Garedens, New Years, Obama, and IST

ashleigh and i amuse ourselves quite succesfully
entertaining ourselves one night in the hostelmy counterpart on the right. deep in thought at IST
me and mary: site mates!
passing the wig to margret. (note the dress i made!!)
no, not my real hair. me with mary and mussa


potato work
planting potatoes
workin the compost

For anyone who actually ready these... sorry i've been a little delinquent with my updates but i'm back and i'll try to catch you up.

My garden:
I actually garden a lot here. and i'm very proud of it. i even have the pictures to prove it. I've planted all kinds of beans, corn, potatoes, tomatoes, onions, cassava, and bell peppers. the whole shabang. in these pictures i'm working on my compost and planting potatoes. go ahead, be impressed...


NEW YEARS:
it was fanstastic! we camped on the beach in Dar es Salaam. A beach called Kipepeo which means butterfly... it was kind of dissapointing that i didn't see any. but i digress. we stayed three nights there. it was beautiful. honestly the best beach i've ever been to. better than any in california or hawaii that i've visted.... sorry guys. unfortunatley i was too bust drinking pina coladas and soaking in the sun that i actually didn't get any picture of the actual beach. i did get a pictures of our new years party where we counted down at the local disco. I sported a homemade dress that i was quite proud of. I'm a little short on cash, i work for free - so its no surprise, so I actually used some very kind norwiegans as a diversion and climbed the fence when the guards were distraced. classy? very. economical? extemely. if any of you know my track record with climbing fences and walls you may worry. but don't. i came out basically unscathed. after new years we headed back to the city of dar es salaam and enjoyed the ammenities of being in a city. shopping malls, movie theaters, cheese.... you know, all the good stuff.

for me new years is usually a lot of build up and usually lacks in delievery but this year was great. it was a great break from our village lives and i got to see lots of my friends from training that i haven't seen in 5 months or so.


OBAMA:
Yay!!! yes we did! news from america is that the build up to the inauguration may have been a little overboard but here in africa it was just right. luckily about 25 of us volunteers were all together for a seminar here in the regional capital which means..... we had tv!!! we watched the whole thing. it was amazing. we set up in a bar that had tv and watched with a crowd of tanzanians as we all cheered and clapped as Obama spoke tersly and honestly (i hope..right?) about the state of country and the future of it. tanzanians don't cry... unless someoone dies and even then they don't always cry. they don't get it. so they got a kick out watching all these white people huddle together with tears running down but smiles still on their faces. it was a great cultural exchange.


IST:
in-service training. sorry peace corps (cause i know you read our blogs), but it was just about as boring as it sounds. useful. but boring. two weeks stuck in a hostel, spending 8 hour days in a classroom learning about grant- writting, policy, HIV/AIDS teaching tactics, and perma culture. the permaculture was actually pretty sweet because we got to outside and dig and sweat in the garden. it was also led by peter jensen the permaculture guru and one of the most excited people i have ever know in my life. the up side is that i got watch a lot of dvd's at night, daily hot showers, and pizza just about every day too. We also brought counterparts who are village members that each volunteer selected from their village to learn all these things too in order to support his or her (mostly "hers" in our group) work in the village. it is actually a huge relief to know that there is someone else in our villages that knows and understands what it is that we're trying to do. and its also lots of fun to get to know one village member outside the setting of the village.

so thats it. thats what i've been doing since the last time i wrote. tomorrow i'm back to village to put all my new training into practice. me and my counterpart have big ideas of school gardens, health clubs, and nutrition classes that will happen several times a week. if you're still reading this... thanks for hanging in. much love. i miss you all