This past week I was reading a newspaper article in the East African, an English language newspaper I pick up any time I am in Mbeya. This particular article discussed the results from a recently released UN World Happiness report. Not surprisingly nine of the top ten happiest countries were in Europe, With Denmark and the other Scandinavian countries leading the way (Canada was the only non-European country to break the top ten). The top ten least happy countries were what really surprised me. There were the usual countries that most people would suspect like the Congo, Sierra Leone, Burundi, and even Togo (eight of the top ten in this case were found in Sub-Saharan Africa) These countries have a recent history of heinous human rights atrocities, their people are living in extreme poverty and in some cases are raged with civil war. Who wouldn’t believe that the people of these countries weren’t happy?
As I kept reading I found that Tanzania was listed as one of the top ten least happy countries. This really shocked me. The article maintained that the study took many factors into consideration not just the over all wealth of the country but things like the strength of social support offered to citizens, absence of corruption, and the amount of personal and political freedoms were taken into account. Even weighing these things in my mind I was still hard pressed to consider Tanzania an inherently unhappy country. I thought of at least five other countries that failed to make the list that appear to be a lot worse off than Tanzania.
The people I have had the pleasure of meeting and living among this year have been some of the most genuinely happy and warm people I have ever met. I know that it is part of their culture to be welcoming and inherently communal, but the extent that I have witnessed it still blows my mind. I see more people smiling and laughing here than I have anywhere else that I have traveled. Again, maybe it is just the people I am around, but even then I am amazed by them. Ileje district, the district I have been living in, is one of the more rural and poorer districts in Tanzania. The people here have so little, many don’t even have electricity or running water, they get by on so little that I am amazed by how they care for each other and not a day goes by where I am not greeted with a huge smile or have a laugh with people in the village. At first I thought this was just something they were doing to be nice to an outsider but, the more I took notice I realized that it was this way for everyone.
Coming from America where we are indoctrinated to believe that happiness means having a flat screen television, smart phone, computers, nice cars and a Big Mac, I wondered how any one could survive without these attachments I had grown so fond of. Well my friends I can say that the people here are surviving without these things and are all the more happy because they are not caught up in it all.
I can admit that Tanzania might not have the most corruption free government form what the people have told me and I have observed, but that’s not to say they aren’t trying. People here have a sense of personal and political freedom that is not found in many of the other African countries. The structures for providing social support are gaining more backing and hopefully before long there will be a better system for the people of Tanzania. I cant deny the fact that Tanzanians don’t wish at times that they were American, or European. They marvel at all the things I have brought here, but once I tell them about some of the realities of America and people from the West they seem a little less enthusiastic about it. Living with the people day in and day out I can say that I feel like the study really missed its mark by naming Tanzania as one of the least happy nations on earth.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Part Three...The Conclusion
We decided to get the heck out of Zambia a few days early because honestly there was nothing more we could do there. We had exhausted all of our options, we had even gone and had a spa day and gotten massages because we had nothing else to do. We knew we defiantly did not want to spend the night/a few days in Lusaka, after the “incident” we were left with a bad taste in our mouths for Lusaka and the idea we had previously had of going to Lake Nyasa for a few days clearly was worthless since we didn’t have any swim suits. We originally had wanted to take the train from Livingston to Lusaka to kill some time but were persuaded against it by everyone we talked to, so it was back to the buses and six am departure times.
The idea of overnight buses sound good in theory but after this trip I have learned that in practice they are the absolute worst idea ever. This last bus ride was the worst! We got to Lusaka late and most of the good buses going to the boarder were full so we got stuck on a bus with two seats on one side and three on the other. Of course all the seats on the two seat side were taken so we were stuck on the three seat side. We both wanted window seats so we sat in different rows. We did stop by the booking office of the company that we took the first time around when our bags got stolen and gave the manager a piece of our mind. Seriously how are you going to advertise a bus company with bible verses and even have a guy preach on the bus before we leave, and have employees that steal, so questionable. They told us they were still keeping on our problem and they would contact us with any information they learn from the police, so we sill see if anything ever comes from this. Things were looking up when the bus left because at first we didn’t have anyone in our rows. Of course as per usual the guy sitting on the other side of the aisle thought it would be nice to keep me company so he moved over to my side and started chatting me up. He was really nice guy and meant well but I was not in the mood at first. He did give me a soda and bought me a chicken pie (fried chicken HUGE in Zambia, I have never seen anything like it). We talked about all kinds of things, he could not believe that I live without electricity and even wanted to give me one of his generators. I told him had it not been my last month here I would have taken him up on the offer. Finally he got tired and we tried to sleep. If you think sleeping on a plane is hard, a bus is almost impossible. I kept turning and adjusting but no position would work I could not fall asleep. Finally after traveling in a bus for 23 hours we made it to the boarder and back to Tanzania with all our remaining possessions on Friday morning. During this one week span we successfully spent over 48 hours riding on cramped African buses, if that’s not a feat in itself I don’t know what is.
Zambia broke us down, and drug us through the mud a few times, but I like to think we did get a few wins out of the whole adventure. We did get to see Victoria Falls which was the main reason for going. Did we get to fully enjoy it, that’s debatable but we saw it none the less. I got to eat a lot of ice cream which is one of my favorite things. Probably the best part was getting to go on the walking safari and getting so incredibly close to rhinos and zebras in their natural state. Everything that could go wrong on this trip did, but we survived and managed to laugh at most things (although we are not at the point of acceptance yet). I don’t know if I would have handled it so well had it happened during my September break.
Being back in Mbeya has been nice. We have been able to eat at our favorite places and even discovered a new Chinese place (I know what you are thinking, Chinese in Africa…. Questionable but it was actually really good). For Easter we even treated ourselves. We have been wanting to go to the Utengule Coffee lodge and plantation for awhile now but have never had the chance to go. We decided what better time than Easter Sunday to head over for brunch. The place is set on a hill overlooking the Great Rift Valley and the atmosphere was really fun. On Sundays they have really good brick oven pizzas, so we treated ourselves to that and some coffee of course and just relaxed and took in the gorgeous scenery all afternoon. It was a great way to wind up this chaotic vacation.
Now that it is all said and done I can say that honestly it wasn’t all a complete loss. We were able to get out of our villages and see another part of the world. We got to see a natural wonder and experience yet another culture, and eat good food which we have to go with out when we are in the village. Was it everything I had been dreaming of for the past two months, no but it did give me a story I know I will be able to tell the rest of my life. It will be incredibly hard to top this as the best worst spring break ever.
The idea of overnight buses sound good in theory but after this trip I have learned that in practice they are the absolute worst idea ever. This last bus ride was the worst! We got to Lusaka late and most of the good buses going to the boarder were full so we got stuck on a bus with two seats on one side and three on the other. Of course all the seats on the two seat side were taken so we were stuck on the three seat side. We both wanted window seats so we sat in different rows. We did stop by the booking office of the company that we took the first time around when our bags got stolen and gave the manager a piece of our mind. Seriously how are you going to advertise a bus company with bible verses and even have a guy preach on the bus before we leave, and have employees that steal, so questionable. They told us they were still keeping on our problem and they would contact us with any information they learn from the police, so we sill see if anything ever comes from this. Things were looking up when the bus left because at first we didn’t have anyone in our rows. Of course as per usual the guy sitting on the other side of the aisle thought it would be nice to keep me company so he moved over to my side and started chatting me up. He was really nice guy and meant well but I was not in the mood at first. He did give me a soda and bought me a chicken pie (fried chicken HUGE in Zambia, I have never seen anything like it). We talked about all kinds of things, he could not believe that I live without electricity and even wanted to give me one of his generators. I told him had it not been my last month here I would have taken him up on the offer. Finally he got tired and we tried to sleep. If you think sleeping on a plane is hard, a bus is almost impossible. I kept turning and adjusting but no position would work I could not fall asleep. Finally after traveling in a bus for 23 hours we made it to the boarder and back to Tanzania with all our remaining possessions on Friday morning. During this one week span we successfully spent over 48 hours riding on cramped African buses, if that’s not a feat in itself I don’t know what is.
Zambia broke us down, and drug us through the mud a few times, but I like to think we did get a few wins out of the whole adventure. We did get to see Victoria Falls which was the main reason for going. Did we get to fully enjoy it, that’s debatable but we saw it none the less. I got to eat a lot of ice cream which is one of my favorite things. Probably the best part was getting to go on the walking safari and getting so incredibly close to rhinos and zebras in their natural state. Everything that could go wrong on this trip did, but we survived and managed to laugh at most things (although we are not at the point of acceptance yet). I don’t know if I would have handled it so well had it happened during my September break.
Being back in Mbeya has been nice. We have been able to eat at our favorite places and even discovered a new Chinese place (I know what you are thinking, Chinese in Africa…. Questionable but it was actually really good). For Easter we even treated ourselves. We have been wanting to go to the Utengule Coffee lodge and plantation for awhile now but have never had the chance to go. We decided what better time than Easter Sunday to head over for brunch. The place is set on a hill overlooking the Great Rift Valley and the atmosphere was really fun. On Sundays they have really good brick oven pizzas, so we treated ourselves to that and some coffee of course and just relaxed and took in the gorgeous scenery all afternoon. It was a great way to wind up this chaotic vacation.
Now that it is all said and done I can say that honestly it wasn’t all a complete loss. We were able to get out of our villages and see another part of the world. We got to see a natural wonder and experience yet another culture, and eat good food which we have to go with out when we are in the village. Was it everything I had been dreaming of for the past two months, no but it did give me a story I know I will be able to tell the rest of my life. It will be incredibly hard to top this as the best worst spring break ever.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
The Best Worst Spring Break Continued
Beautiful!After all the “excitement” of the first part of the trip Nicole and I were really hoping that we could at least salvage some of the trip. Sunday morning we got up and knowing that most of the shops were going to be closed, decided to head to Victoria Falls and check out the park and the falls from the Zambian side. We took the public transport instead of a taxi and during that ride met a nice lady named Blessed who was from Zimbabwe and spoke over 10 languages and laughed at our ability to barely get by with three. She was training to be a doctor in Zambia, and wanted us to come with her into Zimbabwe so she could show us around, but we didn’t have our passports. She also took us on this “back” way to the park because the mini bus just kind of dropped us off on the side of the road and we had no clue where to go.
While we were walking to the park multiple people told us to watch out for the baboons because we were both carrying plastic sacks because we had bought snacks at the grocery store before we left. We didn’t really think much of this because I mean really how often do baboons just wander around in the open? When we finally got to the park there were a lot of typical tourist shops and, those shop workers who try and tell you how poor they are and how they need money to survive in the village, when really they are selling things for a RIDICILOUS price that is ten times the price it should be. We bypassed these guys on the way in and headed straight for the falls.
The way the park is set up is there is a giant statue of David Livingstone when you enter. (For those of you who forgot he was the first white man to set eyes on Victoria Falls, as well as being an all around awesome African explorer who when we died the local people took out his heart and buried it in Africa before sending his body back to Britain, basically true love). After the statue you follow a path and get some pretty nice glimpses of the falls and then you get to the bridge where you are basically face to face with the falls. We just so happened to come at the time when the Falls are at their fullest due to all the rain so there was so much mist that we were drenched after walking across the bridge. It was an amazing sight to see I will have to say. You are also able to walk further upstream on the Zambezi and during the dry season are even allowed to cross the river and can even jump into this pool that is at the edge of the falls. Like I said right now the river is really full we did get on the edge and stick our feet in though.
pre run in with the baboon, still excited
upstream, right before the falls start
On the bridge in the middle of the fallsEverything was going great and we were enjoying our time at the Falls and our opinions of Zambia were starting to look up when all the sudden we were walking on the path to take a look at the famous bridge that connects Zambia and Zimbabwe over the gorge, when a massive baboon walked into our path. We trid to turn around and walk the other way but another one stepped onto the path. It was like they were cornering us on the path. We were stuck and I know I was frighten. You don’t really realize how big those things are until you are that close. Nicole had a plastic shopping bag in her hand and I told her to give it that and she also had a plastic water bottle that she threw at it in hopes that they would walk away. A guy even walked by and saw us in this sticky situation and laughed took a picture of us and kept walking….so rude. The bottle did help in distracting the one baboon and we ran away super fast. It was just another way we decided Zambia was trying to get us down.
The after math of the run inAfter that excitement we left the park and headed to start a trend that we continued throughout our time in Zambia, going to the grocery store. I know it sounds weird but the ShopRite and Spare became our way to kill time. After living in rural Tanzania having the opportunity to go to the grocery store and have an entire aisle devoted to yogurt and cheese made us really happy, they were both air conditioned, also a plus.
On Monday we were able to finally try and get some other clothes and try to find a swim suit to take advantage of the pool at the hostel or any other water activities that were offered. We looked everywhere but could not find any womens swim suits, finally we wound up at what I have liked to believe is the Old Navy of Africa. The store is Called Pep and they sell clothes that are along the same lines as old navy and at around the same prices. We both broke down and bought boys swim suit bottoms because we needed some shorts and wanted something to wear by the pool. I was able tog et out of there with a pair of skinny jeans two shirts and my lovely 1990s inspired boys swim trunks for about 30 dollars, I was pleased.
