I've arrived

So, I ran away to Tanzania!
I will be here for three months, working for the a charity called Edu-Care, and the Tengeru Cultural Initiative. I'll blog more about the program once I've started working.

I am living in the village of Tengeru, which is about 10km from Arusha town proper (the capital of the Arusha region). Tengeru doesn't look like what you or I would normally consider a village, because it (like almost everywhere in Tanzania) was never planned. There aren't even actual addresses — just bendy roads with little shops and gated yards or patches of grass with goats grazing. It's incredibly lush, with trees and flowers everywhere, including banana trees (which are a major cash crop in this region, along with maize and coffee).

Our volunteer house is owned by Lema, a really nice man with infinite patience who knows all about the history, politics, and culture of Tanzania and Arusha in particular. Zai lives with us as well, and does most of the cooking and cleaning, though Lema has promised me that I'll know how to cook all the delicious Tanzanian food we're eating by the time I come home. Zai doesn't speak English, but she's trying to learn. Just this afternoon, she and I sat at the table and read the Swahili-English dictionary section of my Rough Guide to each other. It was hilarious for both of us.

The house itself is very comfortable, and it has a lovely porch and is surrounded by beautiful trees and shrubs (which hide the garden walls). There's a mango tree in the backyard, and butterflies seem to love the bushes. All day we can hear children playing, birds singing, cows mooing, and roosters making their unholy racket. I'm in love with it.

The "us" of which I keep speaking is me and Alex, the only other volunteer. He's from Waterloo, and he just graduated this fall from Laurier. We share the same birthday, and he was Arts editor then EIC of the Cord. We've been to the same conferences (and own the same tshirt), yet somehow had no facebook friends in common. We also share the same birthday, though a year apart, which we'll be celebrating here in TZ. Also, he's a huge Joel Plaskett fan. I think we'll get along juuuust fine.

More stories (and photos) to come! Love you all,
Robin