A story. Taking place in Arusha

This actually happened a long time ago, I'm thinking maybe almost a month ago, but it was an adventure so I still want to tell you about it.

One day, Brendan and I went on an adventure.

It began as a normal Saturday, I woke up, ate breakfast, did laundry, washed my bedroom floor to keep the cockroaches away, etc. I met Brendan for lunch after I went and checked my email. We decided we were going to go to Green Hut for hamburgers.

Green Hut is a Tanzanian owned lunch spot that is (supposedly) famous for having good hamburgers (by Tanzanian standards). Walking in, it seemed like a fairly normal Tanzanian restaurant, but it was jam packed. They sat us at a table with another man because there wasn't any open tables (this is a normal occurrence). The man was strange and didn't speak with us, but that was okay- we just sort of started pretending that he wasn't there.

The hamburgers came with French fries ("chips" here) and ketchup (Tanzanian ketchup is like sweet red sauce) and some other unidentifiable sauce on them. They were pretty awful. Sort of bready and unflavorful, I think I ended up eating mostly French fries for that meal (which I don't even like very much). We were disappointed that it had turned out to be such a disappointment after so much hype. But we decided to go to the Cultural Heritage museum to brighten our day.

The Cultural Heritage museum is a super mzungo touristy spot filled with African-esque artwork, wood carvings, multiple massive gift shops, and a restaurant that lists all of its prices in American dollars (it's owned by an Indian family).

We thought maybe we should take a picky picky to get there ( a motorcycle taxi) but it would be hard to find someone who could be convinced to take two people and we weren't quite sure where it was. So we began to walk up the main road that runs through Arusha. After walking for about twenty minutes, we realized we really didn't know where we were going and that it would be a long long walk. So we went to a group of picky picky drivers hanging out on a street corner and after some hassle got two of them (one for each of us) to take us to the museum. The one who was driving me didn't know where he was going. We just followed Brendan's picky driver who was racing ahead, weaving in and out of traffic. At one point we lost sight of him, so I told the driver to just keep driving till I recognized a landmark. Eventually both Brendan and I ended up at the museum.

It was beautiful. The artwork isn't very well preserved so many of the paintings were warped and because there was construction going on, there was sawdust everywhere. But the building itself was gorgeous and it was cool to see the paintings, carvings, and photographs of Tanzanian things (not necessarily by Tanzanian artists as I found). There are multiple pictures of this up on Picasa.

After a longish romp through the building, and the multiple gift shops- we had some juice at the restaurant- only a tourist place would think it was okay to charge $3 (American) for a glass of mango juice when you can get it for the equivalent of $.80 (American) anywhere else in Arusha. It was then time to head to the rugby game we knew was happening at TGT.

Problem- we didn't know where TGT was. We asked a man at the museum who essentially told us it was 2km maximum distance up the road. So we decided to walk. The walk was beautiful. We walked through coffee plantations, saw some monkeys, walked past the international school, and walked way way out of Arusha. An hour and a half later we realized we were at the airport. It had been far more than 2 km. Ah but there, up ahead, was a sign for a Barclay's and TGT. We headed down a dirt road away from the main road. Twenty minutes down the road we had passed nothing resembling TGT. It was about 45 minutes till nightfall, storm clouds were gathering above our heads, and we could see the rain moving towards us.

I told Brendan we should walk to the next bend in the road and if we didn't see anything we should turn around, he agreed. Obviously, nothing was different around the bend so we headed back to the main road (turns out if we had walked five more minutes we would have made it- even though the game would have been long over already).

The thunderstorm was growing closer by the minute, we could see the lightening in the distance and could hear thunder and sundown was roughly 30 minutes away. But we were more than two hours away from town (we had only originally walked from cultural heritage which is already outside of the city a bit). We decided to start walking back and to flag down a dalla dalla if one passed us.

Shortly after we began to walk an overly filled dalla dalla comes flying down the road. We wave it down, only to find that there are absolutely NO seats left in this dalla dalla. I ended up squished half squatting next to a teenage girl sitting on some old man's lap (gross), sitting next to many other people sitting on other peoples laps. Brendan stood on the sideboard of the dalla dalla hanging out the side of the bus with maybe 4 or 5 other people also standing on the outside of the bus as it drove into town.

