Jeez. Where to begin again? The world just flipped me upside down (again) and shook me til all my fifty cent Tanzania shillings came tumbling out of my ears. It didn’t hit me until today that this is how things are now. Not necessarily different, not fantastic, not miserable- just… static. Well, static isn’t the best word because I haven’t been still since I landed.
My last two days were semi-relaxed in the sense that I didn't really have to rush around doing things like the week before. Received lots of fun things from our tailor, said bye with the greatest Swahili teacher, road my last daladala, hung with my Mwenge boys. My very last night, I swung by the class because they told me they had something for me- an official looking pink emblemed teacher's certificate and a few gifts which made me tear up just as the entire group of new Princeton program folk entered class to take over my babies. Oh I miss my Mwenge boys!! Hurried home to find a mini-party, complete with cake and presents. Tried not to become too frantic and of course, as per usual, I was running late. Oh I miss my fam and roomie!
I was the last person to check in for my flight after procrastinating with goodbyes in Dar. The staff weren’t so happy to see me since they had to cut the systems back on so I could check in and such. One of my bags was insanely overweight even though I had checked them before leaving and had checked what I thought was the appropriate weight limit online. Couldn’t negotiate with boss man because he was already upset with me. Lame. So while he was busy charging my card, I stuffed my extra bag into the already overweight bag while only one staffer was watching and simply laughed, shrugged his shoulders, and lumped me with all those other crazy white folk. The flight wasn’t crowded and I had a whole row to spread out. I pressed my greasy face against the window for the first half hour or so while we were still above Tanzania, even though it was pitch black.
Arrived in Amsterdam in the morning, waltzed through security, met up with Margaret, a childhood family friend. Chatted about all sorts of things, experiences, memories, stories, and family updates over a punch-in-the-face strong cup of coffee. She was on her way to Berlin that morning so we didn’t have time to venture into the actual city of Amsterdam, but that was a twist of fate to keep me in the close vicinity of the airport because I could very easily see how I would be wandering around the city, miss my flight, and have to call my parents to bail me out. Plus, my boarding time was bumped up, so waiting around wasn’t too bad. I found a little café to seek refuge and after a few minutes (or maybe hours), the Croatian football (ehem, soccer) team bombarded my quiet space and sat all around me. Two French girls asked me to take their picture with them, then they left, then the Croatian folk inhaled food, then they left too.
Crammed flight for the next leg. Sat next to a pleasant Italian woman who insisted on me consuming gin and tonics with her. I mean, she really had to twist my arm, but it made the eight and a half hours go easier and I wasn’t such an emotional wreck.
Customs is CRAZY now. I had seen a five minute review on the BBC a month or so ago how they would be taking finger prints and retinal scans of all non-US citizens entering the US, but it didn’t quite click that I’d see those. It seemed too futuristic-movie-dystopia-novel to be real. The guy checking my passport was extraordinarily concerned with the spices I claimed so he gave me a big highlighted A on my customs slip and informed me to collect my bags and head to extra security or whatever. ::sigh:: Come on man, it’s just cinnamon bark and curry! Went to luggage claim, grabbed one huge bag and while I was waiting for the overweight one to arrive, a fat little dog came over with a fat little lady in matching uniforms. I didn’t think much of it and was starting to get anxious about my other bag not arriving. Suddenly the little thing sits by my bag and produces two barks unusual for his size. Yeah, yeah, I know I’m bringing in coriander, tea masala, and coffee, too, but really? This drug dog can’t look for anything else? The little lady informs me very officially I must immediately report to have my bag searched, which wasn’t a big deal because by that time, all bags had been unloaded and my overweight one was indeed not there. ::sigh:: I report immediately to the extra security place, wait in a line listening to Spanish and Arabic and trying to remember if I can still think in Swahili. When it comes to my turn, the guy flips through my passport and we make small talk about me having four unexpected months to backapck while my bag goes through the X-ray machine thing, then he loads my bag onto one of those carts and sends me on my way with a smile and wave! Whew, glad he didn’t find my organic loofah with funny seeds inside or dirty rocks and shells with scary, foreign, contaminated African dirt in its crevices. Kinda funny, the folks that needn’t take their job so seriously do, and those folks that probably should take their job more seriously don’t.
Dad was eagerly waiting. Few tears before rushing to KLM to report my missing bag then jumping in the convertible to try our best to circumnavigate gridlock traffic. First impressions were somewhat of a blur, but it seemed like last week I had stumbled out of those doors to be greeted with muggy DC summer weather after returning from Malawi. On the wrong side of the road, on the wrong side of the car, on way too smooth of roads. Funny how fast time flies. Caught up with Dad and tried to take in as much as I could. Didn’t seem that weird to be back. Home was mostly the same but with an addition to the family- Pipsqueak the new kitty. Throw bags down and went to Joe’s Inn for a humongous plate of spaghetti. Hit the spot. Unpacked in a disorderly fashion, tried to convince myself I was being productive, but mostly, I was just making a mess. Bagel with cream cheese for breakfast, followed by a trip to DMV with Dad to get a new license (I lost it way back at that music festival in October). New change- you can’t smile and you have to wait seven days for them to ship it to you! What’s all this stuff?! Not to mention, it was absolutely freezing inside. My body has not adapted back to AC, which I’m looking forward to saving money on utilities this summer! Quick tangent on that: I’m staying with my mom on the coast of South Carolina where it’s 90+ degrees Farenheit outside and everyone else sits comfortably in a chilled air conditioned room in shorts and t-shirts while I’m bundled in long pants, a sweater, and occasionally socks. Yeah, I’ve always been cold blooded, but never this extreme!! OK, back to Richmond: we went to go get a cup of chai from the neighborhood coffee shop where I ran into an ex-boyfriend’s ex-roommate which was my first conversation with a friend to superficially sum of Tanzania as “awesome.” It wasn’t as excruciatingly painful as my imagination had cooked up, but it still made my heart hurt a little bit. It’s not the fact that I wouldn’t love to go into details, but in those less than five minute conversations, neither one of us will dive into deep details of what’s really been going on. That’s just how it is and the sooner I get over that, my nerves should calm down a bit.
Packed a quick bag with gifts and wedding attire to be picked up by Hugh to start our journey to sunny South Carolina. Had a lot to chat about and it was another good seven or so hours to soak in all that is the United States… or I-95. My oldest cousin on my mom’s side was getting married this weekend- the primary reason for me coming back. I was about to say, coming back before summer, but really- coming back before fall semester, which could have easily become coming back after another year. So, so, so wonderful to be thrown into wedding activities because it meant they weren’t throwing themselves at me. Stories are coming out little by little, but I’m glad all of this is out of everyone’s system. I had such a fantastic time at all of the events and hadn’t gotten hit by jet lag until today, where it hit me hard. I’m surrounded by the comfort of Fripp, but it’s not Tanzania and the differences are starting to become more vivid. Of course I didn’t expect them to be the same, but I suppose I mean the differences of two life routines I have developed are more apparent. Now it’s time to pick a new city to develop a new life routine so I can stop comparing. (Un)Fortunately, I’ll be back to Columbia, but I’m looking forward to a start-over of sorts there.
Like I said, the wedding was a blast. All the cousins are “old” enough now to be on the same level again as far as socializing goes, which makes family events so much more fun. This week, some folks are sticking around to unwind after all the craziness of the weekend. Cooking and eating lots of good food which makes me miss Haika’s kitchen, but I’ve been requested to make chapati one morning and chipsi-mayai another day. Somehow it won’t taste the same, but I’ll try it all the same.
The bride was beautiful and I finally met the groom! He will fit perfectly with our family and I’m looking forward to getting to know him in a less hectic environment. The second oldest female cousin has just gotten engaged so we have another wedding around the corner! The rest of the cousins are taking bets on whose next on the chopping board… I mean, wedding alter. Not it!
The new replacement has arrived and I think the family has openly accepted her, too. Funny how now to go back to Dar, I’d be the outsider again. What a strange concept this time thing is and growing up is.
Running around lots in the next couple months, can’t wait to visit with everyone. I’m expecting the tears and smiles to continue and I just request that if I’m different from what you remembered, remember that you’re different from what I remember too. Different isn’t bad, it is what it is, and let’s keep rolling with it. Remind me of that, too, because I have a feeling I’ll sink into some slumps and will have to be nudged to get over my-selfish-self.
Today was my first hard day, but mostly I think the cause is pure exhaustion. Glad to be by the sea… one of my favorite quotes:
"The cure for everything is saltwater- sweat, tears, or the sea." -Isak Dinesen
I stole it from Ms. Sarah Baber a few years ago and how true. This week I’ll have sweat, tears, and the sea. Perfect recovery to turn a new page.
So, for now, I’m signing off. Thanks for your emails, your thoughts, your prayers, your comments, questions, concerns, and words of encouragement (to me, and my worried parents). As independent and self-reliant I would like to portray myself, my strength comes from all y’all (yes, that’s right, all you all) on the home front. I could go on for a few more pages specifically of special individuals, but I’ll save my award-winning speech for a later date.
Look forward to Amanda’s Adventures in Asia to Australia... and All in between. Coming soon to blogspot near you!
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Monday, June 8, 2009
Feet in the sand with a cold beer in hand
7 June
Yet another trip to Zanzibar. Absolutely cannot get enough of the place and almost feel silly for not transferring to the university in Stone Town when the strike happened last semester. Such is life and everything like those things happen for some sort of reason.
Yet another amazing time. Made it up to the north for the infamous full moon party of Kendwa Rocks. It was definitely rocking but not as focused on the coolness of being under the full moon like the throw down in the east. Regardless, celebrating with your feet in the sand and a cold beer in hand… it doesn’t get much better than that! Then add in loads of backpackers, great music, and acrobats playing with fire and all sorts- you’ve got a party that was bumping until 5am.
Despite popular opinion, we did do other things other than party, such as a great spice tour and more shopping in Stone Town. This was my second spice tour, but it was much better. Fewer people and we went to a different plantation. Overall, a better vibe. Also, slightly overcast and not so blazing hot. Still sweat due to the intense humidity; and well, Hallie and I basically carried around all of our stuff everywhere this weekend. Worked out well because we were ready to go and on the go at all times! For the short trip that it was, we achieved a lot. The only downer of the trip was that our scheduled beach day was booted due to rain clouds. That means I’m coming home with all sorts of funny t-shirt lines! (… and loads of yummy spices)
Starting to have my “lasts” of everything. Last time in Zanzibar. Took my last bajaji ride. Last trip to the tailor. Last class in Mwenge. Last meals. Last laundry washing. Last bucket bath. Crazy!!
Hallie has been patient with me being schizophrenic on leaving- excited one minute, a depressed negative Nancy the next, to be followed five minutes later chatting happily about summer plans, trailed by near tears. I’ve been saying bye to all the other foreign students for so long and thinking to myself how much it stinks for them because they have to go home, but now it’s finally my turn. I remember flipping through my calendar at the beginning of the year and being certain that my return date was never going to arrive. ::sigh:: Maisha inavutia. (life is interesting- literally translates as ‘life is pulling’)
To add to the roller coaster emotions, I’ve been averaging three hours of sleep for the past two weeks now. Alright, not so abnormal for my lifestyle in the States, but it’s certainly been a long time since I’ve had one of these mini-marathons. All in all, I’m still functioning normally and it’s resulted in unexpected productivity such as packing just about everything without a temper tantrum. I exploded all over the room which quarantined Hallie to her bed, but the entirety of organizing and stuffing was not as bad as anticipated. Nice feeling to have that off my chest and I think I’m doing alright on space and weight. How that works, I’ll never know. Also, how I didn’t resort to my preferred methods of day-of packing, I’m not sure.
As far as writing a final blog in a vain attempt to summarize and conclude my trip, I don’t think it will happen so soon. Mostly because I could go on for pages and hours which come on, in all seriousness, even my most dedicated stalkers wouldn’t be able to read word for word. The stories will come out in time and just to preemptively tackle your first question of “how was Africa?” … I’ll just go ahead and say it’s been awesome.
