Monday, June 30, 2008

off to a village...

So apparently my first week of community training will entail going to a small village an hour outside of Arusha and living there for the next 4 days. Not exactly what I was expecting, but it should be great to actually live in a Tanzanian village. I do not know the name of it because our program director did not know...I also only found out this morning that a group of us were going...typical Africa. It will be nice to get away from the craziness and all of the hassling that I get in the city for a week though. And then this weekend, some of us are going to visit Moshi, so I might get to glimpse Kilimanjaro! On Saturday, we will go hiking in the foothills of Kili among waterfalls.

It has suddenly gotten super warm and sunny after weeks of rain and mud, with no apparent warning or reason. I have to be much more diligent about applying sunscreen now, but it is completely worth it. It actually feels like Africa now!

I spent this past weekend throwing up and sleeping, ugh. I think I was food poisoned. Or potentially water-poisoned. Even though my family here boils water for me to drink, they have been storing it in the exact same large plastic water bottle for the past month. My dad (real one) always has warned me not to re-use plastic water bottles because bacteria will grow in them...eek. For now, I am boycotting my family's water and buying my own. I felt very bad for my family over the weekend though, they were convinced I was dying and kept trying to get me to eat. Obviously, I would refuse because I was not a fan of getting violently sick. Also, my mama seems to think that eggs are the miracle food to make sick people get better. I do not know about everyone else, but eggs are the LAST thing I want on an upset stomach. I felt better this morning though, and she got very excited when I agreed to let her make me an "omelet" (this consists of an egg surrounding raw carrots, onions, and tomatoes...not what we would typically call an omelet). They also discovered my love of watermelon since it was one of the only things I would eat over the weekend, and now they keep feeding it to me. Yummm!!

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Kiswahili and sewing


I miss my Enyoito kids already. I forgot to mention that one of my favorite moments with them was when we were taking pictures and they wanted to look at them (one of the greatest things about digital cameras…instant gratification for people who will not actually get to see them later). They started scrolling through my photos, and I had some old ones still on there that I had not deleted, including some of myself from after the zombie walk. The kids thought it was hilarious, and laughed at me for about five minutes. I was laughing too; those photos were ridiculous, especially for people who do not really have a conception of dressing up.

While the first two weeks of day camp at Enyoito were great, I am honestly going to be happy when this third week at Arusha Meru secondary school is over. Right now we are working more then 40 hours a week and I get up at 6 a.m. each day – it is getting kind of old to wake up with the roosters every morning. Couple that with the fact that only a few hours of daylight remain after school because dusk is 6 p.m. (and if I do not want to take a taxi, I must get home before dark), and it explains the lack of time to do much in town. Although I did stop by the craft market yesterday, and it was amazing! I will definitely go back several times. Anyway, next week I start doing HIV/AIDS community trainings, which will be much less intense. Mondays we will have off, and Tuesday thru Friday we go from 10 – 1, so I will get to sleep in a bit and also have time to do things in the afternoons.

Yesterday the jua (sun) finally came out again! My first week in Tanzania was stellar weather-wise, sunny and in the 70s. But since then, it has been rainy and chilly…I know it is winter in the southern hemisphere, but I am basically on the equator so I was not expecting this. Even the Tanzanians are complaining that it is colder than it should be. I am now wishing that I had brought more sweatshirts. Thanks to Ruth for suggesting that I bring some at all.

Last evening I finally took a dala dala alone, mostly out of necessity…it was 6:15 and I was still a 30 minute walk from home. It turned out to be interesting when these very intoxicated guys got on. Luckily we were only 5 minutes from my stop at that point, so I ignored the fact that they were blatantly talking about me right through me (just because I am white does not mean I am completely oblivious). Then they REALLY got a kick out of me when I told the conductor I wanted to stop…I correctly knocked on the side of dala, said “simama” (stop), and poked his arm. They started exclaiming about the fact that I could speak Swahili – they could not believe it. I guess they were too drunk to entertain the idea that someone can know how to say “stop” and “thank you” without actually speaking the language. This is becoming a recurring theme even for sober Tanzanians though. Now that I have all of the myriad possible greetings and proper responses learned, and can successfully engage in the long customary exchange of pleasantries, many people assume that I can speak Swahili. When they start going off in their native tongue, I can only apologize for having no idea what they are saying and ask if they speak kingereza (English).

