Site Visit in Mbeya

This past week I visited my site. I’ll be living in Mbeya region which is part of the Southern Highlands. My school is Isuto Secondary School, a coed public school. I have beautiful views of hills around me and the weather is nice. Mbeya town will be my banking town and it is a pretty cool place. I ate delicious Indian food and even got a smoothie at a hip coffee shop. As amazing as this all is, the trip from training to site took a few days. The adventure taught me about the Tanzanian transport system. There were 27 total of us going to theSouthern Highlands so we all took the same bus down. I think we took up more than half the bus. When it finally arrived. It was two hours late so we just hung out at the gas station that it was supposed to stop at. Then we had to figure out how to pile everything in the compartments. And much of our luggage ended up in the aisles and on our laps. It was a crowded journey to Iringa. Plus the bus made frequent stops to pick people up and drop others off. Buses have a lot less formal stop schedule here than in the US. Our path took us through a national park where in the dark of the night we had to stop for some giraffes to cross the road. When we finally made it to Iringa, we were hungry and tired. Some went straight to sleep while others followed our PCV hosts to food and drinks. I then had to get up somewhat early the next morning with the other 8 Mbeya and 2 Rukwa people to get another bus to Mbeya. This journey was not as long, but we had to go over dirt roads a long stretches were under construction. It was not the most pleasant bus ride. I met my host for the week as soon as I stepped off the bus. We then had a long walk to where the PCVs there had reserved rooms for us. I went local and carried my bag of books on my head up the hill. Again we were tired and hungry but at least it wasn’t late at night. First we had drinks and small bites at a nearby hotel and from a decent enough pastry shop and then we walked down to a Tandoori chicken place. Everything was delicious. The next morning I had chapati and chai for breakfast. I hung out with my site mates in a coffee shop before we started our journey towards our villages. It turns out I will be somewhat close to several volunteers. My host and another health volunteer are about an hour and a half walk from me. Then there are two other volunteers who are a quick, or slow, ride away. It’s good to know I won’t be totally isolated. I spent the night with my host. We chilled mostly. School was on break so I couldn’t observe her teaching a class. The next afternoon we walked to my site, but I left much of my heavy stuff. It was hot out and we were sweaty when we arrived. I’m at a new site so they were still working on some things, like putting the choo door on and a lock on my bedroom door. The courtyard was a bit of a mess but it should be cleaned up when I come back. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my bed was already made with sheets and a blanket and that I had three full buckets of water. I explored the area a bit and met some of the staff members before getting to know my headmistress in her house. She cooked me two meals with her grandchildren. In the morning I introduced myself to some of the students and also some of the village officials. Later that day I learned that the Southern Highlands had to be back in Iringa a day early. I was planning on spending another day in Mbeya town, but plans had to change. That night I spent at another volunteers’ house. We made pasta and watched a movie. The next day we started our 4 day journey back to Korogwe: site to Mbeya to Iringa to Morogoro to Korogwe. Some of the buses provided entertainment in the form of music videos, poorly acted Tanzanian shows or even the occasional treat of an American movie. Restroom or food stops were few though any time we pulled into a standi, we would be crowded at the windows by vendors trying to sell us soda or cookies. When we went back through the national park in daylight, we saw in addition to giraffes, gazelles, zebras, wildebeests, water buffalo, warthogs… All of us Americans had our eyes glued to the windows while the local Tanzanians didn’t react at all. Overall I would say that bus riding experience here is more exciting than riding buses in the US, in both good and bad ways. Thankfully, we all got to where we needed to be and with all of our belongings. It was a fun week and I look forward to returning.