We had planned on going to Zimbabwe and possibly Botswana during our time in Livingstone because both are easily accessible and our hostel had multiple activities we could do in both countries. We had even looked at the things to do and were really interested in a few of them, when Zambia played another cruel trick on us. Nicole had lived by the Lonely Planet guide to Zambia and Malawi to plan the trip and it said that you only needed to buy a single entry visa and could easily go into Zimbabwe to see the falls or take day trips into Botswana no problem. We learned that in fact this was not the case and if we wanted to do either of the things (side note all of the main tourist infrastructure for the falls is on the Zimbabwean side of the falls) we would have to pay another fifty dollars on top of the fees we would have to pay for the activities to buy another visa. Zambia just kept getting a laugh out of us. We seriously considered it a few times, if only to go into Zimbabwe and see the falls and attempt to find swim suits, but ultimately decided it wasn’t worth it and went to the grocery store instead.
We were able to go on a walking safari one morning and we got to get within fifty feet of four white rhinos, including one baby. We also got to get close to zebras and giraffes. The icing on the cake for that experience was we got to ride in what is basically a truck with bench seats and a canopy in the back, but we felt like we were in a parade because you are sitting up higher than the cab and it is open air. That was probably the highlight of the trip to Livingstone after seeing the falls of course.
Stay tuned for the final part of the trilogy of The Best Worst Spring Break Ever!
On Monday we were able to finally try and get some other clothes and try to find a swim suit to take advantage of the pool at the hostel or any other water activities that were offered. We looked everywhere but could not find any womens swim suits, finally we wound up at what I have liked to believe is the Old Navy of Africa. The store is Called Pep and they sell clothes that are along the same lines as old navy and at around the same prices. We both broke down and bought boys swim suit bottoms because we needed some shorts and wanted something to wear by the pool. I was able tog et out of there with a pair of skinny jeans two shirts and my lovely 1990s inspired boys swim trunks for about 30 dollars, I was pleased.
We had planned on going to Zimbabwe and possibly Botswana during our time in Livingstone because both are easily accessible and our hostel had multiple activities we could do in both countries. We had even looked at the things to do and were really interested in a few of them, when Zambia played another cruel trick on us. Nicole had lived by the Lonely Planet guide to Zambia and Malawi to plan the trip and it said that you only needed to buy a single entry visa and could easily go into Zimbabwe to see the falls or take day trips into Botswana no problem. We learned that in fact this was not the case and if we wanted to do either of the things (side note all of the main tourist infrastructure for the falls is on the Zimbabwean side of the falls) we would have to pay another fifty dollars on top of the fees we would have to pay for the activities to buy another visa. Zambia just kept getting a laugh out of us. We seriously considered it a few times, if only to go into Zimbabwe and see the falls and attempt to find swim suits, but ultimately decided it wasn’t worth it and went to the grocery store instead.
We were able to go on a walking safari one morning and we got to get within fifty feet of four white rhinos, including one baby. We also got to get close to zebras and giraffes. The icing on the cake for that experience was we got to ride in what is basically a truck with bench seats and a canopy in the back, but we felt like we were in a parade because you are sitting up higher than the cab and it is open air. That was probably the highlight of the trip to Livingstone after seeing the falls of course.
Stay tuned for the final part of the trilogy of The Best Worst Spring Break Ever!
We found this on the side of the street and loved it
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
April Fooled
April fooled
I am officially on break! The adventure started bright and early last Friday morning. I had to catch the 4 am bus out of the village, meaning I had to leave my house at 3:30 am to get down there in time l. Luckily I have learned and bought my rocket the night before so that I could have a seat in the front with the driver. The bus came on time and I was off, when we passed through Isongole we picked up Nicole and the trip really started. We were traveling first to the boarder town of Tunduma where we were going to get our visas and then find a bus down to Lusaka.
We made it to the boarder in great time and had no problems for once crossing the boarder, we bought our Zambian visas, exchanged our Shillings for Kwacha (I was amused because I became a millionaire) and went to find a bus to Lusaka, by this point it was only 11 am, things were going great! We found a nice looking bus and bought a ticket and found out we would have to wait 5 hours for it to leave because it was an over night bus but we didn't mind.
The bus left and we were even happier because it wasn't that full so we each got two seats to ourselves. The ride was almost perfect except I did have a minor break down . The seats in front of me reclined a lot further than any others and at one point I felt trapped, I also had two chatty Cathy men behind me who apparently didn't need sleep because they chatted the entire night. Oher than that the ride was great and we made it to Lusaka around 4:30 am. We decided to wait on the bus we came on until 5 and then go and find a bus down to Livingston, where Victoria Falls is located.
Immediately when we got off the bus a guy came up and asked us if we were going to Livingstone and took us to his bus company to get a ticket. This is totally normal in most African countries, and it makes things easy if you don't really have a bus company you prefer. We bought our tickets and likes the bus company they had bible verses on their tickets and sign, the people were super friendly. We took our bags to the bus and put them under to store and made sure to have the guy close it and then went to grab a coffee and papers and them sat on the bus. This ride was relatively short compared to the other, only 7 hours. Other than having the usual creeper on the bs wanting to chat with us because we are white the ride was great. We both got really excited when we saw the sign welcoming us to Livingstone and both committed on how easy and how few problems we had had on this long trip down here. Little did we know
When we got off the bus and went to grab our backpacks they were nowhere to be found! I immediately went into full on panic freak out mode, I hadn't slept in basically two days and I was in dire need of a shower. The guys who worked for the company were really nice and one of them, Patrick took us to the used clothes store to buy some stuff and then brought us to our hostel.
As of now we know that the guy from re bus station we first meet who took us to the bus counter and worked for the company has been taken by the police but that's all we know. Most of the things in the two bags were worthless. Nicoles bag was even half filled with trash she didn't want to burn in the village. Both of us had really nasty old clothes in our bags, the bags also were nasty due to the fact that they have been strapped to the top of buses for hours on end on dirt roads. Africans don't like dirty things, so the joke was on them. The thing that really sucked was that my nice camera was in my bag I forgot to talbot out because it was at the bottom of my bag, also my small computer charger was in the bag. I took out my computer but forgot the charger so that's going to make life rough for the next few weeks in the village.
Over all though I feel like the joke was on the thief because our stuff wasn't really that nice and they are going to have a hard time selling most of it. We have had a good time rocking the only swimsuit we could find which was boys swim trunks and our second hand clothes, I have learned I can survive a week with only one skirt and three shirts, ohhh Africa More to come soon about all the stuff we have done here in Zambia
I am officially on break! The adventure started bright and early last Friday morning. I had to catch the 4 am bus out of the village, meaning I had to leave my house at 3:30 am to get down there in time l. Luckily I have learned and bought my rocket the night before so that I could have a seat in the front with the driver. The bus came on time and I was off, when we passed through Isongole we picked up Nicole and the trip really started. We were traveling first to the boarder town of Tunduma where we were going to get our visas and then find a bus down to Lusaka.
We made it to the boarder in great time and had no problems for once crossing the boarder, we bought our Zambian visas, exchanged our Shillings for Kwacha (I was amused because I became a millionaire) and went to find a bus to Lusaka, by this point it was only 11 am, things were going great! We found a nice looking bus and bought a ticket and found out we would have to wait 5 hours for it to leave because it was an over night bus but we didn't mind.
The bus left and we were even happier because it wasn't that full so we each got two seats to ourselves. The ride was almost perfect except I did have a minor break down . The seats in front of me reclined a lot further than any others and at one point I felt trapped, I also had two chatty Cathy men behind me who apparently didn't need sleep because they chatted the entire night. Oher than that the ride was great and we made it to Lusaka around 4:30 am. We decided to wait on the bus we came on until 5 and then go and find a bus down to Livingston, where Victoria Falls is located.
Immediately when we got off the bus a guy came up and asked us if we were going to Livingstone and took us to his bus company to get a ticket. This is totally normal in most African countries, and it makes things easy if you don't really have a bus company you prefer. We bought our tickets and likes the bus company they had bible verses on their tickets and sign, the people were super friendly. We took our bags to the bus and put them under to store and made sure to have the guy close it and then went to grab a coffee and papers and them sat on the bus. This ride was relatively short compared to the other, only 7 hours. Other than having the usual creeper on the bs wanting to chat with us because we are white the ride was great. We both got really excited when we saw the sign welcoming us to Livingstone and both committed on how easy and how few problems we had had on this long trip down here. Little did we know
When we got off the bus and went to grab our backpacks they were nowhere to be found! I immediately went into full on panic freak out mode, I hadn't slept in basically two days and I was in dire need of a shower. The guys who worked for the company were really nice and one of them, Patrick took us to the used clothes store to buy some stuff and then brought us to our hostel.
As of now we know that the guy from re bus station we first meet who took us to the bus counter and worked for the company has been taken by the police but that's all we know. Most of the things in the two bags were worthless. Nicoles bag was even half filled with trash she didn't want to burn in the village. Both of us had really nasty old clothes in our bags, the bags also were nasty due to the fact that they have been strapped to the top of buses for hours on end on dirt roads. Africans don't like dirty things, so the joke was on them. The thing that really sucked was that my nice camera was in my bag I forgot to talbot out because it was at the bottom of my bag, also my small computer charger was in the bag. I took out my computer but forgot the charger so that's going to make life rough for the next few weeks in the village.
Over all though I feel like the joke was on the thief because our stuff wasn't really that nice and they are going to have a hard time selling most of it. We have had a good time rocking the only swimsuit we could find which was boys swim trunks and our second hand clothes, I have learned I can survive a week with only one skirt and three shirts, ohhh Africa More to come soon about all the stuff we have done here in Zambia
Monday, March 19, 2012
Mid-Term Time!
I have been busy this past week preparing my mid-term exams. Not only did I have to write the exams but I also took it upon myself to tpye the exams. I felt bad giving them to the secretaries to type because all four of my exams were pretty long and all had a short story the kids are going to have to read. The other teachers, I found out after the fact, are giving exams that are like five or ten questions. I heard the word mid-term and I thought of the tests in America..oops. My kids are probably going to hate me because all of the exams have at least four parts and they are getting the entire three hours to finish, the teachers are also going to hate me when they are forced to monitor my exam, I am also probably going to hate me when I am forced to pull and all nighter grading them so that i can leave early for break...oh well.
I did not realize when I volunteered to type my exams what this would really entail. I knew that I could whip out a six page paper in under two hours, how hard could typing four exams be? Well when one to the secretaries led me tot he room where the typerwriter was located I started to sweat. The only time in my life I have used a typewriters was when I was about 6-9 at the omniplex (only the colest museaum for kids ever) and even then it was an electronic one. When they showed me the dinosour I was suppsoed to sue with the special paper I was to use and left me to my own devices I was baffled. It took me a good 45 mintues of frantic sweating and button pushing to figure out a. how to capotalize letters b. how to format the typewriter to go past the middle of the page for one line and how far I could really go after it dinged the end of a line before I had to start another line and c. how hard I had to hit he keys to make the impression on the paper (this was some kind of special typewriter because it didnt use ink and only made indentions on this paper). Needless to say i wasted two sheets of paper, which I felt bad about before I even figured out the simple things. Spacing was hte next beig obsticle and took me typing out one full story miserably to get it right. After two hours i had only finished one exam. I did finally get on a role but even then I didnt dare use anything but my pointer fingers to type. As a side note most people can tell either from personal experience or from reading my blog that I am a horrible typist and speller, this compounded my nervousness when typing the exam because you can really use correction fluid on this paper. One of the secretaries did come in at one point and comment on how fast I was typing, I couldnt tell if there was a hint of sarcasm in her tone or if she was really telling the truth, I pushed on though.
By the time I was on to my third exam I was feeling pretty comfortable and even ventured as far as to use other fingers to type, partially because my pointer fingers were hurting so bad from hitting the keys so hard, and partially because I felt comfortable. Each exam was taking me progressivly less and less time as I became more comfortable with my new friend. By the time I finished the fourth exam it was almost 7 p.m (I started at around 2 mind you) it was getting dark, my hands were hurting really bad and I even had a small callous that had developed on one of them. I did gain anew found respect for the secretaries of the 1930s and 1940s who had to type on these non-electric typewriters everyday..so rough.
When I get to Zambia next week I am going to upload pics of the typewriter and my finished product, also I am going to upload a pic of the "copy machine" at school. I finally got to see how they make hte copies this week and I am still a little baffled. It is this crank thing that is really more like a printing press from what i have gathered, all I know is it must suck to have to crnak out all the copies of all the exams and the ink for this thing gets EVERYWHERE I'm talking ink handprints all over the office wall fromt he guy trying to pull one sheet off and put anotehr on, it was comical/kind of confusing to watch it all take place. I still cant beleive that it all works without electricity.
I did not realize when I volunteered to type my exams what this would really entail. I knew that I could whip out a six page paper in under two hours, how hard could typing four exams be? Well when one to the secretaries led me tot he room where the typerwriter was located I started to sweat. The only time in my life I have used a typewriters was when I was about 6-9 at the omniplex (only the colest museaum for kids ever) and even then it was an electronic one. When they showed me the dinosour I was suppsoed to sue with the special paper I was to use and left me to my own devices I was baffled. It took me a good 45 mintues of frantic sweating and button pushing to figure out a. how to capotalize letters b. how to format the typewriter to go past the middle of the page for one line and how far I could really go after it dinged the end of a line before I had to start another line and c. how hard I had to hit he keys to make the impression on the paper (this was some kind of special typewriter because it didnt use ink and only made indentions on this paper). Needless to say i wasted two sheets of paper, which I felt bad about before I even figured out the simple things. Spacing was hte next beig obsticle and took me typing out one full story miserably to get it right. After two hours i had only finished one exam. I did finally get on a role but even then I didnt dare use anything but my pointer fingers to type. As a side note most people can tell either from personal experience or from reading my blog that I am a horrible typist and speller, this compounded my nervousness when typing the exam because you can really use correction fluid on this paper. One of the secretaries did come in at one point and comment on how fast I was typing, I couldnt tell if there was a hint of sarcasm in her tone or if she was really telling the truth, I pushed on though.
