An update!

I have now experienced the worst that Tanzania has to offer: bad GI problems. I have been very ill for the past few days, but I am feeling slightly better today and made the trip into town. lots of things have been happening...we started orientation with our teaching partners and we have been splitting up into groups to present parts of the material. we have also been learning about the assessments that we will make in the villages when we first arrive. things like where the chiefs live, where the schools are and we will make a map to familiarize ourselves. we will also do random door to door assessment of the overall knowledge of HIV in the village by asking questions at random houses or huts in the village. we will also be finding out if any of the dukas (stores) sell condoms and how much they are so we can share this information when we do teachings.
The teaching partners (the tanzanian college students) are awesome and ready to help us with anything. my swahili is going slowly since i missed some classes because of my illness, but overall i think it will be fine. today i picked up my skirts at the tailors and they are so fantastic. i am hoping at some point to be able to take pictures and upload them. everything takes so much time though and the connection cuts out a lot. everyone in the group has bonded a lot and they are all so nice about asking me how i feel (why oh why did it have to be me????). today is the SIC BBQ at the office in town, one last get together before we move into the villages next week.
it is so fun to be in class and learning the material. it really is good that we are a solid representation of students and backgrounds in order to teach sexual transmission, since we will have to teach this information to high school aged teenagers and it is good to get all of the awkwardness out first so we can be straight forward and direct. talking about sex to teenagers is hard no matter the language and it is even harder when you are warning them about a life threatening illness. we also learned how a rapid HIV test works, the type that we are going to use in the village and encourage everyone to get if they have risky sexual behavior. we teach the ABCs: Abstinence, Be faithful, or use a Condom. it's really important that tanzanians get accurate information because they don't get sex ed like we do in high school.
also really great in orientation was a gender panel that we had. we split up the boys and the girls and talked about the parts of being female/male that we like/disliked and how roles are different or the same in tanzania and in the states or the uk. most girls stated that they disliked the double standard about girls not having as much freedom, and it is the same here. also in tanzania there is a bride price, in which the husband pays the family for his wife, so there is so risk of the tanzanian girl feeling like a comodity. also interesting to note was that it was cross cultural that the males feel more pressured to male money and have a lot of career goals. a lot of them said they were not praised for working with SIC as maybe their female counterparts were, since they should be making money this summer or perhaps working at something to further their post college career.

if any of you would like to get a cheap international phone card or check out this internet thing called skype that i heard of (it's suppose to be really cheap minutes) and want to call me, my cell number is (255) 787 532 173. incoming calls to me are free. remember that i am 10 hours ahead of PST.

Rachel

p.s. no internet for at least 2-3 weeks

It's a small world after all

It is pouring here!!! My raincoat is serving me well. The brits and I are going into the town in a bit for some lunch. the hostel has internet, which is what i am using, but it is more expensive (like a dollar for 40 min. that's 1000shilings). it amazes me how they can have internet and no hot water. all my showers are cold. today it was luke warm. and by that i mean not ice cold.

tomorrow we start our first day of training and i am sure i will ahve posts regarding our HIV education and groups for teaching. everyone else arrives today, but i am so glad i came early and had a chance to settle in. as to the title of my post, i saw a friend from UCLA in the town yesterday!! so random. i saw him near the wazungu (foreigner) corner. it's what we call the area where they have expensive restaurants and a walmart-tpye store. it was so awesome to see him, he is working outside Arusha building an orphanage for six months with One Heart Source, another UCLA based program.

Yesterday I got two skirts made in the village and will go in a few days to pick them up. The fabric here is crazy, but so colorful and vibrant. I finally found a purple/lavender fabric with a design and so one of my skirts is made from that. you all know my love of purple.

My swahili is coming along slowly...the guys that try to sell you stuff on the street is a good way to practice and so i have been talking to a lot of people.

i love to read your emails. keep 'em coming.

