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
Thursday, March 8, 2012
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.
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