Last week of Working at GSC

    This last week was my last one at GSC. It hasn't really sunk in yet that I am moving out of my house here this weekend.

Nothing particularly exciting happened at the hospital this week. On Tuesday I managed to help a couple of people check their email ;-) and after work went to visit Patrick at his house in Sekei. Patrick is the head tech in the laboratory at St. Elizabeth's and is very friendly and talkative. Genevra and I took the dalla dalla with him to his apartment around 4pm, the end of his work day. I had been to his apartment once before but Genevra never had, so this was a new experience for her.

    Patrick lives alone (he is 29, so this isn't particularly abnormal) in a two room apartment. He shares a toilet and a shower with those who live in the 4 other two room apartments that lie adjacent to his. Despite being small and cramped, it is a rather nice place and sits in the back of Sekei, a nice-ish area of Arusha with a bunch of bars and a young(er) family community and lots and lots of people. Sekei is really green and filled with banana and mango trees, a nice treat for the people that live there.

    We had sodas with Patrick and talked to him about Kung Fu (which he is really into, he takes lessons and wants to become an instructor) and watched Westlife music videos with him ( a British boy pop band from the early nineties with which he is obsessed). I had brought two bottles of maple syrup with me from America and had given one to my family already. I didn't know who to give the second bottle to and Patrick as been a good friend at the hospital, so I gave him my second bottle. He enjoyed it and loved to get something else "mzungo." Patrick really really wants to marry a mzungo girl and move to some western country. Genevra and I both made it clear that we were off limits from the beginning, but he decided that we if weren't going to marry him we should help find him a white girl to marry. About a third of our conversations are about how he should go about doing this (he has a sister who is married to a Swedish man and lives in Sweden – he loves talking about her and wants to marry someone and have the same lifestyle that she does). G and I are never quite sure how serious he is about this, sometimes he makes fun of himself for this and sometimes he is very serious about finding a white wife.

    We left Patrick's sometime after 6, maybe 6:30ish. I took the dalla dalla home with Genevra to Usa River. Usa is a really nice area about a half hour past the limits of Arusha. It's a long dalla dalla ride for Genevra to work every day, but she doesn't seem to mind. The family she is living with is much younger than my family, about mid thirties – a couple with a young daughter (about 8 years old?). Genevra and Poppy live with the same host family, sharing a large bedroom with their own bathroom. The baba, Joshua, is a professor English literature at Arusha University and the mama, Beatrice, sells stationary and papers to companies around Arusha, as well as performing secretarial duties for them (typing, letter writing, etc.). Someone who can speak English well and can use a computer (type, use the internet, whatever) is a hot commodity in Arusha. Beatrice and Joshua lived in England for 7 years while Joshua was going to University. This was readily apparent as soon as I walked into their house. I felt like I wasn't in Tanzania anymore.

    First of all their house is quite large, if I had walked into it in America, I would think it was a fairly normal sized house (on the small side for normal though). Then they have photographs and pictures hanging on the walls. They had a bowl of fruit sitting in the middle of their dining room table, a gas stove, two fridges, two flat screen televisions (one in their bedroom) and three indoor bathrooms (all with showers and toilets- although the toilets don't flush and the shower only has cold water). I was amazed at walking into their house. It's weird to see western amenities amongst so much poverty. From what I have seen, many families with two people working make somewhere between $1500 to $3000 a year (if they live in Arusha) and there are still plenty of families that survive on much less. It's quite luxurious and expensive (by Tanzanian standards) to live like Genevra and Poppy's host family does.    

    For dinner we had potatoes and beans and chopped chunks of beef ( fairly normal Tanzanian foods to eat) but we also had salad!! (unheard of) and broccoli (my host family had never even seen it before when I cooked it for them)! After dinner we watched a Julia Roberts film on their dvd player. It was like spending a night in America.

    The next morning Poppy had to work, but Genevra and I went to the UN to watch the ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal for crimes committed in Rwanda). I had been before, but wanted to go again before I left. We watched the court speak to two witnesses, a hutu colonel and a hutu lieutenant about the murder of 60 women and children. The colonel had moved away to Holland with his family shortly after the genocide was over and the court was trying to get him to admit to forging government documents in order to get his family permission to move there and to apply for Dutch citizenship. It was interesting to watch and on our way out, the guard at the door handed us documents explaining the background of the people currently on trial, which was very cool.

    Thursday was pretty insignificant, normal work day. Friday was my last day of working. I didn't teach anyone, just did some stuff for the laboratory, followed the doctor on rounds, went on a chai break with Patrick and Genevra, and helped deliver medicines. At the end of the day I walked around and took pictures of the hospital and of everyone I have worked with for the past six weeks. At 4pm, I headed to the new GSC office to have my "exit interview" with Jenaya.

    I am now officially done with my purpose for being in Tanzania. It seems really weird. I have begun to pack my suitcase and will leave it at the GSC office for the next two weeks while I am in Zanzibar. I will say good bye to my host family Sunday night and am leaving on the bus for Dar es Salaam at 6:30 Monday morning with Genevra and Poppy. We will spend one day in Dar, then take the ferry to Zanzibar. I will not be posting again until after I return on the 19^th of May.

Kwaheri!!!

Moshi, Marangu, hot springs, and waterfalls

I have been a bit behind on blogging because GSC has recently moved their offices and we have been moving, packing, etc. And of course, there isn't any internet. Anyway though, time for details on last weekend- aka adventure to Moshi.

    Originally, Genevra, Poppy, and I had planned on going to Marangu for the weekend to do the "waterfall hike." But we found that a group of other people that we know also were planning on going to the Moshi area for the weekend and knew of some hot springs that they were going to go see. They were going to rent a car and drive there, but as they were planning on going to hike Kili on Sunday, they needed someone to drive the car home. This worked out perfectly for us.

