I’m glad I got a chance to Skype with my parents early on Sunday morning. Apparently Delta/KLM hadn’t updated the flight status of my previous flight from Dar Amsterdam, and it appeared that my flight had never arrived. Even the people working at Delta couldn’t tell my parents where the plane was.
Anyway, after a brief chat with them I got on the plane and found my seat. I immediately started feeling a little ill and tried to fall asleep and let it pass. There were no air vents to adjust, and no signs of sleepiness either, so I tried to just relax and let it pass. Unfortunately I waited too long, because by the time I decided I had to find the bathroom we were already taxiing. I had to ask the person sitting in the aisle to get up for me, but she told me we were about to take off so I shouldn’t get up. I hesitated and she refused to budge, so I rebuckled my seatbelt and tried desperately to mentally power my way through.
After about 1.5 more minutes I decided there was no turning back. I didn’t take no for an answer this time, and made it all the way to the bathroom door when the stewardess at the end of the aisle directly in front of me got on the over head speaker and said, “Ma’am, return to your seat immediately.” I had thought ahead enough to have a motion sickness bag in my hand and figured that waving at her should be enough of a clear sign. Of course, it wasn’t. She said “No. Return to your seat. No. Go sit down. Now.” With her stupid Dutch KLM accent and a very don’t mess with me tone, it was clear that I had better return to my seat.
I fortunately had just enough time to sit back down before losing my kibbles. I was hoping to make it until the plane started taking off so the loud jet noises could cover for me, but of course the plane was called back at the last minute because the fog lights weren’t working properly. We had to sit there for 20 more minutes before getting the green light and taxiing back to the runway.
No one came to see what was wrong for me or anything. My seatmate just sat there the whole time reading her newspaper and ignoring me. I was too exhausted to move, but finally mustered up some strength to find a trash can after about half an hour. On my way, I found a flight attendant. I told him I was pretty sure I had food poisoning or something, so he gave me a bottle of coke and some Imodium. Another flight attendant was nice enough to ask my seatmate to move and give me some room to lie down. It was a tight squeeze, but I was appreciative of the breathing room.
Unfortunately for me, I spent the remaining 7.5 hours of the trip with a fever and never-ending nauseousness running back and forth to the bathroom, bag in hand. I was rather struck by how unfriendly everyone was. The only person who would even talk to me was a Registered Nurse from Nigeria.
I finally made my way to the back of the plane to ask the flight attendants about getting some water. Unfortunately I came across the lady on the loud speaker and had to apologize to her about our little encounter. We actually got into an interesting conversation. It included everything from her advice on food poisoning, to warnings that I could be quarantined upon my arrival, to her extreme delight that I knew that her home country, Suriname, is not in Africa. Apparently I’m the first American to ever know where her home country is – thank you Georgetown SFS.
Anyway, it was a pretty rough flight for me up until the very end. When I finally got off the plane, I pulled myself together and headed as fast as I could to Customs. I managed to get past with little trouble, pick up my bags, and phone my parents (apparently my phone can hold a charge after 3 months. They didn’t expect me to get out so quickly, and were apparently sitting in the Starbucks letting a man from Jerusalem use their computer.
I was thoroughly exhausted from the flight and was so relieved to see them and collapse into a big group hug. As for this random guy from Jerusalem, my parents have apparently picked up an appreciation for hospitality after giving me up to the Tanzanian community for the past three months, and were already getting started paying it forward. It turns out this guy was an economist who spoke 5 languages (Hebrew, Arabic, English, French, and Russian….all fluently except for Russian) and was on his way to a conference to meet Obama the next day. His hotel was in New Carrollton, so after helping him find out its exact location on the computer, they offered to give him a ride.
On the way back I asked my parents to stop by Georgetown to say hi to a good friend and grab some frozen yogurt at my favorite place in Du Pont. I was a little overconfident with my newfound second wind, but it didn’t prove to be too much of a problem. We gave our new friend a quick tour of things on our drive back through the city and had a great time laughing and learning more about each other.
When we finally got to his hotel I went inside to find a bathroom before hitting the road again. After about 5 more minutes of being on the road, my dad asked for his phone – he is a little obsessive about checking his phone messages. It was nowhere to be found, and as we tried to work backwards in time to figure out who had it, we realized I had been talking to my sister on the phone when I walked into the hotel bathroom. I called 411 within 10 minutes of leaving the hotel, and when I finally got a hold of a member of the hotel staff they told me they couldn’t find the phone. Way to go, Chelsea.
When we got home, I waited up for a bit for my sister to get home and then passed out in my bed for the next 10 hours. I woke up the next morning feeling infinitely better and oh so happy to be home. I called Verizon, found out that someone had been using the internet on my dad’s phone earlier in the morning, and had therefore definitely been taken from the hotel bathroom. Welcome to America. We have old phones lying around the house to transfer numbers too in exactly these circumstances so it ended up being no big deal.
I’m back to normal times and forms of communication now and will be working on some sort of calendar for my last 5 weeks at home. Can’t wait to reconnect with everyone in between walking the dogs and family bonding time!
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Random Tidbits
There are a bunch of random memories from my trip that I’ve been meaning to write about while I was in TZ, so I guess I’ll just compile them all here before I forget. I hope to continue with some bigger posts on education, tribes, the differences between TZ and the US, and my personal reflections on the trip at a later time, but I’ll keep these clips short for now (or short-ish, to be more precise).
Soda Can Story
While I was walking home after Skyping with Mr. Shekdar’s 4th grade class for a second time a few weeks ago, I stopped at a small local store (duka) for a drink. Everyone here drinks out of 400mL bottles which cost 400 TZ shillings (if a Coke product) wholesale or 500 shillings at the store. You can also buy small 300 mL bottles for 400 shillings at the store, but that’s mostly just for kids.
Anyway, I was really thirsty and opened the cooler to help myself to a drink. If you drink a soda you usually have to wait and give the bottle back to the store for them to recycle. I didn’t feel like waiting, so I just grabbed a can from the fridge. The cans are just 330 mL, so I gave the woman and the store a 500 shilling bill and waited for the change.
Instead of waiting for the change, she waited for me to give her more money. I was very confused by this and asked her how much more she wanted. It turned out to be 1,000 shillings! That’s twice as much money as a bottle and not as much liquid! Of course, this was the only day I decided to open the drink before drinking it. Unfortunately I had no more money on me and had to ask if I could pay her later. Luckily I have made sure to greet her from the road almost every day in Swahili, so my friend had no problem waiting for the money. I, however, felt like quite the idiot.
Deborah Washing Clothes
I had gotten a little bit behind in the washing-of -the-underpants department in my last few weeks here and had to scramble at the end to get everything clean. I had a whole rotation system between washing clothes and packing and was having a good old time getting all of my things together when my little friend Deborah (the house girl’s daughter) game to help me pack.
Deborah, while extremely cute, is usually quite a pain because she is almost always the most interested in the item I want her to touch the least. However, on that day, for some reason, she decided to make herself useful. I didn’t know what she was doing, but she went into my bathroom, presumably to do some perusing of the shampoo bottles and soaps. I let her be for a few minutes as I continued to pack. After a little while I began to get suspicious and went into the bathroom to see what she was up to. Low and behold she was leaning over the big bucket, barely reaching, but diligently washing my underpants in the soapy water! At just one and a half years of age I was very impressed by her hard work. I of course helped her find something else to do, but not before snapping a few pics.
Rooster on the Safari
On my very mini safari to Ngorongoro Crater I had the chance to see a lot of very cool birds, as well as the other safari creatures you’d expect to see (elephants, hyenas, a lion, warthogs, wildebeest, zebras etc.) While observing these beautiful creatures out of the roof of our Land Cruiser, I became very confused when I heard the unmistakable crow of a rooster. I assumed I must be imagining things, but after another 2 minutes I heard it again. I looked everywhere for the bird, even though I couldn’t imagine how a rooster would have arrived at the bottom of the crater with all the safari animals. The third crow just a few seconds later was interrupted mid call, and I when I turned around to see what it was my host sister was standing there on toying with her phone. Apparently that’s the sound of her incoming text messages.
Maasai at the Beach
On the second to last day of my trip to Zanzibar I was dropped off by my guide at a random beach hotel and told that he would come pick me up several hours later. I had to pay an entrance fee of 2,000 shillings, order lunch for myself, and find entertainment. I was initially rather annoyed with this since all of these things were supposed to be covered in the cost of my trip, and leaving me to play by myself was never in the itinerary.
However, after a few minutes of getting settled, I relaxed and decided to just go with it. From the hotel I could see the beach, except it appeared to be about a kilometer off in the distance. I challenged myself to make it all the way out there even though the waiter at the restaurant told me that the tide would come in just a few short hours. Off I went, holding a kanga over my head to protect my unfortunately white skin from the blaring afternoon sun. After a few minutes I came across a group of three boys catching small fish by smacking sticks against the sand in small pools of water. As I continued on, the water got to be about ankle deep, but the real ocean border was still far off in the distance. I came across a ton of cool creatures including fat, sand-colored starfish, skinny starfish with bright red lines across them in cool vein-like patterns, conch, and other random ocean life.
After awhile I began to feel that I would never reach the ocean. I decided to quit and just stick to observing the creatures on the sea floor. When I got back, I took a nice long nap on the beach, and woke up to find that the ocean had come all the way up to the hotel beach, fully covering all the animals I had seen before. I went for a nice swim in the ocean, and then went to go find myself a soda.
In the process of getting a drink I made friends with several members of the hotel staff. The majority of these guys were Maasai (a tribe I have yet to write about). I was really excited to actually get a chance to talk to them and ask them a few questions.
One of my questions about their tribe was the practice of polygamy. I was especially interested in whether they are allowed to marry members of other tribes, which I learned is an absolute no-no. The guys were so quick to tell me that Maasai don’t marry people of other tribes that I thought I must have misunderstood the question when one of them asked me if I would be his girlfriend. I immediately challenged his request given their previous statement, but as it turns out, Maasai are allowed actually allowed to marry Maasai or mzungu – just not other Swahilis. Unfortunately I denied the request, although if his courtship proposal had turned into a marriage he would have had to go kill a lion for my father and give him a bunch of cattle. Pretty cool deal if you ask me.
Soda Can Story
While I was walking home after Skyping with Mr. Shekdar’s 4th grade class for a second time a few weeks ago, I stopped at a small local store (duka) for a drink. Everyone here drinks out of 400mL bottles which cost 400 TZ shillings (if a Coke product) wholesale or 500 shillings at the store. You can also buy small 300 mL bottles for 400 shillings at the store, but that’s mostly just for kids.
Anyway, I was really thirsty and opened the cooler to help myself to a drink. If you drink a soda you usually have to wait and give the bottle back to the store for them to recycle. I didn’t feel like waiting, so I just grabbed a can from the fridge. The cans are just 330 mL, so I gave the woman and the store a 500 shilling bill and waited for the change.
Instead of waiting for the change, she waited for me to give her more money. I was very confused by this and asked her how much more she wanted. It turned out to be 1,000 shillings! That’s twice as much money as a bottle and not as much liquid! Of course, this was the only day I decided to open the drink before drinking it. Unfortunately I had no more money on me and had to ask if I could pay her later. Luckily I have made sure to greet her from the road almost every day in Swahili, so my friend had no problem waiting for the money. I, however, felt like quite the idiot.
Deborah Washing Clothes
I had gotten a little bit behind in the washing-of -the-underpants department in my last few weeks here and had to scramble at the end to get everything clean. I had a whole rotation system between washing clothes and packing and was having a good old time getting all of my things together when my little friend Deborah (the house girl’s daughter) game to help me pack.
Deborah, while extremely cute, is usually quite a pain because she is almost always the most interested in the item I want her to touch the least. However, on that day, for some reason, she decided to make herself useful. I didn’t know what she was doing, but she went into my bathroom, presumably to do some perusing of the shampoo bottles and soaps. I let her be for a few minutes as I continued to pack. After a little while I began to get suspicious and went into the bathroom to see what she was up to. Low and behold she was leaning over the big bucket, barely reaching, but diligently washing my underpants in the soapy water! At just one and a half years of age I was very impressed by her hard work. I of course helped her find something else to do, but not before snapping a few pics.
Rooster on the Safari
On my very mini safari to Ngorongoro Crater I had the chance to see a lot of very cool birds, as well as the other safari creatures you’d expect to see (elephants, hyenas, a lion, warthogs, wildebeest, zebras etc.) While observing these beautiful creatures out of the roof of our Land Cruiser, I became very confused when I heard the unmistakable crow of a rooster. I assumed I must be imagining things, but after another 2 minutes I heard it again. I looked everywhere for the bird, even though I couldn’t imagine how a rooster would have arrived at the bottom of the crater with all the safari animals. The third crow just a few seconds later was interrupted mid call, and I when I turned around to see what it was my host sister was standing there on toying with her phone. Apparently that’s the sound of her incoming text messages.
Maasai at the Beach
On the second to last day of my trip to Zanzibar I was dropped off by my guide at a random beach hotel and told that he would come pick me up several hours later. I had to pay an entrance fee of 2,000 shillings, order lunch for myself, and find entertainment. I was initially rather annoyed with this since all of these things were supposed to be covered in the cost of my trip, and leaving me to play by myself was never in the itinerary.
However, after a few minutes of getting settled, I relaxed and decided to just go with it. From the hotel I could see the beach, except it appeared to be about a kilometer off in the distance. I challenged myself to make it all the way out there even though the waiter at the restaurant told me that the tide would come in just a few short hours. Off I went, holding a kanga over my head to protect my unfortunately white skin from the blaring afternoon sun. After a few minutes I came across a group of three boys catching small fish by smacking sticks against the sand in small pools of water. As I continued on, the water got to be about ankle deep, but the real ocean border was still far off in the distance. I came across a ton of cool creatures including fat, sand-colored starfish, skinny starfish with bright red lines across them in cool vein-like patterns, conch, and other random ocean life.
After awhile I began to feel that I would never reach the ocean. I decided to quit and just stick to observing the creatures on the sea floor. When I got back, I took a nice long nap on the beach, and woke up to find that the ocean had come all the way up to the hotel beach, fully covering all the animals I had seen before. I went for a nice swim in the ocean, and then went to go find myself a soda.
In the process of getting a drink I made friends with several members of the hotel staff. The majority of these guys were Maasai (a tribe I have yet to write about). I was really excited to actually get a chance to talk to them and ask them a few questions.
One of my questions about their tribe was the practice of polygamy. I was especially interested in whether they are allowed to marry members of other tribes, which I learned is an absolute no-no. The guys were so quick to tell me that Maasai don’t marry people of other tribes that I thought I must have misunderstood the question when one of them asked me if I would be his girlfriend. I immediately challenged his request given their previous statement, but as it turns out, Maasai are allowed actually allowed to marry Maasai or mzungu – just not other Swahilis. Unfortunately I denied the request, although if his courtship proposal had turned into a marriage he would have had to go kill a lion for my father and give him a bunch of cattle. Pretty cool deal if you ask me.
So Far, So Good!
Well I arrived in Amsterdam at 10:30am Holland time. The plane managed to brake just fine, and the nun never stopped being a royal pain in my back. My flight still seems to be going as scheduled, so I’ll board at about 1:00pm for my 2:05pm flight home.
The Amsterdam airport doesn’t yet have free Wi-Fi, although it is apparently coming soon. I had to pay $12 Euros for 90 minutes of internet time. The guy selling me my pass code required all of my flight information and my driver’s license, which I found to be a little sketchy, but I wanted to be connected so badly I just sucked it up. Of course, my computer ran out of battery on the plane, so when I went to go charge it I unfortunately discovered that my converter for the African outlets is not the same as what I need here. I had to go back to the stand and cough up another 12 Euros, but what the heck? I’d already paid for the internet connection.
Anyway, I’ve been writing a bunch of blog posts while waiting for planes, so I’ll be going through them this morning and hopefully posting a bunch before catching my plane for the last leg home. Can’t wait to be home!
The Amsterdam airport doesn’t yet have free Wi-Fi, although it is apparently coming soon. I had to pay $12 Euros for 90 minutes of internet time. The guy selling me my pass code required all of my flight information and my driver’s license, which I found to be a little sketchy, but I wanted to be connected so badly I just sucked it up. Of course, my computer ran out of battery on the plane, so when I went to go charge it I unfortunately discovered that my converter for the African outlets is not the same as what I need here. I had to go back to the stand and cough up another 12 Euros, but what the heck? I’d already paid for the internet connection.
Anyway, I’ve been writing a bunch of blog posts while waiting for planes, so I’ll be going through them this morning and hopefully posting a bunch before catching my plane for the last leg home. Can’t wait to be home!
An Uncertain Landing
Everything went relatively smoothly yesterday. I spent the day exploring Dar es Salaam with Godfrey and made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare. I was only concerned my bags would be too heavy, but they ended up being within the limit.
We boarded the plane a little bit later than the scheduled time, but it wasn’t too much of an issue. When I got on the plane I immediately asked for a glass of water so I could take some Benadryl. On my flight here I ignored the advice to do so and found myself unable to sleep in these uncomfortable seats. The flight attendant totally blew me off and made some snappy comment about finding my seat before making requests. I just went to the next flight attendant who was standing closer to my assigned seat closer to my seat and she was happy to help me.
I struggled to get the pills out of their packaging while the same cranky flight attendant told the passengers to close their own overhead compartments since the flight attendants are tired of doing it every day. It sounded like we were ready to go, so I popped the pills, turned on my iPod shuffle, and closed my eyes.
