joyce imagined a mother riding around with a loudspeaker yelling "Come one, come all!" and inviting everyone to her house to get infected).

Anyway- from here on out, I want to know what you want to know about. There are so many little differences between life here and life at home, and it would be impossible to try and address them all at once. I've enabled comments on this for people who aren't members of Blogger, so everyone will be able to leave a comment and say what you would like to hear about. I'll still leave posts about whatever I feel compelled to write, but with a daily routine newly in place you might find yourself being bored with reading about how sentence structure is taught or how my feet swell up when I wear heels for too long.

Also- here is my address. I know it is expensive to mail things all the way to Tanzania, but letters are better than gold to me, and a few photos wouldn't go amiss either- something for me to post on the wall next to my bed. :)

Emily Clevenger
P.O. Box 40829
Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

Love you Mom and Dad and Eli!! Miss yall so much. Nana and Papaw, I love you and hope to hear from you soon!

Kwa heri na usiku mwema,

Emily