Another Day, Another Shiling

Well, I have gotten over the mid-service hump, the back from the states hump, and now it's back to buisness as usual.  New mindset and motivation, paired with knowledge from past mistakes and I'm doing some great work if I may say so myself. 

Some of my new projects:

1.  Adding a new pit latrine for the local primary school... All the details are on the below website.
This is the part where I beg for money
http://appropriateprojects.com/node/1449

2.  Tree Nurseries.  This ongoing process is in the planning stages as I plan to start germinating in the month of June/July in order to have the seedlings of an appropriate size for the rainy season in December.  Right now I want to extend my zone of influence from just my village and the secondary school to a few other of my neighboring villages, and hopefully be able to double the amount of trees compared to the just over a thousand that we were able to plant this year. 

3.  Butterfly Farming!  This is obviously my favorite project.  It involves bringing the processes of cartching,and raising butterflies, and then taking the pupae/crysalisis and sending them to butterfly houses and private collectors in the US or Europe.  Right now I just got back from visiting an opperational butterfly farming group in a neighboring region.  Local villagers, forest service officers, and I went to the farms, and spent 3 days seeing the enclosures, learning about the materials, getting species identification knowledge, and asking a ton of questions.  Now the next step for us is to start planting the host plant species (different for each type of butterfly) in areas that we plan to put into enclosures, so that we can be ready to start farming pupae in the high demand month of July.  I don't know if I expressed this properly, but I am more excited than you can imagine about this project, and am pretty sure that I am the luckiest person in Peace Corps (Or the world).  And as much as it takes alot of time, and work, the actual resources to be used are just mosquito nets!

With all my positive outlook I've had lately it has given me the idea of extending for a third year in country.  But, if you or one of your friends decide to offer me an awesome job that gives me alot of money, the chance of travel for work, and do some high quality positive world work, I would consider and  possibly with an upcoming promotion.

So that is about it.  Pictures, they are coming I swear.  But another unmentioned project I got going is to make some well done youtube videos of my village and my projects.  So look out for that!

Return from America

I just had a 2 week trip back to America.  I saw my family, neighborhood friends, extended family, college buddies, friends from work, and even met some new people (While failing to see Sarett people, and Sarah Colton).  I was so excited getting off the plane and seeing what I remembered as life in the States.  What was really odd though was that I did not feel odd at all.  I guess the last 22 years of my life have made it so that even 14 months of submersion in the third world couldn't make me forget my first world roots.

Even with that being said, Peace Corps Volunteers are still NOT capable of doing various everyday American tasks, such as follows...
-  Using credit cards at convenience stores (seriously, like 7 minutes)
-  Greeting people in English ("Hey, how is the home brother?")
-  Dealing with the COLD!!!
-  Looking the correct way when crossing a street
-  Spending the correct amount of time on the toilet (I can sit instead of squat... gimme half an hour)
-  Spending the correct amount of time in the shower (Water is raining automatically from a nozzle above me, how could I possibly use more than 5 minutes?)
-  Letting surrounding people throw out good food (They barely touched it, it was $8.50 and delicious)
-  Using Iphones
-  Paying high costs for traveling (28 dollars for a cab!!! That is roughly 14 cab rides in TZ)
-  Drinking from water fountains (All over the face)
-  Deciding from a menu (100 choices, and they actually will have them all!)
-   Time managing (I have to be somewhere at some specific time?)
-  Ignoring overhead planes ("Hey! You guys see that? That was like the third one this hour!")
-  Any activity after 4 PM ("Guys the sun went down, aren't you all tired too?")

While back in the states there was alot of interest told to me about sending care packages out here, for my sake or for the sake of the villagers.  I have little ideas for what the villagers would want in a package, and even less for me, BUT one item I have been very interested in getting for my village is a one world futbol.  It is a soccer ball that is virtually indestructible.  Soccer balls are a big problem in third world countries.  Since my arrival in the village our team has gone through at least 3 balls, fixing punctures, resewing, and plugging up leaky valves takes away from alot of game days, not to mention costs alot of money.  This new ball does not require an air pump, and apparently cannot really be destroyed.  If anyone has feelings to do a good deed, sending one to my Address (below) would be much appreciated.  Also I am going to be doing another project hopefully in the coming months dealing with creating water piping for the delivery of clean water throughout my village, and this charity allows for anonymous donations to go directly to my project funding which would be greatly appreciated.  I will keep you up to date on that though.

Address:
Jeff Hubley
PO box 344
Same, Kilimanjaro
Tanzania

After getting back to Tanzania and not seeing the end of the world in the states I have made my top priority to plan out a great next year and to put my full effort into a good future, physically, mentally, and career wise.  I won't bore you with the details, but it is going to be an exciting new year.  Among my current plans are running a half marathon, meditating more regularly, finding a extension program with peace corps that I want to pursue, and making a lasting change at my village before I leave.  I hope we all have luck in this year to come!

Trying to get this video posted but I don't think it works yet.... Gotta love slow internet!