    We ended up renting a Land Cruiser (and fit 9 people into it, a cramped venture, but we managed). Julian drove on the way to Moshi. As he is from Holland, this was the first time he was driving a car on the left hand side of the road. I was a bit worried, but everything was fine. We picked up Genevra, Poppy, and Christine and Lea (two Danish volunteers who work at an orphanage) in Usa River and from there, Moshi was a little more than an hour away.

    We ate lunch at The Coffee Shop, a restaurant owned by an NGO that works to give fair trade prices to all of their vendors and pay their employees a fair wage. They are not-for-profit and because of this, we got to eat mzungo food for African food prices! Poppy and I split a toasted cheese and tomato sandwich and pasta with some grilled vegetables in it. After lunch we headed off to the supermarket to buy some food for supper and for breakfast the next morning. Then we headed off to find the hot springs, Ben driving this time. Ben is from England, so this was nice, he's used to the steering wheel being on the opposite side of the car.

    This drive turned out to be a bit of an adventure. The so called "hot springs" aren't a tourist attraction, aren't in any guide books, and are only occasionally visited by locals. The road to access it is along the lines of many Tanzanian roads during rainy season, essentially a very muddy, wet track rambling through miles of vegetation with the occasional small village springing up every once and awhile. After driving for about an hour and a half we came upon a couple of cars parked in the middle of the track, water having formed a large-ish river across the road. We got out of the car and walked up to where we saw a lorry stranded, tilted in the middle of the new river. A mzungo family from Arusha was there looking at the road. We talked to the woman who told us that they had ventured out into the water to see if their car could make it across and that the water in the middle was waist high. There was no way to continue along the road. Luckily, the family was headed to the spring as well and knew of another road to get there. We decided to follow them. This took another hour, through more villages, streams and muddy, rocky roads, but eventually we made it.

    There was a nice flat area next to the spring where we could camp and the water was an amazing blue crystal clear color. The children of the family were already changing into their bathing suits but we decided to set up our tents first. We had the tents that the boys were going to use when they hiked Kili and they were on loan from SOKO. We had no clue how to set them up, but after some configuration, we managed to make all three stand up and look somewhat presentable. It was then time to go swimming!

    The water wasn't exactly "hot." It was more of a slightly warm bath water temperature, but still really pleasant. The water was super pristine and came out of the ground just along the bank of where we had pitched our tents. If we didn't swim or hold on to anything, the water would push us downstream into the plants lying along the stream bank. The spring was deep, far over any of our heads and there were trees all along the side that we could climb and dive and jump off of. I got a few videos of people doing this, I only jumped off the tall tree once myself. It was really high and once I had climbed out onto the branch I was really nervous to jump off, but I finally managed and survived! It was exhilarating, but once was fine for me. The boys of the family that was there had brought a rope with them and tied it to the tallest branch of one of the trees so that they could swing and jump off of it, this also provided us with some entertainment. We swam until 7pm when a man (who guarded the springs at night) came over and had us get out of the water since the sun was setting.

    We built a fire and changed into dry clothes. Being poor students with no income in Arusha, we had bought a motley collection of food from Moshi. We had jointly split the cost of a few things and had bought individual food for ourselves as well. We had bread, peanut butter, Blue Band (margarine – mostly they don't eat butter in Africa, it's expensive and melts in the heat), Nutella, bananas, tomatoes, and carrots. Genevra had brought Marmite with her (a weird British food that I don't particularly care for) as well. We toasted the bread over the fire by holding it on two sticks. Toasted peanut butter and banana sandwiches make for an excellent dinner. Christine and Lea had wanted something more substantial to eat, so they had bought canned tuna and canned corn for their supper.

    The next morning, we started swimming a little before 7am (the earliest the guard there would let us in the water). We swam for a few hours then packed up our stuff to go. We finished whatever food we hadn't eaten the night before and headed down the road to Machame, the gate to Kilimanjaro National Park where Julian, Ben, and Bjarke were going to start their hike to Kili. The drive there was beautiful and the surrounding land was lush and green. As we were driving there it began to rain and was still raining as they met the rest of their crew at the gate and headed up the mountain. The rest of us headed off to Moshi again. We dropped Christine and Lea off in town then drove on to Marangu, set on our original plan to see the waterfalls. We got to the Marangu route gate to Kilimanjaro around noon. We saw everyone preparing to head off (it had stopped raining by this time) and found ourselves a guide for the hike.

    The hike was nice but not as interesting as I had hoped. We did get to swim in the last waterfall though, which was really nice, but really really cold. The water from the waterfall comes from the melting glacier on the top of Kili. Once we got in, our legs became numb, so it was okay, but waiting for the numbness to kick in was a bit painful. We ended up not spending a ton of time swimming because it was sooo cold. We warmed up a bit, changed back into our other clothes and walked back to the car.

    It was then time to head back to Moshi to pick up Christine and Lea who had spent the day there hanging out (they wanted to do the waterfall hike another time). On the way home we all took turns driving, I didn't drive until Christine, Lea, Genevra, and Poppy had all been dropped off in Usa and it was only Freddie and I left. It's about another half an hour to 45 min from Usa to my house in Darajambili. I was a bit nervous to drive on the left hand side of the road, but after the initial getting used to it, it was fine. It was a bit strange to shift gears with my left hand and the Land Cruiser is a very large vehicle, but I managed to make it home without crashing, causing any accidents, or doing anything dumb ;-)

 

Catch up on St. Elizabeth’s

    Last week was eventful at St. Elizabeth's Hospital. But it had nothing to do with my real purpose at the hospital. While I did manage to teach someone how to check their email, the computer skills teaching front is going poorly. The hospital has one working computer on which I can freely teach people how to type, use Care 2 x, show them how to use their email, etc. This one computer is locked in an office owned by a particularly elusive individual. His name is Sunday. Sunday is almost never around when I want to unlock the office, and although I can occasionally convince him to loan me the keys, inevitably I can't find him to give the keys back and I am forced to leave them with the billing department (where he spends most of his time – I can't decide if their computers break a lot or if he just has a crush on the girl who runs the desk – potentially it's both). Anyway, it's a bit of hassle.