The to do list is dwindling and my last two days won’t be spent rushing around which will be a pleasant way to say kwa heri (good bye) to Dar. Visiting folks Monday and Tuesday. Board the plane at night, stretch my legs the next day in Amsterdam with one of my childhood friends who has been living in the Netherlands for the past semester, land in the States in late afternoon. Wild to believe! And I’ll leave you with that. Too many things racing through my head to actually write something semi-profound to try to bring nine months to a close.
Lots of love from sticky hot Dar es Salaam, Amanda
Yet another trip to Zanzibar. Absolutely cannot get enough of the place and almost feel silly for not transferring to the university in Stone Town when the strike happened last semester. Such is life and everything like those things happen for some sort of reason.
Yet another amazing time. Made it up to the north for the infamous full moon party of Kendwa Rocks. It was definitely rocking but not as focused on the coolness of being under the full moon like the throw down in the east. Regardless, celebrating with your feet in the sand and a cold beer in hand… it doesn’t get much better than that! Then add in loads of backpackers, great music, and acrobats playing with fire and all sorts- you’ve got a party that was bumping until 5am.
Despite popular opinion, we did do other things other than party, such as a great spice tour and more shopping in Stone Town. This was my second spice tour, but it was much better. Fewer people and we went to a different plantation. Overall, a better vibe. Also, slightly overcast and not so blazing hot. Still sweat due to the intense humidity; and well, Hallie and I basically carried around all of our stuff everywhere this weekend. Worked out well because we were ready to go and on the go at all times! For the short trip that it was, we achieved a lot. The only downer of the trip was that our scheduled beach day was booted due to rain clouds. That means I’m coming home with all sorts of funny t-shirt lines! (… and loads of yummy spices)
Starting to have my “lasts” of everything. Last time in Zanzibar. Took my last bajaji ride. Last trip to the tailor. Last class in Mwenge. Last meals. Last laundry washing. Last bucket bath. Crazy!!
Hallie has been patient with me being schizophrenic on leaving- excited one minute, a depressed negative Nancy the next, to be followed five minutes later chatting happily about summer plans, trailed by near tears. I’ve been saying bye to all the other foreign students for so long and thinking to myself how much it stinks for them because they have to go home, but now it’s finally my turn. I remember flipping through my calendar at the beginning of the year and being certain that my return date was never going to arrive. ::sigh:: Maisha inavutia. (life is interesting- literally translates as ‘life is pulling’)
To add to the roller coaster emotions, I’ve been averaging three hours of sleep for the past two weeks now. Alright, not so abnormal for my lifestyle in the States, but it’s certainly been a long time since I’ve had one of these mini-marathons. All in all, I’m still functioning normally and it’s resulted in unexpected productivity such as packing just about everything without a temper tantrum. I exploded all over the room which quarantined Hallie to her bed, but the entirety of organizing and stuffing was not as bad as anticipated. Nice feeling to have that off my chest and I think I’m doing alright on space and weight. How that works, I’ll never know. Also, how I didn’t resort to my preferred methods of day-of packing, I’m not sure.
As far as writing a final blog in a vain attempt to summarize and conclude my trip, I don’t think it will happen so soon. Mostly because I could go on for pages and hours which come on, in all seriousness, even my most dedicated stalkers wouldn’t be able to read word for word. The stories will come out in time and just to preemptively tackle your first question of “how was Africa?” … I’ll just go ahead and say it’s been awesome.
The to do list is dwindling and my last two days won’t be spent rushing around which will be a pleasant way to say kwa heri (good bye) to Dar. Visiting folks Monday and Tuesday. Board the plane at night, stretch my legs the next day in Amsterdam with one of my childhood friends who has been living in the Netherlands for the past semester, land in the States in late afternoon. Wild to believe! And I’ll leave you with that. Too many things racing through my head to actually write something semi-profound to try to bring nine months to a close.
Lots of love from sticky hot Dar es Salaam, Amanda
Thursday, June 4, 2009
When I show you I just don't care...
When I'm throwing punches in the air
When I'm broken down and I can't stand
Would you be man enough to be my man?
(yeah, lame, it's Sheryl Crow I know, but this song applies too well on too many occasions here and has too many jokes with Heather that it's perfect for this story...)
Obviously something happened to me that needs documentation just one day after I posted my rumored last blog. Well, a lot has happened because I’m cramming absolutely everything in. Leave the house in the wee hours of the morning and return home in the darker hours of the evening. I definitely prefer bouncing around Dar than wasting hours wandering around campus trying to find classes and professors, but man- how different my schedule is these past few months! Without further ado… just another story to add to my interactions with people:
After my Swahili class, I stopped by a market specifically to load up on some more fabric for gifts. No problem, found lots of pretty kangas and even got them for an even lower price than normal because it was the end of the day! What a deal. Getting from the large market to Ubungo (one of the bus terminals close to campus) was quite the challenge. After waiting for about 30 minutes with no daladalas going to Ubungo, a huge bus rolls up with the conductor dangling out the door, screaming “Ubungo, Ubungo, Ubungo.” That was my queue to push and shove my way on to this huge commercial bus that has been converted into a daladala. I’m crammed onto a ledge by the windshield with an Indian woman telling me how to position my feet and strategically smush myself against the glass. Great, not only am I getting stares for being white and on public transport but I’m front and center for all to see. Super. Great view of Dar and gridlock traffic, but I was mostly hoping the windshield wasn’t going to pop off since there was air coming in mysteriously from the side or top. Who knows. Luckily that didn’t happen. Somehow while we were in gridlock traffic, the huge bus runs out of gas. Typical. Luckily, it wasn’t so far from Ubungo and I secretly adore walking in the craziness of Dar streets. I start my walk with people staring and shouting “mzungu!” like they’ve never seen one before. Also typical. Out of nowhere, a drunk man approaches me, crosses my path from (my) right to left, and reaches for a quick aggressive feel. Unfortunate for him, he caught my right fist in his face and then he proceeds to stumble over my left leg that was outstretched from walking. The poor drunk b@#$%^& toppled to the ground, I quickly hopped over his legs as a chorus of “OHHs” started and made a speedy exit by crossing the street in the same gridlock traffic that probably saw me smushed against the glass before too much more attention was brought to me. The adrenaline didn’t sink in until I had a frenzied walk home to then drop my stuff and rush to Mwenge with my goodbye gift of collected school supplies. That’s the first time in my life I’ve truly swung a fist at someone with the intention of inflicting pain. Who would’ve thought one of the more peaceful countries would turn me into a meat-eating-resorting-to-violence-to-solve-problems person. Don’t mess with this mzungu. Sooo yeah, that was my early evening story for the day.
Otherwise, running around checking things off my “to do before peacing” list! I won’t promise last entries until I’m in the US, how about that?
When I'm broken down and I can't stand
Would you be man enough to be my man?
(yeah, lame, it's Sheryl Crow I know, but this song applies too well on too many occasions here and has too many jokes with Heather that it's perfect for this story...)
Obviously something happened to me that needs documentation just one day after I posted my rumored last blog. Well, a lot has happened because I’m cramming absolutely everything in. Leave the house in the wee hours of the morning and return home in the darker hours of the evening. I definitely prefer bouncing around Dar than wasting hours wandering around campus trying to find classes and professors, but man- how different my schedule is these past few months! Without further ado… just another story to add to my interactions with people:
After my Swahili class, I stopped by a market specifically to load up on some more fabric for gifts. No problem, found lots of pretty kangas and even got them for an even lower price than normal because it was the end of the day! What a deal. Getting from the large market to Ubungo (one of the bus terminals close to campus) was quite the challenge. After waiting for about 30 minutes with no daladalas going to Ubungo, a huge bus rolls up with the conductor dangling out the door, screaming “Ubungo, Ubungo, Ubungo.” That was my queue to push and shove my way on to this huge commercial bus that has been converted into a daladala. I’m crammed onto a ledge by the windshield with an Indian woman telling me how to position my feet and strategically smush myself against the glass. Great, not only am I getting stares for being white and on public transport but I’m front and center for all to see. Super. Great view of Dar and gridlock traffic, but I was mostly hoping the windshield wasn’t going to pop off since there was air coming in mysteriously from the side or top. Who knows. Luckily that didn’t happen. Somehow while we were in gridlock traffic, the huge bus runs out of gas. Typical. Luckily, it wasn’t so far from Ubungo and I secretly adore walking in the craziness of Dar streets. I start my walk with people staring and shouting “mzungu!” like they’ve never seen one before. Also typical. Out of nowhere, a drunk man approaches me, crosses my path from (my) right to left, and reaches for a quick aggressive feel. Unfortunate for him, he caught my right fist in his face and then he proceeds to stumble over my left leg that was outstretched from walking. The poor drunk b@#$%^& toppled to the ground, I quickly hopped over his legs as a chorus of “OHHs” started and made a speedy exit by crossing the street in the same gridlock traffic that probably saw me smushed against the glass before too much more attention was brought to me. The adrenaline didn’t sink in until I had a frenzied walk home to then drop my stuff and rush to Mwenge with my goodbye gift of collected school supplies. That’s the first time in my life I’ve truly swung a fist at someone with the intention of inflicting pain. Who would’ve thought one of the more peaceful countries would turn me into a meat-eating-resorting-to-violence-to-solve-problems person. Don’t mess with this mzungu. Sooo yeah, that was my early evening story for the day.
Otherwise, running around checking things off my “to do before peacing” list! I won’t promise last entries until I’m in the US, how about that?
Monday, June 1, 2009
I’m living in a foreign country but I’m bound to cross the line
29 May
I’m not sure how many times in this blog that I’ve said this… well, actually typed it, but I must say it a million times: I have no idea where to begin, which is always silly because then I proceed to start from the beginning, or the closest event to the beginning. I last left with complaining about being a white girl in Tanzania… and then complaining about traveling with large groups of azungu in dust bowl Dodoma. I promise this entry is more upbeat!!
Crazy week of running around and only one funny story to report before I dive into explaining my last minute decision to loop through middle of nowhere Tanzania. I think it’s safe to say I spend a large majority of my time in, around, or passing through Mwenge. One day, I stopped for a particularly long amount of time to greet some folks when a van of old, fat Middle Eastern dudes roll out. I didn’t bother paying much attention to them, it’s quite often that big groups in big vans are dumped on the sidewalk of Mwenge and then ushered back into the big van after they buy their souvenirs. These guys were certainly no different except three of them had the brilliant idea of sauntering over to me, interrupting my conversation with my Mwenge boys, to ask if they could take a picture with me. I looked at my friends, they looked at me, we looked at them, they looked at us, I looked back at them, before then staring them down to inquire why exactly they’d want to take my picture. The dialogue went a little something like this:
“Hello, can we take your picture?”
“Do what?”
“Take picture, you know…” (then holds up the camera as if I didn’t understand)
“Uh, yeah, I get it. Why?”
“Because!” (put in your head the best three year old baby talk with Middle Eastern older deep man voice accent)
“Really? Because why?”
“Because we’re nice people.”
“No, you’re chauvinist pigs that think I’m an object you can possess.” ::awkward silence perhaps due to language barrier to translate “chauvinist” and “pig” or shock that I said no:: “The answer is no.”
One of them started to protest but luckily one of his buddies thought better than probing at me any longer and guided the three away. My Mwenge boys shook their heads and laughed. No need for them to ask what “chauvinist” means; that was already an English lesson.
Moving on…
Iriniga!!! Just about my favorite place in Tanzania. The only thing that is lacking is the beach. The mountains, comfortable weather, and lack of hassling make up for it though. The main highlights:
-Hole in the wall restaurant/guest house that has an “Alice in Wonderland” themed garden. Alright, so it wasn’t straight out mad hatters, rabbits, and Cheshire cats BUT it was a crazy garden with loads of colorful flowers and verandahs covered in vines that happened to be deep behind a block of buildings. Nothing spectacular about the food or service, but a pleasant evening under vines with Safari Lagers.
