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Published: June 24th 2010
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so this is it. ive left my village. well ill be back. which is good. things have been going well. i still have high hopes that the market will be finished by the time i leave. the builder was sick but i think hes fine now. and since the bricks are done thats the most difficult work behind us. so hopefully when i return in a couple of weeks there will be a building standing there. that would be very v cool.
i really cant believe where all the time has gone. everything has just been happening so fast. i guess the biggest deal is that the people from solar aid came out. i think their journey out to the vill was successful. marianne from the london office came out. she just graduated with a product design degree. and she gets to go around to each of the countries with solar aid and do product design testing. not a bad job. so after tanzania she is heading to zambia, malawi, and kenya. claire (a vso volunteer in the office in dar) also came out along with ben. ben is kenyan and was very helpful. tanzanian kiswahili and kenyan swahili differs
an old couple
i like them a lot. a bit but they can still understand one another. they say that tanzanian or more specifically zanzibarian swahili is the cleanest/most pure. but ben was really useful doing the workshop seminar. although i know swahili its not enough technical solar language. so i was basically used for product design testing, troubleshooting, and focus groups.
it was a really fun trip. and i learned a lot about the solar products/solar aid. because i have sold close to 100 micro solar kits they thought it would be beneficial to come out and find entrepreneurs to replace me once i have gone. they figured one or two people would be good but after interviewing they came up with three. and so they went through a two day workshop learning about solar and how to be a successful entrepreneur, etc.
three families were chosen to test three new solar products. that was cool. so each night they received a different one and in the morning marianne and i went around the houses to interview the families and see what they thought. it was pretty cool. and she said that having me in the village was really helpful because they were able to
get more stories out of the answers instead of just yes/no type things. i think they will probably write about this trip on the solar aid website under the blog so check that out for pictures.
thats another thing ive decided. marianne came out to the village with a super safi (nice) camera with a huge lens. and i think ive decided i need one of those in my life. not a bad way to spend peace corps readjustment allowance. anyways the solar aid people were out in the village for 3 nights and 4 days and i feel like we accomplished a lot together and i feel secure in knowing that even once i leave micro kits will still be available in the village.
the world cup has begun. and america is still in it. thats exciting. and ive never really been a big football fan. but it really is exciting when you are in a country where people love it. and everyones excited. there are games everyday and i head over to my vets house and watch them. and everybody is always rooting for the african teams. but they do like the british because of the
premier league. and im just getting really excited because this is tanzania. i will soon be in the thick of it all and that will be crazy...
were headed out tomorrow. it will take a couple days for us to get to mbeya. there korie and i will meet up with our other half (mike and ashley) and we will take a bus into zambia together. and we will do extreme sports! bungee jumping, river rafting, etc. after a few days of that we will be headed to sa. pe. game 63. curious to know who will be at that match. regardless should be a great time.
after that i will come back to tanzania/the village for about a week. then i will be out. a lot of feelings about that. it will be hard to leave. haha. i almost cried saying bye to my favorite mama this time. and im coming back. haha. oh well. im really hoping that the market will be done (like they say it will) by the time i get back. then we will just have a big changa is going away party/lets open the market party. surreal.
anyways i guess thats
all for now. watch out for me on the tv. haha.
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