    As the for exciting bits though: Last week I got to watch TWO surgeries. The first one was an emergency C section. Genevra and I had asked to watch the surgery that was happening later that day but as we went to go ask what time it was going to happen, they told us it was being postponed because of a woman who had been in labor for too long. We didn't really understand the situation, but asked if we could watch that as well. The doctor performing the surgery readily agreed and we went to change into scrubs. As we walked into the operating room we saw that the woman was awake and looked very calm. We had been told it was an emergency surgery, but the doctor was very calm and moved quite slowly. This led us to believe that the baby had died while the mother was in labor. When the doctor pulled the baby out (upside down by one foot) the baby was blue. It didn't look like a black baby certainly. The child wasn't moving as the nurse cut the umbilical cord and carried it into the next room. Genevra and I followed the nurse and watched as she laid the baby out on the table. Very slowly we saw it start to move its arms and legs and then we heard a very quite "meeeehhhhhhh." It was so extraordinary. I loved the whole experience. Also, watching this surgery was more reassuring than watching the previous one. Dr. Palapala performed this one and he is very calm and jovial. He talked to us throughout the entire thing and told us about himself. When he sewed the woman up, we could barely see the stitches whereas in the one before they had been large ugly black ones.

    The next surgery happened in the afternoon, so we had a break for lunch in the middle of the two. The next surgery was a hernia repair (which has a name but I can't think of it right now). This was very cool because we got to see it from the beginning. They had the man (approximately 60 years old) walk into the operating room barefoot on his own with a sheet wrapped around his waist. He sat on the table and the anesthetist gave him a shot of anesthesia in his lower back. They then had him lay down on the table and just waited until the anesthesia started working. There wasn't as much to see in this surgery and it didn't last very long (a little more than an hour and a half), but it was interesting to see something else.

    This most recent week hasn't been as interesting, no surgeries or ambulance rides. I did organize all of the paperwork for the medical ward. I don't think the drawers had ever been organized before. They had piles of prescription forms, patient files, billing records, inventory books, and everything they could possibly need thrown haphazardly into three drawers stuffed so full that they could barely shut. I'm leaving on Friday, but maybe they'll remember my good organizational skills ;-)

    Went on an adventure this past weekend to Moshi and Marangu, I'll post about it tomorrow.

Wedding!

    Last week, one of my neighbors got married. It was the daughter of the family that Kristy has been living with, a 24 year woman named Nanginyi. She was supposed to be married this past February but because they didn't get the planning done on time and they can't have the wedding during Lent (because it is a period of mourning and they can't be excessively happy or have celebrations then), they had to move the wedding back.

    The ceremonies began on Thursday night. The whole wedding party and all of the family members dressed up in elaborate clothing and paraded around town around 5pm. The procession was led by a pick up truck filled with band members playing brass instruments, then followed by a line of cars filled with the whole party. Everyone was dancing and singing and all of the cars were decorated with flowers, ribbons, and crepe paper. I watched the last bit of it when they were going through Darajambili until they got to their house. Then it was time for the Send off Party.

    The Send off party is where (officially) the bride's family says good bye to their daughter and gives her to the groom's family. Traditionally, the bride would move in with the groom's family and would probably never see her own family ever again. This isn't exactly followed anymore, at least by those who live in cities and are close to things like public transportation – but they still have the ceremony.

    Mama got dressed up and left with the wedding party to go to the hall early to help set up- she is a really good family friend. At about 6:30, Veronica and I got dressed and got a taxi there. The party was held at Green Acres Banquet Hall, a building on the grounds of a really excellent private school for Tanzanians, Green Acres (coincidentally where Ipti goes to school). The hall was decorated quite elaborately and was filled with people. Everyone was mingling around outside and hanging out and admiring the gifts the Nanginyi's parents had bought for her. The bride's parents are supposed to handle the Send Off party, while the groom's parents are supposed to pay for the wedding. Nanginyi's parents also bought her gifts for her Send Off, two sofas, a chair, three coffee tables, a china cabinet, and a stove. It was insane, the amount of gifts that Nanginyi and Eliasi received for their wedding. They had the gifts sitting outside the entrance under a tarp so that everyone could admire them as they walked inside.

    As we walked inside we were offered appetizers, bowls of beef broth and kebabs with beef deep fried in egg on them – they didn't look super appetizing, so I passed on them. Veronica and I found where Mama was sitting (she had saved seats for us) and went to sit down. A little after 7, the ceremony began. There were many different parts and the whole thing last about four hours before we ate dinner. First, the bride paraded around the room with the wedding party and everyone was introduced. Then there were a lot of speakers from the bride's family, minister, and friends. Then the bride had to go "find" her groom who was hiding somewhere in the audience. Then he was introduced and there were more speakers. Nanginyi and Eliasi then thanked her parents, grandparents, and friends for raising her and giving her away. First there was "English" cake, normal white cake which they fed to their grandparents and to each other and their friends, and they gave away a whole one to her parents and to his parents. Then there was "traditional" cake, a roasted goat (a female one because they were celebrating the woman), which they fed pieces of to each other and various people. The goat was paraded around and sung about as it was wheeled in by the chefs. (there are pictures of all of this on Picasa).

