1
December
2007
The new crop of education volunteers just arrived for their site installations and I’m feeling sentimental. It was this time last year that I constructed my water filter, struggled with lighting my charcoal stove, and first learned to keep myself reasonably clean and fed without the benefits of electricty and running water. My early days were spent cleaning up mounds of 2-year old decaying trash and trying to make my surroundings as livable as possible.Â
These days I’ve got a well-structured kitchen, stocked with all the basic appliances and accoutrements, a solar panel generating electricity for my laptop, a decent sized vegetable and herb garden-in-progress and a thorough familiarity with my community and its facilities, as well as a fluent knowledge of Kiswahili coupled with a working familiarity of the local Kibena.  Over the last year I faced the daunting task of teaching students 2 year’s worth of biology in a single year. Next year, all my students will start off with one syllabus topic already completed. Living well in the bush has been no small feat and one that I will undoubtedly continue to work on until the end of my service next year. It is my hope that the next volunteer (hopefully there will be a next volunteer here) gets to start off a few steps ahead because of what I’ve done. For example, my only “gardening” work this past year was composting. Right now, however, I’ve got about 15 avocado seedlings ready for transplanting and grafting, 3 hearty indigenous fruit bushes (Songu - whose leaves are also used as Typhoid medicine) cleared and surrounded with mulch, 4 major compost piles, natural fencing construction, 6 passionfruit vines growing from cuttings, a small herb garden (generously supplied with cuttings by my site mate and farmer extroirdinaire Jason Maglaughlin) and a number of double-dug beds in-progress for vegetable planting. (Thanks to Katy Wettengel for the recent package with seeds!)  But more on my gardening projects for a subsequent blog (and after more of it’s finished). Anyway, hopefully the next volunteer will have a decent garden to build on in their first year.
As for the year-in-review, I have also learned a great deal from my fellow volunteers and have had to say goodbye to far too many of them. I also continue to learn from Tanzanian friends in the village as well as those I meet in towns and while traveling. A prescient observation I made early in training has proven to ring true, that those volunteers and other foreigners with negative attitudes towards Tanzanians are those who have failed to learn Kiswahili beyond the elementary level.  Effective communication breeds understanding and understanding breeds affection – hardly surprising. Of course in keeping with the mission of the Peace Corps, I continue to find aspects of Tanzania that could benefit from American influence (e.g., aspects of the educational system, LGBT tolerance and gender rights, consumer rights) as well as those aspects of the United States that could benefit from Tanzanian influence (e.g., aspects of the community/family structure, religious tolerance, respect for seniors). There are practices common in the U.S. that I wish more Tanzanians would adopt (e.g., better business auditing and management) as well as practices common in Tanzania that the U.S. could use far more of (e.g., households growing some their own food, instead of chemi-polluting their yards for mere ornamental grasses).Â
While I am sure that, when the time comes, I will be ready to move on from UL Sec. for new opportunities and challenges, I am equally sure that I will never be completely finished with Tanzania.  In the best of all possible worlds, I will be able to continue to return here for the rest of my life. This country has gotten way under my skin. On that note, I do have another project in the works for post-Peace Corps work in Tanzania. But, more on that for another blog.
For those who have continued to keep up with me, in emails, letters and delicious candy-filled packages, I cannot thank you enough. I will do my best to keep the blog updates coming along with the pictures. For the next couple of months, my work is moving from that of teacher to farmer. But more on that later.
Peace, Dr. Josh
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Posted: Peace Corps Tanzania, Personal, Tanzanian Society & Culture, Uncategorized
5
May
2007
T (Tragedy) + t (time) = C (Comedy) may not qualify as a scientific law in the Newtonian sense. However, it has proven to be a fairly effective approximation of my experiences thus far in Tanzania (at least the ones in which I was the victim).  Since the incident relayed below happened back in January, before classes had even started at UL Secondary, I have safely recovered from any and all injuries here relayed: physical, moral and psychological. It is my sincerest wish that my past pain may now become your present pleasure. I had originally written up this little piece for a dear friend of mine who was going through a rough patch for a little while, operating under the assumption that a little Schadenfreude can be good for ails ya. Enjoy! (This one’s for you Speedwagon.)
