Dear Friends and Family,

Another two months pass and we are together again. So have a seat around the campfire and we'll catch up on the times. There's a lot on the platter to serve, so once again I've cut it up into bite-size chunks.

When we last talked, I was getting ready to take a trip down to the deep South, Mtwara region, just north of coastal Mozambique. Well, the trip did happen, and it was absolutely lovely, barring minor mishaps.

The South is, to put it mildly, very far away. I started by taking a nine-hour bus to Dar es Salaam. I originally had planned to take the ferry from Dar to Mtwara. There are two ferries, the schedules of which operate completely independent of each other. When I got to Dar (September 29th) I checked down at the docks and found out the next boat wouldn't leave for another two and a half days. Of course, the other one was leaving the same day.

So I decided to take the bus. I had heard horror stories about these buses -- one time Anne (a southern Volunteer) had a 53-hour bus ride, most of which was spent on the banks of the Rufiji river because the ferry that takes the boat across had broken down. You may guess that I was a little skeptical as to what I was getting into... however, even a 53-hour bus ride would still get me into Mtwara before that ferry would, so...

I was shocked when I got to the main bus stand and the bus (vintage: late 1960s) actually left on time at 7AM, with hardly any passengers on it. I soon found the answer, though: We drove about 15 minutes to another place in town and waited there for almost two hours for the bus to fill up. Apparently about 10 years ago, the traditional bus stop for buses heading south left from that area, so most people still go there to wait for it.

So we tore out of town a little before 9AM. Despite my having gotten on early, I still got screwed into getting one of the seats near the back. This means that for the 80% of the trip that was on bumpy dirt roads, my backside got a workout.

I was rather surprised at the pace of the trip, at the beginning. Apparently the road had just been resurfaced (this means the rutted dirt road had been torn up and flattened -- no pavement, though) so we could make some good time. Unfortunately, the driver was going a little faster than made me comfortable. Peace Corps always wisely advises us that if we are on a bus that is driving recklessly, we should get off immediately. While I was considering this sage advice, I noticed I was in the middle of absolutely nowhere in a place in which I would likely die from dehydration before getting another bus or car, which likely would be driving just as swiftly as my current driver. I decided to stick it out and make sure I was sitting safely.

Fortunately, when disaster struck, it wasn't lethal. At some point we were passing another bus on the road. Since the road is about 1.5 bus widths wide, the prudent thing to do would be to slow way down and make sure there is enough room to get by each other. Unfortunately, neither driver saw it this way and both barreled down the road, barely slowing down.

One of the effects of well-worn dirt roads is that they are unevenly flat. This means as the bus goes down the road, even as its tires stay more or less in a straight line, the top of the bus can swing side to side as the angle of the road changes. Well, these two buses were zipping by each other with a comfortably spacious 6 inches between them, when the road stopped cooperating. The top of the other, smaller bus swung towards our bus, such that the edge of its roof smashed into the side of our bus right at window level. It took out two full sections of windows, and bent the brace in between the windows in about two inches at the middle.

Guess who was sitting in the seat between the two windows?

So I found myself uninjured, a little shaken up, and with a lapful of shattered glass. The glass was everywhere, in my lap, on my seat, all over the floor. There was a woman with a barefoot toddler sitting next to me -- We looked at each other wide-eyed.

Fortunately, the bus driver decided to stop. Unfortunately, it was only for one minute to yell at the other driver. Then we took off again... The shattered window next to me had not yet completely fallen out, so bits of broken glass continued to rain down on me as we hit each bump. I yelled at the driver to stop so we could clean out the bus. It is nearly impossible to do any such cleaning while the bus is moving, since I was being bounced around so much that I likely would have put my hand down in broken glass to catch myself swinging around.

After yelling for several minutes, the response I got was that one of the conductors came back with a towel in his hand and broke out the remaining bits of the window. I did not find this result satisfying enough and continued yelling at the driver, making references to his intelligence, his mother, and the fact that I had a knife and was about to come up there and discuss the matter a little less politely than I had already been. The driver stopped the bus.

We managed to get two minutes -- obviously a major delay on a 15-hour bus ride -- to sweep a little and at least to get most of the glass of the seats... and onto the floor. Hence, I spent the remaining two-thirds of the trip with broken glass around my feet.

I am dumbfounded when my American friends speak of uncomfortable rides on the Greyhound bus.