Not 45 seconds after I had shut my eyes did the pilot come online and start jibber jabbering in Dutch. I thought it was a regular announcement, so by the time he got to translating his announcement into English and saying words like “brakes” and “delay” I wanted to kick myself for not paying more attention. We had to wait an incredibly long time for who knows what, with the Benadryl making my eyelids heavier with every minute that passed. Somewhere in the wait I heard something about, “The engineers trying to fix it, but if they can’t we’ll have to take all the bags off the plane, which will take a long time.” Of course, they couldn’t fix it (whatever it was), so we had to wait another 45 minutes to unload all of the cargo.
We finally took off at God knows what time and began our journey to Amsterdam. Unfortunately the Benadryl wore off around 3:30 am, which may or may not have been a long way into the flight. Out of curiosity, I decided to ask my neighbors what had happened. What I heard was so ridiculous I couldn’t help but laugh...
Apparently the fuel line was broken. They tried to replace the pipe, and couldn’t, so they had to take all of our baggage off the plane. When I asked my neighbor what this had to do with fixing the fuel pipe, he seemed adamant that taking off the bags was a sufficient solution to a leaking fuel pipe. I didn’t believe the explanation at all, but was more preoccupied figuring out what was in my checked baggage and how and when I would be able to get it back. I mean, clearly we wouldn’t be flying with a broken fuel line, right?
Well a few more hours into our journey I got up to go to the bathroom. I got talking with this guy who had been climbing Mt. Kilimamjaro. He seemed thoroughly exhausted and defeated. I kept asking him questions and we finally got the part of the story where the volcano in Iceland had delayed his travels by a full week. Even worse, this flight to Amsterdam was now so late that he would be missing his connection to Wales and have to spend another day waiting for a plane to take him home. I felt really bad for the guy, but figured I’d just go ahead and ask him what was going on with the plane since he seemed to speak English with an accent I could at least understand.
The real story, or at least the one he told me, is that when they were doing a final check of the airplane at the airport, they noticed the hydraulic brake line was leaking. They were unsuccessful in fixing it, but decided that if they took of 4 tons of cargo they would be able to fly safely. The passangers’ bags were first, so they had to take time to get them all off before removing the cargo. We probably weren’t separated from our baggage, but our brakes are still broken. I’m actually writing this blog from the plane, very interested in what this landing is going to feel like. I guess landing with no brakes is safe. They didn’t ask the passengers to take a vote on it or anything so, so I guess they feel confident enough to take our lives in their hands with no breaks.
In any case, the battery is running low and the food is on the way. I’ve been catching up on a bunch of movies and TV shows on the plane while trying to ignore the oversized nun sitting behind me who keeps asking me very loudly to keep my seat in its full upright position and avoid any reclining since her legs don’t’ have enough room. I listen for about 5 minutes before putting it back again, at which point she likes to jam her knee into the back of my seat, completely ruining any potential for rest that I have.
I can’t be too upset though; my six hour layover has given me enough of a buffer that this 3 hour delay shouldn’t leave me stranded in Amsterdam. Fingers crossed!
We boarded the plane a little bit later than the scheduled time, but it wasn’t too much of an issue. When I got on the plane I immediately asked for a glass of water so I could take some Benadryl. On my flight here I ignored the advice to do so and found myself unable to sleep in these uncomfortable seats. The flight attendant totally blew me off and made some snappy comment about finding my seat before making requests. I just went to the next flight attendant who was standing closer to my assigned seat closer to my seat and she was happy to help me.
I struggled to get the pills out of their packaging while the same cranky flight attendant told the passengers to close their own overhead compartments since the flight attendants are tired of doing it every day. It sounded like we were ready to go, so I popped the pills, turned on my iPod shuffle, and closed my eyes.
Not 45 seconds after I had shut my eyes did the pilot come online and start jibber jabbering in Dutch. I thought it was a regular announcement, so by the time he got to translating his announcement into English and saying words like “brakes” and “delay” I wanted to kick myself for not paying more attention. We had to wait an incredibly long time for who knows what, with the Benadryl making my eyelids heavier with every minute that passed. Somewhere in the wait I heard something about, “The engineers trying to fix it, but if they can’t we’ll have to take all the bags off the plane, which will take a long time.” Of course, they couldn’t fix it (whatever it was), so we had to wait another 45 minutes to unload all of the cargo.
We finally took off at God knows what time and began our journey to Amsterdam. Unfortunately the Benadryl wore off around 3:30 am, which may or may not have been a long way into the flight. Out of curiosity, I decided to ask my neighbors what had happened. What I heard was so ridiculous I couldn’t help but laugh...
Apparently the fuel line was broken. They tried to replace the pipe, and couldn’t, so they had to take all of our baggage off the plane. When I asked my neighbor what this had to do with fixing the fuel pipe, he seemed adamant that taking off the bags was a sufficient solution to a leaking fuel pipe. I didn’t believe the explanation at all, but was more preoccupied figuring out what was in my checked baggage and how and when I would be able to get it back. I mean, clearly we wouldn’t be flying with a broken fuel line, right?
Well a few more hours into our journey I got up to go to the bathroom. I got talking with this guy who had been climbing Mt. Kilimamjaro. He seemed thoroughly exhausted and defeated. I kept asking him questions and we finally got the part of the story where the volcano in Iceland had delayed his travels by a full week. Even worse, this flight to Amsterdam was now so late that he would be missing his connection to Wales and have to spend another day waiting for a plane to take him home. I felt really bad for the guy, but figured I’d just go ahead and ask him what was going on with the plane since he seemed to speak English with an accent I could at least understand.
The real story, or at least the one he told me, is that when they were doing a final check of the airplane at the airport, they noticed the hydraulic brake line was leaking. They were unsuccessful in fixing it, but decided that if they took of 4 tons of cargo they would be able to fly safely. The passangers’ bags were first, so they had to take time to get them all off before removing the cargo. We probably weren’t separated from our baggage, but our brakes are still broken. I’m actually writing this blog from the plane, very interested in what this landing is going to feel like. I guess landing with no brakes is safe. They didn’t ask the passengers to take a vote on it or anything so, so I guess they feel confident enough to take our lives in their hands with no breaks.
In any case, the battery is running low and the food is on the way. I’ve been catching up on a bunch of movies and TV shows on the plane while trying to ignore the oversized nun sitting behind me who keeps asking me very loudly to keep my seat in its full upright position and avoid any reclining since her legs don’t’ have enough room. I listen for about 5 minutes before putting it back again, at which point she likes to jam her knee into the back of my seat, completely ruining any potential for rest that I have.
I can’t be too upset though; my six hour layover has given me enough of a buffer that this 3 hour delay shouldn’t leave me stranded in Amsterdam. Fingers crossed!
Last Day of School
When I walked into the Kindergarten classroom to say good morning to all my little friends for the last time, I was so overwhelmed that I actually had to go outside and collect myself. I’ve had a really great experience here at Chumbageni and am finding it hard to believe that these kids will be a lot more than just a ten minute walk away from my house in a few days.
Anyway, I spent almost the entire morning giving out a huge pack of stickers my mom sent me last month. The kids were so excited to get to choose which one they wanted and where they wanted to put it, and were very sure of their selections even though there were about 100 different options. I was happy to have something somewhat purposeful to be doing, and also to get to say goodbye to each child individually. I went from desk to desk from Kindergarten up to 2nd grade, probably interacting with over 200 different kids.
After sticker time the Kindergarten class invited me to come drink ugi with them. We all sat in a big circle and drank this sweet porridge like food and said goodbye to each other. There was barely enough ugi to go around, so the Kindergarten teacher and I took very small cups for ourselves.
One of the girls in the class saw I had finished very quickly and came over to offer me some of hers. After pouring a bit of her ugi into my cup, other students began following suit. Before I knew it there was a whole line of kids coming to give me ugi. The whole thing was far too cute for me to refuse, although I was a little less than happy about the exchange of so many cooties. I must have been given 3 or 4 full new cups of ugi by the students, but was luckily able to continue the chain by giving my ugi to other kids in the circle. I guess the cooties must have done their job since I am now dreading boarding my plane with a brand new stomach bug. But that might also be due to my stupid decision to eat raw fish at a sushi restaurant the day before travelling home. I don’t know where my brain has gone, but my stomach is certainly displeased with my decision making abilities.
In any case, I spent the rest of the afternoon just talking with people and saying goodbyes. We had a big goodbye party at the end of the day. I spent the rest of the day packing and saying goodbyes to the many visitors who showed up throughout the evening. Even after just 3 months, I apparently met quite a lot of people! And while I am not one for goodbyes, I couldn’t avoid them since it is considered very rude in this culture to leave without saying goodbye to each and every person either in person or on the phone. It was an exhausting but great reminder of all the great people I have met and experiences I have had here.
Anyway, I spent almost the entire morning giving out a huge pack of stickers my mom sent me last month. The kids were so excited to get to choose which one they wanted and where they wanted to put it, and were very sure of their selections even though there were about 100 different options. I was happy to have something somewhat purposeful to be doing, and also to get to say goodbye to each child individually. I went from desk to desk from Kindergarten up to 2nd grade, probably interacting with over 200 different kids.
After sticker time the Kindergarten class invited me to come drink ugi with them. We all sat in a big circle and drank this sweet porridge like food and said goodbye to each other. There was barely enough ugi to go around, so the Kindergarten teacher and I took very small cups for ourselves.
One of the girls in the class saw I had finished very quickly and came over to offer me some of hers. After pouring a bit of her ugi into my cup, other students began following suit. Before I knew it there was a whole line of kids coming to give me ugi. The whole thing was far too cute for me to refuse, although I was a little less than happy about the exchange of so many cooties. I must have been given 3 or 4 full new cups of ugi by the students, but was luckily able to continue the chain by giving my ugi to other kids in the circle. I guess the cooties must have done their job since I am now dreading boarding my plane with a brand new stomach bug. But that might also be due to my stupid decision to eat raw fish at a sushi restaurant the day before travelling home. I don’t know where my brain has gone, but my stomach is certainly displeased with my decision making abilities.
In any case, I spent the rest of the afternoon just talking with people and saying goodbyes. We had a big goodbye party at the end of the day. I spent the rest of the day packing and saying goodbyes to the many visitors who showed up throughout the evening. Even after just 3 months, I apparently met quite a lot of people! And while I am not one for goodbyes, I couldn’t avoid them since it is considered very rude in this culture to leave without saying goodbye to each and every person either in person or on the phone. It was an exhausting but great reminder of all the great people I have met and experiences I have had here.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Arriving in Dar
While we could easily have travelled to Dar es Salaam on Saturday with plenty of time to catch my 11:30pm flight, I was happy to drive here with Godfrey (my host father)today. Given my experiences with driving in Tanzania, I figured my anxiety level would be significantly lower if I arrived here with a full day to spare.
That turns out to be a marvelous idea, given how many times my heart almost stopped on my trip down here. Before I begin, I will emphasize that I am perfectly safe, happy, content, and writing this blog post from a nice hotel in town.
The first issue we had was crossing through a small town that requires a significant reduction in speed upon entry. There was a police officer with a radar gun who pulled us over for going 75 in a 50 kph zone. My host father, always ready for a good battle of the wits, managed to talk his way out of it by claiming that he only had as much money as the ticket cost, and would be SOL if he had any real issues between here and Dar es Salaam given that there are no ATMs between the two cities. With a fully elaborated limp from his accident several months back and very erratic outbursts of emotion, he was able to talk his way out of the ticket and was allowed to pass without any trouble.
While getting a good laugh about the story as he retold the whole thing (in English this time), he got distracted from the road with our eye contact and we almost found our way into the grill of an oncoming bus.
Our next close encounter was at the next police stop. We were not required to stop (the checkpoints along the road are usually random) and passed all the cars along the right side of the road. Everyone is usually eager to get waved passed the stops, including this very big bus that didn’t see us as he jutted out to pass the bus in front of him, almost smashing my passenger’s side door and sending us off the road.
I thought I was being a bit dramatic about insisting on driving to Dar es Salaam a day early, but I now feel as though it was a completely reasonable decision.
On a different note, we'll be heading out to a Tanzanian mall soon and then have an early sushi dinner before hitting the hay and resting up for a full day of touring Dar and a late night plane flight tomorrow.
That turns out to be a marvelous idea, given how many times my heart almost stopped on my trip down here. Before I begin, I will emphasize that I am perfectly safe, happy, content, and writing this blog post from a nice hotel in town.
The first issue we had was crossing through a small town that requires a significant reduction in speed upon entry. There was a police officer with a radar gun who pulled us over for going 75 in a 50 kph zone. My host father, always ready for a good battle of the wits, managed to talk his way out of it by claiming that he only had as much money as the ticket cost, and would be SOL if he had any real issues between here and Dar es Salaam given that there are no ATMs between the two cities. With a fully elaborated limp from his accident several months back and very erratic outbursts of emotion, he was able to talk his way out of the ticket and was allowed to pass without any trouble.
While getting a good laugh about the story as he retold the whole thing (in English this time), he got distracted from the road with our eye contact and we almost found our way into the grill of an oncoming bus.
Our next close encounter was at the next police stop. We were not required to stop (the checkpoints along the road are usually random) and passed all the cars along the right side of the road. Everyone is usually eager to get waved passed the stops, including this very big bus that didn’t see us as he jutted out to pass the bus in front of him, almost smashing my passenger’s side door and sending us off the road.
I thought I was being a bit dramatic about insisting on driving to Dar es Salaam a day early, but I now feel as though it was a completely reasonable decision.
On a different note, we'll be heading out to a Tanzanian mall soon and then have an early sushi dinner before hitting the hay and resting up for a full day of touring Dar and a late night plane flight tomorrow.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Last Weeks...
It's only been 11 days but it feels like a lifetime ago since I last wrote on my blog. I was hoping to be almost finished before my plane touches down at IAD, but it seems like this will be an ongoing process. Saying goodbye here is a never-ending process and finding any time for rest, let alone writing on my blog, has been almost impossible. Luckily I've been jotting down blog titles over the last week and a half so I won't forget too many funny stories and recent impressions.
A rough sketch of what's been going on:
Since returning from holiday on April 12th I planned an entire trip to Zanzibar using my Lonely Planet guide to Tanzania. I then spent 4 days there, skipping school on Monday, and have returned for just three more days of school before driving down to Dar es Salaam to catch a plane back home (volcano permitting, of course).
Things from last week:
- Last Tuesday students from the 4th grade classes of Key and Chumbageni Skyped. The theme was music, so the kid here shared their national anthem, a patriotic song, ad their school song. The kids at Key played the recorder (how Orff of them!)and asked some really great questions. I have been really improving with my Swahili and was so psyched that I could translate a large part of the conversation.
- My keyboard went haywire and now chooses to skip letters every now and then. This has made for interesting gchats, emails, and now blog posts. Apologies for the many typos.
- I spent all day on Wednesday opening email accounts for every teacher at the school. I made a contact list for every teacher as well as a power point presentation that includes a picture and a brief background on every teacher. Exhausting, but totally worth it.
- Thursday the 1st graders Skyped with Mrs. Waymouth's Kindergarten class. They got to talk about what they do after school and other things about their life. We learned that only one student in the Key School K class has chickens, and almost everyone owns a dog. Here, everyone owns a chicken, but only one person owns a dog.
- Friday is always a half day. I took off for Zanzibar at 3:30 and came back Monday at 2:30. I have copied my itinerary in its original form into a separate post. Pictures have already been posted, but look for more in the future about how the trip actually went. Overall it is a beautiful place and I had a great time....
- Tuesday (Yesterday) after school we Skyped with the 3rd graders. This was very cool since these kids have already exchanged one round of letters with each other with the second round currently in transit. The kids really enjoyed getting to meet their pen friends and learning about the similarities and differences in between our two countries (sports, classes, chores, etc.) The most interesting thing was that the kids here are mostly Muslim, with a few Christians mixed in. At Key it's a mixture of Christians and Jews. The teachers and students don't know anything about the Jewish religion (unless we were having trouble translating, but they seemed to genuinely unaware of what it was). There was also an athiest in the class at Key, but I've had enough of an interesting experience trying to explain that about myself when I am asked so I decided to just stick with Christian for the sake of the short conversation. After that, we moved to my house where the kids got to see my room and my bathroom for a fun compare/contrast exercise. They were in the middle of picking their next room when we got a call from the US Library and skipped up the road to talk to them. It was really cool getting to meet the big kids, but for me the best surprise was getting to see my sister and introduce her to my students at Chumbageni.
- Yesterday also included a trip to a local hostel to take pics and gather information for any group who would potentially like to come visit Chumbageni. We then went to the post office to get a new key (the old one was lost), followed by the internet store. All lines of communication should now be functioning and people should be able to stay in touch even after I leave.
That's the quick version of everthing that's been happening lately. Four more days until I'll be home.....
A rough sketch of what's been going on:
Since returning from holiday on April 12th I planned an entire trip to Zanzibar using my Lonely Planet guide to Tanzania. I then spent 4 days there, skipping school on Monday, and have returned for just three more days of school before driving down to Dar es Salaam to catch a plane back home (volcano permitting, of course).
Things from last week:
- Last Tuesday students from the 4th grade classes of Key and Chumbageni Skyped. The theme was music, so the kid here shared their national anthem, a patriotic song, ad their school song. The kids at Key played the recorder (how Orff of them!)and asked some really great questions. I have been really improving with my Swahili and was so psyched that I could translate a large part of the conversation.
- My keyboard went haywire and now chooses to skip letters every now and then. This has made for interesting gchats, emails, and now blog posts. Apologies for the many typos.
- I spent all day on Wednesday opening email accounts for every teacher at the school. I made a contact list for every teacher as well as a power point presentation that includes a picture and a brief background on every teacher. Exhausting, but totally worth it.
- Thursday the 1st graders Skyped with Mrs. Waymouth's Kindergarten class. They got to talk about what they do after school and other things about their life. We learned that only one student in the Key School K class has chickens, and almost everyone owns a dog. Here, everyone owns a chicken, but only one person owns a dog.