We made it to a restaurant just as the downpour began – back in Arusha town center after a crazy adventure. It was an enjoyable experience though. Thanks for letting me share!

 

More Selela Updates

    I had forgotten to add some things about Selela from last blog post.

1) There were tons of animals that we saw there. The first time on our way there we saw giraffes just walking along the side of the road. We got to get out and get within fifty feet of them. It was so cool.

2) I got through a lot of reading in Selela. The campsite was so beautiful and lush- it just begged you to sit down and read. I got through three books in two weeks. I've started reading more nonfiction here and a lot of African historical fiction- it's fascinating to learn about new cultures, ideas, and customs.

3) Our first day there we attempted to go up the mountain (which marks the border to Ngorongoro Crater). It was completely unsuccessful. We got scratched up, and only got about halfway up before we had to turn around so we could be back before dark. But it was beautiful and we had a beautiful view. We could see Mt. Meru and Kilimanjaro and many of the mountains of The Rift Valley mountain range. All of Selela was spread out before us with herds of cows and goats dotting the plains.

4) Rachel and I had the tent that normally sleeps 4 people (and is probably meant for 5 or 6) to ourselves the first week. So we had a palace tent for a week- it was ridiculous how much space we had. We felt like we were being pampered.

5) The Selela campground had western style toilets (not squat toilets), another way in which we felt totally pampered.

6) In the market place at Selela (which was small and cheerful), I bought a pair of Maasai shoes for 2000 Tsh. They are made out of rubber car tires. They're interesting and mostly comfortable unless I do lots of walking in them.

That's all, I just wanted to mention those things and I think I had forgotten to mention them. Also, I was wrong about lonely planet- they do talk about guest houses a little bit, but only for certain locations in TZ (maybe they think the other ones are too dangerous?)

 

Update on my how I've recently spent my time In Arusha

  I have now been back in Arusha for one whole week and I think I'm ready to go camping again! Arusha doesn't have alot to offer in terms of actual things to do as it is really just a spot where tourists come to plan activities elsewhere. So at this point, I think I've hit almost every mzungo restaurant and gone to most of the tourist-y things.  There is still some hiking I would like to do, but that can easily be completed on the weekends.

   Recently some of the touristy things I've done have been really interesting though, so I'm hoping I can search out another couple cool things before I go home.

This past week I went to the ICTR or International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.  This is the international United Nations court that was set up in 1994/1995 to put all of the people who were involved in the Rwandan Genocide on trial. It has a permanent home here in Arusha - super convenient for me! It was so interesting to go and see part of a trial. I am planning on going back when I have more free time.  I actually had to try going twice before I actually made it inside to go see a trial.

On Wednesday I went with Brendan. We showed up at around 2pm (when we heard that courts would go back into session after their lunch break). We had to wander around a bit to try to find the right entrance. Finally we made it to the security booth where I traded my passport for a visitor's badge. We then went through a medal detector and put our bags through a scanning machine thing before being allowed into the UN complex.  The buildings are really cool looking- very modern (white and red) with multiple ATM machines, a place to buy food, a conference center, a duty free shop, and lots of offices, court rooms, etc.  We found a nice Asian man who spoke English to take us to where we needed to go to see if there was open court that day. When we got there, there were a few guards mingling outside talking of the closed door. Turns out- closed court for the day (which basically means they're going over sensitive information that they didn't want the public to have access to or know about- blah blah).  So we wandered around the complex a bit more then left for the day.

Try number two was Thursday. Rachel and I went to Picasso's, a super nice mzungo cafe, for breakfast first. She got an omelette and toast and fresh squeezed mango juice- I had already had breakfast at home, so I just got a mocha latte which was wonderfully delicious.

We then went back to the UN- around 10am. Once again, I exchanged my passport for a visitor's badge and we headed up to the second floor where the trials were being held.  This time there was an open trial. We had to leave our bags and all belongings with a guard sitting outside. In exchange we were each given a pair of headphones attached to a little black box with two dials on it. This was rather confusing until we walked into the next room and then everything became clear.

