Annie in Tanzania

2006-06-19T17:07:00.000-07:00

I don't think anyone still reads this but if some people do... I am now back in MN after a great time in Berlin visiting Lucie. We saw a bunch of the sites in Berlin and the world cup trophy. I'm still kicking myself for leaving two days before the wc started! But i was ready to go home so it all worked out. I then went back to CA for a week which was nice. Tom came home and the family went up to Nevada City to see our cousin Tim graduate from highschool! that was crazy, but a lot of fun. I didn't do too much back in Berkeley, I really wasn't home that long at all, and the time went by a lot faster than i expected. i did get to an A's game which was great fun. I'm sad I won't be able to go to more of their games this year, and the Twins games suck b/c their in the dome.
Anyway, now I'm in Minnesota for the summer. I am hoping to get a job as a camp counselor, and hoping to play as much soccer as possible. I don't know if i'll keep updating this, as i'm no longer in tanzania, so if you want to get in touch with me, send me an email!

2006-06-03T07:27:00.000-07:00

I'm still in switzerland, and i'm off tomorrow to berlin to see lucie! Today, lynn and I wandered around bern, a very pretty old city, the capital of switzerland. My time here has been wonderful, filled with lots of cheese, chocolate and good times. The three girls are great, lots of fun, although I don't understand anything they say (they only speak german). I've added some pictures, of the girls lynn and I. The girls are Anina, Livia, and Fabia, verz cute!

2006-06-01T10:18:00.000-07:00

I am now in switzerland with Lynn, Carli and their three beautiful daughters. My last day in TZ was fairly typical, I showed Jamal around downtown, ran into Mwandale (a rather well known wood carver who was verz good friends with some people in my group), and spent way too long sitting in traffic. The weirdest part was taking the daladala from campus to mwenge. Normallz at mwenge, there are a ton of people and it is filled with daladalas, taxis and shop/stands. This time, it was empty, and there were bulldozers and such there instead. It turns out they are redoing the whole thing, so they moved everyone out and switched the main daladala stand to mwakumbisho, which caused traffic to be even worse than usual (it took us an hour and a half to get back from downtown at 2 in the afternoon).
Anyway, i took the 9:30 pm flight out of Dar and arrived at 6:30 this morning in Zurich. I then took the train to bern and met up with Lynn. We spent the day around the house and then walked around Friebourg. I had visited Friebourg before, 11 years ago, so everything was vaguely familiar. It was a bit cold, but not too bad, a nice change after TZ! So far i have eaten lots of cheese, some chocolate and done laundry in an actual machine, and there is even a dryer! Okay, gotta run, takl to you all later

2006-05-29T04:53:00.000-07:00

This will be my last post from Tanzania! I'm leaving Arusha tomorrow and Dar es Salaam on wednesday night. I can't believe it, i'll be going home so soon.
Arusha has continued to be wonderful, still lots of amazing food and lots of soccer playing and beautiful hikes. The other day we went to a gradutation lunch at someones house and they had two zebras in the yard! They had wandered into the village during the drout and the villagers were going to kill them so the family took them in and lets them roam around their land (they have a lot of it). It was pretty cool, we were able to get about 10 feet away from them, jamal almost fed them out of his hand. pretty cool animals.
I have finalized my plans to switzerland and berlin, and I can't wait to meet up with people. I haven't seen Lynn for years and visiting Lucie in berlin should be real sweet. I also really cannot wait to get home and see everyone. Although it feels like i just arrived in Tanzania, it feels like I haven't been home in ages.
Anyway, hope summer is treating everyone nice! kwaheri from Tanzania

2006-05-27T12:57:00.000-07:00

Well I've spent the last few days in Arusha having a wonderful time. I'm staying with Elliot from Macalester who grew up out here. Another friend from Macalester, Jamal, is also visiting. We've done a bunch of really cool things including hiking up some big hills, seeing colobus monkeys and visiting Tarangire National Park. It's been very relzxing and very different from my time in Dar! Elliot has a ridiculously cool house, and his family is great. His mom makes almost everything we eat including cheese, bread, jam, icecream, peanut butter, juice, and probably another bunch of things that i'm not aware of! They have a lot of land so they grow a bunch of stuff, and it is all delicious.
Anyway, tomorrow we might go paragliding, we'll see!

2006-05-19T15:07:00.000-07:00

Well, I am officially done with my junior year of college. My paper is finished, and now I am just relaxing and enjoying the loud religious chants coming from the church down the street. Most of the group left last wednesday, only two students are left and the directors family. I am mostly hanging around in the city until i head up to arusha to hang out with elliot, and a few days after i get up there, Jamal is coming to visit so it should be a right big party.
Tomorrow I'm planning on heading to the beach for most of the day which should be great. I'm going with Sander, the other student left over here, and we plan on playing lots of football and I may eat a burger. Although, because I might soon be missing african food, maybe i should just eat some ugali and nyma, or wali na maharage... we'll see.
In other news, I think i may have lost my flash drive, which was not only rather expensive, but also had my paper on it and more importantly a bunch of bonga flava (kiswahili hip-hop/rap type music). I hope it turns up soon. ON another note, I am currently buying my plane ticket to germany, i'll be there the 4 of june through the 7th, at least if the internet doesn't time out on me which happens every 5 seconds.
Anyway, I'm tired and going to head off to bed, hope everyone is doing well!

2006-05-12T16:04:00.000-07:00

Hey ya'll, well my program is truly winding down. Most people leave next wednesday although I am in Tanzania until the 31st. It really is ridiculous how fast time flies, and I'm not only talking about the time I've spent here. The 11th marked ten years since my mom passed away and I really can't believe it's been that long. My dad recently sent around some pictures, one of which I included above. Such a very long time ago! that was from 1968. I honestly don't know how to react to 10 years, it's a helluva long time. I think i've adjusted rather well, but i don't know that I can really judge that. What can I say is that I have been pretty lucky in many other ways, I mean how many 21 year olds can say they have lived in Iceland and Tanzania??

I am currently hanging out at my directors house. tonight we had our final dinner where we talked about our posters and ate delicious food. Now only 5 of us are left (well, actually 6, but michelle is asleep on one of the couches), but we've managed to have quite a good time. The only problem is getting home which is the biggest pain in the ass ever. If i haven't menitoned this before, jasmine and i live on this huge hill and walking up the hill at night is rather dangerous, meaning get home at night sucks. In the beginning of the trip we could catch a taxi home from UDASA, but lately there have been no taxis and we have to pay some guy to walk us home! ugh... We may end up just sleeping on the floor here, it's more fun than dealing with drunk tanzanians and scary bridges.
Anyway, that's life here. I can't believe the trip is pretty much over. After wednesday I will hopefully be hanging out with Elliot from Macalester in Arusha (where he lives). I don't really know what is going on with that, but it should be a good time even if we only hang out in arusha. After that it is switzerland for a week, and I may split that in half with a trip to berlin to visit lucie, that would be real sweet! anyway, hope everyone is doing well!

2006-05-05T02:30:00.000-07:00

Well I am now 21 years old, how ridiculous is that? I celebrated "african" style (not really) with a bottle of Zanzibar Delight, a pretty gross cocunut rum or something, it has the cooolest commercial which is the main reason Jasmine bought it. For the actual day (may 3rd, for those who were not aware), I did not really do much, just hung around and tried to digest the end of the shinyanga trip. In the evening, the group had one of our wednesday dinners, and we had a delicious cake for both mine and sara's birthday (her's was about a month ago and we've been celebrating it for most of that time, although I'm not exactly sure why). After dinner, and a few drinks of Zanzibar Delight, which is the Spirit of the Spice Island, we headed to udasa to have a beer or two. It was pretty fun, despite the hundred mosquito bites i got on my ankles and feet. It was all fairly low key and overall a good night.
Now I am supposed to start working on my final project. So far I have sat around thinking about it a lot, but have yet to put any of those thoughts into words. Maybe after this I'll start that (probably not).

