3 weeks to go... sorta

So, after my last post, I guess I could say that not much has happened, but that’s become my cliche, eh? I’m in Africa, and that’s crazy enough, so stuff happens. I went to my COS conference, where we spent alot of time just mixing together and having a great time, but also finishing paperwork for Peace Corps, like our Description of Service as well as resumes and what not. The tourist lodge we stayed at was pretty nice, except for the lack of unlimited hot showers (hey, if i get put into a tourist lodge, I want my tourist stuff). The food was fantastic as well, culminating in the last night with a huge ‘nyama choma’, which is basically just a word for bbq. I stuffed my plate with like meat from 3 different animals. Vegetarians beware. The other crowning moment of the conference was our ‘Prom-yagi’, named after the classic gin-tasting alcohol Konyagi. Plenty of people got stuff made or constructed outfits out of things in town, and we dressed up for a dance party. My choice was a shirtless white suit. It complemented my peace corps date of the night, who was dressed up as a sort of middle eastern lady. Needless to say, we were Prom King and Queen, and had our celebratory dance.

After the conference, I worked in Dar to finalize my plane tickets for travel after service. At this moment, I’ll be flying out December 5th and heading to Ethiopia and Egypt to return December 23rd in St. Louis.

After taking the long haul back to my site, I found it as it was. I did some more teaching, studied some more math, and read a ton of books. I unfortunately learned after much effort that I will be unable to take the Math Subject GRE in Dar, so that kind of makes my plans pushed back, but that will be better for grad schools. I can apply in ease and take in more information to make a better decision, all the while studying for the first year or two. Either way, I was bummed, but it will be ok. This now makes me think of all the things I can do with my free year, and perhaps I’ll go abroad again?!? Sorry ladies, Jeremy has to keep saving the world. I know you want him back in the states, but who knows.

Also, after a few weeks of wondering about my application to be PCV of the week for the training of the new volunteers, I heard I was one of 8 people who would be doing so. I went to Morogoro for the planning sections and talking with the host schools contact teachers and others talked to the families people would stay with. It was a great time and not at all like the stories I heard about this training. The schedule turned out well, with the 3 second years being in Morogoro during the internship teachings, where we will sit in on volunteers teaching and give them feedback about how they are doing while teaching in tz classrooms. I will also be finishing up my document to give to math teachers to hopefully help them in their service. And to cap it off, I made my trip to Morogoro RIGHT before my trip to Dar to finish my service and meet with my friend Joel coming to TZ, so I won’t have travel back and forth all over the country. Should help a little.

Now, I’m back from that training, went to the beach with some folks, and have a week off of school for break. Three weeks of teaching after that (as well as waiting and watchin my form 4 students do well on national exams) and then i’m off to morogoro to finish my service!

Hope I can write again soon!

Oh, also, you should probably think about not sending any more mail my way unless you do it in the next week or two. That’s all.

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