    After the "cakes" was the gift giving. This is a very elaborate dancing line of party who line up with their gifts and dance forward as music plays to present their gift to the bride and groom. This was repeated many times, for various categories of people and gifts. Afterwards, gifts were then given to Nanginyi's parents as thanks for raising her. The whole experience lasted about an hour. I helped my family present their gifts, it was strange to stand in line and dance up to the front, but quite entertaining (there are videos of this on Picasa).

    Finally, after the gift giving, it was time for dinner. By this time it was ten thirty. Dinner was a buffet of typical African foods. There were a lot of people and we were sitting close to the back, so we ended up eating around 11:15. Dinner was good though, and it was fun to see what kinds of food they would pick for the wedding (they had chicken, fish, goat, and beef as well as beans and bananas, rice, pilipili, fruit, cabbage, and many other things). After the dinner, there was another hour of speech giving and prayers and a leaving ceremony where the bride is presented to the groom's family, then it was over.

    Afterwards we hung around for a little bit and took pictures – I got home a little after 12:30 AM.

The wedding itself was on Saturday. Around 2 ish my mama and I headed over to Nanginyi's house. Everyone was getting dressed and ready for the wedding. It was very exciting. I ate some Nyama Ndizi that their house girl, Fatuma, brought me, while a bunch of other women from the village (with a few men in tow) arrived. About thirty minutes later, it was time to go. The family had paid for a dalla dalla to take their close friends to and from the wedding. We piled into the dalla dalla and headed off to the Lutheran Church in downtown Arusha.

    Turns out that in Tanzania, churches will marry multiple brides, at the same time, to save money. So at this wedding there were SIX brides. To make things more interesting, FOUR of the six were pregnant. Huh. Anyway, so there was a band playing when we got to the church and people were just starting to walk inside and sit down. Mama and found seats near the front and sat down. A few minutes later the band walked in, followed by the six brides, the six grooms, and the six bridal parties (best men, bridesmaids, flower girls, the whole shebang). After everyone had sat down, the minister came in. He said a prayer, introduced everyone, then began his sermon. It was about an hour (ish) long, but since it was in Swahili I'm not quite sure what it was about. He was a good speaker though, everyone got really excited and was clapping and laughing throughout it. After the sermon, there was the usual wedding vows, etc. Except that this all had to be repeated six times. Then there was signing the wedding certificate six times before all of the newly married couples left the church together at the end.

    There was a flurry of picture taking afterwards. For little more than an hour we moved to various locations around Arusha to take pictures of the bride and groom and everyone. Then it was time for the wedding reception.

    This was exactly like the Send Off party. As we walked in there were appetizers, chicken broth soup with garlic croutons and once again we received inscribed handkerchiefs. The reception after the wedding is where the groom's family officially accepts the bride into their family. So instead of the focus being on the bride like at the Send Off, the focus was on the groom and his family. There was once again speeches, cake feeding (both English and traditional cake – the goat was a male this time), gift giving (although less because these were gifts from the groom's side of the family and they're not supposed to give as many gifts), and then a buffet dinner. The food was very similar to that which we had on Thursday. After dinner, the bridesmaids danced for awhile, then everyone got up and danced. We left relatively early though, I was home by 11pm.

 

It was a great time though – I totally loved it. Look at the pictures on Picasa!!

Two Recent Adventures: Moshi and Maasailand

    The past week has been rather eventful. This is going to take up two whole blog posts. So to begin, Sunday through Wednesday (Thursday through Saturday will be coming shortly):

Last Sunday, I woke up early and headed out to the Arusha bus stand. It was pouring rain (typical of rainy season here in Arusha) but I now have an umbrella (yay!) and took a dalla dalla for half of it. I got onto the bus headed for Moshi. Moshi is a city nearby to Arusha, about an hour and a half bus ride. Moshi means "smoke" in Swahili. Once at the bus stand I headed for the area where the Moshi busses normally stand and was immediately surrounded by men yelling at me to come on to "their" bus. I went with the super nice coach bus (they all charge the same amount of money) and off I went towards Moshi.

    The trip only took about an hour and a half and the drive was beautiful. The way to Moshi is mostly coffee plantations and of course, since Moshi sits at the base of Kilimanjaro, the mountain grew ever closer as the bus neared its destination. Unfortunately, it was cloudy so I couldn't see the top L

    I walked around for Moshi for about an hour after I got there and fell in love with it. I wish GSC had it's offices there instead of in Arusha. It's this beautiful calm and laid back town. Because it's at a lower elevation than Arusha though, it's A LOT hotter. Everyone was really nice though, it was pleasant to not be hassled by shop keepers for being white.

    I met Genevra around lunchtime (who had been visiting some friends who lived nearby) and we had lunch at the Fresh Restaurant (love the creative names) J. Then we went off to explore more of Moshi. It was mostly just walking around and shopping, but really nice. I bought some more souvenirs and gifts for people and looked at the lovely kangas people were selling ( I still haven't bought any, but I plan on it before going home). There is a smaller village about an hour past Moshi called Marangu that sits at the gate to Kilimanjaro National Park. Apparently there are three waterfalls nearby that are really nice to walk to, and a good way to explore around the base of Kili without having to pay the $60 entrance fee to get into the national park. We met a couple of tour guides that said they would take us, but they were asking ridiculous prices. We have decided to go back in a week to do the hike and to shop around a bit to find someone who will take us for a good price.