In other news, the end of the tournament in Shinyanga was pretty crazy. I got to play soccer which was fun, except that most of my teammates had never kicked a ball in their lives. Luckily there were only a thousand people or so to observe all of this. The men's championship game was immediately after our game, so the stands were filled. The fans were very loud and highly enjoyed laughing at the game. Anytime someone missed the ball, the entire stadium would crack up. I was the only one who had actually played a bit, so anytime I was able to control the ball or do anything, a the crowd screamed in surprise. It was a bit overwhelming, and there were quite a few "she plays like a man" comments, a fitting end to the week! Before the game, Kikwete spoke which was kind of fun. I didn't understand it at all, but I got to sit in the jua kali for 4 hours listening to him! I also got to sit about 50 feet away, woo hoo. the next day i flew home, and I saw kikwete again at the airport, his plane was leaving at about the same time.

But now I am back in Dar, and very happy to be here! THe trip was a great experience, but overwhelming at times. Oh and I did see another white person, the day before I left, funny how much I noticed that! Anyway I gotta run.

2006-04-30T00:39:00.000-07:00

well, i'm still in shinyanga, although netball has been over for quite a few days. They are putting together a soccer team from all of the netball teams, I went to "practice" the other day which consisted of the coach telling us the names of the positions and explaining who to mark. He then had us do passing lines, but because we were so bad at it, we ended up throwing the ball back in forth instead of kicking it. we'll see how the game goes, if it happens. I don't really know what is going on most of the time because not that many people speak english here and their swahili is too fast for me. Also, tomorrow Kikwete (president of TZ) is coming for the closing of the tournament, exciting stuff.
I was looking through my calender the other day and realized that my program ends in 18 days! Oh how the time has flown by. I guess that means I should start actually doing work! Anyway I hope everyone is doing well!

2006-04-25T04:04:00.000-07:00

well i'll actually keep this one short. I am in shinyanga at a netball tournament, it's been really interesting so far. sincei stepped off the plane on the 21st, i have not seen another white person. So i'e been getting a lot of attention. the town itself isnt that interesting, real small and fairly poor. the team lost the first three games (i came late and missed those) and then we won our last 2. So we are moving on to the quarter-finals, which we play tomorrow. We are playing a teamthat is really good, they look like they have actually played sports before,and some can even run, which is more than some of my teammates can manage! so im' doing very well, despite all the mzungu attention, which is annoying for the most part. I am about to hand out a survey to all of the netball players for my independent study project, hope it all works out! okay, hope ya'll are well!

2006-04-17T03:52:00.000-07:00

pictures from my arusha trip:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=i521bc1.an9v95fd&x=0&y=owmnm3

2006-04-17T03:44:00.000-07:00

Well yesterday I went to netball practice and had planned to go use the internet later, but that just didn’t happen. Instead, I went to practice, at 7 in the morning, and nobody else showed up until 8. None of the women really wanted to play so we sat around for another hour and a half. Talk about a waste of a morning! Anyway then one of the women (Frida) invited me over to see her house, on the way we got distracted for about 4 hours, first at breakfast (chunks of goat meat), then to Kariakoo for Frida and another woman to buy things. Fun times and lots of fun calls of “hey mzungu!”, “hello sista”, and “jambo friendi”. After lunch at Frida’s (it being about 2 or 3 in the afternoon) we went to a local place called the Centre Point Bar for drinks Every once in a while a machinga (guy selling things) would come over selling anything from cashew nuts, to light fixtures, to enormous Titanic movie posters. One guy was actually selling bows and arrows, but he got chased off by some people who said it was dangerous selling weapons to drunk people. And occasionally a Maasai in traditional clothing, complete with machete and tire sandals would walk by. Then a guy wearing only long underwear with a stuffed belly walked by talking on a fake phone. With him were some acrobats who jumped through hoops, sat on nails and balanced multiple soda bottles on their faces. They didn’t stay too long, and after they left a guy came by selling pedicures. Frida decided to get one. The guy even did nail designs, he was pretty good at it too (probably practiced on himself, he did have quite nice, long painted nails). The best part of it all was that I didn’t have to move at all to see any of it! All in all, a pretty interesting night (or afternoon, I was home at about 7:30).

One thing I’m kind of embarrassed to admit is that I have begun watching Secreto De Amor, a soap opera from some Spanish speaking country. It’s all about Maria Clara and Carlos Raul who are in love, but Carlos married someone else (an evil woman named Barbara), and Maria Clara is now engaged to Barbara’s brother Lissandro (after giving birth to Carlos Raul’s child) and she just inherited a bunch of money from Barbara and Lissandro’s grandmother. The show was originally in Spanish so everything is badly dubbed into English. None of the voices fit the characters, they are either too high, too low, or just bad in general. But everyone here loves it, if you walk by the dorms during the show, you can actually hear people singing along with the them song (my little sister here also likes to sing the theme song all the time, which is just Secreto de Amor repeated over and over again). Even people who speak no English are addicted to it. It also plays about 15 times a day, so if you miss an episode, you can just watch it one of the 10 other times it shows.

In other news, I am not able to play in the netball tournament because I don’t work for the college. Too bad, it would have been fun, but I think I am still going to go sometime next week.

Anyway I think I have given you all enough to read (sorry, I am still trying to procrastinate and not do any of my work, and so I end up writing on this thing all the time!).

2006-04-11T23:34:00.000-07:00

Well this is gonna be one helluva long blog entry, I’m warning you now. In fact, it’s going to be so long I think I’ll include a quick summary in the beginning for those of you with short attention spans. Also a tip for reading, it is split up into days so you can read one day at a time to make it more bearable.

Here’s the summary:
I just got back from my favorite trip so far. My group went up to Moshi and Arusha in northern Tanzania for a week and did pretty much the coolest things ever. Sunday: Lomwe secondary school, tour of local mountains with view of Kenya. Performance by secondary school students about HIV/AIDS, discussion about neo-colonialism. Visit to local ceramics co-op
Monday: Local waterfalls in Marangu, the base of Mount Kilimanjaro, local Chagga homestead, local market, Mbeke (local banana beer), blacksmith.
Tuesday: Women’s cheese and dairy co-ops, talk with young women from Machame secondary school about HIV/AIDS, demonstration of how to use a condom. Then drove to Arusha with great view of Mount Kilimanjaro. Visit to local witch doctor.
Wednesday: Went to Longido for a cultural tour of Maasai land. Toured around with two Maasai guides, saw a Maasai boma, saw giraffes from about 50 feet away. Visited a local women’s jewelry market.
Thursday: Visit to Lake Manyara National Park in the Rift Valley, lots of fun animals. Then a visit to a local orphanage type place started by an American woman.
Friday: Coolest day ever. All day visit to Ngorongoro Crater, highlights include seeing Black Rhino, ostriches, and getting attacked by a bird while eating lunch (and this is no laughing matter, it drew blood). In the evening we saw traditional dancing and acrobats. Then learned how to dance like Tanzanians.
Saturday: Returned to Arusha town, bummed around, ate delicious Ethiopian food.
Sunday: Got taken to local market where Maasai go by a new Maasai friend, then visited a Maasai cattle market.
And now it’s Monday and I’m back at home, went to netball and I cannot wait to eat a delicious home cooked meal!

Okay, so for those who cannot manage to read anymore, I hope you’re doing well and I’ll only like you a little bit less for not reading the rest of this.

I didn’t quite know what to expect when heading up North. My host-family raves about Arusha and the surrounding area, as does almost everyone else I have met. It did not disappoint. It is by far my favorite place in Tanzania, and not just because the weather is more agreeable. The drive up there, which took about 8 hours, was amazing. Everything was so green and lush and absolutely beautiful: tons of farms, local homes, and rolling hills and a few mountains. It almost brought tears to my eyes (on second thought that was probably from the strong wind coming through the open window. I don’t think there are speed limits, so the buses go as fast as possible and pass as many cars and trucks as they can, even if cars are coming in the opposite direction in which case they will swerve off the road to avoid getting run over. It’s a bit exciting and definitely terrifying). Anyway, the drive was spectacular, and a great way to relax, I spent most of the time staring out the window while listening to my ipod. Although I did get a new hairdo thanks to Natalie and Olivia (the directors kids). We arrived at the hotel around 5 in the evening and spent some time at the rooftop bar which was pretty sweet.

