Still the Luckiest Girl in the World

I have been in Tanzania for almost 16 months and I have had to travel for one reason or another, often more than once, in every single one of those months.  I would have thought that at this point I would have at least gotten to a point of indifference with packing but no such luck.  I still hate doing it and I am currently sitting in my living room procrastinating just as I usually do.  All nighter, here I come!  This time, though, that feeling of dread that seems to be cemented to the idea of packing is accompanied by my goofy grin as I am about to start my journey home to see all of the people I love the most in my life. 

My first destination is The Ranch, my grandparents’ house, and I can already see myself curling up in front of a fire while I read my book and listen to the not-so-silent silence of the old house.  This after the huge hugs I will get from two people I love dearly.  

While this excitement and anticipation pulses through my veins, my impending trip home is also serving as a reminder of how much I love this place and how amazingly lucky I am to be able to have this experience.  Thinking about leaving now is making me wonder how I will ever be able to say goodbye to this place, and all of the wonderful people I have met, permanently when it’s time to move on to my next adventure.  How will I be ok with getting up and going to work or school or whatever after Peace Corps at a place where I cannot see the 100 beautiful smiles that I have become so accustomed to seeing everyday?  All it takes is the slightest change in my facial expression or the littlest bit of silliness to get them laughing and those smiles and that sound have become a drug for me.  I'm addicted!

Do you want to know what else has got me flying high?  Of the 520ish tests I graded, about 110 of those were the math tests of the Form 3 girls that I teach.  Even before the test I had students coming to ask me, not only for help with their math (unheard of), but also for extra math problems to practice on their own (even more unheard of).  Their enthusiasm in their studies showed as I marked exam after exam and I saw that they had breezed through problems they found impossible after learning how to do them at the beginning of the year.  The student with the highest score in the class got a score 20 points above her average and when I told her she got the top score, the expression on her face made my heart so incredibly happy, I wanted to cry. It’s strange to see what kinds of things in my Peace Corps service make me feel successful because they seem so small to me when I look at them from an American perspective.  My students still have a long way to go with their math skills but their gears are starting to turn the right way for it and I couldn’t be prouder of them.  Watching them progress in their studies, specifically in math, is beyond enough for me right now.   How lucky am I, then, that I also have a fantastic relationship with them?    I'd say I'm the luckiest girl in the world.  

I am so incredibly grateful for the life I have.   A fitting statement for the week after Thanksgiving.   I want to finish of my last blog of the year by saying how thankful I am for the support system I have, both at home and abroad.  I have the most amazing family and friends all over the world and they all love me way more than they should.  I am beyond honored to know and love all of you.  So, thank you so very much.  Any success I see here is as much yours as it is mine as there is no way this adventure would be even remotely possible without all of you. 

Happy Holidays!

Fears

I’m back!  Ok, I didn’t really go anywhere (minus a trip or two to Dar for meetings/trainings), I’ve just been on a writing hiatus.  I wrote one blog last month but I never posted it (I will post it with this one) and I don’t really know why.  I think it just got lost in my daily routine, a routine that has become somewhat devoid of responsibilities.  I went from having too many things at the beginning of the year to helping the secretary sort rice (yes, you read that right) after I’ve taught my math lesson for the day.  Well, if you know me relatively well at all, you know that my brain refuses to relax…ever.  So while I’m sitting and staring at the wall and waiting for time to pass, the gears in my head are starting to burn.  A lot has happened to feed the fire and I almost wonder if the time I have to think has been the greatest gift I’ve gotten from Peace Corps.  This last year has included a lot of self-reflection that I know I never would have gotten had I stayed in the states because I was too addicted to being busy to accommodate it.

In the last month, a few things have happened that have stirred up some serious emotions of all different kinds.  The most recent actually happened last night when I received a phone call from the US Embassy.  It is not uncommon to get phone calls from random Tanzanians calling just to greet you or harass you for one thing or another.  They don’t even have to have met you.  Example: my friend used my phone to call a bus driver about a month ago and the bus driver still calls me to say hi.  I don’t even know who this guy is!   Anyways, when an unknown phone number comes up on my phone, I take a couple of seconds to decide if I want to answer or not.  I answered thinking it might be Peace Corps and got a little huffy when I heard an unknown Tanzanian speaking on the other end (thinking it was the bus driver again).  Then when I heard him say “US Embassy” I got scared that I was going home and the first thing that popped into my head was “Oh my gosh! What did I do?”  My heart jumped into my throat.  Then I heard him say one of my students’ names, a student who applied last month to participate in a leadership program in America.  They chose ten students from the whole country of Tanzania and Laila is one of the lucky ones who will be boarding a flight to America next month for a 24 day trip to Denver/D.C.  When I told her, I saw so much fear in her eyes (the good kind that comes right before something amazing) and today as we started to prepare her for her journey, she told me that she feels like throwing up.  I laughed and explained that that’s exactly what I was feeling before I came to Tanzania.  I am bursting at the seams with excitement for her and I can’t wait to hear all about her adventure.  I know she’s going to have a wonderful time and learn some amazing things.   All she has to do is be brave and get on that plane.

While my heart is singing with pride and joy this week, it had its fair share of crying last week.  One of my biggest fears about going into the Peace Corps was that a family member would pass away while I was gone.  Even on my last day in America, to calm myself down, I was writing to myself that “I can’t stay here and wait for people to die, I have to live my life and hope that they will still be here when I get back.”  It put things in perspective for me at the time but, of course, didn’t eliminate the possibility of it happening.  On September 30, my Grandmother passed away.  The bone head that I am, I went to school to teach anyway thinking I could pull it off, but instead spent the first part of the day choking back tears and finally throwing in the towel and going back home to spend the next two days thinking about her (I'm serious when I say I'm burning out the gears in my head).   I’m really grateful that I had the opportunity to spend some time with her before I left but now that I can’t anymore, I think of all of the things I wish I had been brave enough to ask her or talk to her about.  I only really interacted with her consistently as a child and I wish that I could have heard some of her stories after I had become old enough to hear them.  In the end, like everyone else, she did the best she could with what she had and I am incredibly proud to be related to her; a woman who always followed her heart and just wanted to be loved in her own way.  I did love her, I do love her, and she will always be in my heart.  Not being there and not being able to attend the memorial is really hard but it only makes me more excited for Christmas... WITH MY FAMILY! (This is my transition from sad to happy.  Sorry about the abruptness.)

