After almost two weeks in Tanzania there are a few things I would rather have known before my arrival, and a few things which I have found to be incredibly helpful in the learning process here. Here are a few of those items which I recommend you should or should not bring with you, all of which are probably good advice for just about any Peace Corps country, not just Tanzania:
Bring an extra bag. Peace Corps gives you lots and lots of things in the first week of training and if you fill your bags like I did you will be hard-pressed to find any place for them all. Man am I glad I removed my sleeping bag at the last minute. Peace Corps has given us a huge medical kit, bedsheets, a pillow, a blanket, a flashlight, a water filtration candle, a bucket, a lantern, two cans of killer bug spray, a mosquito net, two rolls of tp, and loads of manuals, papers, and books. A lot of this stuff was dropped off at our Tanzanian families’ homes before our arrival but it’s all our to take to our site come the end of November. I already had to lash several of my things to the outside of my backpack and will have to stuff my bucket with stuff to get it all to my site.
Don’t bring a first-aid kit. The only thing I can think that you might need is more bandaids and maybe a small sack to carry supplies during vacations. Peace Corps supplies you with a HUGE medical kit and you needn’t bring a damn thing.
Bring a dictionary. This has been an absolutely essential took in the first few days of my homestay. I have learned a ton in class but I have also learned a ton at home — at the end of my first day at homestay I wrote down all the new vocabulary I learned which was something like 70 words. My brain hasn’t hurt that much since Senior Design. Without my dictionary I would have learned maybe 15. Peace Corps gave us a Kiswahili-English dictionary which is great, but we have yet to receive our English-Kiswahili dictionaries and we aren’t sure when they will arrive. So many Kiswahili words sounds similar and without an English-Kiswahili dictionary I would be lost. Bring a dictionary and leave your phrasebook.
Bring large bills. I brought a small amount of American money for traveling and have some left over from staging, none of which is in bills larger than $20. The exchange rate is horrible for anything less than a $50-bill. Give them two 50′s or one 100 and you will receive 152,000 shillings; for five 20′s you get only 100,000. That’s loosing something like $30. I’m not sure how good the rate is for changing traveler’s checks but I’ve heard they are difficult to change.
Bring games. The first week and a half of training feels like summer camp — everyone wakes up at the same time, eats the same thing for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, eats at the same table, and you have a good amount of free time to socialize and adjust your biorhythm to your new surroundings. Bring stuff to do! I don’t know what I would have done without cards, travel games, and frisbees.
Bring a quality water bottle. The amount of bottled water Peace Corps goes through in the initial weeks of training is obscene. Trainees need a steady supply of water for drinking and brushing teeth, and though there are water coolers available not everyone takes the time to reuse their plastic bottles. Bring your own bottle and make sure it’s a good one. After one week a couple fellow trainees complained that their aluminum bottles, that kind that everyone has now, developed a smell. Washing your bottle with hot, soapy water is pretty difficult when you don’t have access to a hot water source so bring one that won’t allow for as much bacteria build-up.