-Neema Craft Workshop, along with other fantastic markets ideal for shopping. The Neema Craft Workshop is the brain child of an organization dedicated to helping disabled children and adults living in Iringa. All of the products sold in the shop are hand crafted by those with disabilities. The profit of goods goes back to the organization to purchase supplies for crafts as well as improving the quality of life for their workers, i.e. hand steered bicycles, medicines, doctor visits, etc. We went crazy in there and then continued our shopping spree into the local market to find spices, baskets, loofahs, wooden spoons, jewelry, bags, etc. Cheaper prices than Dar and less hectic. Fun day, for sure.
-Riding 20km to Isimila to find Stone Age tools and canyon towers that have withstood erosion for something like 6,000 years. The ride there was slightly scarier than the one in Mbeya because we were on the main road with large vehicles zipping past us (6 female azungu). Nonetheless, we arrived to be greeted by loads of children ready to walk our bikes the last kilometer down to the site. Smart little buggers, of course a tip was in order for their services. The tools were incredible. Really puts human existence on a crazy scale. After playing with the rocks, we went on a quick walk through the canyon which was similarly spectacular. Lisa and I accidentally chose an alternative path to get back to the main center which lead to a dead end of canyon towers and no group. No worries, let me pull out my handy dandy mobile phone. Surprise- no service. We laugh it off a bit then back track to find the right path where we shortly found Emmanuel, our guide, and the rest of the group. He then proceeded to tell us they lost a German grandma for about four hours one time. At least we were only gone for maybe ten minutes. Realizing the sun was on its decline and we were still twenty kilometers from Iringa, I volunteered to wave down a truck so we could hitch a ride back. Group was a bit hesitant at first, then a few cars went past, and then we full heartedly decided that it’d be better to catch a ride than try to bike it (not to mention the last two kilometers to Iringa is up a mountain). I hailed down a truck carrying sand and they died laughing when I began negotiating a ride back to Iringa. They loaded our bikes up and the six of us arranged ourselves in the back. I’m sure we gave everyone a huge laugh- in the early afternoon, six azungu girls ride by on bikes laughing, chatting, and taking pictures… then in the later afternoon, six azungu girls zoom past in the back of a truck, laughing, chatting, and taking pictures.
All in all, Iringa was a success of traveling in a large group. On Sunday, we took off on buses. Due to my previous three attempts to see African rock paintings, I was bound and determined to do it by myself. It was quite the adventure of jumping buses, dirty hostels, motorcycle rides, and some of the worst roads ever. The rest of the girls went all the way back to Dar while I jumped off at Morogoro, which has now ranked as my least favorite place in Tanzania. I feel like such a brat saying that I don’t like places here, but some towns here- man. I arrived in Morogoro to hop on a bus to get to Dodoma. I had twenty minutes before the next few buses heading to Dodoma would be passing through. Great. Now it was time to find a legit bus with someone who wasn’t trying to rip me off. That took about thirty minutes, meaning I had one last chance to hop on the very last bus that would be going to Dodoma that day. I had to pay the equivalent of $5 to stand on a crammed bus, complete with chickens, goats, and crying babies. Only had to stand for two or so hours before someone was dropped off and I could slip into their window seat. Arrived in Dodoma around 9pm to take a cab to the guest house we stayed in the weekend before to find it totally booked. The reception man assured me it was fine to walk with all my belongings through the streets of Dodoma to the next guest house, which happened to be that Lutheran church one that says “BROTHEL SEXUAL INTERCOURSE NOT APPLY.” Dirt cheap for a dirty hostel. Skipped out of Dodoma around 5:30am, northbound for Kondoa. Dusty rough road for three hours to arrive in Kondoa, a quaint little town in the absolute middle of nowhere. The next bus to Kolo (village closest to rock paintings) didn’t leave until noon, so I found a cleaner bathroom than my previous hostel to wash up in and then made some friends at the bus stand, which came in handy later the next day- I’ll get to that in a minute.
I sat next to a cute old man on the way to Kolo. He happened to live in Kolo and ended up offering his daughter-in-law’s house for me to stay in. His son was off in Dodoma doing some business and he assured me that it would be more than fine for him to dump me without notice onto Mama Allee. Indeed, it was no problem and Mama Allee warmly welcomed me into her home. She then took me to the Antiquities Department to find me a guide and a ride to the rock paintings, which was a treat because she definitely hooked me up with the non-tourist price. Maulid was my guide and a few hours before sunset, we took off on a motorcycle on my first frightening ride up rocky, dusty roads (if you can even call them roads). Got to a point where the motorcycle could go no further, so we trekked a little bit more up the mountain, and all of a sudden, he pointed to a large rock face of a cave, and BAM- there were the 6,000+ year old rock paintings. SO COOL!! He took me to three different sites and each represented different ceremonial grounds. One was simply a cave where they decided to record everyday life, such as hunting, evolving from wearing bark to animal fur, developing traps, etc. Another cave was dedicated to ceremonies revolving around successful hunts. The other cave was specifically used for rain prayers. Well, this is all what different experts in anthropology, archaeology, etc have said, in particular Mary Leaky, who Maulid had the honor of working with on two occasions. How crazy is that?! The pictures do some justice, but you’ll have to check them out for yourselves to really see the details. It’s incredible to think how long the paint has endured- animal fat, tree sap, and ochre. And the rock faces are in the sun all day long. It’s wild. It was perfect to be the only one out there AND a great opportunity for me to put to use Swahili vocabulary words that I never really thought I’d ever use (such as ceremony, sacrifice, stretcher- just to name a few). Oh, that was the other fun fact, Maulid was under the impression that his English was worse than my Swahili so he insisted on a Swahili tour. Whew. Think I got it all which was a nice personal boost.
Had dinner in Mama Allee’s small shop where I saw the cute old man again, whose name I never did get. What a woman. Sadly no photos because she’s against it. Pole (sorry). Her children were put to bed, she insisted on me bathing, and then we discussed how I’d be leaving Kolo the next morning. She assured me that there was a bus that would leave at 4am and it’d be no problem to catch. I get to bed early knowing I’d be waking in a few hours. Around 3:50, I’m about to slip out the door when Mama Allee pops her head out to inform me that the bus came through at 3am that morning. Uhh ok? What to do now? She hops to action by calling her “uncle,” who I’m not sure if it’s a cousin, brother, or actual uncle, to come with his motorcycle to rush me the 20 kilometers on a short cut into Kondoa so I can catch the morning bus. I’m doing my best to reject the offer, but no way Jose. Mama Allee wasn’t having any of it. So ‘Peta’ the ‘uncle’ arrives in the next few minutes and off we go (‘Peta’ is the name he told me because his Swahili name is near impossible to pronounce but it was funny because he pronounced Peter Swahili style and then spelled it out for me- “Pee-tah: P-E-T-A”). I thought the ride up the mountain the day before was terrifying, but I had no idea what was coming that morning. He assured me that there were no more lions around the village, but they’ve been having problems of late with hyenas. Oh great, here’s when little white girl and Peta disappear in middle of nowhere before sunrise because hyenas pounce on us. Someone was looking out for us and we made it to Kondoa without any problems. Gave Peta a few shillings for gas and then started to figure out how to get from Kondoa back to Dodoma. Turns out there was never a morning bus that day, so I’m not sure what Mama Allee heard, but that meant I had to wait around until 11 or so before the next bus would take off for Dodoma. Great, it was 6:30. How to kill hours in a town that’s no bigger than 2 kilometers? Find the few friends I had made the day before, drank some chai, and had more first full blown in detail political conversation in Kiswahili! That was a big step.
Miserable bus ride back to Dodoma with crying babies, squawking chickens, and no leg room. Arrive in Dodoma to find that there is a bus heading to Igunga (where I’d be doing field work with TEACH before going back to Dar). Awesome! Don’t have to spend any more time in Dodoma. I had about forty minutes, so I ran around to grab some infamous Dodoma wine and grab some money from an ATM (which will be my last withdrawal while I’m here- crazy!). Rush back to the bus stand to then wait for two and a half hours. In the meantime, I made more friends in the bus stand and instead of having a political discussion, we talked about culture and relationships. We covered a lot of ground, but here’s my favorite little racy excerpt. One of the guys was under the impression that in order for your wife to have a boy, you would have to go fast and hard, but if you wanted a girl, you needed to be slow and gentle. Ahem. I laughed in his face, but it was almost a little insensitive because he was sincere so I back tracked a bit, but still, good laugh for all. Also, I learned how to play checkers Tanzanian style, which I didn’t even know was different. They definitely redeemed my opinion of Dodoma and hooked me up with chapati and juice when I rolled through on my way back from Igunga to Dar.
Journey to Igunga. Soo after waiting for this bus for two and half hours, it arrives and is packed. I slip into an aisle seat second row to the back. They crammed so many extra seats in that there was literally negative leg room. I tried focusing on how stunning the Dodoma sunset was over hundreds of rock kopjes, but it wasn’t distracting enough. After thirty minutes, the man I was sitting next to got off and no one wanted sit next to me, so I had some more room to spread out. About thirty minutes after that, the road went from mediocre to terrible. Plenty of times I caught air from being bounced around in the back. The window behind me kept slipping open, making the ride freezing and even more bewildering. I just kept telling myself only four hours to get to Igunga, don’t worry, almost done, you’ve been through worse. The pep talks only went so far, especially once the bus stopped at 12am on the side of the road because it’s illegal to drive buses from 12am-3am in Tanzania. Obviously those are the more dangerous hours- not 11:30, not 3:30. Whatever. We hadn’t arrived in Igunga yet, so I had to try to catch some shut eye on this miserable bus. We get moving again around 3am so after a groggy three hours of almost sleeping, we proceed to get bounced around some more. I get dropped off in Igunga, a small town in the middle of nowhere, at 5:30am. What am I going to do at 5:30am? Have no idea what hotel they booked for me and I wasn’t about to call up the coordinator that early to come save me. I stumble into the nearest guest house to see if I can grab a room for only a few hours. They said they were all booked, but the Maasai guardsman overheard our conversation and offered his room since he wouldn’t be using it until after 9am. So I crashed in Michael the Maasai’s room until about 7:30am when I decided it’d be an alright hour to contact the district coordinator. Room smelled like spices and I found a large knife under the mattress. Put my kanga over his sheets and pillow because who knows what’s been living in his rastas. Slept for a few hours and then found a place to drink about five cups of black tea to stimulate my brain. Full two days in the field of interviews and photo taking. The hotel was nicer than the guest house and the staff was too funny. Not many white folk roll through Igunga so the girls working at the restaurant were all about playing with my hair, looking at my bracelets, practicing my Swahili. Good trip to the field and Igunga is definitely the success story of TEACH. In process of writing up a report and website touches are coming to a close soon! Exciting stuff.
Boarded my last long bus ride early Friday morning. It was a much nicer bus which made the dreadful hours to Dodoma more manageable. Saw my buddies at the bus stand in Dodoma for a brief minute and then proceeded to Dar. All day bus ride, but last one while I’m here! I don’t have to go back to the Ubungo bus terminal ever again… which is a big relief because that place is insane and always puts me in a bad mood.
1 June (WHAAT?! When did that happen??)
Saturday morning I hit the ground running! Did my last load of laundry (I think), found the internet, met some friends to go to Kariakoo to do some fabric shopping, headed back to the house for a quick bit and to pack up before heading to Kigamboni (the beach) to celebrate Bronwen’s last weekend in Tanzania. The trip to Kigamboni is usually not so pleasant and takes forever, but we lucked out with hardly any traffic and because we took off running for two or three blocks, we made it on a ferry that was leaving immediately. Funny site to see four white girls hauling it through downtown Dar, but it was well worth the sprint.
