Happy Turkey Day

So I'm swearing in on Wednesday and moving to site later this week. I won't be able to post for a while so in short I am doing well and having fun here. I will be starting work soon as I arrive. I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday. Eat some pie for me and enjoy the cool weather.

Plains of the Ngorongoro

So sorry for the delay everyone, internet and electricity has been tricky and coordinating time. First off my assignment: I will be living on the plains below the Ngorongoro Crater (can see views from my school grounds where I will live like roaming elephants and fields of sunflowers) and in walking distance to Lake Manyara (Arusha Region). I will be teaching at a school with 883 students and 5 teachers including me. I will be teaching A-level Chemistry and Biology (first A-level Bio teacher for the Peace Corps TZ) and starting in three weeks (mind you most people get a month to settle in before they start teaching...I get 2 days). My house has four rooms and fruit trees. I've also inherited 2 cats.
Come visit me if you want to see the famous migrations of animals and see where life originated. I will be here and am not far from Mt. Kilimanjaro. Karibu sana. However I will not have electricity, pole sana, so send letters to contact or txt/call.
I'm in shadow week now, caused a slight riot on the bus and am doing science experiments all week.
finished internship teaching last week. I learned a lot and am preparing to start teaching soon. If you want to send me something here are some things I would appreciate:
Good chemistry book
Micro or Biology txt book
Spices
Soaps (shampoo, deordant, ect)
Chocolate chips
good pens

If I don't get to post again before swearing in on the 24th, Happy Thanksgiving and Karibu Sana!

Green Oranges and Lemons

So I've been in TZ for about a week and a half. Currently I'm sitting in an internet cafe listening to I want it That Way by the backstreet boys typing my blog. I apologize in advance if this seems random and out of order but I pay by the half hour so I don't have a lot of time to think it out.
The good stuff you've been waiting to hear. You know how I've 'roughed' it during the past two summers without a/c and tv and even furniture? Well i live better here than i did in my apartments. i arrived at my host family yesterday and have my own room with a bed, indoor choo (toilet) that is western style and flushes! boy i am spolied. i have two sisters that i've met Sabina and Agnes (Agnie) who will leave soon because they are on holiday from school right now. There's a house girl, cousin, and baba wango (my dad's) sister staying in the house at the moment but they will leave.
My kiswahili teacher is Rehema and I have 4 other people in my group (Educare in Kihonda, Morogoro). Before I arrived to Kihonda I stayed in CTT and went to the market the first time and bought a kanga. I still have to have it tailored but use it as a towel/wrap at the moment. It's blue and yellow and says "brotherhood/sisterhood is our treasure" in kiswahili. The market was insanely busy with the women working and men sitting around. the streets were crowded, daladalas whizzing by with pikipiki (motorcyles) on the side walk. the oddest thing was when a westerner said hello to me in english instead of being stared at and called a muzungu (white person).
My baba is a math professor at Dar or somewhere I forget and my mama is a human resource worker of some type. Agnes likes science and is form 5 hoping to be a doctor (surgeon I believe)..she's 18 and on holiday.
Today was also my first day of school at Educare. It was ok. We did class and chai and lunch and then took a safari around the town. Hence how I found out I live around the corner from the internet cafe=bonus for you. Oh and my title: oranges are green here as well as lemons but they are good. the melons are round like a basketball and every plant is smaller. Will my neighbor has banana trees in his yard and the mangoes will be ripe in Decemba.
The house girl laughs at me every time I say something in Kiswahili so I just laugh with her. I got to see how she grinds up peanuts yesterday. Dad--my baba has 2 cell phones and I think they have 3 cars as well as roosters and chickens and a dog that has no name.
the sidewalks are made of sand and streets are a dusty red. There are mountains surrounding me as well as beautiful vegetation. I was told by my baba on how not to get malaria and the importance of not getting it. I also eat with my hands more now and have to stop using my left hand.
I don't know much else, but will try to write real letters soon once I figure out the posta.

Mambo!

For all who are wondering I made it to the TZ (after 30hrs of travelling from Philly to NYC over MA and Boston, England, Paris, Zurich, the alps, Egypt (yes I was thinking of you Kristy), a stop in Kenya and in Dar). We got in at night so my first impression was that it was dark. There were a few weddings and send off parties when I arrived. I'm staying in a christian center that is like a hostel. I have my own room and shower!
It seems like all I do here is eat and sit. I've eaten fried bananas, bread, muffin, champati (like injera), chiken, beef (yes JulieAnne beef, but I passed on the chicken liver--only because I knew it was an organ), fish, sweet potatoes, veggies, and chai. I get a soda today.
We've been doing trainings and meetings, learning Kiswahili and getting laughed at when I try but it's cool. The weather (to fulfill the old person conversation) is supposedly cool with humidity (~80 not sure but it feels like IN) and it rains when it's sunny like IN and maybe only on one side of the compound.

