The day finally arrived. The day I and everyone else in my cohort had been waiting for. The day of site announcements. Site announcements took place on the morning of Friday, August 30th. As we arrived we were each given a picture of the headshot we had submitted earlier and a piece of tape to put on the back. We were told to hold onto our pictures and go find a seat and wait. When everyone had arrived and they finished some brief announcements it was time. This year site announcements were Harry Potter style. Kristine (a Peace Corps Volunteer who extended her service for a third year and worked in the Peace Corps office) read off of a scroll one name, which happened to be Abby. Abby went up front and sat in a chair in front of everyone, a hat was placed on her head and then the recording began announcing the region where she was placed. Once hearing her region she went up to the map and placed her picture in her region. The same procedure happened for each and every one of us. One by one we were called forward, had the hat placed on our head, and listened for the recording to tell us where we would spend the next two years.
When my turn came I went forward and sat with the hat on my head waiting. Then I heard, “In the mountains you will be, with a lot of PCVs. TANGA!” When I first heard the recording yell out Tanga I didn’t fully process until a few minutes later when I was sitting down with the folder of information in hand wanting to pay attention to where my friends were getting placed but also wanting to dive in and read more about the place that I will call home for the next two years. As I read bits and pieces pausing to see where my friends were being placed it became real that these people that I have become so close to the past 2 months were now being placed on opposite sides of the country as me. I sat and listened…Iringa, Kilimanjaro, Morogoro, Pemba, Mara…everyone was dispersed throughout Tanzania. Coming to that realization was sad, however my excitement triumphed as I continued to read about my future home.
My site is in Lushoto District of Tanga Region in northeastern Tanzania. Lushoto town would be what we call our banking town. Lushoto is the closest town to my village where I will do most of my shopping, go to the market, the bank and the post office. This is also the same town that others use for banking so I will be able to meet up with them when we are in town on weekends. I was placed in Tanga with 2 other volunteers from my cohort, there are 5 volunteers from last years education cohort and 5 volunteers from the health/ag cohort this spring that also use Lushoto as their banking town.
My village is about an hour bus ride from Lushoto. The school I will be teaching at has around 300 students and 11 other teachers. My house is situated right on the school compound and my closest neighbor is another teacher and the second head master. In Tanzania schools have a head master called the mkuu, who is similar to a principal in the US. They also have a second head master who takes on the responsibilities of the mkuu when he is not there or busy. My house is a duplex and on the other half of the house lives the second head master with his wife and two children who are 2 and 4 years old. There is one other teacher who also lives on the school compound with his wife and child who is around 3 or 4 years old. The rest of the teachers live in the village and walk into school each day.
My house is a cozy two room house. One room I have set up as my bedroom and the other room is a combo kitchen, dining room, living room. I’m sure people are wondering, “Only two rooms? What about a bathroom?” My “bathroom” is outside at the back of my small courtyard. It can be described as a little shed with two doors. The first door has the choo (porcelain squat toilet), and the second door is simply a small rectangle closet with a drain in the back which is used as the shower (more accurately described as the room where I will take my bucket baths). Although there is not much to my house it has everything I need to keep my comfortable. I even have electricity! Lights in every room, the hallway and outside. There are two outlets in the house, one in the bedroom and the other in the combo room, but the one in the bedroom doesn’t work so that’s something I might try and get fixed.
My site and Lushoto are located in the Usambara mountains. The road leading to Lushoto contains many switchbacks as you climb up through the mountains and the views are stunning. The same is true along the road between my site and the next volunteers site. On a clear day there are some places along the road near my site that you can see mountains in Kenya off in the distance. After a one week visit to my site and a few of my neighboring volunteers’ sites I am very happy with my placement and am excited to be able to call it home in two short weeks!