Returned earlier than expected on Sunday because the weather decided to be cloudy on the beach, but glaring sun in downtown city center. Who would’ve thought. It allowed us to get some small things done and then go out for some live music and dancing that night! On a Sunday night! Definitely a blast and the last time I’d see one of my friends until who knows when. Fun night but causing for a long Monday…
All in all, everything is going well. Loads to do in a little bit of time. Running for now and can expect to hit the ground running upon return. Not sure if this is my last entry before returning to the States… and not sure if I want to admit it. My flight is June 9. This day has been so far away for so long, I almost thought it was a joke. Not funny anymore! Enjoy the pictures that will be up soon. Most of them are Hallie's due to my camera problems. Boo hiss on technology all around.
I’m not sure how many times in this blog that I’ve said this… well, actually typed it, but I must say it a million times: I have no idea where to begin, which is always silly because then I proceed to start from the beginning, or the closest event to the beginning. I last left with complaining about being a white girl in Tanzania… and then complaining about traveling with large groups of azungu in dust bowl Dodoma. I promise this entry is more upbeat!!
Crazy week of running around and only one funny story to report before I dive into explaining my last minute decision to loop through middle of nowhere Tanzania. I think it’s safe to say I spend a large majority of my time in, around, or passing through Mwenge. One day, I stopped for a particularly long amount of time to greet some folks when a van of old, fat Middle Eastern dudes roll out. I didn’t bother paying much attention to them, it’s quite often that big groups in big vans are dumped on the sidewalk of Mwenge and then ushered back into the big van after they buy their souvenirs. These guys were certainly no different except three of them had the brilliant idea of sauntering over to me, interrupting my conversation with my Mwenge boys, to ask if they could take a picture with me. I looked at my friends, they looked at me, we looked at them, they looked at us, I looked back at them, before then staring them down to inquire why exactly they’d want to take my picture. The dialogue went a little something like this:
“Hello, can we take your picture?”
“Do what?”
“Take picture, you know…” (then holds up the camera as if I didn’t understand)
“Uh, yeah, I get it. Why?”
“Because!” (put in your head the best three year old baby talk with Middle Eastern older deep man voice accent)
“Really? Because why?”
“Because we’re nice people.”
“No, you’re chauvinist pigs that think I’m an object you can possess.” ::awkward silence perhaps due to language barrier to translate “chauvinist” and “pig” or shock that I said no:: “The answer is no.”
One of them started to protest but luckily one of his buddies thought better than probing at me any longer and guided the three away. My Mwenge boys shook their heads and laughed. No need for them to ask what “chauvinist” means; that was already an English lesson.
Moving on…
Iriniga!!! Just about my favorite place in Tanzania. The only thing that is lacking is the beach. The mountains, comfortable weather, and lack of hassling make up for it though. The main highlights:
-Hole in the wall restaurant/guest house that has an “Alice in Wonderland” themed garden. Alright, so it wasn’t straight out mad hatters, rabbits, and Cheshire cats BUT it was a crazy garden with loads of colorful flowers and verandahs covered in vines that happened to be deep behind a block of buildings. Nothing spectacular about the food or service, but a pleasant evening under vines with Safari Lagers.
-Neema Craft Workshop, along with other fantastic markets ideal for shopping. The Neema Craft Workshop is the brain child of an organization dedicated to helping disabled children and adults living in Iringa. All of the products sold in the shop are hand crafted by those with disabilities. The profit of goods goes back to the organization to purchase supplies for crafts as well as improving the quality of life for their workers, i.e. hand steered bicycles, medicines, doctor visits, etc. We went crazy in there and then continued our shopping spree into the local market to find spices, baskets, loofahs, wooden spoons, jewelry, bags, etc. Cheaper prices than Dar and less hectic. Fun day, for sure.
-Riding 20km to Isimila to find Stone Age tools and canyon towers that have withstood erosion for something like 6,000 years. The ride there was slightly scarier than the one in Mbeya because we were on the main road with large vehicles zipping past us (6 female azungu). Nonetheless, we arrived to be greeted by loads of children ready to walk our bikes the last kilometer down to the site. Smart little buggers, of course a tip was in order for their services. The tools were incredible. Really puts human existence on a crazy scale. After playing with the rocks, we went on a quick walk through the canyon which was similarly spectacular. Lisa and I accidentally chose an alternative path to get back to the main center which lead to a dead end of canyon towers and no group. No worries, let me pull out my handy dandy mobile phone. Surprise- no service. We laugh it off a bit then back track to find the right path where we shortly found Emmanuel, our guide, and the rest of the group. He then proceeded to tell us they lost a German grandma for about four hours one time. At least we were only gone for maybe ten minutes. Realizing the sun was on its decline and we were still twenty kilometers from Iringa, I volunteered to wave down a truck so we could hitch a ride back. Group was a bit hesitant at first, then a few cars went past, and then we full heartedly decided that it’d be better to catch a ride than try to bike it (not to mention the last two kilometers to Iringa is up a mountain). I hailed down a truck carrying sand and they died laughing when I began negotiating a ride back to Iringa. They loaded our bikes up and the six of us arranged ourselves in the back. I’m sure we gave everyone a huge laugh- in the early afternoon, six azungu girls ride by on bikes laughing, chatting, and taking pictures… then in the later afternoon, six azungu girls zoom past in the back of a truck, laughing, chatting, and taking pictures.
All in all, Iringa was a success of traveling in a large group. On Sunday, we took off on buses. Due to my previous three attempts to see African rock paintings, I was bound and determined to do it by myself. It was quite the adventure of jumping buses, dirty hostels, motorcycle rides, and some of the worst roads ever. The rest of the girls went all the way back to Dar while I jumped off at Morogoro, which has now ranked as my least favorite place in Tanzania. I feel like such a brat saying that I don’t like places here, but some towns here- man. I arrived in Morogoro to hop on a bus to get to Dodoma. I had twenty minutes before the next few buses heading to Dodoma would be passing through. Great. Now it was time to find a legit bus with someone who wasn’t trying to rip me off. That took about thirty minutes, meaning I had one last chance to hop on the very last bus that would be going to Dodoma that day. I had to pay the equivalent of $5 to stand on a crammed bus, complete with chickens, goats, and crying babies. Only had to stand for two or so hours before someone was dropped off and I could slip into their window seat. Arrived in Dodoma around 9pm to take a cab to the guest house we stayed in the weekend before to find it totally booked. The reception man assured me it was fine to walk with all my belongings through the streets of Dodoma to the next guest house, which happened to be that Lutheran church one that says “BROTHEL SEXUAL INTERCOURSE NOT APPLY.” Dirt cheap for a dirty hostel. Skipped out of Dodoma around 5:30am, northbound for Kondoa. Dusty rough road for three hours to arrive in Kondoa, a quaint little town in the absolute middle of nowhere. The next bus to Kolo (village closest to rock paintings) didn’t leave until noon, so I found a cleaner bathroom than my previous hostel to wash up in and then made some friends at the bus stand, which came in handy later the next day- I’ll get to that in a minute.
I sat next to a cute old man on the way to Kolo. He happened to live in Kolo and ended up offering his daughter-in-law’s house for me to stay in. His son was off in Dodoma doing some business and he assured me that it would be more than fine for him to dump me without notice onto Mama Allee. Indeed, it was no problem and Mama Allee warmly welcomed me into her home. She then took me to the Antiquities Department to find me a guide and a ride to the rock paintings, which was a treat because she definitely hooked me up with the non-tourist price. Maulid was my guide and a few hours before sunset, we took off on a motorcycle on my first frightening ride up rocky, dusty roads (if you can even call them roads). Got to a point where the motorcycle could go no further, so we trekked a little bit more up the mountain, and all of a sudden, he pointed to a large rock face of a cave, and BAM- there were the 6,000+ year old rock paintings. SO COOL!! He took me to three different sites and each represented different ceremonial grounds. One was simply a cave where they decided to record everyday life, such as hunting, evolving from wearing bark to animal fur, developing traps, etc. Another cave was dedicated to ceremonies revolving around successful hunts. The other cave was specifically used for rain prayers. Well, this is all what different experts in anthropology, archaeology, etc have said, in particular Mary Leaky, who Maulid had the honor of working with on two occasions. How crazy is that?! The pictures do some justice, but you’ll have to check them out for yourselves to really see the details. It’s incredible to think how long the paint has endured- animal fat, tree sap, and ochre. And the rock faces are in the sun all day long. It’s wild. It was perfect to be the only one out there AND a great opportunity for me to put to use Swahili vocabulary words that I never really thought I’d ever use (such as ceremony, sacrifice, stretcher- just to name a few). Oh, that was the other fun fact, Maulid was under the impression that his English was worse than my Swahili so he insisted on a Swahili tour. Whew. Think I got it all which was a nice personal boost.
Had dinner in Mama Allee’s small shop where I saw the cute old man again, whose name I never did get. What a woman. Sadly no photos because she’s against it. Pole (sorry). Her children were put to bed, she insisted on me bathing, and then we discussed how I’d be leaving Kolo the next morning. She assured me that there was a bus that would leave at 4am and it’d be no problem to catch. I get to bed early knowing I’d be waking in a few hours. Around 3:50, I’m about to slip out the door when Mama Allee pops her head out to inform me that the bus came through at 3am that morning. Uhh ok? What to do now? She hops to action by calling her “uncle,” who I’m not sure if it’s a cousin, brother, or actual uncle, to come with his motorcycle to rush me the 20 kilometers on a short cut into Kondoa so I can catch the morning bus. I’m doing my best to reject the offer, but no way Jose. Mama Allee wasn’t having any of it. So ‘Peta’ the ‘uncle’ arrives in the next few minutes and off we go (‘Peta’ is the name he told me because his Swahili name is near impossible to pronounce but it was funny because he pronounced Peter Swahili style and then spelled it out for me- “Pee-tah: P-E-T-A”). I thought the ride up the mountain the day before was terrifying, but I had no idea what was coming that morning. He assured me that there were no more lions around the village, but they’ve been having problems of late with hyenas. Oh great, here’s when little white girl and Peta disappear in middle of nowhere before sunrise because hyenas pounce on us. Someone was looking out for us and we made it to Kondoa without any problems. Gave Peta a few shillings for gas and then started to figure out how to get from Kondoa back to Dodoma. Turns out there was never a morning bus that day, so I’m not sure what Mama Allee heard, but that meant I had to wait around until 11 or so before the next bus would take off for Dodoma. Great, it was 6:30. How to kill hours in a town that’s no bigger than 2 kilometers? Find the few friends I had made the day before, drank some chai, and had more first full blown in detail political conversation in Kiswahili! That was a big step.
Miserable bus ride back to Dodoma with crying babies, squawking chickens, and no leg room. Arrive in Dodoma to find that there is a bus heading to Igunga (where I’d be doing field work with TEACH before going back to Dar). Awesome! Don’t have to spend any more time in Dodoma. I had about forty minutes, so I ran around to grab some infamous Dodoma wine and grab some money from an ATM (which will be my last withdrawal while I’m here- crazy!). Rush back to the bus stand to then wait for two and a half hours. In the meantime, I made more friends in the bus stand and instead of having a political discussion, we talked about culture and relationships. We covered a lot of ground, but here’s my favorite little racy excerpt. One of the guys was under the impression that in order for your wife to have a boy, you would have to go fast and hard, but if you wanted a girl, you needed to be slow and gentle. Ahem. I laughed in his face, but it was almost a little insensitive because he was sincere so I back tracked a bit, but still, good laugh for all. Also, I learned how to play checkers Tanzanian style, which I didn’t even know was different. They definitely redeemed my opinion of Dodoma and hooked me up with chapati and juice when I rolled through on my way back from Igunga to Dar.
