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!

A few recent happenings

A little more than a week ago Saturday, Brendan and I ventured out to Tengeru, a village about a twenty minute dalla dalla ride out from Arusha. On Saturdays they have a very large market which was rumored to be excellent. The rumors were quite true. It was the biggest market I have seen in Tanzania and had everything anyone could possibly be looking for. Rows and rows of vegetables, fruits, clothing, cloth, shoes, knick knacks, tools, utensils, undergarments, toys, candy, it was crammed with every good imaginable.

 

I really like to spend money and most of the time I can keep it under wraps, but in markets like Tengeru I wanted to buy EVERYTHING. Fortunately, I had only brought a small amount of money with me (a smart thing to do if you know you are going to be seriously tempted to spend way more than you should). Everyone was willing to negotiate to really good prices. I bought wire cutters (I've been making bracelets in some of my spare time), two huge pieces of fabric that I am now having made into clothing (a skirt and a dress), a watermelon (as a gift for my mama), and two bracelets (one made out of coconut and one made out of cow horn). I wanted to take pictures of everything, but understandably people don't always appreciate having a camera shoved in their faces. So while there are some pictures of the market now on Picasa, there aren't near as many as what I wanted to take.

 

Easter Sunday, my Roman Catholic family invited me to church with them. This was my first time being in a church in Tanzania and my first time ever going to a catholic church service. It was an interesting experience, but I think in the future I can do without a 4 ½ hour church service in a language I only barely understand. Thank goodness I know the words for stand up and sit down in Swahili, I was able to at least pretend I knew what was going on. But as expected, the music was beautiful and some women were wearing fabulous wraps and kangas in celebration of Easter. My brother and sister in law's god daughter had her first communion on Easter too, so my family was very excited.

After church we went to my bibi's house (my mama's mama) where there was a party to celebrate Rosie's communion. The decorations were elaborate and the ceremony was also extravagant. There were assigned seats for the guests of honor ( I was included in this party due to my (kind of) living with Rosie's god parents). There was then speeches, a cake feeding and eating ceremony, a gift giving ceremony and dance, then dinner while there were more speeches. I included a ton of pictures of this on Picasa. Overall it was a great experience, I loved it.

On Monday we didn't have work because it was Easter Monday. Adam, Alana, Brendan and I had planned to visit Lake Duluti to go on walk around the lake. Alas, we would never make it. We went to lunch at a small restaurant and sat outside on a concrete patio out front. The patio was about a foot higher than the gravel parking spots in front. As we were eating a white car pulled up in front of the restaurant. The man sitting behind the steering wheel kept beeping his horn periodically while we were eating. It was assumed he was waiting for someone. Close to the end of our meal, he began to rev his engine repeatedly. As time progessed he began revving the engine louder and louder. We ignored him and continued with our conversation. I was listening to the conversation when all of a sudden Adam yelled "Watch out!" I looked over to the white car as it hopped up onto the patio (crunching its bumper against the concrete as it did so) and smashed into our table. I have pretty quick reflexes so I managed to jump up out of my chair and move back out of the way. I got barely bumped by the table. Adam and Alana also managed to only be brushed by the plastic table. Brendan on the other hand looked into the restaurant when Adam yelled and so was totally oblivious to the car that then hit him on his side (and knocked him into me). He was mostly okay, just some large bruises. The table was broken and lying on the ground, our dishes had fallen to the ground and lay in broken glass fragments everywhere, and most of us had some amount of soda droplets sprayed over us when Brendan's soda bottle fell off the table and broke into pieces.

The car did stop after hitting our table (which was good otherwise we all would have been a lot more seriously injured) but instead of getting out of his car and apologizing, the man shifted in reverse and drove off. Some men also sitting on the patio with us ran after the car and managed to get his license plate number but since this is Tanzania and everything is disorganized its doubtful he will have to pay for what he did. Turns out he was the husband of the woman who owned the restaurant. They were having some marriage difficulties and this was how he decided to "hurt" her, by smashing his car into a table full of her customers. The woman was there and was very upset. There wasn't really anything anyone could do, so we left shortly after.

Brendan's leg was bruised on one side and he didn't feel up to walking, so he decided to just hang out for the rest of the day and put the walk off for another day.

(I don't have any pictures of that to put up on Picasa- sorry!)

I ended up deciding to go to the Serengeti afterall. It was a good decision. I was gone from Tuesday night through Friday night of this past week. Next journal entry will be dedicated to all of those details. (some Serengeti pictures are posted now on Picasa, but not all of them).

It's rainy season

  Which essentially means, its been raining all the time.  Every night, sometimes during the day, but mostly in the mornings and evenings. It gives me little inclination to want to walk to work in the morning - I don't want to get wet and I don't own an umbrella (I keep thinking I should buy one, somehow it just never happens).

Last week I went on safari to Lake Manyara National Park with Brendan and his family. They went to Ngorongoro Crater as well to which I had already gone, so I met them in MtoWaMbu on their third day. I took the bus there.