- Friday is always a half day. I took off for Zanzibar at 3:30 and came back Monday at 2:30. I have copied my itinerary in its original form into a separate post. Pictures have already been posted, but look for more in the future about how the trip actually went. Overall it is a beautiful place and I had a great time....
- Tuesday (Yesterday) after school we Skyped with the 3rd graders. This was very cool since these kids have already exchanged one round of letters with each other with the second round currently in transit. The kids really enjoyed getting to meet their pen friends and learning about the similarities and differences in between our two countries (sports, classes, chores, etc.) The most interesting thing was that the kids here are mostly Muslim, with a few Christians mixed in. At Key it's a mixture of Christians and Jews. The teachers and students don't know anything about the Jewish religion (unless we were having trouble translating, but they seemed to genuinely unaware of what it was). There was also an athiest in the class at Key, but I've had enough of an interesting experience trying to explain that about myself when I am asked so I decided to just stick with Christian for the sake of the short conversation. After that, we moved to my house where the kids got to see my room and my bathroom for a fun compare/contrast exercise. They were in the middle of picking their next room when we got a call from the US Library and skipped up the road to talk to them. It was really cool getting to meet the big kids, but for me the best surprise was getting to see my sister and introduce her to my students at Chumbageni.
- Yesterday also included a trip to a local hostel to take pics and gather information for any group who would potentially like to come visit Chumbageni. We then went to the post office to get a new key (the old one was lost), followed by the internet store. All lines of communication should now be functioning and people should be able to stay in touch even after I leave.
That's the quick version of everthing that's been happening lately. Four more days until I'll be home.....
Zanzibar Itinerary
Thursday:
Pick up from Zanzibar airport at 5:30pm and transfer to Clove Hotel in the heart of Stone town,check inn at the hotel and relax, at 7:00pm, our guide will pick you up and walk to Forodhan garden, where you can see the local seafood market,mix with Zanzibaris in this eating place and choose your dinner,you can also have an option to go and see several bars in Stone town,back to the hotel and overnight.
Friday:
After breakfast, you will be picked up for a walking historical Stone town, after Stone town tour then we will drive you to the Spice farms for Spice tour, before the tour you have an opulant lunch of trypical Zanzibar cuisine served in alocal house (to see Zanzibar Culture & tradition), after lunch proceed to the Spice farms to see the reason why Zanzibar is called a Spice Island,back to the Hotel around 4:00pm, free time to explore on your own and overnight Clove Hotel.
Saturday:
After breakfast at 9:00am you will be picked and drive to Jozani forest to see the monkeys,this tour ends around 1:00pm where you will be driven to South east cost for beach leisure,lunch at any restaurant around there, back to Stonetown around 7:00pm and overnight Clove Hotel.
Sunday:
After breakfast, pick up and board a motorised dhow boat and head to Prison Island. Earning its name as a former prison for slaves and a quarantine station for Zanzibar and the mainland nowadays the island gives you the chance to escape for some peace and quiet. The island lies just off the Old Stone Town and is home to giant tortoises that were imported from the Seychelles in the late 19th century. It is fringed with a beautiful coral reef, ideal for snorkelling, and has a lovely white beach for sunbathing,this is a half day trip back to Stone town and drive to Zanzibar airport to catch the Coastal Aviation flight to Tanga.
Pick up from Zanzibar airport at 5:30pm and transfer to Clove Hotel in the heart of Stone town,check inn at the hotel and relax, at 7:00pm, our guide will pick you up and walk to Forodhan garden, where you can see the local seafood market,mix with Zanzibaris in this eating place and choose your dinner,you can also have an option to go and see several bars in Stone town,back to the hotel and overnight.
Friday:
After breakfast, you will be picked up for a walking historical Stone town, after Stone town tour then we will drive you to the Spice farms for Spice tour, before the tour you have an opulant lunch of trypical Zanzibar cuisine served in alocal house (to see Zanzibar Culture & tradition), after lunch proceed to the Spice farms to see the reason why Zanzibar is called a Spice Island,back to the Hotel around 4:00pm, free time to explore on your own and overnight Clove Hotel.
Saturday:
After breakfast at 9:00am you will be picked and drive to Jozani forest to see the monkeys,this tour ends around 1:00pm where you will be driven to South east cost for beach leisure,lunch at any restaurant around there, back to Stonetown around 7:00pm and overnight Clove Hotel.
Sunday:
After breakfast, pick up and board a motorised dhow boat and head to Prison Island. Earning its name as a former prison for slaves and a quarantine station for Zanzibar and the mainland nowadays the island gives you the chance to escape for some peace and quiet. The island lies just off the Old Stone Town and is home to giant tortoises that were imported from the Seychelles in the late 19th century. It is fringed with a beautiful coral reef, ideal for snorkelling, and has a lovely white beach for sunbathing,this is a half day trip back to Stone town and drive to Zanzibar airport to catch the Coastal Aviation flight to Tanga.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Holy Cow
Once upon a time I went to buy a loaf of bread. The store happened to be right next to the butcher. The butcher happened to have just finished chopping up a cow. The cow happened to be piled in pieces on the porch floor outside his shop. On the top of the pile happened to be a cow’s shnasholy (aka mouth) and a few other readily identifiable pieces. I didn’t throw up, but I am currently reconsidering my omnivorous status.
Visoda Vingapi?
I am currently trying to collect a bunch of soda caps, called visoda in Kiswahili. I want to do a project with the third grade class who uses them as counters when doing addition and subtraction, and also want to cover the front of a scrapbook with them when I come home and make an album of my trip.
I guess Victoria mentioned my treasure hunt to a few people here in Arusha, because a guy who lives on the mountain showed up at 8 o’clock at night to give me an entire grocery bag filled with beer bottle caps. I guess Victoria forgot to tell him that I am only interested in soda caps. The poor guy was so drunk it wasn’t even funny. I should probably thank him for his commendable effort but he didn’t have to drink all of those beers just to help me out.
I guess Victoria mentioned my treasure hunt to a few people here in Arusha, because a guy who lives on the mountain showed up at 8 o’clock at night to give me an entire grocery bag filled with beer bottle caps. I guess Victoria forgot to tell him that I am only interested in soda caps. The poor guy was so drunk it wasn’t even funny. I should probably thank him for his commendable effort but he didn’t have to drink all of those beers just to help me out.
Night Tremors
Our safari driver was quite animated on the drive back home and had the whole car cracking up laughing. It turns out that he was woken up in the middle of the night by an earthquake. That’s right, an earthquake. I guess I really do sleep like a rock because I still don’t believe it. No great shakes, I guess.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2010uvc5.php
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2010uvc5.php
What's in a Name?
I don’t know why it came up but I got into a discussion with my host family the other day about names. Much like in the States, most people here have three names. However, rather than having a first, middle, and last name they have a given name, father’s name, and surname. Given name and surname are clearly synonymous with first and last name, but the middle names of everyone here are almost always just the name of your father, regardless of whether you are a boy or a girl. I have always felt that I was missing something growing up without a middle name. I guess it never occurred to me to use Chelsea Todd.
Police Encounter
We got pulled over by the police at a road check point on Friday. We had all of the appropriate documents and should have been cleared to go, but the officer asked us to pull further off the road and park. That was about all I understood, but after a bunch of rapid Swahili speak my younger hopped out of the car to go speak privately with the officer. The officer then came up to the window again, this time on the passenger’s side, looked carefully around the inside of the car, had a brief exchange with my host father, and then let us go saying, “Safari Njema!”
It turns out that we were asked to pull off the road so that my host father could speak in private with the officer. Godfrey had told his son Gilbert to tell the cop that his leg was injured and he couldn’t come out to talk to him. The cop then came over the car to check out his leg, and then ask Godfrey for money so that he could go buy sodas for all of the officers. Godfrey told him we have no money, so he was forced to let us go. The cop was pretty disappointed that the old man with the white girl in his car wasn’t feeling in the mood to pay him a bribe, but there wasn’t too much he could do about it. Maybe if he wasn’t so interested in having a private conversation with Godfrey he would have noticed that the driver side mirror was completely smashed off and was probably deserving of a ticket.
It turns out that we were asked to pull off the road so that my host father could speak in private with the officer. Godfrey had told his son Gilbert to tell the cop that his leg was injured and he couldn’t come out to talk to him. The cop then came over the car to check out his leg, and then ask Godfrey for money so that he could go buy sodas for all of the officers. Godfrey told him we have no money, so he was forced to let us go. The cop was pretty disappointed that the old man with the white girl in his car wasn’t feeling in the mood to pay him a bribe, but there wasn’t too much he could do about it. Maybe if he wasn’t so interested in having a private conversation with Godfrey he would have noticed that the driver side mirror was completely smashed off and was probably deserving of a ticket.
Safari, Safari
The word “safari” has two different meanings depending on who you ask. If you ask me, it is a specific reference to a Lion King type of adventure in the national parks and conservation areas of Africa. However, in Kiswahili, safari just means trip or journey. If you want to talk about Land Cruisers, baboons and warthogs you say you’re going to the National Parks. Unfortunately this led to a few things getting lost in translation, as our “safari” ended up just being 2 major travel days and only 1 full day for an animal-kingdom-filled adventure. That’s a 3 day safari, right?
I woke up this morning fully expecting another day of great adventures in the park. We had said we were going to Manyara National Park, but I was told at breakfast that we might just travel down some other roads outside the park boundaries to see if we could track down some giraffes on our own since it is the only big animal (except the rhinoceros) that we haven’t seen. We had to get up early to go giraffe spotting, but it was still going to be another day for safari.
As it turns out, we woke up early in order to go back to our home in Arusha sooner and return the vehicle we were driving. The road that we went “giraffe-searching” on was just the main highway to go home, and we went past the national park we were supposed to visit at around 100 km/h with clearly no intention of entering. My spirits dropped quite a bit when I realized what was going on, but I tried to keep a smile on my face and be positive about our giraffe hunt.
A few people spotted giraffes way off in the distance, but nothing more than small yellow dots on the horizon. I was getting pretty moion sick from watching out the side window so I switched my attention to the horizon out the front window and let everyone else do the spotting.
As I was intently staring at the road, I saw a funny looking tree that I swear had a peculiar angle to its trunk. I thought it slightly resembled a strange long-necked animal and was altogether quite funny looking; not surprising however given the many awesomely awkward baobab trees and other flora here. I saw the tree catch my host brother’s eye too, and before you knew it we were parked on the side of the road within 5 feet of the most enormous, male giraffe I’ve ever seen. He was just chilling, eating a nice road-side breakfast in the tree tops minding his own business. I got to snap some cool pictures of him, and in less than 3 minutes we were on the road again. We could now put a tick in the box for spotting a giraffe and move on with the rest of our day.
As we approached Arusha where we had left our personal truck two days before, my host siblings and I stopped at a snake park to pass the time while Victoria and Godfrey went to go switch out the cars. I was slightly relieved that we had something interesting to do while we waited, and got a kick out of looking at all the snakes in cages, some big alligators with bloodstained teeth, and some very cute baby turtles.
The best part was getting to put a real live snake around my neck and pushing my frightened host siblings to do the same. I don’t know why they weren’t interested in doing the same -- the guard said she only gets hungry once a week.
After finishing up at the snake park we went across the street to the Masai cultural museum. I was very happy to get a tour from a real Masai and get to learn a lot more about their culture. I will include a separate entry for this experience at a later time since I find this tribe to be particularly interesting.
At the end of the tour there are real Masai dwellings with women selling various arts and crafts. I have no money and am desperately in need of an ATM but have unfortunately been SOL for a few days now given either the absence of time or machine along our safari. I was feeling pretty bummed that I couldn’t buy anything directly from the person who made it, but my hopes were raised when I saw that the gift shop in a different part of the museum had small sticker in the window indicating they take Visa card. I found that pretty unusual given that I haven’t been able to pay for anything with credit card since my stay at the Holiday Inn on the first night, so it was more disappointing than surprising when they told me that the machine was broken.
Not wanting to torture myself anymore by staying in the gift shop I went outside to see what everyone else was up to. It turned out they were talking to a Masai that was offering camel rides behind the museum and had just sent someone to retrieve two of them from the field.
When I think camels I think the Sahara desert, but I guess why not have them in Tanzania? In short, these guys were tall and awesome. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves, but it was super cool to see them up-close in personal. While waiting for my turn to ride them I was trying to figure out how they ever inspired a brand of cigarettes. It still baffles me but I imagine it probably has to do with their too-cool-for-school facial expression.
The two camels took their good old time coming down from way up in the sky as they took a sitting position on the sky. The process was so labored that I figured it must be hurting them or something. Actually, they were probably just thinking about how stupid the exercise of sitting down, standing up, walking 50 yards in a circle, and sitting back down is again and again.
In any case, Suzie and I got to ride together on the camel with me up in the front and her holding onto me for dear life. The guy told us to hold on tight and lean back. Before we knew it the roller coaster ride had started and there was absoutely no stopping it. I wish I had a video to show you the whole thing but you literally get thrown from front to back, thinking at one moment that you’re going to be flung off his hump onto his neck and the next that you’re going to be flipped off his backside for a 20 foot drop to the ground. The camel also takes his time standing up with a bit of a stutter, giving you enough time to wonder whether he’s about to collapse, buck you off, or continue the labored process of standing up.
Once you’re up on him it resembles something of a horse ride with an exaggeratedly rhythmic, bumpy pace to it. Being on his hump you are quite high in the air, to the point that we had to shout down to the Masai dragging Mr. Camel along by a rope to ask him about our new four-legged friend.
After maybe 3 minutes of walking in a circle we prepared ourselves for the descent. We both had the anticipation of coming up to the edge of a big waterfall as he sat down, this time feeling more like someone forgot to put on the brakes during a climbing belay than anything else. My stomach slowly found its way back into place after a brief visit with my throat as we dismounted and sat down to watch the others take their turn.
Given that there were an odd number of us, I actually got to go twice. The second time I rode on the back with my older brother on the front. The back proved to be a lot tamer than the front, except my little arms were almost ripped out of their sockets while trying to reach around my host brother to grab the hand holds in front.
After the rides I asked if it was okay to go up and pet my camel friends. I was trying to ask if there are any special rules for camels to avoid spooking them or getting hurt, but the guy seemed to indicate that everything was AOK. I guess the camel I chose to pet first was a little jealous that I had taken both of my rides on his sister because as I reached up to pet him he turned at lightning speed to bite me.
I’m glad to say that (1) he missed, and (2) that the misinformation was from the camel’s owner instead of the man at the snake park who put the supposedly harmless snake around my neck. I think that if the camel had actually bitten me (and he opened his mouth enough to show me that he had a very nice set of teeth) I would have preferred that he take his best shot spitting at me, but I think it worked out for the best in the end.
While pulling myself together after the camel ride I felt my money belt strapped to my stomach. I am particularly fond of it since it adds a few extra layers of chubbiness under my shirt, but is definitely worth the extra security. Anyway, I remembered that I had money stuffed in there with my passport for safe-keeping and for potential use on my travel back to the States. The dollars are useless pretty much everywhere I go since I haven’t been to many touristy places, but the gift shop prices were all listed in dollars. I was so excited at the discovery that I almost spent all of my lunch money at the store buying some very cool hand crafted items. Luckily I was able to bargain with the cashier for a $13 dollar discount – just enough for a good snack during my layover in Amsterdam in 2 weeks.
If we hadn’t forgone the day’s safari I wouldn’t have been able to hold the snake, chat with the Masai, ride a camel, or spend too much money on gifts. I did get to see a giraffe up close and personal, more or less completing the checklist of awesome African animals and certainly can’t complain about the incredible experience I had in Ngorongoro crater the day before. While I would love to go back to the national parks some day, ideally during a more active season, I am still very lucky to be on this 3 month safari even if the national park section lasted only one day.
I woke up this morning fully expecting another day of great adventures in the park. We had said we were going to Manyara National Park, but I was told at breakfast that we might just travel down some other roads outside the park boundaries to see if we could track down some giraffes on our own since it is the only big animal (except the rhinoceros) that we haven’t seen. We had to get up early to go giraffe spotting, but it was still going to be another day for safari.
As it turns out, we woke up early in order to go back to our home in Arusha sooner and return the vehicle we were driving. The road that we went “giraffe-searching” on was just the main highway to go home, and we went past the national park we were supposed to visit at around 100 km/h with clearly no intention of entering. My spirits dropped quite a bit when I realized what was going on, but I tried to keep a smile on my face and be positive about our giraffe hunt.
A few people spotted giraffes way off in the distance, but nothing more than small yellow dots on the horizon. I was getting pretty moion sick from watching out the side window so I switched my attention to the horizon out the front window and let everyone else do the spotting.
As I was intently staring at the road, I saw a funny looking tree that I swear had a peculiar angle to its trunk. I thought it slightly resembled a strange long-necked animal and was altogether quite funny looking; not surprising however given the many awesomely awkward baobab trees and other flora here. I saw the tree catch my host brother’s eye too, and before you knew it we were parked on the side of the road within 5 feet of the most enormous, male giraffe I’ve ever seen. He was just chilling, eating a nice road-side breakfast in the tree tops minding his own business. I got to snap some cool pictures of him, and in less than 3 minutes we were on the road again. We could now put a tick in the box for spotting a giraffe and move on with the rest of our day.
As we approached Arusha where we had left our personal truck two days before, my host siblings and I stopped at a snake park to pass the time while Victoria and Godfrey went to go switch out the cars. I was slightly relieved that we had something interesting to do while we waited, and got a kick out of looking at all the snakes in cages, some big alligators with bloodstained teeth, and some very cute baby turtles.
The best part was getting to put a real live snake around my neck and pushing my frightened host siblings to do the same. I don’t know why they weren’t interested in doing the same -- the guard said she only gets hungry once a week.