The bus finally pulled into the southern port city of Mtwara at about 9:30 PM, which I'm told was record time for that route. It's more typically an 18 hour trip, and usually involves an overnight stay in Lindi, a town to the north.

I got a taxi to Mtwara Technical School, home of Ben and Sara Davidson (of benandsara.net fame) and relaxed for a while with them. I was pleased to see that another southern Volunteer and good friend, Jim Shelley was also in Mtwara for the evening, to pick up some kittens for his house. We had a good evening, and Jim and I stayed up late catching up on our adventures.

The next day (Sunday), Jim took off for home, and Ben and Sara and I went to town with Christina, a Volunteer at nearby Mtwara Girls' School. We saw the sights of Mtwara town (such as they are) and met some of the teacher's friends and fellow teachers. Later in the evening we were joined by Amy Medley, a third-year School Health Volunteer at Mtwara Tech. Amy had recently married her long-time Tanzanian fiancè, Fundi, and was busy getting the paperwork finished so they could return to the States together in December. We spent the rest of the hot, humid afternoon on the back porch in the pleasant company of beer and playing cards.

I should say here at the outset that in Mtwara region, there are two main towns, Mtwara and Masasi (family home of Tz President Benjamin Mkapa). Almost all the Volunteers in the area live along the same road between the two towns. There is actually a very nice paved road between the towns which takes about six hours. Unfortunately, that's not the road on which the Volunteers live. They live on the southern road (for those of you following me on the map) that goes through the town of Newala. I'll now take you with me on my journey up onto the Makonde plateau, into the Newala highlands, and then back down to sweltering Masasi.

Monday morning I took off early headed for Nanyamba, home of another PCV, Adam Opiola. When I got to the bus stand in Mtwara, it turned out I had a bit of a wait since the early bus had just left. So I got a little breakfast around the corner (some tea with milk and some doughnut-like things) and waited around the stand.

Buses of all sizes in Tanzania have names, usually taken from popular media and current events. For instance in the mini-buses that ride around Arusha town, I have ridden on the "Monica Lewinsky Trans", the "Koffi Annan Luxury Coach" and one simply labled "Apartheid is Nazism". Among the other buses in the Mtwara bus stand was the "Slobodan Milosevic Coach", headed to Masasi. Sadly, it was going by the high road, so I had to wait for mine, which I think was the more mundane "Zafanana Coach".

I arrived midafternoon in sunny Nanyamba, a town not quite in the highlands and not quite in the lowlands. The weather was correspondingly middling; not as balmy as Mtwara, not as cool as Newala would be. Adam Opiola, one of my training class' most infamous hermits, was at his home doing some chores. We spent the rest of the afternoon and into the evening seeing the school and reflecting on our two years of service.

Tuesday morning I walked out to the main road, stuck out my thumb and got a nice air-conditioned liftie to Tandahimba, aka the Land-o-Jimba, home of PCV Jim Shelley. Jim and I saw the school, and some of the surrounding area. We took a walk out to the actual tandahimba, which in Kimakonde (the local tribal language) means Ponds of Lions. Apparently long ago people saw lions at these little reedy ponds, and were afraid to settle there for a long time. We saw no lions on that particular day.

People must not have remained scared for long, because Tandahimba is a bustling business centre given its small size. Only 100 boxes at its post office (Monduli has 200, Arusha has ~10,000), but Jim tells me that Tandahimba District last year had the second highest per capita income of any district in the country (after Dar es Salaam). The reason: Cashews. Lot's of 'em. Dare I say millions of 'em? I dare. MILLIONS of 'em!

I happened to be down there just before cashew season, which means the true craziness was just about to begin. The cashew trees were just beginning to ripen and blossom. Cashew trees are large, spreading trees; often their boughs are so heavy and extended that people prop them up with sticks to keep them off the ground.

The cashew nut itself is a funny-looking thing. At the end of the branch, there is a squat fruit. Rather, I should say a false fruit, because it contains no seeds or pits. However, the fruit, about the size and shape of a small salt shaker, turns from light green to a brilliant red right about the time I was visiting the area. The fruit itself is largely flavorless, though I understand that the locals make a 'brew' out of the distilled fermented eye-pleaser.

