Lushoto

We have finished training and have been assigned to a school near Lushoto in the Usambaa Mountains in Tanzania. Go to an atlas and find us on a map. We are between Mt. Kilimanjaro and Tanga on the coast. The school year for Tanzania starts the second week of January, so we are on break now will start teaching the second week of January.

After having completing the training, I am really impressed with the Peace Corps, and would highly recommend it. They are really concerned about my health and my safety in the country, and have given very good instructions on how to stay safe and healthy. Their language training in Swahili has been very good, but I have been most impressed by their cultural training and their approach to development. We are required to fit into the community, and have been given good tools to access the community's needs. We then work with members of the community to develop sustainable programs, which means that members of the community are doing the programs, and therefore the programs will continue even after we leave. In education, that means working with other teachers to develop good teaching strategies, HIV/AIDS education, and gender equality in education. This is a program that works, and is definitely worth the two year investment. In later additions to the blog, I will be talking more about what is like to live in Africa. For starters, we are in the hot season now, and I am thankful that we are in the mountains where it is a little cooler.