After finishing up at the snake park we went across the street to the Masai cultural museum. I was very happy to get a tour from a real Masai and get to learn a lot more about their culture. I will include a separate entry for this experience at a later time since I find this tribe to be particularly interesting.
At the end of the tour there are real Masai dwellings with women selling various arts and crafts. I have no money and am desperately in need of an ATM but have unfortunately been SOL for a few days now given either the absence of time or machine along our safari. I was feeling pretty bummed that I couldn’t buy anything directly from the person who made it, but my hopes were raised when I saw that the gift shop in a different part of the museum had small sticker in the window indicating they take Visa card. I found that pretty unusual given that I haven’t been able to pay for anything with credit card since my stay at the Holiday Inn on the first night, so it was more disappointing than surprising when they told me that the machine was broken.
Not wanting to torture myself anymore by staying in the gift shop I went outside to see what everyone else was up to. It turned out they were talking to a Masai that was offering camel rides behind the museum and had just sent someone to retrieve two of them from the field.
When I think camels I think the Sahara desert, but I guess why not have them in Tanzania? In short, these guys were tall and awesome. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves, but it was super cool to see them up-close in personal. While waiting for my turn to ride them I was trying to figure out how they ever inspired a brand of cigarettes. It still baffles me but I imagine it probably has to do with their too-cool-for-school facial expression.
The two camels took their good old time coming down from way up in the sky as they took a sitting position on the sky. The process was so labored that I figured it must be hurting them or something. Actually, they were probably just thinking about how stupid the exercise of sitting down, standing up, walking 50 yards in a circle, and sitting back down is again and again.
In any case, Suzie and I got to ride together on the camel with me up in the front and her holding onto me for dear life. The guy told us to hold on tight and lean back. Before we knew it the roller coaster ride had started and there was absoutely no stopping it. I wish I had a video to show you the whole thing but you literally get thrown from front to back, thinking at one moment that you’re going to be flung off his hump onto his neck and the next that you’re going to be flipped off his backside for a 20 foot drop to the ground. The camel also takes his time standing up with a bit of a stutter, giving you enough time to wonder whether he’s about to collapse, buck you off, or continue the labored process of standing up.
Once you’re up on him it resembles something of a horse ride with an exaggeratedly rhythmic, bumpy pace to it. Being on his hump you are quite high in the air, to the point that we had to shout down to the Masai dragging Mr. Camel along by a rope to ask him about our new four-legged friend.
After maybe 3 minutes of walking in a circle we prepared ourselves for the descent. We both had the anticipation of coming up to the edge of a big waterfall as he sat down, this time feeling more like someone forgot to put on the brakes during a climbing belay than anything else. My stomach slowly found its way back into place after a brief visit with my throat as we dismounted and sat down to watch the others take their turn.
Given that there were an odd number of us, I actually got to go twice. The second time I rode on the back with my older brother on the front. The back proved to be a lot tamer than the front, except my little arms were almost ripped out of their sockets while trying to reach around my host brother to grab the hand holds in front.
After the rides I asked if it was okay to go up and pet my camel friends. I was trying to ask if there are any special rules for camels to avoid spooking them or getting hurt, but the guy seemed to indicate that everything was AOK. I guess the camel I chose to pet first was a little jealous that I had taken both of my rides on his sister because as I reached up to pet him he turned at lightning speed to bite me.
I’m glad to say that (1) he missed, and (2) that the misinformation was from the camel’s owner instead of the man at the snake park who put the supposedly harmless snake around my neck. I think that if the camel had actually bitten me (and he opened his mouth enough to show me that he had a very nice set of teeth) I would have preferred that he take his best shot spitting at me, but I think it worked out for the best in the end.
While pulling myself together after the camel ride I felt my money belt strapped to my stomach. I am particularly fond of it since it adds a few extra layers of chubbiness under my shirt, but is definitely worth the extra security. Anyway, I remembered that I had money stuffed in there with my passport for safe-keeping and for potential use on my travel back to the States. The dollars are useless pretty much everywhere I go since I haven’t been to many touristy places, but the gift shop prices were all listed in dollars. I was so excited at the discovery that I almost spent all of my lunch money at the store buying some very cool hand crafted items. Luckily I was able to bargain with the cashier for a $13 dollar discount – just enough for a good snack during my layover in Amsterdam in 2 weeks.
If we hadn’t forgone the day’s safari I wouldn’t have been able to hold the snake, chat with the Masai, ride a camel, or spend too much money on gifts. I did get to see a giraffe up close and personal, more or less completing the checklist of awesome African animals and certainly can’t complain about the incredible experience I had in Ngorongoro crater the day before. While I would love to go back to the national parks some day, ideally during a more active season, I am still very lucky to be on this 3 month safari even if the national park section lasted only one day.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Safari PartI: Ngorongoro Crater, TZ
Allaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh u Akbar!
Groan.
Alaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh u Akbar!
Double Groan.
Ash-hadu al-la Ilaha ill Allah
What time is it? Where is my phone?
Ash-hadu al-la Ilaha ill Allah
Seriously?
Ash-hadu anna Muhammadan Rasulullaah
Okay, fine. I’m up. It’s 5:15, but I’m up.
I’m pretty sure this takes place every morning. 5 times a day in fact. But for some reason today is the day it wakes me up like a rooster crowing in my ear. I guess it’s really just bloggers guilt, so I will spend these early hours telling you about my safari yesterday. I just hope that as I am sitting at this restaurant table in the dark, unable to find the light switch, the night guard won’t come try and kill me and I won’t have a heart attack with all these cats crawling around causing mischief. Anyway, back to yesterday...
Part I: Getting Started
We woke up not-so-bright-and-early at 7am and hit the parks by 8:30. The parks open at 6am, but whatever, we’re going to have a full day of it, right? Wrong.
While Victoria and Godfrey have been extremely generous in taking me into their home and making me a part of their family, and while the sun has given me my fair share of burns and darkened my skin a few shades, I have unfortunately not gotten any closer to looking like an African. Not even an albino African. I have done my best to be a chameleon and fit in with things, but there is no denying my mzungu status.
So, while it is very nice that Godfrey insists I am his daughter, there was just about no way the park guards would let me get through by paying the rates of the locals. Were I to have passed the test (and believe me, I had been fully warned to speak only Swahili and to be charming…) the cost of the trip would have been an entrance fee of 10,000 TZ Shillings. Unsurprisingly, however, we had to pay the white-tax of $250 just for having me in the car. (The psychology of listing local prices in shillings and white prices in dollars I found to be very interesting. I’ll let you convert the different prices for yourself. It’s impressive!)
Anyway, we made the bold move of paying for me as a local at the office and then trying to talk our way through the gates. When we were turned away, we not only had fork up the money, but also go to the back of the ever-building line, wasting even more time. I was very entertained by going into the gift shop and walking through the mini museum reading all about the park and its history, but our car just kept getting more impatient imagining the morning prowlers taking refuge out of sight range as the sun got higher.
By 10:00 am we finally made it through the gates and began our journey into Ngorongoro Conservation Area. It’s actually not a national park because people are allowed to live within its borders if they are able to live in harmony with the ecosystem. This really just means that the Masaai tribe and maybe one or two other nomadic groups is free to continue their lifestyle within the park. As we drove up, up, up to the rim of the crater we passed many Masaai herding their cattle and around their unique homes, just going about their lives. We also got to see a chui (leopard) walking along the road but he jumped out of sight before anyone had a chance to snap a pic.
At the top of the crater we stopped for a bathroom break while 3 Masaai men came over to sell me beautiful handcrafted necklaces. Being white, the price for each was 5,000/= (TZ shillings). I really wanted to buy them, but the disgusted reaction of my Swahili family made me feel far too guilty to cave at the apparently egregious price. I decided to get my Swahili on and use my superb language skills and irresistible charm to bring down the price. Yeah right.
To be honest, I’d be happy paying their asking price and supporting local tribes and art and all that other good stuff. My goal was just to get it down to a level that I wouldn’t look like a total fool to my entire family when I agreed to the price. The only problem was that they told me they could find the necklaces at other places for just 1,000/=. This is highly unlikely and most probably just dramatic banter in an attempt to get me to hike them to hike down the price. But nonetheless, having to talk them down by 4,000/= shillings is no small feat!
In any case, after a sufficient amount of getting hot and cold and chit-chatting about things completely unrelated to the necklaces I finally got them to agree to 2 necklaces for 5,000. Not bad, right? Wrong. Still not good enough. I was all set to give up as our Land Cruiser started back up and everyone started loading back into the vehicle. At the last minute one of the Masaai decided to drop to 4,000/= for two necklaces! This sounded totally reasonable to me and I mentally decided to commit. But just for kicks I looked at him and said, “3,000/=, that’s it. Good-bye!” I walked away as if I was totally serious (which I was not) and low and behold he made the deal!
I had to ask Victoria to spot me the money since I only had larger bills and felt very guilty asking him for change after pretending as if I didn’t have the money to pay for it. She was still disappointed by the extra 500/= per necklace, but I swear I saw a small smile of pride appear at the corner of her mouth that her mzungu daughter was able to talk her way into Swahili prices. I paid the man the money and was very pleased with the necklaces, but still felt very guilty about ripping him off. I wonder how much they cost him to make…
Part II: Into the Crater
By 10:30 am we were finally beginning our steep decent down into the crater. I had to fight my trigger-happy urges with my camera in the interest of preserving the battery for the things to come, but couldn’t help taking a few pictures of the lush, green plains and the amazing cotton-candy clouds that looked like they came straight out of a Philadelphia cream cheese commercial.
When we reached the bottom we lifted up the roof of our vehicle and stood with our heads peaking out the top, taking it all in. First sighting? Zebras! I swear these guys look like painted horses and couldn’t possibly be born like that. As I snapped about a million pics and short video clips of their grass munching I couldn’t help but wonder if their stripes are like fingerprints and snowflakes or if it's possible to have two-of-a-kind or more.
Temporary Wrap Up:
I have to go eat breakfast now and get ready for today’s adventure. The only animals I haven’t seen of note are giraffes and rhinoceros, so we’re off to try and find at least a giraffe or two today.
My summary notes from yesterday:
- It’s the rainy season, so the safari is apparently not as cool as it has the potential of being. This means my host family was a little less than impressed, but I made up for it with my extaticness.
- The driver seemed to be in some sort of rush and had a big case of the impatients. I tried my best to snap bumpy pics and videos when he wouldn't stop and usually only had time just for a shot or two if he did. It was a bit of a bummer because I saw most of the wildlife through the lens of my digital camera, hoping that I’d be able to appreciate it more when I uploaded them onto my computer…..that turned out to be a good call.
- Baboon butts, elephant graveyards, and gazelles teasing lions……that’s it for now….
Groan.
Alaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh u Akbar!
Double Groan.
Ash-hadu al-la Ilaha ill Allah
What time is it? Where is my phone?
Ash-hadu al-la Ilaha ill Allah
Seriously?
Ash-hadu anna Muhammadan Rasulullaah
Okay, fine. I’m up. It’s 5:15, but I’m up.
I’m pretty sure this takes place every morning. 5 times a day in fact. But for some reason today is the day it wakes me up like a rooster crowing in my ear. I guess it’s really just bloggers guilt, so I will spend these early hours telling you about my safari yesterday. I just hope that as I am sitting at this restaurant table in the dark, unable to find the light switch, the night guard won’t come try and kill me and I won’t have a heart attack with all these cats crawling around causing mischief. Anyway, back to yesterday...
Part I: Getting Started
We woke up not-so-bright-and-early at 7am and hit the parks by 8:30. The parks open at 6am, but whatever, we’re going to have a full day of it, right? Wrong.
While Victoria and Godfrey have been extremely generous in taking me into their home and making me a part of their family, and while the sun has given me my fair share of burns and darkened my skin a few shades, I have unfortunately not gotten any closer to looking like an African. Not even an albino African. I have done my best to be a chameleon and fit in with things, but there is no denying my mzungu status.
So, while it is very nice that Godfrey insists I am his daughter, there was just about no way the park guards would let me get through by paying the rates of the locals. Were I to have passed the test (and believe me, I had been fully warned to speak only Swahili and to be charming…) the cost of the trip would have been an entrance fee of 10,000 TZ Shillings. Unsurprisingly, however, we had to pay the white-tax of $250 just for having me in the car. (The psychology of listing local prices in shillings and white prices in dollars I found to be very interesting. I’ll let you convert the different prices for yourself. It’s impressive!)
Anyway, we made the bold move of paying for me as a local at the office and then trying to talk our way through the gates. When we were turned away, we not only had fork up the money, but also go to the back of the ever-building line, wasting even more time. I was very entertained by going into the gift shop and walking through the mini museum reading all about the park and its history, but our car just kept getting more impatient imagining the morning prowlers taking refuge out of sight range as the sun got higher.
By 10:00 am we finally made it through the gates and began our journey into Ngorongoro Conservation Area. It’s actually not a national park because people are allowed to live within its borders if they are able to live in harmony with the ecosystem. This really just means that the Masaai tribe and maybe one or two other nomadic groups is free to continue their lifestyle within the park. As we drove up, up, up to the rim of the crater we passed many Masaai herding their cattle and around their unique homes, just going about their lives. We also got to see a chui (leopard) walking along the road but he jumped out of sight before anyone had a chance to snap a pic.
At the top of the crater we stopped for a bathroom break while 3 Masaai men came over to sell me beautiful handcrafted necklaces. Being white, the price for each was 5,000/= (TZ shillings). I really wanted to buy them, but the disgusted reaction of my Swahili family made me feel far too guilty to cave at the apparently egregious price. I decided to get my Swahili on and use my superb language skills and irresistible charm to bring down the price. Yeah right.
To be honest, I’d be happy paying their asking price and supporting local tribes and art and all that other good stuff. My goal was just to get it down to a level that I wouldn’t look like a total fool to my entire family when I agreed to the price. The only problem was that they told me they could find the necklaces at other places for just 1,000/=. This is highly unlikely and most probably just dramatic banter in an attempt to get me to hike them to hike down the price. But nonetheless, having to talk them down by 4,000/= shillings is no small feat!
In any case, after a sufficient amount of getting hot and cold and chit-chatting about things completely unrelated to the necklaces I finally got them to agree to 2 necklaces for 5,000. Not bad, right? Wrong. Still not good enough. I was all set to give up as our Land Cruiser started back up and everyone started loading back into the vehicle. At the last minute one of the Masaai decided to drop to 4,000/= for two necklaces! This sounded totally reasonable to me and I mentally decided to commit. But just for kicks I looked at him and said, “3,000/=, that’s it. Good-bye!” I walked away as if I was totally serious (which I was not) and low and behold he made the deal!
I had to ask Victoria to spot me the money since I only had larger bills and felt very guilty asking him for change after pretending as if I didn’t have the money to pay for it. She was still disappointed by the extra 500/= per necklace, but I swear I saw a small smile of pride appear at the corner of her mouth that her mzungu daughter was able to talk her way into Swahili prices. I paid the man the money and was very pleased with the necklaces, but still felt very guilty about ripping him off. I wonder how much they cost him to make…
Part II: Into the Crater
By 10:30 am we were finally beginning our steep decent down into the crater. I had to fight my trigger-happy urges with my camera in the interest of preserving the battery for the things to come, but couldn’t help taking a few pictures of the lush, green plains and the amazing cotton-candy clouds that looked like they came straight out of a Philadelphia cream cheese commercial.
When we reached the bottom we lifted up the roof of our vehicle and stood with our heads peaking out the top, taking it all in. First sighting? Zebras! I swear these guys look like painted horses and couldn’t possibly be born like that. As I snapped about a million pics and short video clips of their grass munching I couldn’t help but wonder if their stripes are like fingerprints and snowflakes or if it's possible to have two-of-a-kind or more.
Temporary Wrap Up:
I have to go eat breakfast now and get ready for today’s adventure. The only animals I haven’t seen of note are giraffes and rhinoceros, so we’re off to try and find at least a giraffe or two today.
My summary notes from yesterday:
- It’s the rainy season, so the safari is apparently not as cool as it has the potential of being. This means my host family was a little less than impressed, but I made up for it with my extaticness.
- The driver seemed to be in some sort of rush and had a big case of the impatients. I tried my best to snap bumpy pics and videos when he wouldn't stop and usually only had time just for a shot or two if he did. It was a bit of a bummer because I saw most of the wildlife through the lens of my digital camera, hoping that I’d be able to appreciate it more when I uploaded them onto my computer…..that turned out to be a good call.
- Baboon butts, elephant graveyards, and gazelles teasing lions……that’s it for now….
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Sneak Peak!
Check out the slideshow!!
Don't worry....words to follow....and more pics....post-SAFARI!
Don't worry....words to follow....and more pics....post-SAFARI!
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Vacation!
Victoria’s family and I are hitting the road today and heading to Moshi. We’ll be there relaxing and visiting with family until Wednesday when we head off to the national parks for a three day safari. We’ll be back sometime on Saturday, spending Sunday resting, and then head back to school for my last two weeks here in TZ.
Before I leave I’m uploading a bunch of new photos. I apologize that they are not labeled or organized at the moment, but I figure it’s better than not posting them at all. I promise to label and organize all of my Picasa web albums when I get home. For now just enjoy all the beautiful colors, people, and places of TZ.......hopefully the currently underrepresented fauna of this country will make an appearance in the blog slideshow next weekend after visiting the national parks!
Before I leave I’m uploading a bunch of new photos. I apologize that they are not labeled or organized at the moment, but I figure it’s better than not posting them at all. I promise to label and organize all of my Picasa web albums when I get home. For now just enjoy all the beautiful colors, people, and places of TZ.......hopefully the currently underrepresented fauna of this country will make an appearance in the blog slideshow next weekend after visiting the national parks!
