I have made it to site! I am a sworn in Peace Corps Volunteer, I live in a village on a mountain, and its great!
Right now I am celebrating Christmas with fellow PCVs in town. We had a secret santa gift exchange, where the presents included peanut butter, cookies, pasta, and plastic buckets. Its funny what you come to appreciate most living in this country. You can never have enough buckets. Never. You need as many as you can get in order to horde water, wash dishes in, shower out of, wash clothes in, sit on, store food in, make bucket wine in... Its also really useful to keep a bucket in your room in case you have to pee in the middle of the night and your choo is too scary to use after dark. This happened during homestay, only I didn't have a bucket. I used a candy container instead. Peeing in your room is an interesting experience.
I can already see how living in Tanzania is changing me. I have become so much more aware of my water usage, and how much fuel it takes to cook my food or heat water. Taking a hot shower is such a luxury. I haven't taken one since I came to Tanzania. A cold shower is super safi, because it isn't out of a bucket.
Before joining the PC, my friend told me a story about a Volunteer who, early on in her service, had to deliver a baby, and ever since then I have been certain that that would happen to me. I researched how to deliver a baby, what to do in the case of certain complications. Its all written down in my big black book of knowledge. So, on my first night at site, when a woman came to my door speaking rapid Swahili that I couldn't understand, I should not have been surprised to find a woman in labour at the clinic and me expected to help her deliver the baby. Let me tell you, its completely different when its in Swahili. There I am, alone with this woman, and I am stuck on the fact that I can't tell her to breath, because I don't know how to say that in Kiswahili. Luckily, she had done this before and was very calm. Eventually, the nurse for the clinic arrived, and then immediately the baby came out! I stand there, see the baby slide out, hand the nurse the clamp, string, scissors, then I'm wiping the baby down and rubbing its chest to get it to cry. The nurse is helping the mother to deliver the placenta. I am holding this floppy new born baby. Oh my god. Birthing a baby is disgusting.And really cool. This is my life right now.
So, everything else at site has been normal and slow and after that. I go on walks. Talk to people. I have already gotten really good at staring out my window for entertainment, or watching the cows and goats eat out of the garden in front of my house. Things are pole pole (slow). I have a really annoying cat that the previous volunteer left behind. She cries all the time and is really high maintenance; how she has survived this long in Tanzania is beyond me. It makes me miss my cat in the States, her sassy independence, how she talks to birds, how she will yell at you. Brandy, are you taking care of her?
I'll let you know if I deliver any more babies.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays!
I am so proud of you for delivering the baby!! You are so prepared and and confident!! You must be having the time of you life! I am taking care of Smokey (as I have been for a while now:-P) she is enjoying the cooler weather and demanding many in/out privleges... As I type she has run to the back door with her ears poised nd hair on edge; I let her in and she immediately runs down the hall as if chase by a ghost. "Santa" brought some cat toys for the kitties this Christmas. Smokey loves playing with them, Monster only enjoys it if you do all the work and he can just lay there and bap at them.... No surprise there.
ReplyDeleteThere is a Chaplain at my work from the Congo. I have talked with him about you and he is excited when I pass on your stories to him. He agrees that your experiences will change you, for the better of course, but that returning to life in the states may be a challenge. I do hope that your experience is fulfilling and helps you find your passion.