Dog nabbit...

Well, once again, my laptop was stolen. This time along with my solar backpack, iPod, Kindle, hard drive, camera and a lot of other stuff that made life here more bearable.

This time it was in the early morning at Ubungo bus stand, the largest stand in the country. I don't think I'd stir up much dissent in calling Ubungo the country's cesspool. It was my least favorite place in Tanzania before my bag was stolen. I have absolutely nothing positive to say about Ubungo so I'll leave it at that.

I wasn't actually going to post anything about the theft, but then I was standing (halfway out the door) on an overpacked daladala in Dar today on the way to the Peace Corps office when Michael Bolton started playing. Regardless of where I am or how I'm feeling at the moment, nothing lifts my mood like a good ol' Michael Bolton song popping up in the middle of some driver's Bongo Flava playlist. And this one was particularly relevant.

Laptop, if you're out there, this one's for you...

Thank you Michael.

A Rare Sooner-Than-Later Update: Twelfth Month Edition

Greetings! Look, I posted twice within a month!

It's September, and therefore officially the twelfth and last month of my first year in country. This year has gone by so much quicker than expected, and yet it feels like an eternity when I think about all the things I've seen, done and learned in that span. There have been some high highs and some low lows (as I hope I've been able convey in this blog), but I still have at least fifteen months of service remaining and there's plenty left to do.

I'm currently typing this from the Peace Corps office in Dar. Another health PCV and I had the unexpected privilege of being invited to the health program's Project Advisory Committee (PAC). We met with representatives from some of Peace Corps' partner organizations, including USAID, Johns Hopkins and VSO, to share successful projects (I presented a PowerPoint on my malaria campaign from May) and to brainstorm ideas to improve the health program framework. Besides the free trip to Dar, I thought the meeting was really constructive and am glad of the opportunity to participate.

A friendly, familiar sign.

In other news, my schedule for the month has gone off the deep end. Tomorrow I'll be on a fifteen-plus-hour bus ride to visit the southwest of the country for a couple days, which was already planned, but then I return to Dar for some work-related things (probably; still hammering out the details). I have to make it out west again for malaria training from the 17th to the 20th. Fortunately I didn't schedule any teaching engagements during that period, so my village won't be missing much in the meantime. Still, I'm more comfortable in my village than out, so the prospect of being away so long gives me a headache. (Hopefully they don't forget me!)

While I've been away, I've been working with my VEO and counterpart by phone and the district engineer by email to get the [umpteenth version of the] market hammered out. We've finally narrowed down what appears to be a workable design and I'm currently waiting on the engineer to put together a budget to see if it's where we'd like it to be. I think we're finally at the point where I can get the grant request put together (for the second time; thanks, thief*) and sent. Hopefully things will happen a little quicker from that point.

What happens when I draw blueprints. (Don't tell the Environment PCVs!)

When I get back from malaria training, my counterpart, my CCA (a health educator in my ward) and I are going to get to work on forming two ward-level committees: a fourteen-member malaria education committee and a seventeen-member HIV/AIDS education committee. The committees will have at least one member from each village in the ward and the HIV/AIDS education committee will have three representatives from a local People Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) group (although they're unregistered as of yet, so helping them with that is on the to-do list as well). We already have the go-ahead from the Ward Executive Officer, so things are looking promising. I've done quite a bit of teaching so far, but none of it means much if it's not sustained after I've left; these committees, if successful, will make sure health education continues in the ward well after I've gone.

Primary school students writing about short- and long-term goals during a Life Skills session.

I'm also planning to continue with the Life Skills programs I've got going on at the local primary and secondary schools in October. We started the programs last month, although we only managed five of the eight planned classes due to some scheduling issues during the first two weeks. Still, we got a steady routine going by the end of the month. We're going to do another eight classes in October; goals and decision-making at the primary school and HIV/AIDS at the secondary school. (While the obvious benefit of the programs is the education the students receive, the long-term function is the give my counterpart enough teaching experience to be able to be effective as an educator for the above-mentioned committees.)

Students discussing the consequences of unplanned pregnancy during a Life Skills session at the secondary school.

And, as I mentioned in my last update, I have some other ideas, but they rely on the completion of the market project, so those are for a little later down the line.

So there's a little update on the work front.

