Lindsay's Leave of Absence: Safari time

True friends

This week has been full of new experiences, first we had the send off then graduation and finally a safari. Let me start at the beginning with the send off.

Send off’s are one of the big things in Tanzania for girls, right behind the actual marriage ceremony. We have had student teachers at our school since the first week of August and one of them on her second day gave us this invitation for a send off. At that point we had no clue what the chicks name was but we felt since it was our first invitation we had to accept. (fun fact anytime you are invited to something here ie graduation party, wedding or send off you have to pay to go) We paid our money and kind of forgot about the whole thing. Well this week rolls around and the girl is reminding us about the party, we are still under the impression that it is for her, little did we know. Our second head master Makla was going to accompany us to the party because he just loves to dance and informed us there would be a lot of dancing. When we got to the party of course the electricity in Isoko was off so that party was running late, when it finally started we realized that the party was not in fact for our co-worker but for what I assume was her sister I am still really confused by it. These two girls walk in all done up in gaudy orange prom dresses, not smiling, they actually looked all around pissed to be there. During all of this there is screaming and waving and dancing while an MC is announcing everything. Then they started passing out drinks to all of the guests (we were sitting on benches btw) and everyone starts dancing. For the first time I ate rice with my hands (super difficult) because of course there was food, because its not an African party unless there is a massive amount of food. At one point it was time to give the gifts so everyone forms a conga line like dancing thing and dances up to give the bride and groom (who apparently its customary for them to show up late?) When my roommate and I got up there our teacher friend stops us and they stop the music and want us to make a speech in Swahili which was not about to happen, so we stood their awkwardly for a good three minutes until they realized we weren’t going to say anything and they turned the music back on. The party was hoppin until we left at almost 11, I am still so confused as to who the girl was but all I know is she looked super pissed, but she did have 2 mzungu girls at her send off and we are on video plenty of times to prove it because I forgot to mention that they had a guy walking around with a spot light and video camera filming the entire spectacle.

Graduation was the next big thing on Friday. Like I said before we had been having staff meetings to talk about graduation for the past month but they were always in Swahili so I never really paid attention. Turns out my roommate and I were put on the decoration committee (such a bad choice on their part, clearly they had no idea I am horrible at making things). So Thursday we were informed that we had to be at school at 7 am Friday morning to prepare for graduation which was to start at 10. We got there promptly at 7 to find no one on our committee there naturally, so we waited around for an hour before they showed up and the decorating began. They brought out a box full of toilet paper, primary colored fabric, a weird collection of balloons, and my favorite gifti paper (pronounced jifti). Then they told us we would be decorating what basically looks like a lean to behind the school. I have added a pic of what the finished product looked like and let me just say I am proud of our work. While we were decorating the DJ got there and started bumping bongo flava and Rihana music at 8 am and the kids promptly started dancing. This kids/the people of Tanzania in general LOVE to dance. They also have some interesting dance moves, I have also added a pic of some of the form 4’s dancing. Like I said graduation was supposed to start at 10 but the guest of honor the MP for our district was almost 4 hours late so graduation really didn’t start until almost 2. Graduation here is fun, like I said there were skits and dances and raps that he kids preformed, that was the fun part. The it went into a 2 hour speech period where the headmaster and then the MP keept talking and talking and not really about the students at all. I wasn’t really paying much attention until all the sudden the MP told us to stand up and singled us out in front of everyone and again asked us to say something to the crowd, again we panicked and just stood there awkwardly and waved. That has become a theme of this experience, me feeling super awkward and singled out and not knowing what to do except smile and wave. Graduation finally ended at 6, when we were told to go and eat yet another feast. We thought it would be for everyone, turns out it was on for the special guests and teachers. There was so much food, they had rice, pilau, chicken, beef, cabbage, and banana. There was supposed to be a dance party after but it got really weird when it was just the creepy teachers and old men dancing so we peaced out to a party we were invited to. Mr. Mbughi the post man/ our friend/ the house where we drink typhoid water, houses 6 girls who come from far away to go to school and two of them were graduating so they decided to have a party. We thought there would be a lot of adults there but when we showed up it was all kids and by kids I mean there were some small kids there getting down as well as the form 4’s. Basically we sat there for 3 hours acting like chaperones and making sure the kids did not get to close to the TV or sound system, or cause too much dust to rise because of course it was an outside event.

Now to the fun part the safari. Wednesday we learned that we would get a break from school this week so we immediately decided it was time to get the heck out of the small village and see some animals because I have been in Africa for 4 months and yet to see any good animals. We decided to come to Iringa and arrange a safari to Ruaha National Park. It is one of the largest parks in Tanzania and has the second largest elephant population in all of Africa, needless to say I was super excited. We got to Iringa (which I am now obsessed with) After leaving our village at 4 am and taking a semi and then a bus for 8 hours on Sunday. Monday morning we went to a safari company and told them what we wanted and they said in one hour we could leave and go. We had a massive Land Rover with a fridge inside all to ourselves and an awesome guide/driver Nolesco. We got to the park at like 12 and in being in there 5 minutes had already seen 8 elephants. Right now it is the dry season and Ruaha, unlike the parks in the Northern circuit have a lot of bush, so it can be hard to see animals. We ended up seeing a pride of lions sleeping, so many zebras, hippos, crocodiles, elephants, a cheetah, impala’s, warthogs, and waterbucks the first day. It was so nice having the car to ourselves and even nicer that Ruaha is a less popular park and therefore it felt like we were alone there because there weren’t like 5 cars around one animal. That night we stayed the night in the park at the government bandas. The bandas are basically like a metal hut they were nice, but before we went to bed our guide told us to be aware at night of the hippos because they come out of the water in search of for and kill more animals than lions. That was a fun thought right before we went to bed especially knowing that to get to the bathroom it was a good 3 minute walk from our sleeping area. All night long you could hear noises from the animals it was amazing. The second day we got up early and headed out and spotted a cheetah, our guide was so cool and even went off the path to try and get close to him for a pic but he was to fast for us. We saw more animals just hanging out and as we were about to leave in the later afternoon all the sudden Nolesco stopped and we were literally 50 feet from a huge male lion just lounging under a tree, it was amazing to be that close to a grown lion in the wild. I will def be going on another safari as soon as I possibly can because being that close to the animals and just driving around in the amazing landscape is incredible. There were many times during the drive that I was left thinking, this is really my life right now I am so lucky.

We are now back in Iringa town and are planning to leave to tomorrow to start the two day trip back. Iringa town is awesome so many expats. At this point in the trip I love to be able to talk to other white people and just hangout which is what Iringa provides. I have even been able to have a milkshake AND a real latte (it’s the small things in life that I long for). Also another reason why I like Iringa is they have a huge Masai population. As I have said before I am OBSESSED with Masai people they are so cool. SO far I have bought a pair of leather sandals and Masai cloth from legit Masai people on the street. Iringa has soooo many great gift’s, I cant wait to bring them back for everyone!!!

As I promised here are just a few of the pics of my life lately, I hope you enjoy! Sorry they are in no special order.