After FOUR years, I am finally going to be spending Christmas with my Mom, Dad, and brother.   The decision to visit the States during my service makes me extremely ecstatic while also filling me with insane amounts of anxiety.  Right now, though, emphasis on the ecstatic.  I can’t wait to spend some time with people back home, speak English, and take hot showers (even if it’s to escape from the insanely cold weather and not necessarily just to be clean). It’s going to be AMAZING. And get this, when I go to a restaurant, they’re going to give me a menu AND I will be able to choose anything I want AND the restaurant will actually have it.  I’m counting down the days!  Ahhhhhhhhh!

Anyways, here's a picture of Laila, my student who will be heading to the US next month!

Oh, Hey, September, There You Are!

I had every intention of writing one blog each month of my Peace Corps service but I ended up with a classic case of writer’s block.  It gets a lot harder to write about my ‘crazy adventure in Tanzania’ when things start to feel really normal.  So normal that thinking about coming back to America in real-life terms (instead of fantasy-terms) gives me enough anxiety to force me to block out the fact that it will actually happen.  I know there will be a time and that time seems to be coming with increasing speeds but for now life is just life here and it has gotten… comfortable.  Sans running water, paved roads, and everything that goes along with that.

Having said that, though, I must also say this: Peace Corps is hard.  When you’re in the midst of it all, it’s hard to remember that and what happens instead is you start to feel completely inadequate.

My service started a little differently than most other volunteers in Tanzania.  I lived with the volunteer I replaced for the first two months of my service.  There are a lot of pros to this situation and there are a lot of cons.  Those first few months of your service are when you, as a volunteer, get to establish yourself in the community, figure out how things work, and mess EVERYTHING up so that you can learn to do things better later.  It’s kind of like taking someone who can’t swim and throwing them into the deep end of the pool.  Because I lived with the volunteer I was replacing, I instead saw how SHE did everything… at the END of her service when she was good at everything.  Her Swahili was phenomenal, her house was extremely clean, her relationships in the village and with her students were ones to be envied, and she had routines and systems that worked both in and outside of the house.   Her accomplishments and routines at the end of her service became my baselines for the beginning of my service and I had to somehow live up to that.  A lot of volunteers go through this when they replace someone because villagers will say “oh, that’s not how so-and-so did that” or “so-and-so knew all of our languages and all of this too.”  The difference for me was, I actually knew what the volunteer before me did because I witnessed it and that meant that I was making all of those comparisons myself, every minute of every day.  I felt sub-par from the very beginning and over the last year, I have been waiting to wake up and feel like I was actually living up to my predecessor’s accomplishments. I didn’t even realize how much I compare myself to her until after a couple of visits from friends, when I found myself saying frequently, “Liz used to do it that way,” or “yeah, at our house, we have to…” because everything I do, I still subconsciously compare it to how Liz did it before me and even with the furniture changes, the house has never really felt completely like my own.

A couple of months ago, I got an email from Liz telling me that she would be back in Tanzania and she was wondering how I felt about her visiting.  I told her that she was absolutely welcome and that I thought it would be fantastic for her and the community here.  I then spent the next few months trying to tuck away my ego and anxiety, fearing face-to-face comparisons.   I had this irrational fear that as soon as she got here, everyone would turn on me and tell me how awful I am at everything and that they would all talk about me in Swahili so that I couldn’t understand what they were saying.  Or… maybe I WOULD be able to understand it which would at least ease the paranoia a little bit but still make me feel awful.

Do you want to know what happened instead?  I ended up spending a couple of days feeling, for the first time here, that I had a real ally with me.  Someone who understands the struggles and excitements I’ve been going through for the last year and can actually empathize with me, kind of tell me what comes later, and what I should let roll of my back.   There is not a single person in this world that can relate to my experience or validate how I feel about the experience as well as she can and I feel so blessed to have that.   There are a lot of things we have done differently but I have also realized that we have handled a lot of things similarly.  By comparing our services, instead of relating them, I only created an unnecessary monster for myself.  It turns out that my feelings of inadequacy seem to parallel hers even though all I can see are her contributions (many of which she doesn’t seem to remember).  This has given me back a little hope that my time here won’t be completely fruitless.

Today, after she left, I found myself feeling kind of lonely and really missing having her around.  I don’t know if this is because, for a couple of days, it didn’t feel like it was me against the world or if having her here was some form of validation, or if it was because she was here when I first arrived, or if it was just that she’s a cool person but whatever it was, I got a lot of peace out of the visit, a good day at the beach, and I have squashed one of my internal Peace Corps monsters.  

Nimechoka

In Swahili, "nimechoka" means I’m tired.  I don’t mean it in the sleepy way, though.  As a matter of fact, I seem to have developed a mild case of insomnia.  When I’m actually able to sleep, I’m having dreams that are often terrifying enough to wake me up and force me to check if they’re real.  i.e. being eaten by lions, enormous bugs in my bed waiting to bite me, people breaking into my house.  It’s like my own personal scary movie every night.  Jealous?  Yeah, you have to go to the movie theater, I just have to crawl into bed and close my eyes.  I save 20 bucks every time!  No, this isn’t sleepy tired, this is mental, emotional, and cultural exhaustion as every minute of everyday stretches you in all of the ways mentioned.  This scenario ultimately forces you to dig deeper than you thought you could to find that last little bit of fuel to keep you going until… well, who knows when?  The thing is, you don’t have a choice.  Losing your patience, getting upset, frustrated, and/or angry, those are all only detrimental to you (that’s not saying that all of those things haven’t happened… they definitely have. All of them.) and after they’ve affected your wellbeing, it only expands to affect everyone around you.  They in turn respond with an appropriately reciprocating reaction that only makes you feel even worse.  So, in ironic self-preservation, you tap into that last little bit of fuel and you miraculously manage to avoid complete self-destruction.  One day at a time.   Even worse, you’re isolated from the people and things you usually turn to when you’re struggling.  You want to call home?  Sorry.  You want to go to the gym? Sorry again.  You want to go somewhere else and become completely anonymous so you can figure it all out?  Sorry one more time.  You want to know what you have to do?  You have to face all of your issues head on and then you have to adjust your attitude.  It’s ALL on you.  That’s one thing this experience has really done for me: it has forced me to feel.  There’s no distraction when you’re sad, mad, frustrated, jealous, lonely, etc.  They all show up at your doorstep and you have to play host until they’re ready to leave.  Having said that, I usually avoid writing a blog when my optimism is hiding behind a big grey cloud but I’ve come to the realization that I will look back at this as one representation of my Peace Corps experience and, whether I like it or not, my experience will include horrible, frustrating, exhausting, and taxing times right along with the crazy, funny, amazing, weird, beautiful, and fantastic times.  It will include times when I feel like standing on a rooftop, announcing to the whole world how amazing my life is and it will include times when I want to crawl into a hole, scream at the top of my lungs in frustration, and/or spontaneously combust.  What I’m learning is that that’s ok.  This is an enormous epiphany for me.  I’m learning that admitting that something is difficult or that I’m struggling through something does not make me weak and it does not mean that I’m not capable of rising to the challenge.   It just means that I’m telling it like it is. Life is hard sometimes, no matter where you live or who you are.  So, here you go, times are a little rough right now and I’m working through it.   I’m sure that once I’ve had a bit of a break, I’ll be back to new and ready to run.