As usual, my dadas more than made up for any not stellar things that happened throughout the day though. I came home to Rachel and Durcas and my mama’s friend’s children (7 and 3 years old) who have actually been staying at our house for a few days now. I walked up to the gate and heard them exclaim “Mary!” and they all ran to the door and gave me hugs, and then Durcas asked if I would play outside with them. When Gamma, my kaka, got home he was going to go into the house even though his sisters asked him to play. But I implored “Gamma, njo!” (come), so he actually played with us for awhile…which was awesome because he is the shiest of all of my siblings and usually avoids interacting with me. I think this Saturday I am going to attempt to make no-bake cookies with my dadas – we will see how that goes. I am keeping my expectations low.


My teaching partner, Clare, and another GSC volunteer, Conner, are leaving this weekend (Clare home for New York, Conner for a semester at the University of Dar es Salaam). Also, the volunteers doing the health program are leaving Arusha for Moshi, so we are all going out for one last dinner together tonight at an Indian restaurant. Afterward, we are going to a club, Via Via, where there apparently will be live music. I am super excited to hear what Tanzanian music will be like…I think it is supposed to be rock or something…I will report back. Meanwhile, my one pair of jeans that I brought over are disintegrating. I spent the evening sewing up the various holes that somehow developed since I have been here. It was actually a relatively successfully endeavor – I am so domestic. Although I am thoroughly enjoying not doing my own laundry for the first time in seven or eight years. I do not think I could do it here anyway, they do it by hand without any sort of brush even…it looks complicated. Maybe at some point I will get up the courage/will to actually attempt to help.

CRAZY, my time here is almost halfway over. Eeek.

Monday, June 23, 2008

New shule and gospel music

This week I am teaching a mini-day camp to a combination of Form 1 students and street “children”. The term children is used very loosely…this organization that GSC is partnering with works with people from age 1 – 25 years old, and most of our students are definitely in the 18 – 25 age range. The form 1s are circa 12 years old, so today was interesting because we had them all mixed together. We might separate them kesho (tomorrow), because it did not exactly work stellarly.

Last Saturday was graduation for my Enyoito students. I was so sad to leave them, and many of them were upset too…some girls in my class were literally in tears. The ceremony was AMAZING. It ended up running an hour and a half over its appointed time, but it was completely worth it. There were dramas (with prego women, haha), tribute songs to mwalimu (teachers :)), dances, and my personal favorite was the hip-hop act. The secondmaster brought his stereo, but the room we had to do graduation in (because it was raining) did not have an outlet. However, it did have lights, so some of the older boys decided to rewire the room so that they could use the stereo…very inventive, and also probably dangerous. Everything worked out very well though! We had a photo shoot afterward, so I literally have hundreds of pictures of myself and the students. Luckily I do not mind having my picture taken, otherwise that would have been an awful experience, lol. My dada Rachel and the cousin, Erick, came with me to the graduation because I invited my whole familia here. It was really special because no one else’s family (of the GSC volunteers) came, so I felt loved…my family is great! They both enjoyed themselves, and it was nice to walk down the mountain for the last time with my dada…it made leaving my students less depressing. I got some of their email addresses though, so we can stay in touch/I can send them photos that we took.

Later that evening, all of the GSC volunteers went to a traditional Tanzanian wedding reception. The groom was the brother of a girl who is interning with GSC, Bridget, so she invited all of us. It was sooo poa (cool)! I was probably most shocked when they wheeled out two roasted goats that had vegetables sticking out of them…they were huge, and so obviously dead animals. We paraded to the front of the room to toast the entire wedding party at Bridget’s family’s request, and then again to present our gift as a part of the gift dance. The room looked like a senior prom…there were a ton of flowers, Christmas lights flashing, and white and maroon bows and balloons everywhere. There were also a bunch of ceremonial things to do. The reception began at 7, but we did not even start eating dinner until 9:45 (everyone had not gotten food until 10:30). Such a fun experience though!