By the time I was on to my third exam I was feeling pretty comfortable and even ventured as far as to use other fingers to type, partially because my pointer fingers were hurting so bad from hitting the keys so hard, and partially because I felt comfortable. Each exam was taking me progressivly less and less time as I became more comfortable with my new friend. By the time I finished the fourth exam it was almost 7 p.m (I started at around 2 mind you) it was getting dark, my hands were hurting really bad and I even had a small callous that had developed on one of them. I did gain anew found respect for the secretaries of the 1930s and 1940s who had to type on these non-electric typewriters everyday..so rough.
When I get to Zambia next week I am going to upload pics of the typewriter and my finished product, also I am going to upload a pic of the "copy machine" at school. I finally got to see how they make hte copies this week and I am still a little baffled. It is this crank thing that is really more like a printing press from what i have gathered, all I know is it must suck to have to crnak out all the copies of all the exams and the ink for this thing gets EVERYWHERE I'm talking ink handprints all over the office wall fromt he guy trying to pull one sheet off and put anotehr on, it was comical/kind of confusing to watch it all take place. I still cant beleive that it all works without electricity.
My Easy Bake Oven
lately I have attempted baking some things again. I have been reading this Peace Corps cookbook we got at our orientation and have found some really good recipes. It all started when I was questioning some of the teachers and students about the things you can buy in Isoko. I knew if I wanted to do any real baking I was going to need some baking powder and baking soda. Figuring out the Swahili words for these things was a little easier said than done, of course. My initial thought, as any normal persons would be, was to look in the dictionary. Well I found the words and was asking people and they seemed to know what they were, and i was even happier to find out i could buy baking powder down in the dukas by school. During break I went down there to buy baking soda, only to receive yeast. I went back up to school and showed the students whereupon they confirmed it was baking powder. I had to try and act it out and describe it as best as i could and finally one of my favorite students told me it was called chapa mandashi. I then went back to the duka to ask for it only for them to produce a mandazi (a doughnut like treat) because they thought I was saying mandazi instead of mandashi...typical for me. After that i gave up and gave a student money to go down to Isoko and buy the baking powder and baking soda (baking soda so much easier to figure out, sensibly they call it bicarbonate).
During this whole ordeal i had been talking about needing these things to bake bread when the mama who serves us tea heard me and asked if I would teach her how to bake bread, i agreed and told her to come over on Sunday. Sunday she arrived forty five minutes early to find me in shorts and a swimsuit top (it was awkward i had the music going while i was cleaning and didn't hear her knocking so she walked in). Sunday morning I wrote out the directions in Swahili so she would be able to do it on her own at home, i was nervous about getting everything right, but I can officially report that i only made two minor spelling errors which if you know me is nothing. Everything worked out well, explaining the concept of the Dutch oven was a little tricky because I was using the cardboard from one of my packages as a lid but I think she eventually got the picture. She was super excited when we finished and i gave her the loaf, she invited me over to her house next weekend, I can't wait to go she is super presh.
Other than the bread I have attempted brownies and a pop tart from scratch. The brownies turned out kind of cake like but were still good and the pop tart was a delish cinnamon sugar treat. This week I am planning on making a cake and frosting in honor of my little brother pressy turning 21!! I also want to attempt to make bean burgers because I have been really craving a hamburger lately. It was gotten bad my cravings for real food. I get jealous when I am watching a movie and they are eating a salad or pizza, I even have dreams about food which is really sad. I am going to upload pics of the treats I have made in two weeks when I am on vacay!
During this whole ordeal i had been talking about needing these things to bake bread when the mama who serves us tea heard me and asked if I would teach her how to bake bread, i agreed and told her to come over on Sunday. Sunday she arrived forty five minutes early to find me in shorts and a swimsuit top (it was awkward i had the music going while i was cleaning and didn't hear her knocking so she walked in). Sunday morning I wrote out the directions in Swahili so she would be able to do it on her own at home, i was nervous about getting everything right, but I can officially report that i only made two minor spelling errors which if you know me is nothing. Everything worked out well, explaining the concept of the Dutch oven was a little tricky because I was using the cardboard from one of my packages as a lid but I think she eventually got the picture. She was super excited when we finished and i gave her the loaf, she invited me over to her house next weekend, I can't wait to go she is super presh.
Other than the bread I have attempted brownies and a pop tart from scratch. The brownies turned out kind of cake like but were still good and the pop tart was a delish cinnamon sugar treat. This week I am planning on making a cake and frosting in honor of my little brother pressy turning 21!! I also want to attempt to make bean burgers because I have been really craving a hamburger lately. It was gotten bad my cravings for real food. I get jealous when I am watching a movie and they are eating a salad or pizza, I even have dreams about food which is really sad. I am going to upload pics of the treats I have made in two weeks when I am on vacay!
The Hardest Thing
This weekend I was faced with probably the hardest/saddest thing I have had to deal with thus far in Africa. On Saturday morning i was awakened by singing outside our house and did not really think much of it. Fifteen minutes later our second headmaster came over and told us that a student had died and we needed to go down to Isoko asap for the funeral. It was a form one student named Atukuzwe. In Tanzania they have the actual funeral and burial immediatly after a person dies but the mourning period at the family's house can last up to two months depending on how well off they are. I found out on the way down to Isoko that the singing was the students who live at Kafule on their way down to the funeral.
It was one of the saddest things for me going to the funeral. Although I did not know Atukuzwe very well because she was a form one student, I still knew who she was in class and felt really bad for her young classmates. She was only 12 or 13, loosing a classmate at that age has to be really hard for the kids. All of the students were there dressed in their uniforms and crying. Apparently she had a heart problem and collapsed on her way to pick corn on Friday afternoon, but there is no real way of knowing how she died because this is Africa and where I am an especially poor area and they don't really preform autopsy's.
We were of course made to sit in the front row and it was rough when the boy leaders from school brought the body in on a stretcher, covered thank God. They also moved her into the coffin right there in front of everyone at the service.
Even though most of the people here, kids included are used to death because there is a very high AIDS rate in my area (there are at least 47 kids at school who are complete orphans). it still seemed to hit the kids and people really hard. My second headmaster had to go outside and cry at the service and at one point I was even tearing up thinking about how in America this probably would not have happened. Here if someone has any condition other than AIDS it seems like it is hard for them to really get any correct diagnosis and medication. Also it was just hard because it was someone so young. I was impressed how it seemed like all the students were there to mourn the loss of their fellow student, they were singing special songs from school and they even contributed a nice sum of money to the family, which is a big deal considering most of them have so little. This was defiantly the hardest thing I have had to do here. I was also surprised how today everything was business as usual at school, although they did have a moment of silence for Atukuzwe during morning assembly.
It was one of the saddest things for me going to the funeral. Although I did not know Atukuzwe very well because she was a form one student, I still knew who she was in class and felt really bad for her young classmates. She was only 12 or 13, loosing a classmate at that age has to be really hard for the kids. All of the students were there dressed in their uniforms and crying. Apparently she had a heart problem and collapsed on her way to pick corn on Friday afternoon, but there is no real way of knowing how she died because this is Africa and where I am an especially poor area and they don't really preform autopsy's.
We were of course made to sit in the front row and it was rough when the boy leaders from school brought the body in on a stretcher, covered thank God. They also moved her into the coffin right there in front of everyone at the service.
Even though most of the people here, kids included are used to death because there is a very high AIDS rate in my area (there are at least 47 kids at school who are complete orphans). it still seemed to hit the kids and people really hard. My second headmaster had to go outside and cry at the service and at one point I was even tearing up thinking about how in America this probably would not have happened. Here if someone has any condition other than AIDS it seems like it is hard for them to really get any correct diagnosis and medication. Also it was just hard because it was someone so young. I was impressed how it seemed like all the students were there to mourn the loss of their fellow student, they were singing special songs from school and they even contributed a nice sum of money to the family, which is a big deal considering most of them have so little. This was defiantly the hardest thing I have had to do here. I was also surprised how today everything was business as usual at school, although they did have a moment of silence for Atukuzwe during morning assembly.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Its a Jungle Out There
These past two weeks I have had some interesting run ins with animals in and around the village.
The first incident happened a week and a half ago when I was one the bus coming back from Mbeya. The second half of the trip I got the chance to sit in the cab with the driver my friend. When I got in there I noticed that there was someone else who would also be sitting up there with me and subsequently had a chicken in a bag with its head sticking out. When the other passenger got in I realized she had a lot of luggage and I offered to hold the chicken because lets face it its not something I haven’t done before and this one seemed pretty calm. Well things were going along smoothly with my new friend and I, I would be lying to you if I said I didn’t try and pet it, it was soft. An hour into our three-hour trip I noticed that the sack had gotten heavier. At first I thought it was just some droppings and was thankful that the bag was there. After awhile I realized that it was an egg in the sack. I was really taken aback/semi grossed out by it but at the same time I thought it was funny that the chicken felt cool enough with me to lay an egg. I was slightly mad that the lady wouldn’t let me keep the egg but you cant win them all right?
The second run in was at my house last Thursday afternoon. Gretchen had gone to a friends house and there they gave her some beans still in their pods for us. Learning from past experiences we knew that you must to dry the bean pods/ beans out before trying to store them or else they get moldy and start sprouting. Thursday morning we laid the beans out and when I came home nit he afternoon things were promising. I sat down to read a book and then I heard a strange noise. When I looked outside I saw one of the massive birds that live in the tree outside our house. These birds are not your normal birds these things are MASSIVE. Good hornbill and that’s the closest things I can think of that resembles these things. I am no bird watcher but I know that these things have huge beaks that look like they could crush my arm. Anyway I see one of these guys out there eating our beans and being semi scared/fond of my arm I yelled shoo and then threw our little broom thing at it. it eventually left after it had gotten its fill of beans. Later that night I was telling Mr. Mbughi and his wife and she informed me that there was no way that the bird was eating the beans because they only eat meat. This fact alone solidified my fear but at the same time I hope that one day he walks out and sees the birds eating her beans because I have learned that they in fact love them.
Finally the last little run in I had Saturday night after dinner. I was taking the pots out to clean when we finished eating and of course it was dark out so I had my headlamp on. I was walking in our hall to the back door when I noticed something on the ground that caused me to jump WAY back. Slizzering on the ground was either the biggest worm I have ever seen, ever or some kind of snake. As a side fact to of my biggest fears are snakes and spiders. I jumped on the chair still holding the pots and made Gretchen shoo it out of the house. It was a nasty bluish gray color and was slizzering mad when she started to push it with the broom out of our house and compound. The rest of the night I was terrified to go back outside because I didn’t want to see that nasty little guy. Its bad enough I have massive spiders on my wall, I have learned to live with them, but a snake thingy no way
The first incident happened a week and a half ago when I was one the bus coming back from Mbeya. The second half of the trip I got the chance to sit in the cab with the driver my friend. When I got in there I noticed that there was someone else who would also be sitting up there with me and subsequently had a chicken in a bag with its head sticking out. When the other passenger got in I realized she had a lot of luggage and I offered to hold the chicken because lets face it its not something I haven’t done before and this one seemed pretty calm. Well things were going along smoothly with my new friend and I, I would be lying to you if I said I didn’t try and pet it, it was soft. An hour into our three-hour trip I noticed that the sack had gotten heavier. At first I thought it was just some droppings and was thankful that the bag was there. After awhile I realized that it was an egg in the sack. I was really taken aback/semi grossed out by it but at the same time I thought it was funny that the chicken felt cool enough with me to lay an egg. I was slightly mad that the lady wouldn’t let me keep the egg but you cant win them all right?
The second run in was at my house last Thursday afternoon. Gretchen had gone to a friends house and there they gave her some beans still in their pods for us. Learning from past experiences we knew that you must to dry the bean pods/ beans out before trying to store them or else they get moldy and start sprouting. Thursday morning we laid the beans out and when I came home nit he afternoon things were promising. I sat down to read a book and then I heard a strange noise. When I looked outside I saw one of the massive birds that live in the tree outside our house. These birds are not your normal birds these things are MASSIVE. Good hornbill and that’s the closest things I can think of that resembles these things. I am no bird watcher but I know that these things have huge beaks that look like they could crush my arm. Anyway I see one of these guys out there eating our beans and being semi scared/fond of my arm I yelled shoo and then threw our little broom thing at it. it eventually left after it had gotten its fill of beans. Later that night I was telling Mr. Mbughi and his wife and she informed me that there was no way that the bird was eating the beans because they only eat meat. This fact alone solidified my fear but at the same time I hope that one day he walks out and sees the birds eating her beans because I have learned that they in fact love them.