On the not-work end, the Health and Environment class that came before ours just had their COS conference, which means they're beginning preparations to finish up service and head back to the land of cheeseburgers and ice cream. It'll be tough to see them go - they taught my class how to get by - but it's an inevitable end and they've earned their 'R'.

But the bittersweet departure of accomplished Volunteers is the typical precursor to the arrival of new ones; the new Education class will be swearing in next week and we'll have seven new faces in Mtwara and Lindi region. I met many of them last week during their site visits and am excited for their arrival next weekend (which I'm as-yet uncertain I'll be able to make). We've had a good crew down in Mtwara and Lindi and I'm glad to say it looks like that won't be changing anytime soon!

Alrighty, that'll do it for this post.

Until next time!

* Thanks to our [incredible] safety and security officer, the district police managed to recover my stolen laptop. Unfortunately the hard drive was formatted and had over 300 viruses in its recovered condition, but at least I have the laptop.**

** EDIT: Except now I don't. The day after posting this, my laptop (and a bunch of my other stuff) was stolen at the main bus stand in Dar. Sigh.

Cashews: Mtwara's one basket...

As I've mentioned many times before, Mtwara is one of the Tanzania's poorest and least-developed regions. The region's education scores are among the worst in the country, it has (like the rest of the country) a desperately high population of unemployed youth, and it's relatively isolated from the rest of the country due to a lackluster transportation infrastructure (i.e., there's only one paved road in and out of the region and it's still not complete after a half-century of construction). BUT...

We do have cashews.

Cashews are the region's cash crop and Mtwara's claim to fame in Tanzania. Mention that you're from Mtwara anywhere in the country and someone's bound to bring up cashews.

Just about every Mtwaran has cashew trees growing on or near their property; prominent members of the community (like my clinical officer) can have hundreds of trees on their land. Cashew trees dominate the landscape - they're everywhere; for every orange tree there are ten mango trees, and for every mango tree there are ten cashew trees. (I'm obviously generalizing, but that estimate is probably not too far-fetched.)

Taking pictures of cashew trees in Mtwara is like taking pictures of corn stalks in Ohio.

The earliest fruits begin to appear in late August, but the bulk of the harvest takes place between October and January. The collection of cashews in the village is part of a practice called collectivization*, whereby villagers collect most of the cashews and place them in large sacks to be stored in the village's giant cashew barn (every village has a giant cashew barn - they're made of bati and they all look the same). The central government then pays the village by the kilo for the cashews, and the proceeds are distributed to community members. (The current going rate for a kilo of unprocessed cashews is about 1300-1600/-**; between 80 and 100 cents. Unfortunately, the amount the government is paying has declined in the last couple years, and some farmers complain that they haven't been compensated at all.) The government then either sends them to local processing plants or exports them to other countries (India, for example, is a major buyer of Tanzanian cashews).

I shot this early on to record a potential health concern. My village's cashew barn is in the background.

Some farmers, however, usually keep some cashews to themselves. Processing cashews is a tedious process (we witnessed it during site visits last year). Cashews are harvested as large yellow fruit that resemble bell peppers. The shell holding the nut, which looks like a large lima (or butter) bean, is removed. After a significant number have been collected, the shells are roasted; the acid in the shells heats up and the shell catches fire and literally explodes. Once all the shells have exploded, the now-cracked shells are collected and each individual cashew nut is removed - a painstaking process that is much easier said than done. (I now know why cashews are so expensive.)

The developing fruit of a cashew tree.

The fruit of the cashew is edible, however I have yet to try it (I hear it's dry). But rather than eat it, many locals prefer to use the fruit to (illegally) brew a strong alcohol that resembles moonshine. I've tried it, and I believe the only way to describe it involves a number of the following symbols: !@#$%&*

Hopefully you found this little tidbit interesting. Mtwarans live and die by their cashew harvest, and many of the frustrations and tensions that have built up over the years (well before I arrived in country) are directly influenced by the region's dependence on cashews.

Until next time.

* Collectivization was introduced as part of a socialist philosophy called 'Ujamaa' when the country became independent in 1961. While the philosophy is generally agreed to have been an economic failure, its influence is still evident in many local practices (such as Mtwara's cashew policy).

** EDIT: Not long after posting this, it was announced by the government that the price of cashews is dropping again; now a kilo of cashews will be bought for between 800/- and 1000/- (between 50 and 70 cents). This may not go well with locals.