Moshi, Tanzania
I have been hanging out with a bunch of peace corps volunteers as they have been in Moshi for Christmas break. Back in the villages where they live, a lot of them have no power or running water, have to shower with a bucket that they fetch from a water storage facility, and their water is rationed. Many of them have to travel hours to the market to get food and must cook it pretty much right away because there is no fridge to keep the food cold. Between going to the market, getting water, and making a fire to cook your food, I don't know how you would have time to do anything. Everything they throw out even, they have to burn it. Talking to them makes me realize just how easy we have it in Moshi. Here I am complaining about a few cockroaches, power outages, a trickling shower, and the occasional African toilet. One of the guys told me that in the house he used to live in, they killed two black mambas. I think Living out in the villages would certainly be an interesting experience though. I think it would really make you aware of what you use and what you waste. They were saying how strange they felt just leaving the water running while they were showering.
For Christmas eve, we rented a dala dala and drove out to Machame, one of the girls' villages, for a big peace corps Christmas party. The Machame house was pretty fancy with a fridge, running water, western toilet, and power. We had ugali chips with some of the best guacamole of my life as well as some amazing pumpkin soup and drank and partied all night. They are the coolest group of people and make me really wish I was allowed to join the peace corps.
There were about 25-30 of us, but they had some dorms that weren't being used so we were all able to sleep there. We brushed our teeth with water from buckets that had full dirt chunks in them. One of the guys just told me not to swallow the water. I definitely tried very hard not to. I forgot a sheet so I slept on a wet khanga that someone had used to shower with on top of a really old and slightly sketchy looking mattress. This was the first night I was actually almost cold since getting to Africa though, so I had no complaints.
On the dala dala back to town was the first time it has actually felt like Christmas since I got here. The bus was decorated and they played Christmas music the whole way back. I went back with two American travellers that came out for the peace corps Christmas party also. After breakfast, they headed off to Uganda and I went home to rest up for Christmas party number 2.
For Christmas in Moshi we had goat, which they had slaughtered that morning. I drank Konyagi packets and had the nerdiest conversation I have had since arriving in Moshi. Talked to a guy for about 2 hours about accounting, economics, politics, and the issues with the Tanzanian education system (a frequent topic of conversation amoung fellow teachers). Then one of the guys played some excellent 90s music on the guitar and we headed out to a dance bar for the night.
It wasn't a traditional Christmas, but it was definitely a lot of fun. I am really falling in love with Moshi. I can't believe how fast the time has gone by and how soon I am leaving!
DEFINITIONS:
KONYAGI PACKETS: I feel like the Konyagi packets need some explaining. Konyagi is a gin, but doesn't really taste like it, that Denise specifically warned me about when coming here. It doesn't have much flavour, but it is pretty strong. The classiest part of this is that they sell it in little shot-sized bags. You see these littering the ground all over Moshi.
KHANGA: a wrap skirt that all of the Tanzanian women wear. They are the best things ever because they are so multi-functional. Can be used as a skirt, dress, sheet, towel, etc.
Moshi, Tanzania
The school that I have been volunteering at is a primary school called Chapakazi Centre, which is located in Pasua: about 45 minutes on the dala dala. We have about 20 students but they don't all come regularly so it can be hard to keep track. They range in age from about 2 to 7 years old, which can be a major challenge in trying to cater a class to such a diverse range of skill levels. An additional challenge is the fact that aside from some notebooks that they pull out maybe once a week for an hour, the only thing you have to work with is chalk and a chalk board. A lot of the time I will have two students working at the chalkboard and one of the 2 year olds in my arms while I simultaneously try to do group activities with the rest of the class to try and keep them engaged in learning. It can be a challenge.
The school building itself is a typical one for the poorer area of Pasua. It has a basic cement floor and two mats that look like they are made out of couch fabric and which are ripped and faded. The walls look like they are made from scraps of wood and the roof is a typical Tanzanian one made out of metal sheets. It has a blackboard on either side, one wooden table, a broken shelf where the children keep their bags, and some small scrap wood bleachers at the back. The yard is a small dirt area sectioned off from the road by bushes, with a large tire, a wooden bench, and a sort of kitchen in the corner where they make their morning porridge.
Much of the time, the yard is filled with chickens that wander in from the neighbouring yards and, apparently, mice. The children recently discovered that I have a hilarious reaction to dead mice so their favourite game is to parade it around the centre, holding one by its tail, and present it to me as the rest of the children run along behind excitedly screaming and laughing. I don't find it quite as entertaining.