Finally the last little run in I had Saturday night after dinner. I was taking the pots out to clean when we finished eating and of course it was dark out so I had my headlamp on. I was walking in our hall to the back door when I noticed something on the ground that caused me to jump WAY back. Slizzering on the ground was either the biggest worm I have ever seen, ever or some kind of snake. As a side fact to of my biggest fears are snakes and spiders. I jumped on the chair still holding the pots and made Gretchen shoo it out of the house. It was a nasty bluish gray color and was slizzering mad when she started to push it with the broom out of our house and compound. The rest of the night I was terrified to go back outside because I didn’t want to see that nasty little guy. Its bad enough I have massive spiders on my wall, I have learned to live with them, but a snake thingy no way
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Under 100!!
Because my brother Preston thinks I don’t update my bog enough this post is dedicated to him.
I am officially on the downward slide of my time here in Africa and in Tanzania. I can’t believe how fast time has flown by in retrospect. In only 72 days I will leave my home in the village of Kafule and head up to Dar to meet my parents and in 98 days I will be back in America!!!! In between now and then I have some fun things planned, which I look forward to everyday. One of those is my spring break trip down to Zambia and Victoria Falls for 8 days, the other is of course my parents coming to Tanzania for three weeks of crazy traveling. It’s these things that get me through the long days when my students are behaving badly (which has been an unwelcome new trend).
I really cant believe that it is already March. Furthermore I can’t believe that people are still baffled by our presence here. We have been a constant in this area for a good 7 month and still on the reg, I meet people who cant believe that I live here. Where have they been for the past year, living under a rock. I feel like the majority of people know that there are 4 mzungus living in Ileje District, but somehow I still manage to encounter the people who are taken aback by the sight of me.
Lets see so far this week things in the village have been fairly calm. Today the students for the 7th week in a row did not go to class and instead spent their time planting/cutting down trees. Apparently the massive amount of 2X4 sitting outside the classrooms is not enough and they need more wood. It turns into a colossal waste of time after about an hour because when you delegate 600 kids to do a job that only needs 50 people you end up having all the guys sitting around while the girls are doing all the work, which is typical in Tanzania. The girls/woman do all the cooking and cleaning while the guys sit around and watch TV or talk. The same happens at school when it is cleanliness on Thursdays the girls are always the ones doing all the work while the guys just kind of idle around.
Yesterday things did get kind of interesting; lately there have been a lot of soccer matches at the field by our house because they are working on the one near Isoko. Well yesterday was a rather heated match between Isoko men’s team and a neighboring village. We can hear all the cheering and vuvuzela horns from our house, but it looked like rain so yesterday we did not go to the match. We heard a loud commotion out of the norm, and found out later that there had been an all out brawl between not only the two teams but also the fans who were there. This is out of the ordinary for Tanzanians because they are normally really peaceful people and rarely fight. Yesterday things got real though, we found out later that the “ambulance” came and two players had to be taken to the hospital apparently I picked a bad match to skip.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Getting a Little Crazy
Things at kafule have taken a dramatic turn in the past week. In the past week alone we have had a leopard spotting, a man killed chopping down trees near the school campus, and finally to top it all off we were informed that there was a “wizard” killed. Needless to say as per usual things have been interesting.
I will start with the leopard. On Tuesday morning we were walking to school and Gretchen noticed some weird paw marks in the mud. I say weird because we really don’t have any dogs up in the village, and these paw marks were big. Anyway she didn’t think anything of it until later we were at home and a friend was over and informed us that in fact around seven am there had been a leopard wandering around. All this time I thought I was in fake Africa with only goats, cows, pigs, and chickens. When really there have been crazy wild animals lurking out there. The people were a mix between scared and nonchalant. Apparently this has happened before and it was “old” so NBD right? Others were terrified. Our good friend Mr. Mbughi was scared to come out of his house that night. We were informed that it did eat three chickens but did not bite anyone so it was okay to roam around. I know if I were a super endangered animal Kafule would be one of the last places I would go.
The project of cutting down all the trees around school/ the village is still in full force, but don’t worry because every Wednesday instead of having class the kids have been going and planting more trees. The justification in cutting the trees down was A. the school needed money and can sell the wood for a good price and B. the need to make desks/chairs/doors for the classrooms. The poor form one kids are sitting 4 deep at a desk and some have to stand up all class because they don’t have a chair. It gets distracting. Anyway they have hired “professionals” to cut down these trees and this week there was a small accident. One of the guys cutting down the tree miscalculated and the tree fell on him and crushed him. Thank God I didn’t see it and only heard about it after the fact because that is really sad.
Finally the last thing that I found out about this week was the fact that a man was burned alive for being an alleged “wizard” In the village there are traditional healers, or “witch doctors” if you will t\hat are totes fine and people go and see them all the time to try and fix their problems. I was surprised to hear then that someone was burned for being a wizard. I was more surprised to find out that it happened at one of our teachers houses. Again like the leopard issue this was brought up in a really casual way and a blasé attitude was taken by the guy who was telling us about the event. I mean really its like I am living in the thirteenth century sometimes with the things I am dealing with. Its all part of the cultural experience
I will start with the leopard. On Tuesday morning we were walking to school and Gretchen noticed some weird paw marks in the mud. I say weird because we really don’t have any dogs up in the village, and these paw marks were big. Anyway she didn’t think anything of it until later we were at home and a friend was over and informed us that in fact around seven am there had been a leopard wandering around. All this time I thought I was in fake Africa with only goats, cows, pigs, and chickens. When really there have been crazy wild animals lurking out there. The people were a mix between scared and nonchalant. Apparently this has happened before and it was “old” so NBD right? Others were terrified. Our good friend Mr. Mbughi was scared to come out of his house that night. We were informed that it did eat three chickens but did not bite anyone so it was okay to roam around. I know if I were a super endangered animal Kafule would be one of the last places I would go.
The project of cutting down all the trees around school/ the village is still in full force, but don’t worry because every Wednesday instead of having class the kids have been going and planting more trees. The justification in cutting the trees down was A. the school needed money and can sell the wood for a good price and B. the need to make desks/chairs/doors for the classrooms. The poor form one kids are sitting 4 deep at a desk and some have to stand up all class because they don’t have a chair. It gets distracting. Anyway they have hired “professionals” to cut down these trees and this week there was a small accident. One of the guys cutting down the tree miscalculated and the tree fell on him and crushed him. Thank God I didn’t see it and only heard about it after the fact because that is really sad.
Finally the last thing that I found out about this week was the fact that a man was burned alive for being an alleged “wizard” In the village there are traditional healers, or “witch doctors” if you will t\hat are totes fine and people go and see them all the time to try and fix their problems. I was surprised to hear then that someone was burned for being a wizard. I was more surprised to find out that it happened at one of our teachers houses. Again like the leopard issue this was brought up in a really casual way and a blasé attitude was taken by the guy who was telling us about the event. I mean really its like I am living in the thirteenth century sometimes with the things I am dealing with. Its all part of the cultural experience
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Teaching
Apparently my headmaster/academic master reads my blog because in the past two weeks I have gotten what I asked for…a hobby. My new hobby that takes up the majority of my time now is…teaching. I know some of you may be thinking, wait isn’t she supposed to be there teaching in the first place? Teaching now has been taken to the extreme, due to lack of teachers at my school. I found out two weeks ago that the other temporary English teacher had left and now it was my responsibility to teach over 600 students English. One hundred and forty of these students, being form one, do not know the difference between sir and madam and greeted me with a hearty good morning Sir the first day. I can say that since that first lesson there have been no more slip ups in the usual greeting. I am now teaching ever period of everyday and still feel like I am short changing some of the classes because there is just not enough time in the day to get to everyone. To say that I am overwhelmed would be an understatement, but I am all these kids have so I have to suck it up and push through these next three months, and try and stay on top of my grading.
Teaching form one has been an interesting experience thus far. The kids are super small, they are between the ages of 10 and 14, so they are still in the cute phase. I even have a few kids I am fairly sure are only 8 years old but they tell me they are 11, we will see. I was actually kind of nervous to go in to class the first day because the English level of form one can vary drastically between students. They are all coming from different primary school that place a different value on learning English so some kids are superstars while others are barely managing to count to ten. I have learned though, that I actually really like to teach these kids, they are helping me learn Swahili while I teach them English. I am forced during class to pull on all the Swahili words and phrases I know to get points across and to help the kids understand the concepts, which has helped me immensely in only two weeks. I can also say that i have two favorite students in form one, a boy and a girl. The boy's name is....wait for it......Allipipi which may be one of the best names ever/ the name of my next pet. The girl is Nancy (pronounced nanc of course) she is about 4 feet tall and 60 pounds and so precious i will take pics of them and try and upload hte next time I am in Mbeya.
In other news we finally found out the results of the major form four examinations that the students took last October. Of the 45 students who took the exam only 8 of them passed to go on to the next level of schooling. I am proud to say that the highest score in the school went to one of my personal favorites and our former house girl of two days. For the students it has been an extremely long wait, I could not imagine taking the SAT or ACT or even the LSAT and then being made to wait four months to receive my results, that then determines if I get to continue school or not. I am heart broken for the students who didn’t pass, but they can always take the test again, they just must wait until September to take it again. Until then I guess they just hold odd jobs. For some of them I know that they wont go on to further studies because just graduating form O level was enough for them and that also makes me really sad. The system here is so crazy. To even get to secondary school the students must take a test and if they fail well that’s it for them, Tanzania needs to get its act together when it comes to education if they ever wish to advance.
Thats enough ranting for one post. Until next time, pray that I dont go crazy trying to keep all my classes straight
Teaching form one has been an interesting experience thus far. The kids are super small, they are between the ages of 10 and 14, so they are still in the cute phase. I even have a few kids I am fairly sure are only 8 years old but they tell me they are 11, we will see. I was actually kind of nervous to go in to class the first day because the English level of form one can vary drastically between students. They are all coming from different primary school that place a different value on learning English so some kids are superstars while others are barely managing to count to ten. I have learned though, that I actually really like to teach these kids, they are helping me learn Swahili while I teach them English. I am forced during class to pull on all the Swahili words and phrases I know to get points across and to help the kids understand the concepts, which has helped me immensely in only two weeks. I can also say that i have two favorite students in form one, a boy and a girl. The boy's name is....wait for it......Allipipi which may be one of the best names ever/ the name of my next pet. The girl is Nancy (pronounced nanc of course) she is about 4 feet tall and 60 pounds and so precious i will take pics of them and try and upload hte next time I am in Mbeya.
In other news we finally found out the results of the major form four examinations that the students took last October. Of the 45 students who took the exam only 8 of them passed to go on to the next level of schooling. I am proud to say that the highest score in the school went to one of my personal favorites and our former house girl of two days. For the students it has been an extremely long wait, I could not imagine taking the SAT or ACT or even the LSAT and then being made to wait four months to receive my results, that then determines if I get to continue school or not. I am heart broken for the students who didn’t pass, but they can always take the test again, they just must wait until September to take it again. Until then I guess they just hold odd jobs. For some of them I know that they wont go on to further studies because just graduating form O level was enough for them and that also makes me really sad. The system here is so crazy. To even get to secondary school the students must take a test and if they fail well that’s it for them, Tanzania needs to get its act together when it comes to education if they ever wish to advance.
Thats enough ranting for one post. Until next time, pray that I dont go crazy trying to keep all my classes straight
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Hobbies
In my last blog post i talked about how i was in need of a hobby to past the hours between school ending and going to sleep/my entire weekend. I have spent the past two weeks trying out various hobbies some of the more obvious ones that did not stick were as follows.
Anti rain dancing- i am not really sure how the Native Americans properly do a rain dance. All I know is that it involves a rain stick and jumping around in a circle while chanting something. I have not been able to check it out on YouTube so i kind of just improvised. I felt like this "hobby" had some real potential to be not only a way to pass time but also had the opportunity to provide me with some much needed exercises, but Alas no matter how many circles i hopped, skipped, and jumped in to stop the rain it inevitably came. As a side note this hobby only lasted one day as I am easily discouraged and may or may not have twisted my ankle in the process due to my lack of coordination. This hobby will be chalked up as a fail.
The next thing I felt had a great potential was tea connoisseur. I felt like i could really excel at this. I love to drink tea and I am always open to trying a new thing and on another plus Tanzanians love their chai. How could this not be a great hobby that would stay with me for the rest of my life? Well my friends things were going along great at our house Gretchen had been smooth enough to take the extra tea bags from our mid-service conference. I was left with many options, peppermint, hibiscus, chamomile, green tea, Kenyan black tea, Tanzanian black tea of course and lemon tea. Soon though I realized this was not the hobby for me. I found that i was rather set in my ways when it came to other varieties. Although hibiscus tea tasted like candy my stomach was less than amused. On top of that i prefer loose leaf tea, you can imagine how quickly I was defeated. Furthermore I was left wondering what would happen after i exhausted all the varieties we had at our home. The village only sells two kinds. I did find that among Tanzanian teas i prefer the classier Kilimanjaro tea to that of Chai Bora, I guess that means it wasn't a complete loss.