It began with an unusually loud scratching noise in the middle of the night. The first time I had heard this particular sound, I could not for the life of me figure it out, pacing throughout the house, periodically glancing outside and even craning my ear towards the ceiling boards.  By this time, however, I well knew what I was hearing. There was a rodent in my house. Somewhere in my wooden cabinets, it was rooting through my pots and pans, dishes, spices and preserved foods, chewing through plastic bags of flour, nuts and fruit, shitting on my silverware. I well knew what I was up against and the price of failure on my part seemed truly unbearable.
I sat up in my bed, pulled back the mosquito net and slipped into my house shoes. Armed only with a broom and flashlight, I crept out of my bedroom and into the main room towards the cabinet and the source of the somehow deafening grating, fingernails on chalkboard disguised as rodent claws on wood. I was ready to beat the son-of-a-bitch to death if given the chance. Using the broom handle, I gently pried open the cabinet doors. The screetching stopped. I became aware of a gentle rain hitting the aluminum roof overhead.Â
Cautiously lowering on bended knees, I peered with flashlight into the simple two-compartment cabinet. There simply seemed to be no place to hide amid the handful of tupperware containers and tins of powdered milk, instant coffee and jars of honey and jam. I stabbed blindly with the broom handle at the interior, giving up all pretence of stealth.  With the instantaneous conduction of an electrical charge, The Rat (definitely not the mouse I had been secretly hoping to encounter) leaped from the cabinet almost bowling me over as it recaptured the element of surprise. It charged half-way around the room before I had managed so much as one feeble swing of the broom. Long before I could even think about rearing up for a second assault, I had to watch in sheer horror as the consequences of my actions dawned on me.  The Rat finished encircling the main room and headed directly into my bedroom, with its multi-compartmented closet, piles of clothes in three of the four corners, and innumerable other far-superior hiding places and vantage points.
I cursed myself aloud with the sudden realization of the inevitable course of events I had set into motion. Try as I might to rationalize, the inherent inefficacy of so-called free will was no salve. If only I had stayed warm and in bed and given The Rat its rightful share of my plentiful resources. I could have perhaps kept time to the rhythm of its scratches, rocking myself gently to sleep. But now, my bedroom, anywhere but my bedroom!
It is now 1:30 AM (or 7:30 at night as the locals say). I stalk back into my bedroom, broom in one hand, flashlight in the other. Of course, Now I have the good sense to leave the door leading outside to the courtyard wide open, hoping The Rat will accept the invitation. After twenty futile minutes of haphazardly poking and proding about my bedroom, however, I despair that the case is hopeless. I have already blown my cover in a display of sheer oafish boobery. It is dark, my solar flashlight has begun to lose its charge and fade, and the guerilla war always favors the native. I am the colonizer in the bright red “shoot-me” coat and I know it. Crushed, dejected, I sulk back into the main room, propping myself up in a chair facing the bedroom door. Stubbornly, I convince myself that I can wait out the enemy, lure him back to the treasures of the cabinet and perhaps see him out the courtyard door or at least cede back the original territory and sleep soundly in a gentle Rat-free bliss.
By about 3:30 AM, it was again time to reassess the strategy. The Rat could gnaw on my face while I slept for all I cared at this point. I might have even voiced this judgment aloud, although the haze of historical memory still clouds this period of the night. At any event, I had surrendered. The Rat had won. I would return to bed, tucking my mosquito net tightly into the space between the mattress and the frame. I would pretend the creature that feared neither wood nor plastic would somehow be repelled by thin netting. In any event, this would all still be preferable to camping out in the chair, fully exposed and sleeping poorly. As I cautiously returned to my bedroom, I listened for any sounds of The Rat and, hearing none, dozed gently off to a much deserved sleep.
It was maybe around 4:00 AM when I lept out of bed and rushed headlong into the courtyard. For this part of the story, however, I need to back up a bit. Not having any electricity in my house and therefore not having any proper refrigeration system has taken some getting used to. For example, eggs and pineapples last quite a long time in the cool temperatures of Tanzania’s southern highlands. Some fruits and vegetables, on the other hand, may turn rapidly and must be consumed during a shorter time frame. The real issue, however, has been with cooked food. I have long grown accustomed to cooking in bulk and freezing, enjoying the time I spend cooking but recognizing that my slow pace makes daily preparation something of an excessive commitment. Here in Tanzania, I am also more conscious of wasting food, which has truly taxed my ability to cook just enough for maximum work efficiency without dumping out kilos of food in a land of significant malnutrition. So, I have learned, for example, that I can cook a meal and re-cook that meal the second day with a minimum of effort. The lesson I learned the hard way is that you cannot re-cook again, saving your stir-fry with steamed vegetables for Day 3. No matter what.Â
In my case, it was on this “Night of the Rat” that I had eaten rice and greens on the 3rd day, to which I had added additional fresh vegetables and curry. I’m still having a hard time even smelling curry powder. Returning to my story, my self-inflicted food poisoning kicked in right after I’d resigned myself to the Rat-occupied bedroom and drifted off to sleep. My irrepressible urge to bolt out into the courtyard was quickly followed by a long and protracted bout of what I can only describe as projectile vomiting. I you’ve had the occasion to experience this phenomenon, you’ll instantly recognize the descriptor.  In case you don’t know, there’s (1) Vomiting (2) Intense Vomiting and then there’s (3) Projectile Vomiting.
