Weeks One, Two, and Three: The Hyper-Abbreviated, No-Time-To-Breathe, Wow-It's-Hard-To-Find-Internet-Here...Re-Cap

Week one consisted mostly of being propositioned, pointed at, and proposed to everywhere I went. (Within a few days, I had a five-foot Rastafarian who identified me on the street as "his fiancee." Never mind the fact that the only words I had ever exchanged with him were hapana (no) and "I know where I'm going; leave me alone.") When I wasn't being made painfully aware of how white my skin is, I was spending most of my time at the Global Service Corps office in Arusha-town, taking a crash course in Swahili and delving deeper into the cultural issues that surround HIV/AIDS in Africa. (Most specifically, the fact that it's common cultural practice to have concurrent sexual relationships -- that is, to have only two or three sexual partners in a lifetime, but to have them all at the same time. If one person in the triangle contracts HIV, everyone in the triangle contracts HIV, which explains why the disease has spread more quickly in Africa than on any other continent.)

Week Two came, and I moved to Tengeru -- an agriculturally-oriented suburb of Arusha that is too beautiful for words. I lived in a house with no running water or toilet, so my bathroom essentially consisted of a few plastic buckets and a porcelain hole in the ground (really not as bad as it sounds.) My host mama Sylvia was one of the sweetest women I've ever met, and we got along splendidly, aside from the fact that I could never eat enough to satisfy her. I ate well beyond my stomach capacity and yet, no matter how much my belly felt ready to burst, she would end every meal by proclaiming, "Jammy. You have let me down. You have eaten only three platefuls of ugali!" Kind of an eating disorder in reverse.

Week Three is here, and now I'm back in Arusha, living with a new family for the next month and preparing for my role as an HIV/AIDS educator at a school called Themi. I'm within a couple minutes of the fastest internet cafe in town (which feels like a five-star luxury hotel at this point), and I'm living at the Arusha International School, surrounded by about 1,000 kids between the ages of 3 and 16 (which feels like just about the closest thing to heaven that I've experienced so far on earth.)

And now I only have 2 minutes left of internet time, so as usual I'm not going to be able to say everything I wanted to say. It's a predictably African predicament, but one that I've come to embrace. Suffice it to say -- I love love love it here, more than words can say.

p.s. I've turned down all marriage proposals so far.

Things I Get Excited About in Tanzania

cheese in any form
toilets you can sit on
faucets connected to running water
electricity that works
cappuccinos
views of Mount Kilimanjaro on a clear day
twenty minutes on the internet

Things Tanzanian Women Balance on Their Heads

bananas
baskets of bananas
buckets of bananas
plates of bananas
mystery plastic bags (probably filled with bananas)
ENTIRE SUITCASES (full of bananas?)