Anyways, moving on.  There’s a legitimate reason as to why I’m so tired.  There’s been a lot going on!  Last time I wrote, I talked all about Zanzibar.  Since Zanzibar I’ve had a regional conference, a malaria workshop, a Volunteer committee meeting, and a girls empowerment conference.  This weekend I’m headed to Lindi for a computer seminar and next weekend I have a training in Dar.  In America, this doesn’t seem like much but in Tanzania travel to and from each of these things takes a whole day each and they all overlap with weekends, which is usually the time I take to recoup and prepare for a week of teaching.  I feel like I’ve been going non-stop for quite a while and I’m ready for a break.  Good thing there’s one coming!  As of June 22, I’m going to get to call some of the shots for a little bit and hopefully get the ball rolling on my Masters research.  Something just for me!  WOOT WOOT! 

Of all of the things I’ve done in the last few weeks, the thing that brings me the most joy is the girls’ conference.  This isn’t so much because of the conference itself as it is because of the girls that I brought with me.  Words cannot describe how proud I was to be the teacher who brought these five girls.  They participated in everything; they were respectful and attentive, and so incredibly happy to be there.  At the end of the conference, each volunteer sits down with their girls to plan a lesson to take back to their school.  When I asked my girls which lesson they wanted to present when we got back to school, they said  “all of them” and proceeded to volunteer to teach each lesson they could think of and plan respective lessons.  I was blown away by their initiative and drive from start to finish.  These girls were all Form 3 (juniors in high school) and the amazingness of them only made my love for Form 3 grow deeper.  This class is full of students that want to learn.  When they are dismissed in the middle of a math problem because it’s the end of the day, they tell me to continue to the end of the problem; when I tell them I want to start next year’s lessons before we’ve finished the year so that we can get a head start, they get excited; and when I finish my lecture before the period is over, they ask me to stay just to talk.  To top it off, they all seem to have beautiful hearts of gold.  This class, without fail, brightens even the worst of days and is what keeps me going when I’m beyond sick of everything.  I am so excited and feel so blessed to have them here with me until I’ve finished my service.  I couldn’t have asked for a better group to work with.

Every time I write one of these, I feel like I am contemplating a new perspective change. I’m frustrated lately with the complacency of the Tanzanian culture (a little abrupt after raving about my Form 3s – oops).  There’s a saying here that they say frequently: “Muungu akipenda.”  This means “if God wishes.”  I don’t really have a problem with this, as I believe this in my own way as well.  What I have a problem with here is that people lean completely on this ideology and, instead of making moves to change the things they don’t like, they wait for the change to happen “as God wishes.”  As Americans, we want to constantly be in control.  If we don’t like the situation we’re in, we believe hard work and persistence can change the situation into one we do like and we’ll keep pressing it until either it changes or we die.   One way or another we WILL be happy even if it means working and being completely miserable until we get there.  Americans are very rarely willing to just sit and wait for something to happen.   I don’t know that this is necessarily better as our culture is one that is usually focused only on an end result leading us to miss out on a lot of wonderful things along the way (just as the age-old cliché says) but there has to be some middle ground.  One where people can take responsibility for their life while holding onto the trust and faith that seems to be required for happiness.

As an outsider in Tanzania, I witness all kinds of things that I think are just plain silly (like all of the sitting and waiting mentioned above).  The Earth almost shattered the other day because I didn’t want tea at teatime.  Every single teacher made a comment, which was followed by complete surprise and then uncontrollable laughter.  I couldn’t figure out why it was so appalling… I wasn’t thirsty for tea so, I didn’t take tea.  Simple as that. So, then, how often do people here just do things because it’s the societally accepted time to do them?  We, of course, have the same problem in America.  We just don’t notice it because these silly things are the cultural norm for us.  For example, do you sit at the same place everyday for lunch?  With the same people?  At the same time?  Why?  No. Seriously. Why?  Do you have an answer? How do you feel when one (or all) of these things unexpectedly changes?  Maybe someone is sitting in “your” place at your lunchtime or someone uninvited sits down with your group and starts chomping away on their sandwich completely oblivious to the fact that they have yet to be welcomed (even though you, of course, would welcome them anyway).   It could be that a project or a phone call unexpectedly, right before lunch, forces you to change your schedule for a day and you have to eat *gasp* 30 minutes later.  I’d like to think we’d all be flexible and make-do but, if we’re being completely honest with ourselves, in our culture, this would strike a nerve (as small or big as it might be).  Here in Tanzania, no one would bat an eyelash at ANY of these things and they definitely wouldn’t understand why you would even notice.    

So, if this is how it is with tea and lunch, where else in our daily lives do these kinds of things affect us?  What kinds of limitations do these things put on us?   Do we really reach our full potential or do we only go as far as society expects us to?  What things should be questioned that we’re not questioning merely because we see and overlook them every single day of our lives?  For me, it has taken stepping out of our society and into another one to see how much we are unnecessarily controlled by the masses and typical norms of our country. I’d like to believe that, when I get back, I won’t fall right back into society and settle for the norms.  I want to push the limits! But, I can't guarantee that.  Society is VERY powerful.  All I can do is my best and try to channel who I am here in Tanzania.  I’ve gotten used to being the weirdo here, the one that doesn’t make any sense to anyone and I'm perfectly okay with that.  The thing is, it’s easier to be that person here because there’s an obvious reason.  It would be more abnormal for me to try to be “normal” here than it is for me to be strange.  Therefore, ordinary is automatically not ordinary for someone doing what I do.  Did you follow that?   What I’m saying is that it’s easy to be the person that does things differently here and challenges ideas because it’s expected of me as a foreigner.  At home, though, where everyone is implicitly expected to, more or less, fall into line, THAT’S where it takes a seriously brave person to do something out of the ordinary. Then, that brave person has to have massive amounts of internal strength and confidence to stand up against everyone around them that’s either laughing at them or telling them that they’re wrong.  That’s freakin’ scary, no matter whom you are. There are a number of people in my life that have been strong enough to break all of the rules, go against society, and have done what they believed was right in spite of what the world was telling them.  While I respected them immensely before, my opinion of them has skyrocketed.  These people, the ones that dare to dream, wear their passion on their sleeves, and believe in something better, they are the ones responsible for a world that continues to change and improve.