What an experience. This was my first time traveling a long(ish) way on Tanzanian bus, it was crazy. The bus stand has about forty or fifty buses parked in random locations in an open area in the middle of the city. Men stand outside of the buses yelling the location that their bus is going to go to. So as I walked around trying to find the correct bus I had people screaming at me from every direction: "Moshi! Moshi! Are you going to Moshi? Mbaya! Mbaya! Dar! Want to go to Dar?" It was so hectic. I finally found two buses that were going my direction. The two bus people then started arguing over which bus I should go on- they each wanted me to go on their bus. I picked the man who was yelling more quietly and went and sat down. People piled on after me until not only every seat was full but every bit of standing room was taken as well. A man shoved his way through  and collected bus fare from everyone (it depended on how far you were staying on for how much you paid- I was getting off before the end of the route so I only had to pay 3500 Tsh (approx. $2).
I had purposefully picked a window seat so that I wouldn't get as squished by everyone. Turns out this is not always the ideal place to sit.

The windows were huge and really low so that the bottom of the window frame was only about an inch higher than my lap. They were hard to close (which, granted, it would be way to hot if you shut them) and people were thrusting things through the windows trying to sell them to the people on the bus (particularly me, since I was the only white person to be seen).  Most of the things they were trying to sell were something along the lines of what you would expect:  biscuits (aka cookies), juice, bottles of water, maandazi (cardamom donuts which are really good), and fermented rice pastries- really not so good. But then they were selling things like dish towels, huge loaves of milk bread, and cooking oil.  I couldn't get them to leave me alone for the whole 45 min the bus sat waiting to fill up with people (there is no set time the bus leaves- the driver leaves whenever he thinks he's made enough money and squashed enough people onto his bus- so if you want to take a bus somewhere just show up at any random time and hop on to any bus where you can find space).

The bus ride itself was fine- close to three hours. Behind me were a bunch of Maasai men with some children, their spears, and some boxes. They kept jamming their feet into my seat back and I'm pretty sure they have never bathed in their whole lives, but really, in terms of how awful the ride could have been,  it was wonderful. The scenery was beautiful - I love looking at the Rift Valley mountains. As we drove into MtoWaMbu it felt like home, after Arusha, it's probably the place I have been to the most ( and know the best). I stayed at the guest house where we have stayed many times before and hung out with John for a bit (a secondary school student I know there who we met way back in January). The next morning I met Brendan and his family and off we went to the park.

Lake Manyara was nice- very jungle-esque. Definitely the most lush of the places I have gone on safari to. There was the usual assortment of animals: elephants, zebras, baboons, wildebeasts, giraffes, impalas. They also had tons of blue monkeys and velvet monkeys. We looked really hard to spot a leopard or a tree lion (which manyara is known for) but alas none were to be found.

Lake Manyara is an alkaline lake, so there were flamingos standing in it - it's so strange to look out at the lake and just see hundreds of pink things standing all over it (like most other alkaline lakes its super shallow).

There are pictures of the safari up on Picasa.

As for work- I have recently added something new and exciting to my daily activities! I am now helping out in a local mission run hospital- St. Elizabeth's. Theoretically I'm there to help teach the staff how to start using computers and to put things like patient records onto computers, teach them how to type, and how to use a telemedicine program so they can have access to more information to help them treat patients.

However, in my one week of experience so far, this will probably not work out as planned. My supervisor there is super spacey and every single day last week abandoned me (perhaps forgot about me or maybe he just didn't care) in an empty room with some computers. I did manage to still teach one nurse how to put patient information onto the computer and I started teaching a technician how to type. But since I still don't know how to use the telemedicine program myself and since Sunday (my supervisor- this is a super popular name here- I don't get it) hasn't really shown me what computer I should be teaching people on- thats basically the most I was able to do.

So what I did instead was shadow doctors on their rounds, help out in the laboratory, get prescriptions for patients from the pharmacy, and hang out with the hospital staff. This is really cool and I really enjoy doing it. I think the doctors like the company- they asked me to help them with things all the time. I learned how to put in a catheter (kind of gross) and how to draw blood. Plus I know what typhoid and malaria look like under microscopes and I'm learning how to treat them.

So at least I'm gaining something from this and helping out people at the hospital, even if I'm not quite following my job description. Next week I'm going to try to convince Sunday that I actually need some guidance before he lets me loose ;-)

The reason I'm doing this right now is because we can't really teach people too much during rainy season. Many people work on their shambas (farms) during rainy season and need to take advantage of every daylight hour- this means they do not want to come and sit in a class and learn about HIV. Also this week and next week, many schools aren't in session due to easter, good friday, easter monday, and some muslim holiday next wednesday - so this is what I'm doing instead.

I'm considering going on safari to the Serengeti next week. It's going to involve taking a few days off from work and (of course) some money. But I'm thinking I might do it (because seriously- when will I ever get a chance to go to the serengeti again?). I'll keep you updated ;-)

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?)