happy eid mubarak

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so here i am. its been awhile. msc (mid service conference) is over and done with. it was really cool to see what everyone has been up to in their villages and everything. talking about best practices and everything. to be honest this would have probably been a lot more beneficial a few months ago but it was really nice seeing everyone. and taking a break from the village.

a bunch of us stayed at the beach out of dars busy crowded smelly city center. did all the usual things that dar has to offer. lebanese food. movies. indian food. ice cream etc. and the most ridiculous thing was i fasting during all of this. celebrating ramadhan which i didnt really mind at all actually. a good exercise.

msc is also about your medical check ups. so we all had physical kind of things done. and went to the dentist to get cleanings. the dentist told me i need six fillings. i was shocked. ive never had a cavity in my life. and it turns out i still havent had a cavity. but i had certain indentations in my teeth that he was concerned about. i dont know. my peace corps doctor said if my teeth were bothering me we could check into it further but as they seemed fine for the moment we didnt have to worry about it.

and if you noticed my blog says that im currently in south africa instead of tanzania. one of my medical tests came back abnormally so they shipped me off to south africa on holiday. well, in all honesty, tanzania does not have the resources or facilities to check me out. and it so happens that two other people from my training group also had to be sent down here to Pretoria. it is the hub of africa and its hospitals are up-to-date, state-of-the-art. the started open heart surgery here you know. so im waiting for my next appointment on friday. in the meantime ive been meeting volunteers from all over africa-we have zambia, kenya, cameroon, malawi, and i dont know.

its been pretty crazy. ive been here for about a week and have visited three malls. all within walking distance of our guesthouse. there is definite culture shock going on. the guesthouse is located in the suburbs next to the university so thats fun. the jacaranda trees have just started to bloom as well so theres going to be a purple carpet lining the streets soon. the air is completely different. its super dry. i feel like im lotionizing 4x a day and im still dry. before we left our country director in tanzania told us it was like we were going to jersey. and so it is.

theres mcdonalds. cinnabon. kfc. drive-in movie theater. swimming pools. all sorts of ridiculousness. hot showers. baths. curves for women. and anything else you could imagine really. but it is definitely south africa. its been 15 years since apartheid and lets just say things dont change overnight. it is very rare/odd to see inter-racial people even associating with one another. or hang out together. or date. i went out on saturday night with the girls to the university area and was shocked to see that it was 95% white kids hanging out. but if you walked right around the corner there was a 100% black cafe where people were eating dinner/having drinks. and there are 7 or 9 official languages. afrikaans is pretty crazy. and its also supposed to be pretty dangerous here. i mean we havent really seen anything but our country director told us last time she had been down here she was in a car at 730 am and the car in front of her got hi-jacked.

so i dont know. its been weird being here. a few of the people staying here went on safari a couple days ago. that was fun. and a lot more reasonably priced than serengeti. but they didnt see any large cats. and more people went on a tour of soweto/apartheid museum yesterday that was pretty cool. and i think i am going to try to go to the lion park sometime this week before my appointment. where you can play with cubs and feed giraffes and stuff.

but when all is said and done i cannot wait to get back to my village. having gone to midservice training and now here i have been out of the village for about a month already. and i am anxious to get started on my grant for the health center. i received the money into my account right before msc. and the doctor and district leaders are excited to get started. and they dont really know whats going on. my village chairmen spoke with my boss and was told that i was going down to south africa for a business trip. its not allowed for them to say im sick. so hopefully my house is ok and my dog is alive and well. ive heard horror stories of volunteers going home to find their houses pillaged and plundered by their village because they thought they had gone home to america. but i dont think/hope that will be the case with me.

and i missed almost the entirety of Ramadhan with my village. i believe they broke the fast last night with the celebration of eid mubarak. which is too bad. i love ramadhan and futari (the food that breaks the fast). and this was my last ramadhan in the village. unless i extend. which i have been thinking about doing. either in my village for a few months or up to a year. or with an ngo. well see what happens.

anyways i guess thats all for now. hope the next time you here from me it will be back in TZ...

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