They don't have the same segregation of clothing here between the sexes; a lot of the boys wear pink and other things that were obviously made for girls. I think most of the clothing they wear is used items from Europe and North America. There is one boy that wears this shirt almost every day that says, "princess in training". It is the cutest thing. I am definitely not telling him what it means.
They speak basically no English and I really want to be able to talk to them so I have been studying Swahili a lot and taking classes. Despite the fact that I can't speak to them at all, I am seriously falling in love with these kids. They have nothing and they are still the happiest, most loving group of kids I have ever met. Their clothes are filled with holes, some literally wear sweaters with an entire arm missing and the extra yarn just hangs off the end in a ball, and they pretty much wear the same ones every day. The school fees are on a give-what-you-can basis so some families just donate food because they can't afford anything else. I just can't help wondering where these kids will end up. How many of them will even make it through school when their parents can't even afford a 7,000 tsh (about $6) school fee. I desperately want to leave them with something that will make a difference for them, but it is so hard to know what that is. When you are here, you realize how much corruption there is, especially with orphanages and schools. There are a lot of disgusting people that use the kids essentially as bait for foreign money and then things disappear once volunteers have left. I was talking to my house mother about a previous volunteer who went out and bought a bunch of clothes for the kids at the orphanage she was working at and before she even left they had mysteriously disappeared. Stories like these are everywhere.
I have gotten a good vibe so far from the school I am working at, but it is honestly so hard to know what happens after you leave. I just want to leave them with something that can't be taken away from them. They are such good kids and they deserve so much more than what they have.
Lake Manyara, The Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater
So I just got back from my safari on Tuesday and it was AMAZING. After four days travelling through Lake Manyara, the Serengeti, and the Ngorongoro crater in our 20 year old Range Rover with Bob Marley blasting, I saw pretty much every animal I could think of. Despite the many exciting animals however, nothing beat the towering mountains, vast plains, and rolling hills of the Serengeti and Ngorongoro.
Our first day we drove to Lake Manyara and spent a half day in the park. The drive up was actually really interesting because the Serengeti area is where the Maasai people live. They are the image of Africa you often see in National Geographic with their dark robes in shades of red, blue and purple that are draped around their bodies like Moses; simple sandals; and tons of bulky white earrings, necklaces, and bracelets. We saw groups of Maasai boys by the side of the road in white face paint, which means they had just been circumcized. We also passed by a village that we learned was actually one family. This one man had 90 children! He literally had to build a school just for his children. At one point we pulled over to the side of the road to check on the car (this was a frequent occurence) and we saw this young child standing nearby and staring at us. As we sat there he slowly got closer and closer. At this point I was accustomed to people coming up to us asking for money or trying to sell us things so I expected him to do the same, but he just stood there, staring. It was a strange feeling as I sat there staring back at this little boy dressed in his traditional robes; I felt like we were from two different planets.
Lake Manyara is mostly forest so it is a bit harder to see animals there, but we did see a lot of baboons. Often we came around a corner and they were all gathered in the middle of the road causing a safari-style traffic jam. The road through the park leads to this beautiful lake that is fed by hot springs. Standing in the massive lake were thousands of flamingos which you could see from miles away as a pink blur along the horizon. There was a lookout point for the lake where we could get out of the car and where the hot springs that fed into the lake bubbled out from under the rocks. We were able to touch the water, which was shockingly hot at about the temperature of a cup of tea.
Day 2 we drove from Lake Manyara, past the Ngorongoro crater to the Serengeti. I had this really surreal moment at one point when we were driving past a Maasai village in a valley next to the crater. We were rocketing over these rolling hills and there was this Maasai shepherd wearing deep purple robes that were blowing in the wind as he stood at the top of a hill looking out over his flocks. In behind him the lush green valley stretched out for miles dotted with herds of cows and goats right next to wild zebras, ostriches, giraffes, and buffalos. I honestly could not imagine any place being more beautiful.
We spent the day driving around the Serengeti in search of animals and found a leopard as well as an endless supply of elephants, giraffes, zebras, antelope, wart hogs, and buffalos. The way you see everything is through the roof of the car (which is pushed up) while you stand on the seat. It probably wasn't the safest as the roads are obviously quite rough, but I definitely think that hanging on for dear life with the wind flying in your face is part of the experience.