    Before heading back on the bus we stopped in at the Tanzania Coffee House where I had a mango milkshake. It was delicious. I don't eat dairy products here very much, so its always a special treat when I get to drink a milkshake or eat cheese!

    The drive back was fairly uneventful, but the people we were on the bus with loved having two mzungu girls on the bus with them, they chatted with us the whole ride to Arusha. I got home around 8pm, just in time to eat dinner with my family. It was all in all a very nice Sunday. I have pictures of this up on Picasa, I really liked getting a good view of Mt. Meru at dusk as we were driving back at night.

    The next adventure began on Tuesday. At the hospital I have made friends with a girl called Rebecca. Rebecca is 19, just graduated from high school and is in the process of applying for university. In the meantime, she is working as an aide at St. Elizabeth's. Rebecca is from a Maasai village called Naalarahmi, which is outside of Arusha a bit. When Rebecca was 14, her father wanted her to marry an older man in their village (a fairly common practice for fathers to do this to their teenage daughters). Rebecca wanted to go to school instead, but her father didn't agree. So she ran away from home and went to an uncle's house who supported her getting an education. A few years into Secondary school, her father forgave her and she (mostly) gets along with her family now. She is a really strong, independent person and is really really cool. She was one of the first people who agreed to go to typing classes that I was teaching and really wants to learn as much as possible. I became friends with her right away.

    She really wanted me to go to her village with her and meet her family. Last week there wasn't too much going on at the hospital, so I decided it was a good time to go.

    Naalarahmi is a small village about a four (ish) hours walk from the closest road. There are cars (with four wheel drive) that do make the drive on Tuesdays and Wednesdays (market days in the closest area on the main road- Duka Bavu), but sometimes they charge exorbitant prices (because they know that people can't make the walk with the goods they want to sell at market, especially in rainy season when its really muddy). Rebecca wanted to take me on a Tuesday so that I wouldn't have to make the walk and then we could also get a ride back on Wednesday.

    Tuesday morning I worked from 8 till 10 then went to meet Rebecca. We took the bus to Monduli (a little more than an hour trip) and got off at the market at Duka Bavu. Once at the market, we walked around and went shopping. Rebecca's father has fifteen wives and she doesn't know how many children (and she doubts he knows either). This means that her mother doesn't really get a lot of attention, food, money, etc. from her father (her mother is one of the middle wives). So whenever she goes home to visit she brings fresh vegetables (like tomatoes, potatoes, onions, carrots), as well as salt, tea, sugar, and sometimes as a special treat bread or blueband (a margarine that most people use on bread, etc.) or both to her mama.

Because her village is way out in the bush and not close to any source of water, her family doesn't eat fresh vegetables very often. In fact they must trek more than hour to the closest source of water. They only use the barest amounts of water to do things and use milk for drinking and making chai (there are many many cows to get milk from). Normally they only eat ugali (made from ground maize) and occasionally goat or beef (usually if a goat or cow dies from another cause, like sickness or old age- they will only kill one for eating purposes for a special occasion).

While we were shopping, many people came up to speak to us. It seemed like every person there was related to Rebecca. There was a constant stream of, " this is my brother, my sister, my cousin, my sister in law, my uncle." I did get to meet the uncle who paid for her schooling after she ran away from home. He was really nice and bought us sodas at the duka (Swahili for shop- usually used to describe the main bar/store of a village). We then ate lunch at a nearby restaurant (pilau with pilipili) then headed out to find a man who would drive us to her village.

We found a man with a Land Cruiser who was driving people into the village. He was charging 25,000 Tsh a head, a ridiculous price, but he was the only car going that night and agreed that he would take us back into town the next morning- so we went for it. The drive was cramped. Rebecca managed to finagle the front seat for us, so there were only three of us (Rebecca had to straddle the gear shift). In the back though there were about twenty people sitting in the trunk and back seat. There were also a few children, a goat, and all of the packages that people had bought at the market. The drive was only two hours, but the road was treacherous. There were times when the car was practically at a 45 degree angle and I was terrified that we were going to flip over (there are plenty of pictures and videos on picasa). Along the way we dropped people off as we passed their bomas, so by the time we reached Naalarahmi there were only about 8 or so of us left in the car.

    As soon as we got out at Rebecca's boma, a number of her brothers and sisters (more than ten- beyond that I can't give a good estimate) crowded around us. They all began touching my clothes and skin- many had never seen a white person before. Eight of her father's wives lived in this area, each with her own house. The others lived in a different compound close by. I got introduced to so many people, I couldn't remember any of their names after I met them. I met Rebecca's mother, and her youngest sister (with the same mother and father) Selena (pronounced SAH-lay-nah). Then I went to meet Rebecca's father. In terms of Maasai elders, her father (who is very old- although he doesn't know how old) is a relatively well off man. He has many cows, many children, many wives and many goats (in order of importance to a Maasai man), which is how the Maasai distinguish wealth. He was really nice and surprisingly friendly. After hearing about Rebecca's experience, I was afraid that he was going to be stern and cold, but he was really warm and welcoming.

    I then got a tour of the boma. The boma is the area which lies within the cow pen- normally a bunch of houses are there to house all of the family members, as well as storage huts, and pens for the other animals. At night they lay acacia branches in the openings to the cow pen, which works as a door to keep out wild animals from both the cow pen and the houses. Acacia branches are prickly. In addition to this, the warriors (those boys who have been circumcised but have not yet reached the age of young elders, roughly ages 12-18) stay awake and help guard the cattle at night. Living in Rebecca's boma are eight of her father's wives, their young children, and some of her brothers and their wives. There are many houses. Most of them do not cook inside of their houses since the smoke makes it harder to see and to breathe. So they use only one house for cooking- also where the warriors take turns sleeping at night. Inside the houses there is the main room, then a divided area, one side for men, one side for women. On the opposite side of the central area is a small area where the calves stay (so they can be more protected) along with the small children (yes they sleep with the baby cows).

