Before I left America in September, I was gung-ho for a moneyless African adventure - roughing it for two years on the world's second-least developed continent. I packed so lightly that I had extra room in my suitcase for a smushy bead-pillow, selected specifically to fill the space because Peace Corps instructed me to bring "an item which can comfort me and/or make me feel at home." I said my goodbyes, collected snail-mail addresses, and jumped feet-first out of my comfortable American home and into a world I could previously only imagine. I arrived with precisely zero expectations, having no idea how hard the language would be, what town I'd be near, or which Western comforts I'd have access to regularly, seldomly, or never.

Now, six months after arriving in Tanzania, I've gotten used to what I can and can't find; I know where I can get cheap candles, the best rice&beans or a plate of so-called "pepper steak," which shops in town will charge my phone for free. I know that unless I take a 5-hour bus ride, it's impossible to get ice cream or a salad, buy computer supplies, or cross an intersection of two paved roads. I've increased my limit for staying in the bush without a break: so far, I've made it three weeks. But there are some things I've begun to expect when I come to town, like a hot shower, a movie on the tiny hotel TV, a chance to read/send emails, a full PO Box. Last weekend, I came all the way to Njombe and got none of those. The water wasn't running, the electrical outlet in my hotel room was broken, the entire town's internet was down, and my PO Box was rusted shut. If I had not had any of those things from the moment I set foot in Africa, I might not have been quite so woeful. When I arrived in Tanzania, I didn't expect anything; I had braced myself for an emotional impact the size of the volcano collapse that created Ngorongoro Crater. I was ready. But now, after four months in my new house, I was devastated not to have these little American luxuries. Although it's become normal not to have electricity at home and to bathe using a bucket and a pitcher, I also expect to have internet access and a hot shower once every few weeks. These are my new standards, my new bare minimums of survival...even though not one of the other teachers at my school has ever used the internet, and most have never seen a full-length movie.

I'm an intruder in someone else's world. These familiar luxuries I enjoy in town are those that remind me home and are available. Other aspects of my American culture, though, are just plain laughable to Tanzanians. I'm like Fez in That 70s Show. I'm weird. The following is a brief list of things I do or have done that, to Tanzanians, is the equivalent of a foreigner in America sweeping the grass of her front lawn with a branch of a pine tree or walking down the street with a hoe slung over his shoulder and a stick to hit the two goats in front of him:

• Carried a water bottle around and claimed it was good for my health to drink a lot of water.


• Taken a special trip to town to buy myself toilet paper when the village shop ran out.


• Allowed my Peace Corps friend and neighbor Nicole to sleep on the couch when she visited instead of insisting that she share my tiny bed with me.


• Used wine and soda bottles as candle holders.


• Refused rice&beans.


• Worn a bike helmet.


• Run for exercise.


• Been upset when everyone in the teachers' room agreed that I had gotten "very fat."


• Done school work at home.


• Made a huge burlap bag of charcoal last four months (because I don't sleep with the stove in the room next to me to keep me warm and intoxicated with carbon monoxide).


• Read novels.


• Baked cookies.


• Claimed I could be just friends with men without having any other interest in them.


• Claimed that it was possible, but extremely difficult to contract HIV/AIDS from sharing toothbrushes.


• Explained skydiving.


• Used a world map to locate not one, not two, but all twelve countries featured on my new travel calendar.


• Packed a backpack to go on a weekend trip.


• Been upset when school didn't start on time.


• Eaten porridge as a grown-up.


• Allowed my friends to come into the kitchen and cook with me when they've visited instead of leaving them alone in my living room while I cooked for them and served them.

• Disliked my current president.

I could probably keep adding to this list until the moment I board the plane back to the US. Let me know what else you want to read about; I'm running out of ideas fast. I'm not a very exciting person.

Laika, Tanzanian Wondergirl

I dedicate this entry to my paternal grandmother Nana, who, each time I leave the good old East Coast USA, expresses her deepest concern that someone in a faraway land will sweep me off my feet and keep me so enamoured by foeign charm that I will never again return home to my dear family. Now, Nana, I must apologize, because after all of my reassurances that this is a total, utter impossibility, I have gone and fallen in love with a Tanzanian.

Her name is Laika. She is 15-years-old and lives with a married couple of my teacher-colleagues. She does not go to school now, but she finished the primary education that is compulsory for all Tanzanian children.

What is so appealing about Laika, you must be asking, since if you know me at all, you have already used your no-doubt superior and refined deductive reasoning skills to surmise that I have no romantic interest in her.

Well, she cleans my house.
And my clothes.
And my dishes.

Laika is my new housegirl, who visits each Tuesday and Saturday morning. She is the live-in housegirl of the teachers who live on the exact opposite end of my row of houses, and full-time nanny to these teachers' (incredibly) beautiful almost-one-year-old daughter Nancy. Mere hours after Laika and I finalized our arrangement (twice weekly visits at 2,000 Tanzanian shillings a pop), I found out that in exchange for her (maybe) six hours per week (so, let's say 24 hours and 16,000 Tanzanian shillings per month), I am paying her double the salary of her full-time job up the road. Probably, I should go into some sort of money-handling business when I'm done lining the pockets of out-of-school Tanzanian teenagers.

Really, though, she is worth every penny. I have clean clothes for the first time since arriving in Tanzania (it's not that I didn't try to bucket-wash my clothes by hand, just that I was bungling and inept at it). I don't have to rudely instruct all of my well-intentioned guests to remove their shoes upon entering my house because cleaning my floor with a handle-less rag instead of a Swiffer is a foreign and intimidating concept to which I cannot adjust. And, the dishes...I really don't have an excuse for that. In fact, I didn't even ask her to wash them - she just does.

Laika the Tanzanian Wondergirl usually comes while I am at school. She is like a phantom that glides unnoticed through my house, leaving everything scrubbed to a shine. I come home and everywhere I had left a mess is astonishingly clean; all of my once-dirty clothes are hung systematically on the line. If I happen to be home when she comes on a Saturday, she is a pleasure; if I am home on a Tuesday when she comes, I get to sit on the floor and play with Nancy while Laika does my chores.

Like I said, she is worth every penny. And every little piece of my heart.