bado nipo nipo kwanza

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so that is a popular song lyric from a bongo flava song. basically about a boy saying that hes not married yet. hes just here hanging out still. and that is true with me. i am still in tz hanging out for a bit.

the market is not yet finished. i had our safety and security officer come out and visit my site. and she saw the market not being finished and my impeding departure as not ok. so i called and talked with our acting country director. and he seems like a nice guy. and we talked about it. and it was highly recommended that i see this through to the finish. because when volunteers leave it is almost guaranteed that a project wont finish. and that being allowed to go to the world cup implied that i had finished all of my projects.

i didnt really agree with him on the first point. all the people that are involved in this market project are people that i have known and trusted for the past couple of years. if i cant trust them then what am i doing? and they were working on the market, albeit slowly so there were never really any problems. but i agreed to fulfill my part of the bargain and stayed back. saying bye to harry potter land and to sushi for the next month.

surprisingly it wasnt that hard to do. i had already started packing up my belongings. sold my bed. taking my shelves out. said good bye to the students at the secondary school. and the teachers. who gave me a gift. and i had to give a speech. where i surprised even myself and i cried. so this extra month was really a reprieve. so thats nice. for the time being.

also getting ruka a carrier to take him home has been one of the most difficult things i have had to do in this country. speaking with a klm official has been second. so this extra time insures that this lucky dog will be enroute to america with me whenever i decide to leave. and that makes my heart happy.

lastly i was naive. or really just people didnt find it necessary to inform me of difficulties involved in building the market. i had been told prior to leaving for the world cup that when i got back we would have a party celebrating the opening of the market and my departure. that didnt happen. i just thought they were behind schedule. but water has been a problem. our water source-one of the pipes broke-so people were getting water from natural sources. and thats hard enough work just to fulfill the needs of the family. but bringing it to the market was near impossible. so work stopped. our fundi/constructors wife also had an ectopic pregnancy so he was gone and building stopped. also paying the fundi is the responsibility of the village and i guess collecting money hasnt been easy. he is supposed to get 600,000 shillings. he has gotten 150,000 so far. i hope he doesnt threaten to stop working. lastly and most importantly cement.

origininally when i had written my grant i wrote the budget for 200 bags. this got cut in half when i sent it to the office in dar. but it turns out we actually do need a 40 additional bags. which is about $500. thats not easy money to come up with. i asked my chairman where we were going to get it. he said we would go to the district. if that was my answer i knew i would be sitting here for another 2 years before we got assistance from there. so i looked at the current climate. it is election season in tz. elections will be held in october. currently everyone is campaigning. and basically throwing money at their constitutencies to be reelected. so lets go to the member of parliament.

lucky us when we met the mp of singida town back in april. still keep in touch with him occasionally. and he said he would help out. and put me in touch with my member of parliament. nyalandu. so thats great. problems are solved. relatively easily too. wonderful. and i know they will follow through.

i am glad i will not be here in october for elections. it is already getting ridiculous. after i had gotten back from the world cup a few nights later some people were taken from the village. i went to go see my chairman in the morning and his wife was in a panic. he had been picked up by the police secretly in the middle of the night with 7 other people and put inside. i guess they are tightening election laws and you arent allowed to campaign unless all candidates are together. and no bribes. so i guess somebody phoned in to the police about this meeting and corruption was suspected. when it was realized the next day that nobody had money on themselves, they were released. after one teacher was beaten to a pulp bc the guards had been drunk.

or how i heard my mp had come to the village a week prior to my return. and he came and handed money out to different groups. and then was handing out 500 shillings (less than .50 cents) to villagers and people were being trampled as a result.

or how the mp of singida town finally has an opponent this year. a lady i was excited to hear about. until i heard she drove her car into the incumbent. what is going on? ridiculous.

i guess thats all i really have to write about right now. the world cup was great. saw the germany-uruguay game. was thrilled that espana took home the trophy. will be purchasing a david villa jersey when i get home. and will be a regular at galaxy games. wow. so much changes in two years.

anyways at the rate im at or rather the rate my village is at, i will probably be finishing in about a month. so the new date is september. woo. wooooooo.

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Comments

[Yumi]

We will miss you
I'm so sad you're not going to HP and Disney with us. But rest assured we will go in the future. I will see you in a month. P.S. I ordered a Furia Roja Campeones del Mundo, we'll go to Galaxy games together or a Real Madrid game (all about Casillas). :)

[robbie]

again, so inspiring krissy :)) thank you for all your hard work making this community a better place! you are such a blessing to the local people...it's incredible hearing about the market!! i can't wait to see it finished and hear (or read) about more stories on that! :) that's awesome you got to go to the world cup too!! :) enjoy your time there! have fun till september :)))