Journey to Igunga. Soo after waiting for this bus for two and half hours, it arrives and is packed. I slip into an aisle seat second row to the back. They crammed so many extra seats in that there was literally negative leg room. I tried focusing on how stunning the Dodoma sunset was over hundreds of rock kopjes, but it wasn’t distracting enough. After thirty minutes, the man I was sitting next to got off and no one wanted sit next to me, so I had some more room to spread out. About thirty minutes after that, the road went from mediocre to terrible. Plenty of times I caught air from being bounced around in the back. The window behind me kept slipping open, making the ride freezing and even more bewildering. I just kept telling myself only four hours to get to Igunga, don’t worry, almost done, you’ve been through worse. The pep talks only went so far, especially once the bus stopped at 12am on the side of the road because it’s illegal to drive buses from 12am-3am in Tanzania. Obviously those are the more dangerous hours- not 11:30, not 3:30. Whatever. We hadn’t arrived in Igunga yet, so I had to try to catch some shut eye on this miserable bus. We get moving again around 3am so after a groggy three hours of almost sleeping, we proceed to get bounced around some more. I get dropped off in Igunga, a small town in the middle of nowhere, at 5:30am. What am I going to do at 5:30am? Have no idea what hotel they booked for me and I wasn’t about to call up the coordinator that early to come save me. I stumble into the nearest guest house to see if I can grab a room for only a few hours. They said they were all booked, but the Maasai guardsman overheard our conversation and offered his room since he wouldn’t be using it until after 9am. So I crashed in Michael the Maasai’s room until about 7:30am when I decided it’d be an alright hour to contact the district coordinator. Room smelled like spices and I found a large knife under the mattress. Put my kanga over his sheets and pillow because who knows what’s been living in his rastas. Slept for a few hours and then found a place to drink about five cups of black tea to stimulate my brain. Full two days in the field of interviews and photo taking. The hotel was nicer than the guest house and the staff was too funny. Not many white folk roll through Igunga so the girls working at the restaurant were all about playing with my hair, looking at my bracelets, practicing my Swahili. Good trip to the field and Igunga is definitely the success story of TEACH. In process of writing up a report and website touches are coming to a close soon! Exciting stuff.
Boarded my last long bus ride early Friday morning. It was a much nicer bus which made the dreadful hours to Dodoma more manageable. Saw my buddies at the bus stand in Dodoma for a brief minute and then proceeded to Dar. All day bus ride, but last one while I’m here! I don’t have to go back to the Ubungo bus terminal ever again… which is a big relief because that place is insane and always puts me in a bad mood.
1 June (WHAAT?! When did that happen??)
Saturday morning I hit the ground running! Did my last load of laundry (I think), found the internet, met some friends to go to Kariakoo to do some fabric shopping, headed back to the house for a quick bit and to pack up before heading to Kigamboni (the beach) to celebrate Bronwen’s last weekend in Tanzania. The trip to Kigamboni is usually not so pleasant and takes forever, but we lucked out with hardly any traffic and because we took off running for two or three blocks, we made it on a ferry that was leaving immediately. Funny site to see four white girls hauling it through downtown Dar, but it was well worth the sprint.
Returned earlier than expected on Sunday because the weather decided to be cloudy on the beach, but glaring sun in downtown city center. Who would’ve thought. It allowed us to get some small things done and then go out for some live music and dancing that night! On a Sunday night! Definitely a blast and the last time I’d see one of my friends until who knows when. Fun night but causing for a long Monday…
All in all, everything is going well. Loads to do in a little bit of time. Running for now and can expect to hit the ground running upon return. Not sure if this is my last entry before returning to the States… and not sure if I want to admit it. My flight is June 9. This day has been so far away for so long, I almost thought it was a joke. Not funny anymore! Enjoy the pictures that will be up soon. Most of them are Hallie's due to my camera problems. Boo hiss on technology all around.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Dodoma and daladalas
17 May
Dodoma adventure. Mm. Well. Not quite what was expected and pretty much a waste of a weekend, but not a real waste because there was some quality time spent with some great people, but the main reason to go to Dodoma was the find rock paintings… and we didn’t find them. Which must be some sort of sign because I’ve been trying to see rock paintings for the solid past four months or so… Namibia, Botswana, and now Tanzania. Certainly not meant to be, but I’m thinking I’m going to give it one more attempt next week sometime. I’ll get to that in a minute.
Traveled with four other international students to meet up with another one of our friends’ from campus who is doing research with a friend of hers from her home university. So… in short- a total of eight azungu in the capital city of Tanzania. It’s not my favorite thing to do in the world… as in, travel in large groups, mostly because it means a lot of talking, planning, slow action, hard logistics of keeping everyone happy, etc. This is also the source of not making it to the rock paintings because after a few hours of trying to figure out transport to middle of nowhere, the group decided we should skip the rock paintings and see what Dodoma has to offer. Nothing. It’s a dust bowl run down city in the dead center of Tanzania that’s a physical reminder that Nyerere’s socialist policies are scrapping by miserably with the same political party’s ‘ideology’ that’s now turned a new page to corruption. There’s a large church looking structure that’s actually a mosque… and right across the street, there’s a mosque looking building that’s a church. Whaat? Everything just about closes after 7pm. Few cars, but loads of bicycles. There were a handful of close calls to getting run over. Dodoma is home of the Gogo tribe, who are a notoriously musical tribe and invented the infamously Tanzanian ‘marimba ya mkono’ (hand instrument), but didn’t see any live music either.
However, we did visit University of Dodoma to see some mutual friends, climb an anti-climatic boulder to see Dodoma’s dust bowl, and make it out to the only club in town though on Saturday night after sampling a few of the local wines. Typical Tanzania club, loads of Bongo Flava music, awkward couples, and a handful of rocking dancers. The wine part of the evening was more interesting. Since we couldn’t find the vineyards to do a proper tasting, we decided to do it ourselves. One of the girls crafted classy wine glasses from cutting empty water bottles in half and we supplemented our taste buds with an assortment of chili chips, bagia (fried dough of sorts), and an overly ripe avocado. My previous experiences with Tanzanian wine have been short of disaster, but we were all pleasantly surprised that TZ is capable of producing yummy vino. This is apparently a recent phenomenon, because the guide book says, and I quote, “At the posher places, do sample the region’s wine, an ‘art’ first introduced by Italian missionaries a century ago. Something must have been lost in translation, as the output from Dodoma-based Tanganika Vineyards is so bad that it’s probably best left for those with a solid sense of humor (and stomach).” Yeah. We found a newer company and they must have figured out the proper translation.
Other fun facts about Dodoma- Nyerere declared it the capital because he wanted the capital to be in the center of the country, to go along with his socialist ujumaa agricultural farming policies. There are a few buildings, but no important government actions take place there. Also, most of the hostels and guest houses openly advertise that they do not accept “short” stays, insinuating prostitution. Didn’t see any flagrant prostitution, but mildly (sadistically) comical that it’s advertised in the capital city, where government officials occasionally do have to visit. They have a huge water disparity, even though it’s a city, and it’s a continuous problem year after year.
Not a bad bus ride and nothing spectacularly good or bad particularly happened. I suppose I spent most of Saturday and the bus ride home silently sulking about missing the rock paintings, but even if I hadn’t been in a sullen mood, Dodoma still isn’t a very happening place. Solution for an attitude adjustment- heading to Iringa this weekend which is described as a happening city, make my way back to Dodoma to keep heading north to find rock paintings, then continue north to meet Hallie in Arusha the next weekend. It’s a straight shot from Iringa to Arusha so why come back to Dar for three days between trips? That will leave a final week of class and a grand finale weekend in Zanzibar. No more weekends in Dar which I’m feeling a bit sad about, but I think it’s mostly a general feeling of leaving-sadness, and it also means I’ve only spent two weekends in Dar since coming back in April. Man. Time flies.
Finished The Nine which keeps me teetering on the idea of law school, but solidifies my mind to know I would never, ever want to be a judge. On to my last book which is another Vonnegut- Canary in a Cat House. Oh, my Swahili teacher also lent me a children’s book of short stories that I cracked on the bus and a little girl read over my shoulder for the majority of the ride. This week is my goal to complete a Swahili newspaper.
So that’s that. Dodoma was a letdown, but inspiration for something else. Another busy week around the city!
18 May
Two things.
One, just need to take a minute to say how impressed I am about some of the discussions that pass through Mwenge. Tonight’s lesson started with how they would like to see Tanzanian taxpayer ‘shillings’ spent on governmental incentives. Alright, wood carvers! Bring it on. The conversation quickly put up the questioning elections, which then prompted- would Tanzanians rather have a corrupt government and peaceful nation OR a violent nation revolting against the corrupt government with violence to satisfy justice? Typical Tanzania- they said they’d rather have a corrupt government and peaceful nation complaining about the corruption. Go figure.
Two, daladala drama today. I hopped on before the dala reached the final “terminal” and paid that conductor my 250 shillings (25 cents). He took this as my payment to go to the terminal, which was less than a quarter of a mile, and expected me to pay another 250 shillings to go back for a full 500 shillings (50 cents). No way Jose! Here comes my first public argument in Swahili! Worked out in my favor and I didn’t have to pay, since an elder joined my cause and finally one of the other Tanzanian females who jumped on where I did spoke up to say she only paid 250 shillings total (typical Tanzania- avoid confrontation and don’t involve yourself). At that point, it wasn’t a matter of whether I was capable of coughing up another quarter, it was more the fact that I was the token white girl on the bus and the conductor was going to try to rip me off. The entire daladala was rolling and I’m going to check the correctness of my Swahili with my professor today soo we’ll see if they were laughing because I was grammatically incorrect or if it was simply a blonde white girl and a Tanzanian conductor rambling in Swahili. Probably a combination.
Ah, everyday interactions in Dar es Salaam. Gotta love it, otherwise, I’d spend my entire time here crying or fuming.
Dodoma adventure. Mm. Well. Not quite what was expected and pretty much a waste of a weekend, but not a real waste because there was some quality time spent with some great people, but the main reason to go to Dodoma was the find rock paintings… and we didn’t find them. Which must be some sort of sign because I’ve been trying to see rock paintings for the solid past four months or so… Namibia, Botswana, and now Tanzania. Certainly not meant to be, but I’m thinking I’m going to give it one more attempt next week sometime. I’ll get to that in a minute.
Traveled with four other international students to meet up with another one of our friends’ from campus who is doing research with a friend of hers from her home university. So… in short- a total of eight azungu in the capital city of Tanzania. It’s not my favorite thing to do in the world… as in, travel in large groups, mostly because it means a lot of talking, planning, slow action, hard logistics of keeping everyone happy, etc. This is also the source of not making it to the rock paintings because after a few hours of trying to figure out transport to middle of nowhere, the group decided we should skip the rock paintings and see what Dodoma has to offer. Nothing. It’s a dust bowl run down city in the dead center of Tanzania that’s a physical reminder that Nyerere’s socialist policies are scrapping by miserably with the same political party’s ‘ideology’ that’s now turned a new page to corruption. There’s a large church looking structure that’s actually a mosque… and right across the street, there’s a mosque looking building that’s a church. Whaat? Everything just about closes after 7pm. Few cars, but loads of bicycles. There were a handful of close calls to getting run over. Dodoma is home of the Gogo tribe, who are a notoriously musical tribe and invented the infamously Tanzanian ‘marimba ya mkono’ (hand instrument), but didn’t see any live music either.