Mimi ni mgojwa kidogo (I am a little sick)

I am a little sick today...nothing serious, just a cold I think. And I have been taking my Malaria pills religiously so I am nto worried. The worst part about it is that the showers are all cold, so it seems to worsen the sniffles. Today no more volunteers arrive, tomorrow the bulk of them come, but so far there are 9 of us plus our two coordinators. One of our coordinators is a Tanzanian teaching partner. Here name is Hanifa and she is so great. I have asked her to do a Swahili lesson, since I need to brush up and force myself to speak and most of the volunteers have had even less instruction in Swahili so we are all in need of this. The other volunteers are nice, I especially like the three from England. I want to not only know Swahili when I am done, but I want an English accent! Today we are going to visit a lake nearby the hostel. The area surrounding us is amazing, you can see Mt Meru from the middle of town (at the clock tower) and it just brightens up the whole sky in one direction. We don't start official training or orientation until Wednesday, so we have a few days to explore. Yesterday I bought some fabric and will go tomorrow to the tailor to have a skirt made. They do not use patterns, instead you draw them a picture of what you want and they make it via the picture and a few measurements.
Yesterday we went to the market. It was amazing, so crazy. Bananas, avocados, tiny fish that smell really bad, and people shucking corn all over are main sights. Everywhere we go they shout "wazumgu!" or foreigner. Today is Sunday so we don't go out walking or take public transportation. We take taxis everywhere because people drink on Sundays or go to church and then drink so the crime rates go up. But it is better to be safe than sorry!

So far my blogs are not that exciting. Have faith and keep reading. Writing these makes me think of all of you :) Missing you all.

I'm here!

I arrived today in Arusha, Tanzania after flying into Kilimanjaro airport. I also had a layover in Ethiopia, which was crazy...I found a taxi and stayed at a hotel that the airline paid for, but the sights were so alien. At 10pm (it was very dark), there were crowds of people on the street, under tarps and hatched roofs and people walked along the freeway that we drove on. At the hotel, this bird was right outside my window all night (sound familiar, mom and dad?) and i had no idea what time it was and was paranoid about missing my bus so i stayed awake.
In Arusha there is beautiful weather, I am the first volunteer here, but more come tonight. Tomorrow or the next day we will go to the fabric market and then to the tailor to get skirts made. i am most excited about this right now. The hostel is fine, I am in a room with 11 beds, (makes me think of the 8 girl).
I have yet to have a hot shower since leaving LA, because the hotel in Addis Ababa didn't have hot water in my room, so another thing to look forward to tonight! I have already met a bunch of people, including many missionaries that were on my flight. All were surpirsed that I was traveling by myself. I also met a man from Kenya who was in Addis on business and we had an interesting religion discussion. He is a Pastor (Episcapalian I think he said). Excuse the horrible spelling. I told him I was Jewish and he told me about all the missionary trips that he has taken with groups to India to work with Hindus. He also told me my first HIV wrong assumption. He himself did not think this was true, but knew those that were convinced. He said that some people believe that Albinos should be killed (in fact there is a lot of violence against them, since they of course look so different). But he also said that some believe that the organs of Albinos cure AIDS and therefore they are sometimes hunted and then eaten.
He also asked me why I thought HIV was so much more prevalent in Africa than other places and my response was lack of accurate information. Which of course is SIC's goal and my goal as an individual as well.
I hope that this summer brings us that much closer.

Preparations and Acknowledgements...

Hamjambo! (Hello all)

I leave for Africa in one week! This blog is for those that would like to read about my activities while I am in Tanzania for the next two months. I am hoping to be able to update it at least once a week.

For those of you that don't know, I am traveling to Tanzania with Support for International Change (SIC), a non profit organization committed to help stop the spread of HIV/AIDS. I was chosen as a volunteer participant back in March and prepared throughout Spring quarter during weekly pre-field meetings and by taking a Swahili class in order to know the basics of Tanzania's national language. While in Tanzania, I will be living with a host Tanzanian family and teaching HIV/AIDS biology, transmission and prevention in schools along with our Tanzanian teaching partners.

A huge thank you to all of you that donated to help fund my trip. I could not have done this without your support and encouragement. Also, a very sincere thank you to Sara's Wish Foundation, who has awarded me a scholarship to help fund my participation in the SIC program. If you would like to learn more about this amazing foundation and their dedication to safety while traveling and working abroad, please visit their website: www.saraswish.org

Much love to you all,
Kwa Herini! (Goodbye all)