new week, same old...

but not entirely.
Today was somewhat exciting - we recieved some special guests. AMREF board members from England, Kenya, Uganda, and Sweden came to visit one of the primary schools where we have been working with teachers to implement a program on adolescent reproductive health. Adolescent reproductive health, who would have ever thought i'd become so familiar with that beast of a phrase, but I literally said it more than 10 times today.

So it was nice. They (guests) sped through the whole exercise, barely got to talk to any of them, and don't feel like I was able to offer them any insight of my experiences here, but I got a free lunch and some good entertainment. We watched a standard 5 class talk about 'misconceptions about sex', in which the teacher did surprisingly well remembering and using the tools we presented in a way-back-when May seminar to get the kids excited talking about pregnancy and STDs and the like. Then we listened to a choir sing songs, mostly about AIDS, then a group of young students do a local song/dance to drum beat, and then a fantastic group of high school students rap about HIV/AIDs. Yes, a rap about HIV/AIDS. Adult Tanzanians say music has degenerated here, but if they only KNEW about rap from the states.....

Anyway, I think a good time was had by all, or so I hope, as they hold an as-yet-not-apparent-to-me influence over funding and the future of our program. Did get a little nervous at one point, when I saw a bewildered face on the Swedish lady. You see, the traditional dance, at one point, got a tad scandalous. They were dancing well, the drum beat was nice, then all of the sudden they all got down on all fours and started thrusting their stomach/pelvis up and down. Maybe it's a cultural thing, but even I couldn't help having a "whoa holy shit" expression on my face for the first couple of seconds. Of course, to complicate things, they were chanting "it kills" (refering to AIDS) the whole time they were gyrating so. But hey, as long as they understand that such beautifully liquid movement and symbolically and traditionally rich dancing doesn't mean they have to go get jiggy with their opposite-sex classmates, i'm all for it - they certainly looked like it was fun.

My fun, as well, doesn't stop there. On Saturday the new Ambassador of Tanzania, Mr. Michael Retzer, has asked to take the few remaining Mwanza area volunteers out to lunch to learn more about our Peace Corps experiences. The lunch will not be at a McDonalds, and for those curious about this clarification, please kindly google name and position for further details. I'm always game for a free lunch, and let's be honest, at this point even McDonalds would pass my rock-bottom, I-miss-fast-food-especially-good-Thai-food, standards.

Aside from that, though, business as usual. Tomorrow I'm meeting with a drama group, another rep of a PLWHA group, and the District HIV/AIDS Coordinator at the hospital. If things go well, maybe one of these people will actually show up! Sarcasm, some peoples worst enemy, my best friend. Yeah, so work is a bit slow lately, what with the schools winding down toward graduations and exams, people gearing up for the upcoming elections, and to be frank, my steam just plain running out after months at site without a getaway (ok, so only since my Nairobi trip in July, but it still feels like a long time). Another thing that's been getting to me lately, which is not unexpected but still unsettling, is the arrival of a new batch of health volunteers and the celebration of my one-year mark in Tanzania. Both have led me to reminisce on my initial optimism upon arriving in Misungwi, and to speculate on where it has, in the meantime, disappeared to. Not there aren't things that bring me joy in my work here, and seeing the kids dancing today was certainly one of these things. It's just that my overall attitude has kind of taken a dive in the last month, a swan dive, from a really high board, into a big, murky, schistosomiasis (or bilharzia, if you're English) infested, pool of cynicism. Good grief, first symptom of such deterioration must surely be awful metaphors.

I'm hoping one of a few things will bounce me back. I plan on starting on my own, since if I don't it seems it will never happen, to visit some of the farther away schools in which we trained teachers, to meet with them and discuss how the lessons are going, and to help them start clubs such as choirs, debate groups, drama groups, reading clubs, etc. Since I know most of the teachers, and got along really well with some of them during the seminars, this holds promise. The other thing is these PLWHA groups, which I hope to get some more experience on when I go to the AMREF office this week, since there is an Angaza (big name in HIV testing) site next door, and I know the clinic director. So hopefully and match up resources and needs and really get some good stuff going, as good as it can be, on that front. Finally, I might go on a trip. Somewhere nearby, lake region, but somehwere that isn't here. That is key.

I have written so much, too much, that i can't justify more time/energy/space for a pithy concluding paragraph. more later this week.