Our field trip went surprisingly well. The hired minibus broke down en route, so they didn't arrive in Dodoma until noon. I met them at the district environment offices. The district forestry officer came out to talk to them and encourage them to keep doing what they're doing after I've gone. He also told them that if they needed funding to visit other schools to teach about the environment and encourage them to start clubs, or to start a beekeeping project to help support the school, that the district government was there to help them. I liked that idea. They toured around the tree nursery there and a few went to the Dodoma Beekeeping Cooperative across the road. Then we went for a walk around the Parliament Building. Sendege led from the front and got to feel like a tour guide; I brought up the rear and felt like a sheepdog, rounding up the stragglers. He was oblivious to the fact that every time a bicycle ice cream cart passed, we'd lose a handful of students. I couldn't blame them; it was nearly 2, they hadn't eaten, and even though we were about to get lunch, he had been giving them that line for a couple of hours at this point. I swear at one point they had themselves stretched out over ¼ mile. Then we overwhelmed a small but cheap restaurant for lunch. Because of the car problems, we didn't have time to go to the university. The road to Itiso is no good to take at night. After that we told them to meet us in Nyerere Square (which was 2 blocks away) in 15 minutes. 30 minutes later, we had all but 4 students. For reasons I don't understand and continued to rail against, the driver decided to leave the area with the students still missing, meaning they would eventually go there and not find us, and would start to wander and we'd never find them. We sent the teacher out to hunt them down. An hour and a half later we were all in the car and started for home. We made it back a little after dark. We didn't get to do everything we wanted and were late, but I call it a success. The kids had a good time, nothing terrible happened. They got to see that there is a support network available to them that isn't me. They got some new ideas for the future.
The rest of the week was fairly normal. The Peace Corps staff sent to man the field office in Dodoma came and we visited a nearby village to see if he can get it ready to take a volunteer later this year. That night I had dinner at my counterpart's house. The whole family was there having soda and samosas and grilled antelope (a rare treat). We took pictures and I was given a very nice kanga and a liter of honey as going-away presents. It was funny watching the teenager trying to take pics in the semi-darkness. “I can only see Allison!” “It's ok, the flash will go off.”
The next day my village mama came by to help me finish packing up the house and she took all the furniture she bought, the clothes and things I gave her, and my luggage to her house in a donkey cart. Her two girls stayed behind to help me clean the place before I locked it up. Then I had lunch at the mission and one of the sisters gave me another liter of honey.
My last night I stayed at my village mama's house. We cooked a very special dinner of rice, beans, duck (it was huge!), tons of kachumbari, sodas, and a cake I brought. The kids were excited about all eating together, the boys usually eat apart from the girls an younger ones. We ate until we couldn't move changed into our nice clothes and took lots of pictures. I stayed the night there and they helped carry my bags to the bus stop in the morning.
Once in Dar everything sucked: hotels all full, paperwork forgotten, daladalas packed, rain, fully booked trains, and rushing around never quite getting anything right. But I did manage to COS, making me an RPCV. Finally! It still hasn't sunk in that I won't be back in the village next week.
Starting my trip to Zambia tomorrow morning. Wish me luck!
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