Teaching Begins

Short and sweet.
Began teaching this week. 6th grade English and Math. I wish i knew how to make better lesson plans. I have been just kind of winging it so far...more planning will happen this weekend.

Pictures of:
- the new guest house under construction (right outside my during the day...but they need to finish 30 rooms before Augustwindow and kind of loud at times 20 for the Jubilee!)
-Inside the guest house under construction





- Praying Mantis and Charlie being scared of it at the door to the computer room!








-Students in the Computer class (open lab time where Charlie, and sometimes I, answer questions if the students have them)
-The building at the trade school where the computer lab is (with internet via Satellite!)

No class tomorrow (or today) because half of my students were on a field trip to a National Park to see animals. so the rest just get to hang back and have fun free days...didn't find this out until i got to the school this morning and one of the other teachers told me i shouldn't teach because half of the students were gone until Friday :) So i will head to Songea tomorrow to shadow the Peace Corps volunteer there, Simba, teaching high school Physics.

all for now. thanks for the comments on the other posts!

Saturday Set Up

Spent the morning today sleeping in through breakfast because lately life has been a little too structured :) though, the rooster right outside my window and the construction on the new guest house tried to wake me at 6:30am.

Then I finished setting up my room and making it home. Not quite as many decorations and "stuff" around as in my dorm rooms the last few years, but still quite a bit of flare to make it homey.

We also said goodbye to our Austrian friend who had been staying here on vacation the last few nights. She was very helpful getting us settled in Hanga, as she had been here multiple times before.

Also found a trumpet to play today! I have been named the new "brass band teacher" at the seminary. Our first rehearsal is on Monday at 4pm so i figured i better get my chops back in shape before then. Then i have to learn how to teach the trombone and tuba...

Cant believe it has already been two weeks since leaving Minneapolis.

1st Trip to Songea

Yesterday we took our first trip to see Songea. Pretty nice place. Lots of shopping to do on the streets with a market atmosphere to the entire downtown area. This is where all of those clothes that you donate to goodwill end up!

We came to town to meet with a peace corps volunteer, Ariel AKA Simba, who has been there teaching Physics for the past 3 years almost. It was great to meet him and have him show us the town…he knows it pretty well after almost three years. We went to a small restaurant and had lunch for under $3 and even bought some doughnuts at a bakery! He also showed us where he lives, which is very nice, and a small vegetable garden he has planted and kept up over the years. Very cool. It was great to meet him.

Also pictured are the bus that we rode all 15 hours to Songea from Dar in, our first picture at our new home in the guest house, and a street in Songea.

Today we continued trying to find teaching positions. It looks like there are openings in 6^th grade math and high school physics J perfect. Charlie and I will most likely begin teaching this coming week.

It is all still quite an adventure here. Thanks for keeping me in your thoughts and prayers.

Home, Sweet Home

Sorry to my readers out there who have been anticipating the first Hanga post for almost 24 hours now. You will have to wait another 24 hours or more for photos, but here is the journey so far:

the bus ride was more full of motion than i had anticipated. i didn't expect a fully smooth ride, but i didn't think that i would feel more motion than i did when i was on a boat on the ocean for one week, either! it was really bumpy, fast (the driver still goes 100 + km/hr when the roads are windy and narrow, but not too crowded. i think there were only two more people than there were seats :) but i had a seat the whole time. we stopped along the way for food breaks at little towns, and for bathroom breaks where you just get out and everyone takes a leak on the side of the road (!!) girls to the left, guys to the right. i am glad that i am a guy. the in-ride entertainment was either a REALLY bad Tanzanian movie, Celine Dion v. Jennifer Lopez music video dvd, or some pretty catchy Tanzanian music videos. all in all, not terrible

our last day in Dar we spent with Adan- the young guy that we went to Mass with. When i asked him why he didn't come with his family, he said that his dad is muslim, but his mom is christian. and he could choose so he has chosen to be Catholic right now...and so makes this journey to Mass every week by himself. after Mass we hung out with him a bit in the afternoon. we went to parts of the city that i wouldn't feel comfortable going to by myself...but it was fine since he was there.