Simba Cement
Yesterday we didn’t have school because of the holiday. I was very appreciative of having some free time for myself and spent most of the morning catching up on emails, washing my socks and underwear, reviewing materials for my job with Teach For America that I’ll be starting when I get home, and listening to my favorite country music.
After finishing all of those things and taking a nice mid-morning nap, I met up with my host family’s uncle who is the Plant Manager at a very large cement company in Tanga called Simba Cement. Godfrey also used to work there, but is now retired. I got a great tour and was able to see how cement is made from where the raw materials are mined in the quarry all the way up until where it is packed in bags and loaded on the trucks for market. I must have spent 3 hours there driving around in a truck with two engineers who explained the entire process and let me take a million pictures along the way. The whole plant is shut down for annual cleaning so there was minimal noise, dust, and general chaos and we got to go a lot of places that usually would be inaccessible. For example, I got to walk inside a huge tube-like kiln that is 68 meters long and gets up to over 1000 degrees Celsius during normal operations!
After finishing all of those things and taking a nice mid-morning nap, I met up with my host family’s uncle who is the Plant Manager at a very large cement company in Tanga called Simba Cement. Godfrey also used to work there, but is now retired. I got a great tour and was able to see how cement is made from where the raw materials are mined in the quarry all the way up until where it is packed in bags and loaded on the trucks for market. I must have spent 3 hours there driving around in a truck with two engineers who explained the entire process and let me take a million pictures along the way. The whole plant is shut down for annual cleaning so there was minimal noise, dust, and general chaos and we got to go a lot of places that usually would be inaccessible. For example, I got to walk inside a huge tube-like kiln that is 68 meters long and gets up to over 1000 degrees Celsius during normal operations!
Friday, April 2, 2010
Pilot Project
I had this great idea today to take the exercise books that all of the kids use for school in Tanzania and have each class fill the blank pages with letters and drawings from each of the students. I could then bring back 16 small books back with the work of all the students in Tanga and give them to their corresponding classes at Key School.
The 7th graders have been particularly rowdy this week since there is usually no teacher around to teach them in the afternoon. I have not yet heard of such a thing as a substitute, nor do the kids go home if the teacher is absent or doesn’t come to class. If I have the time I go to their class to play Sudoku puzzles or do some other activity with them before going back to teach my other English classes.
All three sections of the 7th grade class didn’t have teachers again today, which must add up to something over 120 students. I thought they might make good guinea pigs for my new project idea since they are the oldest students with presumably the best English. I explained the project in Kiswinglish and they said that they were on board with the idea. First they would write a letter, then I would correct it, then I would go buy an exercise book for them to fill with their work tomorrow or after Easter break.
The result was somewhat of a mini disaster. The kids must have examples of letters in their books because I got several of the same letters from different students that made absolutely no sense. My favorite looked roughly like this:
Dear Chelsea,
My teacher told me about you and I am very excited to have you as my pen friend. She also told us that you are the first woman pilot. That is very interesting! What is it like to be the first person to accomplish something like that? I look forward to hearing more about you and what you do. Please write back soon.
Your Friend,
xxx
The 7th graders have been particularly rowdy this week since there is usually no teacher around to teach them in the afternoon. I have not yet heard of such a thing as a substitute, nor do the kids go home if the teacher is absent or doesn’t come to class. If I have the time I go to their class to play Sudoku puzzles or do some other activity with them before going back to teach my other English classes.
All three sections of the 7th grade class didn’t have teachers again today, which must add up to something over 120 students. I thought they might make good guinea pigs for my new project idea since they are the oldest students with presumably the best English. I explained the project in Kiswinglish and they said that they were on board with the idea. First they would write a letter, then I would correct it, then I would go buy an exercise book for them to fill with their work tomorrow or after Easter break.
The result was somewhat of a mini disaster. The kids must have examples of letters in their books because I got several of the same letters from different students that made absolutely no sense. My favorite looked roughly like this:
Dear Chelsea,
My teacher told me about you and I am very excited to have you as my pen friend. She also told us that you are the first woman pilot. That is very interesting! What is it like to be the first person to accomplish something like that? I look forward to hearing more about you and what you do. Please write back soon.
Your Friend,
xxx
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
In Order To Learn
This morning in 6th grade English the students were learning about how to rewrite sentences using “in order to” and “so that.”
The teacher began by walking the students through a few examples:
Farmers use manure to grow good crops.
Farmers use manure IN ORDER TO grow good crops.
Farmers use manure SO THAT they can grow good crops.
She asked a few students to come up to the blackboard and rewrite a few more example sentences, and then wrote a list of five new sentences on the board.
Most classes at Chumbageni consist of an example problem, a class work-through problem, and then ten exercises. Since the five sentences need to be written out in two different ways, that is 10 exercises. No big deal.
So when the teacher walked up to me and handed me a piece of chalk after she had finished writing the exercises out on the board, I had absolutely no clue what she wanted me to do. I had been drifting off in to lala land (probably like most of the students in the class) and just looked at her like…..huh?
I asked her: Do you want me to ask the children to do the exercises in their workbooks? Do you want me to ask them to come up to the board and do them? Do you want me to do them? Her response with all the kids watching us? “Please…teach us.”
Well great. What the heck am I supposed to do now? I don’t have a book to work with, just 5 very easy sentences on the board that require a slight tweaking.
Having graded many exercise books at Chumbageni, I know that it is very rare for a group of students to get most of their exercises correct. And given that this was probably the easiest exercise ever, I got it in my head that I would attempt to explain it so well that no student in the class would get the answers wrong.
I started by showing them that you just have to add “in order” in front of the word “to” when you want to rewrite the sentence using “in order to.”
Students go to school to learn.
Students go to school IN ORDER TO learn.
After reading all of the sentences on the board out loud using “in order to” we switched to “so that.” I asked the students to change the sentence to get a sense of how well they knew it and where they would mess up. The first student took the sentence: We boil drinking water to kill germs, and turned it into:
We boil drinking water SO THAT to kill germs.
I wrote his answer on the board, asked the class if it was correct, and let another student help him:
We boil drinking water SO THAT we can to kill germs.
And finally:
We boil drinking water SO THAT we can kill germs.
After letting them work through one on their own, I showed them how to go about it more methodically.
I explained: “So that” does not have the word “to” in it the same way that “in order to” does, so every time we came across “to” in the sentence, we must cross it out and replace it with “so that.” After that we have to add: Pronoun ¬+ Can. And then, Voila! You’ve done it!
The kids struggled a bit to select the correct pronoun when the sentence wasn’t in the “we” form, but we talked it through and they figured it out.
After that, we let them take those same sentences and write them out as complete sentences (rather than my chicken scratch slash marks and carrots for inserting new words) and then went to teach the same lecture to the second 6th grade class in the room next door.
While the teacher tried to have me teach the lesson entirely from the beginning, I told her it would be better if she started and then I would pitch in again. We went through the whole routine again, but a little better since I knew what I was doing this time.
Since we finished early I thought I’d give them a few curve balls for practice. Rather than giving them the sentence and asking them to modify it, I just asked them a question: Why do we use a ruler?
The students have seen the example sentence, “We use a ruler to draw straight lines” about a thousand times since it is a readily available prop in the class. However, no one was able to answer my question. Knowing that the example answer “We go to school (to/so that we can/in order to) learn” was written on the board behind me I then asked them, “Why do we go to school?” They had no problem finding this one on the board and reading it to me making me wonder how much just showing them the methodical way to rewrite sentences using “in order to” and “so that” is actually helping them.
In any case, when I was given the exercise books to grade later in the day about 80% of the kids got the answers correct. The remaining 20% forgot to write in pronoun + can after “so that” or just chose not to write the “so that” form of the sentence at all. But by far my favorite was the one kid who just wrote the sentence out once and put hash marks and carrots on the page in exactly the way I had explained to them how to reconstruct the sentence. Oh well.
The teacher began by walking the students through a few examples:
Farmers use manure to grow good crops.
Farmers use manure IN ORDER TO grow good crops.
Farmers use manure SO THAT they can grow good crops.
She asked a few students to come up to the blackboard and rewrite a few more example sentences, and then wrote a list of five new sentences on the board.
Most classes at Chumbageni consist of an example problem, a class work-through problem, and then ten exercises. Since the five sentences need to be written out in two different ways, that is 10 exercises. No big deal.
So when the teacher walked up to me and handed me a piece of chalk after she had finished writing the exercises out on the board, I had absolutely no clue what she wanted me to do. I had been drifting off in to lala land (probably like most of the students in the class) and just looked at her like…..huh?
I asked her: Do you want me to ask the children to do the exercises in their workbooks? Do you want me to ask them to come up to the board and do them? Do you want me to do them? Her response with all the kids watching us? “Please…teach us.”
Well great. What the heck am I supposed to do now? I don’t have a book to work with, just 5 very easy sentences on the board that require a slight tweaking.
Having graded many exercise books at Chumbageni, I know that it is very rare for a group of students to get most of their exercises correct. And given that this was probably the easiest exercise ever, I got it in my head that I would attempt to explain it so well that no student in the class would get the answers wrong.
I started by showing them that you just have to add “in order” in front of the word “to” when you want to rewrite the sentence using “in order to.”
Students go to school to learn.
Students go to school IN ORDER TO learn.
After reading all of the sentences on the board out loud using “in order to” we switched to “so that.” I asked the students to change the sentence to get a sense of how well they knew it and where they would mess up. The first student took the sentence: We boil drinking water to kill germs, and turned it into:
We boil drinking water SO THAT to kill germs.
I wrote his answer on the board, asked the class if it was correct, and let another student help him:
We boil drinking water SO THAT we can to kill germs.
And finally:
We boil drinking water SO THAT we can kill germs.
After letting them work through one on their own, I showed them how to go about it more methodically.
I explained: “So that” does not have the word “to” in it the same way that “in order to” does, so every time we came across “to” in the sentence, we must cross it out and replace it with “so that.” After that we have to add: Pronoun ¬+ Can. And then, Voila! You’ve done it!
The kids struggled a bit to select the correct pronoun when the sentence wasn’t in the “we” form, but we talked it through and they figured it out.
After that, we let them take those same sentences and write them out as complete sentences (rather than my chicken scratch slash marks and carrots for inserting new words) and then went to teach the same lecture to the second 6th grade class in the room next door.
While the teacher tried to have me teach the lesson entirely from the beginning, I told her it would be better if she started and then I would pitch in again. We went through the whole routine again, but a little better since I knew what I was doing this time.
Since we finished early I thought I’d give them a few curve balls for practice. Rather than giving them the sentence and asking them to modify it, I just asked them a question: Why do we use a ruler?
The students have seen the example sentence, “We use a ruler to draw straight lines” about a thousand times since it is a readily available prop in the class. However, no one was able to answer my question. Knowing that the example answer “We go to school (to/so that we can/in order to) learn” was written on the board behind me I then asked them, “Why do we go to school?” They had no problem finding this one on the board and reading it to me making me wonder how much just showing them the methodical way to rewrite sentences using “in order to” and “so that” is actually helping them.
In any case, when I was given the exercise books to grade later in the day about 80% of the kids got the answers correct. The remaining 20% forgot to write in pronoun + can after “so that” or just chose not to write the “so that” form of the sentence at all. But by far my favorite was the one kid who just wrote the sentence out once and put hash marks and carrots on the page in exactly the way I had explained to them how to reconstruct the sentence. Oh well.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Jenga!
Did you know that in Kiswahili kujenga means “to build?” If you just say jenga it is the command form of the verb, so you are saying “Build!” If that’s true, why do we say it when the tower is falling over? I guess we’re just anticipating having to start all over again.
Pole Samaki
Women in Tanzania like to wear two types of fabric: Kanga and Vitenge. If the large piece of cloth is simply a large sheet of patterned fabric it is called a kitenge (vitenge is plural). However, if the pattern of the fabric is meant to be a rectangular sheet and has a small fortune-cookie style saying on the bottom, it is a kanga. When I first went to the market to purchase kangas as gifts for friends and family, I was attracted to their beautiful colors. Unfortunately, Victoria told me that you are supposed to buy kangas for what they say and not what the pattern is, and all of the ones I liked had bad sayings written on them.
For a few examples, the kanga that I wear says that “God won’t stand in the way of what you are trying to achieve.” My sister’s says “Kiss Me.” My mom’s says, “Mama is mama until the end of time.” My friend’s says “The secret of live is love.” And my favorite is a blue kanga I saw yesterday at a store that says “Pole Samaki” with a picture of a big fish on it, which means “Sorry Fish.” Victoria and I got a good laugh out of that one but thought it looked a lot better on display than to actually be worn by anyone. Although I do have some vegetarian friends at home….
Many women of Tanzania wear kangas and vitenges. Kangas are extremely versatile because they can be wrapped around your waste as a skirt, they can be used to hold babies on your back, they can be wrapped around your head if you are Muslim or want protection from the sun, or they can serve as a towel or a blanket.
Vitenges can be used for all of the same purposes, but are also used by tailors to be made into clothes: skirts, dresses, and shirts for men and women. The cost of the fabric is usually 5 or 6 dollars and the cost of tailoring ranges between 7 and 20 dollars depending on how fancy you want your item to be made.
I was at first hesitant to wear the kanga that Victoria gave me upon my arrival to Tanzania because I wasn’t exactly clear what its function was. Tanga is a very hot place, and yet everyone seems to wear pants or skirts underneath their kanga or kitenge. Victoria mainly wears them in the kitchen to keep her clothes clean or uses them as a picnic blanket when she takes an afternoon snooze on the living room floor. The house girl uses them to tie her baby to her back so she can do work around the house and have both of her hands free and as a dress for her daughter when she gets out of the bath. The Muslim women in the community wear them for religious purposes. For myself, I just wear them whenI don’t get my clothes dirty in the kitchen or to cover my legs around the house when I am wearing pajama shorts for bed.
I finally asked Victoria about it, and it turns out most of my observations are correct. The only thing I missed is that if a Tanzanian women passes in front of her relatives, especially male relatives, she should be wearing either a kanga or kitenge. She would never pass in front of them wearing only trousers.
As for working women, many of them wear suits and other more Western style clothes. This is acceptable because if you see a woman wearing them you know that she is coming from work. However, once she gets home, I am told that she will most likely change immediately into her traditional clothes. Some women, however, will wear the traditional clothes to their work, or at least wear only skirts and dresses since their husbands do not like it when their wives wear pants.
I have not spent a lot of time in the Muslim community here, although it is very large. The attire of Muslim women ranges from complete covering from head to toe, sometimes without even a slit for the eye, to no special attire at all.
As for men, there is no special attire that they wear with the exception of a hat, which they call a head square. This is mainly worn by Muslim men, but can apparently be worn by anyone who wants to wear a hat. T-shirts, pants, suits, and everything else looks very similar to Western-style clothing, with the exception of some Muslim men who wear long, white dress-like outfits called a kanzu, especially when they go to pray.
As far as what I’ve been wearing goes, I prefer to wear clothes that cover at least my knees, but tend to feel more comfortable the longer the item. I can wear pants to school if I wish, although female teachers working there are not allowed to do so. I would have thought that covering up so much of my body in this heat would be a problem, but I appreciate the sun protection and feeling covered up when all eyes are on me.
For a few examples, the kanga that I wear says that “God won’t stand in the way of what you are trying to achieve.” My sister’s says “Kiss Me.” My mom’s says, “Mama is mama until the end of time.” My friend’s says “The secret of live is love.” And my favorite is a blue kanga I saw yesterday at a store that says “Pole Samaki” with a picture of a big fish on it, which means “Sorry Fish.” Victoria and I got a good laugh out of that one but thought it looked a lot better on display than to actually be worn by anyone. Although I do have some vegetarian friends at home….
Many women of Tanzania wear kangas and vitenges. Kangas are extremely versatile because they can be wrapped around your waste as a skirt, they can be used to hold babies on your back, they can be wrapped around your head if you are Muslim or want protection from the sun, or they can serve as a towel or a blanket.
Vitenges can be used for all of the same purposes, but are also used by tailors to be made into clothes: skirts, dresses, and shirts for men and women. The cost of the fabric is usually 5 or 6 dollars and the cost of tailoring ranges between 7 and 20 dollars depending on how fancy you want your item to be made.
I was at first hesitant to wear the kanga that Victoria gave me upon my arrival to Tanzania because I wasn’t exactly clear what its function was. Tanga is a very hot place, and yet everyone seems to wear pants or skirts underneath their kanga or kitenge. Victoria mainly wears them in the kitchen to keep her clothes clean or uses them as a picnic blanket when she takes an afternoon snooze on the living room floor. The house girl uses them to tie her baby to her back so she can do work around the house and have both of her hands free and as a dress for her daughter when she gets out of the bath. The Muslim women in the community wear them for religious purposes. For myself, I just wear them whenI don’t get my clothes dirty in the kitchen or to cover my legs around the house when I am wearing pajama shorts for bed.
I finally asked Victoria about it, and it turns out most of my observations are correct. The only thing I missed is that if a Tanzanian women passes in front of her relatives, especially male relatives, she should be wearing either a kanga or kitenge. She would never pass in front of them wearing only trousers.
As for working women, many of them wear suits and other more Western style clothes. This is acceptable because if you see a woman wearing them you know that she is coming from work. However, once she gets home, I am told that she will most likely change immediately into her traditional clothes. Some women, however, will wear the traditional clothes to their work, or at least wear only skirts and dresses since their husbands do not like it when their wives wear pants.
I have not spent a lot of time in the Muslim community here, although it is very large. The attire of Muslim women ranges from complete covering from head to toe, sometimes without even a slit for the eye, to no special attire at all.
As for men, there is no special attire that they wear with the exception of a hat, which they call a head square. This is mainly worn by Muslim men, but can apparently be worn by anyone who wants to wear a hat. T-shirts, pants, suits, and everything else looks very similar to Western-style clothing, with the exception of some Muslim men who wear long, white dress-like outfits called a kanzu, especially when they go to pray.