The Serengeti plains themselves are so vast they look like they stretch on forever. In the evening, just looking around you see elephants beside you, zebras and antelope all around, and hippos in the nearby lake; everywhere around you are these amazing animals. And looking to the horizon that is blurred from the far-off rain and below the clouds with the sun shining through like the heavens are about to open up. All of this while your flying over the Serengeti bouncing up and down like you are on a wooden roller coaster with your head out the roof and your hair flying in the wind. Its hard to fully explain the feeling in words. It is another world out there.
We spent the next two nights camping out in a campsite in the middle of the Serengeti. There are no fences so the only thing that keeps the animals out is their fear of humans. This does not hold true at night when everyone is asleep and all is quiet and dark. I made it a general rule not to drink anything near bedtime, but one of the girls got up to go to the washroom in the night but re-thought the idea when she spotted some hyenas nearby fighting over the garbage.
Day 3, which was our second day in the Serengeti, we saw a baby hippo and two cheetahs lying in the road, but the lions were hands-down my favourite. There was one female sitting on a termite hill that we got so close to that we could actually see a blood stain on her neck. It was actually kind of scary. We noticed there were two groups on either side of the road and one standing apart and carefully staring at a large group of zebras nearby, which our guide, Muksin, thought meant that they were preparing to hunt. We really wanted to see it happen so we waited for a while, but didn't see much so decided to move on. After spotting a few more animals, we decided to go back and check on the lions one last time before we went back to the campsite. One lion was still eyeing the zebras, but the rest seemed disinterested so Muksin didn't think it was going to happen. We stayed there for our last half hour anyways and entertained ourselves by watching the zebras getting spooked by the nearby cars. They were wading into the hippo pond and then when a car would start they would all come frantically running out. The second time it happened they were even more frantic and continued running running across the field, stirring up dust. I was trying to figure out why they were so intensely over-reacting to the car noise when one of the girls yelled, "oh my god there is a lion in there!" As the dust settled we saw it looking disappointed and hungrily staring at the zebras who had moved a surprisingly short distance away (about two street lengths), but were looking very concerned. Just when we thought that was the end of it, out of the dust we spotted another lion approaching. And another. And another. And another. They started circling the zebras and sitting down at intervals that were amazingly purposeful and organized. It was really interesting to watch them interact from so close up. You think of them as such vicious animals but they are actually very affectionate with eachother. In the end we didn't end up seeing them take down any zebras, but it was still pretty cool.
On day 4 we woke up early to see the sun rise over the Serengeti and drove to the Ngorongoro crater to spend our last day. Our Range Rover reached a new level of failure when it created a new exhaust pipe through the gear shifter. This was dealt with my stuffing wads of toilet paper into the cracks and then dumping a bunch of water on it. It wasn't exactly out of the mechanic's textbook, but I actually think it worked for a while. Despite the two broken back doors, one broken window, and the requirement to pour water into the engine every hour or so, it was pretty amazing they could still keep the 20 year old SUV running after years of driving on the rugged terrain (we got two flat tires over the course of the four days).
The Ngorongoro crater was amazing. I tried to take pictures but it was so huge that they were just a little stupid. You can't really capture it; I think you just have to be there. It makes you feel so small.
There are only about thirty rhinos living in the crater but we did manage to spot one from a distance. Even further away we spotted a cheetah and as we were driving away I kept looking back at it. I really felt like it was coming towards us, but it was hard to tell since it was so far away. Then it turned and even though it was only a dot in the distance, we knew without a doubt that it was a cheetah because nothing else could run that fast. Apparently they can get up to 120 km/h; this one must have been close to that.
On the way out of the crater, you first drive through a spooky looking forest that looks straight out of Snow White: dark, knobby, leafless trees with branches that curl out every which way. The rest of the drive looks like an enchanted forest. The trees are all dangling and sweeping the ground and everything is green and covered in tangled vines. With that around us and the Ngorongoro crater stretching out beyond we barreled up the side of the crater at 70 km/h with our heads waving in the wind, praying to god as we whipped around the cars that we didn't slip off the narrow dirt road. By the time I got home I had muscle pains in my hands from gripping the sides of the car, my hair was in a mess that took over an hour to brush out, and my whole upper body was covered in dirt from the wind (my hair brush turned black): totally worth it.
Pictures at:
Safari pictures