My dada finally got the guts to ask if I had a laptop with me, and I admitted that I did and got it out for them. Unfortunately, I do not really have anything on it to interest them…I let them watch one innocuous episode of Gossip Girl that I had pre-screened and knew was okay. Other than that though, I do not have any movies or other T.V. shows that I think are appropriate for 10 and 12 year old girls. They do not seem very interested in my music either. Erick got out his CD of gospel music though, so we threw it onto my computer and they LOVED that. It was a family sing-along, they all knew all of the words. It was not too awful, much better than American gospel music, but I would never choose to listen to it myself. Erick left yesterday to go back to boarding schule, so I probably will not see him again :(

I tossed around a frisbee with some of the students after day camp today, and I was very happy to have an excuse to run around, even if it was to chase after their spastic throws. I do not think I can bring myself to run here…I miss it a lot, but it would just be extremely stressful. Just walking down the street is hard enough. To run around in sweatpants would be intense. The only people that I have seen running at all are these hard core marathon-training 20-something men. I am walking a lot every day, so hopefully that is keeping me in some sort of shape. And I think I might climb Mt. Meru in a couple of weekends with two other GSC girls, which would be amazing exercise, haha. Even though I am almost always hungry here, I think I might actually be gaining weight…eeek. Thus is the nature of empty fried carbs, I suppose.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Address, finallyyy

Here is my address for those of you who have been asking for it (I also put it up on fbook). I would love letters/postcards if you have time to send them :)

Global Service Corps
Plot #4 Sekei East of Golf Course
P.O. Box 16338
Arusha, TZ

I love the “east of golf course” part of that, lol.

I cannot believe day camp is almost over!! Today in the afternoon we had a photo shoot which was ridiculous. EVERY single student wanted an individual shot with me. At least Holly Rivers at the Kellogg Institute will be happy.

Also, check this out: http://www.maasaimarathon.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=c_pages.showPage&pageID=1&CFID=315242&CFTOKEN=56b7d80a9270e2b7-A1358846-FFA6-085F-C18992B6DDE6E7CC
I am friends with one of those guys, Isaya (on my left in this photo)...he is awesome. It is so surreal to be talking with a Maasai warrior after studying about them in both anthro and my intro to theo classes. And the fact that they ran a marathon faster than me without training, and did their jumping and yelling the whole way is also humbling.

This Saturday, a group of us GSC volunteers are attending a traditional Tanzanian wedding reception! It is for the brother of one of the GSC interns, so she invited us all to come. I am very interested/excited…apparently it will involve participation in a “gift dance,” so we will see what that is all about. Hopefully pictures will be coming soon!

My Kiswahili is stagnating…with all of the day camp stuff plus my anthropology research, it has not been a top priority. Hapana nzuri. I would probably be more motivated if I thought I was here long enough to actually make a dent it. As it is, I know that I am going to have to start in a beginning class anyway when I actually decide to learn for real. But I really should start making more of the current immersion opportunity. On a similar note, I never realized before coming to Tanzania that some of the phrases in the Lion King are real. Hakuna matata really does mean no worries, simba means lion, and rafiki means friend. That is the limit of Disney’s Swahili prowess, however. None of the other characters’ names mean anything.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

day camp, safari, and other fun

I had written a really stellar entry at my house on my laptop and then put it on my memory stick to throw online once I got to an internet café, but this computer is not allowing that. So I will do my best to go over everything…

The past few days have been a rollercoaster emotion-wise…but I <333 rollercoasters. We are having a graduation ceremony this coming Saturday to end our day camp at Enyoito. Many of the kids are preparing songs/skits/etc. to perform for their fellow students and their families, so it should be amusing. My dada Rachel is coming too I think, so that will be nice :) Clare is my fellow volunteer teacher, and she is super fun and energetic! One of my students, Daniel, informed me on our walk down the hill from school this afternoon that she and I are now in a Swahili learning competition, so I need to go home and practice with my dadas tonight! The Tanzanian counterpart (translator) for our classroom is Aggrey, and he is a star. He is seriously my favorite person here. He loves hip-hop, has great English and helps me with Swahili, we can joke around together, and today I introduced him to Miley Cyrus…and he loved her!!