Below the fruit is the cashew nut. It comes in a light green pod having the characteristic cashew shape, but much fatter. One might be tempted to pick and eat the nut right off the tree, but be warned! Apparently the sap inside the pod is highly corrosive, and will actually cause skin burns to those touching it for prolonged periods. The traditional cooking process is twofold. First, the nuts are put, pods and all, into a fire. The heat denatures the alkaline chemical, and builds up large amounts of steam in the pod. When the nut is ready, the outside of the pod bursts and out spews the chemical, which, being slightly combustible, shoots out in the form of a bright flame about 12-18 inches long. After that, the nuts are cooled, removed from the pods, and roasted like peanuts.

Another interesting phenomenon about cashew season is the effect it has on the local economy. There is quite a bit of money to be made growing, picking, cleaning, roasting, bagging, and otherwise handling cashews (contributing to the above mentioned per capita income.) Jim tells me that by the end of the season (right about the turn of the calendar year) many people are filthy rich.

So one would expect hunger and poverty to be almost non-existent, right? Wrong. Apparently what happens is people live really large for about three months. They might rent their own car, drive up to Dar es Salaam, stay at fancy hotels, drink lots of beer, cavort with expensive women, etc. until it's all gone. Then they return to Tandahimba and live on meager means and bit work for the remainder of the year.

Why this extravagance? The answer is relatively simple -- if you have money, then of course you'll have to share it with your family, neighbors, friends, and anyone else who walks up to your door and asks for it. Add to that the fact that Tanzanians do not have the almost fervently religious future-worship that Americans have. There's no guarantee that a person will be around tomorrow to enjoy that money. He could die tomorrow on the bus, or of malaria, or of a number of illnesses or accidents. Or the economy could go belly-up tomorrow and all those shillings might be worth nothing. Better (in their minds, at least) to guarantee that they will enjoy the fruits of their labor while they still can.

After two days of Tandahimba life, Jim and I got up early Thursday and flagged down a bus headed to Newala. What brought Jim along with me? You may recall that in Mtwara there was a certain third-year Health PCV. Well, she had come out to Newala to give a two-day workshop for area teachers (Tanzanians and PCVs) on HIV/AIDS Education and Teaching Life Skills. I had the privilege of sitting in on the workshop for the first day.

When Jim and I arrived, we went straight to Nangwanda Secondary, where PCV Amber Pewitt teaches. (Her husband Jonathan teaches across town at Newala Day Secondary.) We found the workshop just about to start. Included in the first day were some activities designed not only to educate the teachers themselves about HIV/AIDS and its modes of transmission, but more importantly, to give them ideas for classroom activities to convey the message to their teenage students.

One activity was the famous 'Clinking Glasses' activity. In the activity, about a dozen male and female demonstrators (who may be students or other teachers) are given glasses full of water. The people walk around the room and interact with the other people. Some people clink glasses with each other, others exchange water with each other. Then a person with darkly colored water joins the group. Soon many people have dark water from having exchanged water with someone who also had dark water.

After the activity, the demonstrators remain standing, showing their glasses, while a facilitator explains the activity. A person wih dark water represents a person infected with HIV. Pouring water into each others' glasses represents unprotected sexual intercourse. Clinking glasses represents intercourse using a condom. The different kinds of people up front are pointed out.

One person socializes, but does not clink or pour, representing abstinence. There is one couple who only exchange water with each other, representing monogamy. Another couple often clink with other couples, but also with each other, representing condom use. However, there are other couples who became infected: One couple pours with each other. She refuses to pour or clink with others, but he does not; hence, he brings HIV into the relationship. Others remain faithful, or clink most of the time, but pour just once. That once is enough to darken their water.

Another similar game used to raise awareness is the Greeting Game. Everyone in the room is given a card with a letter on it (A, B, C, X, O) but instructed not to look at it. Then they are to shake hands with three other people in the room, and to remember with whom they shook hands.

The people with an 'X' on their cards are told to come to the front of the room. They represent the people infected with HIV. All the people who shook hands with those people are therefore infected and asked to join them at the front of the room. Then all the people who shook hands with the new group up front is therefore infected, and asked to join the group in front. This continues until (very likely) the entire group is standing in the front of the room.

This gets everyone good and nervous about being infected with HIV. Then the people with an 'A' on their card are told that they Abstained from intercourse with their partner. They are allowed to return to their seats, uninfected. The people with a 'B' on their cards are told that they were able to 'B'e Faithful to one partner, and remained uninfected. The people with a 'C' on their card used a Condom and also avoided infection. The activity shows what a big difference is made by using one of these three methods of HIV prevention.