Sunday we woke up real early to visit Lomwe Secondary School and the surrounding area. We got a quick tour of the school farm which was pretty cool; they grow a lot of their own food and have a fish pond. They also grow two different kinds of banana; banana is one of the main staples in the North. After the tour we drove in our hardtop off road vehicles up the nearby mountain. After walking around the huge Celtel tower this amazing view appeared. It was of Lake Jipe which is on the Kenya/Tanzania border, and it was stunning. Just tons of wide open green space broken up by hills and lakes. It was amazing (I actually made a note in my journal to stop using this word because it got a little repetitive, just an early warning). On the other side of the mountain was a view of the town which was pretty cool. Farms were visible all over the place with rows and rows of green plants and red soil. To look over the town/village, we sat on a rock where villagers used to bring unwanted babies (those who were seen as bad luck, like twins for example). They would lay the babies down on this big rock ledge and leave them, the baby would eventually roll over the ledge and die.
After the baby ledge we went down to the school. A bunch of the students put on a performance about HIV/AIDS. I can’t say I understood it all because it was only in Kiswahili, but from what I got I thought it was pretty cool. HIV/AIDS is really viewed as a big deal here and prevention methods and knowledge about the disease is high (although it is questionable how much of that knowledge and the prevention methods are put in to use). The students also sang a little and did a little traditional dancing. Afterwards we had a discussion with some of the older students about neo-colonialism. It was a bit of a heavy topic and not conducive to group participation, but a lot of interesting comments came out. One of the students was particularly adamant that Tanzania needed to develop indigenous technology and the likes in order to gain its independence from foreign aid. There was also a strong resentment towards IMF. All in all it brought up some good questions about how non-Tanzanians can help reduce poverty and starvation, etc. We really didn’t get any good answers, most aid isn’t without strings attached. Nandera, the assistant director of the program (she is a lecturer at UDSM) brought up the idea that money should go straight to Tanzanians, not international aid orgs. because they end up spending half their money on themselves. It was pretty interesting overall. .

Monday, we walked around the village Materuni in the foothills of Kilimanjaro. We saw Kuringe Waterfalls which was kinda cool but really not all that amazing. There was a wooden statue of a woman on the top, and behind her in the distance is a cheetah. The story goes the woman got pregnant before marriage and was so ashamed went to jump off the waterfall, then she decided not to jump and turned around to walk back to shore. But a cheetah appeared, walking towards her and she accidentally backed off the cliff. It was all very pretty and quite rainy which isn’t all that surprising since it is the rainy season which at least keeps the temperature down.
We then headed to the base of Mount Kilimanjaro and I though we were going to be able to hike up the mountain a bit, but it would have cost us $60 per person, so we just stood around and looked in the gift shop and watched as others started on their trek to the top. It was very pretty, lots of eucalyptus trees, but you couldn’t really see Kili.
Next it was off to a traditional Chagga homestead. The house is still in use by the family although they also have a more modern house next to it. In the traditional home the cows, goats and women sleep, it is very dark and smells a lot like cows. The cows ever leave the house, but the goats do. All the cooking is also done inside, so it is fairly smoky. Pretty interesting to see one of those still in use, there are still some around but not many. This one was about to be torn down when the tour company found it, and they help keep it up by brining paying tourists up to see it. Anyway, the walk to/from the homestead was amazing. It was all farms, mostly banana I think (I can’t really remember, all the days kind of blurred together), and there was a beautiful river as well. Everything was bright green and it was pretty cool to walk around. We then drove to the local market, which was pretty cool, and fairly typical of markets around here, selling pretty much everything from used radios to used clothes to bananas. One thing that I had never seen before was an auction for used clothes, which was going on in one corner. We then headed to a local blacksmith where they make a bunch of tools. A lot of machetes and hand hoes and stuff like that. They also made some bells and mini Maasai spears which were pretty cool. As we had been walking around we had been hearing about the pombe (local brew) in the area made from bananas, so we headed to a shop where they make it and sell it. It is made from banana wine and millet (called Mbeke), so it’s very thick and mealy. The taste is very sweet and I did not find it all that appealing. But it was fun to try drinking it from a traditional gourd thing. The locals found it pretty funny to see a bunch of wazungu trying the stuff.
In the afternoon/evening we headed back to the rooftop bar which provided an excellent view of everything. There aren’t any tall buildings really so we could see for miles. For a time, when the clouds cleared, there was a great view of Kilimanjaro. But every other direction was pretty amazing too. I kept trying to write in my journal but I would get distracted by all the twittering birds or the sunset or just the rolling green hills and farms.

Tuesday we visited a couple of women’s dairy co-ops. Local women, to help fight poverty and support local children have started various co-ops, and dairy is big in Arusha I guess. Local women bring milk and receive money from the co-op which processes some of the milk and makes cheese and butter to sell. The co-ops are often supported by foreigners. The first one was supported by some German group (I think) which had provided some of the machines. Although one of the machines was too expensive to use so it just sits there. The co-ops are pretty popular and most local women want to join them because they seem to be working.
We then visited Macahme Secondary school for girls. We got a little tour around and then went to have a discussion on HIV/AIDS. The girls had obviously been taught a lot of stuff about prevention and things like that, but some key lessons were definitely missing. At one point it became clear that not only did some of the girls (who were between 17-20 years old) not know how to use condoms, they didn’t even know where they go! I think it’s pretty useless to tell them that condoms help lower the risk of getting Aids without telling them how they actually work. Anyway that led to some in our group demonstrating proper condom use. It was pretty funny to watch, and the students were enthralled. It was definitely an interesting experience.
I think we then headed to a traditional healer, although it was questionable whether he should be called traditional healer or witch doctor. Most traditional healers I guess use roots and herbs to try and cure things, while he concocted potions and attached pieces of paper to birds (if the bird squawked that would mean it was calling the person home). He also wasn’t registered which healers technically have to be. It really wasn’t that exciting, but it was interesting watching him, and watching the group of people we had attracted.

Wednesday was when things really started getting cool. We went to Longido to tour around the Maasai land up there. We had two Maasai guides, a man and a woman, although the man didn’t wear traditional clothing. They took us on a walk through the goat slaughtering area, we were too late to see them actually slaughtering the goats, but they were skinning them when we walked by. We then headed up into the foothills. On the way we found a baboon skull and generally stared around in awe at the beautiful scenery. We headed towards the place where boys are taken to learn about Maasai culture. The area was bordered by a huge rock on one side and surrounded by thorns on the remaining sides to protect from cheetahs and lions. At this place men would consume up to 5 kilos of goat a day and talk about life. They would stay for about 3 weeks and eat about 6 goats. Only goats, nothing else. We then headed down to a Maasai boma. On the way down we saw 3 giraffes about 50 yards away. Being on foot made it seem more real than when viewing them from a car. In the car, it feels like a museum going from one exhibit to the next. But just seeing them while walking by was more real or something, I’m having trouble explaining it. It was as if the thought just struck me that the animals aren’t just there to be looked at, which I always new but never fully realized.
Anyway, we then headed to the boma which is still very much in use. Only women and children were there. We passed boys with herds of cows, goats, and donkeys on the way. The women were very welcoming, none of them spoke English, and a few of them did not even speak Kiswahili. Most were dressed in Maasai clothing, although one of the kids was wearing a ratty Mickey mouse shirt. The oldest of the women there took us into her boma. It was very different from the Chagga house, just as dark and smoky but more roomy. Cattle were also kept inside, but the boma was better divided into living/cooking area, sleeping area, and animal area. Maybe this was because the boma is still the only house this woman lives in, whereas the Chagga house was used in combination with another more modern house. It was cool seeing the boma up close, driving along the roads you can see a bunch of Maasai bomas, they seem to be all over the place, but they are usually a good distance from the road. It’s also pretty cool seeing how much the Maasai have maintained their own ways while surrounded by more “modern” stuff.