As far as what I’ve been wearing goes, I prefer to wear clothes that cover at least my knees, but tend to feel more comfortable the longer the item. I can wear pants to school if I wish, although female teachers working there are not allowed to do so. I would have thought that covering up so much of my body in this heat would be a problem, but I appreciate the sun protection and feeling covered up when all eyes are on me.
White Palace
When I went to Lushoto this past weekend we stopped by my friend’s uncle’s new hotel to say hello. It is still under construction, but should be ready to open next month. It is a beautiful white building with Greek-style columns, self-contained rooms, heated water, and a full restaurant area.
After the tour the uncle asked me if I would give his hotel a name. He wanted an English name so that tourists would be attracted to it, and no amount of protesting or delaying allowed me to get out of coming up with a name for him. By the end of the weekend I had come up with “The White Palace,” “The Pegasus Hotel” (to be accompanied by a drawing of a flying horse, of course) and “The Hillside Hotel.”
From my own experience, remembering names is highly dependent on cultural relevance. I am about ten times more likely to memorize the name of a student who has a western style name, or at least one I can pronounce, no matter how hard I try. It is also hard for me to learn words that have strange associations with English words. For example, if you want to say “I am tired” in Kiswahili, you say “Nimechoka.” “Nimelala,” or “I am sleeping” is a lot easier since “Lala” sounds a lot more like a lullaby, whereas being tired sounds a lot more like choking someone. (I ended up memorizing the word by imaging wrestlers choking each other out until they go unconscious.)
In any case, I asked Victoria to evaluate my name selections to see if (1) they could be pronounced, (2) they weren’t associated with anything negative, and (3) they would be easy to remember.
It turns out that Pegasus is a bad choice since the beginning of the word sounds like “pig” and the owner is Muslim. The owner actually wanted to name it after me, but I told him that would be a terrible idea since all of the Manchester United and Arsenal fans here would go looking elsewhere for a place to sleep. The White Palace ended up being the selection, so if you ever go to Soni, Tanzania make sure you stop by!
After the tour the uncle asked me if I would give his hotel a name. He wanted an English name so that tourists would be attracted to it, and no amount of protesting or delaying allowed me to get out of coming up with a name for him. By the end of the weekend I had come up with “The White Palace,” “The Pegasus Hotel” (to be accompanied by a drawing of a flying horse, of course) and “The Hillside Hotel.”
From my own experience, remembering names is highly dependent on cultural relevance. I am about ten times more likely to memorize the name of a student who has a western style name, or at least one I can pronounce, no matter how hard I try. It is also hard for me to learn words that have strange associations with English words. For example, if you want to say “I am tired” in Kiswahili, you say “Nimechoka.” “Nimelala,” or “I am sleeping” is a lot easier since “Lala” sounds a lot more like a lullaby, whereas being tired sounds a lot more like choking someone. (I ended up memorizing the word by imaging wrestlers choking each other out until they go unconscious.)
In any case, I asked Victoria to evaluate my name selections to see if (1) they could be pronounced, (2) they weren’t associated with anything negative, and (3) they would be easy to remember.
It turns out that Pegasus is a bad choice since the beginning of the word sounds like “pig” and the owner is Muslim. The owner actually wanted to name it after me, but I told him that would be a terrible idea since all of the Manchester United and Arsenal fans here would go looking elsewhere for a place to sleep. The White Palace ended up being the selection, so if you ever go to Soni, Tanzania make sure you stop by!
An Unexpected Peer
When I went to Lushoto two weeks ago with the Kindergarten teacher we took along her 2.5 year old son, Tino. Mr. Tiny Tino wasn’t quite sure what to make of me at first, but we quickly became friends when his mom decided it would be better if he sat in my lap for the entire ride. After bonding over a few games and some food, Tino finally fell asleep in my lap…..much to the disappointment of my bladder. The trip was expected to be about 6 hours, and it was only hour 2 by the time I had to go.
We finally arrived in a town called Soni at the fork between touristy Lushoto and the rural mountain area of Bumbuli, where we had a 30 minute break before pressing further into the hills. I threw Tino over my shoulders and piggy-backed him off the bus with my hair all disheveled and my shirt completely messed up from being tugged on all morning.
When we stopped to buy some pears and potatoes at the local market, I put Tino down to take a second a readjust my clothes and fix my hair. I’m used to all eyes being on me, especially when I fiddle with my hair, so I thought the men chattering next to me were talking about just making comments about me. But when I looked down I saw that my little friend had decided that the ground right next to all the food was a great place to put some extra water. I didn’t know whether or not this was normal, or what exactly I was supposed to do, so I quickly got distracted looking off at something else and let his mom decide how to deal with it. She just laughed and we moved to another area where we could sit and rest for awhile.
At the new area Tino and I played a game about eating pieces of candy. He took an old plastic bag and started putting in all sorts of unwanted goodies lying in the street to use for his pretend game….which looked a lot more like Mr. Garbage Man to me than anything else. Anyway, it wasn’t even 5 more minutes before he was again peeing in the streets, this time in front of both his mother and me with absolutely no way to ignore him. Based on her reaction I guess it’s totally acceptable, but I haven’t seen too many boys peeing in the streets around Tanga.
The story gets more exciting, but part number two will have to remain unpublished.
We finally arrived in a town called Soni at the fork between touristy Lushoto and the rural mountain area of Bumbuli, where we had a 30 minute break before pressing further into the hills. I threw Tino over my shoulders and piggy-backed him off the bus with my hair all disheveled and my shirt completely messed up from being tugged on all morning.
When we stopped to buy some pears and potatoes at the local market, I put Tino down to take a second a readjust my clothes and fix my hair. I’m used to all eyes being on me, especially when I fiddle with my hair, so I thought the men chattering next to me were talking about just making comments about me. But when I looked down I saw that my little friend had decided that the ground right next to all the food was a great place to put some extra water. I didn’t know whether or not this was normal, or what exactly I was supposed to do, so I quickly got distracted looking off at something else and let his mom decide how to deal with it. She just laughed and we moved to another area where we could sit and rest for awhile.
At the new area Tino and I played a game about eating pieces of candy. He took an old plastic bag and started putting in all sorts of unwanted goodies lying in the street to use for his pretend game….which looked a lot more like Mr. Garbage Man to me than anything else. Anyway, it wasn’t even 5 more minutes before he was again peeing in the streets, this time in front of both his mother and me with absolutely no way to ignore him. Based on her reaction I guess it’s totally acceptable, but I haven’t seen too many boys peeing in the streets around Tanga.
The story gets more exciting, but part number two will have to remain unpublished.
Monday, March 29, 2010
100th Post
I’ve finally reached 100 posts and I can’t believe I have less than a month left. I guess if I look back on everything that’s happened since I’ve been here it has been quite a journey, but it seems to be flying by way too fast.
At this point I am feeling very settled in Victoria’s home and now feel like a part of the family. At school I am now enjoying teaching English class and stepping in when teachers are absent or don’t go to class. I almost never get a chance to devise a lesson plan, but making things up on the spot has been really fun and I think successful overall. We’ve done everything from mini skits based off of our readings to group Sudoku puzzles and I’ve only ever once been able to repeat a lesson to another section after teaching it the first time, keeping me always on my toes.
After school I come home and rest for a bit before heading out to tutor my friend Emmanuel in English. He’s rather proficient in the language so we usually just teach each other new card games or read short stories together. After coming home I help Victoria cook dinner and chat about life up until Teacher Eva comes to tutor me in Kiswahili late in the evening and ends up telling me about her rich history instead of making any sort of progress in our book. After that it’s dinner, shower, Skyping, and bed. There is not a dull moment, but the more full my days get, the faster they fly by.
School lets out this Thursday, April 1st for Easter Break and doesn’t start up again until Monday, March 12th, during which time I’ll hopefully get to see a Tanzanian wedding and go on a safari to three different national parks with the whole family.
When I return I’ll have 10 more school days and one full weekend before returning to the US. I’m hoping to have some more Skype conferences, do a few more CHUMS projects, visit a few more local landmarks including Amboni Caves, and hit the markets to buy some gifts before returning home.
Many thanks to all my followers back at home. I can’t wait to see you and share even more pictures, videos and stories when I return.
At this point I am feeling very settled in Victoria’s home and now feel like a part of the family. At school I am now enjoying teaching English class and stepping in when teachers are absent or don’t go to class. I almost never get a chance to devise a lesson plan, but making things up on the spot has been really fun and I think successful overall. We’ve done everything from mini skits based off of our readings to group Sudoku puzzles and I’ve only ever once been able to repeat a lesson to another section after teaching it the first time, keeping me always on my toes.
After school I come home and rest for a bit before heading out to tutor my friend Emmanuel in English. He’s rather proficient in the language so we usually just teach each other new card games or read short stories together. After coming home I help Victoria cook dinner and chat about life up until Teacher Eva comes to tutor me in Kiswahili late in the evening and ends up telling me about her rich history instead of making any sort of progress in our book. After that it’s dinner, shower, Skyping, and bed. There is not a dull moment, but the more full my days get, the faster they fly by.
School lets out this Thursday, April 1st for Easter Break and doesn’t start up again until Monday, March 12th, during which time I’ll hopefully get to see a Tanzanian wedding and go on a safari to three different national parks with the whole family.
When I return I’ll have 10 more school days and one full weekend before returning to the US. I’m hoping to have some more Skype conferences, do a few more CHUMS projects, visit a few more local landmarks including Amboni Caves, and hit the markets to buy some gifts before returning home.
Many thanks to all my followers back at home. I can’t wait to see you and share even more pictures, videos and stories when I return.
Successful Skyping
The kids at Chumbageni had another chance to Skype with Key School students this past week. This time a group of 10 fifth graders got to talk to Mr. Shekdar’s 4th grade class about food. Before every video conference, however, I like to get everything set up early and make sure everything is working properly. My parents make for excellent guinea pigs and help the kids get used to Skype and what it’s all about before switching over to the Key School classroom.
My dad was especially helpful this time because he was in the middle of making breakfast when we called. He gave us a tour of the kitchen and showed us Tropicana orange juice, coffee, cereal with milk, a Rocco’s pizza box, and many other things. When the 4th grade class called us and started sharing what they like to eat for breakfast, the kids at Chumbageni had a sense of what they were talking about. It was really cool!
Some of the highlights of the Skype conversation included the absolute surprise of the Chumbageni kids about when Americans eat dinner. One of the girls asked me, if they eat at 6pm, don’t they get hungry before going to bed? (Students here eat between 8 and 9pm) Key School students, on the other hand, seemed to be surprised that Chumbageni students can hold off on lunch until 3pm every day.
I personally had a great time translating words and concepts between the two groups of students. For example, pasta in Tanzania can be eaten for breakfast and is usually cooked with sugar instead of salt. There is also no real equivalent for strudels and French toast, so I had to contrive some explanations involving bread, fruit, sugar, and eggs. They also don’t have pancakes or waffles here, but their version of a pancake or crepe is called chapatti, which was as close as I could get.
Overall it was a great conversation! A big thanks to the Mr. Shekdar, Mrs. Crooks, Pilar, and of course, the 4th grade class for chatting with us! We look forward to doing it again soon!
My dad was especially helpful this time because he was in the middle of making breakfast when we called. He gave us a tour of the kitchen and showed us Tropicana orange juice, coffee, cereal with milk, a Rocco’s pizza box, and many other things. When the 4th grade class called us and started sharing what they like to eat for breakfast, the kids at Chumbageni had a sense of what they were talking about. It was really cool!
Some of the highlights of the Skype conversation included the absolute surprise of the Chumbageni kids about when Americans eat dinner. One of the girls asked me, if they eat at 6pm, don’t they get hungry before going to bed? (Students here eat between 8 and 9pm) Key School students, on the other hand, seemed to be surprised that Chumbageni students can hold off on lunch until 3pm every day.
I personally had a great time translating words and concepts between the two groups of students. For example, pasta in Tanzania can be eaten for breakfast and is usually cooked with sugar instead of salt. There is also no real equivalent for strudels and French toast, so I had to contrive some explanations involving bread, fruit, sugar, and eggs. They also don’t have pancakes or waffles here, but their version of a pancake or crepe is called chapatti, which was as close as I could get.
Overall it was a great conversation! A big thanks to the Mr. Shekdar, Mrs. Crooks, Pilar, and of course, the 4th grade class for chatting with us! We look forward to doing it again soon!
Snail Mail
The letters from Mrs. Hood’s 3rd grade class arrived on Thursday in record time! It’s really neat seeing all of the hard work the kids at Key put into writing their letters and drawing great pictures. For me it was especially cool because I knew a large number of the kids from the Senior Walkers program at Key when I used to take them to their Pre-K class every morning. I can’t believe how much they’ve all grown!
Overall the letters have been a great success. The kids here enjoyed taking turns reading them at looking at the pictures. I think we’ll be sharing the letters with other classes so they can get inspired to write to their friends at Key. Thank you so much Mrs. Hood’s 3rd Grade Class. I hope you receive our letters soon!
Overall the letters have been a great success. The kids here enjoyed taking turns reading them at looking at the pictures. I think we’ll be sharing the letters with other classes so they can get inspired to write to their friends at Key. Thank you so much Mrs. Hood’s 3rd Grade Class. I hope you receive our letters soon!
Yes, We Can!
There are two sections of every class here at Chumbageni, each of which has between 40 and 60 students. The exceptions to this are Kindergarten which has only one section, and 7th grade which has three.
After teaching section 5A yesterday I went with the English teacher to go teach the other section. I thought they would be doing the same Thief! story that I worked on yesterday, but it turned out they were actually working on the expressions can and can’t. Without any preparation or heads up, the teacher told me to start teaching. I had to take 30 seconds to read the first few examples just to figure out what was teaching, and then have them read a few of the exercises as I frantically tried to put a lesson plan together out of nothing.
I quickly learned that the students have little trouble understanding when to use can and can’t, but have significant difficulties determining the subject (not to mention understanding whatever it is that they can or can’t do).
To keep it simple and keep their attention I devised a scenario for them to act out. I told them that two of the students and I want to go swimming together at the beach. Before going, I needed to know if they can swim because I don’t want them to drown. “Can you swim?” “Yes, I can swim.” After determining that my swimming buddies could swim, I told them to go ask some of their friends if they could swim. The dialogue went something like this:
Swimming Buddy: “Can you swim?”
Friend: “Yes, I can”
After determining that their friend could swim, they came to me and said:
Swimming Buddy: “I want to bring my friend”
Chelsea: “Can she swim?”
Swimming Buddy: “Yes, she can.”
After we had about a third of the class up at the front of the class ready to go to the beach we did some summarizing that required different pronouns. I pulled individuals out of the group and asked the class, “Can he swim?” “Can she swim?” Then I stood with the group going to the beach and asked “Can we swim?” I finally went and sat with the remainder of the class and asked, “Can they swim?”
By the end of the class they were more or less able to determine the correct pronoun when responding to the questions. I then switched it up with some other questions like, “Can girls run faster than boys?” which, of course, inspired a relay race, and “Can they sing?” which required a performance. I probably should have avoided that one since a student in the back raised his hand and asked me, “Can you sing us a song?” I guess I deserved it for putting them on the spot for the whole afternoon, so I said okay and taught them all how to do the Hokey Pokey. I think they appreciated my excellent dancing.
After teaching section 5A yesterday I went with the English teacher to go teach the other section. I thought they would be doing the same Thief! story that I worked on yesterday, but it turned out they were actually working on the expressions can and can’t. Without any preparation or heads up, the teacher told me to start teaching. I had to take 30 seconds to read the first few examples just to figure out what was teaching, and then have them read a few of the exercises as I frantically tried to put a lesson plan together out of nothing.
I quickly learned that the students have little trouble understanding when to use can and can’t, but have significant difficulties determining the subject (not to mention understanding whatever it is that they can or can’t do).
To keep it simple and keep their attention I devised a scenario for them to act out. I told them that two of the students and I want to go swimming together at the beach. Before going, I needed to know if they can swim because I don’t want them to drown. “Can you swim?” “Yes, I can swim.” After determining that my swimming buddies could swim, I told them to go ask some of their friends if they could swim. The dialogue went something like this:
Swimming Buddy: “Can you swim?”
Friend: “Yes, I can”
After determining that their friend could swim, they came to me and said:
Swimming Buddy: “I want to bring my friend”
Chelsea: “Can she swim?”
Swimming Buddy: “Yes, she can.”
After we had about a third of the class up at the front of the class ready to go to the beach we did some summarizing that required different pronouns. I pulled individuals out of the group and asked the class, “Can he swim?” “Can she swim?” Then I stood with the group going to the beach and asked “Can we swim?” I finally went and sat with the remainder of the class and asked, “Can they swim?”
By the end of the class they were more or less able to determine the correct pronoun when responding to the questions. I then switched it up with some other questions like, “Can girls run faster than boys?” which, of course, inspired a relay race, and “Can they sing?” which required a performance. I probably should have avoided that one since a student in the back raised his hand and asked me, “Can you sing us a song?” I guess I deserved it for putting them on the spot for the whole afternoon, so I said okay and taught them all how to do the Hokey Pokey. I think they appreciated my excellent dancing.
Cluck, Chop, Cook
Over the past two weeks I have been learning about how to cook Tanzanian style. I have so far cooked French fries (chips), fried dough (mandazi), rice (wali), chicken (kuku) ,porridge (ugi), stiff porridge (ugali), and Tanzanian pancakes/crepes (chapati) in a variety of different kitchen types including indoor and outdoor kitchens, gas and charcoal stoves, stoves made out of meta,l and stoves built out of the earth.