The court actually consisted of a bunch of little rooms and sections. The judges, the lawyers, the translators and the witness all had microphones in front of them and EVERYONE was wearing a set of headphones. This was so you could hear the trial going on in whatever your preferred language was. There were three translators who each had their own room (Kintarrwandan, French, and English). The witness was also on trial for a different case, so his identity was being protected by having him sit in behind a big blue curtain, so no one could see him.  The audience (where I was sitting) had their own room and then the judges, lawyers and the record keepers of the case were in the large room in the middle. Because everyone who needed to speak had microphones and everyone was wearing headsets this was an ideal set up. I was able to hear the whole case in English, even though the witness only spoke Kintarrwandan (sp?). The main defense lawyer was British- and the head judge was from an African country but spoke in English most of the time- so all in all most of the trial is held in English.  It's easy to see though, why the trials can take so long. Some times the translators would ask people to repeat things so they could translate them correctly or there would be a mistranslation and the whole court would have to back up and go over something again.

When we were there they had the ex-Prime Minister of Finance for Rwanda on trial.  When Rachel and I first showed up we weren't quite sure what was going on, but there was a nice kid from the University of Dodoma (the captial of TZ) who whispered to us the background story of the trial. The student's name was Lucas and he was studying how to become a legal translator at school. It was actually really cool. He had to go listen to a trial every day for almost a month.  But he had to listen to it in different languages every day, so one day English, one day French, one day Kintarrwandan, etc.

After close to two hours, the court took a break. Rachel and I went to the duty free shop to explore then wandered around the complex. In the conference center, the National Medical Research Institute for Tanzania was having an exposition of sorts. We wandered in and looked at people's research, talked to people about what they did, how they were funded, etc. It was really cool to see what people studied and how they operated. At one booth they had pamphlets on "How to Write a Proper Grant," research in general is a relatively new thing to Tanzanians and as shown by the sparse showing of people at the center, not well funded or respected yet either.  I asked a man if the institute provided funding to researchers or how projects received money and he gave me a blank stare. Essentially, I found after speaking to him for awhile, that the only money people can get for their research is from private organizations which are usually based outside of the country.

After this small adventure, Rachel and I headed back to the court room. But upon reaching it, we found that the witness had said he wasn't feeling well and wanted to postpone until the next day- so that was the end of our trip to the UN.  We felt satisfied though, especially because we heard the witness say completely contradicting things and basically ruin his own credibility. The defense lawyer tore him apart- it was amusing actually- just because he managed to get the witness so confused.

There have been a couple more adventures as of late,so I will speak about those in the forthcoming blog posts. 

Selela week Two and Safari

 After the first week in Selela, five of us had GSC drop us off in MtoWaMbu because we were going on safari! Rachel, Brendan, Adam, Alana, and myself all stayed in the Sayari guest house that night.  We weren't quite sure what to do with ourselves during all of our free time on Friday afternoon. We wandered around a bit, found an internet cafe to check our email and bought some fruits and vegetables in the market.

I had been thinking of getting my hair braided (African style) for a couple of weeks and decided that since I had a couple of hours to spare, why not? I walked to the first "hair saloon" (a common mispelling here) that I saw and asked the woman if she would braid my hair- she agreed and put a towel down on the floor for me to sit on . I sat down in front of her stool and bent my head forward as she began the first of many many tiny french braids all over my head. I described to her basically what I wanted ahead of time and then she added a bit of her own style to it. It turned out pretty well even though it took almost three hours to complete (my neck hurt so much by the end). During hair braiding time, I had a man named Richard come and keep me company for a good portion of my suffering. He worked for a dutch cultural tourism program that does bicycle and boat trips through Manyara National Park.  It sounded like a really cool program and because of speaking with him, I am considering doing something similar in Kilimanjaro National Park.

              The next morning we woke up at 5:15am and had a feast in our room at the guesthouse consisting of things we had bought at the market the day before: milk  bread, peanut butter, bananas, honey, watermelon, tomatoes, and cucumber.  Then we packed up our bags and made it to the main road by 6am where we met our safari guide, John from SOKO Safaris.
                  The park of the day was to be Tarengire National Park, a little more than an hours drive south(ish) from MtoWaMbu.  On the way there we got to see the sun rise over the misty fields, it was beautiful. We also passed a couple groups of giraffes and some zebras before we even reached the park.

