My New Home

From July 2010 until May 2011 I will be teaching English at Kibiti Secondary School (Now called Kibiti High School). The school is a government all boys boarding school housing approximately 700 boys and around 25 teachers. Although the school is named Kibiti after the town a few kilometres away, it is actually located in the village of Kinynya (which means small tomato in Swahili). Both Kibiti and Kinyanya are located in the Rufiji district in the coastal region of Tanzania about two hours south of Dar es Salaam by using the local buses.

Karibu Mjusi (Welcome Lizard)

Expecting to arrive to an apartment infested with mice and cockroaches Duffie and I arrived at Kibiti Secondary School armed with cans of RAID and HATARI (means Danger in Swahili). As we unpacked we kept a watchful eye out for any unwelcome inhabitants in our new home. Several hours later, our first "visitor" emerged from behind the bookcase. A lizard at least six inches long crawled up the wall nearly bringing Duffie to tears. Knowing that they really were not harmful, but getting caught up in the mentality of defending our new home against any nonhuman living creature I tried to drive the lizard out with the broom. With impeccable timing the second master, Mr. Bassa, was just going past our door on his way home from school - probably drawn in part by the screaming. Slightly confused at why the new American girls were afraid of a lizard, he allowed himself to be recruited and heroically "shifted" the lizard outside of our home. The only casualty of the event was the lizard's tail which will grow back soon enough. We later felt slightly guilty about our inhospitable attitude towards a creature that will probably eat the insects that we really do not in our house so we decided to welcome the next lizard and try not to cause another scene.