However, we did visit University of Dodoma to see some mutual friends, climb an anti-climatic boulder to see Dodoma’s dust bowl, and make it out to the only club in town though on Saturday night after sampling a few of the local wines. Typical Tanzania club, loads of Bongo Flava music, awkward couples, and a handful of rocking dancers. The wine part of the evening was more interesting. Since we couldn’t find the vineyards to do a proper tasting, we decided to do it ourselves. One of the girls crafted classy wine glasses from cutting empty water bottles in half and we supplemented our taste buds with an assortment of chili chips, bagia (fried dough of sorts), and an overly ripe avocado. My previous experiences with Tanzanian wine have been short of disaster, but we were all pleasantly surprised that TZ is capable of producing yummy vino. This is apparently a recent phenomenon, because the guide book says, and I quote, “At the posher places, do sample the region’s wine, an ‘art’ first introduced by Italian missionaries a century ago. Something must have been lost in translation, as the output from Dodoma-based Tanganika Vineyards is so bad that it’s probably best left for those with a solid sense of humor (and stomach).” Yeah. We found a newer company and they must have figured out the proper translation.
Other fun facts about Dodoma- Nyerere declared it the capital because he wanted the capital to be in the center of the country, to go along with his socialist ujumaa agricultural farming policies. There are a few buildings, but no important government actions take place there. Also, most of the hostels and guest houses openly advertise that they do not accept “short” stays, insinuating prostitution. Didn’t see any flagrant prostitution, but mildly (sadistically) comical that it’s advertised in the capital city, where government officials occasionally do have to visit. They have a huge water disparity, even though it’s a city, and it’s a continuous problem year after year.
Not a bad bus ride and nothing spectacularly good or bad particularly happened. I suppose I spent most of Saturday and the bus ride home silently sulking about missing the rock paintings, but even if I hadn’t been in a sullen mood, Dodoma still isn’t a very happening place. Solution for an attitude adjustment- heading to Iringa this weekend which is described as a happening city, make my way back to Dodoma to keep heading north to find rock paintings, then continue north to meet Hallie in Arusha the next weekend. It’s a straight shot from Iringa to Arusha so why come back to Dar for three days between trips? That will leave a final week of class and a grand finale weekend in Zanzibar. No more weekends in Dar which I’m feeling a bit sad about, but I think it’s mostly a general feeling of leaving-sadness, and it also means I’ve only spent two weekends in Dar since coming back in April. Man. Time flies.
Finished The Nine which keeps me teetering on the idea of law school, but solidifies my mind to know I would never, ever want to be a judge. On to my last book which is another Vonnegut- Canary in a Cat House. Oh, my Swahili teacher also lent me a children’s book of short stories that I cracked on the bus and a little girl read over my shoulder for the majority of the ride. This week is my goal to complete a Swahili newspaper.
So that’s that. Dodoma was a letdown, but inspiration for something else. Another busy week around the city!
18 May
Two things.
One, just need to take a minute to say how impressed I am about some of the discussions that pass through Mwenge. Tonight’s lesson started with how they would like to see Tanzanian taxpayer ‘shillings’ spent on governmental incentives. Alright, wood carvers! Bring it on. The conversation quickly put up the questioning elections, which then prompted- would Tanzanians rather have a corrupt government and peaceful nation OR a violent nation revolting against the corrupt government with violence to satisfy justice? Typical Tanzania- they said they’d rather have a corrupt government and peaceful nation complaining about the corruption. Go figure.
Two, daladala drama today. I hopped on before the dala reached the final “terminal” and paid that conductor my 250 shillings (25 cents). He took this as my payment to go to the terminal, which was less than a quarter of a mile, and expected me to pay another 250 shillings to go back for a full 500 shillings (50 cents). No way Jose! Here comes my first public argument in Swahili! Worked out in my favor and I didn’t have to pay, since an elder joined my cause and finally one of the other Tanzanian females who jumped on where I did spoke up to say she only paid 250 shillings total (typical Tanzania- avoid confrontation and don’t involve yourself). At that point, it wasn’t a matter of whether I was capable of coughing up another quarter, it was more the fact that I was the token white girl on the bus and the conductor was going to try to rip me off. The entire daladala was rolling and I’m going to check the correctness of my Swahili with my professor today soo we’ll see if they were laughing because I was grammatically incorrect or if it was simply a blonde white girl and a Tanzanian conductor rambling in Swahili. Probably a combination.
Ah, everyday interactions in Dar es Salaam. Gotta love it, otherwise, I’d spend my entire time here crying or fuming.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Slum towns and giraffe kisses
10 May
Surprise! Took off for Nairobi on an extremely short notice… as in decided around 4:30pm on Wednesday and left at 5:30am on Thursday. Well, I was supposed to leave at 6am, which turned into 8:30am and a very irritated mzungu (white person) incident with the guy who sold me a wrong ticket. Let’s just say I can now be loudly upset in comprehensibly Swahili. Doubt that’s what my scholarship had in mind either, but that’s where I am! Reporting back to my Swahili professor resulted in a dropped jaw and laughing smile. Regardless, yelling didn’t make me feel better, it didn’t change my ticket, but the conductors of the other bus didn’t bother me and made sure I was alright for the rest of the time. Sat next to a cool Ugandan guy who I thought was going to be miserable, but turned out to be awesome. Always a nice surprise, especially from an African male circa my age. Plus, he got ripped off too, and he doesn’t know much Swahili. Swahili has become the “poor” language of Uganda… or only used in the military. Two statuses that are not highly desired in society. Also, he’s one of the first few Africans that I’ve encountered that will talk openly about controversy as it is. We talked about everything- national policies, sex, marital rape- and well, rape in general, HIV/AIDS, domestic violence, child soldiers, neo-colonialism, switching of languages, etc. Definitely made the crammed crap bus a much more pleasant experience.
17 hours later, we arrived in Nairobi! Also known as Nairobbery. No robberies or rapes or scary moments in the least. Absolutely loved the city actually. It was an African city, run by Kenyans, and everyone was moving and grooving. No time to greet each other and things seem to run more like a Western city. The minibuses have limits on the amount of people that can board and people pay attention to stop lights. There are loads of delicious coffee shops and get this- you can get it in to-go cups! Haven’t seen that in ages. There are loads of parks, too. Mostly, I wound up walking around the city which was great.
Ventured to Kibera, the largest slum in East Africa- second largest in all of Africa to Soweto in South Africa… but after visiting the two, Kibera is definitely in worst conditions, in a smaller area, and growing rapidly. Something like 1.2 million people are squeezed into a dip of a valley that was originally a forest a few decades ago. The colonists shoved the leftover army there until they could figure out what to do with them, but instead of relocating them, the “leftovers,” if you will, set up shop there and it’s now its own metropolitan. Didn’t seem right to photo document my walk, but it was intense. Mud huts, tin roofs, piles of trash tall as two story buildings, children painfully excreting liquid within feet of the “illegal” water source, drunks passed out drooling in ditches outside stores, pirated CDs and DVDs, fish drying with thousands of flies swarming, makeshift farms, “keep peace” and “wanted peace alive” painted on sides of buildings, flashy shirt logos like “Chicks Rule” and “I’m a keeper” strolled by. Oh yeah, remember all that mayhem January last year with the elections? Kibera was the host of the rioting for their “justice.” It included them tearing up the railway which was disposed on the side and is now also decaying like most everything else in the slum. Talked to some local Kenyans about their feelings towards Kibera and they think it’s a disgrace to Nairobi. They think people in the bush have figured out subsistence more than the generations thriving in Kibera. One woman in particular thought international aid was just adding to the sustainability of the area, rather than focusing on re-locating the people in properly developed parts of the city. She was also quite vocal about her confusion of why Ugandans and Tanzanians loathe Kenya. She’s under the impression that it’s because Kenya actually does work on a semi-fast schedule and there’s more accountability. However, if you ask any Kibera resident what they thought of it- they’d have quite the opposite opinion. One of the guys that walked with me told me that sure, he didn’t think it was the prettiest place to live, but that it’s “the beating heart of Nairobi.”
Giraffes! Alright, so extremely touristy, but let’s not try to kid, yes, I am a tourist. Went to the giraffe center where you can feed, try to grab a feel, and steal kisses these giraffes. Didn’t capture my first giraffe kiss on film, but I’ve got a feeling it’s not worth publishing. Probably not the prettiest moment, but a funny experience all the same. Amazing creatures. Thought of Hugh the whole time!
Stayed in a great backpacker’s fairly close to city center. Met some more excellent people from all over the place, that have been all over the place, and that are going all over the place. Had a blast with them and it was cool to have someone that knew the downtown scene to kinda show us where to go. Not sure of names of places, but the night life wasn’t as intimidating as I had imagined or been frightened into imagining. Infinitely jealous of some of their stories and wishing I could keep floating. One guy had started on a six month trek from Cairo to Cape Town… now, five years later, he is flying home for a two week visit before moving back to Uganda for a job. One girl just spent two months in India and now is here to meet a child she’s been sponsoring for the past five years or something. Two Spanish women have been hopping hostel to hostel offering to re-paint for basically free if they can stay and eat for free. Ah, if only…
The whole point of my trip was to return Outback Orange, the infamous tent, to its rightful owner, Joe… who was living in Dar es Salaam last semester, left Bronwen and me early to move to Zanzibar, but is now doing research in Nairobi. The one week he’s out of town is the one weekend my classes are canceled and I have beaucoups of time to travel. Of course. Glad I went anyway, but I’m sure it would’ve been cooler to chill with him. Plus, we just have tons of general catching up to do. Another time I suppose! I can definitely understand why he chose to move there instead of sticking around Dar, though.
Interesting note on Kenya Swahili… it’s basically a different language. Not to mention, the new up and coming language called “Shang” is more widely used among my “peer” group, which is a combination of traditional Bantu languages, Swahili, English, and who knows what. Wild. But, to get around Nairobi, you don’t need Swahili. Everyone speaks English… and when they say that, they actually mean it.
Nice to be home and Hallie had a rocking weekend holding down the fort here, too. Yeah, it was a bummer to not be in Zanzi, but soon enough! Hallie’s legal papers didn’t make it through in time soo we’ll head my last weekend in Tanzania to dance around bonfires and howl at the moon. This weekend we’re for sure heading to Dodoma. Don’t worry, there will be adventures in between and I’ll keep you posted. This week will be full of Swahili and orchestrating another trip to the field with TEACH.
More pictures soon enough… and yeah, the ones from my southern loop, too. It’s coming…
Also, it’s official. 30 days. This time next month, I will have two feet in the United States. I’m trying my best not to count because it makes me sad, but every time I see the date (which mind you, isn’t that often), my head automatically reels to calculate the days.
Oh yeah, two more books to add to the finished list: Shadow of the Silk Road by Colin Thubron (fantastic, but overloaded with big words) and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut (absolutely loved). Moved on to The Nine- Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffery Toobin (which yeah, sounds like a bore but is fairly fascinating). The one on the Silk Road just makes me want to take off to Asia and Vonnegut is always a comically cynical perspective of what I’ll come back to in the US. Crazy contrast from daydreaming out the bus window while zooming around Tanzania countryside to being buried in a book transporting me somewhere completely different, then glancing up to be completely entranced by Tanzania again. I’ve done that stretch something like four times at this point, but it hasn’t gotten old yet. Sitting for 12+ hours, yes, very old. I think I’m ready to forfeit my days of day-long bus rides for a bit. Tanzania though? Nope, not old yet.
Surprise! Took off for Nairobi on an extremely short notice… as in decided around 4:30pm on Wednesday and left at 5:30am on Thursday. Well, I was supposed to leave at 6am, which turned into 8:30am and a very irritated mzungu (white person) incident with the guy who sold me a wrong ticket. Let’s just say I can now be loudly upset in comprehensibly Swahili. Doubt that’s what my scholarship had in mind either, but that’s where I am! Reporting back to my Swahili professor resulted in a dropped jaw and laughing smile. Regardless, yelling didn’t make me feel better, it didn’t change my ticket, but the conductors of the other bus didn’t bother me and made sure I was alright for the rest of the time. Sat next to a cool Ugandan guy who I thought was going to be miserable, but turned out to be awesome. Always a nice surprise, especially from an African male circa my age. Plus, he got ripped off too, and he doesn’t know much Swahili. Swahili has become the “poor” language of Uganda… or only used in the military. Two statuses that are not highly desired in society. Also, he’s one of the first few Africans that I’ve encountered that will talk openly about controversy as it is. We talked about everything- national policies, sex, marital rape- and well, rape in general, HIV/AIDS, domestic violence, child soldiers, neo-colonialism, switching of languages, etc. Definitely made the crammed crap bus a much more pleasant experience.