So, on that note, here’s to a life of dreaming and reaching for the stars. I wish all of you ALL the best and I hope you're having a fantastic June!  

The Rodent Chronicles?

Maybe I should change the title of my blog to “The Rodent Chronicles.”  Since I last wrote, I have had a mouse chew through my mosquito net and bounce around my head until my stupor had faded enough for me untuck my net and let it out.  I’ve woken up to a mouse knocking over everything on my nightstand right next to my head (but thankfully on the other side of my net) and last, but not least, I recently found a drowned rat floating in what was going to be my shower water (I tossed it outside and it was gone within the hour).  I became a little more flinchy after the mouse-in-my-bed incident but I’m still much more comfortable with my fellow housemates than I would ever have been had I never lived here.  One of the many ways that Tanzania is helping to shape the person I am becoming.

As I approach my one-year mark in country (June 15), I often think back to how much has happened and how much I feel like I have changed.  Most of these changes are expected, welcomed and feel appropriate but what surprises me more often than the changes, though, are the “not-changes.”  The pieces of me that have stuck, that have turned out to be part of my very core.  It’s eye-opening to realize how much of an influence American culture, family values, and the friends I’ve chosen over the years have had on my character. (all of these influences, by the way, I have become more and more grateful for with each passing day – in other words I love all of YOU and am thankful for each and every one of you). 

One of these core traits seems to be my opinion of time.  In Tanzania, nothing ever happens on time. EVER. I’ve probably mentioned this before but it’s something that still nags at me.  If someone says 1:00, it probably means 3:00 or later.  If school starts on the 3^rd, people will probably show up on the 10^th.  The first class of the day at my school starts at 7:30 but very rarely are the teachers actually at school by that time even though all live within 5 minutes walking distance of the school and some live right on campus.  It’s the Tanzanian way, the mindset of the culture.  I was having lunch with some teachers yesterday and they said to me “Madame Brie, you are always at school so early!” which caught me by surprise because I constantly feel guilty for my tardiness.  I consider reporting time to be before the students gather and usually I show up as they’re singing the morning song.  When my fellow teachers asked me why I was so early, I started off by saying “well, I teach the first period every morning so I need to be there before that.”  Then I thought about it a little more and realized that it had more to do with the fact that I am an American.  I tried to explain how much value Americans place on time and that it’s disrespectful to be late for a scheduled event or meeting.  Then I realized, for me, it’s not only American culture, but also the culture of my family, both immediate and extended.  Right then and there, as I was explaining “American time” to these two women, I heard my Dad’s voice in my head (again) saying “if you’re on time, you’re late, and if you’re early, you’re on time.”  I guess that stuck and I am forever doomed to be a slave to the clock… a concept, by the way, that Tanzanians think is hilarious.  It will probably always bother me if I’m late by MY standards, even if I know a Tanzanian will not notice the difference between me being five minutes early and two hours late.  I will probably always have to remind myself that a Tanzanian means no disrespect if they’re late for something that they’ve scheduled with me and I will probably always hate waiting for hours on end for reasons that seem to be unwarranted and due only to inefficiency or the need to greet someone twenty times.  On the other side of that, it has made it possible for, no forced, me to relax in ways that I never would have been able to in the states.  There's a valuable lesson in that and I'm getting the opportunity to appreciate time in a whole new way.   Plus, guess what?  The DMV is going to be a breeze for this lady!

A few weeks ago, I went to Zanzibar with my friend.  The two of us boarded the ferry that, much to our surprise, left within ten minutes of the scheduled departure.  We just looked at each other and laughed about how amazing it was that we were leaving when we were when neither of us expected to  leave for at least another hour.

On that note… last time I wrote, I was talking about the fact that I had finally gotten bored.  I was waiting for something exciting to happen, something to change up the routine and break up monotony.  Well, ask and you shall receive, right?  I spent a week in Zanzibar, followed shortly by a week-long regional conference down south.  Now I’m back at site grading papers until Wednesday when I will head to Dar es Salaam for a meeting with some other volunteers from around the country.  At the end of May, our region is putting on a girls’ empowerment conference and then at the end of June, I will be making another trip to Dar for another meeting.  I have a feeling that the next couple of months are going to fly by as fast as the last one has. 

As for Zanzibar… what a fabulous place!  We spent most of our time in Stonetown, a city full of labyrinth-like alleyways, fantastic food, amazing churches, old buildings, fascinating history, and cool doors.  Cool doors?  Yeah.  They were absolutely amazing.  Everywhere you turned, there were these fantastic, intricately, hand-carved doors.  In Zanzibar, back in the day (even though the place isn’t really any older than 50 years), your door signified your wealth and social status.  The result: amazing works of art on the front of every building that leave you in a constant state of awe.  They were breathtaking.

Aside from getting lost in this fabulous city on a daily basis, we also headed out to Prison Island, an island that was in reality a quarantine and never actually a prison.  The main attraction: giant tortoises ranging anywhere from the age of a couple of months to 125 years old.  They. Were. Awesome.  The guy feeding them even let us hold one of the younger ones.  We hung out with them for a while and then got back on the boat and headed back to the big island for some more wandering and door gazing followed by street food and… Zanzibar pizza!