One of the hobbies that my parents had insisted i try is writing. I am as much against it as anyone else let me tell you. They tell me i am a great writer and that with all my spare time i have what it takes to write the next great American novel. Well my boredom got the best of me one day and i got to thinking. I can write papers in a snap with little effort and hey I have my blog (although neglected lately) that I can manage to make mildly entertaining for those reading, why not venture into the great world that is writing. I went to the duka down the street and bought 4 new notebooks (a little premature and ambitious I know) all for the sole purpose of filling them with my great story. I came home and sat at the table and pondered. What would I write about? clearly not myself, the world does not need another young white girl writing about her time in Africa "making a difference" also I am also too culturally insensitive to handle writing like that. I needed something better, something new and fresh, but what? After two hours of serious thinking like i have not done since I was studying for the LSAT I found I was stuck. The pressure was too much. I will admit that maybe this hobby has potential but for now it will be placed on the back burner as something I can turn to when i have exhausted all other options, and hey if by some stroke of genius I stumble upon the idea one day while looking longingly outside at the giant mud pile that is my home then fear not because you will have upon you the next great American novel. I mean isn't that what all the great writers do anyway remove themselves from the situation and then BAM the idea comes to them?
Those were the hobbies that i felt had the most potential the next list are ones that really weren't going anywhere from the start but they passed some time.
Chef/ cooking- there is only so much you can do with rice, beans, tomatoes, onions, and the weird leafy green spinach like plant they are selling now. Plus cooking on a jicho albeit time consuming is never stress free or pleasant.
Studying physics- our school library strangely enough has a lot of books on physics. So one day i thought why not give it a try it could be mentally stimulating and keep me on my toes. Most of you who know me know that i have an extreme hatred with math, much to my fathers dismay. I got ten pages into the introduction to physics book and realized it would never work out between us. Maybe I will try one of the psychology books next, they appear to be a lot less threatening.
reading- while a rather obvious choice i have the tendency to read really fast, I quickly exhaust all of my options hence the jump into physics.
yoga- I have no idea what I am doing save for the 10 moves taught to me in a magazine i brought with me, but for the most part i am never relaxed while doing it.
eating- goes with the cooking, its hard to be a foodie when you have a limited diet.
All of these things bring me to the question of what did people do before electricity? I mean seriously. And at this point do I even want to know. I find myself constantly getting jealous of people in the stories I read who even in the late 1800s had electricity in their house. I know its not right but at this point whats a girl to do?
Anti rain dancing- i am not really sure how the Native Americans properly do a rain dance. All I know is that it involves a rain stick and jumping around in a circle while chanting something. I have not been able to check it out on YouTube so i kind of just improvised. I felt like this "hobby" had some real potential to be not only a way to pass time but also had the opportunity to provide me with some much needed exercises, but Alas no matter how many circles i hopped, skipped, and jumped in to stop the rain it inevitably came. As a side note this hobby only lasted one day as I am easily discouraged and may or may not have twisted my ankle in the process due to my lack of coordination. This hobby will be chalked up as a fail.
The next thing I felt had a great potential was tea connoisseur. I felt like i could really excel at this. I love to drink tea and I am always open to trying a new thing and on another plus Tanzanians love their chai. How could this not be a great hobby that would stay with me for the rest of my life? Well my friends things were going along great at our house Gretchen had been smooth enough to take the extra tea bags from our mid-service conference. I was left with many options, peppermint, hibiscus, chamomile, green tea, Kenyan black tea, Tanzanian black tea of course and lemon tea. Soon though I realized this was not the hobby for me. I found that i was rather set in my ways when it came to other varieties. Although hibiscus tea tasted like candy my stomach was less than amused. On top of that i prefer loose leaf tea, you can imagine how quickly I was defeated. Furthermore I was left wondering what would happen after i exhausted all the varieties we had at our home. The village only sells two kinds. I did find that among Tanzanian teas i prefer the classier Kilimanjaro tea to that of Chai Bora, I guess that means it wasn't a complete loss.
One of the hobbies that my parents had insisted i try is writing. I am as much against it as anyone else let me tell you. They tell me i am a great writer and that with all my spare time i have what it takes to write the next great American novel. Well my boredom got the best of me one day and i got to thinking. I can write papers in a snap with little effort and hey I have my blog (although neglected lately) that I can manage to make mildly entertaining for those reading, why not venture into the great world that is writing. I went to the duka down the street and bought 4 new notebooks (a little premature and ambitious I know) all for the sole purpose of filling them with my great story. I came home and sat at the table and pondered. What would I write about? clearly not myself, the world does not need another young white girl writing about her time in Africa "making a difference" also I am also too culturally insensitive to handle writing like that. I needed something better, something new and fresh, but what? After two hours of serious thinking like i have not done since I was studying for the LSAT I found I was stuck. The pressure was too much. I will admit that maybe this hobby has potential but for now it will be placed on the back burner as something I can turn to when i have exhausted all other options, and hey if by some stroke of genius I stumble upon the idea one day while looking longingly outside at the giant mud pile that is my home then fear not because you will have upon you the next great American novel. I mean isn't that what all the great writers do anyway remove themselves from the situation and then BAM the idea comes to them?
Those were the hobbies that i felt had the most potential the next list are ones that really weren't going anywhere from the start but they passed some time.
Chef/ cooking- there is only so much you can do with rice, beans, tomatoes, onions, and the weird leafy green spinach like plant they are selling now. Plus cooking on a jicho albeit time consuming is never stress free or pleasant.
Studying physics- our school library strangely enough has a lot of books on physics. So one day i thought why not give it a try it could be mentally stimulating and keep me on my toes. Most of you who know me know that i have an extreme hatred with math, much to my fathers dismay. I got ten pages into the introduction to physics book and realized it would never work out between us. Maybe I will try one of the psychology books next, they appear to be a lot less threatening.
reading- while a rather obvious choice i have the tendency to read really fast, I quickly exhaust all of my options hence the jump into physics.
yoga- I have no idea what I am doing save for the 10 moves taught to me in a magazine i brought with me, but for the most part i am never relaxed while doing it.
eating- goes with the cooking, its hard to be a foodie when you have a limited diet.
All of these things bring me to the question of what did people do before electricity? I mean seriously. And at this point do I even want to know. I find myself constantly getting jealous of people in the stories I read who even in the late 1800s had electricity in their house. I know its not right but at this point whats a girl to do?
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Back in Da Village
Sadly the two month long vacay had to finally come to an end and on Sunday I had to make my way back to the village. Of course the trip did not go how it was supposed to. We were originally planning to leave on Saturday but when we went to the bus station we found out that literally every bus was full because all of the students were heading back to school so we had to postpone the bus until Sunday and even then the only ticket we could get was un an ultra SKANK bus called the Princes Muro (princess with one s, it should have been a dead give away that things were going to be rough) this bus was one of the fun ones that had three seats on one side and two on the other, and adding to the fun all of the window seats were taken so Nicole and I had to take aisle seats which on Tanzanian busses is the worst because you are constantly getting hit by everyone who walks by.
We called our taxi driver friend to come get us the next morning the bus left at 6 and reporting time was 5:30 so we figured we would leave at 4:45, the driver had other ideas he insisted we leave at 4:15 in case there was traffic. Of course there wasn’t any traffic and we arrived at the bus station at 4:45. The bus station in Dar is the biggest bus station in East Africa and is also super sketch and seedy so being two white girls with a lot of luggage was not going to bode well for us. After fending off the touts and crazy drunk guys for an hour we finally got on the bus and settled in for what was going to be a long ride. Things were going as well as the possibly could they were actually showing something on the tv (American music videos which were all super old and awesome). Until we were half way into the trip and all the sudden the bus pulled over and everyone started pushing and screaming to get off the bus. I have never been in a stampede or a mob situation but I imagine this was the closest I will get. People were pushing and shoving to get off the bus a kid almost got trampled people were jumping out the windows, all the while I was still confused as to what was going on. I got up and got off completely baffled, when I got off I saw that the bus was smoking pretty bad and realized it was just overheating which was NBD. The other thing I also realized was my phone was gone. i got back on the bus and began searching but could not find it, then I started looking outside and still got nothing. Of course we were in an area that did not have any network so calling it was not an option. Needless to say I was a little pissed the rest of the trip because my phone and all my contacts were gone.
We finally arrived in Mbeya and actually made good time getting there and it was still light out when we arrived, we checked into the hotel, had dinner then watched Discovery channel and MTV for the last time. The next morning I found out that my roommate had gotten us a ride with one of the doctors in town and after visiting the Vodacom store we were going to leave. It was a good thing we found him because later that day we found out that the bus we were going to take had gotten into a wreck that morning leaving the village because the roads are so incredibly bad because of the rain. Needless to say the ride back was a rough one and the doctor thought it was a good idea to let my roommate drive the last stretch of hte trip which also happens to be when we had to wind down this massive mountain, I dont think I exhaled for 45 minutes or let go of hte seat in front of me. I now know how my mom feels when dad is driving in the snow.
This brings me to another fun part of being back in the village, I really didn’t think much about the rainy season because I mean really how bad could rain be? I was so wrong when it rains here it is pouring and the mud is so bad that you just slip around and can barely make it a few feet. They also told us that this rain now isn’t event that bad compared to what will happen in march when apparently the entire road will be washed away… I cant wait !!! to be stuck here for the next 3 months. The plus side is I will save money the down side is I wont have electricity/ fast internet/ I have never spent more that two consecutive weekends in the village I will probs go crazy. I guess this is a good time to pick up a hobby if you have any suggestions please send them my way because I am interested in anything.
We called our taxi driver friend to come get us the next morning the bus left at 6 and reporting time was 5:30 so we figured we would leave at 4:45, the driver had other ideas he insisted we leave at 4:15 in case there was traffic. Of course there wasn’t any traffic and we arrived at the bus station at 4:45. The bus station in Dar is the biggest bus station in East Africa and is also super sketch and seedy so being two white girls with a lot of luggage was not going to bode well for us. After fending off the touts and crazy drunk guys for an hour we finally got on the bus and settled in for what was going to be a long ride. Things were going as well as the possibly could they were actually showing something on the tv (American music videos which were all super old and awesome). Until we were half way into the trip and all the sudden the bus pulled over and everyone started pushing and screaming to get off the bus. I have never been in a stampede or a mob situation but I imagine this was the closest I will get. People were pushing and shoving to get off the bus a kid almost got trampled people were jumping out the windows, all the while I was still confused as to what was going on. I got up and got off completely baffled, when I got off I saw that the bus was smoking pretty bad and realized it was just overheating which was NBD. The other thing I also realized was my phone was gone. i got back on the bus and began searching but could not find it, then I started looking outside and still got nothing. Of course we were in an area that did not have any network so calling it was not an option. Needless to say I was a little pissed the rest of the trip because my phone and all my contacts were gone.
We finally arrived in Mbeya and actually made good time getting there and it was still light out when we arrived, we checked into the hotel, had dinner then watched Discovery channel and MTV for the last time. The next morning I found out that my roommate had gotten us a ride with one of the doctors in town and after visiting the Vodacom store we were going to leave. It was a good thing we found him because later that day we found out that the bus we were going to take had gotten into a wreck that morning leaving the village because the roads are so incredibly bad because of the rain. Needless to say the ride back was a rough one and the doctor thought it was a good idea to let my roommate drive the last stretch of hte trip which also happens to be when we had to wind down this massive mountain, I dont think I exhaled for 45 minutes or let go of hte seat in front of me. I now know how my mom feels when dad is driving in the snow.
This brings me to another fun part of being back in the village, I really didn’t think much about the rainy season because I mean really how bad could rain be? I was so wrong when it rains here it is pouring and the mud is so bad that you just slip around and can barely make it a few feet. They also told us that this rain now isn’t event that bad compared to what will happen in march when apparently the entire road will be washed away… I cant wait !!! to be stuck here for the next 3 months. The plus side is I will save money the down side is I wont have electricity/ fast internet/ I have never spent more that two consecutive weekends in the village I will probs go crazy. I guess this is a good time to pick up a hobby if you have any suggestions please send them my way because I am interested in anything.
It finally happened
I finally got what was coming to me. After six months of being in great health and not having one problem and making fun of everyone who got sick I finally got sick. It happened while I was in Zanzibar and can honestly say it was one of the worst experiences in my life. I have never felt so bad and had no way to fix it. The ironic thing is the morning before anything happened I was bragging to two other volunteers on the way to the beach about how I had never had any problems and then bam that night it hit me. I started running a high fever and could not move my body hurt so bad, the first thing I thought was Malaria but I tired to tough it out. This attitude lasted one day while I laid in the heat of the apartment we were in literally feeling like death I decided that the next day I would risk it and go to a Tanzanian hospital. The next day I had two of the volunteers Katie and Jacob go with me to the hospital because I was not functioning at all. Jacob was great he speaks Swahili almost fluently and was able to get me into get my blood drawn. As a side note most of you that know me know that I am terrified of needles/ things never go well when I have my blood drawn. Just picture me being looking like a hot mess and attempting to plead with a massive Tanzanian lady to please take the blood out of my hand. Luckily Jacob had my back and convinced her to do it and I managed to pull through.
The blood results came back and luckily it was not malaria but on the down side they told me they in fact had no idea what kind of infection/parasite it was and gave me medicine and told me I would be fine by the next day. As per usual that was not the case the next day much to my surprise I was actually worse , but after the experience of the hospital I really didn’t want to go back something about an African hospital just didn’t set well with me. Maybe it was the fact that they were carrying around a legit newborn baby with blood still on it or the fact that there was a guy with gaping wounds just hanging out in the waiting room call me crazy but I really didn’t feel like that was okay.