When my body had satisfied itself that the contents of my stomach were sufficiently empty, priority then shifted to the lower tract. I had barely managed to race to the pit latrine and pull off my pants when a virtual waterfall of diarrhea errupted out of my ass. On the bright side, there was very little I could do to consciously control the situation. I could easily resign myself. I simply cleared a path and my bowels took care of the rest. I suppose it would be equally accurate to refer to this particular episode as projectile diarrhea as well, but there was really no opportunity to “project” anywhere but into the pit latrine (which the locals call a “choo,” pronounced ch-owe).  Therefore, I think I’ll leave it with the metaphor “Waterfall” and leave it at that. But no matter. Nor do I intend to dwell simply on the scatology of the scenario. After all, it was not long after exercising my colon that I resumed projectile vomiting, at least until the mass failed to keep up with the force.Â
Now I should point out that it seemed fairly clear to me at this juncture that my body was desperately trying to void everthing I had deigned to introduce into it. Also, by my shivering uncontrollably at the mere thought of curry (although obviously not the culprit, guilty by association nonetheless), I assumed rather unproblematically, it seemed to me, that I had fallen victim to food poisoning. But more on that in just a bit. Needless to say, when I dragged what was left of my body to bed, my concern about the rat had completely vanished (no thanks for small blessings). I would have no happily kept the animal as a pet, furnishing it with its own cabinet playground and guest room if it meant I would once again be able to keep food in my digestive system.
I was already thankful, though I had no energy to make use of it yet, that I had several packets of powdered chicken soup mix and bouillion in the cabinet, the rat cabinet I mean. As a brief aside, I had won these prized food items in a 5-round game of Texas-Hold-Em with three other volunteers. When one of our colleagues unexpectedly ET’ed (Early Terminated, in other words went back home to the United States) we had gambled her possessions away – far more valuable to us at this point than to her what with her imminent return to the land of malls and supermarkets. I had been lucky enough to win her solar flashlight (a Christmas gift that had been given to all volunteers from the U.S. Ambassador) as well as these several packets of soup and bouillion. But anyway, back to lying in bed, a mere shell of a human being.
As expected, the Fundi (think handyman, although the word refers to any skilled person) showed up at my house by 9:00 AM to continue his work fixing the doors in my courtyard. As I had given him some avocados from my tree the previous day, he was kind enough to bring me a bag of carrots, fresh from his garden. It was all I could do simply to walk outside, inform him that I was sick, thank him for his gift and promptly return to bed. Something as basic to my life here as speaking Kiswahili was almost beyond me. I did not even bother to lock the door to my courtyard as I threw myself back into bed. Naturally, the Fundi reported to the teachers that I was out for the count, or some suitable Kiswahili version of that idiom. Of course, they came by individually to visit, spacing out their housecalls just far enough apart to ensure that I could not get back to sleep.
When Tanzanians are sick, apparently, they love nothing more than to be visited all day long by a procession of friends and well-wishers. I have tried to grasp this cultural incongruity. “I look and feel like shit, need bed rest to recover, . . . what a perfect time to have company over!” And so, I found myself sitting and keeping company with my array of individual guests over the span of the morning and afternoon, in the very room where I had stalked The Rat not several hours earlier. “Pole sana.” (I’m very sorry) I heard many times. Asante sana (Thank you very much) I continued to reply. This actually represented the bulk of my conversations. What else to talk about? Well, there’s vomiting, diarrhea, rodent infestation, what do you want to talk about?