Anyway, I hope you don't mind my digression into our School Health program, but I thought there might be more than one of you out there who would be interested in the activities, and perhaps even a few teachers out the who might be able to use the activities in their own classrooms. If any of you are interested in more information about similar kinds of activities and/or statistics regarding HIV, just drop me a note.

That evening, just before supper, we took a walk down to the end of the road, which ends at the edge of the Makonde Plateau. From there, we could look out over hundreds of miles of the Ruvuma river basin, and the river itself, and even beyond the river into Mozambique. The sunset across the plains was breathtaking, and it was easy to see why the local PCVs had dubbed it 'the edge of the world'.

Sadly, though I wanted to, I was on too tight of a schedule to stay for the second day of the workshop. I left the next morning (Friday) to head further down the road, and down off the plateau to Ndwika Secondary School. While waiting for the bus to leave, my attention was drawn to a group of people looking a bit worse for wear outside the bus. I soon gathered from the conversation of the people around me that they were Mozambiquean refugees, fleeing an internal conflict in that country. They had not money, very little food or water, and spoke no Swahili (it was only their tribal language with a smattering of Portuguese.) Their only ambassador was a little girl, about nine years old, who was translating for them. They were trying to get to Masasi, where apparently they had some distant relatives.

The next stop was Ndwika Secondary School, in Lulindi. This was the only stop on my tour that was not on the main road. After what was quite possibly the roughest ride I've yet had in Tanzania, I arrived at the turnoff for Lulindi. Since the word around was that a car came once a day, maybe, maybe not, I decided to start walking. It was about 1PM on an especially hot day, and having come down off the plateau, things were generally hot and humid again. I walked the 10-15 km to the school... nobody was home at the Volunteer's (Cyndie's) house. I asked around and finally found one of her fellow teachers. "Oh, she's not here," he said, "She's gone to Dar es Salaam."

I was a bit puzzled since I knew she knew I was coming, and that her school was still in session (Dar is not a weekend trip from the south.) After a bit more prodding I found out that she'd come down with something and the medical folks in Dar wanted to have a look at her. Fortunately, one of her neighbors had a key, and I was able to flop down and cool off after my three-hour walk.

Since it was too late to think about heading onward to Masasi or back to Newala, I stayed at her house that night. I had supper at her headmistress's house, where I learned that the following afternoon, the headmistress would be heading to Masasi and could give me a lift. So I spent the night there and slept in the next morning. Later in the morning, I helped her counterpart teacher (whom I had met at a Peace Corps conference in June) sort out some lab equipment the school had received as a donation, and gave suggestions for the new lab they were building.

After a rather bumpy but not uncomfortable ride in the back of the school pickup truck, we made it to Masasi in the late afternoon. There are three PCVs in Masasi, at two different schools, so I figured I'd find somebody home. I had them drop me off at Masasi Day Secondary. I was told that the two teachers there, Anne and Krista, had gone to Masasi Girls' Secondary, the other school. They told me it wasn't far, and pointed me in the right direction. So, after a little fumbling around in the bushes I made it to Mona's house... to find that nobody was there, either.

This was a bit of a quandry. Her neighbor told me that all the PCVs had left there and gone into town to a place where email services are offered. She said she didn't know when they were going to come back. So I left a note there and head back across the scrub to the Day school.

I left my bag with a neighbor and went exploring around the school. At some point along the way, I came across the house of (I think) one of the school workers. Outside were a few old men drinking a mysterious-looking beverage out of old glass bottles. At their request, I sat down with them. I was minimally surprised to discover that the young man on the grass mat next to me was not asleep, just very, very drunk. They offered me a drink, which I considered, until I realized that I hadn't eaten anything all day and that might pose a problem. I politely declined and asked about the drink. Apparently it was the distilled, fermented juice of the cashew fruit. Hmmmm....

After relaxing with them for a while, I noticed it was getting dark, and so I headed back to Anne and Krista's house and waited for them to come back. The three PCVs, along with a fourth, Dan Stamp, arrived a short time later. I was surprised to see Dan, because I had been planning on heading up to his site after two days in Masasi. Dan, who like me has extended for a third year, is known for having the most remote, bush site in Tanzania. I was eager to see it; In fact, I'd budgeted most of the rest of my time (about five days) for the day-long trip to his school and some good down time there.

