April 14, 2004: Headlines: COS - Tanzania: Computers: Midweek News: David Faivre recently graduated from the University of Illinois, Urbana, in computer engineering and is now in Tanzania in the Peace Corps

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Tanzania: Peace Corps Tanzania: The Peace Corps in Tanzania: April 14, 2004: Headlines: COS - Tanzania: Computers: Midweek News: David Faivre recently graduated from the University of Illinois, Urbana, in computer engineering and is now in Tanzania in the Peace Corps

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David Faivre recently graduated from the University of Illinois, Urbana, in computer engineering and is now in Tanzania in the Peace Corps

 David Faivre recently graduated from the University of Illinois, Urbana, in computer engineering and is now in Tanzania in the Peace Corps

David Faivre recently graduated from the University of Illinois, Urbana, in computer engineering and is now in Tanzania in the Peace Corps

Faivre spends time in the Peace Corps

By Diane Strand

The MidWeek

Caption: David Faivre and a co-worker stand next to a truck in Tanzania bearing the old DeKalb Genetics logo.


David Faivre, 22, recently graduated from the University of Illinois, Urbana, in computer engineering. However, he is not sitting in a flashy North Shore office or finding his way to the “top,” along the Illinois Research and Development Corridor.

Instead, David is in Tanzania, just below Kenya, on land that is always red and dusty, except for the two-month rainy season, when it is red and muddy.

He’s there as one of 14 teachers staffing a school of about 250 students. David teaches math in a program developed by a Canadian NGO (non-governmental organization). He also has been assigned to teach computing to students in the Hanang district, in the Lake Manyara region, about eight miles away from the city of Arusha.

Arusha is a major starting point for safaris that go on to Lake Manyara, the Ngorongoro Crater, Olduvai Gorge, the Serengeti, and Mount Kilimanjaro. Arusha also has its own small national park, which lies between the major peaks of Kilimanjaro and Mt. Meru. The park has a mascot, the black and white colobus monkey with a long, flowing mane and tail.

Mt. Kilimanjaro is Africa's highest mountain with glacial slides and a snow-capped peak. It’s a dormant volcano, and gives serious hikers a chance to reach the “Roof of Africa.”

David is living at the base of Mt. Hanang, an extinct volcano.

The son of Steve and Pat Faivre of Kingston, David joined the Peace Corps and is keeping in touch with mom and dad via email, when he can get to a computer. A DeKalb High School grad, he was active in swimming, tennis and the National Honor Society, and he enjoyed working with sound systems, his mother said.

This is not his first trip abroad. David spent two months in Brazil during his college years and also spent five months in Sweden. His sister visited Senegal, in Africa, and more than a decade ago, Pat trained for acupuncture and served an internship in China.

David reported, “Eleven hours and no paved roads makes for one sore butt. “Somehow, though, as you are on this 11-hour bus ride, which theoretically, should be only nine, you look at the aisle from your window seat and see the people who will stand the entire way.”

To buy something as simple as cheese, David wrote, would require a three-hour bus trip on an unpaved road. “So, if I become a hermit over the next two years, don’t be surprised,” he told his parents.

David lives in a duplex, with outhouse, courtyard and a multipurpose room. “The courtyard is completely enclosed, so it will provide some privacy in a society where no one understands ‘time alone,’” he said. “Susan, the woman who is at the site now, says it took her a good year to teach the locals not to come knock on her door at 6:30 a.m.”

One of the local men comes over every Monday to do David’s laundry, clean the outhouse and fill water buckets for the week, because David’s place has no running water. He also does not have electricity.

“On that note, I think all of you (his family) should come visit,” David invited. “My site, once you get used to it, puts a soul at peace. I’m on the outskirts of my small village, next to the mud huts, and as I walk around as the sun sets behind the mountain, you run across a 6-year-old boy and his herd of cattle and wonder where the Tanzanians get their will and resolve.

“Kids run out of their thatched roof mud huts to see the white people walk by, and then, suddenly you are alone, on the top of a hill, and your thoughts somehow seem to quiet, and you hear the wind as you never have before.”





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Story Source: Midweek News

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Tanzania; Computers

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