Every night at around 6pm, the Tanzanian vendors would start setting up their tables of food.  A time-lapse of this would be way cool.  There was octopus, chicken, crab, fish, meat, meat, and more meat but, since I don’t eat meat, I bee-lined for the main attraction: Zanzibar pizza.  This wonderful invention, at least the cheese and tomato version, is a concoction of cabbage, laughing-cow-style cheese, tomatoes, eggs, and probably a few more things, all mixed together and fried inside of a tortilla-thin pizza dough.  It comes complete with an awesome chef.  It definitely wasn’t what I was expecting when I heard “pizza” but it was pretty dang good, extremely cheap, and really fun.  For dessert: the same thing except with banana and nutella inside and a drizzle of chocolate sauce on the outside. My mouth is watering right now just thinking about it.  Deeeeeeelicious.  I’m going to stop there with food but just know that during my week of vacation, I enjoyed some pretty amazing food and it made me oh-so-excited for the day when I actually have choices again. 

In addition to some fabulous food, we also explored some fascinating museums, and then headed out of town for one of Zanzibar’s biggest tourist attractions, a spice tour.  My friend and I definitely wanted to go but we were bracing ourselves for over-the-top sales pitches and relentless hassling.   Much to our surprise, the whole excursion was very pleasant (maybe because we were there during the tourism off-season).  They showed us all of the different kinds of spices and fruits that they grow and we learned a few things about each of them.  Did you know cinnamon is actually the bark of a tree?  They cut it off in strips to use and then wait for it to grow back.  What about cocoa? Did you know that cocoa seeds are actually white?  There weren’t very many pods because the kids in the area like to break them open and eat the top layer of the cocoa seeds (a gooey layer with very little taste that I think is usually used for cocoa butter).  This means the inside of the seed, the part that is used in chocolate, gets lost.   While cocoa is what most Americans would be interested in, cloves are the spice that Zanzibar is famous for.  Smelling that was like walking into the candle section of a Hallmark store or Bath and Body Works, except… in the middle of a forest, which, in my opinion, is waaaaaay better.  I think my favorite thing that we saw, though, was something that came towards the end. It was a little fuzzy, reddish, heart-shaped pod and when you open it up, there are all these little red balls inside.  The women of Zanzibar mash them up and use them as lipstick.  It was like nature’s version of a compact but, instead of buying them at the store, you pick them off of a bush from anywhere on the island.

    

Zanzibar definitely made for a fantastic week and was just the adventure I needed to shake things up a bit.  If you ever have the opportunity to go there, do it, it’s absolutely fantastic and my words don't even begin to do it justice.

Happy May!

P.S. This one’s for you Grampa! Love you!

It Finally Happened…

I got bored. How long did it take? Well, as of now, I have been in Tanzania for eight months and three weeks… almost exactly. It’s not that I don’t have anything to do… trust me, I have TONS to do, I just don’t want to do it. Yeah, Dad, I’ve already had that conversation in my head… you know the one. The one where I say “I’m bored” and you say “Well, I can find something for you to do!” I have lesson plans and tests to write, quizzes to grade, labs to prepare, cleaning to take care of, and Swahili to learn. Again, though, I just don’t want to do any of it. It’s like homework and chores but it’s all the time without any kind of play break. My days have become routine, the people are the same, the things I see are the same, the things I do are the same... Basically, life has become predictable. This is a drastic change from the eight chaotic months that I have somehow made it through alive (even if that required donating about a pint of blood to the mosquito population and 10 square feet of skin to the dust-bunny community. TMI? Sorry. Did I mention I was still alive?).

This last month I read a couple of books that induced some serious contemplation and meditation. These books, when coupled with copious amounts of time to sit and ponder, are life changing. (I recommend The Alchemist and Eat, Pray, Love to EVERYONE. Seriously. Read them.) One of the lines in The Alchemist that keeps popping into my head is, “When each day is the same as the next, it’s because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives everyday that the sun rises.” Hearing this pulse through my head every time I feel bored reminds me that I have every opportunity for adventure each and every day of my life. As a matter of fact, could it be any easier? I’m living in Africa! Turns out, though, once you’ve settled in somewhere, whether you’re in Pondunk, Kansas or Lindi, Tanzania, a routine is a routine. It’s comfortable and easy but is also typically less than exciting and, for the most part, adrenaline-less. Don’t worry, though, stress decided to stick around and keep me company. I’ve learned something (ok a million things) about myself on this adventure. One of those things is that I love that stress, excitement, and adrenaline and, you know what? I’m currently going through withdrawls. Symptoms include severe boredom, rigorous procrastination that a college student could only dream of, incessant contemplation, and the utter uncertainty of what to do with one’s self on a daily basis. Honestly, I frequently just wander from one room to another but due to the fact that my house consists of about three rooms, this wandering is belittled to mere pacing and I end up just looking, once again, like the crazy white lady with the stupid cat. Kama kawaida. (like usual)

Due to the eight month, chaotic mess I have just lived through, my current baseline for expected unexpectedness is set unbelievably high. So, while my subconscious is gearing up for that exciting thing that life is cooking up, life has decided to throw a real curve ball and send zilch. He’s saying (apparently life is a man) “Alright, time to slow down and settle for a bit, I’m kinda tired right now and you have some work to do.” “Hey, Life! Suck it up and give me something exciting!” Just kidding. I’m fully aware that the slow paced, somewhat monotonous times are just as important as the fast paced, exciting times. Gotta pay your dues, right?

Having said all of this, I think I do a relatively good job of living the day to day and being cognizant of my surroundings. I’ve been known to stop in class mid-lesson to point out a praying mantis the size of my forearm (yes, for real, the size of my forearm). Unfortunately (or fortunately?), my students were more interested in my lesson on classifying 3D objects than the amazing creature chillin’ on the classroom door. “The door is an example of a cuboid, we have the length, widt… WOAH! Do you see this?!” Not a single reaction in the whole room. Really? Dang, tough crowd.

On the other hand, there are things that no longer phase me. When I first got here, I distinctly remember spending hours in the middle of the night standing on a chair in the living room with a flashlight, prodding my rodent-infiltrated-duffel bag with a stick. I spent many nights before and after that lying awake listening to the little critter play, as I was insanely nervous… no, convinced, that my bed was the next destination for her exploration. A couple of days ago, I walked into the kitchen and saw a mouse scurry under my sink. My reaction: a shrug as I grabbed what I needed off the table, turned the light off, and walked back to my room. I chuckled after getting back into bed as I realized how much had changed. Nothin’ freaks this girl out, anymore! Cockroaches included! Ok, ok, spiders are still a little rough (they’re HUGE!) and I haven’t been faced with any indoor snakes yet… I’ll keep you posted.