Thursday we headed to Lake Manyara National Park. The name comes from a plant known as Emanyara in the Maasai language, which Maasai use to cover their Bomas. It is known for tree climbing lions, but we didn’t see any of those. Almost immediately after entering the park, we saw an elephant about 15 feet away from the hardtops. Elephants are ridiculously enormous and it was fun seeing it that close. The one animal we saw the most of was the baboon. There were huge troops around, often just sitting on the road. It was fun driving though them, and just sitting around watching them do typical stuff such as picking each others fur, playing, eating, having sex, and fighting. I gotta say really young baby baboons are some of the ugliest creatures I have ever seen. We also saw a ton of birds, a few big ones, but mostly beautiful smaller birds. In the distance we could see thousands of flamingos migrating, but they were really too far away to see clearly. We also finally got to see hippos out of the water, also from quite a distance, but it was still pretty exciting. Once again the scenery was also absolutely amazing. The park is in the rift valley which is gorgeous. The steep walls are covered in trees and green. The lake in the middle was also pretty cool, covered in birds. On the way out we also saw Blue Monkeys, monkeys in general are really fun to watch jump around. I wish we had some at macalester instead of squirrels, they are much more entertaining I am going to try and put up pictures for you all to see, but I don’t know if it’ll work., but they would do a much better job showing you what everything was like.
After Manyara we headed to an orphanage which was interesting. It is a place run by an American woman, and it is set out in a small village that is practically impossible to get to. There are 17 kids in the orphanage, most are pretty little, the oldest is 14. It was interesting to see becaues the kids are raised in a very American environment right in the middle of this small village. they watch American movies and all but the house workers are American. Hopefully it will be a successful place, otherwise some of the kids may have a bit of trouble adjusting.

Friday was the best day of the trip. We visited Ngorongoro Crater which got its name from the noise a cow bell makes. Driving up to the crater everything was shrouded in fog. Visibility was pretty bad and it was raining a little bit too. Occasionally the villages and towns on the outside of the crater would appear, but never very clearly. The crater side was completely encased in fog, so we had no idea what it looked like until just before we were about to enter it. Inside the park, but outside the crater some Maasai still live. So the only visible manmade things (besides our cars) were Maasai bomas in the middle of vast grasslands. Then we actually got to the lip of the crater and things just kept getting better and better. Really, if you ever get a chance, you should visit this place, it is simply amazing. The lake, with little dots of flocks of birds perfectly reflected the mountains rising above it. The sky at this point had begun to clear, so there were huge puffy clouds with flecks of blue sky appearing here and there. The crater floor was mostly grassland, although in a few areas there were a number of trees (usually near the crater walls). The animals were too small to really see from that distance, but the landscape more than made up for that. We then began the descent into the crater, all of us standing up with our heads out of the car trying to look every direction at once while avoiding long thorny tree branches. We saw some huge hawks and other birds, many very colorful. The road was bumpy and steep, which made the trip all the more exciting. Once we got onto the floor of the crater we almost immediately saw a hyena in the middle of the road. It was sitting in a mud patch sleeping. We were about 10 feet away and he hardly even noticed. As we continued on, we saw herds of Thompson’s gazelles and wildebeests. There were so many wildebeests everywhere! Scattered here and there were ostriches, which I don’t think I had ever seen before. Not only are they extremely funny looking, but they are enormous! I couldn’t believe how big they were! Soon after that we saw a group of cars sitting in one particular spot, on coming closer we realized they were two cheetahs sitting about 100 feet away. It was so cool actually seeing them there, they too paid no mind to us, going about their normal business of lazing around in the grass.
A little bit later on, after passing more and more herds of wildebeest and gazelle, we saw, in the distance a couple black rhinos! The crater is on of the few places left in the world where black rhinos are found. They were kind of funny looking, very splotchy, and not really doing anything. There were also a ton of water buffalos, who are also a bit funny looking. Their horns look kind of like bad wigs. When we got closer to the water in the middle, we could see thousands of flamingos and other birds standing in the water. As we kept driving, I would occasionally glance up at the surrounding crater walls and again be amazed by how beautiful it all was. The rain clouds had blown over, so only a few big puffy clouds remained in the middle of bright blue sky. Again, words don’t do it justice, you’ll have to see the pictures. Continuing on, we also saw families of warthogs rolling around and playing in the mud. There were also quite a few families of zebras, which I think are still my favorite. We then continued on towards our lunch spot at a hippo pool. A little before getting there we saw a couple of lions, including a young male. They weren’t really doing much, but it’s pretty exciting seeing them.
When we drove around the bend, entering the hippo pool area, we were greeted by the site of about 15 of hardtops, and this was the low season! There were quite a few tourists around, and because of that, quite a few birds. A couple of us set up to eat lunch on top of the hardtops while gazing down at the hippo pool. The birds were definitely swooping in, looking for food. At one point, as I was taking a bite of my sandwich, a blue kite swooped down to try and take it. I managed to hang on to my bread, but either the birds talons or beak caught my nose, drawing a little bit a blood. After that I decided it would be best to finish my lunch inside of the car! It didn’t hurt that much, but it was moving pretty fast. After lunch, we stayed around for a little bit longer, the hippos were just lying in the water, nothing exciting, but it was nice to stretch my legs a bit after standing/sitting on the roof of the car all day. On the way out of the hippo pool we saw a few elephants, and a little further on saw a pack of lions resting. There were maybe 2-3 full-grown females, a few young ones, and a couple of cubs, one really young and tiny. Continuing on we didn’t see many more animals, most had wandered away from the road. Looking back behind us, there were storm clouds beginning to roll in over the valley, the clouds didn’t come in our direction, but we could hear the thunder booming in the distance.
We then drove out of the crater, which took a while getting up the steep roads. Looking back over it was pretty amazing, and we also drove by more baboons. After driving for about 45 minutes, we came to a scenic lookout point that provided a wonderful view of the whole crater. As our guides said, it was a good way to say goodbye to it. It really was stunning looking back over it. The green grass, trees, water, hills, clouds and blue sky were so bright and beautiful.
I felt like a little kid dreaming of the wild and seeing lions and cheetahs AND rhinos all together! I wish I could go back there and to other parks here, and you all should too! They really are quite amazing, which I think I’ve said maybe 15 times, but you all know I like to repeat myself when it comes to places I like. But seriously how many people can say they have seen all those animals?

That evening after dinner, we were treated with traditional dancing and some acrobats (including one guy who balanced some soda bottles on a stick about as thick as my thumb). It was fun seeing all that stuff. But the real fun came later on when Nandera tried to teach us all how to dance like Tanzanians, meaning no upper body movement, only a lot of shaking of the hips. It was hard, and tiring, but some of us managed to pick up a few things. Maybe I’ll demonstrate when I get home. It was real hard though, and tiring. My lower back was pretty sore the next day!

Saturday we left the Ribble family (the director’s family) and headed back to Arusha. I was a bit jealous of them because they were heading off to the Serengeti and Taranguire National Park. It was actually a bit sad leaving them there, I’m not going to see them for a week (and maybe three depending on if/when I leave for Shinyanga). It signified the end of a big part of the program. There are now only 5 weeks left until the end of the program (but not the end of the trip).
In Arusha on Saturday, we didn’t do much, ate some good Ethiopian food, but mostly rested and tried to digest the events of the week. On Sunday, some of us walked around with a Maasai guy that some of the guys in the group met. He took us to a local market outside of town where many Maasai buy their stuff (cloth, tire shoes, some jewelry, etc.) We actually got to see them making the tire shoes which was pretty cool. He then took us to a Maasai cattle market, which was pretty much all Maasai. Zach, a buy on the trip, really likes the Maasai culture and bought an outfit, a Maasai stick, and a panga (machete) as well as a belt, some necklaces and more. Later, he tried it all on and it was cool. He looked like a Maasai (except for the white skin and hair).

And that was the end of the trip. I came home Monday and have been trying to process the events of the past week. I am heading to Shinyanga soon, if it al works out. I went to netball yesterday and their may be a problem with me going to the tournament. I’ll find out tomorrow if I’ll be able to go. The team also sat around and discussed team issues, I guess there has been a little drama about captains and the like. Glad to see that that stuff never ends!

Sorry for the long blog entry, but I didn’t have email access for a helluva long time. Don’t worry, I don’t expect people to actually read all that I just wrote, it’s turning into a way for me to remember all that I have done while here.