Unfortunately, as it turned out, Dan had left his site on his way to Dar es Salaam for a conference the following week (which I was also to attend). In the meantime, he planned to place some orders and get some prices quoted in nearby towns, for supplies for the new school laboratory he is building at his school. (He extended to finish that project.) He also needed to deliver all those price quotes to the US Embassy, which is funding the project.

The following afternoon (Sunday) we walked around Masasi -- really quite a big town. We did some shopping and had a nice healthy supper. I'd been having a little difficulty with the Masasi water -- there is a lot of calcium carbonate in the soil there, which means the water is very hard. Even after boiling and filtering it, the water is still pretty salty... I had to mix it with Kool-Aid to make it palatable.

Dan and I formulated our plans. Since we were both heading to the same conference, it made sense for us to travel together... except he had been planning to fly from Mtwara to Dar (Peace Corps was paying for it) and wasn't eager to change his plans to take the bus. However, after discussing it for a bit we decided on a plan; we would take it in steps.

We headed out of Masasi on Monday morning on the nice road back to Mtwara. About a half an hour out of town, we stopped at a little town called Ndanda. There are several German-owned factories there (connected with an old mission left over from the German colonial period ~100 years ago) and Dan was getting some of the roofing and piping for his school's new lab there. We waited around the shop while the guy in charge filled out the pro forma invoices. In the machine shop, there was actually quite sophisticated machinery: huge lathes, metalworking equipment, large pipe saws, and other heavy machinery.

From Ndanda we headed to Lindi, about four hours away and then north of Mtwara on the Indian Ocean. Dan and I had a relaxing evening enjoying a drink while looking out over the ocean. Other than that, not much was done there.

The next day (Tuesday) we got on a bus headed to Dar es Salaam, though we were only going partway. We got off at another coastal town about five hours from Lindi, Kilwa. We'd heard that Kilwa is home to a number of ancient Portuguese and Omani ruins, and thought it would be cool to check them out. So we stayed in town that night and got up early the next day to see what the fuss was all about.

The ruins are located on an island that, centuries ago, was still connected to the mainland. However, years of tides coming in and out have washed away the old land bridge and made the island accessible only by boat. We got in a little sailboat and made our way to the island of Kilwa Kisiwani in about a half hour. When we got there, a young man who was hanging out on the beach met us and told us that the normal tour guide wasn't around, but that he would check and see if the alternate guy was there.

Eventually we met a little old man who brought us down to the south end of the island. After climbing what seemed to be a fairly nondescript flight of very old stairs, we found ourselves gazing upon the Husuni Kubwa Palace, a 14th century building built by the Sultans from Oman who occupied the area for many centuries. There were three or four main halls a hundred meters on a side, and many smaller rooms and antechambers. The roof, had there ever been one, had long since disintegrated, but many of the walls, complete with some of the original moulding remained intact. There was even a decagonal bath / swimming pool, each of its ten sides being about five meters long.

We moved around the island seeing other buildings, including many ancient Mosques, some of them with their great arched doorways and columned ceilings still intact. There were some buildings that had been built (all from the locally available coral/stone) with three stories. The floors I most were not intact, but I could see the regular holes where the beams supporting the upper floors had been inserted into the wall so long ago.

The buildings dated from as far back as a thousand years ago, up to additions as recent as the 17th century. The last place we visited was an enormous fort, an amalgamation of a 15th century Portuguese lookout point built upon by 18th-century Omani sultans. I managed to scramble to the top of what was once a third floor to the lookout tower, where I found an old cannon and had some cool pictures of me taken. The view over the Indian Ocean was breathtaking.

Aftre we had gotten our eyeful, we headed back to the mainland and had an early night in... and then woke up the next morning to board the 5AM bus to Dar. In Dar, many things awaited us... but since your eyes are likely quite tired after these tales, I will include my description of my (premature) Close-of-Service conference and subsequent events in the next mailing, possibly coming out very soon... or possibly not. :p

Heri la siku kuu ya kushukuru!
(Roughly: Happy Thanksgiving!)
Ethan

P.S. I'll mention it in my next note, but I wanted to mention it here as well in case it's a while until then: Since I'm leaving Monduli in less than a week to go to some meetings in Dar, and then home to Ohio for a while, I will not be getting any mail here for some time. So -- don't send me any! If you want to contact me, I should be using email on and off throughout that time. Anything you want to send to me snail mail should be sent to:

I should be in the Ohio neighborhood from about 20 December -- 2/3 January.

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