Things that don’t seem to change: I still love listening to my students sing and I still love a Tanzanian downpour. I love seeing all of the lizards running around my house and the hibiscus flowers that line the road to school. These days, I even love getting up in front of all of my students to teach (this took a little getting used to). This job is teaching me to actually enjoy being in front of people and, when it’s appropriate, making a fool of myself. We all get to laugh but, in the end, I win the greatest prize because I get to watch the light bulb go on when the concept of outer space becomes a real idea instead of just the memorization of eight planet names in the proper order.

Something else that’s been brought to my attention: how much of my education I take for granted. This week, I taught 40, senior-high school level girls that the planets in our solar system orbit the sun. I also taught them why there are 24 hours in a day, thirty-ish days in a month, and 365 days in a year. At the end of the class period, one of my students raised her hand and asked, “How long does it take to get to space?” I was trying to pinpoint why this question stuck out in my head so much and I finally figured it out. Her question was not formed so that she could get a better score on the national exam. It was formed out of genuine curiosity, a first for me in my entire Tanzanian teaching career.

Creativity, individuality, and critical thinking are beat out of these students (quite literally) and rote memorization is forced down their throats (less literally). The head education officer came to visit my school the other day. After pulling all of the teachers out of the classes they were teaching, we were told how to help our students do better (Ironic much?). According to him, we need to make sure that we mark our students’ notebooks frequently. If their handwriting is sloppy or their margins are not done well, write comments to tell them they need to improve. This wouldn’t be so bad if he had mentioned, even once, that we were to check if they were understanding the concepts we were teaching them. He did tell us that students are not to use pens as straight edges, as only a ruler is appropriate for this, or coins as stencils to draw circles, because, duh, compasses! His reasoning: “These are life skills! If we don’t train them to do these things properly, one day one of them might decide they don’t want to wear there socks on their feet and, instead, they will wear their socks on their head!” In America, using a pen as a straight edge would be considered resourceful and, if I remember correctly, my friends and I used to run all over the place with tights on our heads. I’d say we turned out okay (no comments, please, I know what you’re all thinking!) After this lesson on “life skills,” he proceeded to single me out and tell me that English is the most important subject that we teach them. Of course, I’m a girl from America, so I MUST teach English. There’s NO WAY I could be teaching math and physics. Awesome, dude. Compromise my students’ education by taking away their teachers in the middle of the day so that you can tell us that creativity is worthless and then, please proceed to insult me by implying that women couldn’t possibly teach math and physics. I teach at an all-girls’ school, for pete’s sake! What kind of message are you going to send to these students with that attitude? Anyone who knows me knows how much I like this guy right now. Sooooo glad he’s in charge of my district’s education system. NOT!

Anyways, moving on. When I first started thinking about this blog, I wanted to title it “True Love or Real Love” as this was the focus of discussion in the staff room last Thursday afternoon. I’ve always thought of these two things as being equivalent but, apparently, they’re not. Not in Tanzania, at least. Throughout my service, the topics of love and marriage have come up frequently. Sometimes it’s an old man in the village asking me to marry him, sometimes it’s a concierge at a hotel in the city begging me to marry him. Sometimes it’s about divorce and why it happens so often. Or how old Americans are when they decide to get married and why that’s so much later when compared to Tanzanians. What’s the typical age gap between a husband and a wife? What’s better, a family where one parent stays home or a family where no parents stay home? Aside from the marriage proposals, I genuinely enjoy these conversations, as it’s really interesting to compare and contrast our cultures.

Here’s one for you: did you know that in Tanzania, you do not tell anyone you have a girlfriend or boyfriend until you’ve decided to marry them? Essentially, having a boyfriend is having a fiancé. All of the dating before hand is done in secrecy. At least that’s the goal… unfortunately, Tanzania is no different when it comes to gossip. As a matter of fact, it might be worse and most people probably know whether or not you’re dating someone before you do. Anyways, I was talking to my family one day and found out my brother had a girlfriend. When I got off the phone, I told my Tanzanian friend the news. The very first thing out of his mouth was “When’s the wedding?” I just laughed and tried to explain that that’s not quite how it works in America.

So last Thursday, four of us were sitting in the staff room and they were having a discussion in Swahili. I picked up on a few words that got me curious so I asked what they were talking about. They were nice enough to switch into English so that I could understand and then proceeded to ask me if I believed in real love or true love. This confused me so I asked them to give me their definitions. “Real love,” it turns out, is how society defines love, what they expect a husband and wife to look like when they’re together. The socially appropriate behaviors and such. I’m pretty sure they actually learn this definition in school and get tested on it in the national exam. “True love,” on the other hand, is when you actually believe in your head (or heart) that you are in love with someone. From what I understood, this was actually feeling love instead of just following rules. They went around the circle and the men both believed in real love but not true love, or they at least thought that real love was necessary and true love was not. The female teacher said that true love was what was important, not real love. This got me thinking… a lot. Why did the men favor real love while the women favored true love? Is it because the definition of real love in Tanzanian terms puts so much responsibility and work on the woman? Was the reason that the women thought that true love was important because one was an extremely progressive Tanzanian and the other was an American or was it because we fit into the age-old stereotype that connects women to feelings and emotion?

Learning these definitions blew my mind. I never even thought to question the definition of love because, growing up, it was always subjective and undefinable. I was too focused on questioning why someone would think it’s appropriate to not only legitimately propose to a complete stranger, but to also genuinely expect an affirmative answer. It also explains what the concierge meant when he said “only Tanzanians know real love,” as he scraped the bottom of the barrel for reasons as to why I should change my mind about walking down the aisle with him.

This discussion with my fellow teachers had me thinking, literally, for days. It opened up a whole new window to Tanzanian culture as everything here revolves around marriage. It also helped me to understand some of my friends a little better.

One more thing… how does this translate to America? Does it? I doubt we would put it into the same words but I’m sure there are plenty of marriages that fall into the category of “real love” but not “true love.”

Food for thought, I suppose – appropriate for the blog following February, “the month of love.” Maybe this month I’ll see some leprechauns or find a pot of gold!

Happy March!!

Perspective Change and then.... Vitabu VINGI!*

Scenario 1:

I look out the window of the staff room to see a whole class of students running around one of the school buildings while the teacher stands at the door and prompts them to keep running. “Faster, faster!” The last girl comes around and I hear the teacher say in Swahili, “Fat girl, run! Run, fat girl! hahahahaha”

Scenario 2: I walk into a Form 1 classroom to count desks and chairs (more inventory). I notice that there are remnants of the day’s English lesson on the board. The first column talks about giving commands and I read the examples given. The second column is about statements and I, again, read the examples given. Everything is fine and dandy and then I get to the column on predicates. The second example: “My mother is beating me.”