2006-03-27T22:59:00.000-08:00

I am supposedly studying for my finals right now or researching netball, but since that is absolutely no fun at all I decided to procrastinate and write a blog entry. Things here are going great still, time is flying by, it feels like just yesterday it was the beginning of March! But now I am done with classes, except for two finals on Friday! I'm not too worried about the finals, despite not having listened for the last two months or so of class (which would be all but about the first week). I probably will start studying soonish, as in Thursday evening after netball practice.
Speaking of netball, it's going pretty well. Still a bit strange, but fun to learn something new. Although I don't think you'll ever hear me ask if anyone wants to throw the netball around back at home. It's probably the least fun sport I've ever played, no contact and all I get to play is defense (maybe this will make me appreciate being a forward more in soccer) But that's okay, at least it's some form of exercise. I guess the team is getting ready for this tournament that we're going too (I still never really know what's going on because nothing is said in english, and my swahili is not getting any better because they speak way too fast and I can't tell the difference between names and words.
In other news, this past weekend I went to a waterpark that was a lot of fun. I haven't been to a waterpark since I was about 5 and got run over by a fat lady in the pool at the bottom of the slide (this would be at Manteca waterslides, a bit of a traumatizing experience). So I found it pretty exciting. It was also a nice role-reversal, instead of me getting run-over by big people, I got to run over little kids (don't worry, it only happened once or twice). I don't really know how they have a water park when there is a huge water shortage in a lot of the surrounding areas, and I probably shouldn't support something like that, but it was a whole lot of fun.
Last Friday night some friends and I went to a really good Ethiopian restaurant called Addis in Dar. It was amazing food, and I had a great time despite it taking 2 hours to get there when it only should have taken 15 min. People here don't seem to like obeying traffic laws. On a two lane road, people were going about 5 different directions and a bunch more people were walking down the middle of the road. The taxi I was in tried to go the wrong direction side of the road, which only got us yelled at and stuck further back. It was a bit exciting though, but the music reminded me of elevator music and it was on repeat the whole time which was not fun. But the restaurant was great, and I am going to go back sometime. After the restaurant a couple of us went to a local bar called Maayda. Jasmine and I showed up and we were supposed to be meeting friends there, but we were the first ones to arrive. Anyway, we sat down at a table and about two minutes later some guy came up and asked us a question, having no idea what he said, we nodded and said nzuri (which is the response to most greetings), he nodded and disappeared only to return with about ten other guys who added three tables to ours and all sat down. They were pretty nice guys, and some were real sketchy. The guy next got off to a good start by telling me he loved Americans and he really liked George Bush. He also hoped we could be friends and wondered where I lived. I of course played stupid, saying I didn't know where my house was and no I wouldn't let him take me home. Luckily one of his friends steered him away at about this point. But during all of this, there were some performers doing cool break dancing and fun tricks. One guy pretended to eat the cigarette he was smoking, and another guy kept doing the splits between two chairs. The performers also liked to dance with the chairs, meaning they would put their legs through the arm holes and gyrate their hips a lot. It was pretty funny to watch, and these guys really thought they were hot shit. All in all it was a pretty good night!
Okay, I think that's enough for one post, next time I write I think will be in a couple weeks after my trip to Arusha and NgoroNgoro crater and possibly the Serengeti! Hope everyone is doing well!

2006-03-20T02:52:00.000-08:00

I just wrote a bit of a blog entry and it got deleted, so keep in mind that I wrote something completely fascinating about 10 minutes ago and used up all the energy that would normally go into making stuff interesting.
What I wrote about before was my surprise that quite a few people here have never heard of Brad Pitt or the Beatles. Not only never heard of either of them, but didn’t recognize a picture of Brad Pitt or any of the Beatles music! Maybe that view was a bit euro-centric or whatever, but I still found it a bit shocking. On the other hand EVERYONE is obsessed with 50 Cent. Every Tanzanian male between 10-25 when talking about music brings up 50 cent and goes on about how cool he is. It’s pretty funny to hear them all rave about him. Other hip-hop/rap stars are well known too, but he is by far the favorite.
Friday night I went to dinner at a missionary’s house where we had delicious brownies and pizza! These two missionaries who play Frisbee with a group of us every Monday invited a bunch of us to dinner, and it was great! I really miss some American foods, especially desserts! The chocolate does not really taste like good chocolate, and I miss it a lot! So that was pretty nice. They also offered to introduce us to some of their friends and stuff at their church, so now I might go to church to meet people. Watch out, I might turn all religious and stuff over here! Wouldn’t that be an interesting change? If I really wanted I could go to Bible study groups too… I don’t think I’m ready for that. Speaking of church, my friends host-mom goes to a born again Christian church where people cry uncontrollably, fall down, and speak in tongues. Craziness. Oh and last night, Mama yangu, (my “mother”) was in her room and Jasmine and I heard her crying loudly and then singing which we eventually figured out was just her responding to the preacher on TV. This went on for quite a while, and I gotta say, it was a little freaky. But all seems fine now.
In other news, I have a midterm tomorrow morning which is why I’m writing a blog-entry. I’ve gotten even lazier here, I thought I didn’t do any work at Mac, but it is even easier to do no work here. I mean I’m complaining about a lousy midterm, pretty much the second thing I’ve had to do all semester. Geez, such a hard life! Luckily I was able to go to the beach yesterday to relax! But the beach wasn’t that great because it rained, but it was fun anyhow.
Okay, I think I’m actually going to study now (or fall asleep). Kwa herini!

2006-03-16T22:26:00.000-08:00

Well I have now officially joined a netball team, or netiboli as it is called here. This entails going to an hour and a half practice everyday except weekends and wednesdays during which running more than 3 times around the basketball court is considered a really good workout. Most of the women on the team are much older (30's) and look like they honestly never have played sports in their life. Most people show up to practice in their work clothes and a lot just play in their skirts or jeans or whatever. I find it kind of funny that in a place where most people detest the idea of wearing revealing clothes, they do not care at all about stripping in the middle of the sports area to change into sports bras and pants. But it actually has been a lot of fun (so far). The practices aren't bad, and it's been nice to exercise again. so maybe i won't put on that "africa weight" that happens occaionsally (although it could be kind of exciting). The best part of it all is i get to go to a 20 day tournament with these women in Shinyanga. I don't know how a tournament can last that long, but it sounds like a good time. That would mean my swahili would get much much better because only a couple of the women really speak english! I also hope to do my independent study project on women and sports or netball or something like taht.
That's the most exciting news recently. I did go to a concert in Bagamoyo last weekend which was pretty sweet. There were a lot of famous Tanzanian bands such as Wanaume group, pretty cool. It went on all night which was fun, i haven't stayed up that late in ages.
Also this week, Rachel Oman (for those who don't know, she was my roommate last semester and will by my housemate next semester, and she plays on the soccer team at Mac) was in Dar es Salaam. She is studyingon zanzibar doing a coastal ecology program that sounds pretty sweet. But it was real great seeing a familiar face and all. okay i gotta run and let someone else on the computer, hope everyone is doing well!

2006-03-08T01:04:00.000-08:00

I wrote this entry yesterday at home and I thought I'd be able to get all my pictures but the power went out so I only got Jasmine's photos on my jump drive. I'll put the link at the beginning so you don't actually have to read stuff. also there are photos on facebook for those who have it, i don't have an album but others have put a bunch up and i think you can access them.

My photos of cool things
photos of elephants and giraffes and stuff (from jasmine)

This past weekend I went on the coolest trip so far. My group went to Mikumi National Park and Udzungwa Mountains near Morogoro, both of which were amazing. We left Friday morning and drove to Mikumi to do a game drive, which we did in our bus. The road to Morogoro goes through part of Mikumi or right next to it so on the way we saw animals grazing on the side of the road. A couple times zebras and impalas ran right in front of the bus. Anyway once inside the park we saw pretty much every animal you think about when someone says “African Safari”, that is: zebras, elephants, impala, giraffes, hippos, crocodiles, lions, baboons, wildebeests, mongoose, and jackals, plus a ton of birds. All in all it was pretty impressive. A lot of the times the animals were maybe 20 feet away, minding their own business or just playing around. I won’t bore you with descriptions of all this stuff, instead I’ll put up all my pictures. Everyone took a ton of pictures, and a couple people have really nice cameras with good lenses so eventually I’ll have really professional cool looking pics, but for now, mine will have to do!

