Q: How are you?
A: I’m good. Thanks for asking.
Q: What are you up to these days?
A: I am home from my Manhattan adventure, wallowing in the bucolic Holden respite. Trail running at Trout Brook with Colby, using the wireless internet at Java and Sweets, arguing with my parents over who should be the next winner of Dancing with the Stars, and stealing my little brother’s car (I sold mine when I received the Peace Corps placement).
Q: Peace Corps?! Where are you going in the Peace Corps?
A: Tanzania.
Q: Tanzania?! Where the heck is that?
A: On the east coast of Africa, just below Kenya (they share Kilimanjaro), above Mozambique.
Q: When are you leaving?
A: June 8th.
Q: Wow, that’s soon, are you excited?
A: Excited, nervous, scared, ecstatic, a little hungry.
Q: What are you going to do in Tanzania?
A: The official job title is “Village-Based Extension Facilitator” in the Environmental Education and Sustainable Agriculture in Rural Communities (EESARC) program. I’m not quite sure what the specifics are, but I will be working in rural areas to promote more efficient, and sustainable farming techniques. I think I will primarily be working with livestock—but I will find out more during my three months of in country training.
Q: Have you farmed before?
A: This may come as a shock, but Farmer Greta has never actually farmed on a farm. I got my BS in Animal Science from the Agriculture College at UConn. And I spent the last year zoo keeping, and teaching ESL. It shouldn’t be too far outside my zone of knowledge…and if it is then I will just teach them how to take care of bunnies and chinchillas (we had a lot of those at the children’s zoo). The in country training should well prepare me for whatever my placement and subsequent projects involve.
Q: Where will you live?
A: They do the placements at the end of training. This is what I know about living conditions: “You will be provided a village house as a contribution of the village government. The houses vary from mud-walled house with a corrugated iron roof, to a concrete house with glass windows, not your typical mud hut…You have a pit latrine and outdoor bath facilities, and you will fetch your water from a village water source. Rain harvesting and treatment of water for drinking will likely be a daily activity. There will be no electricity in your village/house…”
Q: Do you get paid?
A: Well, I get a “settling in allowance” to furnish my hut, a “living wage” equal to middle class wages in my community, and a $6,000 “stipend” at the end of the 27 months (assuming that the economy doesn’t collapse while I’m gone…which, when listening to NPR 12 hours a day, does not sound entirely unlikely). Oh, and I get a bike…though I’ve heard that lions prefer a good chase before the kill, so I think I might just walk very slowly around. Crocodiles on the other hand prefer slow moving objects…they strike quickly when you’re collecting water at the riverside. They are swift swimmers, and surprisingly fast runners (I borrowed Crocodile Attacks “Real stories of when Crocodiles Attack from the Brooklyn Library last fall…fascinating). To escape a crocodile you must run away from the crocodile in a zig-zag pattern. This offsets their balance because they cannot turn their long body very fast. It will be a terrifying day when the crocodile learns the principle of the hypotenuse.
Q: Are you crazy?
A: Yes.
Q: Why are you doing this?
A: I love going new places, meeting new people, exchanging ideas, learning, teaching, and expanding my perspective. I’m at a point in my life where I can do something out of the ordinary, move abroad, learn a language, volunteer, make a difference. Through research, and a visit to my good friend Drew during his Panama Peace Corps service I feel like I have developed a relatively realistic idea of what the Peace Corps experience really is, and it is just what I am looking for.
Q: There are plenty of people in the U.S who need help, why don’t you volunteer domestically?
A: I want to go somewhere where my skill set can really make a difference. Somewhere where there is a much greater need than people to fill that need.
Q: Will you have the internet?
A: Probably not, I most likely will not have any electricity. But I will be using an electronic typewriter (powered by my solar charger) to keep up with writing. Every time I make it into the city I will update the blog. Peace Corps give me a blog address…but I’m pretty sure that’s kind of a censored thing…aisforadults.blogspot will never be censored.
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