Last Saturday, I went with the other 14 GSC volunteers in my group on our pre-paid (included in the ridiculously high program fees) safari. This means that the Kellogg Institute actually paid for it, score. We went to Lake Manyara, which was sooo awesome. They call it Tanzania’s most underrated park, and now I understand why. We saw a ton of animals: baboons, simbas, blue monkeys, twige, impala, tembo, flamingos, dik dik, vervet monkeys, wildebeest, water buffalo, warthogs, hippos, banded mongoose, and zebras, not to mention a plethora of beautiful African birds. We saw 3 lions in total, and one was UP IN A TREE. This park is the only place in the world where the simbas climb trees, and we actually saw one! Poa kachizi. Sunday was the weirdest/worst experience I have had in TZ yet. Four of us volunteers decided to try to go to the snake park which is about 25 km out of town, but on one of the dala dala routes. To make a long story short, it turned out that we got on the right one but going in the opposite direction, and we ended up in a situation where I think the conductor saw an opportunity to rob us, so got everyone else off the dala and a group of his friends on. Then they were refusing to let us off, claiming that they could not speak English and hence did not know what we were asking for once we decided we just wanted to leave. Luckily one of the girls is bigger and was able to just barrel past all of the guys and more or less force the driver to stop. She then got off, but the guys were still trying to hold the rest of us back…I literally had to pry a set of their hands off one of my friends. We got off in town and everything turned out completely fine, but it was just a really bad situation. What was really unsettling is that the dala dala is the public transport system here, and no one had ever warned us that it could be dangerous…I think it was that they knew we did not have a clear idea of where we were going coupled with the fact that it is now “high season” for tourists, so people are more ready to rip foreigners off because they think they can get away with it. Going home to my family here everyday though is great! Rachel and Durcas always greet me with huge hugs, and I have been having good conversations with Irene and her friend Nora lately too. They are 16 and 15, respectively, so I have been getting a lot of their perceptions about HIV/AIDS and gender roles in these informal convos that I can use for my anthro research, yay! Also, they are all just great fun, and in some ways remind me a lot of my family at home. For example, my mama here often randomly bursts out into song, and then all of the kids start laughing...which is definitely something that my mom does and then we all tease her. And my baba has been running around in bright orange swimming trunks lately...which my dad at home does, although that makes more sense considering we live on a lake, lol. And last night before dinner, my youngest dada tried to say grace but then said something ridiculous, and we were all laughing for a good 5 minutes before we actually said prayers. They all make me feel really comfortable. Yesterday Rachel and Durcas went to a friend’s house to borrow some movies, and came home with “Baby’s Day Out”, “Crazy Hong Kong”, and “Daddy Day Care.” Last night we watched Baby’s Day Out before dinner, then I tried to watch Crazy Hong Kong with them after dinner, but I seriously could not handle it. It was about an African bushman who gets transported to Hong Kong in a commercial director’s luggage accidentally…but it is one of those extremely poorly done B-grade movies. Eeek. Plus I have a hard enough time staying up as late as my siblings…they stay up until 11:30 or midnight every night and are up before 6:30. Normally I could totally handle that, but with all of the walking and constant hassling, I am exhausted by 10.

The food here is good, but I would never eat any of it outside of Africa. The really yummy stuff is extremely greasy and I would not choose to eat it. Since my family puts it in front of me though, obviously I do :) The healthy stuff is good-tasting, but I can think of a lot of other things that I would rather eat than rice and beans, no matter how well it is prepared. So I will just enjoy the Tanzanian food while I am here, and not attempt to learn how to make any of it. They do not snack or have dessert here…actually, dessert after dinner every night is water. For real. The fact that they fry everything more than makes up for this though. My breakfast each morning is literally a pile of carbs, haha. Good thing I just told my family straight-up that I am a vegetarian though, because the meat here is nasty. Even my fellow volunteers who love meat in the states are not fans of it here.

I asked for my rubbers back this morning (tennis shoes) because my family had cleaned them for me, and they were the cleanest they have been since I first got them I think. Now they are already dirty again because of all the mud this a.m. :( Also they did some of my laundry last week (actually the cousin, Erick, did the laundry which was cool), and then they ironed everything! My jeans had never looked that stellar…my family in the states gets out the iron maybe twice a year.

The rest of this week should fly by, and then next week we are doing a mini day camp for street children in Arusha or else are doing peer-educator camp for the select kids from the current day camps we are running to learn how to facilitate health clubs in their school for the coming academic year. I will try to put up my address here in Arusha tomorrow, pole to everyone who has been asking for it…I keep forgetting to bring it with me to the internet!

