The short version is that I could be switching sites. Darling TJ, our totally fabulous bearded volunteer in Mbeya, is finishing his service soon. He is the only volunteer in country at a tertiary institution, the Mbeya Institute of Technology. There he teaches smart students whatever he feels like, so one day he decided to loan the students his camera and spent a long time after teaching photoshop. Fun stuff like that. He's finishing his service this year and is not being replaced. He feels he should be replaced and his school really really wants a replacement, however, due to the recent demise of the ICT program in Tanzania, there are no incoming volunteers who have the background to teach ICT at a tertiary institution. He has for some time been attempting to convince me to extend my service for a third year and serve the third year at his site, and my impression of that has been that, as far as successfully acquiring this as an extension, it could be mine for a wink and a smile.
Then I got a call from TJ, suggesting I actually switch sites, and serve my second year as his replacement in Mbeya. He had already spoken with our Peace Corps overlords, and their decree was that if I could make a case that I was being underutilized at the teacher's college in Morogoro (very easy to do, I teach 6 periods a week, and I went from the middle of May until the beginning of August with nothing to do, the semester before that, my students were gone for 8 weeks for teaching practice, and the very first semester I was here, all classes were cancelled the entire term.) the Peace Corps would entertain a request for a site change and in all probability it would be granted. Not quite a wink and smile, but still very easy to do, probably just a flash of my very scandalous knee as well as the wink and smile.
I sort of want to do this and I sort of don't. Teaching at the college can be extremely frustrating. Not only the fact that I don't even get to do it very often, see above, but that I am forced to follow a syllabus which is stupid, and I must teach about the differences between data and information, like there even is one. Also, some of the future teachers of the nation aren't necessarily the brightest crayons in the pack. There are some I really love, and some who still don't know how to even log in. Furthermore, I don't think the college really needs me. They already have plenty of ICT teachers, maybe not the greatest teachers ever, but teachers. They have no tech support other than me, but the easiest way to get them to fix that would be to leave and force them to stop relying on unsustainable volunteer labor. Getting sustainable tech support is a huge problem, but it's one that they won't even attempt to solve during my tenure, and it is a problem that has to be solved and I honestly believe the college has the resources and the headmaster has the commitment to make it happen if I stop providing the easy stopgap solution. Also, the Mbeya institute has the students and the options to teach basic programming, or video editing, or whatever else I feel like teaching and can't because the students can't log in but must first be taught to memorize network topologies.
There is, however, a however. I like Morogoro town and I like my living situation. I live underneath the most beautiful mountains in the country. Anytime I want, I can look up and watch the clouds spilling over the peaks.
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| The Uluguru mountains |
I would be leaving these mountains, and all the other small comfortable things that I have and I like. The shops that opened right next to my house including a duka [shop] with most things I'd want, as well as a dressmaker who charges me less than most dressmakers and does really good work. Also, the close by chipsi stand that we've talked into delivering to my house for no extra fee, the bar down the hill with the excellent roast pork where the owners know me and sometimes give me and my guests complementary rounds (it pays to greet in a culturally sensitive manner, seriously), the monkeys that I know are as ubiquitous, annoying, and inconsequential as squirrels and fulfill the same ecological niche but I like them anyway, the way all the piki piki drivers know my name, and the people at the market who don't even try to cheat me for coffee and avocados anymore. Recently I was on a dala and the conductor was joking about the foreigner, an endlessly funny topic, but some of the other passengers told him not to because I understand Kiswahili and live here. Furthermore, if I move to Mbeya, how will I do silks? The college has this weird jungle gym thing that no one knows why it is there but it might have been made with me in mind. It's also great for slacklining the few times people passing by have had slacklines and let me play. Yes this is a major issue for me. Yes, I have less than totally important priorities. Also, Mbeya is cold. This is another major issue for me.
On the other hand, I feel as if I am being offered the chance to have my cake and eat it as well. Much as I like Morogoro, I trained here, and I remember at site announcements being disappointed that I wouldn't have the chance to travel to a new place and learn a new town like everyone else. I have been to Mbeya, but only once and that briefly and now over a year ago. I didn't really explore much either. My first impression was rather bad: the nice restaurant I stopped at across from the bus stand right off the bus had a pair of fancy women's underwear hanging on the inside of the door in the bathroom, and right off the bus some mentally disturbed guy ran up to me, grabbed my breast, and ran off. And after that I was only there for a night and didn't explore, juts pretty much did what all good volunteers do on holiday, which is chill at a bar with other volunteers. (For the benefit of readers who might happen to be my parents, there really aren't any public places in Tanzania to just sit and chill with other people except bars.) But I've also heard a lot of volunteers really love Mbeya. And this might be a chance to explore and really learn a new site. I love my site, but I could love a different site as well. At the very least, Mbeya would have many fewer tourists and missionaries showing up because Morogoro is just far enough from Dar that people like to convince themselves they are in the bush and take pictures of thin African children that might conceivably maybe be starving but don't have to actually go anywhere without nice restaurants and fancy hotels that have climate control and heated showers. I would probably appreciate not running into these people.
I do actually have some worthwhile work in Morogoro though. There is a teacher who coordinates workshops to teach low income women income-generating activities and wants me to teach wine-making. (It's a great income-generating activity. It's easy, people like it, it's a way to store fruit in a hot climate without refrigeration, and it's safer to drink than unboiled water). Also there's my work at the agricultural university with their gigantic USAID grant for developing computer lab facilities from the ground up and doing it right. On a personal level, while I don't have close friends at site, I just don't integrate that well, there are quite a few people I like and I don't want to leave them hating me personally or give Peace Corps a bad reputation by leaving a year into service for a site I think I might like better. And if I get to that site, well, TJ is fabulous and well-liked, so I may suffer from the comparison. This has been known to happen with replacement sites.
It is so difficult to know precisely what one ought to do.
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