Scenario 3: Every day, I walk out of my house and there are two little girls under the age of two walking around by themselves, unsupervised, with no adult in sight.

Eight months ago, I would have been appalled by each of these scenarios, and you’re probably thinking “ummmmm… YEAH.” My response now is a small chuckle as I just turn and walk away. Do I sound horrible? I wonder how I’ll do when I get back to the States.

Scenario 1: The girl the teacher was talking to thought it was funny. Not the “I’m going to laugh so that no one can see that I’m hurt” funny but legitimately funny. I could see her beaming whites from across the courtyard. Being fat here is not considered bad. Actually, there are many that are mighty proud of their large size. My guess is that it’s because large is harder to attain here but it could also be due to the amount of respect elders are given and elders tend to be larger than the youth. Still pondering…

Scenario 2: It is completely acceptable, no expected, that mothers will beat their children. It’s defended in the same way spanking is in America. The most common form of punishment in schools is hitting students on the hand with a stick and it happens everyday. Students actually prefer this to other forms of punishment as it’s over in a couple of seconds. Another option includes having students kneel with their arms in the air for extended amounts of time. The thing is, in Tanzania, you can’t use things like cleaning as a punishment because they do that everyday anyway (no janitors and yet the school is, for the most part, spotless). Detention doesn’t work either because they spend most of their day sitting in a classroom with only their notebooks and nothing else to entertain them. When punishing students, you either have to get creative and put in a lot of extra effort (but remember, five teachers, 500 students) or you have to resort to the traditional corporal style. Every single American is guilty of falling back on something they’ve always done instead of trying to think of something new. This is no different from that. I doubt that anyone in that Form 1 class even thought twice about the statement “My mother is beating me” and, in the Tanzanian context, there is no reason they should.

Scenario 3: Two little girls under the age of two running around here is perfectly fine because everyone knows each other and everyone watches all of the children as if they’re their own. Tanzania is like one big happy family. Everyone helps, everyone shares, and everyone is, for the most part, pleasant (every family has a few crazies, of course). If the kids fall, they get back up and dust themselves off. No one is going to coddle them, sorrrry. Guess what? Children cry for a maximum of 30 seconds before they're playing again. No one has to worry about kidnapping because everyone knows everyone and what they’re doing every second of the day. For example, another PCV stopped by my site and we decided for dinner we would have a beer with dinner. When we bought the beer, I didn’t see anyone I knew. The next day, my Tanzanian friend says “So you had beer last night?” Turns out the person we had bought the beer from told her we had come by. Everyone knows everything aaaaand… they talk about it. They expect you to know too. "You didn't see me come home at midnight last night? I went to Masoko." "Nope, sorry, I chose to sleep rather than stare out my window waiting for you to get home." As for running away, these two girls, even with free reign, stay very close to home. My guess is that it’s because there’s not much reason to leave. Their families, friends, and nourishment are right here. Why leave when it’s so fun to be with all these people that love them?

My aim in writing these things is not to get you to go “oh my gosh, Africa sounds horrible!” There’s enough of that already and it’s off base as Africa, especially Tanzania, is a phenomenal place full of happy, competent, intelligent, and beautiful people. My goal in writing these things is to try and give you a dose of the perspective change I’m getting while I’m here. Everything we do, everything we believe, everything we say, everything we are as a culture is the product of our society and environment. Not only do I get the opportunity to see a new culture, but I have also been given the chance to really study ours. While I’ve been here, I feel like I’ve been putting everything our culture and society does under a microscope. I analyze it, chew on it, kick it around, and then I think about it some more. For example, why is it so inappropriate for us to say hi to a stranger on the street? Why don’t people just stop by your house to say hi? Why do we get so defensive when someone feels sorry for us? Why do we get so defensive, just in general? I’m not sure, yet, how to put all of my analyses into words but I’ll let you know if I figure it out. It’s mostly just a lot of questions and it may stay that way. I also, of course, have even more questions about Tanzania that I will probably never be able to answer or understand but I’m continuing to learn anyway and we’ll see where it takes me. Anyways, all I ask of you now that you’ve read this is that you take these snapshots of Tanzanian life and try not to judge, as everything is dependent on context, but instead appreciate how wonderful it is that this world is full of all kinds of people and cultures for us to learn from and enjoy. WOOT!

Anyways… enough of that and onto BOOKS! Books?! Yes, books. I. Love. Books. Novels, nonfiction, fiction, encyclopedias, textbooks, etc. Probably the result of parents that read me stories growing up and grandparents that took advantage of every chance they had to give me books. Should I also mention that my parents’ house is overflowing with books and my grandparents have floor to ceiling bookshelves in addition to their very own book house? What about the fact that my mom trades books with my aunts and grandma by the caseload? Tack onto that a family full of curious minds and what you get is absolutely no hope for me whatsoever. Even to this day, I get books for Christmas, birthdays, days that end in “y,” etc. I love it. As a teacher in Tanzania, I’m realizing how valuable those books REALLY are. Until this week, my students were entirely dependent on the notes I wrote on the board for their learning. Can you imagine going to school and your only resource is the blackboard? This is in a school without enough teachers to teach all of the subjects on their national exams. If they wanted to learn more or had questions about math or physics, they had to come talk to me. That means going to the office, walking up to the foreign teacher, and either asking a question in your close-to-non-existent English or asking in Swahili while she looks at you with a deer-caught-in-the-headlights look as she is basically a two-year-old when it comes to your language. A little intimidating, to say the least or maybe more work than it’s worth...

When I walked into the office on Tuesday, there were boxes and boxes of books. Eighty BRAND NEW math, physics, and chemistry books for both Form 3 and Form 4. That’s enough for each student to have their own copy for the year! And when I say brand new, I mean, like, published in 2011. I couldn’t believe it. Then I started actually looking through the books and they’re GOOD books. People from Tanzania teamed up with people from South Carolina State University and, with funding from USAID, fixed Tanzania’s math and science books. The typos are gone, the information is laid out clearly, and they have indexes!!! The improvement is 150% and I can give one to each student. No more writing every single math problem I want them to do for homework on the board (you have no idea how much time this will save). I can ask my students to open their books and look at page 64. “See that picture of the ear? The sound waves go through there and are amplified by… blah blah blah.” Can YOU draw a good picture of the inside of the ear on a blackboard? Turns out I can’t. Nor can I draw a good sound wave no matter how many times I try. The most important thing of all this, though, is that they have an opportunity to find out how useful books can be in learning. I’m excited to show them and hope to eventually teach them how to use the internet for research as well. The possibilities are endless! For some reason, my students don’t seem to be as excited as I am. Weird.