There aren't any toilets or even holes in the ground in Maasai bomas. They just walk out behind their houses and find a pleasant spot to go. It was a bit of a strange sensation, since there aren't any doors, toilet paper, or privacy in any way. But not awful.

Rebecca then went to help her mother and some of the other wives prepare dinner. I stayed outside the cooking hut and played with the kids. They showed me some Maasai dances and sang for me and tried teaching me some of their songs. We then had a point and say the name game- where I taught them words in English and they taught me words in Maasai (neither one of us spoke Swahili very well- so this was rather interesting). After a while, many of the wives came outside and danced and sang for me. This was remarkable and a very cool experience. They layered necklaces on my neck and showed me how to make them bounce and jingle as I was dancing. By this time it was rather late and the sky was filled with stars. Every time I look at the sky here I am amazed. There are so many stars. Far more than I have ever seen before. In some areas, there are so many it's hard to see the dark sky, there are merely clusters of white spots filling up large portions of the available space.

    Some of the constellations are the same (like Orion), but they call them different things – although the gods in the sky concept seems to be a common trend. The Maasai do use the stars to tell the seasons though. There are certain stars that only appear during rainy season. So they know that when those stars disappear, the rains will soon stop.

Soon it was time for dinner. Since I was a special guest her family had prepared meat for me (bought that day at the market) as well as potatoes and rice. I had seen the meat sitting out at 1pm that afternoon and it was then about 10pm at night. That's no refrigeration for 9 hours, in temperatures above 90* F. Because there weren't very many dishes and all of the wives and children were eating together, I shared a bowl with Rebecca and Selena. I managed to eat only the potatoes and rice – since the meat freaked me out- without seeming rude for not eating the meat – no one noticed. J

I had brought bottled water with me from Arusha, since Rebecca had warned me that the water situation wasn't the best. This turned out to be a very good thing. The water the Maasai used was muddy and there wasn't very much of it. They boiled the potatoes in it and cooked the rice in it, but they don't drink it. They only drink milk or chai. During dinner and for awhile after I sat with the wives and spoke with them, while Rebecca translated from Maasai to English (or Swahili if she didn't know the English for it). It was really interesting. They had a lot of questions about mzungos, and while I was content to just experience the Maasai lifestyle, it was nice to be able to ask them questions about their lifestyles, customs and beliefs. While we were eating, a few of the other wives showed up from the other boma to meet me and speak with me.

They lead a very close knit and social life amongst the wives. In some ways it is a really nice lifestyle. They cook communally often and hang out together all the time. They are very close to one another and care for one another in every way, taking care of each other's children, taking turns going to go get water, helping out when someone is ill. Some parts of their lifestyles are not ideal though.

They still circumcise their girls (officially labeled female genital mutilation) once they reach puberty so that "they will not feel tempted to have sex." I met the two women who do this for the village. They are very nice and explained to me why they do it and how they do it. In their village, no man will marry a girl if she is not circumcised. He is afraid that she will stray from their marriage if she is not circumcised. The women also believe that they need to be circumcised so that they will not have bad or impure thoughts.

    Boys are also circumcised around the age of ten or twelve. While girls are circumcised in private and are given a silver chain after the event to tell men that they are available for marriage, boys are circumcised in public in the middle of the cow pens. Women are not allowed to attend the circumcisions, only men. The boy is not allowed to cry while this is happening – he has to prove his strength to become a warrior.

The Maasai women found it strange that men have only one wife in America. They also thought it was weird that we don't eat goat or ugali and that most houses have electricity and running water. It's hard to answer their questions honestly, because they don't know anything other than what is in their village. So even a house like theirs with running water is an unbelievable thing, but explaining that their whole house which sleeps ten people is the size of my bedroom would be a ridiculous thing to tell them (so I only mention certain things about America). It's also hard to answer questions about money. These families make roughly $400 dollars a year. I couldn't honestly explain that I could make more than that in a week in America. So I tried to steer their questions towards customs rather than lifestyles and living arrangements.

After dinner the women made chai. This involved pouring milk (straight from a cow) into a pot along with tea leaves and sugar and putting it into an open fire. After it was done they strained the tea leaves out and handed around mugs (I got my own because I was a guest but many people had to share). The tea was really milky and thick, but I actually rather liked it despite not normally liking milk.

The women danced and sang a bit for me again after dinner before heading back to their respective houses. I then went with Rebecca to the house where her father was currently sleeping. He takes turns sleeping with his wives, randomly going to different houses each night. I got to speak with him a bit and talk to him about his cows. This was interesting because I learned about how they graze their cows and how he views women, education, mzungos and so forth. I asked him if he had ever killed a lion – he said yes, and I thought this was really exciting.

It was then time for bed. So that I wouldn't feel cramped sleeping with all of Rebecca's siblings and her mother in her mom's house, we got to sleep in a storage house that had a bed in it (just the two of us and one of Rebecca's sisters). The beds consist of mud shelves along the sides of the house, covered with cow skins. It was particularly hard and not super comfortable, but I still managed to sleep well. For a blanket I had a thin Maasai shuka to cover myself.

The next morning we woke at dawn and headed out to milk the cows before they were let out for the day. Rebecca showed me how to milk one, holding it's teat into a calabash to catch the milk. I was awful at it. The teat was slimy and felt all nipple-ly and the whole time I felt like I was hurting the poor cow. They tied its back legs together so it wouldn't kick me, but she still managed to move around a lot, especially because there was a baby cow trying to drink out of her udder at the same time that I was trying to steal her milk. I managed to squirt milk all over my arm, and then I gave up and Rebecca finished. It was really fun trying to do it though.