Scratch the not boring you all with descriptions, I really can’t help it, I mean it was the so cool to actually see all these things for myself! if you don’t want to read about the animals, skip this next paragraph:

I said I wouldn’t bore you with descriptions, The park itself is really big, and the scenery is beautiful. It’s mostly grassland and some trees and the park has been getting water for a month or two so the animals were not starving (unlike in other parts of east Africa right now. The whole water situation is really bad, Dar es Salaam is getting rain now, but farther north there still isn’t much, especially in Kenya. Pretty grim stuff, and even though I’m much closer to it all now, I’m still extremely sheltered from it because of my family’s wealth). In one part of the park is a hippo pool which sounds pretty exciting but it wasn’t that great, although it was nice to be able to walk around. Hippos sleep a lot and they don’t move too much and the only part of them visible from land is their backs and the tops of their heads. Not that I’m saying I want to see a hippo running after me, they are really dangerous and it would definitely chomp me in half. The other thing of note was the lions, which also did not do anything except sit around, but we saw about eight, 4 females and 4 cubs. They sleep a lot and didn’t even glance at our bus more than once.

Saturday we went hiking on Udzugnwa mountain which was awesome. We took the long, not so steep way up, which was not a very accurate description. It didn’t help that it had rained a bunch so it was pretty muddy and slippery. The weather was rather overcast, and it was pretty misty, but extremely humid. The guide also practically ran up the trail making it even harder and hotter. Every time he stopped we would all be panting and dripping sweat or water, you couldn’t tell what was from the mist and what was sweat. But it was absolutely gorgeous. There weren’t many animals, but the forest was so green and beautiful, I put pictures of that up as well, so have a look and I won’t describe all the cool trees and vines and stuff like that. Although a lot of the pictures didn’t come out that well because it was so misty and dark. Whatever, suffice to say that it was really cool and you all should be extremely jealous, especially of the next part I’m about to write about. That is the waterfalls. There was a series of waterfalls that were awesome and at the top one there was a pool that we could swim in! The water was cool, the first time I’ve actually been cold while outside here! And it was the most relaxing way to spend lunch after hiking all morning. Plus we got cheese on our sandwiches which was great, not too much dairy out here. Anyway, it was beautiful (on a completely random side note, I was watching tv yesterday and the Miss Tourism contest or something was on and it was a video of all the contestants swimming at Udzungwa falls. The video was pretty funny because it would show a couple girls in bikinis splashing water around while looking ridiculous and one of the contestants was an awful swimmer. I mean she was terrible, couldn’t swim in a straight line at all and well, it was funny. The best was when she stood up out of the water to talk to the camera and her swimsuit wasn’t really on very well which she did not notice at all, so for 5 minutes she stood talking to the camera with her nipples popping out of her suit). Back to my experience at Udzungwa… on the way down there were red colobus monkeys and black and white colobus monkeys which are really funny looking. At the bottom of the trail there was a great view of the surrounding farms also gorgeous.

The trail ended in a bunch of farm houses which was really interesting. The houses were made out clay and sticks, and I cannot imagine living in one at all. No running water, no electricity and completely succeptible to flooding and other natural disasters. And villages/homes like this are all over, we could see them the entire drive back, often miles from any store or town. Once again it was apparent how sheltered I am from the many hardships that most people face out here. On Friday night/Saturday morning it poured for quite a while, causing a ton of flooding all over. Houses, markets and cars were all flooded. It’s so strange to think that places close by are still having water shortages and around Morogoro there is more water than they can handle.

Sunday morning we woke up at 4:30 to do another game drive, again very cool, and you all should be jealous.

Okay… enough about the trip, the last two days have also been eventful and I’ll write about them knowing that only about 2 people actually made it this far in the entry (and for those two people, you probably should be doing something productive instead of reading about me in Tanzania). Anyway yesterday I played ultimate frisbee with the Baptist missionaries some Tanzanians and a few people from my program. The missionaries have been playing every Monday and Wednesday for at least a year, everyone else kind of cycles through, but most of them are here for 2-5 years or more. It’s pretty fun, I never played much Frisbee at home and I actually like it a little bit. People don’t take it too seriously which is also nice. After Frisbee I actually play mpira wa miguu a.k.a. soccer with a bunch of Tanzanian guys. It was surprisingly fun and they actually played me the ball which was exciting. I hope I’ll be able to play more often, but who knows. I also came to the realization that I am in awful shape. I eat mostly grease and hardly ever move faster than an extremely slow walk. But it’s not my fault, it’s just too damn hot! Yesterday I got more exercise than I have in about a month, and it didn’t end with the soccer! After that I saw a couple of my friends playing net ball with some Tanzanian women. I’ve never played net ball and I have no idea how to, but I tried yesterday. I still have no idea how to play except there are some lines you’re not supposed to cross and you can’t run with the ball. There weren’t enough people to play a full game, but it was fun just doing something and being able to meet actual Tanzanian women (it’s extremely easy to meet men, usually sketchy guys who ask what house I’m staying in and if they can visit immediately or later, to which I saw no the house has a guard and baba yangu would get angry. women seem to hide and not go out much). The netball team asked me and the other wazungu to go back today (Tuesday) and play. I don’t actually know if I like the game, it seems kind of boring so far, but maybe it will get better.

Okay, now on to the last little bit for those still reading. Today my Kiswahili class went to Tandika market and Kariakoo. Pretty excting, we had to go and speak Swahili to people selling stuff and maybe buy things. At Tandika I bought a couple of kangas, the all purpose cloth which is usally worn as a skirt, headwrap, upperbody wrap, or to carry children on ones back. Kangas are also used as towels, sheets, and picnic blankets. I am probably forgetting many uses, but you get the idea. All the women here wear them, and they are pretty cool. They all have sayings on the bottom, little proverbs often about god. The only saying I remember right now is “All good things come from god”. There was one design that I liked a lot but the saying was “only god can give a man a good wife” or something like that so I didn’t buy it, it was just too weird. But they were pretty cool and cheap too. There are other types of cloth as well, and I bought some kitenge as well (which have no saying on the bottom). Then we headed off to Kariakoo. I talked about that place before so I won’t go into the details now.

Congratulations on making it through the longest entry ever, sorry to bore you. But if it was a good distraction from those who are trying to procrastinate I’m glad. Enjoy the pictures! Hope everyone is doing well.

2006-03-01T06:34:00.000-08:00

Okay, so a bunch of people are waiting to use this computer so I'll keep this short. This last week I saw two movies, fun with dick and jane and a hindi movie called Taxi 92812 or something like that. Dick and jane was absolutley terrible and i wanted to walk out of the theatre, but for some reason decided not too. Instead, jasmine and i got out when it was dark and took a daladala back to campus, which drove off road most of the trip because the entire road was filled with cars coming directly at us! fun times! the hindi movie was pretty funny, and an initeresting experience! Afterwards a few of us went out to dinner to celebrate Tibetan new year (one of the girls on the trip is tibetan), we had some chinese and indian food which was pretty good but not amazing. That's about all that's of interest. I tried to write an update the other day but i couldn't get on my blog (or email) for an hour, and i wrote offline, but the power went off so I couldn't save or send it. a bit frustraitng, to say the least. But today the rainy season started, and it poured all day long. So it's actually been pretty cool, a great temperature. This weekend we are going to Morogoro and some mountains near there, yay for cool animals and swimming at the bottom of a waterfall after walking through a really cool forest where a new species of monkey or ape or something was discovered about 3 years ago!

on a side note, I changed the settings in my blog so anyone can comment now! okay, hope everyone's doing well!

2006-02-24T04:49:00.000-08:00

Okay, there are more photos from Zanzibar. THere are finally some pictures of monkeys, not the ones i see everday, but red colobus ones. There are also some pictures from the spice tour, jangwani forest, and nungwi beach. Enjoy! oh and one of my host-sisters for the tongue wall.

Zanzibar 2

Nothing else is going on here. I am completely over my malaria, and feel fine (well except that i still sweat excessively, like today when I walked home and pretty much sweated through my shirt! but that's normal here). This weekend I plan on goinig to church with my host family, maybe i'll thank the pastor for his prayers which seemed to do the trick with the malaria thing. Anyway, hope everyone is doing well!

2006-02-22T09:27:00.000-08:00

This picture is from Nunwi at Zanzibar, beautiful!