Hanga is a completely different place. the first thing i would say is, clean. but i guess that is just because Dar was so DIRTY. and it is cooler here. meaning temperature. i am actually wishing that i had brought more clothes that are warm (amy, i blame you). i will have to get another longsleeve shirt made at the tailor shop here and then maybe get a jacket or sweatshirt in Songea.

it was tough walking around here today without anything to do...i just want to start and know where i am needed/wanted. it is also hard not being with the monks. i guess i was expecting more contact, but already i can tell this is going to be more of a task to get to know the monks. we eat separate from them, sleep in a completely different building, and only see many of them if/when we go to Mass and prayer. which we are welcome at, but also sit separate from the monks. makes me extra thankful for the acceptance into the community we received in Collegeville at SJU!

the internet is pretty fast here actually! i am surprised. and the computers are all connected wirelessly. i am in a lab right now (alone because it is after hours) with 8 laptops that are all relatively new. and i can even bring my laptop in here and get wireless internet. i will have to figure out a schedule of when i can come in here, though. i think this time of night would work best for me, but i dont know if somone will have to let me in every time and then stay after and lock it up...that would get to be too much of a hassle. we will just have to figure that out...

thanks for reading this extra long special post in honor of it being the first from Hanga. pictures coming soon.

see ya later, DAR

not much time to write tonight, but i will give just the basics :)

last day in Dar today. Mass was great. Charlie and I were able to go with a kid from the area who is just a few years younger than us. We went to the parish around the corner and there was even a visiting priest from Georgia!

Another soccer game this afternoon, Simba v _______. I was cheering for Simba because they are red

Before the game we took a walk with the friend who we went to Mass with around the neighborhood here and saw parts of the city where i dont think many white people go, but we never felt endangered so that was good.


pictures are of the walk, the stadium where the last two games were, and the laundry room where i washed my clothes today.

bus leaves at 6am to Songea tomorrow. next post will be from Hanga. Maybe with a picture of an elephant
goodnight.

gooooo Yanga!

I was able to sit still a little longer today and read for about 3 hours this morning! Not a very interesting morning, but good to be able to forget about the big city for a while.

This afternoon we went downtown and walked around a bit and then went to the Yanga soccer game in the Tanzanian National Stadium. It was so interesting to see how much of the rest of the world experiences...sports! we just have so many of them in the US (baseball stadiums, football stadiums, arenas, convention centers). This National stadium is the second largest in all of Africa! very new, but clearly built for only one thing, SOCCER! no conversion to a baseball field or anything else. the inside walls of the stadium looked a little too bare...because there were hardly any advertisements. I think the Tanzanian government paid to have the stadium constructed.

best part of the whole day, it only cost 5000 Tsh to see the whole game (less than $5)

I will go to Mass tomorrow morning at a parish here by the guest house in Dar es Salaam. That will be a good chance to meet some more local people :)

We leave for Songea Monday morning at 6am on a bus.
maybe another soccer game tomorrow, who knows.

day...4 in

Dar is still hot.
picture below is of the public transportation in Dar that we have been taking around the city for a mere 300 or 250 Tsh a ride. very good price.

also went to the beach today! a little hot, but we wore sunscreen.

with a population of 2.5 million Dar es Salaam is much to big to enjoy all of the time, but i have been having a good time just walking around and being an extrovert.

more to come tomorrow. we will be in the city at least one more day.

Day 3 in Dar

Today, Charlie walked 20k with Abbot Alcuin and I stayed back in Dar :) I went around with Br. Nolasco. it is great to be able to talk with him, and he understands my feelings of culture shock and stress because he of course experienced much of the same when he came to America! he has been there for 3 or 4 years now. we went to US embassy again, and it was good that i was there, because it was past appointment hours, so he would not have been able to go in and pick up his passport and Visa, but I could go in and get it for him because of my status as a US Citizen! it was like i was a VIP. we also walked around many different parts of town, went into a bakery, chatted about Tanzanian history, had a pepsi from glass bottles at a little stand, and even went to a Tanzania v. Somalia soccer game in a big new stadium! about$4.80 US for each of us. I was the only white person in the stadium of probably around 5-6 thousand. this is a very homogeneous city...and everywhere i walk in the city i get called "white person" (though that is not a derogatory term in Swahili, just more of an acknowledgment. So when in passing i hear "whats up white person?!" (mambo mzungo) i simply look back and say, "its cool!" (poa!) then we laugh and go on our way.

it is so great to be able to be in contact over the internet.
thanks for continuing to read of my experiences.