We then went to make chai with the milk we had just gotten from the cow. I had bought bread and blueband for everyone at the market the day before, so we ate that as well. For the warriors and those not in Rebecca's immediate family, Rebecca's mama made ugali – the normal breakfast food to eat along with chai.

I had also brought a piece of cloth as a gift for Rebecca's mother. I gave it to her in the morning after breakfast. Rebecca had also told me that it was customary for guests to honor the father by giving him a small amount of money, so I gave him 5000 Tsh (about $4). In return, Rebecca's mother gave me a beautiful beaded necklace – it's white beads in an intricately designed shape that Rebecca tells me means good luck. There are pictures of this on Picasa.

The man who was going to drive us back was going to arrive around 830 so after the gift giving there was a series of picture taking – everyone loved having their pictures taken.

Then off we headed back towards the main road. Along the way we picked up people, goats, gallons of milk, children, and cartons of empty soda bottles until the car was even more full than it had been the day before. Once again, Rebecca and I got to sit in the front seat with the driver. On the way back one part of the road that we had managed to get through the day before had gotten worse due to the high number of cars passing through for market day. When we got to the spot there were multiple cars waiting to try pushing through the mud. All of the passengers got out of the car and walked across so that the cars would be lighter traveling across the gulch. I have a video of this on Picasa.

We eventually made it back to Arusha though by about 1pm. Rebecca and I ate lunch in town then I headed home. It was great experience and I'm glad I got see her village and sleep in a Maasai boma!

This past weekend I went to a Tanzanian wedding! But this is already a long post- so I will write about that shortly.

 

    

    

St. Elizabeth’s Hospital

    Working at the hospital has been really fun and I'm really enjoying it. My job is to teach people how to use a few medical programs, but most people have never used a computer before. So instead I am teaching them how to turn a computer on, how to double click, how to open an email account, look at their children's pictures on facebook ;-), and how to type. There is a lot of enthusiasm to learn but there is only one working computer in the hospital that I am free to teach people on, so people can't practice on their own and I can only teach a few people at the time. Also the computer doesn't always work, there's not always internet or power, and people don't have a lot of free time – so it's been a bit challenging.

    This means I get free time at the hospital though. I have been making beds, changing sheets, passing out pills, and following doctors on their rounds in the morning. I also have inserted IVs, given injections and helped doctors with some of their other procedures. It's so weird to just have a doctor hand out a needle and hear him say, "here, you try." Things like that just don't happen in America.

On Thursday morning, Genevra (a girl here from Great Britain) and I got to watch a surgery, in the same room that the surgery was happening in. Essentially we just said, hey we'd liked to watch a surgery and they said alright go change into a set of scrubs and come on in. So we changed our clothes and shoes and put on some rubber gloves and watched as two doctors removed a large tumor that had attached itself to a 75 year old man's large intestine. The room was relatively clean, but unhygienic by our standards. There wasn't an anesthesiologist, just a nurse anesthetist, who occasionally would leave the room for ten minutes or so at a time throughout the 3 .5 hour surgery.

I started freaking out a bit when one doctor cut a large blood vessel and blood started pouring out of the man's open stomach and onto the floor. It splashed all over both doctors and made massive puddles on the floor until a nurse put a sheet down to soak the up the blood underneath the two doctors' feet. I definitely thought I was going to see the man die. Everything turned out alright though, the man was still alive on Friday when I came into work ;-)

    One doctor and some nurses asked if I could come in on Saturday to teach them on their day off. I readily agreed and showed up at the hospital at 8:30am this morning (we had agreed to meet at 9). Typical Tanzania though, no one showed up even though I waited till 10:10. I feel like I have grown accustomed (somewhat) to people not letting you know about a change of plans though, it was quite okay that they didn't come. I checked my email on the hospital computer and read some of my book. Afterwards, I went to a nice mzungo shop nearby called Chocolate Temptation and bought myself some coffee and finished my book. All in all, a good morning.

    On a completely unrelated note, last night (Friday) I cooked "American" food for my family. I made chicken stir fry with some vegetables including broccoli and bean sprouts (neither of which they had seen before- I had to buy them in a mzungo supermarket), white rice, and chopped up fruit (including apples, which they had seen before but rarely- the closest place they grow is South Africa and they cost 500 Tsh each-aka about $.40). I am pretty sure they really liked it. There were almost no leftovers and my mama ate seconds!

I am planning on cooking one more time for them. I brought maple syrup with me from America, so I think I am going to make either French toast or pancakes soon!

Serengeti!

    As promised , I will now share the adventures of The Serengeti.

The adventure began Tuesday afternoon, when Brendan and I hopped onto a bus (aka coaster) headed towards MtoWaMbu. The man collecting money for the bus ride charged us an additional 500 Tsh each because we were white, but oh well. I was in the very last row of the bus sitting on half a chair because we had five people sitting in four seats (this is typical, the bus driver wants to make as much money as possible so he won't stop letting people on until there is absolutely ZERO room left). The girl sitting between me and the window had a rather large suitcase on her lap which, of course, sat halfway on my lap as well. This was actually alright for most of the trip because I then had an armrest. Of course two hours later when I couldn't feel my left leg anymore, I started to wish that she had let them put it on top of the bus with the other large luggage.

Brendan and I spent the night in MtoWaMbu at the Sayari Guest House (where we always stay in MtoWaMbu). It was a pretty typical night there, ate chips mayai at Fiesta for dinner (where we always eat) and bought some breakfast and lunch food for the next day at the 24 Hour Supermarket. The Market only calls itself that- it sells maybe 30 to 40 different items and closes at 9 or 10pm and opens at 8 or 9 am everyday and is potentially closed on Sundays.