My boss luckily found me a doctor that catered to the expat crowd so the next day we went. I was so dehydrated that they told me I needed three IVs so be better the only problem was when they were attempting to put the IV in (at this point I was so out of it I really wasn’t that worried about the needle) the awesome nurse from Spain with the lip ring (so professional right?) kept missing my vein she tried my hand then my arm and couldn’t get it in finally on the 5th try she got it. I was finally starting to feel better and even better the doctor promised to have me better by the next night which was New Years Eve. I had to go back the next morning when yet again they couldn’t get the IV in and then decided to leave it in my arm until I came back in the evening because they had run out of veins to poke. I looked rough walking around Zanzibar with an IV thing in my arm everyone was super nice to me though which was a plus.
I had high hopes for New Years Eve but instead I ended up spending it until ten o’clock at the hospital with another one of the volunteers who was also sick and ended up staying in and eating my first meal in four days, I feel like it was a win. This experience was god awful because I have never been so sick before and not had a way of fixing it that day. I am now going to be a lot less risky with what I eat and drink because god knows I don’t want that to happen EVER again.
The blood results came back and luckily it was not malaria but on the down side they told me they in fact had no idea what kind of infection/parasite it was and gave me medicine and told me I would be fine by the next day. As per usual that was not the case the next day much to my surprise I was actually worse , but after the experience of the hospital I really didn’t want to go back something about an African hospital just didn’t set well with me. Maybe it was the fact that they were carrying around a legit newborn baby with blood still on it or the fact that there was a guy with gaping wounds just hanging out in the waiting room call me crazy but I really didn’t feel like that was okay.
My boss luckily found me a doctor that catered to the expat crowd so the next day we went. I was so dehydrated that they told me I needed three IVs so be better the only problem was when they were attempting to put the IV in (at this point I was so out of it I really wasn’t that worried about the needle) the awesome nurse from Spain with the lip ring (so professional right?) kept missing my vein she tried my hand then my arm and couldn’t get it in finally on the 5th try she got it. I was finally starting to feel better and even better the doctor promised to have me better by the next night which was New Years Eve. I had to go back the next morning when yet again they couldn’t get the IV in and then decided to leave it in my arm until I came back in the evening because they had run out of veins to poke. I looked rough walking around Zanzibar with an IV thing in my arm everyone was super nice to me though which was a plus.
I had high hopes for New Years Eve but instead I ended up spending it until ten o’clock at the hospital with another one of the volunteers who was also sick and ended up staying in and eating my first meal in four days, I feel like it was a win. This experience was god awful because I have never been so sick before and not had a way of fixing it that day. I am now going to be a lot less risky with what I eat and drink because god knows I don’t want that to happen EVER again.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Back In Action
Sorry for the long absence for the past two month I have been away from the village traveling.
The traveling started in November when I made a surprise trip back to the states. I had been trying to convince my parents to come over here since I left and at the last minute I decided coming home for a surprise visit would be much more fun and a great reward for lasting 6 months in the village. It was so much fun to get to go home and surprise all my family members, it was also great to be home for Thanksgiving and my birthday. I was happy i got to see a lot of my friends and go to Little Rock for the Hogs game.
After about a month at home I left the States and headed back to Africa to meet up with two other volunteers and travel through Kenya and Tanzania. I flew into Nairobi and was immediately impressed with the place. It was so different from Dar, there was actual infrastructure and tall buildings, and all the people spoke English which was really nice. Everyone had told me before hand that you have to be careful in Nairobi because they call it nairobbery, but honestly i never felt unsafe there, and i really didn't even eel like i was back in Africa yet.
This all changed on the bus from Nairobi to Mombasa. At this point int he trip our group had grown to 4 people. Three of us, Lauren, Bree and myself all are volunteers for WorldTeach and the fourth member was Bree's boyfriend Rob who works for an NGO in the DRC. On this bus ride Lauren and I of course got the seat that did not have a window that opened and quickly began to sweat profusely, and look like an all around hot mess for the next 6 hours. Mombasa I will say this has some of the WORST traffic I have ever encountered. We literally sat in the same place on the road for an hour in the humid African summer heat. When we finally got to our hostel it was a really cool place. It was an old mansion that they had converted into a hostel so it had a pool and great place to get food and drinks. The only down side was that it was so far from town.
After spending a day lounging we finally decided to get out and see Mombasa and all it had to offer. We walked around Old Town which was pretty nice and then went to visit Fort Jesus, an old fort built by the Arabs and controlled by the Portuguese at various points. After hanging out at the beach and hostel for three days we made our way back into Tanzania and into Tanga. Tanga is the northern region in Tanzania and is on the coast. We spent one night there and went to the beach yet again before moving into the Kilimanjaro region of Tanzania. We visited Moshi and Arusha and went up to the starting point of the climb of Mt. Kilimanjaro and also visited some beautiful waterfalls in the area. After that we went and visited another volunteer, Lauren's roommate Allison at an orphanage she had volunteered with and meet some amazingly cute kids, it was a great afternoon.
After almost two weeks of traveling we made it down to Dar to board the ferry for Zanzibar where we spent Christmas and New Years but those are deserving of their own post.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Africa Hot
Summer has finally decided to show up in my part of Africa. After freezing for the first two months I was here, Africa has finally decided to live up tot he reputation we are taught our entire lives in school. Let me tell you living without AC or electricity for that matter to power a fan is becoming a problem. I love to be cold when i sleep and I am now stuck sweating constantly and looking like an all around hot mess daily.
The term is almost this is my last full week of teaching before testing starts and i cant believe have time has flown. The fact that it is already November blows my mind. Next week I am going to be leaving here and heading up to Dar Es Salaam to hang out and meet up with some of the other and actually be in a place that has electricity and fast Internet i cant wait.
Last weekend Gretchen, Nicole, Lisa and myself decided to go to Mbeya. It was Nicole's birthday weekend and we needed to go to the immigration office to get some endorsement stamp in our passport because we are all going to be traveling soon. The immigration office in Isongole assured us that the immigration office in Mbeya would be open on Saturday. With that knowledge Gretchen and I got up in the wee hours of the morning to take the one and only bus that leaves here which happens to be at 4 am and headed out. Most of you can probably guess that true to form things did not turn out the way they should. We got to Mbeya and found the immigration office only to be told that in fact they weren't open on Saturdays and to try again some other time. I was already coming to expect this but hey, a girl can hope right?
After that Nicole and i decided we were going to go back to Isongole for the night and celebrate her birthday by making a cake there. Everything else actually worked out and the cake turned out delish.
Halloween on the other hand was mildly depressing. I have tried to explain the concept of Halloween to all the people here and no one can understand the concept. On Monday i go to school ready to give my kids candy, for what they still don't get, only to find out 3/4 of the school had been sent home because they had not paid their school fees. I waited around for an hour at school and decided it wasn't worth it and i was going home to enjoy my cookies and lay out.
In other news there is now a huge bird living in the tree right outside my window. This may not sound like big news to you, but i swear it is taunting me. It only comes out at night and when it does it is constantly making noises and flapping its wings. Last night it started something new, there are little fruits on the tree and from time to time the bird will fly from the tree to our roof, well now it has decided to bring the fruits and drop them on our tin roof which sounds like softballs hitting our roof each time. I also have to sleep with my window open because it is so hot and this thing is making noise all night , its really starting to piss me off.
I will leave you with 5 things I learned this week
1. telling African kids to pose produces some of the funniest pictures
2. African ladies can officially carry almost anything on their heads
3. I was told by one of our friends he wants his son to marry me because it would be free because American girls don't expect a bride price, but that I would still have to do all the cooking and cleaning for the rest of my life because its Africa and that's what ladies do.
4. the concept of a swim suit is lost on the people in my village
5. my name is in fact not Lucas it is Rukasi, this was a legit conversation i have had multiple times lately. People tell me after i tell them my name which I only say is Lucas because Lindsay would be too far out of their reach to pronounce that Lucas is a boys name and that my parents are crazy for naming me this and that they really meant to name me Rukasi which is a perfectly acceptable girls name .
The term is almost this is my last full week of teaching before testing starts and i cant believe have time has flown. The fact that it is already November blows my mind. Next week I am going to be leaving here and heading up to Dar Es Salaam to hang out and meet up with some of the other and actually be in a place that has electricity and fast Internet i cant wait.
Last weekend Gretchen, Nicole, Lisa and myself decided to go to Mbeya. It was Nicole's birthday weekend and we needed to go to the immigration office to get some endorsement stamp in our passport because we are all going to be traveling soon. The immigration office in Isongole assured us that the immigration office in Mbeya would be open on Saturday. With that knowledge Gretchen and I got up in the wee hours of the morning to take the one and only bus that leaves here which happens to be at 4 am and headed out. Most of you can probably guess that true to form things did not turn out the way they should. We got to Mbeya and found the immigration office only to be told that in fact they weren't open on Saturdays and to try again some other time. I was already coming to expect this but hey, a girl can hope right?
After that Nicole and i decided we were going to go back to Isongole for the night and celebrate her birthday by making a cake there. Everything else actually worked out and the cake turned out delish.
Halloween on the other hand was mildly depressing. I have tried to explain the concept of Halloween to all the people here and no one can understand the concept. On Monday i go to school ready to give my kids candy, for what they still don't get, only to find out 3/4 of the school had been sent home because they had not paid their school fees. I waited around for an hour at school and decided it wasn't worth it and i was going home to enjoy my cookies and lay out.
In other news there is now a huge bird living in the tree right outside my window. This may not sound like big news to you, but i swear it is taunting me. It only comes out at night and when it does it is constantly making noises and flapping its wings. Last night it started something new, there are little fruits on the tree and from time to time the bird will fly from the tree to our roof, well now it has decided to bring the fruits and drop them on our tin roof which sounds like softballs hitting our roof each time. I also have to sleep with my window open because it is so hot and this thing is making noise all night , its really starting to piss me off.
I will leave you with 5 things I learned this week
1. telling African kids to pose produces some of the funniest pictures
2. African ladies can officially carry almost anything on their heads
3. I was told by one of our friends he wants his son to marry me because it would be free because American girls don't expect a bride price, but that I would still have to do all the cooking and cleaning for the rest of my life because its Africa and that's what ladies do.
4. the concept of a swim suit is lost on the people in my village
5. my name is in fact not Lucas it is Rukasi, this was a legit conversation i have had multiple times lately. People tell me after i tell them my name which I only say is Lucas because Lindsay would be too far out of their reach to pronounce that Lucas is a boys name and that my parents are crazy for naming me this and that they really meant to name me Rukasi which is a perfectly acceptable girls name .
Teacher On Duty
As i said in my last post last week I was assigned to be teacher on duty. Up till now I am pretty sure that the headmaster, second headmaster, and academic master really haven't had much faith in us, and therefore haven't really given us any responsibilities. During midterms they did not trust us enough to monitor the tests, it was that bad. Well now that all the student teachers have left and there are now only 5 of us teachers they kind of have no choice but to trust us. Gretchen had her week as teacher on duty the week before me and was assigned to do it with Makala the second headmaster.
Let me take this time to give you a run down of the teachers at our school, it will make things a lot more clear later on.
Makala- he is the second headmaster, he is from Dar and is 27 and probably the tallest person in the district, because everyone down here is short. He comes across as kind of a baby sometimes. He loves to come over and listen to my Ipod and hates walking around after dark (personally i think he is afraid of the dark). Anyway most of the time he is quiet and soft spoken and always refers to me as madam. Things turn though when he is dealing with students, suddenly he is loud and has a really scary and semi threatening tone an LOVES to piga (beat) the students. This morning in fact he informed me that it was good to piga the students because it gets their brains working in the morning....typical.
next we have Kassim- he is the academic master and oddly enough has basically been gone for most of the term, we are still not really sure where he went, but now he has returned and is back in action. He is from around this area and therefore is short and also semi soft spoken when you hang out with him. I have never really seen him teach a class but apparently he loves history and Geograph (because they don't ever pronounce the y on anything). He is also a big fan of pigaing the students because in his mind it builds character.
Finally we have the Old Man- He is the other English teacher and he is not really old by American standards but here he is Old. He has also been gone pretty much the whole semester which is my excuse for not knowing his name. That and the fact that when he signs in in the mornings he has worse hand writing than me and i cant read his name. He is also super quiet and only likes to piga the students when it is really necessary, but he always walks around with a huge stick to intimidate the students.
Now back to my week, I was assigned to be teacher on duty with the Old Ma. From the onset he knew my thoughts on pigaing the students and told me that this week he would try to do things my way. My way included hard labor for the kids who misbehaved. He liked the idea of hard labor so Monday afternoon all the students who were in trouble got to move bricks from one side of the campus to the other, i am not really sure why they moved them but hey it was something to do. Being teacher on duty basically means you are the secretary/ disciplinarian/ monitor. When the kids want to leave campus for any reason they must ask you. You make all the announcements in the mornings at the assembly and at the end of the day you dismiss them. All week long i would have kids coming into my classes to ask if they could go home because they were "sick."
Everything ended up going great the Old Man restrained himself and did not piga the students all week because as he told one of the parents who was up at school one day and did not understand why I was against pigaing the students, "in America they are taught that hitting people is against their human rights" after he made this comment there was a silence and then they both laughed at the idea of human rights and students actually having any. Needless to say I survived being teacher on duty even though i had to be at school early and stay late, although i am fairly certain that the students thought me being teacher on duty was a joke, because when i would go around doing uniform checks they would just kind of giggle as I passed...Oh well they like me and they respect me and listen to me when I tell them to do things so I am okay with it.