Found: American's Luggage!

Good news! ...thought i haven't said the bad news yet.

We had a good day today in Dar traveling around...to the US Embassy because one of the monks needed to get his visa renewed for next year, and we took the opportunity to chat with the consulate and let them know that we had lost our luggage. (didn't want to worry you by telling you that it was lost before we found it) They called the airline and this afternoon we got a call letting us know that the luggage had arrived!

I just got back from the airport about 1 hour ago with everything that we brought. It is good news. We were making the best out of the last two days, but it added a little stress as one could imagine.

We found out today that we will be staying in Dar es Salaam until Sunday or Monday of next week. I guess Hanga has a full house...but they will have our rooms ready by Sunday or Monday. We will just have to see some more of Dar tomorrow. we are making the best of it.

missing home, but knowing that this is continuing to be a good experience.

more to come tomorrow.

US Embassy

We are still in Dar es Salaam and today we went to visit the US Embassy! One of the monks here that is studying in Washington state needed to renew his visa and so we decided to come along and see what the embassy was like. Charlie and I, of course, didn't need to wait in any of the long lines. We simply showed the guards our US passports and it was like we were VIPs. I took the opportunity to register with them to say I will be here for the next 9 months or so.

When we were around the city this morning we also chatted with a few americans. One man at the embassy who has been living in Tanzania running an NGO for the past 7 years and another man who went to Concordia in MN and played the Johnnies in football! He said he grew up in Detroit lakes. He is just visiting the country for a bit with a friend from Botswana. It was nice to speak in fast english for a bit, as we are hearing mainly Swahili everywhere around the guest house, even. I suppose this is the fastest way to learn, though.

Time for lunch pretty soon. I also got a cell phone yesterday so I may be giving some of you a call from Africa sometime soon.

Peace
-ben

i have arrived

i write this from a small computer lab that is part of the guest house in Dar es Salaam. it was quite a long weekend of traveling. the longest part of the trip was the 8 hours from 2 am - 10 am in the DC airport. once we got on the plane to Africa, though, it was better. it was still long, and not too comfy to sleep, but we survived. i was sitting next to Charlie for the whole trip. we even had one extra land and take off in ROME! they had to change the flight crew after the 8 hour flight from DC to rome and then it was another 5 hours to Addis ababa. when we arrived there this morning we were just in time to go load the plane for DAR and that was another 2 1/2 hour flight. so i am done with planes for a while. and i am glad of it.

we will spend a day or so here in DAR and then take the bus (12-13 hours) to Songea and then to Hanga. the good part is we will most likely be traveling with another monk who we met at the airport today. he has been studying in the states (in Washington) and is just coming home for the summer. and he speaks english very well. i think i am already picking up some Swahili too. this language thing is going to be a challenge, but a good one. I heard more Italian than Swahili at the dinner table tonight, as there is a group of 8 or 9 Italians who will be traveling to Hanga to do some work there :) i can understand more Italian right now than Swahili.

it is nice to be in Dar es Salaam, but i am also very anxious to get to Hanga and start to get settled in. i am happy that we didn't have a 12 hour bus ride after our flights today, though.

i havent slept much the past two nights...actually i havent really had a second night yet because it is really still 1pm for me, but it is 9pm here and has been dark since 6:30. the sun sank so fast. i will have to get used to writing letters by flashlight.

the pictures are from the grounds of the guest house. more to come soon.
out for now.

Minneapolis to Chicago
Chicago to Washington DC
Washington DC to Adis Ababa
Adis Ababa to Dar Es Salaam

let you know when i get there...