17 hours later, we arrived in Nairobi! Also known as Nairobbery. No robberies or rapes or scary moments in the least. Absolutely loved the city actually. It was an African city, run by Kenyans, and everyone was moving and grooving. No time to greet each other and things seem to run more like a Western city. The minibuses have limits on the amount of people that can board and people pay attention to stop lights. There are loads of delicious coffee shops and get this- you can get it in to-go cups! Haven’t seen that in ages. There are loads of parks, too. Mostly, I wound up walking around the city which was great.
Ventured to Kibera, the largest slum in East Africa- second largest in all of Africa to Soweto in South Africa… but after visiting the two, Kibera is definitely in worst conditions, in a smaller area, and growing rapidly. Something like 1.2 million people are squeezed into a dip of a valley that was originally a forest a few decades ago. The colonists shoved the leftover army there until they could figure out what to do with them, but instead of relocating them, the “leftovers,” if you will, set up shop there and it’s now its own metropolitan. Didn’t seem right to photo document my walk, but it was intense. Mud huts, tin roofs, piles of trash tall as two story buildings, children painfully excreting liquid within feet of the “illegal” water source, drunks passed out drooling in ditches outside stores, pirated CDs and DVDs, fish drying with thousands of flies swarming, makeshift farms, “keep peace” and “wanted peace alive” painted on sides of buildings, flashy shirt logos like “Chicks Rule” and “I’m a keeper” strolled by. Oh yeah, remember all that mayhem January last year with the elections? Kibera was the host of the rioting for their “justice.” It included them tearing up the railway which was disposed on the side and is now also decaying like most everything else in the slum. Talked to some local Kenyans about their feelings towards Kibera and they think it’s a disgrace to Nairobi. They think people in the bush have figured out subsistence more than the generations thriving in Kibera. One woman in particular thought international aid was just adding to the sustainability of the area, rather than focusing on re-locating the people in properly developed parts of the city. She was also quite vocal about her confusion of why Ugandans and Tanzanians loathe Kenya. She’s under the impression that it’s because Kenya actually does work on a semi-fast schedule and there’s more accountability. However, if you ask any Kibera resident what they thought of it- they’d have quite the opposite opinion. One of the guys that walked with me told me that sure, he didn’t think it was the prettiest place to live, but that it’s “the beating heart of Nairobi.”
Giraffes! Alright, so extremely touristy, but let’s not try to kid, yes, I am a tourist. Went to the giraffe center where you can feed, try to grab a feel, and steal kisses these giraffes. Didn’t capture my first giraffe kiss on film, but I’ve got a feeling it’s not worth publishing. Probably not the prettiest moment, but a funny experience all the same. Amazing creatures. Thought of Hugh the whole time!
Stayed in a great backpacker’s fairly close to city center. Met some more excellent people from all over the place, that have been all over the place, and that are going all over the place. Had a blast with them and it was cool to have someone that knew the downtown scene to kinda show us where to go. Not sure of names of places, but the night life wasn’t as intimidating as I had imagined or been frightened into imagining. Infinitely jealous of some of their stories and wishing I could keep floating. One guy had started on a six month trek from Cairo to Cape Town… now, five years later, he is flying home for a two week visit before moving back to Uganda for a job. One girl just spent two months in India and now is here to meet a child she’s been sponsoring for the past five years or something. Two Spanish women have been hopping hostel to hostel offering to re-paint for basically free if they can stay and eat for free. Ah, if only…
The whole point of my trip was to return Outback Orange, the infamous tent, to its rightful owner, Joe… who was living in Dar es Salaam last semester, left Bronwen and me early to move to Zanzibar, but is now doing research in Nairobi. The one week he’s out of town is the one weekend my classes are canceled and I have beaucoups of time to travel. Of course. Glad I went anyway, but I’m sure it would’ve been cooler to chill with him. Plus, we just have tons of general catching up to do. Another time I suppose! I can definitely understand why he chose to move there instead of sticking around Dar, though.
Interesting note on Kenya Swahili… it’s basically a different language. Not to mention, the new up and coming language called “Shang” is more widely used among my “peer” group, which is a combination of traditional Bantu languages, Swahili, English, and who knows what. Wild. But, to get around Nairobi, you don’t need Swahili. Everyone speaks English… and when they say that, they actually mean it.
Nice to be home and Hallie had a rocking weekend holding down the fort here, too. Yeah, it was a bummer to not be in Zanzi, but soon enough! Hallie’s legal papers didn’t make it through in time soo we’ll head my last weekend in Tanzania to dance around bonfires and howl at the moon. This weekend we’re for sure heading to Dodoma. Don’t worry, there will be adventures in between and I’ll keep you posted. This week will be full of Swahili and orchestrating another trip to the field with TEACH.
More pictures soon enough… and yeah, the ones from my southern loop, too. It’s coming…
Also, it’s official. 30 days. This time next month, I will have two feet in the United States. I’m trying my best not to count because it makes me sad, but every time I see the date (which mind you, isn’t that often), my head automatically reels to calculate the days.
Oh yeah, two more books to add to the finished list: Shadow of the Silk Road by Colin Thubron (fantastic, but overloaded with big words) and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut (absolutely loved). Moved on to The Nine- Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffery Toobin (which yeah, sounds like a bore but is fairly fascinating). The one on the Silk Road just makes me want to take off to Asia and Vonnegut is always a comically cynical perspective of what I’ll come back to in the US. Crazy contrast from daydreaming out the bus window while zooming around Tanzania countryside to being buried in a book transporting me somewhere completely different, then glancing up to be completely entranced by Tanzania again. I’ve done that stretch something like four times at this point, but it hasn’t gotten old yet. Sitting for 12+ hours, yes, very old. I think I’m ready to forfeit my days of day-long bus rides for a bit. Tanzania though? Nope, not old yet.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Meteorites and bicycles
3 May
Whaat? May already? Of course Tanzania, being the socialist nation it is, celebrated May Day as a national holiday. Woohoo! Which translates to us (Hallie and me) having an extra day to go gallivanting around the countryside of Tanzania. As previously mentioned, we took off for the far away town of Mbeya, a long hop, skip, jump, and twelve hour bus ride away that is. Just when I thought I had retired the all day travel days, here comes another two. Not so bad, but it is a long way for just a weekend. Very much worth it though!!
Before that, I’ll have to mention some updates in Dar. We had a shocking BOOM just south of the Dar es Salaam city centre last week due to a mishap of ammunition storage. The result was six dead and approximately five hundred wounded. Not really sure still of what exactly happened, but it did, and no- it wasn’t a terrorist attack or the first time in Tanzania that they opened fire upon one another. I happened to be walking out of Swahili class in downtown as the sound commenced, which sounded very similar to a building imploding but had the added mini-earthquake effect, which initially made me think daladalas collided nearby me or something of the sort. Regardless, everyone paused for a brief moment to look around, shrug their shoulders, and then keep bustling along. A couple hours later, I received a text from a fellow foreign student from Japan (because that makes sense) that the US Department sent out some warning about clearing downtown and steering clear until further notice. About an hour later, I received another phone call from the old man making sure I had heard about all the happenings and was indeed far away from downtown. Even though that was a pretty big current event, everyday life kept rocking and rolling… and I still haven’t gotten a complete story mostly because Hallie and I took off at 5:30am the next day. I’ll keep you posted on things around here… but the BBC and CNN probably have me beat on information regarding the exact events. The death counts have probably increased from last time I heard and I’m sure international aid will start trying to pour in. Email me if you are interested about local organizations distributing aid (amanda.j.tatum@gmail.com). I’ll post more as I know more!
Pre-birthday celebration at Addis in Dar, an upscale Ethiopian restaurant, for Hallie’s 21st siku ya uzaliwa (birthday)! Which is obviously only a big milestone for Americans, but everyone else was down for chowing down on Ethiopian food! Tried to make the celebrations continue for the following day, but failed considering twelve hours on a bus followed by a sketchy hostel complete with dirty sheets and no running water and a crappy head cold on my end… put a damper on the actual day celebration, but the spirit was there for most of the weekend. A more fruitful and “appropriate” twenty first birthday celebration is to come, I’m sure.
Mbeya. Quiet, cute town that has yet to jump on the bandwagon of tourism, which is nice in some instances, but difficult in others since Hallie and I were up for doing things on our own, the absolute cheapest way possible. Which yes, we successfully did, but maybe not the most effective way since there were no signs, tourist boards, or other azungu to follow.
Our first adventure was to Karongwe Falls. After reading about it briefly in the trusty Rough Guide to Tanzania, we were off just the two of us. Spent the better part of the morning waiting for the daladala to fill up before we landed in a small village, where we had to hop in a taxi to the next small village, where we wandered around for a minute before dipping into a store stock full of ripped movies to ask how we should rent bicycles to get to the falls. The guy laughs at us for wanting to rent bicycles, but calls over to his buddy with a motorbike and tells him to take us. We negotiate a price of 10,000 Tanzanian shillings (little under $10) for him to take the two of us there, wait, and come back. Forty five minutes later on a muddy bumpy back road, we hop off the motorbike and our dude man takes us for about fifteen minutes on a smaller dirt mud path through people’s farms, across a log that acts as a bridge, down a slippery path until viola! There was the waterfall. Impressive, gorgeous, worth the slow and sure trip out there. We had a following of kids for most of the way, but the teenaged ones left after they figured out we weren’t so fun to play with. No money, no gifts, no pictures. Go to school instead of begging from the two white tourists that show up every blue moon!
Note to anyone potentially visiting a developing country: please, please, please, PLEASE think about the long term effects your generosity of belongings has on the development of societies. Yes, it is important to help, but not in means of creating a begging culture (that is already running wild) or reasons for children to resort to the streets for income that continues after you leave. This is only supported by repeated incidents, so even if you just do it once one day, they will come back day after day hoping to have another one lucky day instead of staying in school, completing their education, and moving on to bigger, more sustainable futures. There’s a long rant behind this quick soapbox paragraph, but to keep it short- don’t take extra gifts to villages to throw at kids as you roll by in your big 4WD.
Anyway, it was a successful day trekking off the beaten path and was absolutely gorgeous. Yes, of course we took loads of photos, but the best ones were unfortunately situated at inappropriate times to whip out our cameras. I think our pictures will cover some of the justice, but it was astounding.
Arrived back to our first terrible hostel in time to grab our bags and peace out to the next. It was a full step up and had much better vibes. Wish we had started there but now we know! Better night complete with Stella and our own skinny balcony over the deserted Mbeya streets.
Day two was just as great for exploring off the beaten track. We made our way to another small village in the middle of nowhere on a packed daladala that filled much quicker. We hopped off where the Rough Guide told us to, wandered into a convenient store of sorts to ask an African mama how we go about renting two bicycles. She calls two youth from the village and poof! Suddenly two bikes appear. They tried us for 10,000 Tanzanian shillings each, but we got them for 3,000 shillings each. Less than three dollars to let these two white girls take bikes in a village and disappear for an infinite amount of time. Really? Yeah, really. Asked them the general direction of Mbozi meteorite, which was the goal of the day, and headed off. Luckily, there were loads of villagers more than happy to point us in each ambiguous direction necessary to get there. 13 kilometers of mud huts, banana trees and fields of sunflowers later, we found ourselves at the meteorite… accompanied by a high school group of what seemed like hundreds of kids. Bummer. We sulked in the shade until they all left (not before some of the older boys ventured over for requests of photos and hands in marriage) so we could have that meteorite to ourselves. It is the eighth largest in the world and technically has a “medium octahedrite nickel iron” composition. Awesome afternoon of biking through one of Tanzania’s still kept secrets.