Let me take this time to give you a run down of the teachers at our school, it will make things a lot more clear later on.
Makala- he is the second headmaster, he is from Dar and is 27 and probably the tallest person in the district, because everyone down here is short. He comes across as kind of a baby sometimes. He loves to come over and listen to my Ipod and hates walking around after dark (personally i think he is afraid of the dark). Anyway most of the time he is quiet and soft spoken and always refers to me as madam. Things turn though when he is dealing with students, suddenly he is loud and has a really scary and semi threatening tone an LOVES to piga (beat) the students. This morning in fact he informed me that it was good to piga the students because it gets their brains working in the morning....typical.
next we have Kassim- he is the academic master and oddly enough has basically been gone for most of the term, we are still not really sure where he went, but now he has returned and is back in action. He is from around this area and therefore is short and also semi soft spoken when you hang out with him. I have never really seen him teach a class but apparently he loves history and Geograph (because they don't ever pronounce the y on anything). He is also a big fan of pigaing the students because in his mind it builds character.
Finally we have the Old Man- He is the other English teacher and he is not really old by American standards but here he is Old. He has also been gone pretty much the whole semester which is my excuse for not knowing his name. That and the fact that when he signs in in the mornings he has worse hand writing than me and i cant read his name. He is also super quiet and only likes to piga the students when it is really necessary, but he always walks around with a huge stick to intimidate the students.
Now back to my week, I was assigned to be teacher on duty with the Old Ma. From the onset he knew my thoughts on pigaing the students and told me that this week he would try to do things my way. My way included hard labor for the kids who misbehaved. He liked the idea of hard labor so Monday afternoon all the students who were in trouble got to move bricks from one side of the campus to the other, i am not really sure why they moved them but hey it was something to do. Being teacher on duty basically means you are the secretary/ disciplinarian/ monitor. When the kids want to leave campus for any reason they must ask you. You make all the announcements in the mornings at the assembly and at the end of the day you dismiss them. All week long i would have kids coming into my classes to ask if they could go home because they were "sick."
Everything ended up going great the Old Man restrained himself and did not piga the students all week because as he told one of the parents who was up at school one day and did not understand why I was against pigaing the students, "in America they are taught that hitting people is against their human rights" after he made this comment there was a silence and then they both laughed at the idea of human rights and students actually having any. Needless to say I survived being teacher on duty even though i had to be at school early and stay late, although i am fairly certain that the students thought me being teacher on duty was a joke, because when i would go around doing uniform checks they would just kind of giggle as I passed...Oh well they like me and they respect me and listen to me when I tell them to do things so I am okay with it.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Summa Time
Here are some of the highlights since my last post
1. I successfully baked a birthday cake for my roommate for her birthday over the charcoal jicho
2. I made a whole bus of people stop so that I could get a package (selfish yes, necessary absolutely) thank you Myka
3. Sat for two hours in between two massive army men with guns on a car ride
4. Went to Malawi
5. Became obsessed with Malawi
6. Made my students write letters to my friends and family back home which turned out to be pure genius because the things they wrote are hilarious
7. Got observed teaching by my boss who then informed me that I was a ball buster in class, proving that some things never change
My time in Africa is flying by and I cant believe that I have already been here for 4 months, I feel like it was just yesterday I left home. We only have three real weeks left to our semester here and things have started to get intense. My students From II and Form III are both taking national and district exams so the preparation has been crazy. I am trying to prepare them as best as I can for their exams, knowing full well that the exams will be absolutely ridiculous and full of errors. That’s Tanzania for yah. I feel bad for the students because especially lately everyone in the community has been saying how dumb and not serious they are because of the results from the national mock examinations. Its really not fair to them because the do try hard but when the exams are written to where a native English speaker cant even understand them there is clearly a problem. It is a constant struggle everyday because I want to teach them proper English but I know at the same time the test will not be in proper English so I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. I feel like this is what teachers in America feel like always teaching to the standardized test we take, there really isn’t any freedom.
Enough of my ranting about NECTA and the ridic Tanzanian education system for now and let me give an update on life here in the village. This month it was my roommates birthday, knowing this the last time I went to Mbeya I was able to find some Betty Crocker dark chocolate cake mix because I had decided I was going to bake her a cake. It was easier said htan done. It looked all over the internet for tips on how to make your own homemade Dutch oven to bake things over charcoal. I got some really good tips and decided to go for it, it was either going to work or fail miserably. Things ended up turning out great he cake was awesome although I couldn’t find any frosting I was able to buy some Hershey’s chocolate syrup and I made a molten cake. It has given me the confidence to branch out and try to bake other things, my next project is going to be bread because you cant get bread anywhere around here.
Last weekend my friend Nicole and I decided we wanted to go to Malawi because we had a long weekend and the border is literally a quarter mile from her school. Saturday morning we had arranged a car and her second headmaster/our friend who I will refer to as Lu Dog was going to go with us to help us out. We had crossed the boarder before and had no problems and didn’t even need our passports so we really weren’t concerned. Little did we know that it was going to turn into a cluster. We spent a good hour in the immigration office in Isongole while they were trying to arrange for us to not have to pay for a visa because we were just going for the day. When things finally got figured out we were on our way. The town we went to was Chitipa which was the first major town across the boarder about 45 minutes from Isongole. We were cruising along great and then right before we got to Chitipa we get to a road block they check out or passports and tell us we must go to the immigration office. There we get our passports stamped and actually had to show our yellow fever cards, until this point no one had ever asked to see it, Lu Dog and our driver def didn’t have yellow fever cards and we were starting to get nervous but Malawians being the nice people they are let us go and even told us we could stay for up to five days because they liked us so much. When we actually got into Chitipa Lu Dog arranged for a sketchy transfer of our Shillings to Kwacha the currency they use in Malawi, then the guy who changed our money ended up being our tour guide and took us to a LEGIT, I repeat LEGIT grocery store. This may be where I fell in love with Malawi. Inside the grocery store they had a bakery, immediately when we walked in the door we were hit by the smell of fresh baked bread. Living in a place where I get bread once every 2 weeks I was in heaven. They also had rice Krispies, Glade products Lays sour cream and onion chips. We were so taken aback that this little gem of a town was so close yet no one had ever mentioned the treasures that could be found here. Another reason why I think I fell in love with Malawi was that everyone spoke English, even the gypsy street vendors. It is so weird that Malawi is one of the poorest countries yet they have a great universal health care system that many of my students have used before and they also have a fairly good school system that pushes English from a very young age. I will decimally be returning to Malawi, I really want to go to the capitol city because I hear they have some AMAZING chili peppers.
Recently I have been reviewing things that my students have allegedly already learned and need to know for their exams. One of the things that always shows up on the exams is a prompt about writing a letter. I decided what better time than now to have my students write letters to people in America. I spent time and wrote them all prompts about what they would say to the various people and what they should ask and talk about. Little did I know what would come of this. The students got really in to this project. They did rough drafts and second drafts and finally when they had written and decent letters I gave them a sheet of paper and some markers and they got to make their letter. The thigns they drew and wrote are hilarious. Some of the letters are cut and dry but other students took it to the extreme. I cant wait for my friends and family to get these letters because I know they will love them.
This week also marked the time that my Field Director/boss Ashley was coming to do her site visit. She comes to evaluate our teaching and to also check out our house and how we are doing and coping with our living situation. She arrived Wednesday night and we immediately introduced her to what it was like to walk 45 minutes up and down the mountain to get things that we need. She had been here before when she was scoping out potential schools but had been driven in a car everywhere and really did not fully understand how rough our life is. Anyway she came to school to observe me teaching my From III kids, we were reviewing for a test we were going to have the next day. After the lesson she had a sheet with questions she had to answer and comments about my lesson. The first thing out of her mouth was Jeeze you are really a ball buster in class, you don’t take any crap from any of your students. Some things never change, but my students laugh at me everyday so I know they like me and we have a good time outside of class, which is what counts right?
This week the school has finally decided to give me some responsibility (big mistake) and made me teacher on duty. Basically what it means is I have to get to school super early and stay super late and when any of the students want to leave the must come ask me. Also I am in charge of all the discipline matters which means the beatings of the students. Which until this point I haven’t really talked about. IN Tanzania it is totes fine and expected for the teachers to hit the students with sticks and various other things they find. Girls normally get three swats on the palms while boys have to lay on the ground and get three swats on the lower back area. Students can get hit for any number of reasons and it never ceases to amaze me how the nicest of our teachers can suddenly turn on the students and start chasing them with sticks. Anyway I digress basically I told the other teachers that this week instead of hitting the kids they will do hard labor…We will see how that goes, I will let you know at the end of the week. For now this is a long enough post
Until next time..
1. I successfully baked a birthday cake for my roommate for her birthday over the charcoal jicho
2. I made a whole bus of people stop so that I could get a package (selfish yes, necessary absolutely) thank you Myka
3. Sat for two hours in between two massive army men with guns on a car ride
4. Went to Malawi
5. Became obsessed with Malawi
6. Made my students write letters to my friends and family back home which turned out to be pure genius because the things they wrote are hilarious
7. Got observed teaching by my boss who then informed me that I was a ball buster in class, proving that some things never change
My time in Africa is flying by and I cant believe that I have already been here for 4 months, I feel like it was just yesterday I left home. We only have three real weeks left to our semester here and things have started to get intense. My students From II and Form III are both taking national and district exams so the preparation has been crazy. I am trying to prepare them as best as I can for their exams, knowing full well that the exams will be absolutely ridiculous and full of errors. That’s Tanzania for yah. I feel bad for the students because especially lately everyone in the community has been saying how dumb and not serious they are because of the results from the national mock examinations. Its really not fair to them because the do try hard but when the exams are written to where a native English speaker cant even understand them there is clearly a problem. It is a constant struggle everyday because I want to teach them proper English but I know at the same time the test will not be in proper English so I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. I feel like this is what teachers in America feel like always teaching to the standardized test we take, there really isn’t any freedom.
Enough of my ranting about NECTA and the ridic Tanzanian education system for now and let me give an update on life here in the village. This month it was my roommates birthday, knowing this the last time I went to Mbeya I was able to find some Betty Crocker dark chocolate cake mix because I had decided I was going to bake her a cake. It was easier said htan done. It looked all over the internet for tips on how to make your own homemade Dutch oven to bake things over charcoal. I got some really good tips and decided to go for it, it was either going to work or fail miserably. Things ended up turning out great he cake was awesome although I couldn’t find any frosting I was able to buy some Hershey’s chocolate syrup and I made a molten cake. It has given me the confidence to branch out and try to bake other things, my next project is going to be bread because you cant get bread anywhere around here.
Last weekend my friend Nicole and I decided we wanted to go to Malawi because we had a long weekend and the border is literally a quarter mile from her school. Saturday morning we had arranged a car and her second headmaster/our friend who I will refer to as Lu Dog was going to go with us to help us out. We had crossed the boarder before and had no problems and didn’t even need our passports so we really weren’t concerned. Little did we know that it was going to turn into a cluster. We spent a good hour in the immigration office in Isongole while they were trying to arrange for us to not have to pay for a visa because we were just going for the day. When things finally got figured out we were on our way. The town we went to was Chitipa which was the first major town across the boarder about 45 minutes from Isongole. We were cruising along great and then right before we got to Chitipa we get to a road block they check out or passports and tell us we must go to the immigration office. There we get our passports stamped and actually had to show our yellow fever cards, until this point no one had ever asked to see it, Lu Dog and our driver def didn’t have yellow fever cards and we were starting to get nervous but Malawians being the nice people they are let us go and even told us we could stay for up to five days because they liked us so much. When we actually got into Chitipa Lu Dog arranged for a sketchy transfer of our Shillings to Kwacha the currency they use in Malawi, then the guy who changed our money ended up being our tour guide and took us to a LEGIT, I repeat LEGIT grocery store. This may be where I fell in love with Malawi. Inside the grocery store they had a bakery, immediately when we walked in the door we were hit by the smell of fresh baked bread. Living in a place where I get bread once every 2 weeks I was in heaven. They also had rice Krispies, Glade products Lays sour cream and onion chips. We were so taken aback that this little gem of a town was so close yet no one had ever mentioned the treasures that could be found here. Another reason why I think I fell in love with Malawi was that everyone spoke English, even the gypsy street vendors. It is so weird that Malawi is one of the poorest countries yet they have a great universal health care system that many of my students have used before and they also have a fairly good school system that pushes English from a very young age. I will decimally be returning to Malawi, I really want to go to the capitol city because I hear they have some AMAZING chili peppers.
Recently I have been reviewing things that my students have allegedly already learned and need to know for their exams. One of the things that always shows up on the exams is a prompt about writing a letter. I decided what better time than now to have my students write letters to people in America. I spent time and wrote them all prompts about what they would say to the various people and what they should ask and talk about. Little did I know what would come of this. The students got really in to this project. They did rough drafts and second drafts and finally when they had written and decent letters I gave them a sheet of paper and some markers and they got to make their letter. The thigns they drew and wrote are hilarious. Some of the letters are cut and dry but other students took it to the extreme. I cant wait for my friends and family to get these letters because I know they will love them.