           Tarengire is known for two things (that come hand in hand actually) its baobab trees and its elephants (over 100,000).  Its mostly open grassland scattered with trees. Tarengire is special though in that it has a constant water source. Many of the other national parks see migrations of various animals depending on whether its dry season or not. Tarengire keeps many of its animals year round, although some do leave to go back to the other parks during rainy season.  We ventured in just at the beginning of rainy season, but it was a beautiful day while we were there.

        As soon as we got into the park we saw a bunch of water bucks (in the gazelle family) eating along the road. They were soon joined by some impalas (also in the gazelle family). Only a couple of hundred feet beyond them we saw a family of giraffes. A few babies were eating the lower leaves of the trees while four or five larger ones ate the higher branches. They were only about fifty feet away from the car- it was unbelievable to be able to get so close to them.

Only a little farther on, we ran into a herd of elephants. They were so big and moved so slowly! They had darker skin than any elephant I have ever seen before, but John (safari man) explained that the color of their skin depends on what color the dirt is. This is because they will eat dirt for the nutrients it provides (or some such thing- someone can give me the exact explanation if they know) and this will affect their skin color. Anyway- we watched the elephants for quite some time as they moved from one side of the road to the other.

        As we continued through the park we had the chance to see the Tarengire river and the many many baobab trees that the park is known for. We got to see some mongooses from afar (all of these pictures are posted on Picasa) as well as a bunch of vutlures and some storks feasting on a dead giraffe (we could smell the rotting flesh from pretty far away- gross gross gross).  The baobab trees were all stripped over the outer layers of bark. This is from the elephants who chew on the bark and suck the water out of it. The baobab tree is really porous, like a giant sponge, it soaks up a ton of water.
         We got to see a bunch more giraffes, elephants galore, and tons of baboons and monkeys as well.  We also saw quite a few ostriches, and many colorful, exotic birds ( I can't remember almost any of the names of them except for the superb starling). 

Until fairly recently, poaching was a huge problem in Tanzania (in recent years there has been an increase in cracking down on poachers and in preventative measures). At one spot in Tarengire, poachers had carved out the inside of a baobab tree so that they could hide inside of the tree while they were hunting elephants (and evading law enforcement).  Now it is a tourist attraction. We couldn't go inside the hole as it was filled with water and pythons are known to like hiding inside the tree, but we were able to walk around it and look inside. It was quite impressive.

    The only awful thing about Tarengire was the ridiculous amount of Tsetse flies. They were everywhere! I think every single one of us got bitten at least twenty times. The flies are vicious and their bites hurt (sort of like really bad horse fly bites). The tsetse flies aren't native to the park and were brought in by accident. Because of this- they have no natural predators and multiply like crazy. Also- they refuse to die. Many times we would squash them (step on them, smash them against a window, etc.) and believe they were dead, only to see them get up and fly away the second we moved our hand,shoe, etc.  Fortunately not all Tsetse flies carry sleeping sickness and none of us (as of now anyway) has felt any ill effects of their bites.

     That night we drove back to MtoWaMbu and camped at Twiga campsite. The safari company took such good care of us, we all felt really pampered. Our tents were super nice, huge, really thick canvas and the sleeping pads they gave us were inches thick (such a difference from what we're used to when we're working). They fed us more food than we could possibly eat and gave us hot chocolate and wine for dinner (both things that we don't ever see while we're camping with GSC).  After dinner we went swimming in the campground swimming pool.  For breakfast the next morning we had omelettes and crepes and more hot chocolate (I've come to appreciate good food so much). The whole experience was such a treat.

    The next morning once again we woke up bright and early to head out for the second day of our safari.  Sunday was the day to visit Ngorongoro conservation area aka The Ngorongoro Crater. The crater used to be a huge huge volcano that exploded a really long time ago (a couple of million years) and left behind a massive crater (also known as a caldera). The floor of the crater is about 100 square miles and from the top of the mountains surrounding it, to the bottom of the crater, its about 2000 ft deep.  To get to the crater we had to first drive up the Rift Valley mountains and drive along the ridge, through the village of Keratu, until we came to the crater. This took about an hour. Past Keratu, we entered the conservation area and had to get a permit for our vehicle.  We stopped to do this as well as to use the bathroom and wander around the visitor center for a few minutes.

