Dear Reader – So much has been happening in my life that I have had very little time to blog, which I suppose is a good thing in a way—many things that are happening are good things. Below is a Facebook post I recently wrote. For lack of time, I am sending it out here by way of explanation: my blog will likely be partly or entirely under construction for the next couple months, but for an exciting reason! Apologies to those who will get this post in their inbox multiple times. I am taking the rare step of tagging it in all three of my blog categories, to make sure the word gets out.
After starting to write my book about Peace Corps 15 years ago, then putting it back down to work and deal with health issues and write other books, I finally completed a draft of it last year. Now I am preparing to go back to Tanzania for the first time since leaving in 2004—to make a pilgrimage to my old village, finally visit many old friends (and the graves of old friends), and do more research for the book. It’s been a very long time since Peace Corps, and I need help remembering things!
This trip wouldn’t have been possible for the past decade—I’ve had too many medical conditions to make travel in Africa easy. But one key thing has changed: my eight-year struggle with chronic fatigue appears to have finally ended. That is a long story, and one I will explain in a blog post or two, but it involved working with an exercise physiologist to properly diagnose me and a long, diligent effort at a specific kind of exercise that changed my metabolism and nervous system. Since winter 2024-2025, I have discovered my chronic fatigue to be gone, hopefully for good. It was unexpected, even by my doctor. It’s been incredibly liberating—like a rebirth! It opens up possibilities for so much more in life, including finally traveling back to TZ.
I have never prepared so much for a trip as for this one. I have relearned Swahili, since that’s how I will communicate with people and ask them my many questions for my book. I compiled a long list of meds to take with me, and made contingency plans for their getting lost, damaged, or stolen, and obtained a doctor’s note for taking them on the plane. I’ve been relentlessly using every contact I can think of to track down the whereabouts and contact info of old Tanzanian friends, like a detective, and I’ve gotten back into touch with most of them. (It’s amazing to be WhatsApping in Swahili with people who, the last time I saw them, lived in mudbrick homes with dirt floors and no electricity!) I’m editing my book draft, surveying and interviewing other Peace Corps Volunteers from my era to help me remember details, and incorporating what I learn into my writing. I’m reading books about Tanzania that I couldn’t have found back in Peace Corps, because the internet was too young back then, and that are teaching me more about the country’s history than I knew when I was there. It feels like almost everything I do, for the last few months, has been geared towards Tanzania and this trip and my book. It’s been immersive and exhausting, and amazing.
Because of the way Tanzania has changed politically, and because my blog and Facebook account have a lot of political posts on them, I’m going to pause my social media accounts and put my blog “under construction” in the next couple weeks as I apply for my visa. I will keep them paused until I return in May, then I’ll be back online and will post about my trip.
(I do not expect to have any problems in Tanzania—although there is an alert out for Americans traveling there, Peace Corps is still there, which means Americans are still safe. And in every place I go, I will have Tanzanian friends who can meet me at bus stands and help me get my bearings. By all accounts, it’s still a very safe country.)
I am so very grateful to be able to do all of this, and nervous and excited about it! I wanted to belatedly share it here. I won’t be gone for good, just pausing.
To those who live in Tanzania: Nafurahi *sana* kuwaona miezi ijayo!! [I am *so* excited to see you in the coming months!!]