Part I:
Some of my more notable cooking experiences have taken place in Lushoto. On my first weekend there with the Kindergarten teacher I helped to cook chicken and rice (kuku na wali) for dinner. I was a little late to the cooking party due to a delicious afternoon nap, so by the time I got there the chicken had already been cooked and was just waiting for me to make the sauce that it gets mixed in with. I somewhat jokingly asked if Mr. Chicken was the brother of one of the feathered friends running around their house, which of course he was. I guess eating local is a good thing, but I still had to swallow hard and try my best not to squinch up my face at the idea that I was eating poor Mr. Chicken. I got over it pretty quickly (exceptionally grateful that I didn’t have to partake in or witness the slaughtering that no doubt happened while I was napping) and got to work making the tomato-based sauce.
When the sauce was finished we dumped the boiled chicken in and let it cook for a few more minutes. I was feeling pretty great about everything until my constant stirring turned up a nice big chicken foot attached to the leg. Luckily I didn’t lose my lunch, but my attempts to pretend like it was “just chicken” were thwarted. I had a good chuckle as I remembered my host brother finally giving up in a game of “can you name this body part” while eating some mystery-organ-goat-soup and saying….”Look, it’s all good for you. Sometimes I just eat it and don’t ask any questions.”
I luckily didn’t have to eat the chicken foot or anything, but I couldn’t help but thinking about how people in America have been known to sue companies if something like a chicken foot ends up in their dinner.
Part II:
On my second trip to Lushoto this past weekend I also had the chance to cook dinner. While I was peeling potatoes in a small mud hut I saw one of the boys outside walk by with a sharp, shiny knife. About 20 minutes later he came back with it, and I swear the shininess had been replaced with a nice red tinge. I was too distracted by potato peeling and conversations with my friend’s mother and grandmother to pay too much attention, but my suspicions were confirmed when a very dead chicken showed up in the corner of the kitchen shortly thereafter.
Victoria (my host mom) and my friend Zuleah proceeded to team up and butcher Mr. Chicken. Luckily they were very amused by my facial expressions (and also very aware that I’d probably never witnessed this before) and got a real kick out of giving teaching me the complete anatomy of a chicken. I have plenty of pictures of the experience and would be happy to share with any individuals who want to see what it looks like to take apart a kuku. Gross!
On a different note, I’m actually starting to enjoy the food which was initially more of a chore to eat than anything else for the salt and sugar-craving American palate and can also eat entire meals with my hands!
Part I:
Some of my more notable cooking experiences have taken place in Lushoto. On my first weekend there with the Kindergarten teacher I helped to cook chicken and rice (kuku na wali) for dinner. I was a little late to the cooking party due to a delicious afternoon nap, so by the time I got there the chicken had already been cooked and was just waiting for me to make the sauce that it gets mixed in with. I somewhat jokingly asked if Mr. Chicken was the brother of one of the feathered friends running around their house, which of course he was. I guess eating local is a good thing, but I still had to swallow hard and try my best not to squinch up my face at the idea that I was eating poor Mr. Chicken. I got over it pretty quickly (exceptionally grateful that I didn’t have to partake in or witness the slaughtering that no doubt happened while I was napping) and got to work making the tomato-based sauce.
When the sauce was finished we dumped the boiled chicken in and let it cook for a few more minutes. I was feeling pretty great about everything until my constant stirring turned up a nice big chicken foot attached to the leg. Luckily I didn’t lose my lunch, but my attempts to pretend like it was “just chicken” were thwarted. I had a good chuckle as I remembered my host brother finally giving up in a game of “can you name this body part” while eating some mystery-organ-goat-soup and saying….”Look, it’s all good for you. Sometimes I just eat it and don’t ask any questions.”
I luckily didn’t have to eat the chicken foot or anything, but I couldn’t help but thinking about how people in America have been known to sue companies if something like a chicken foot ends up in their dinner.
Part II:
On my second trip to Lushoto this past weekend I also had the chance to cook dinner. While I was peeling potatoes in a small mud hut I saw one of the boys outside walk by with a sharp, shiny knife. About 20 minutes later he came back with it, and I swear the shininess had been replaced with a nice red tinge. I was too distracted by potato peeling and conversations with my friend’s mother and grandmother to pay too much attention, but my suspicions were confirmed when a very dead chicken showed up in the corner of the kitchen shortly thereafter.
Victoria (my host mom) and my friend Zuleah proceeded to team up and butcher Mr. Chicken. Luckily they were very amused by my facial expressions (and also very aware that I’d probably never witnessed this before) and got a real kick out of giving teaching me the complete anatomy of a chicken. I have plenty of pictures of the experience and would be happy to share with any individuals who want to see what it looks like to take apart a kuku. Gross!
On a different note, I’m actually starting to enjoy the food which was initially more of a chore to eat than anything else for the salt and sugar-craving American palate and can also eat entire meals with my hands!
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Story Time
Hopefully we will be having another Skype conference with Key School on Thursday between the 4th grade class at Key and a group of 5th graders here at Chumbageni Primary School. The topic of this Skype conversation will be food, so I am hoping to spend some time preparing with the students before the meeting.
The teacher who will help facilitate the conference is the 5th grade English teacher. I joined her in class today thinking that we would be reviewing some English related to food, but we instead just proceeded with their syllabus. They were working on reading comprehension and focusing on a story about a woman who successfully stops a thief who is running away with stolen goods.
The students initially struggled to read the passage, managing to pronounce the syllables and words but not necessarily grasping the meaning of the sentences. After reading the story two times, they still were not able to answer the basic questions that accompanied the story or find the answer in the passage.
In the middle of one of these comprehension questions, the teacher got a phone call and stepped out to answer it. I waited for a few minutes for her to return, but when she didn’t I decided that I might as well proceed with the lesson. The story was actually pretty entertaining and relatively simple to act out, so I got to work.
I asked for seven students to come up and play the role of an old woman, two cows, a thief, and two victims. We then walked through the story line by line with mooing cows, screaming victims, the old woman gasping with fear, and the thief finally tripping over a bundle of grass, hitting his head on a rock, and being taken to jail. The kids were laughing as I proceeded to embarrass myself with a variety of sound effects and stunts.
The teacher returned part way through our second rehearsal and I went to go sit down. Seeing what we were doing, she decided to let me continue and started helping by translating some key words in the story and helping the kids in Kiswahili when they didn’t understand what we were saying. We were all getting into the story and having a great time, and after our fourth run-through of the story we stopped to go over the remaining comprehension questions – and guess what? Almost every kid had their hand in the air wanting to answer the questions, and all of their responses were 100% correct.
I am now completely hoarse, but it was totally worth it.
The teacher who will help facilitate the conference is the 5th grade English teacher. I joined her in class today thinking that we would be reviewing some English related to food, but we instead just proceeded with their syllabus. They were working on reading comprehension and focusing on a story about a woman who successfully stops a thief who is running away with stolen goods.
The students initially struggled to read the passage, managing to pronounce the syllables and words but not necessarily grasping the meaning of the sentences. After reading the story two times, they still were not able to answer the basic questions that accompanied the story or find the answer in the passage.
In the middle of one of these comprehension questions, the teacher got a phone call and stepped out to answer it. I waited for a few minutes for her to return, but when she didn’t I decided that I might as well proceed with the lesson. The story was actually pretty entertaining and relatively simple to act out, so I got to work.
I asked for seven students to come up and play the role of an old woman, two cows, a thief, and two victims. We then walked through the story line by line with mooing cows, screaming victims, the old woman gasping with fear, and the thief finally tripping over a bundle of grass, hitting his head on a rock, and being taken to jail. The kids were laughing as I proceeded to embarrass myself with a variety of sound effects and stunts.
The teacher returned part way through our second rehearsal and I went to go sit down. Seeing what we were doing, she decided to let me continue and started helping by translating some key words in the story and helping the kids in Kiswahili when they didn’t understand what we were saying. We were all getting into the story and having a great time, and after our fourth run-through of the story we stopped to go over the remaining comprehension questions – and guess what? Almost every kid had their hand in the air wanting to answer the questions, and all of their responses were 100% correct.
I am now completely hoarse, but it was totally worth it.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Victoria's Birthday
Today was Victoria’s birthday. I woke up extra early to give her a small present and help her get everything together for the morning. While eating breakfast, her daughter called to tell her she wanted to send her mom flowers. Suzy is going to college about 6 hours away from here and unfortunately couldn’t come celebrate with us today.
Forgetting about the different modes of mail transportation in this country, I wrote off Suzy’s comment about the flowers as a joke. So when Chief came home from the bus station with two dozen fresh roses Victoria got a great laugh at my very confused expression. I guess in this country it’s feasible to forget a special occasion for a friend or loved one living far away and still get something to them on that very same day!
Anyway, I helped prepare the food Victoria wanted to eat today and set up tables on the roof of the house to eat dinner in the fresh evening air. A few friends came over for the celebration and we had a great time stuffing each others’ faces with cake before even getting to the main course. Happy Birthday, Victoria!
Forgetting about the different modes of mail transportation in this country, I wrote off Suzy’s comment about the flowers as a joke. So when Chief came home from the bus station with two dozen fresh roses Victoria got a great laugh at my very confused expression. I guess in this country it’s feasible to forget a special occasion for a friend or loved one living far away and still get something to them on that very same day!
Anyway, I helped prepare the food Victoria wanted to eat today and set up tables on the roof of the house to eat dinner in the fresh evening air. A few friends came over for the celebration and we had a great time stuffing each others’ faces with cake before even getting to the main course. Happy Birthday, Victoria!
Winging It
Today I was starting to get a little bored listening to lectures in Swahili so I went for a walk to check in with Victoria and say happy birthday again. On my way to her office, I was stopped by a bunch of rowdy 7th graders and invited to come join them in class. Apparently they didn’t have a teacher and had nothing to do for the entire afternoon.
I usually just walk past this noisy bunch with a smile, a wave, and a few Swahili greetings, but today I felt inclined to stop and check out the scene. I asked a teacher in the neighboring classroom to see whether they were yanking my chain. She confirmed there was no teacher and I was welcome to step in if I dared…
7th graders. The oldest age group at Chumbageni Primary School. Supposedly almost ready to move to an entirely English-based education the next year. These kids are big and they are high energy. I figured trying to lecture them would be boring so I started by asking them what they knew about the CHUMS partnership with Key School and went from there.
Turns out they knew just about nothing. As far as the world map was concerned, Key School lies anywhere between the Atlantic Ocean and Alaska. America is also called the United States of America, or USA, and there are about two or four total states in the country. We also have tribes and are all white. Of course those are just a few of the answers that were thrown out there as I threw questions at them, but their answers made for some great discussions.
After a while the students started to get more comfortable with me and asked questions like how much school fees are in the states, what a computer costs, and what the most common names are for boys and girls in the US. They also sang me some songs and one kid even got up and danced for us much to the delight of the class…..and my cringing expecting the teacher next door to come in with a stick ready to establish some order and then seeing me there “teaching.”
I wanted to cover as many subjects as possible, so after roughly discussing Geography and History while speaking in Kiswinglish, we switched over to math. I tried to get them to convert shillings into dollars….which was a terrible mathematical disaster……but still fun anyways. I ended up just doing the calculations for them and comparing some everyday items like soda bottles and pencils.
At school the bell rings every 40 minutes to indicate class switches. I must have heard the bell at least twice while I was with the kids, and every time I asked them, “Tumemaliza? Are we done?” And they would say, “Bado! Not yet!”
I definitely didn’t always have their attention but it was a rush trying to think of interesting things to talk about or compare that I could say in Kiswahili or that they would be able to understand in English. We finished off by talking about different types of communications and their tradeoffs (e.g. cost vs. time) which ultimately ended up in a very interesting discussion about how cell phone technologies and their use of satellites. Anyway, I was exhausted by the end of the day, but happy to have made some new friends.
P.S. I forgot to mention that we were interrupted at some point in the middle of our afternoon powwow to tally up the ages of all the students in our class. The range was from age 12 to 18 with most students lining up somewhere in the middle of that. It was interesting to watch the social dynamic as the scornful giggles increased with age, but I wasn’t at all surprised given that these kids either eat oversized portions of Wheaties for breakfast or are older than the average 7th grader.
I usually just walk past this noisy bunch with a smile, a wave, and a few Swahili greetings, but today I felt inclined to stop and check out the scene. I asked a teacher in the neighboring classroom to see whether they were yanking my chain. She confirmed there was no teacher and I was welcome to step in if I dared…
7th graders. The oldest age group at Chumbageni Primary School. Supposedly almost ready to move to an entirely English-based education the next year. These kids are big and they are high energy. I figured trying to lecture them would be boring so I started by asking them what they knew about the CHUMS partnership with Key School and went from there.
Turns out they knew just about nothing. As far as the world map was concerned, Key School lies anywhere between the Atlantic Ocean and Alaska. America is also called the United States of America, or USA, and there are about two or four total states in the country. We also have tribes and are all white. Of course those are just a few of the answers that were thrown out there as I threw questions at them, but their answers made for some great discussions.
After a while the students started to get more comfortable with me and asked questions like how much school fees are in the states, what a computer costs, and what the most common names are for boys and girls in the US. They also sang me some songs and one kid even got up and danced for us much to the delight of the class…..and my cringing expecting the teacher next door to come in with a stick ready to establish some order and then seeing me there “teaching.”
I wanted to cover as many subjects as possible, so after roughly discussing Geography and History while speaking in Kiswinglish, we switched over to math. I tried to get them to convert shillings into dollars….which was a terrible mathematical disaster……but still fun anyways. I ended up just doing the calculations for them and comparing some everyday items like soda bottles and pencils.
At school the bell rings every 40 minutes to indicate class switches. I must have heard the bell at least twice while I was with the kids, and every time I asked them, “Tumemaliza? Are we done?” And they would say, “Bado! Not yet!”
I definitely didn’t always have their attention but it was a rush trying to think of interesting things to talk about or compare that I could say in Kiswahili or that they would be able to understand in English. We finished off by talking about different types of communications and their tradeoffs (e.g. cost vs. time) which ultimately ended up in a very interesting discussion about how cell phone technologies and their use of satellites. Anyway, I was exhausted by the end of the day, but happy to have made some new friends.
P.S. I forgot to mention that we were interrupted at some point in the middle of our afternoon powwow to tally up the ages of all the students in our class. The range was from age 12 to 18 with most students lining up somewhere in the middle of that. It was interesting to watch the social dynamic as the scornful giggles increased with age, but I wasn’t at all surprised given that these kids either eat oversized portions of Wheaties for breakfast or are older than the average 7th grader.
Vacational to Vocational
After returning from Lushoto and resting for a few hours I headed back out into the world to visit a family friend who works at VETA College. VETA stands for Vocational Education and Training Authority. The school has just over 400 students, about a third of whom are boarding. They come for three years to study everything from welding, to plumbing, to tailoring, to secretarial work. I’ll fill more in about where this fits into the educational program here in Tanzania when I get around to doing a big posting on the education system, but for now I’ll just say that it’s an enormously big campus for only a few students at a very reasonable price (less than $200/yr for boarders and less than $60/year for non-boarders).
After touring the campus we returned to my friend’s home where she stays on campus with many of the faculty members for a cost of 10% of her total salary. Now that I know a thing or two about cooking and serving TZ style I was able to help her in the kitchen before sitting down for food. This was the first house I have been invited to that didn’t attempt to send me home rolling down the street like a bowling ball, but I was able to take the appropriate cues and show my due appreciation for the great food that she served.
As we were leaving her house at the end of the evening something landed on my head and fell down in front of me. I dreadingly looked down at the floor to see what it was and spied an oversized pile of bird poop and a small, slimy lizard at my feet. I unconsciously reached for my head at the same time and let out a heavy sigh of relief that I had come closer to having a Parent Trap moment than being blessed with good luck by my feathered friends!
After touring the campus we returned to my friend’s home where she stays on campus with many of the faculty members for a cost of 10% of her total salary. Now that I know a thing or two about cooking and serving TZ style I was able to help her in the kitchen before sitting down for food. This was the first house I have been invited to that didn’t attempt to send me home rolling down the street like a bowling ball, but I was able to take the appropriate cues and show my due appreciation for the great food that she served.
As we were leaving her house at the end of the evening something landed on my head and fell down in front of me. I dreadingly looked down at the floor to see what it was and spied an oversized pile of bird poop and a small, slimy lizard at my feet. I unconsciously reached for my head at the same time and let out a heavy sigh of relief that I had come closer to having a Parent Trap moment than being blessed with good luck by my feathered friends!
Monday, March 22, 2010
Dar Es Salaam Part III: The American Embassy
I woke up bright and early on Tuesday
and headed down to the free breakfast. I talked my way into a breakfast of toast, fresh mango juice, sausage, and a cup of tea. I also realized my phone was running out of money and asked the waiter where I could purchase more money for my phone. I’ll explain more about this later, but he asked exactly what company and how much I wanted and reappeared 2 minutes later with my phone voucher. I’m learning to feel less uncomfortable with this (although by no means comfortable) since the children at Chumbageni are expected to run errands for the teachers on a regular basis.
The Bank
After breakfast Halifa came to pick me up and we went to the bank to pay the fee for his visa application before heading to the embassy. I couldn’t figure out why he was picking me up at 7:30 am for a 10:00 appointment at the embassy until I saw the insane traffic jams of the morning rush-hour in Dar. Anyway, we made it to the bank and generously gave them the $131 fee (which by my exchange rate calculations was actually $141). As we left I was thinking about how clever the American Embassy is for separating the payment from the visa interview since our trip to the embassy afterwards felt like an entirely different errand.
In any case, as we left the bank we passed the Holiday Inn where I stayed my first night in Tanzania. It was a very strange feeling remembering how small and alone I felt on my first day. I was previously scared to walk out of the hotel doors for fear of being eaten alive by the city, but here I was walking down the streets, greeting people, grabbing a Taxi, and heading to the American embassy with Halifa and loving life.