Monday, June 9, 2008

First week in TZ

Sorry it took me awhile to update this (pole), but now I am going to try to update at least once a week. I am at a great internet café near my house, and I plan to frequent it relatively often.

Anyway, my first week in Tanzania has been stellar! Traveling here was very easy…the only stressful part was my layover in Hartford. I was supposed to have an hour, but my flight from Detroit got in late and then we sat on the runway for 45 minutes…I was sure that I was going to watch my plane to Amsterdam take off while I was still stuck on the other one. Luckily, I got off with just enough time left to sprint to the gate and was the last one to board before we took off. Other than that, though, it was really easy. When we got into Kilimanjaro, someone from Global Service Corps (the NGO I am volunteering with) was there to pick up a whole group of volunteers, and she took us to a hostel where we stayed until Wednesday.

On Wednesday, I moved in with my homestay family. They are GREAT!! My baba is a pastor, and does not speak any English, so we are limited to the tiny bit of Kiswahili that I know…we pretty much have the same convo every day, except each time I throw in one new Swahili phrase and he gets really excited, lol. My mama speaks only a bit of English, but she is super friendly and helpful. Every other word out of her mouth is “karibu” (welcome). I have 3 younger dadas and 1 younger kaka. My oldest sister, Irene, is 16, and she was pretty shy at first. Last night, though, she really opened up and started asking me a lot of questions, which was really fun. Her English is great because she has been learning it for a long time in schule. Rachel is 12, and even though she is young her English is pretty great. She is my fav so far…she always wants to be near me and helps me with my Kiswahili a lot, which I definitely appreciate. My youngest dada, Durcas, is 10, and hardly speaks any English, but she likes to hang out with Rachel and me. We play hopscotch, jumprope, and generally just have a good time together. My brother, Gamma (??) is 13 and is painfully shy…he just started saying hello to me recently :) There is also a cousin (Erick) who lives with us. He is 19 and wants to become a doctor, so we ended up talkin a lot the other night (his English is impecable). We all watch a lot of T.V. together too, which is hilarious…the Filipino soap operas are my personal fav, they are hyper-dramatic (someone starts crying in EVERY single scene, no joke). Also, yesterday, “East African Idol” (my name for it) came on…it was just like American idol, except with contestants from Tanzania, Uganada, and Kenya…lol.

Tanzanians in general are very friendly, but they also are obsessed with my whiteness. I definitely expected there to be more white people here, but I stick out so much. Everywhere I go, I am followed by shouts of “mzungu!!” (foreigner), which honestly got old after about 2 days. I also get harassed a lot to buy things. I know enough Kiswahili to get by though, so once I start talking they back off. It is just a really strange experience to be so obviously an outsider. I feel like it is not fair, because if any of these people came to the states, it would be relatively easy for them to throw on a pair of jeans and blend right in. No matter what, though, I am obviously not Tanzanian, despite my skirts and “smart” dress.

Also, boys here like white girls a lot. I have literally been told “I love you, so much” several times. Yesterday at the market in Tengeru, a guy grabbed me and told me how he wanted a girlfriend like me, which would not have been a big deal, except he was holding onto my arm so tightly that I really could not get away. I told him I was married, but he did not believe me since I did not have a ring (smart guy). Luckily I was with other GSC volunteers, so they prised him off of me. I am sure it would have been fine, but things like that are annoying. Today I walked alone to the school where I will be teaching HIV/AIDS education and life skills, and it was a lot better than when we are in a big group. I guess I look less like a tourist that way, so I get harassed less. On my way home, though, this guy named Mosses talked with me for awhile. He was really nice and honestly just wanted to talk…it is sad that since some people want to take advantage of foreigners I tend to just shut down in general.

Tomorrow I start teaching! I cannot wait to meet my students. I am working with other GSC volunteers from the U.S. and Tanzanian counterparts, who are great. I think they will be a great resource for my anthro research. I may need/want to redirect my project…definitely something I need to think a lot about. It has only been a week though, so I have time. I should start interviewing people in my third week I think.

Alright, that is all I have time for now…much more to come! If you get a chance, shoot me an email or fbook message letting me know how your summer is going. If you want a postcard or anything specific from Tanzania, let me know!