FIRST IMPRESSIONS II

TRAINING

It's Sunday once again in Arusha, and this weekend the weather decided not to cooperate with a planned second walk near the mountain, which was probably just as well since my Kiswahili vocabulary to date still required quite a bit of organizing. My only difficulties are in really understanding what is being said to me, not so much the translation but just hearing the sounds correctly, and in tolerating the silliness in our group activities. Training, like staging in Chicago before it, is at best tedious, quite often boring, and on occasion downright annoying. Many of us are counting the weeks remaining in the training program.

On the positive side I hasten to point out that the leadership above us seems very strong indeed. The ambassador, to start at the top, and Peace Corps is his concern, is a career diplomat and a very good one; unhappily he moves to the post in Angola on September 1. The director of Peace Corps Tanzania is extremely good and very experienced; this is the fifth country in which he has headed a program, but there is a thirty-month, I think it is, limit on each such assignment. Although his office is in Dar, his influence and presence are felt throughout the country. The man heading up our Arusha training program also seems good; most of my problems are beyond his control since contracts had already been approved before he took over. Our successors in November should fare much better. This man is a native African, born and raised in Zaire, then the Belgian Congo, and is now a professor of French at Vanderbilt, where he took his doctorate; he still speaks Kiswahili extremely well, although it is slightly different from what we’re being taught. I've also met the second-level administrator from Dar, who is responsible for business and financial affairs, and he seems very approachable and helpful. Finally, I'm told that the headmaster of the school where I'll likely be assigned is quite outstanding. So, once these preliminary hurdles are jumped, life could become more exciting.

The main requirement for a meaningful and happy life here, however, is good health, and I'm very pleased with the medical assistance available to us. One of my comrades has already had a touch of what could well be malaria, another suspects his ailment is giardia, and a young woman Volunteer who came with the previous group last September just this past week went to Nairobi for tests of some potentially serious symptoms and was flown directly from there to Washington–no return to Arusha for goodbyes and belongings–so I give serious attention to all, well almost all, medical and practical health care advice. I will confess, however, to trading the condoms and megavitamins that were in my kit for some good sunscreen.

Our doctor is very well suited to his position: competent, concerned, down-to-earth, and accessible. His office is in Nairobi, which has the best medical facilities between South Africa and Europe, I suspect, and he serves eight countries; the other seven border Tanzania. He worked quite a few years with an Indian tribe in the US Southwest, then spent a year in Alaska with a group of Eskimos, and most recently was in Sudan for eighteen months helping refugees from that dreadful affair. I just recalled that tonight's the night for my weekly malaria prophylaxis; mefloquine is the recommended agent, and since that is my preference as well, there should be no difficulty. I sleep under a mosquito net, although my last mosquito experience was in Minnesota in May.

The head nurse was here our first two weeks, but she has since returned to Dar, where all the permanent PC offices are located. Edith Elizabeth, as she likes to be known, is a Tanzanian, married to a doctor, a ton of fun, and extremely experienced. Her Arusha replacement seems equally competent and friendly. The former has been with PC for eight years and does get to the US occasionally for special training. We have access to her office by phone around the clock, and of course by mail. Our medical cases contain thermometers, a kit for making slides of our own blood samples–we've practiced–and two doses of fansidar; malaria is taken seriously here. Edith knows all the best doctors in the country–mission hospitals are still the best apparently–and will see that each of us knows where to get help in an emergency; she is also responsible for our hepatitis shots every four months. I've had a total of eight shots already, including one for meningitis and three against rabies, and I was pretty well up to date to begin with because of previous travel. Next week we begin a three-shot series for hepatitis B, and if anything else is developed, I'm sure they will stick the needles to us again. I've mentioned all of this not because I'm at all concerned but just to assure you that many precautions are being taken and that a lot of provisions have been made for us just in case. Here as at home the most dangerous threats are from careless drivers. While on the topic of emergencies let me remind you that if something happens on your side of the world that I need to know quickly, contact, or ask Dow to do it, the Special Services desk of Peace Corps Washington; they will get word to me much more quickly than you can.

Our country director arrived on Monday with a specific site assignment for each of us; most of the trainees had no idea where they were going, so this was an exciting time. Mine had been definite a week earlier, and I was actually told just a few minutes after disembarking at the Nairobi airport on arrival that that’s what would most likely happen. Just as I fully believe Tanzania to be the most exciting country in which I can serve, so too do I think this particular school and location to be the best available; let me simply copy the “school overview” section of the letter I was given:

“Ilboru Secondary School is located on a hill about three kilometers from Arusha town. It is a very successful boarding school gaining national recognition. The school has an enrollment of approximately 600 students. The school has excellent facilities, particularly the science laboratories. The typical workload for the teaching staff is 20-24 periods per week, with normal periods being 40 minutes in length. There are many opportunities for extracurricular activities.”

I have not yet been to the site, but I was shown three photos that make it look very attractive. I will be living in a three-bedroom house just above the school, I think alone at first, but another Volunteer from the next group will move in around the first of January, probably to teach either chemistry or biology; naturally I have filed a request for blue eyes. In just a few days I’ll go up the hill for a week or ten days of observation and then in early September will move in for my two years, at least according to current plans. Since the director knows more about the area than I, I'll simply copy the rest of his letter to give you a brief description of my surroundings.

“Arusha is the gateway to the National Parks and Conservation Areas in the north. Arusha lies in the north of Tanzania on the slopes of Mount Meru, and has an elevation of 1700 m above sea level. The climate is ideal: mostly warm to cool with low humidity throughout the year. Banking facilities, postal service, telecommunications and other modern conveniences are all readily available in Arusha town.

“Many of the people in the Arusha community are farmers, who cultivate maize, a variety of fruits and vegetables, and coffee. Other people within the community work in manufacturing or the tourist industry. Opportunities for shopping abound in the Arusha area, with fresh fruits, vegetables and commodities of every make and description available year around.

“There are several tribes in the Arusha area, but the Maasai and Meru are the main two. These tribes are not Bantu in origin, so their culture is a bit different from other tribes in Tanzania. The Maasais are nomads and herd cattle. On the other hand, the Merus are primarily farmers who keep a few cattle.”

It takes airmail about two weeks to reach Arusha from the US. Any notes you care to send by August 15 should be addressed to me as W. Vance Johnson, Peace Corps Trainee, P.O. Box 8082, Arusha, Tanzania, East Africa; after that address me as Peace Corps Volunteer, Ilboru Secondary School, P.O. Box 3014, Arusha.... I'll let you know when there is any change.

Dow and I are still experimenting with computer disks and intercontinental mail, and I don't know when, or indeed if, you will see this. Also, not everyone's name made it onto my mailing list, regrettably, and I don't know if Dow's list matches mine. So please don't fret over delays. It is my intention to get this disk in tomorrow's mail, from a different post office than I used for the first one. I suspect it will be well into August before the third one is mailed.

Meanwhile, best wishes and my warmest personal regards to each of you.

W. Vance Johnson

14 July 92