The next morning Albert (safari driver) picked us up at 6am. We drove up the mountain until we could see Lake Manyara stretched out below us. The sun was just beginning to rise and the view was beautiful. We picked up Bhavin, a 27 year old nursery school teacher from London who was to be our safari buddy for the next three days, at the Lake Manyara Lodge, and headed off to The Serengeti. It was supposed to be a 3-4 hour drive from there and surprisingly it still only took us 4.5 hours even with the three flat tires we got along the way.

The road is rather nice as you go up along the Ngorongoro crater and around the rim. But as soon as you begin to go down the back side onto the road that stretches for miles into the savannah, it becomes a rocky dirt path. We managed to make it just inside the park gates in time to eat lunch. While Albert was paying for our entrance permit at the gate house, Brendan, Bhavin, and I walked up the closest of the kopjes (this one called Naabi Hill) to see a view of the Serengeti.

The view was stunning, so much grass! The Serengeti name comes from a Maasai word which means "sea of grass." I think their word was Siringet, but I don't actually remember. Anyway, this term is definitely accurate. There were waves and waves of brown and green grass stretched out before us, waving in the wind. There are some mountains which border one side of the Serengeti, but the side which stretches towards Kenya was grass littered sparsely with only a few trees. The Serengeti stretches into Kenya where it is called Maasai Mara. Not including Maasai Mara, so only the Serengeti section which is in Tanzania- it is almost 15,000 sq. km. It's huge. We drove around for three days and only made it into the center section and the eastern part, not venturing into the western section at all and there was plenty to see.

All over the rocks of the kopjes were these lizards that were half pink and half purple. They were like a six year old's interpretation of what you think a lizard should look like. Later, I found out they're called Agama lizards and only the males are that color. Just as we were getting ready to head back down to eat, we spotted an elephant that was maybe 30 feet away from us. I was really freaked out, because elephants are territorial and can be really mean (they have been known to seriously injure/kill people). But Brendan and Bhavin, being the "tough men" wanted to stay and watch it. I wasn't ready to be impaled by elephant tusks anytime soon so I headed back down. Bhavin and Brendan came down shortly after (probably after they felt they had spent enough time at the top to prove that they were brave, strong men that weren't afraid of being mutilated by an elephant trying to protect it's babies).

We ate lunch at tables outside of the (small and disappointing) visitor's center then headed off into the Serengeti.

That first day we didn't see tons of exciting animals. Mainly zebras and wildebeests, which were everywhere. We did see one lion though. She was all alone, sleeping on top of a massive rock, enjoying the shade. We drove all around her trying to see if any males or babies were around, but none were to be found. It was cool to sit and watch her for a bit though. When she yawned her mouth open wide enough that my whole head might have fit inside, and if not mine than definitely a small child's. You can see why they're so dangerous, they're paws are huge and their bodies are full of rippling muscles, no fat bulges in sight.

For the two nights we were there we stayed in the Seronera Lodge in the middle of the Serengeti. It was a super nice hotel, we got it for a really good deal since it's currently the middle of low season. It was strange to see so much luxury in the middle of nothing. All of the electricity ran off a generator which they only ran for certain hours (I think from like 6am-9am, 12pm-3pm and 6pm-midnight or something like that), and all of the water had to be carted in from outside. There were signs throughout the hotel room saying, please don't leave the water running, please turn off the lights etc. They heated a certain amount of hot water each day so that people could take showers, but since I never got around to taking a shower until close to 7pm, it was cold both times.

The hotel also had a pool! On a deck that overlooked the savannah, so on Thursday after lunch, Brendan and I went swimming before heading back out to look for more animals. It was my third time swimming in a swimming pool in Tanzania and it was a weird sensation to sit in the pool and watch baboons climb trees right next to me.

On Thursday, we headed off to safari more after a wonderful buffet breakfast (I think it was 8:30). Very quickly we saw elephants galore. I love looking at them, they're so huge and prehistoric looking. But scary as well. Soon after we saw what we had been looking for since the very first safari more than a month ago: a leopard. Brendan had already named this one, before we saw it- Gertrude. Throughout the day we would see three more: Sam, Max, and Jessie. It was very exciting because this means we saw "the big five." These are the five animals which are most desired by poachers, etc. and what most people want to see when they go on a safari- they're also all very very dangerous.

Of course we also saw many buffalo, giraffes, hippos (we saw almost one hundred of these, check them out on Picasa!), and a ridiculous number of birds (I can't remember what almost any of them are called). In the afternoon we came upon four female lions eating a dead buffalo which they must have just recently killed. One mama had her lion cubs with her – they were adorable, but hard to take pictures of since they were hiding in the grass.

Friday, Brendan and I woke up before dawn to see the sunrise. It was really nice and I'm really glad we did. How cool! To see the sun rise over the Serengeti! The morning was so pleasant (even if I did dump my entire full Nalgene all over my bed just as I was walking out the door).

We only spent the morning in the Serengeti on Friday, then headed out for our long drive home. Bhavin was continuing on his safari for another two days, so we dropped him off at a lodge in Ngorongoro Crater where we ended up eating lunch (with a beautiful view of the crater stretched out before us). Albert drove Brendan and I down to Keratu, where we caught a bus back to Arusha. The coaster was pretty full of people on the way back but overall the 3ish (a little bit more I think) drive wasn't too bad although Brendan did have a small child sitting on his lap for a good portion of the drive.

Made it home by 7pm. Overall, it was an excellent time. There are some pictures on Picasa- look at them!