After graduating from UP in 2010, Jordon Foster, above, has been working for the Peace Crops in Tanzania Africa. Here he stands in front of Victoria Falls in Zambia Africa. (Photo courtesy of Jordon Foster)
By Jordon Foster, Guest Commentary
Jordon Foster graduated from UP in 2010 with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering. Since September 2010, Foster has been working for the Peace Corps as a math and science teacher in Tanzania, Africa. Foster is spending his two-year teaching service in the village of Lugaraqwa. Here is his take on living, working and travelling as a Peace Corps volunteer.
What am I doing? That's the recurring query which clouds my mind like the tropical mist veiling the peaks of this remote East African mountain range.
Visibility is about 100 feet and the footpath I'm trying to follow is branching out in every direction like the tributaries of a river. I trek onward through the warm rain, lost and trying hopelessly to regain my bearings. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to embark on this ambitious of a journey alone, with a very limited knowledge of Swahili and no route information.
Then, just as my second guessing approaches its apex, the slope tapers and a cool breeze from the other side of the pass blows away my doubts. Through a fleeting window in the clouds I get a virgin glimpse of Lake Nyasa, my destination, 4,000 feet below.
Overwhelmed by excitement, I cruise anxiously down the better-defined footpath for a more encompassing view of one of the oldest, largest and most diverse lakes in the world.
Three hours later I'm at the lakeshore in a small village called Makonde Villagers invariably point and yell "Mzungu," Swahili for "foreigner," in shock while many of the young children cry at the sight of me.
Before long, through broken Swahili and a lot of hand gestures with the friendly and welcoming villagers, I learn that I'm the first white person to visit this village in over a year. It's not hard to believe as I set up my tent on the beach with 30 pairs of eyes tracking my every move, a slight displeasure which, like the heat, is easily overcome with a dip in the crystal clear water which laps gently onto the boulder-strewn beach.
My sojourn is frivolled away in a pleasant haze of sweet mangos, refreshing swim, and comical Swahili lessons from the children. All too soon the sun begins to sink behind the faint outline of Malawian mountains 50 miles away across the lake. Consumed in the blissful moment, I float on my back and gaze at the warm light cast on the steep flanks of the mountains guarding this little village.
Living life to the fullest, that's what I'm doing.
The following day I begin my journey home. Before I graduated from University of Portland in 2010, this trip would have consisted of a grueling 12-mile hike, over the 6,000 foot pass, to a dirt road which I would have to hitch a ride on for 100 miles to the nearest paved road.
Then it's just a 600 mile bus ride from southern Tanzania to the country's international airport in Dar es Salaam and nearly 30 hours of flights/layovers before setting down in the gorgeous Pacific Northwest.
It wouldn't have been a weekend trip to say the least, but I'm not taking that route home.
Since joining the Peace Corps, my journey home consists of a relatively easy two-day walk back to the village of Lugarawa.
Now, a year and a half after my first big adventure to Lake Nyasa, I've been through the crash course of cultural adjustment and feel a little more at home. My Swahili has improved drastically, cold bucket baths and months without electricity are the norm, and ugali, stiff corn porridge eaten with your hands and beans is my go-to meal.
Maisha ni mazuri: life's good.
Although I do take full advantage of my vacation time, to portray the Peace Corps as a two-year vacation would be deceiving.
My job as a math and physics teacher at the village secondary school yields a trying mix of depression and euphoria.
Utter hopelessness, when I'm trudging through hundreds of failed examinations at the end of each term, countered by extraordinary inspiration when a small handful of students succeed against odds which I would undoubtedly never have been able to surmount.
The experience is one to be savored because the extreme lows give new perspective to the blissful highs.
All in all, I've found exactly what I was looking for when I joined the Peace Corps: a life changing experience which has redefined what I thought possible in terms of the highest mountains and lowest valleys of life.
Jordon Foster is a 2010 graduate of the University of Portland. He can be reached at foster.jordon@gmail.com.
