For the Non-Poli Junkie

The heat has settled in and the dusty roads are here to stay for a while. On my way home from work today many dalla dallas had been rerouted to my road due to construction on the main road. Every 20 steps or so I would jump off of the road to avoid the oncoming overloaded vehicle and be left with only visions of brown. Picture driving down the 400 in a snow storm, except brown instead of white. Not only is it unsettling for this dirt-avoiding student, but my eyes are paying a price. So much dust! Sometimes the roads have as much as half an inch of loose dirt over them and when a car goes flying….cover your eyes!

Although, maybe by spending more time outside in the heat the dirt will stick to me and less people will yell Mzungu when I walk by. Today this very cute little girl, around 8 years old, walked right up to me on the road and put out her hand while saying "Hello, what is your name" in perfect English. I told her and asked for her name. "Belinda", she shared. I said nice to meet you Belinda. She replied, again in perfect English "where are you from?" proceeded to repeat "Canada" with a smile on her face. Then all of a sudden all her friends came over, many little girls ranging from around 5 to 9 years old. "whats your name, whats your name" they all yelled, in not so perfect English. I looked at Belinda and shared a smile, then turned back to the others "My name is Amber, and I am from Canada". They were so cute. Unfortunately I was on my way to town, racing the sun again, otherwise I would have stayed and talked to them longer. I told them I had to go but would try to come by again (this was maybe 4 houses down from me).

Yesterday I was given the opportunity to sit through yet another training session at Mkombozi. Community Engagement spends a lot of time training members of the community and following up on the trainings, which means, as a member of that team I can be exposed to a number of different groups of people learning about different topics. In Swahili.

Jane was training the staff at Mkombozi yesterday in a method of Monitoring and Evaluation called Most Significant Change (MSC). Since I had asked her questions while she was preparing the presentation she was happy that I could join in for the actual training. I hadn't heard of MSC before but then again my CPPO side of my MSW will be filled in when I return to Canada in the Winter.

It was a fun training because a group of the staff from the Arusha office came into Moshi for the afternoon and I was able to see almost everyone in one room. They were so excited to see each other, greeting one another with hugs and hand shakes. "Mambo" "Safi" "Poa" sliding across the room. One of the social workers came over and asked me how Moshi has been. I told her Nzuri (good) but HOT! She replied with "no kidding, I want to take my jacket off but only have a little shirt underneath!!" I noticed by the end of the afternoon she was down to her tank top, which was probably the same as an Old Navy tank that many Canadian girls would wear on a daily basis.

From what I gathered, Most Significant Change is a qualitative method of determining outcomes from specific programs within the organization. Each staff member was given a form and (I think) asked to sit down with a few of their clients and ask what has been the most significant change they have experienced in a specified time since joining the program.

For example, one of the social workers might sit down with one of the boys in residential care and ask what is the most significant change he has experienced since arriving at Mkombozi 3 months ago. This can be positive or negative, they are just to ask what is most significant in their lives. It sounds interesting. I hope to read some of the results over the coming months.

I am starting to find that I can follow some conversations in Swahili, but cannot contribute. Similar to my past experiences with French, but on a much smaller scale. On my way home from town tonight I had a taxi driver who did not speak English very well. I got in and said "Karibu Mkombozi Centre" (near Mkombozi, so they know the direction to head to). He said ok, and asked me if I speak KiSwahili, in Swahili. I said "Kidogo" (A little), he smiled and said to me something along the lines of "you should learn more swahili or at ask in swahili do you speak english" I smiled and asked if he spoke english. He said "kidogo sana" (very little). We both smiled. The rest of the ride was pretty quiet until he turned the radio on.

When I got home I asked for his phone number in case I needed a taxi in the future. This is normal practice here. You find a taxi driver that you like and get there number because there are no "taxi companies" just people who drive taxis. At least now Michael (the taxi driver) knows where I live so I can text him and say "its Amber from Karibu Mkombozi, can you come pick me up?" :)

I had another experience at one of our morning catch up meetings where everyone was speaking "Swahilish" my new version of Swahili-English mixed (think Frenglish). After the meeting William was explaining to me what was said and I already knew everything he said! There is a lot of drama around the office right now because there has been a lot of turn over of staff lately and people are concerned, but it turns out it has just been coincidental and the organization isn't trying to get rid of anyone, just circumstances have come up for multiple people at the same time.


Other interesting stories of late:
I hired a cleaning lady. Sort of. The woman who cleans at work (forgive me I forget her name), came up to me today very discretely and asked if I was enjoying living in my house (everyone knows I moved by now and the story of Mama Moshi to go along with it). She explained to me that Jen, the volunteer before me that lived here had a lady come and help her with laundry and some cleaning - kitchen, floors etc, and would I be interested in that. I could feel the smile spread across my face. I said that I would definitely appreciate the help and would be willing to pay someone. I told her early next week would be great and she said she would talk to one of her friends who is looking for some extra work. No more nightmares about keeping the floors clean!

I had my first interoffice emailing chat experience today. It was weird and pointless. I prefer getting up from my desk but I'm just the international placement student

While we were sitting outside eating lunch today one of the boys at the centre told Michael (one of the teachers) that he thinks I’m lonely because when ever he sees me I'm alone and is afraid I have no one to tell stories to. It was cute. So I told Michael to ask him if he wanted to join us for lunch and I could tell him stories. The boy said no. We had a good laugh.

This reminded me of over the weekend when one of the social workers asked me to tell him a story about my friends. This sounds easy but I found it was really hard! I just started thinking about all my friends and the great emails I have been getting and couldn't think of a good story to share. I told him he was being too vague and if he gave me a type of story then maybe I could think of something. He just said "a fun story". OH boy. So I told him the story about how we got lost on the way home from Washington DC and wound up on the Princeton University campus and went shopping in the bookstore. I think he was waiting for the punchline. Then he told me a story about his friend who left his wife at home and went out with his friends and asked them to help him find a prostitute, long story short, the prostitute fell asleep in his car and he forgot she was there and drove home and his wife woke up in the middle of the night to the prostitute wanting to know where he was. I was also waiting for the punchline, he was laughing. The poor wife.

Managed to spend the CND equivalent of $26 on groceries today. I didn't think I bought very much but a box of cereal is surprisingly expensive, as is floor cleaner, cockroach killing spray and cheese. I even splurged and bought some cans of tuna. It doesn't look like I will be cooking my own meat here anytime soon so Tuna and chickpeas sounds good to me! Perhaps I will become a Tuna eating vegetarian.

I'm heading to Arusha for the weekend so I this may be my last post for a few days. Saturday after my first support group (wish me luck!) I am going to get on the bus to Arusha and stay in a place that someone else cleaned with a toilet. I can watch a movie at the theatre, go shopping at Woolworths and go swimming if I like! Katrijn, the volunteer from Belgium has offered to meet me at the bus station if I don’t arrive early enough to join her and Anna (volunteer from England) swimming.