Hujambo!

Well, I'm in Tanzania. It took about 24 hours of travelling between leaving Philly and arriving at the Peace Corps center in Dar es Salaam. The internet connection is really slow here, and there's a huge line to use the computer so I'm keeping this brief. I'm having a great time so far. My fellow volunteers are awesome, and Tanzania is absolutely beautiful. Tomorrow we're heading over to Morogoro (about a 3 hour bus ride west from the Coast I'm told) and I'll move in with a host family. Morogoro will be my home during training for the next 10 weeks. Should be really exciting.

Hopefully I'll have time to put up a longer post soon, but it looks like we're all going to be super busy for the next couple of weeks. Hope everyone back home is doing well.

Kwa heri.

Send me stuff

So, for the next three months while I'm in training my mailing address will be:

Joshua Stern, PCT
Peace Corps Training Site
PO Box 9123
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Letters and packages will earn you a special place in my heart.
If you'd like postcards from me, email me your mailing address.

Here's some amusing mailing advice from one of the many Peace Corps guides out there:

“There are a few things you can do to help hasten and secure the passage and delivery of your mail. Have anyone sending you a card package scribble religious symbols and biblical quotes all over the outside of the box. This sounds silly, but it works. Though many of the countries in which the Peace Corps serves are largely animist in religion, superstitution runs high and even corrupt postal workers are wary of intercepting religious parcels. Along every step of the way, your mail will be subject to the whims of postal officals, customs officers, and delivery personnel who often take the liberty of rummaging through care packages in search of goodies from the U.S. If you mail is embellished with religious symbols, the odds of keeping it intact are improved. You may even want to ask the sender to write “Sister” or “Brother” before your name, the heighten the effect. Another trick is to have your mail addressed to you in red ink. I’ve been told red ink is somewhat sacrosant in many third world societies and is reserved for only the most official of letters and correspondances. Though I’m unsure about this explanation’s validity, I can vouch for the trick’s effectiveness, having seen serveral packages addressed in red ink delivered safely and expeditiously.”

It's the final countdown

"Leaves are falling all around,
It's time I was on my way.
Thanks to you, I'm much obliged
For such a pleasant stay."

One week from right now I'll have just landed in Africa. I leave for staging in Philly on Monday, and board a plane for Tanzania Wednesday evening. 19 hours later I'll land in Dar es Salaam and the adventure begins. The next 4 days are going to be extraordinarily hectic. There are so many people I need to say goodbye to, and I still have to do the whole packing thing. We're only allowed to bring 80 pounds with us, so some last minute duffel bag olympics will undoubtedly be occurring Sunday night.

Shopping this last week proved especially entertaining. Tanzania has a very formal dress code for teachers, so I had to buy a bunch of light but durable shirts and khakis. Explaining that I was leaving for the Peace Corps in Africa in a week produced a number of amusing reactions from salespeople. Most seemed to think what I was doing was cool, but I did get a surprising number of "oh man... I'm sorry" responses followed by a classic you're-going-to-die stare. Gear shopping at the L.L. Bean factory store was the highlight though. I have an undying love for all things L.L. Bean, and having an excuse to spend hours geeking out over the various survival gadgets they have there was incredible. I ended up leaving with a bunch of great loot. Reason held me back from buying the "largest and most dangerous knife Bean's sells" (salesman's words), but I did pick up a smaller more versatile blade. Oh, and apparently it's bulletproof. Seriously. Bulletproof! If apocalypse ever seems on the horizon, move to Maine. Thanks to the L.L. Bean factory store, Mainers will all survive.


Speaking of gadgets, I'm also bringing a solar powered iPod charger I found online. This thing is ridiculously cool. www.solio.com. I finally got a chance to test it out this week and it works like a charm. It made me feel dirty, like I was channeling some sort of black magic.


So aside from packing up all my gear and clothes, I plan on spending the next few days saying goodbye to as many people as possible. I said g'bye to my sister Libby last weekend. She's a junior at Brown, and it's strange to think that the next time I'll see her she'll have graduated college. She's a truly remarkable girl, and I'll miss her dearly. I also saw my grandmother for probably the last time ever last week. She's quite sick right now, so it's highly unlikely that she'll still be around in 2 years. Who knows though, she could surprise us all. My father jokes that she'll outlive him. The woman is almost 90 and has survived 2 bouts of cancer and three heart attacks. Unstoppable. I'm also sad about saying farewell to Toonces, our family's cat. He's getting on in years, (15), and is starting to slow down. I'll miss the little guy to death.

So I have no doubt that this week is going to fly by. I'm trying to get in touch with as many friends as possible over the next couple days, but if you're reading this and I haven't given you a call yet shoot me a line. While I hope to fit in a short visit to the States during my service, the possibility of this is by no means definite. This very well could be my last week in the U.S. for 27 months. Surreal.