Embassy Security
We arrived at the American Embassy early to go through security. It was pretty funny because even though I was technically on American soil, all of the guards were Tanzanian and very excited when I spoke to them almost entirely in Swahili (which of course means I didn’t say very much besides good morning :).
Anyway, their version of security was a metal detector, taking your bag in exchange for a number, and asking you to turn off your cell phones before going inside. The final step pertained to the water bottles we were carrying. The guard said to me in Swahili, “Kunywa!” which means “Drink!” in Kiswahili. I thought he was giving me very useful advice given the crazy weather here, but when I laughed, smiled, and kept walking he didn’t seem impressed. I asked him in English if he was really asking me to take a drink for him, and he told me that he was serious. Apparently it would be more entertaining to watch me suffer a violent death as a result of trying to sneak explosive liquid materials disguised as water into the embassy than it would be to tell me to just throw it away. I repeated this exercise as necessary at all of the security checkpoints.
The Interview
When we arrived at the visa application area Halifa was given a visa and asked to sit and wait. They let me come by but made sure to tell me I wasn’t allowed to talk or go up to the counter with him when it was time for his interview. There were panels blocking the people waiting from seeing those who were at the counter, but certainly no sound proofing devices. I got to hear a variety of different cases as we waited, and found it hard to hide my interest as I pretended to read some pamphlets on the table in front of me.
One person applying for a visa was trying to come study at an American university. He was quizzed on why he wanted to study English in America when he could learn the same things in Tanzania. Another woman was threatened to be permanently suspended from applying for an American visa because the random guy at the counter was suspicious that she had forged her marriage documents or that the person who issued them was a fake. Yet another woman asked for a translator and was asked why she needed one if she was planning on visiting the US. Another woman was quizzed on how many brothers she had and then reminded that she had told someone else in the building a different number when they asked her earlier and then quizzed on why she was lying. The list went on and on and person after person was told, “Thank you for applying for an American visa. We’re sorry that you have been denied” and given a form letter with further explanation. The only person I actually saw get accepted when I was there was an old retired man who spoke perfect English, had travelled to the States many times before, and wanted to go to his cousins graduation for a week. It took him less than two minutes to be approved.
As I sat there I myself was uncomfortable by the interrogation that everyone underwent. If I had to undergo such a thing in a non-native language I think I would certainly cave under the pressure. The crazy thing about it is that as intense as the interview itself is, the denial is pretty gentle. They make it sound really nice as if you’ve been accepted, but what has really happened is that you have given them $131 for the privilege of filling out some paperwork with your personal details on it and being handed a letter that is undated, unsigned, and otherwise left entirely blank in the space where they are supposed to provide specific details for your approval. Quite a different beast than my process for getting a visa to be here!
The Library
After the interview I wanted to see more of the embassy so we went to visit the library. It is open to the public and offers services such as educational advising, internet access, the ability to check out books, and a decent amount of books. I was very entertained by the Princeton Review books, Fiske Guide and many other pre-college favorites. There was also no shortage of pro-democracy propaganda to be had, but I think it’s a great service that is open to anyone who can get through the security checkpoints.
All in all I found the American Embassy to be a very interesting place. Beautiful buildings and landscaping, very friendly people with the exception of the interrogators (who I must admit were only doing their job) and great resources for citizens and foreigners alike.
and headed down to the free breakfast. I talked my way into a breakfast of toast, fresh mango juice, sausage, and a cup of tea. I also realized my phone was running out of money and asked the waiter where I could purchase more money for my phone. I’ll explain more about this later, but he asked exactly what company and how much I wanted and reappeared 2 minutes later with my phone voucher. I’m learning to feel less uncomfortable with this (although by no means comfortable) since the children at Chumbageni are expected to run errands for the teachers on a regular basis.
The Bank
After breakfast Halifa came to pick me up and we went to the bank to pay the fee for his visa application before heading to the embassy. I couldn’t figure out why he was picking me up at 7:30 am for a 10:00 appointment at the embassy until I saw the insane traffic jams of the morning rush-hour in Dar. Anyway, we made it to the bank and generously gave them the $131 fee (which by my exchange rate calculations was actually $141). As we left I was thinking about how clever the American Embassy is for separating the payment from the visa interview since our trip to the embassy afterwards felt like an entirely different errand.
In any case, as we left the bank we passed the Holiday Inn where I stayed my first night in Tanzania. It was a very strange feeling remembering how small and alone I felt on my first day. I was previously scared to walk out of the hotel doors for fear of being eaten alive by the city, but here I was walking down the streets, greeting people, grabbing a Taxi, and heading to the American embassy with Halifa and loving life.
Embassy Security
We arrived at the American Embassy early to go through security. It was pretty funny because even though I was technically on American soil, all of the guards were Tanzanian and very excited when I spoke to them almost entirely in Swahili (which of course means I didn’t say very much besides good morning :).
Anyway, their version of security was a metal detector, taking your bag in exchange for a number, and asking you to turn off your cell phones before going inside. The final step pertained to the water bottles we were carrying. The guard said to me in Swahili, “Kunywa!” which means “Drink!” in Kiswahili. I thought he was giving me very useful advice given the crazy weather here, but when I laughed, smiled, and kept walking he didn’t seem impressed. I asked him in English if he was really asking me to take a drink for him, and he told me that he was serious. Apparently it would be more entertaining to watch me suffer a violent death as a result of trying to sneak explosive liquid materials disguised as water into the embassy than it would be to tell me to just throw it away. I repeated this exercise as necessary at all of the security checkpoints.
The Interview
When we arrived at the visa application area Halifa was given a visa and asked to sit and wait. They let me come by but made sure to tell me I wasn’t allowed to talk or go up to the counter with him when it was time for his interview. There were panels blocking the people waiting from seeing those who were at the counter, but certainly no sound proofing devices. I got to hear a variety of different cases as we waited, and found it hard to hide my interest as I pretended to read some pamphlets on the table in front of me.
One person applying for a visa was trying to come study at an American university. He was quizzed on why he wanted to study English in America when he could learn the same things in Tanzania. Another woman was threatened to be permanently suspended from applying for an American visa because the random guy at the counter was suspicious that she had forged her marriage documents or that the person who issued them was a fake. Yet another woman asked for a translator and was asked why she needed one if she was planning on visiting the US. Another woman was quizzed on how many brothers she had and then reminded that she had told someone else in the building a different number when they asked her earlier and then quizzed on why she was lying. The list went on and on and person after person was told, “Thank you for applying for an American visa. We’re sorry that you have been denied” and given a form letter with further explanation. The only person I actually saw get accepted when I was there was an old retired man who spoke perfect English, had travelled to the States many times before, and wanted to go to his cousins graduation for a week. It took him less than two minutes to be approved.
As I sat there I myself was uncomfortable by the interrogation that everyone underwent. If I had to undergo such a thing in a non-native language I think I would certainly cave under the pressure. The crazy thing about it is that as intense as the interview itself is, the denial is pretty gentle. They make it sound really nice as if you’ve been accepted, but what has really happened is that you have given them $131 for the privilege of filling out some paperwork with your personal details on it and being handed a letter that is undated, unsigned, and otherwise left entirely blank in the space where they are supposed to provide specific details for your approval. Quite a different beast than my process for getting a visa to be here!
The Library
After the interview I wanted to see more of the embassy so we went to visit the library. It is open to the public and offers services such as educational advising, internet access, the ability to check out books, and a decent amount of books. I was very entertained by the Princeton Review books, Fiske Guide and many other pre-college favorites. There was also no shortage of pro-democracy propaganda to be had, but I think it’s a great service that is open to anyone who can get through the security checkpoints.
All in all I found the American Embassy to be a very interesting place. Beautiful buildings and landscaping, very friendly people with the exception of the interrogators (who I must admit were only doing their job) and great resources for citizens and foreigners alike.
Dar Es Salaam Part II: First Night
After arriving late in the afternoon to Dar es Salaam we were picked up by a friend of Halifa’s who took us to get some food. As we drove down the streets of Dar I saw a big WalMart-esque looking store, a movie cinema, and an advertisement for juicy McDonald’s style hamburgers. I don’t particularly care for any of those things, but I definitely got a twang of homesickness with these familiar sights. It was also shocking because I didn’t realize how much I’ve gotten used to my new lifestyle until I witnessed some of the more Western amenities in the big city.
After grabbing a bite to eat we headed to Halifa’s friend’s house. His oldest child, a girl in 1st grade, immediately made friends with me and started playing with styrofoamy letters and numbers switching between math problems and spelling. She, like my tutee, also goes to an English Medium school where she is taught entirely in English with the exception of her Kiswahili class.
This girl was very bright and I really enjoyed playing with her. She also had some awesome learning tricks, like for an addition problem like 4 + 6 she would say, “Six in my mind -- four on my fingers -- after six comes – seven, eight, nine, ten!” She took all of this very seriously and was quite funny to watch.
After about thirty minutes it was time for me to go check in at my hotel room and get ready for a big day at the American Embassy. I wanted to go through the website again and make sure everything was good to go given the high security measures and strict procedures that the website highlights. In any case, when we went to leave the little girl actually started crying and wouldn’t let me go.
I checked into the hotel and paid way too much money by Tanzanian standards (55,000) for a small room jammed with a king sized bed, mosquito net canopy and a television. I did such a good job checking in that when I came back to the front desk to ask about the free breakfast and checkout procedures for the next morning, the woman actually stopped me when I started speaking in English and told me that she would only answer my questions if I asked in Kiswahili. Good thing I forgot my English-Swahili dictionary in Tanga!
After grabbing a bite to eat we headed to Halifa’s friend’s house. His oldest child, a girl in 1st grade, immediately made friends with me and started playing with styrofoamy letters and numbers switching between math problems and spelling. She, like my tutee, also goes to an English Medium school where she is taught entirely in English with the exception of her Kiswahili class.
This girl was very bright and I really enjoyed playing with her. She also had some awesome learning tricks, like for an addition problem like 4 + 6 she would say, “Six in my mind -- four on my fingers -- after six comes – seven, eight, nine, ten!” She took all of this very seriously and was quite funny to watch.
After about thirty minutes it was time for me to go check in at my hotel room and get ready for a big day at the American Embassy. I wanted to go through the website again and make sure everything was good to go given the high security measures and strict procedures that the website highlights. In any case, when we went to leave the little girl actually started crying and wouldn’t let me go.
I checked into the hotel and paid way too much money by Tanzanian standards (55,000) for a small room jammed with a king sized bed, mosquito net canopy and a television. I did such a good job checking in that when I came back to the front desk to ask about the free breakfast and checkout procedures for the next morning, the woman actually stopped me when I started speaking in English and told me that she would only answer my questions if I asked in Kiswahili. Good thing I forgot my English-Swahili dictionary in Tanga!
Dar Es Salaam Part I: The Journey
I woke up at 2am on Monday morning determined to go to Dar es Salaam. I had only intended to see the city in transit to and from Tanzania, but I was looking for a new adventure and thought that I might be able to accompany Halifa (the head of Chumbageni Primary School) on his journey to get a visa from the American Embassy.
To make sure I wasn’t suffering from 2am crazy-brain-syndrome, I called my parents up on Skype to check in. Dar es Salaam is a lot more dangerous of a city than Tanga, but what the heck, this whole thing is an adventure, why stop now? My parents said it was okay, and Victoria and Godfrey (my host parents) gave me the go ahead when they woke up at 6am. After that, I just had to talk to Halifa and see if he wanted company on his journey as well as the benefit of having my internet-connected computer.
By 9:20 am that morning I arrived at the bus stand with my bags packed and ready to go. We were swarmed with people trying to help us, but managed to get through to the person selling tickets. We paid each paid 10,000 TZ shillings and were on the 9:30 shortly thereafter with only minutes to spare.
The first stop we come to, about 30 men rush out to the bus with a variety of things for sale: corn on the cob, cold water, cookies, ndazi , fresh oranges, hardboiled eggs, and much, much more. I got a lot of attention from these guys since they were all very good at what my dad is fond of calling, the “Where is Waldo” game. I had to cave in and try the locally grown cashew nuts and fresh sugar cane slices, although the price I paid was definitely more than the other passengers had to fork over.
The whole process of buying and selling is also very interesting. There is apparently less trust for the guys on the ground, so they are often asked to hand over the product and the change for the bill the person on the bus claims to have before they get paid. These transactions take place from about the time the bus starts pressing on the brake until the time that it takes off again at a speed that the men can keep up with by running after it. I don’t see why the people on the bus don’t just buy something at the last minute and let the bus drive them away before paying, but everyone made sure to pay the vendors even if it meant throwing TZ shillings out the window at 20km/hr.
Waste
People on the bus generate waste of all kinds. As far as trash is concerned, virtually all of it is thrown out the window. Fruit peels, bottles, plastic wrappers, you name it. It was sort of fun playing guessing games as to whether the oncoming bus would be able to hit the water bottle in the road and whether the corn cob would end up completely smooshed or break into pieces.
I myself had a hard time condoning this practice and tried to stuff all of my trash into as many non-existent spaces that my backpack could hold. I was very surprised by this practice of littering considering how incredibly clean Tanzanians usually are. The one exception to this littering practice, I should note, is the town of Moshi, which is considered the cleanest town in Tanzania. It is illegal to litter there, and the law enforcement officers are apparently pretty strict about handing out fines for doing so. This includes fining the bus companies if they see people throwing trash out of their vehicles.
As for human waste, there are pee stops that benefit only the males on the bus, and usually one real pit stop at a gas station or some other place for about ten minutes. This means that I spent much of the trip squirming in my seat and cursing the occasional speed bumps in the road. I learned my lesson on the way there and refrained from drinking before my journey home later in the week.
Police Officers
As I have not been shy to write about, driving in Tanzania is a crazy experience. That said, the government is apparently taking measures to help control the chaos. One example is not letting busses drive at night. I found out through experience that it is also illegal for passengers to be standing on these long bus trips. Our bus was pulled over and fined for our extra passengers in the aisle and they were forced to get off the bus.
I asked Halifa how it was fair for those who were standing to have to get off the bus in the middle of nowhere. Apparently it is well known by the people that they shouldn’t get on a full bus and will be made to get off of it if they are caught. One old woman on our bus was determined not to get off. She made Halifa move over and squish me up against the window as we sat three across. I think she thought my white skin would be invisible to the police officer or something….but alas he had no trouble picking out the one row with three people in a row and making her get off the bus. Good try though, bibi!
To make sure I wasn’t suffering from 2am crazy-brain-syndrome, I called my parents up on Skype to check in. Dar es Salaam is a lot more dangerous of a city than Tanga, but what the heck, this whole thing is an adventure, why stop now? My parents said it was okay, and Victoria and Godfrey (my host parents) gave me the go ahead when they woke up at 6am. After that, I just had to talk to Halifa and see if he wanted company on his journey as well as the benefit of having my internet-connected computer.
By 9:20 am that morning I arrived at the bus stand with my bags packed and ready to go. We were swarmed with people trying to help us, but managed to get through to the person selling tickets. We paid each paid 10,000 TZ shillings and were on the 9:30 shortly thereafter with only minutes to spare.
The first stop we come to, about 30 men rush out to the bus with a variety of things for sale: corn on the cob, cold water, cookies, ndazi , fresh oranges, hardboiled eggs, and much, much more. I got a lot of attention from these guys since they were all very good at what my dad is fond of calling, the “Where is Waldo” game. I had to cave in and try the locally grown cashew nuts and fresh sugar cane slices, although the price I paid was definitely more than the other passengers had to fork over.
The whole process of buying and selling is also very interesting. There is apparently less trust for the guys on the ground, so they are often asked to hand over the product and the change for the bill the person on the bus claims to have before they get paid. These transactions take place from about the time the bus starts pressing on the brake until the time that it takes off again at a speed that the men can keep up with by running after it. I don’t see why the people on the bus don’t just buy something at the last minute and let the bus drive them away before paying, but everyone made sure to pay the vendors even if it meant throwing TZ shillings out the window at 20km/hr.
Waste
People on the bus generate waste of all kinds. As far as trash is concerned, virtually all of it is thrown out the window. Fruit peels, bottles, plastic wrappers, you name it. It was sort of fun playing guessing games as to whether the oncoming bus would be able to hit the water bottle in the road and whether the corn cob would end up completely smooshed or break into pieces.
I myself had a hard time condoning this practice and tried to stuff all of my trash into as many non-existent spaces that my backpack could hold. I was very surprised by this practice of littering considering how incredibly clean Tanzanians usually are. The one exception to this littering practice, I should note, is the town of Moshi, which is considered the cleanest town in Tanzania. It is illegal to litter there, and the law enforcement officers are apparently pretty strict about handing out fines for doing so. This includes fining the bus companies if they see people throwing trash out of their vehicles.
As for human waste, there are pee stops that benefit only the males on the bus, and usually one real pit stop at a gas station or some other place for about ten minutes. This means that I spent much of the trip squirming in my seat and cursing the occasional speed bumps in the road. I learned my lesson on the way there and refrained from drinking before my journey home later in the week.
Police Officers
As I have not been shy to write about, driving in Tanzania is a crazy experience. That said, the government is apparently taking measures to help control the chaos. One example is not letting busses drive at night. I found out through experience that it is also illegal for passengers to be standing on these long bus trips. Our bus was pulled over and fined for our extra passengers in the aisle and they were forced to get off the bus.
I asked Halifa how it was fair for those who were standing to have to get off the bus in the middle of nowhere. Apparently it is well known by the people that they shouldn’t get on a full bus and will be made to get off of it if they are caught. One old woman on our bus was determined not to get off. She made Halifa move over and squish me up against the window as we sat three across. I think she thought my white skin would be invisible to the police officer or something….but alas he had no trouble picking out the one row with three people in a row and making her get off the bus. Good try though, bibi!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)