Biked all the way back to return the bikes, hopped on a returning dala and return in time for a beer before venturing to a nearby hole in the wall restaurant and ordering just about everything on the menu. We were living the life in our new hostel. For less than ten dollars total, we received our own balcony, satellite TV, clean sheets, mosquito net, locking wardrobe, desk and chair, and locking doors. And the toilet flushed! Alright, so there was no toilet seat, and toilet paper didn’t show up until the day before we left… and the showers didn’t work… but it was a winner for us. So yes, that being said, we didn’t shower the whole weekend… meaning we both pretty much hadn’t bathed since our return of the previous weekend. Dirty kids we are!
Miserable bus ride back. I think I would rank it as my third worse bus ride ever… coming before last weekend’s where I puked multiple times. Well. Maybe those two are tied for third place. No room at all, bouncy, loud, people and things constantly bumping you. Can’t get comfortable. Luckily, no screaming babies and no livestock. Things can always be worse and it’s mind blowing to think hundreds of people travel like that (if not in worse conditions) everyday. I guess that’s the high maintenance American in me, but I’ve done a fair share of local transport and I think most locals would agree that that bus was not up to par. The plus of the bus ride is the road cuts through a national park, meaning we saw elephants, giraffes, buffaloes, baboons, and monkeys. What a strange combination of stereotype versions Africa- ghetto Western bus crammed to the brim with people and God-knows-what… while blazing a dirt road populated with elephants and giraffes.
All in all, great weekend of adventuring. It was definitely cool knowing we were mildly trail blazing… I mean, yeah, it spells it out how to do it in the guide book, but how many people would be comfortable enough to take two bikes off two local kids and go out in the direction of someone’s pointed hand through people’s property with no hired local guide? The Kiswahili definitely played a huge role in all this adventuring and we’d still probably be in the bush if we were only relying on English, but hey- random talent number 31: be fluent enough in an African language to make it 13k on local transport. Haha not sure if that’s quite what my scholarship had in mind for fluency…
After another long scrub in the tub, I’m feeling ready to take on another busy week! Swahili, Swahili, Swahili, errands, errands, errands. If Hallie’s resident’s permit magically appears this week, we’ll be heading to Zanzibar this weekend for the full moon party!! …and a farewell for a while on my part. Pat Hallie on the back- she won’t be missing any classes this week due to my bad influence! If the permit doesn’t come through, we’ll still probably head off for a weekend adventure to Dodoma to track down some rock paintings.
Oh yeah- happy 8 month anniversary to Tanzania and me!! It’s amazing to think where I was this time last year. It was this time last year did I finally receive word that I’d be out here… that I was stressing out about finals… moving out of my apartment… securing summer job… etc, etc. I was a mess this time last year and now I couldn’t be farther away. Haha, some could argue I’m still a mess, but on a slightly different level. One year before that, I was moving out of my dorm room and packing up for Colombia. The year before that, I was cramming for AP tests, trying on prom dresses, and hadn’t graduated high school yet. Whew. Wonder what next year has in store…
Whaat? May already? Of course Tanzania, being the socialist nation it is, celebrated May Day as a national holiday. Woohoo! Which translates to us (Hallie and me) having an extra day to go gallivanting around the countryside of Tanzania. As previously mentioned, we took off for the far away town of Mbeya, a long hop, skip, jump, and twelve hour bus ride away that is. Just when I thought I had retired the all day travel days, here comes another two. Not so bad, but it is a long way for just a weekend. Very much worth it though!!
Before that, I’ll have to mention some updates in Dar. We had a shocking BOOM just south of the Dar es Salaam city centre last week due to a mishap of ammunition storage. The result was six dead and approximately five hundred wounded. Not really sure still of what exactly happened, but it did, and no- it wasn’t a terrorist attack or the first time in Tanzania that they opened fire upon one another. I happened to be walking out of Swahili class in downtown as the sound commenced, which sounded very similar to a building imploding but had the added mini-earthquake effect, which initially made me think daladalas collided nearby me or something of the sort. Regardless, everyone paused for a brief moment to look around, shrug their shoulders, and then keep bustling along. A couple hours later, I received a text from a fellow foreign student from Japan (because that makes sense) that the US Department sent out some warning about clearing downtown and steering clear until further notice. About an hour later, I received another phone call from the old man making sure I had heard about all the happenings and was indeed far away from downtown. Even though that was a pretty big current event, everyday life kept rocking and rolling… and I still haven’t gotten a complete story mostly because Hallie and I took off at 5:30am the next day. I’ll keep you posted on things around here… but the BBC and CNN probably have me beat on information regarding the exact events. The death counts have probably increased from last time I heard and I’m sure international aid will start trying to pour in. Email me if you are interested about local organizations distributing aid (amanda.j.tatum@gmail.com). I’ll post more as I know more!
Pre-birthday celebration at Addis in Dar, an upscale Ethiopian restaurant, for Hallie’s 21st siku ya uzaliwa (birthday)! Which is obviously only a big milestone for Americans, but everyone else was down for chowing down on Ethiopian food! Tried to make the celebrations continue for the following day, but failed considering twelve hours on a bus followed by a sketchy hostel complete with dirty sheets and no running water and a crappy head cold on my end… put a damper on the actual day celebration, but the spirit was there for most of the weekend. A more fruitful and “appropriate” twenty first birthday celebration is to come, I’m sure.
Mbeya. Quiet, cute town that has yet to jump on the bandwagon of tourism, which is nice in some instances, but difficult in others since Hallie and I were up for doing things on our own, the absolute cheapest way possible. Which yes, we successfully did, but maybe not the most effective way since there were no signs, tourist boards, or other azungu to follow.
Our first adventure was to Karongwe Falls. After reading about it briefly in the trusty Rough Guide to Tanzania, we were off just the two of us. Spent the better part of the morning waiting for the daladala to fill up before we landed in a small village, where we had to hop in a taxi to the next small village, where we wandered around for a minute before dipping into a store stock full of ripped movies to ask how we should rent bicycles to get to the falls. The guy laughs at us for wanting to rent bicycles, but calls over to his buddy with a motorbike and tells him to take us. We negotiate a price of 10,000 Tanzanian shillings (little under $10) for him to take the two of us there, wait, and come back. Forty five minutes later on a muddy bumpy back road, we hop off the motorbike and our dude man takes us for about fifteen minutes on a smaller dirt mud path through people’s farms, across a log that acts as a bridge, down a slippery path until viola! There was the waterfall. Impressive, gorgeous, worth the slow and sure trip out there. We had a following of kids for most of the way, but the teenaged ones left after they figured out we weren’t so fun to play with. No money, no gifts, no pictures. Go to school instead of begging from the two white tourists that show up every blue moon!
Note to anyone potentially visiting a developing country: please, please, please, PLEASE think about the long term effects your generosity of belongings has on the development of societies. Yes, it is important to help, but not in means of creating a begging culture (that is already running wild) or reasons for children to resort to the streets for income that continues after you leave. This is only supported by repeated incidents, so even if you just do it once one day, they will come back day after day hoping to have another one lucky day instead of staying in school, completing their education, and moving on to bigger, more sustainable futures. There’s a long rant behind this quick soapbox paragraph, but to keep it short- don’t take extra gifts to villages to throw at kids as you roll by in your big 4WD.
Anyway, it was a successful day trekking off the beaten path and was absolutely gorgeous. Yes, of course we took loads of photos, but the best ones were unfortunately situated at inappropriate times to whip out our cameras. I think our pictures will cover some of the justice, but it was astounding.
Arrived back to our first terrible hostel in time to grab our bags and peace out to the next. It was a full step up and had much better vibes. Wish we had started there but now we know! Better night complete with Stella and our own skinny balcony over the deserted Mbeya streets.
Day two was just as great for exploring off the beaten track. We made our way to another small village in the middle of nowhere on a packed daladala that filled much quicker. We hopped off where the Rough Guide told us to, wandered into a convenient store of sorts to ask an African mama how we go about renting two bicycles. She calls two youth from the village and poof! Suddenly two bikes appear. They tried us for 10,000 Tanzanian shillings each, but we got them for 3,000 shillings each. Less than three dollars to let these two white girls take bikes in a village and disappear for an infinite amount of time. Really? Yeah, really. Asked them the general direction of Mbozi meteorite, which was the goal of the day, and headed off. Luckily, there were loads of villagers more than happy to point us in each ambiguous direction necessary to get there. 13 kilometers of mud huts, banana trees and fields of sunflowers later, we found ourselves at the meteorite… accompanied by a high school group of what seemed like hundreds of kids. Bummer. We sulked in the shade until they all left (not before some of the older boys ventured over for requests of photos and hands in marriage) so we could have that meteorite to ourselves. It is the eighth largest in the world and technically has a “medium octahedrite nickel iron” composition. Awesome afternoon of biking through one of Tanzania’s still kept secrets.
Biked all the way back to return the bikes, hopped on a returning dala and return in time for a beer before venturing to a nearby hole in the wall restaurant and ordering just about everything on the menu. We were living the life in our new hostel. For less than ten dollars total, we received our own balcony, satellite TV, clean sheets, mosquito net, locking wardrobe, desk and chair, and locking doors. And the toilet flushed! Alright, so there was no toilet seat, and toilet paper didn’t show up until the day before we left… and the showers didn’t work… but it was a winner for us. So yes, that being said, we didn’t shower the whole weekend… meaning we both pretty much hadn’t bathed since our return of the previous weekend. Dirty kids we are!
Miserable bus ride back. I think I would rank it as my third worse bus ride ever… coming before last weekend’s where I puked multiple times. Well. Maybe those two are tied for third place. No room at all, bouncy, loud, people and things constantly bumping you. Can’t get comfortable. Luckily, no screaming babies and no livestock. Things can always be worse and it’s mind blowing to think hundreds of people travel like that (if not in worse conditions) everyday. I guess that’s the high maintenance American in me, but I’ve done a fair share of local transport and I think most locals would agree that that bus was not up to par. The plus of the bus ride is the road cuts through a national park, meaning we saw elephants, giraffes, buffaloes, baboons, and monkeys. What a strange combination of stereotype versions Africa- ghetto Western bus crammed to the brim with people and God-knows-what… while blazing a dirt road populated with elephants and giraffes.
All in all, great weekend of adventuring. It was definitely cool knowing we were mildly trail blazing… I mean, yeah, it spells it out how to do it in the guide book, but how many people would be comfortable enough to take two bikes off two local kids and go out in the direction of someone’s pointed hand through people’s property with no hired local guide? The Kiswahili definitely played a huge role in all this adventuring and we’d still probably be in the bush if we were only relying on English, but hey- random talent number 31: be fluent enough in an African language to make it 13k on local transport. Haha not sure if that’s quite what my scholarship had in mind for fluency…
After another long scrub in the tub, I’m feeling ready to take on another busy week! Swahili, Swahili, Swahili, errands, errands, errands. If Hallie’s resident’s permit magically appears this week, we’ll be heading to Zanzibar this weekend for the full moon party!! …and a farewell for a while on my part. Pat Hallie on the back- she won’t be missing any classes this week due to my bad influence! If the permit doesn’t come through, we’ll still probably head off for a weekend adventure to Dodoma to track down some rock paintings.
Oh yeah- happy 8 month anniversary to Tanzania and me!! It’s amazing to think where I was this time last year. It was this time last year did I finally receive word that I’d be out here… that I was stressing out about finals… moving out of my apartment… securing summer job… etc, etc. I was a mess this time last year and now I couldn’t be farther away. Haha, some could argue I’m still a mess, but on a slightly different level. One year before that, I was moving out of my dorm room and packing up for Colombia. The year before that, I was cramming for AP tests, trying on prom dresses, and hadn’t graduated high school yet. Whew. Wonder what next year has in store…
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