Beyond the gate about twenty baboons were sitting in the middle of the road. They began to move closer to our car as we drove past them. John (safari man) explained that the baboons are mean (as I mentioned before) and when cars stop they will climb in the windows and steal food from people. For this reason we were not allowed to open our windows or open the top of the car until we had gone past them for a  ways.  We had to still drive up after getting through the gate, for about another twenty min. We then reached the edge of the crater. The view was remarkable.


 We then had an hour drive down into the crater. As soon as we reached the bottom, we were surrounded by zebras and wildebeasts. Wildebeasts are the strangest looking animals. Its sort of the appearance you would associate with a child's idea of a magical creature.  so bizarre.   We also saw two sleeping male lions relatively soon after entering the park. This was great, because the day before we had searched all over Tarengire but hadn't found a single one (only their tracks leading up a dry creek bed) despite hearing from other safari cars that they had seen some. Male lions sleep almost the entire day, so it wasn't unusual to see them slumbering.  Close to where the lions were sleeping we passed by a pond filled with a bunch of hippopotamus(es?). This was the second time I had seen a hippopotamus in TZ (the first time being in Ngurdoto way back in the end of January).  

After driving around for a bit longer, John suddenly stopped the safari truck next to what seemed to be a stretch of empty grassland. But his eyes were far more experienced than ours at sighting animals and he had picked out an animal lying on a hillock not too far off the road.  It was a cheetah. I was so excited, I had never imagined that I would ever get to see a cheetah in real life. It was surprisingly smaller than I had imagined, but so beautiful.  It sat up after we had been watching it for awhile and with John's super fancy binoculars I could see all of the individual spots all over its body and its face super close up.

We also got to see tons of different types of gazelles (like the eland and the reedbuck, the waterbuck and the hartebeast) and a black rhinocerous!  Also in the crater are alot of buffalo. They can be pretty aggressive, but since we were in a car- it was (theoretically anyway- they ARE wild animals) safe.  There were herds of the buffalo wallowing in mud pits all over the crater. They were so goofy looking. On picasa I have a video of an old fat one twisting and turning all by himself in the mud, while the rest of his friends all abandon him.
   We also got to see some hyenas (from far away though and they were sleeping) and a jackal.  In the middle of the crater is a salt lake where a bunch of flamingos live.  There are also elephants in teh crater. They were bigger than the ones we saw in Tarengire and John explained that many male elephants come to Ngorongoro when they are old- so we were seeing mostly old men elephants.
    As we were leaving the crater, we happened across two female lions hunting prey. We watched the one female go after a zebra for almost forty min. But she didn't get him and we had to leave to be out of the park before it closed (or they fine you lots of money) so we didn't see her attack.

When people go on safari in Tanzania they typically look for the "big five." These animals are: buffalo, elephants, black rhinocerous, leopard, and the lion. I managed to see four of them within two days so I was pretty satisfied ( I would still really like to see a leopard before I leave though!).

John dropped us off in MtoWaMbu Sunday night and we once again stayed in Sayari lodge until Monday morning when GSC picked us back up to head out to Selela to work.

The second week in Selela I taught two classes. One was a community group in the morning. Through some ridiculous organization we taught this group with four teachers (me, Jenna, Kristy and Brendan). In the afternoon, Brendan and I taught a class with Dismas in the local primary school. It was standard seven (equivalent of sixth grade) and the students were quite entertaining. Many times they asked us questions just to get a rise out of us (for example: what do you call a baby with an african father and a white mother?... they wanted us to say Obama), but they also asked alot of really good questions and were really interested in what we were teaching them. We taught them about relationships, anatomy, puberty, fertilization/reproduction,  and some basic life skills. 