Eventually, I would express how little sleep I had gotten (Pole sana, Asante sana) and excuse myself to bed, neglecting to see my visitors out or even close/lock the door for that matter. I had at the time no patience for playing host and was still dumbfounded that I would be put into the position.  Nevertheless the sincere looks of concern from my guests kept my frustration from turning into bitterness or anger. They meant well; we just were not on the same page – or some suitable Kiswahili version of that idiom. However, the spontaneous attempts at diagnosis almost pushed me over the edge.
“You probably have malaria,” was the first bit of good cheer my guests spread with their arrival, engaging in helpful conversation. “I don’t have malaria,” I insisted, “it was food poisoning.” Yet their zeal for misdiagnosis continued unabated. “Maybe it is cholera.” Charming. Just what I needed with my hair-trigger vomitous stomach, the taste of bile in my mouth and a possible rat infestation: the doomsday doctors to keep me from much needed sleep. Of course, the malaria diagnosis I had come to expect. Tanzanians tend to assume that the first sign of sickness is malaria. Frankly, it’s not a bad impulse. Treating yourself for malaria when you don’t actually have the disease is still preferable to death-by-malaria. Then again, Tanzanians, in my observations, might call a general sickness malaria without bothering to take it seriously enough to treat. Stigmatized diseases like HIV/AIDS are also usually disguised as malaria. You don’t go to a funeral and hear that the cause of death was AIDS; it was malaria.Â
As I said, the malaria thing I expected. However, over the subsequent days, whenever discussion of my sickness arose (long after it had abated), the teachers refused to accept my diagnosis. “I think maybe you were very tired from working in the garden,” I heard. Fed up with this bizarre obstinancy, I finally snapped. “Being tired from working in the garden doesn’t make you puke and shit your guts out!  My body was clearly getting rid of rotten food that I had re-cooked one time to many and it’s my own damn fault. Trust me. THIS WAS FOOD POISONING!”
“But, if you tell the Peace Corps that you had food poisoning,” one of the teachers said to me, “they will think someone has tried to poison you.”
“Oh,” I said, everything finally becoming clear to me. “No,” I now calmly assured him, “food poisoning is just the name we use for describing the symptoms that come with eating rotten food. The medical officers at the Peace Corps know this. No one will think I was deliberately poisoned.”
How sweet. They were worried I would be sent home. Who could stay angry and dwell on such a thing? In fact, I’m feeling better about it already.
Posted: Peace Corps Tanzania, Personal
14
March
2007
I had the good fortune to run into Josh Stern (to distinguish between us, the other volunteers in our class decided that he’s Karate Josh and I’m Dr. Josh) as well as the other Zanzibar archipelago crew (Jon Thysell, Mike T. and Sarah Springsteen) in Dar, en route to South Africa. Josh’s latest blog has the stranger than fictional account of Popo Bowa, the evil sodomizing Bat Demon that terrorizes the islands and may have possessed one of his students. Anyway, if that’s not enough of a teaser, he’s also got some beautiful pictures of the islands on his site. So, scroll down to the Peace Corps blogs and go take a look yourself.
Posted: Peace Corps Tanzania
12
March
2007
For those of you interested in sending educational materials to the students of UL Secondary, I have compiled a new wish list. Inspired by the practical component in history of science classes at Johns Hopkins, I am requesting astrolabes, telescopes and magnifiers.
These relatively low-cost, easy and inexpensive to ship items, would allow my students to make practical scientific observations first hand. Using their astrolabes to measure the height of tall trees or to chart the position of stars in the night sky; using their Galilean-quality telescopes to draw the surface of the moon or locate the moons of Jupiter; using their magnifiers to draw the cells of plants, insects or their own skin offers a practical component to their education, so far absent. As I teach these students to view science not as a fixed set of knowledge-claims found in textbooks but as a method for organizing and understanding the world around them, these instruments would help to reinforce their lessons by gathering their own information.
These materals can be found at the following websites. However, please drop me an email at josh@joshualevens.com before purchasing and let me know what materials you are interested in sending.
http://www.adlerplanetarium.org/research/history/index.shtml
http://www.starlab.com/prodother.html
http://www.opticsale.com/zhumell-tabletop-30-telescopes.html
http://www.opticsale.com/carsoneverydaymagnifiersds40.html
Thank you for your interest and support!
Posted: Peace Corps Tanzania, Secondary Projects
26
January
2007
For the first mandatory training session since arriving at site, first year Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) in Tanzania are attending a weeklong session funded by the President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Which leads me to wonder, how much does our president know about HIV/AIDS and is there any way for Congress to make him attend the training for his own organization? But I’m getting off track already, allow me to be more specific in my descriptions and commentary on PEPFAR in Tanzania.
