Random Tanzania tid-bits

I re-read some old posts and realised that there have been some things I've failed to explain so I thought I do a little of that.

Daladala-we often walk to and from programming (none of us have quite worked up the courage to rent a bike because traffic here is CRAZY!!! There are no apparent rules or traffic signs and they drive on the left-side of the road) but for longer trips or if we're carrying the big 12L bottles of water that we drink (you need to drink either bottled water or boiled water here) we take a daladala.

There are two daladala stations in Morogoro. A daladala is basically a 12-passenger van that is usually crammed with over 20 people. They often are in pretty terrible condition (we rode in one yesterday that didn't want to start until a bunch of guys started pushing it) and are covered with slogans and pictures. Fortunately they only cost 250 tanzanian shillings (TSh) (about 25 cents Canadian) so it's way cheaper than a taxi. There are no designated stops so you just wave one down on the side of the road and tell the driver when you want to get off. (Shusha means STOP!) So far I haven't seen any other mzungu on the daladala so I'm pretty pleased that we've all figured out how to navigate around Morogoro like the local Tanzanians.

Mzungu-This technically translates to foreigner. At first I thought it was used as some kind of discrimination but YCI staff assured us that this is not the case. It is simply used as a form of greeting when they don't know our names. Often little kids or people on the road yell out "Mzungu!" as we walk past. Acutally everyday we go into town there's one stretch where about 10 kids all come running over for fist pumps (Nipe tano!-High Five!) They also like to call out 'Mwenda' which we've been told is a common name for women here as a kind of joke because we're so obviously not from here.

Fun fact!: squat toilets are the perfect hiding place for cockroaches, lizards and mosquitoes so that's always a lovely surprise when I use the bathroom.
Bucket showers, despite being quite cold, aren't too bad although the first thing I'm doing upon leaving Tanzania is taking a nice warm shower!

Also everyone, please hug your washing machine today! Hand laundry, although certainly doable, is quite a pain, especially because I can never seem to get it right. Mama Paolo keeps coming over and helping me (which makes me feel quite pathetic). Although I know I'm trying hard because I actually rubbed the skin off of my knuckles!

I had a problem in the beginning of feeling useless in programming. Godfrey has to translate for my English class and when we do pre and post surveys at outreach events and I often felt like things would be more effective if he just worked alone. Fortunately as more of our programming is starting (we've had a delay because students are in exams) and as our roles become better defined and we get more comfortable in them I haven't felt as useless. Despite coming here with the understanding that I would be getting far more out of this experience than I could possible give in terms of helping the problems of HIV and gender in Tanzania, I still came with the hope of being able to contribute to YCI's programming and playing a small part in a much larger picture. I'm only now starting to feel like a will be able to play that part so that is also making my time here easier.

I had the pleasure of logging on a finding 4 facebook messages and 3 e-mails from home so that definitely made my day! I love you all and hope everyone will keep messaging as I think of you all often.
Love
Melissa