Teaching two classes a day left us with less free time than we had had the week before, but we still managed to explore the jungle further and search for a way to the top of the mountains we were camping by.  One of the last days we were there, Adam showed us a path he had found that he believed went to the top (turns out it did, but we never made it there). Along the way up we met two maasai men who were about our age and spoke English. It was cool to talk to them, and they showed us how to make a fire by rubbing two sticks together (which believe it or not, i have never actually seen done before).  
At the end of the week, Adam and Alana gave the students a soccer ball to play with and to keep- they were really excited to have a ball to play with !
       

Selela

It has been quite some time since I have updated this. My apologies. I have been out in the bush. For the last two weeks we have been in Selela, a small village that lies just along the Rift Valley about 3ish hours (possibly a bit more- the road is pretty bad- rocky, dirt etc so it depends on the road condition for driving time) from Arusha.

Selela is mostly full of Maasai and Chagga tribal peoples.  There's a strange dichotomy in the village due to the opposite tribal cultures that live in the same area. The Chagga are traditionally farmers while the Maasai rarely farm and are only concerned with their cattle (and occasionally goats).  The two tribes, despite living in the same village, have little interaction. Most of the Maasai live a ways outside of the village center and only come into town on market day or to go to the guest house (which has a generator and so cold soda, beer, and konyagi).  The Chagga on the other hand live all over the village with their farms lined up along the sides of the mountains.

Selela was beautiful. Now that it is rainy season everything has begun to bloom and there was green everywhere. We camped just along the irrigation canal the village had built to bring water to their farms. It was a thirty minute walk from the village next to a banana tree forest and in the jungle clearing of the woods that bordered the banana trees. Vervet monkeys filled the trees around us, making noise incessently all day and night long. But just as you learn to block out city noises, we soon didn't hear the monkeys either. Baboons were every where as well.

The baboons were actually really scary. They are quite large, the males especially were probably close to ninety pounds. Baboons eat meat and feel threatened if you venture into their territory. There were multiple times when we went exploring through the woods by our camp  that the baboons would start screaming. I'm not sure if they were angry were not, but I always turned around and headed a different direction.  Once we saw them all start dropping out of the trees and coming towards us on the ground, it was then we decided it was time to head back to camp.

The monkeys were so cool though. We would throw them orange and mango peels. They would come and snatch up the peels then scamper back up into the trees with them before anyone (or monkey) or could steal their treat from them. Then they would sit on a branch just above our heads eating their peels with relish.

There were also a decent amount of toucans, which were SO cool . I totally love them.

Also, the food in Selela was phenomenal. I loved it. We had so many fresh avocados, tomatoes, bananas, and mangos. Lots of lentils, and rice, and even chicken- twice!

The first week in Selela we vaccinated chickens. This involved eating breakfast at 6 or 6:30 every morning then heading out to the farms to get the chickens before they left their coops for the day. The Maasai don't normally keep too many chickens, but the Chagga had a number of them.  I love doing chicken vaccinations because you get to see how so many people live. We get to see their houses, their farms, and how they live on a day to day bases. Many people here keep their chickens in their houses with them and sometimes other animals as well.

One day while vaccinating chickens, a Maasai woman found a red spitting cobra in her boma underneath her bed. The African spitting cobras are the world's largest spitting cobras and are among the world's most poisonous snakes. The snake was roughly a meter long ( I was not there but I had the whole thing described very vividly to me and I was shown pictures).  If bitten, someone won't die immediately, but they would need medical care asap. If they were to not receive it (As in, the closest hospital to Selela is over an hour away driving and very few people have cars or forms of transportation other than walking), they would die. The woman managed to kill it with a rock and threw it out of her house. Some men then built a fire to burn the snake (I'm not sure why they did this).   It's scary to know that snakes like this are common all over northern Tanzania.  Pythons are common as are many other dangerous snakes.

 I have only seen one big snake since being here and that was an injured one lying in the middle of the road. Harry, the driver for GSC, tried to drive over its head to kill it (following along with the popular opinion that an injured venomous snake is too dangerous to leave alive because it will attack anything it can) but we were unsuccessful.  As we were driving away we saw a bunch of children running up to it with sticks. Hopefully they managed to finish the job without being hurt.  The pictures of the squashed looking white snake on Picasa are of this snake.