This week also marked the time that my Field Director/boss Ashley was coming to do her site visit. She comes to evaluate our teaching and to also check out our house and how we are doing and coping with our living situation. She arrived Wednesday night and we immediately introduced her to what it was like to walk 45 minutes up and down the mountain to get things that we need. She had been here before when she was scoping out potential schools but had been driven in a car everywhere and really did not fully understand how rough our life is. Anyway she came to school to observe me teaching my From III kids, we were reviewing for a test we were going to have the next day. After the lesson she had a sheet with questions she had to answer and comments about my lesson. The first thing out of her mouth was Jeeze you are really a ball buster in class, you don’t take any crap from any of your students. Some things never change, but my students laugh at me everyday so I know they like me and we have a good time outside of class, which is what counts right?
This week the school has finally decided to give me some responsibility (big mistake) and made me teacher on duty. Basically what it means is I have to get to school super early and stay super late and when any of the students want to leave the must come ask me. Also I am in charge of all the discipline matters which means the beatings of the students. Which until this point I haven’t really talked about. IN Tanzania it is totes fine and expected for the teachers to hit the students with sticks and various other things they find. Girls normally get three swats on the palms while boys have to lay on the ground and get three swats on the lower back area. Students can get hit for any number of reasons and it never ceases to amaze me how the nicest of our teachers can suddenly turn on the students and start chasing them with sticks. Anyway I digress basically I told the other teachers that this week instead of hitting the kids they will do hard labor…We will see how that goes, I will let you know at the end of the week. For now this is a long enough post
Until next time..
Thursday, October 6, 2011
African Hospital Adventure
The adventure continues here in my little slice of the middle of nowhere. Last week the safari ended well with Iringa like I said in my last post becoming my new obsession due to all of the white people and the availability of things like milkshakes and lattes. We spent one night in Mbeya at a new hotel that for 40,000 Shillings a night (roughly 25 dollars ) we got a massive room with two couches and two massive African chairs a full size fridge and freezer and a connecting room with a king size bed and most importantly a TV that had American channels. I got to watch Teen Mom and Ellen as well as CNN, my roommate didn’t much care about that but I was once again in heaven. it’s the small things in life right?
Coming back from the safari and all the luxuries we had for the week was a little rough, and to make it worse this week at school all of the student teachers had left so now there are only 5 teachers for the close to 400 students . This week also happens to be form 4 testing, which is the two week long process where the form 4 take subject tests to determine if they can continue on to further education. I thought testing in America was intense little did I know. When I showed up to school Monday morning I was greeted by two army men in full fatigues with their semi automatic weapons loaded and hanging on their arms. They never leave the school or the tests for the next two weeks. They sleep in our headmasters office to make sure no one tries to “sabotage” the tests as my headmaster said. Needles to say everyone has been really busy this week and I have been left alone in the staff room all day with just my new rifiki the skeleton to keep me company.
Now to where the adventure starts yet again. When we were coming back from our safari I decided to stay with two of the other volunteers in Isongole, while my roommate went home. When I got home Sunday she was in BAADDD shape. Monday morning they took her down to our hospital in Isoko where she proceeded to know more than some of the doctors and was advising the doctors on what kind of tests she needed. Eventually they told her she had Dysentery (you might be wondering who actually gets Dysentery anymore, apparently our small piece of “paradise” is a breeding ground for the amebas, I have decided that my occasional intake of alcohol kills all the amebas…at least I hope) They gave her some medicine and we thought that would be the end of that. Little did we know how much worse it could get. Yesterday I was at school reading and trying tog et a tan because Wednesdays are pointless and I only teach for 40 minutes in the afternoon, when she called saying she needed me to come home because she was feeling really bad. I rushed home and when I saw her she looked like a hot mess, and we made the decision that we needed to go to Mbeya the “big city” to a real hospital to get checked out. Being in Africa and in our remote place getting anywhere was bound to be difficult. I called our boss in Dar, Ashley and had her work her connection while we tried to make something happen on our end. This all started at 9 A.M btw. Finally at 11:30 Ashley called to say that a car had left a village an hour and a half away and would be there as fast as they could. In the meantime our headmaster had come over and provided me with his version of why she was sick and what we should do. He informed me that she had gotten Dystenary from the change in climate he was sure of it and that when one of us is sick it is as though he is sick…he is a very philosophical man let me tell yah. He then informed us that we needed to go to the hospital in Isoko to wait for the ride, much against our protests.
When we got to the hospital in Isoko after waiting 45 minutes for a car to come up the mountain, they proceeded to tell Gretchen that (this is slightly vulgar but they said this in all seriousness keep it in mind) that her diarrhea was her body crying, just from another end. I could not contain myself at this comment and had to excuse myself.. Also I forgot to mention there is a white German doctor who is currently working at the hospital. Before you get the wrong picture in your mind like I did, let me tell you he is an old creepy dude who kind of reminds me of that creepy uncle in movies. I was hoping for the young cute doctors without boarders type, but of course this is what I get. Anyway he also comes in to check on her and proceeds to tell us his life story and about the “predicament” he is in with his 30 year old African lover that he cant take back to Germany because the people there just wouldn’t understand. The entire time he is telling me this I am confused as to what it has to do with anything, but that has become a typical thought. Finally after 4 hours of being held hostage at this hospital while the doctor was writing a letter to the doctors at the hospital in Mbeya we are allowed to leave. It is now 4 and we are off to Mbeya in the sweet African style ambulance (a land cruiser with a bull horn siren on top and a flashing red light, which we got to ride with on the entire time) Little did we know that we had some stops to make on the way to Mbeya.
One stop left us talking to the district education officer, a LARGE woman who we met the first day we came down here, who we also thought hated us, after yesterday I will never think that again. One of the first things she said to me was Sara (she thinks its my name, I don’t correct her because I am semi scared of her because of her size) you have very nice legs. It was a creepy comment yes, but hey it was a compliment none the less. During this time she is trying to force feed my roommate uji, which is a porridge like liquid. The education officer then gets even creepier by sitting and staring at me and repeatedly telling me that I am beautiful and being at Kafule has made me even more beautiful and she wished she could have a picture of me to keep. At that I was sufficiently creeped out and ready to get away from her. At this point it is 6:30 and we were still not at the hospital and my poor roommate was not doing so well. After this stop we picked up 10 people who got to cram in the back of the ambulance with me and we were off for the final leg of the trip to the hospital. Finally at 10 pm we arrived at the legit hospital outside of Mbeya city. We were told that she would be staying in a VIP room and had no idea what that meant. When we walked in we found out, this room is massive, pretty much the size of our house. I even got my own bed and didn’t have to sleep on a couch or chair like I was picturing. All of it only costs 30,000 shillings a day. Speaking of costs there was a chart in one of the doctors rooms that we talked to and at this hospital you can get a tooth pulled for three dollars, have a minor surgery for ten dollars and get an amputation for 25 dollars. Would I ever have any of those things done here…absolutely not but it was funny to see the prices for these things. So we are still sitting ehre waiting to find out the results of all of her tests. This morning we have been greeted by so many people who want to know how Gretchen is doing. It is nice to know that everyone is so concerned and making sure we are well taken care of, that’s one thing you have to love about the Tanzanian people. That’s all for now who knows how long we will be here, but so far I cant complain. We have electricity, running water and I have an extremely comfortable bed. I hope that i enver have a real emergency here in Tanzania because I for sure would not be able to make it
Coming back from the safari and all the luxuries we had for the week was a little rough, and to make it worse this week at school all of the student teachers had left so now there are only 5 teachers for the close to 400 students . This week also happens to be form 4 testing, which is the two week long process where the form 4 take subject tests to determine if they can continue on to further education. I thought testing in America was intense little did I know. When I showed up to school Monday morning I was greeted by two army men in full fatigues with their semi automatic weapons loaded and hanging on their arms. They never leave the school or the tests for the next two weeks. They sleep in our headmasters office to make sure no one tries to “sabotage” the tests as my headmaster said. Needles to say everyone has been really busy this week and I have been left alone in the staff room all day with just my new rifiki the skeleton to keep me company.
Now to where the adventure starts yet again. When we were coming back from our safari I decided to stay with two of the other volunteers in Isongole, while my roommate went home. When I got home Sunday she was in BAADDD shape. Monday morning they took her down to our hospital in Isoko where she proceeded to know more than some of the doctors and was advising the doctors on what kind of tests she needed. Eventually they told her she had Dysentery (you might be wondering who actually gets Dysentery anymore, apparently our small piece of “paradise” is a breeding ground for the amebas, I have decided that my occasional intake of alcohol kills all the amebas…at least I hope) They gave her some medicine and we thought that would be the end of that. Little did we know how much worse it could get. Yesterday I was at school reading and trying tog et a tan because Wednesdays are pointless and I only teach for 40 minutes in the afternoon, when she called saying she needed me to come home because she was feeling really bad. I rushed home and when I saw her she looked like a hot mess, and we made the decision that we needed to go to Mbeya the “big city” to a real hospital to get checked out. Being in Africa and in our remote place getting anywhere was bound to be difficult. I called our boss in Dar, Ashley and had her work her connection while we tried to make something happen on our end. This all started at 9 A.M btw. Finally at 11:30 Ashley called to say that a car had left a village an hour and a half away and would be there as fast as they could. In the meantime our headmaster had come over and provided me with his version of why she was sick and what we should do. He informed me that she had gotten Dystenary from the change in climate he was sure of it and that when one of us is sick it is as though he is sick…he is a very philosophical man let me tell yah. He then informed us that we needed to go to the hospital in Isoko to wait for the ride, much against our protests.
When we got to the hospital in Isoko after waiting 45 minutes for a car to come up the mountain, they proceeded to tell Gretchen that (this is slightly vulgar but they said this in all seriousness keep it in mind) that her diarrhea was her body crying, just from another end. I could not contain myself at this comment and had to excuse myself.. Also I forgot to mention there is a white German doctor who is currently working at the hospital. Before you get the wrong picture in your mind like I did, let me tell you he is an old creepy dude who kind of reminds me of that creepy uncle in movies. I was hoping for the young cute doctors without boarders type, but of course this is what I get. Anyway he also comes in to check on her and proceeds to tell us his life story and about the “predicament” he is in with his 30 year old African lover that he cant take back to Germany because the people there just wouldn’t understand. The entire time he is telling me this I am confused as to what it has to do with anything, but that has become a typical thought. Finally after 4 hours of being held hostage at this hospital while the doctor was writing a letter to the doctors at the hospital in Mbeya we are allowed to leave. It is now 4 and we are off to Mbeya in the sweet African style ambulance (a land cruiser with a bull horn siren on top and a flashing red light, which we got to ride with on the entire time) Little did we know that we had some stops to make on the way to Mbeya.
One stop left us talking to the district education officer, a LARGE woman who we met the first day we came down here, who we also thought hated us, after yesterday I will never think that again. One of the first things she said to me was Sara (she thinks its my name, I don’t correct her because I am semi scared of her because of her size) you have very nice legs. It was a creepy comment yes, but hey it was a compliment none the less. During this time she is trying to force feed my roommate uji, which is a porridge like liquid. The education officer then gets even creepier by sitting and staring at me and repeatedly telling me that I am beautiful and being at Kafule has made me even more beautiful and she wished she could have a picture of me to keep. At that I was sufficiently creeped out and ready to get away from her. At this point it is 6:30 and we were still not at the hospital and my poor roommate was not doing so well. After this stop we picked up 10 people who got to cram in the back of the ambulance with me and we were off for the final leg of the trip to the hospital. Finally at 10 pm we arrived at the legit hospital outside of Mbeya city. We were told that she would be staying in a VIP room and had no idea what that meant. When we walked in we found out, this room is massive, pretty much the size of our house. I even got my own bed and didn’t have to sleep on a couch or chair like I was picturing. All of it only costs 30,000 shillings a day. Speaking of costs there was a chart in one of the doctors rooms that we talked to and at this hospital you can get a tooth pulled for three dollars, have a minor surgery for ten dollars and get an amputation for 25 dollars. Would I ever have any of those things done here…absolutely not but it was funny to see the prices for these things. So we are still sitting ehre waiting to find out the results of all of her tests. This morning we have been greeted by so many people who want to know how Gretchen is doing. It is nice to know that everyone is so concerned and making sure we are well taken care of, that’s one thing you have to love about the Tanzanian people. That’s all for now who knows how long we will be here, but so far I cant complain. We have electricity, running water and I have an extremely comfortable bed. I hope that i enver have a real emergency here in Tanzania because I for sure would not be able to make it
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Safari time
True friendsThis 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.
Half of one of my form 2 classes, the little guy in front Musa is one of my favs
My skirt after it got caught in the bike and we had to cut it
At a soccer game some of my girls, and random gypsy mountain children
Town/ the used shoe dealer who always tries to get me to buy air Jordans
This is what i walk 45 minutes to get to.. classy right?
Just a typical passenger on the bus
A giraffe standing perfectly in the hole of a tree, it was perfect timing
Awkward single pic of me with some elephants in the background
The lion that we stumbled on when we were leaving the park, it was so close
Our sweet safari ride with a fridge
Sunset from our campsite 
Some elephants that we saw right when we got into the park 
Part of the dance party while we waited for graduation to start 
In refrence to my last post, there is nothing gay about this at all, just to boys hanging out 
Some of my form 2 girls just throwin up the delta after i taught them top tri delt rushee 
Mr. Mbughi and I at the graduation party
At the start of the Safari
gypsy mountain children hanging out at my house
how we decorated for graduation
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