Well, a month into training, and a month to go. Merritt and I are excited to learn where exactly we’ll be stationed for the next two years, and to finally get there. Training has been a challenge, with the intense language work, the administrative bureaucracy that exists even with the Peace Corps all the way here in Tanzania, and with adapting to a vastly different culture. Our host family is very kind and welcoming, but the differences nevertheless exist and we have tried hard to bridge the gulf between us. Not being able to really communicate is the most challenging and frustrating. While I am glad to have the home stay experience, I feel that it would be more valuable if I had learned more Kiswahili prior to arriving. My host “Baba” speaks decent English, though I hate to make him work hard, particularly after he’s worked a long day at his shamba(farm), but the conversations we have after dinner, in what I’ve come to call “Swanglish,” have been really enlightening – learning about the economics of orange farming here in the Tanga Region, marriage customs in Tanzania, the superstitions surrounding albinos, the history of the village, and his work as a sub-village elder. But if I could speak even passable Kiswahili, I could really learn a lot from this experience. Having essentially no language skills, beyond basic survival Kiswahili, means I can only hold the most basic of conversations before I am at the end of my abilities, even after a month of language classes. It’s not that hard a language to learn, grammatically speaking, but the vocabulary makes it like learning Chinese or Arabic – there are a few English-derived words, but other the rest is a syllabic “shagalabagala” – with the entire language seemingly based around the hundred or so possible consonant-vowel combinations. So learning vocab, which grammar aside,is the basis of any conversation, is a slow and challenging process.

But Merritt and I are slowly getting a grasp on the language, and feel, after some uncertainty, as though we will eventually be able to master the language, though it will probably take a year or so, if we work at it. We had our mid-training exams on Friday, and we both feel like we did reasonably well.

The best part about reaching the midway point of training is that it means we get to take a break this weekend, so I am writing this from the beautiful seaside resort of Mkoma Bay, just north of the small village of Pangani, which is about 55 kilometers south of the town of Tanga. Owned by a couple, one of whom happens to be a former Peace Corps volunteer and the other a Dutch ex-pat, Mkoma Bay is a mid-range resort with a dozen or so raised tents, a half dozen stone “bandanas” and one large house with three real bedrooms, but which can sleep many more. Forty of our Peace Corps training group, all except one loner, have rented the entire resort, with the help of the owner’s generosity (and what now seems their likely relief to have the business). With kayaks and bikes, and a bar and pool on a small cliff overlooking the Indian Ocean, the place seems a million miles from our “vijiji” (i.e., villages), and is a welcome relief from what has been a pretty intense first month of language and cultural training.

Our first night here, after arriving at sunset, our group quickly made there way down to the beach for a night swim in the Indian Ocean, my first time in its warm, salty waters. As the stars came out, I learned that the constellation I’ve been confused about for a month is actually the Southern Cross. After coming up from the beach, we found dinner waiting for us, on the deck next to the pool, where the stars looked even brighter.

While the resort’s bar is overpriced, they are kind of skimping on the food, and the internet is not anywhere close to what I’d hoped for, we’re a happy lot, and some of us our already dreading the idea of returning to our home stays.

But with a month of training left, one week of which will be spent on shadow, it seems like the end is insight, and soon we can have the kind of personal freedom that this weekend is really reminding us that we’re missing. Just getting to wake up with an entire unplanned day before me made me realize what’s been the most difficult part of
training.