Scenes from a Village

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Dear Blog Readers, Again thank you for your generosity with the school library project. Some books have started arriving and it is so exciting. More are coming so we hear! But, back to our village which is probably very typical of many villages in many locations in many countries. Each morning as the new day begins, according to the resident rooster, we hear the sounds of daily activity. Families brush their teeth outside while talking to neighbors or workers. Yesterday's bright sun has given way to an overcast sky with the look of rain. The newly planted green crops tomatoes, peppers, lettuce are beginning to fill in the brown patches of tilled soil where the potatoes were last month. Birds are doing their spring thing and we already have 2 mocking chat nests....one in the outdoor kitchen and one under the front eve. We also have a collection of two of last year's nests blown out f the trees when the tenants moved.
So much lively conversation is heard as greetings are passed on and the uniformed students follow the path to education. School will be out soon as Dec. is a holiday time and the new school year begins in Jan. Parents are pressed to find secondary school tuition $20,000Tsh or $20USA at a government school for the year plus uniforms, paper, pens, and food $. The bellowing cows are finally let out of their stall so they can trim the grass that has sprung up and, in doing so, provide the perfect fuel efficient engine. As the kanga clad Mamas walk to the shambas, jimbe on head, they are usually carrying small children in another kanga carrier on their backs. They work the crops, children sit contentedly and play with a stick or can. If a child tires he or she just naps on a kanga or grassy spot and Mama will cover them with still another kanga. Here the children are lucky to be well fed, happy, loved, and cared for by many significant people in their lives. All have very short hair and you cant tell a mwulana from a msichana, except the latter is wearing a dress or a kanga tied around her neck. And, even the children work hard hauling water, carrying wood atop their heads or pulling weeds out of irrigation ditches before the long rains come. That ditch vegetation is used to cover the bags of carrots shipped to market...cooling efficient, but without refrigeration and processing, the crops only provide for Tanzania.
We have definitely slowed down and are enjoying the more relaxed pace that we find here. We are gearing up for International AIDS Day on December 1 and we even found red balloons. We have lots of material to distribute and hopefully questions to answer. We wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving with family and friends. We have invited our local Peace Corps family of 6 to join us for chicken and whatever we can put together...but we will be together. We miss you all. love, Dave and Wendy

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