My own cohort of volunteers (in the Mbeya, Ruvuma and Southern Iringa regions) attended this session in the town of Mbeya, the regional capitol of Tanzania’s predominant coffee and banana growing region and 4th largest city (behind Dar-es-Salaam, Arusha and Mwanza). Before I continue, I would like to stress at the outset that our facilitator Dr. Delem did a fantastic job of providing interesting and accurate information on the teaching of HIV/AIDS, the human immune system, Anti-Retroviral drugs (ARVs) and life skills to primary and secondary school students. Not only was I privy to a much needed refresher course, but was also provided with valuable resources for getting new information – especially on the HIV/AIDS related services here in Tanzania. I have nothing but praise for the quality of the conference and its participants.
All of that being said, there exist serious flaws in the policies and procedures of PEPFAR. To quote political commentator David Rosen:
“This apparently-successful spending model is compromised in three important ways. First, at least a third of the monies targeted for prevention must be spent on abstinence-until-marriage programs. Second, three-fourths of the monies allocated for treatment must be spent on the purchase and distribution of antiretroviral drugs from U.S. pharmaceutical manufacterers and cannot be substituted by generic alternatives. Finally, at least half of that allocated for helping children and orphans is to be provided through nonprofit, nongovernmental organizations, particularly faith-based groups.” See David Rosen, “Imperialism’s Second Front: Bush’s Foreign Sex Policy,” http://www.counterpunch.org/rosen12222006.html
While I completely agree with this general assessment, I need to further add that particular circumstances here in Tanzania further exacerbate these problems with the spending-structure of PEPFAR. For example, one might argue that there are serious problems with the complete prohibition against the marketing or distribution of condoms in secondary schools. However, far more serious are the Tanzanian laws that forbid sexual activity among secondary school students. Female students are regularly given pregnancy tests and, if positive, are expelled from school. Moreover, students even found in possession of condoms (for example in their dormitories if they are boarding students) may be expelled on the suspicion of sexual activity alone. Of course, these draconian tactics push many female students into seeking abortion providers (all illegal in Tanzania), simply so they may remain in school. On a personal note I was told that one such girl in my region died last year in a botched abortion procedure. In towns, these underground services cost around 15,000 TZ sh./= (roughly $12) and transpire in frightful conditions. Of course, these gross injustices are further exacerbated by the (far too common) instances in which the father-to-be receives no such disciplinary action. Even more disturbing are the number of instances reported to me in which the father-to-be was the child’s teacher (either secondary or primary!). Clearly, under such conditions, “Abstinence” and “Be Faithful” (AB) education do not even begin to address the sexuality and power dynamics in these children’s lives.
Obviously, one of the key flaws with the PEPFAR program as numerous commentators have pointed is the heavy stress on AB programs rather than the ABC (add Condoms) approach. However, as I hope I have made clear, even adding “C” to “AB” programs is far from an exhaustive answer to the complex problems facing at-risk youth in Tanzania – and I imagine elsewhere. For one thing, it seems clear that sexuality needs to be addressed in an exhaustive, holistic and objective manner. The insipid moralizing that caricatures sexuality only in terms of life-long monogamous marriage and life-threatening sexual risk ignores the extent to which sexuality permeates the human experience. Teaching students about sexuality in terms of human development, personal relationships, behavioral skills, health, society and culture seems a practical first step. There are certainly age-appropriate lessons that ought to be transmitted to children of all ages, from simple anatomical and physiological differences between the sexes to more complicated discussions of affection, physical pleasure and social behavior.
Fortunately, I believe, with proper planning that many of these kinds of educational additions may be used even under the current PEPFAR guidelines. To take a minor example, it should be pointed out that it is not forbidden to mention condoms, even in presentations to elementary students. However, you cannot provide a condom demonstration until secondary school and must stress AB as the best approach to sexual health. With regard to topics such as orgasm, masturbation, or even same-sex sexual behavior there appear to be no strictures or guidelines on the subject. The real trick will be developing culturally appropriate ways to address and discuss these subjects, relying heavily on empirical data and eschewing unnecessary moralizing. After all, to take two examples, both “homosexuality” and “pornography” are illegal here in Tanzania. This is an effort, however, that Peace Corps/Tanzania is well suited to begin considering, if the political will can be fostered. For my part, I remain optimistic.
Siku njema, Josh
Posted: Peace Corps Tanzania