So everyone has been asking about my malaria symptoms and stuff like that. It really isn't that interesting. The symptoms may actually be confused with culture shock(excessive weeping fits, compulsive eatiing, under eating, depression, withdrawl, fatigue, stereotyping host family, etc.) But i was also vomiting so i guess it wasn't culture shock! I puked a bunch, went to the hospital, got misdiagnosed, went home, puked again until my host-mama sent me with elvis to her hospital where I got another test. The test consists of the nurse pricking your finger and then smearing a bit of blood on a glass slide. Then the doctor looks at the slide and determines if you have malaria or not. Although apparently doctors who don't see mzungu much sometimes misdiagnose, oh well. He seemed nice enough, although he kept thinking I meant diaria whenever i said "throw-up", i guess he didn't know what tat meant. Luckily he did know vomiting, especially when combined with the puking motion. Anyway, all I have to do is take a pill every night for six nights, not too bad. I think I'll start wearing more bug spray though. The best part of it all was at home, my host-mother was really great, and her priest came to help us all pray to get over our sicknesses (she was sick too). So he very kindly prayed over me (that is he put his hand on my shouluder and yelled stuff in swahili and english such as "in god's name!" and "JESUS CHRIST", it was hard not to laugh). But it obviously worked!
TOnight Jasmine, Liz and i made homemade pizzas which were amazing! homemade crust and everything. It really hit the spot, I've been craving pizza lately, or anything besides rice beans, chicken and peas. Classes are fine still, this weekend a couple of us might go to Kipepeo beach, should be fun. Anyway I gotta run~

2006-02-20T03:20:00.000-08:00

Well, after waiting for an hour and a half, my blog finally loaded. So I already sent an group email(or two) to most people who read this(if anyone actually does!). Anyway the biggest news is that I got malaria last week. Not that great of an experience but not as bad as i thought it would be. Although it's been a bit confusing considering I got two tests, the first one negative and the second one saying I had three parasites (I don't really know what that means!). Despite malaria on Thursday, i managed to make it to Zanzibar again this past weekend. This time i went with my entire group and we did a historical tour of stone town and went to a couple museums and churches and stuff. It was pretty cool. Then on Saturday we went on a spice tour, a guide took us through a spice farm. We got to see where a bunch of things come from, and try a lot of the plants while out on the farm. In the middle we got to sit and drink lemon grass tea with vanilla (delicious) and eat fresh fruit (mango, avocado, jack fruit, pineapple, and a couple different kinds of oranges). It was much cooler than I thought it would be. And of course it was absolutely beautiful (just like everything else here). We also saw a guy climb a coconut tree with just a bit of rope around his feet, it looked ridiculously hard, and he had absolutely no problem with it.
In the afternoon, we went to Jozani forest to look at monkeys, mangroves, and the forest. They were colobus monkeys and a lot of fun to watch, and I took way too many pictures of them. They were extremely close to us, in fact a couple of them jumped on one of the little kids with us. the mangroves were cool, but not as exciting as the monkeys. Although it was fun climbing on them, they look small, but they are pretty strong. The forest was beautiful. we didn't see many animals, but the it was nice walking through and seeing all the different trees and plants. The guide also explained which plants could be used for different sickenesses and stuff. Most of them seemed to be used to fight witchcraft, as natural viagra, or asthma.
Then we headed up to nungwi beach to the best beach i have seen so far. The whole north coast is owned by really fancy hotels, and the program here paide for the group to stay at a pretty nice place. The water was pretty much perfect, fairly cool, with no seaweed and very little rock. There were beach chairs and palm umbrellas and stuff. There were even small waves and stuff. In the evening, we had a huge, delicious dinner and watched traditional dancing. I am still amazed watching how the men and women can move their hips, it's real crazy. I'll try and learn so when I come back I can rip up the dance floor. After dinner, we chilled on the beach and saw a bunch of shooting stars. We spent the next morning swimming and playing around, I wish we could have stayed longer, it was perfect.
All in all, it was yet another amazing weekend, and it made going to class this morning extremely difficult. Luckily there are only 5 more weeks of class left, so I think i can handle it!

2006-02-16T03:07:00.000-08:00

well not too much to update since last time. I'm going back to Zanzibar this weekend, should be fun, we get to go on a spice tour and stay in some swank hotel. Should be a good time, maybe I'll even be able to see Rachel around, although she has been pretty busy.
Classes started this week, and so far they are pretty basic. Just basic stuff so far and i still have swahili for a couple hours every morning. It's going okay, but getting a bit harder now that we are beyond the basics. I really should practice more, but I still have some trouble with basic sentences and such. I'm hoping the classes will get more interesting, and that the professors will be easier to understand as time goes on! I sit in the back next to the air conditioner which makes it a bit difficult paying attention.
It has started raining a bit which is good, it'll poor for about 10 minutes and then clear up and get really humid and sticky (not so good), but if it means no more power outages and water shortages then I think I can handle it! Right now there are rolling power outages, so every other day there is not power in the evenings. It doesn't disrupt life all that much, people here seem pretty used to it. Anyway I'm going to try and post some pictures from the time i've been here, hope it works!
Here's the link http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=i521bc1.7mv1e6xl&x=0&y=7vzikb

2006-02-12T00:01:00.000-08:00

Up until now I was able to avoid getting sunburned, but this past weekend I got a nice painful sunburn. Hopefully it'll turn into a tan or something, maybe even out my farmers tan which has gotten pretty bad. I don't really ever wear shorts, and never tank tops, and thanks to my program I only wear a one piece bathing suit, which means I often look like i'm still in Minnesota. But I have only been here a month, so maybe as time goes on, and if I keep getting to the beach I'll finally look like I actually am from California.
Anyway, I am actually writing this from Zanzibar which is pretty much amazing. A bunch of people from my group decided to get over here because of a music festival, called Sauti Za Busara (sounds of wisdom), it's a swahili music festival, and a "celebration of all things swahili". So every night they have live music in an old fort from about 4 to midnight. It was pretty cool, a lot of traditional stuff, dancing, Taarab, etc. and some Bongo Flava (which is what they call hip-hop here). We arrived on Friday afternoon, and bummed around for a few hours. It is impossible to walk around without getting lost. The streets are ridiculously narrow, and the buildings are pretty tall so it is impossible to see anything when you are walking. But the streets are pretty cool too, if you don't mind almost being run over by mopeds and bicycles every few seconds. The buildings are all very old, and many have these elaborate doors which are pretty cool. It's not a very big place, all in all, and there are a bunch of tourists! I haven't seen this many white people in one place since I've been here! I don't know if this is normal or because of the music festival, but it's a big change from the University. we went to the Africa House hotel to get some drinks and sit on the rooftop waterfront patio thing, which was real cool. Again, very touristy, but beautiful. I t is so easy to just sit around for hours and not do anythign and not feel guilty about it!
In the evening we ate on the waterfront, a bunch of people set up these tables with fresh (hopefully!) fish, and meat and chapati and naan, which they cook up right in front of you. It was real good and cheap too. Then we went off to the festival, where the highlight was this 93 yearold woman named Bi Kidude and her group. She and her group played some bongos and drums and stuff, and it was really cool. She is extremeley talented, there is supposed to be a documentary coming out about her soon and she won soem award called the WOMEX or seomthing. I don't know, but she was cool, Robby... you would have loved it especially i think. Durnig her performance a group of women performed some traditional dances which was fun to watch. I don't know how they manage to move like they do, they manage to only move the butts, and it's crazy to watch. these women are older, 30's and 40's, and usually pretty big, but they manage to shake it pretty well!
On Saturday, we went snorkeling all day (which led to my wonderful sunburn). It was pretty cool, we rented a boat bought some fruit and a guide took us to a couple different islands with coral reefs and we swam around for a while. The water was great except for the thousands of tiny jellyfish that stung us every few seconds. Every once in a while i would swim into the middle of a bunch of them because they were imposibble to see, and it was like a bunch of needle pricks. But the fish were cool, I like teh starfish the best. But we were out there for like 6 hours, and their was no shade whatsoever! so despite reapplying sunscreen after every swim, we all got real bad burns. It was seriously picturesque though, there were dhow's all around and the water was so clear and pretty, and a bunch of islands all aroud with big white sand beaches, amazing.
Saturday evening we went back to the music festival, which had a buit more Bongo Flava which was kinda fun. Then today we bought our ferry tickets home and are about to leave! All in all it was a great weekend, and if you ever get a chance you should come to Zanzibar! Next weekend our whole group is cmoing here, which means everything gets paid for and we'll stay in a pretty nice hotel! should be sweet!
THis coming week my poli sci. and sociology class start, it kind of feels like the end of summer, oh well. ONly a month of class!