Anyways, my love for books has obviously grown a little deeper.

Happy February!

*LOTS of books

And So it Begins...

My school opened on Monday. This, however, means something very different. In America, the first day of school has been decided on three years in advance, all teachers are present, all students (more or less) are accounted for, and classes are taught. It may be a day of syllabi, names, and “How was your summer?! Oh my gosh, I missed you!” but it’s still a day of lessons. Here, on the first day of school, our academic master (who is also one of our 5 teachers) had not yet arrived, approximately 20 of 500 students trickled in throughout the day, and not a single person entered a classroom. As a matter of fact, all of the classrooms still have padlocks on them. Honestly, though, what did I expect when I was still asking last week about what day the school would be opening and couldn’t get a straight answer from anyone?

On the first day of school, I sat outside of the staff room with my fellow teachers and watched new Form 1 students (high school freshmen) walk up with their parents and school supplies (machetes, hoes, foam mattresses, buckets, trunks… compare that to America!) and then I watched their faces as their parents walked away. Do you remember the first time you had to live at school and YOU watched YOUR parents walk away? Do you remember how scary that was and how much you just wanted to cry? Yeah, it’s the same in Tanzania (and parents out there, I know it’s a two-way street because I saw the faces of the parents as well). I could just see in these girls’ faces all of the thoughts running through their heads. I wanted to give all of them hugs and tell them everything would be fine and that they’d have a great time here but instead, since I don't have the Swahili to be any kind of comfort, I just gave them the warmest smile I could and said hello. This was probably best anyway as they all bonded with each other pretty quickly and those bonds will be much more important as the year progresses. As of day three, their fears and apprehensions seem to have faded and I’m having fun watching them settle in to their new home.

So, you ask, what has happened as of day 3? Well, we now have 31 Form 1 students and they’ve been put to work cleaning the school (no janitors here, folks). This includes, among many other things, sweeping, fetching water, and cutting down overgrown weeds with the machetes they were required to bring from home. As for the staff, we have had our first staff meeting (conducted in Swahili… THAT was rough) and duties have been delegated.

Are you ready for this?

Our academic master is in charge of making the school calendar for the year along with a temporary timetable for classes. He is also in charge of teaching all 500 students (freshmen through senior levels) both history and geography and overseeing all of the Form 2 students. He and our school bursar will share the duty of writing the school’s budget. In addition to the budget, our bursar is in charge of all of the typical duties of a bursar, teaching the whole school’s Swahili classes, and overseeing all of the Form 3 students. The headmaster is, well the headmaster so she has plenty to do as it is, but has signed on to teach everyone civics as well. In addition to his normal duties, our second master will teach English and be in charge of the Form 1 students. My counterpart is in charge of teaching everyone Biology and Chemistry, is currently the teacher on duty, and will share the responsibility of the computer lab with me. I have been made the head of the science department (not sure what that actually means yet) and I will be teaching Form 2 math and Form 4 math and physics (Peace Corps limits the number of periods a volunteer can teach but, if I can handle it, I’ll take on more). There’s currently a rumor that we will get some Form 6 leavers (students that didn’t get good enough scores to get into University) that will come teach some of our science classes but we won’t know what the verdict on that is until February. Once we’ve learned of whether or not we will get more staff, the academic master will be in charge of finalizing the timetable and school calendar. Needless to say, everyone will be overworked this year… just like all of the other years and there’s nothing anyone can really do about it.

Crazy, right?

Something else my counterpart and I were put in charge of: doing inventory of the school. How many beds, chairs, tables, classrooms, toilets… toilets? Yes, toilets, does the school have? After we had gone around to all of the dormitories and counted the number of beds in each, I added up the total amount and it came to 372. Remember how many students I said we would have? 500. Last year we had 462. Where did those 90 extra students sleep last year? They shared beds with other students. Don’t worry, it’s an all girls’ boarding school BUT the beds are small and definitely not designed for two people to sleep in… especially for a whole year. I was shocked. I was even more shocked because my counterpart was not only not shocked, he was completely un-phased. It’s such a reminder to me of how lucky we are in America to have the resources we have and how much we take for granted. Think of those twin-sized beds in most colleges and then, in your mind, shorten them and add a bunk. Now imagine you’re sharing one of those beds with another person, every night, in a humid 80+ degree building that houses 12 to 15 of these bunk beds. That’s anywhere from 24 to, potentially, 60 girls in one building smaller than my house that I live in right now alone. Dang. Talk about making-do and being grateful for what they CAN get.

One night before the school opened, I was talking to my counterpart and he informed me that I would be responsible for teaching the whole school math and physics as I’m the only math and physics teacher the school has. My response: “That’s not possible, how can I do that?” There’s legitimately not enough time in the week to teach all of those classes. He told me I would have to pick and choose which classes I would teach each week. Having grown up with the mentality that every single class offered to me was crucial and that every class I attended would come equipped with a prepared and well-educated teacher, I couldn’t wrap my brain around this concept of sacrificing one group of student’s lessons for another. His response: “What can you do? That’s the reality of the situation. There aren’t enough teachers.” That’s tough/sad/frustrating/you-name-it, as he’s right, that is the way it is. Old news for them, mind blowing for me and a very hard pill to swallow. There’s just so much potential here, these students are smart and it kills me to see their potential go unrealized. Something inspiring to me, though: no one I’m working with has given up. They’re all still doing the best they can. My headmaster finished our staff meeting with “ok, we need to do the best we can to get our students to perform well so lets work hard.” At the end of the day, all anyone can ever do is their best, so that’s what we’ll do and we'll get the students as far as we can. I guess that's no different from America, right?

My intention for this blog was to talk about the education system as I’m frustrated with what it expects of students here when it does not provide the proper tools but alas, my “first day of school” has taken up enough for now. This is all a good jumping point for next time, though.

Until then, I hope everyone had a happy New Year, and that things have gotten off to a good start!