For background of the program: Pres. Kikiwete of TZ was the first (and current president) that met Pres. Obama and the first thing he said to him was can you send TZ more Peace Corps Volunteers? (Like 400 --we currently have 131 serving). also TZ was the first PC program ever (it's a controversy though with Ghana). Apparently they put the selection process for volunteers to be rigorous here and if we don't meet their qualifications we can't come. So I am honored to be here (said to be the best place they send volunteers). The people are friendly and welcoming and the staff is awesome.
I also determined that my Microbiology major is a bunch of witch craft because if you can't see it and do not suffer from the illness that you are dealing with witch craft which I thought was amusing, but see their point of view.
I'll try to post pictures later. I also had another post written with more details and such so if you want to know more I'll tell you later.

Kwa Heri
Carolyn

Kwa Heri

“We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.”

In a week I will be boarding planes to Atlanta and Philadelphia where I will begin my service in the Peace Corps. One week—it’s hard to believe. I’ve been saying for a month now that I am moving to Tanzania, yet it’s unreal because I’ve been thinking about this for years. Seven years ago I decided I wanted to join the Peace Corps, but I knew that I’d have to wait before I applied. I applied last July as advised for when I wanted to leave. After a long online application, fingerprinting paperwork, phone interview, medical and dental paperwork, waiting, waiting, more paperwork of sorts, and waiting I finally was invited to serve in the Peace Corps. I was assigned to Tanzania to teach Chemistry and probably Biology in secondary schools for 27 months and then received more paperwork.

Although I’m excited and ready to go it still seems unreal and won’t be real until I board the plane and arrive at orientation or training in TZ. It’s hard to imagine how life will be the next 27 months—from daily life to holidays I am not sure what to expect. So here I go...I think the Weepies say it best with their song Can't Go Back Now:
“I can't really say why everybody wishes they were somewhere else
But in the end, the only steps that matter are the ones you take all by yourself”

Update

I want to thank everyone who participated in the Water Challenge with me. At the end of April I sent checks that totaled over $400! That will provide 400 people clean water for a year or 100 people clean water for 4 years. Thanks again for the support, I could not have done it without you.

Final Interview!

Finishing up some last minute paper work so I can be assigned a Placement Officer!
So excited! I will know where I'm going by the second week of August by the latest but hopefully sooner!

After I send in these papers I'll have a final interview with my PO and be placed and sent an official invitation. Can't wait!!!

The Water Challenge

As many of you know this is my last semester at IU before I graduate and leave to serve in the Peace Corps. Although I could take my last semester easy, I want to do as much as possible while I’m in the states to start helping the people of the continent that I am going to move to for the next two years.

I found the Water Project organization online (http://thewaterproject.org) and would like to do the Water Challenge. The water challenge asks you to drink only water for two weeks and set the money that you would have spent on other beverages such as soda, tea, coffee, alcohol, etc aside and donate it after two weeks. I want to get a group together to do this with me to help the cause. You may think I’m crazy for giving up the luxury of other beverages for two weeks, but really it’s a small contribution that I can make. I know some of you may think you need your caffeine and if you truly cannot give it up then I ask you to contribute the money that you spent on those drinks anyway.

As a microbiologist I know the importance of clean water and what can be in water. Nearly 1 billion people still don't have access to clean drinking water and a $10 donation will give 1 person clean water for 10 YEARS—that’s a dollar a year! I know I grew up taking clean (clear) water for granted and now would like to help others have access to water I like do.

If I haven’t convinced you yet here are some facts that I think are astounding and gives even more reason to help:

• At any one time, half of the world's hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from water-borne diseases.
• Over one-third of the world's population has no access to sanitation facilities.
• In developing countries, about 80% of illnesses are linked to poor water and sanitation conditions.
• 1 out of every 4 deaths under the age of 5 worldwide is due to a water-related disease.
• In developing countries, it is common for water collectors, usually women and girls, to have to walk several kilometers every day to fetch water. Once filled, pots and jerry cans weigh as much as 20kg (44lbs).
• Only 1% of the total water resources on earth are available for human use. While 70% of the world’s surface is covered by water, 97.5% of that is salt water. Of the remaining 2.5% that is freshwater, almost 68.7% is frozen in ice caps and glaciers.
• Canada controls about 20% of the earth's fresh water.
• Up to 30% of fresh water supplies are lost due to leakage in developed countries, and in some major cities, losses can run as high as 40% to 70%.
• About 90% of sewage and 70% of industrial wastes in developing countries are discharged into water courses without treatment, often polluting the usable water supply.
• A person living in Sub-Saharan Africa uses about 10-20 (2.6-5.26 gallons) litres of water a day; on average, a Canadian uses 326 litres (86 gallons) a day.

If you would like to be apart of the water challenge with me please let me know so I know how many wristbands to request for the group. I encourage you to invite your friends and family to participate as well. If you can’t give up your beverages for whatever reason but would like to make a donation for the project I urge you to a. send one in online/buy a water bottle or shirt or b. donate it to my efforts in my water challenge.

I know many of you may be giving to Haiti relief now as well, but the beauty of this project is that it just redirects the money that you would have spent on beverages anyway and not coming out of your pocket as more of a donation (unless you choose to give that way). I also believe that many charities will be overlooked now due to the tragedy in Haiti and I still want to help those in need in other areas of the world too.

Please let me know if you would like to help the cause.