2006-02-08T03:48:00.000-08:00

Here is a picture a friend took at Kipepeo beach. Some of my friends here have uploaded photos to facebook if anyone wants to look at more (sorry tom, you're probably too old for that, well at least until you go back to school!).

2006-02-07T02:49:00.000-08:00

An example of what we do every weekend. Hopefully this next weekend this will be done on Zanzibar where there is a music festival going on, but that might not happen. NOt too much new here, still enjoying the monkey watching and stuff. Went to a club the other day and we all were a bit upset because a beer was about $1.60 which is real expensive here. the prices are so ridiculous! today i spent 45 cents on lunch! i can eat so much food here, it's amazing. the club wasn't anything amazing, a lot of bongo flava, and hip/hop pop music and stupid stuff. It was also a pain in the ass getting back home. Taking taxi's at night is apparently real dangerous, and they often try and take you to the wrong place to rob you or make you pay too much money, not a lot of fun when you can't understand the driver and don't really know the direction you're supposed to be going in. luckily we had a tanzanian with us and he could take care of it all. Also, not fun stuffing five or 6 people into those cabs.
Did i mention that that there is a musial artist here named 50 dollar as well as Master V and Zay B? their videos are played all the time, and they are pretty damn funny. The music videos here look like somebody just set up a video camera and started dancing in front of it. They usually involve a guy (who is usually real real skinny, and about 15) rapping with girls standing in the background moving their hips. Not all that exciting.
This thursday a bunch of us might go to the U.S. embassy where the marines stationed there (all 9 of them) host "thirsty thursday" where they show movies and serve hot dogs and popcorn. I'm hoping they'll have actual ketchup instead of just tomato sauce! We've all debated if we really want to go hang out with marines, and we decided hotdogs and free drinks outweighted dumbass military guys, we'll see how that works out!

2006-02-07T02:40:00.000-08:00

This was taken in bagamoyo at our hotel, pretty sweet location! From the left, it's Sander, Scott, Me and Jasmine.

2006-02-07T02:16:00.000-08:00

This is a picture of me and my host dada (sisters) in my room, Sarah in the back with me and Sia in front.

2006-01-30T02:40:00.000-08:00

Mambo rafiki! how's life on the other side of the world going?? Life here is nzuri sana! (very good). I'm trying to take my kiswahili lessons more seriously this day, as I have been enjoying the ufukwe and the bia too much. but the mahji is so nice and after the joto weather, and it's always good times enjoying bia baridi.
This past weekendi my group went to bagamoyo, which was very cool. We stayed in a sweet resort with lots of palm trees that was right on the ocean. The water wasn't great for swimming, too shallow, but when the tide was out, you could walk all the way out to this reef and explore, there was some coral and a bunch of little fishes and other cool stuff. Our little area of water was sectioned off by two mangrove forests. For swimming there was a pool right in the hotel which was pretty sweet. Jasmine (my roommate/"dada"(sister)) and i were going to get up to watch the sunrise sunday but we somehow got locked in our room and had to pound on the door until someone came and opened it! All in all it was a pretty great weekend.
Besides that i haven't done too much, except sleep and eat a lot of delicious food. I haven't played soccer in ages, but i think i'm going to start up again soon. Another girl on the program, liz, plays soccer at St. Olaf, so maybe i'll kick around with her soon.

2006-01-25T05:08:00.000-08:00

i'm attempting to upload a photo, but i'm not sure it'll work. It's from last weekend at kipepeo beach which was pretty cool (see the below posts for more detail). I just wrote a long, hella boring post yesterday, so I won't say too much. We've been seeing a lot of monkey's and a baboon or two around campus, it's pretty cool. This coming weekend we are going to Bagomoyo beach, i can't wait! it'll be an overnight trip, so it should be pretty cool. Everything else is good, i'm enjoying the fresh squeezed mango juice daily which is by far the best juice i've ever had! Oh and chipati is amazing! Hope everyone is doing well. Enjoy the picture (if it works)!

2006-01-23T02:35:00.000-08:00

I have now been in Tanzania for almost two weeks. So far everything has been really great. The weather, once you get used to it, is really nice. The heat can be intense but you get used to sweating constantly. So far my favorite part has definitely been the beaches, Kipepeo was great and next weekend our group is going to Bagamoyo beach which is supposed to be even more beautiful. We are staying overnight there and I believe we get to see some traditional dancing.
This past weekend a bunch of us went to a local restaurant/bar called Udasa. They put a big screen tv up outside and show movies and Africa Cup games. Quite a few other students go so it’s been a good way to meet some interesting people. Everyone is very friendly and comes up to talk. I try to use Kiswahili, but so far all I really know how to do is say hello and how are you which makes for limited conversation. But most people around the university speak fairly good English although most also think it is pretty funny to talk really fast so I have absolutely no idea what they are saying.
I am staying with the Kimambo family. They are all really nice, I am living with another student as well, named Jasmine from Colorado College. We have two host sisters, Sia who is 4 ½, Sarah who is 9, and Sam who is 15. Sia speaks no English whatsoever, and probably thinks Jasmine and I are pretty stupid considering we cannot understand even the simplest questions. But we are both starting to understand more and more. Sarah and Sam can both speak very good English and are a big help with our Kiswahili. We also have a live-in “house-girl” who is always around and takes care of the kids. She speaks no English either so sometimes it can be a bit challenging. The family also employs a driver named Elvis, he is very cool and laughs at me and Jasmine a lot because we always butcher our sentences when trying to talk to him. My host mama and baba are not around all that much, they work a lot and Dada (which means sister and is what we call the housegirl) takes care of the kids and the house. All in all it’s been really nice, good food, they gave us mosquito nets and a fan so our room is not quite so hot and we probably won’t get malaria.
Speaking of malaria, during orientation we were told that there is a real strong possibility that a good number of the group will get malaria. 80% of the last group got it, and it really isn’t that big a deal. People here get it all the time and don’t seem to really mind too much. You just gotta take your meds and you’ll be fine. That was really great to find out. But I guess it shouldn’t freak me out too much because they are very good at dealing with it.
That’s about all that’s going on here. I’m still working on putting some pictures up, but it’ll probably take some time. Most people on the trip have digital cameras so there’ll be a ton of pictures. We’re trying to put up them up on a website or something, so I’ll let you know when we figure it out. Hope everyone is doing well!

2006-01-22T07:04:00.000-08:00

Well it's been quite a week here. We just finished up orientation, which was pretty sweet. We went to some truly amazing beaches, Kipepeo just yesterday and it was awesome. It was hot, but there was a nice breeze and huts to sit under which was great. The food was good and as usual very cheap (everything here is ridiculously cheap, lunch is usually 45 cents to a 1.50). Anyway all is good, hope you all are well! gotta run to dinner ...

2006-01-16T00:58:00.000-08:00

I am currently sitting in the computer lab at the university of Dar es Salaam, it is a million degrees outside, luckily there is air conditioning and fans in here! We had our first kiswahili class this morning. I'll be having 4 hours of class a day for the next month, apparently it isn't that hard to learn... but we'll see. Tomorrow I move in with my host family, i don't know too much about them yet, i have met most of them though, there are three kids and the father is a lecturer at the university.
A couploe days ago we went to jangwani beach, a private beach which was amazing. of course i got a sunburn despite multiple layers of sunscreen, but it really isn't that bad. we're going back to the beach next saturday, i can't wait! Yesterday we went to the village museum, which has a bunch of examples of native houses and stuff. we got to see a native dance performance of a bunch of different tribes, it was very cool.
this afternoon we are going to Mwenge market, which is insanely busy, people sell everything you could ever possibly need, it is quite an experience. otherwise not too much is going on. the food so far has been great, the fruit especially, the weather has been hot but bearable, and the people have all been really nice. hope everyone is doing well, i'll try and put pictures up soon!

2005-12-28T17:50:00.000-08:00

Here are some photos of my family from thanksgiving, just click on the link below:
My Photos

2005-12-27T18:58:00.000-08:00

Well, the purpose of this thing is to keep in touch with everyone back in Minnesota, California or wherever while I'm in Tanzania. I don't leave until January 9th, at which point I'll be living in Dar es Salaam for about 5 months. Until then, I'll be chillin' in Berkeley.