My name is Water

Mambo!
So I made it to Tanzania successfully. Elias is one of the drivers and he picked me up from the airport with another driver. The drive to the homebase from the airport took over two hours. I think I could have walked back faster. The traffic was horrendous!! And this was at 8pm at night. I also found is strange that there were so many people on the streets of Dar at night. Even once we got out of the city it was still very crowded with people walking or selling things or just hanging out. I wish it had been light so I could have seen my surroundings better. I was very happy to reach the homebase. Edna, one of the housekeepers gave me some leftovers from dinner and then showed me my room. I'm staying in a room with 3 girls who have been here for a few weeks already: Tracy, Stacey, and Jen. Jen and Stacey are sisters from Canada and Tracy is from Arizona. They have taught me a lot so far about Bagamoyo.

Sunday and Monday (today) have been filled with orientation. We had a Swahili lesson and a guest speaker from the hospital talk about Malaria and the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The HIV/AIDS rate is higher in Bagamoyo than any other part of Tanzania.
And let me tell you, this place is pretty damn rural. I'm still amazed that I'm connected to the internet right now! It's a small room with five computers and it's right next door to the homebase which was clever since I'm sure CCS volunteers are the main users.

The homebase is nice and the staff is wonderful. Zik is the head of the Bagamoyo program and Didas' title is logistician however he does a lot of things for us. Everyone here in Bagamoyo is so polite! Well mostly. We get a lot of stares from the local people, rightly so I suppose. The children are so friendly and love giving high fives or showing us the few English phrases that they have learned. Today we walked through the Monday market as well as made a trip towards Baga Point to a small tailor shop to buy some fabric. Pili is the wife of the man who runs AMAP (Sahidi) where I will be volunteering and she has a shop where she makes dresses and bags and things so if you bring her fabric, or purchase it in her shop she will make whatever you want, for very cheap by American standards. Also all of the proceeds go towards supplies and food for AMAP. Sahidi and Pili have a 2 and a half year old son who they renamed Barack when Obama was elected. People LOVE Obama here!

I found out that I will be working with fairly young children, contrary to my prior belief. Sahidi runs 2 programs, the morning one, when we volunteer, is for street children. Some of them are orphans, some come from single parent families. They are between the ages of 4 and 7 usually. They go to AMAP from 8 am until about 11:30 am and we teach them basic things like the alphabet, or some English words or basic math. They also get to eat some porridge, and for some this is the only food they get all day. So tomorrow we start our volunteer placements. Jen, my roommate who has been here for a while, volunteers at AMAP so she will be able to show me the ropes, which is good. Freddy, who also arrived on Saturday will be volunteering there as well. Today we met Sahidi and he seems very friendly! The other program is in the afternoon for young adults and aspiring artists. They receive training and marketing skills so they are able to profit from their artwork.

The house is soo nice for Bagamoyo standards and I can't really complain. There is no internet but it prevents me from wasting too much time on here. There is no hot water, but believe me, hot water is the last thing anyone wants by the end of an excruciatingly hot and humid day (the humidity is out of control!). Also there's no water pressure but that's no different than my New Brunswick apartment. There's only 4 new volunteers staying in the main house. Amanda (who also goes to Rutgers), Hannah (who was here last summer), Sarah, and myself. The 15 other new volunteers are staying in the Summer House which is about a five minute walk. The advantage? They have air conditioning. The disadvantage? They have to walk to the main house for all of the meals and activities. So basically they only use the AC at night and I haven't really had a problem sleeping, as long as you stay really still and don't get tangled in the mosquito nets.

Speaking of mosquites I already have 5 bites. But Ive been using bug spray and taking my malaria pills religiously so I'm hoping they don't result in malaria. The rest of the group is visiting the hospital in Bagamoyo right now, however I opted out because they said it's much different from America and we might be shocked by what we see. Sounds like a faint session to me. I don't even like American hospitals.

Today I am going to get a cell phone. Mostly to contact the other volunteers and the staff but occasionally for long distance calls. The phones are about 35 shillings (about $25 USD) and then you buy the minutes as you go but those are also really cheap. I think they said it's a half a shilling per second, and a shilling is like nothing. It will be much more convenient when we are traveling on the weekends and also to contact Terri, who runs the Baobab Home. She called me on Sunday to see if I could go on an outing with her but I couldn't because we've been too busy with orientation things. But the 3rd and 4th week we have a lot of free time so I'm hoping to be able to visit them and help out.

Ah, so the title of this blog. All the Tanzanians here pronounce my name Mah-jee (with a soft J) and the word for water here is Maji so basically they remember my name by thinking water. I don't mind it. It could have been a worse word. Like oh, in Swahili your name means prostitute. No thanks!
I'm looking forward to starting our volunteer work tomorrow but I'm slightly concerned about being able to communicate with the children since they don't speak very much English and my Swahili skills are lacking, to say the least. But Sahidi speaks both languages so I think it will be okay. Plus I'm not the first American volunteer they've had.
Alright, that's all for now. I know I forgot to mention so many things but I feel rushed because I'm paying for internet and also dinner is soon!
OH! speaking of dinner, the food is pretty good here! Robert is the cook along with another woman whose name I forget right now. They spend all day cooking and preparing food for us! But still I know I'm going to be craving American food regardless. They don't have very much cheese here. Or milk. Or ice cream. Serious dairy deprivation. Also there aren't really any grocery stores to buy snacks. Oh well, I guess eating healthy is better.
Hope you are all doing well!
I'll blog soon about my volunteer placement.
<3