Time flies

In the four months that we have left here in Tanzania, I find myself more busy than ever. There have been social events that we attend in town and I teach Monday - Thursday. My students have pretty much all arrived. Only a handful are still missing but I'm sure they will arrive soon. In my two classes, one seems to learning at a mush quicker pace than the other. At the beginning of this term all the Form I students were reshuffled again and the first 40 students who had the top averages were put into one class (Stream A) while the remaining bottom 40 were put into another (Stream B). It works out well actually as the top 40 students have done great in math and I am teaching them faster. For Stream A we will finish Algebra next week. However for Stream B we will probably finish the following week. For Stream B, unfortunately they probably will not cover the entire math syllabus but I'm hoping that they will gain a better understanding of the topics we do cover, rather than gain nothing and cover them all too quickly.

Russ is currently in the northern part of the country at an ICT conference and will return the following week. This leaves me home alone but my friends says they will keep me company. Next month we will go to our COS conference and discuss what we have been doing for the last 2 years and how we can look ahead, to life back in the states. In September we have been invited to help with the training of the next incoming education group to Tanzania. October and November we will stay put then travel to Dar for a few medical check-ups then leave Tanzania before Thanksgiving to travel for a month to Uganda, Ethiopia, and Egypt before spending Christmas in Hawaii with my family. I'm excited to be going home and seeing my family (who I have not seen in more than 2 years) before the end of this year.

"Winter break" is over

We have settled back into the PCV life again as our "winter break" is over and school has opened. I showed up at 7 am last Monday morning (the first day of school) only to find I was the only faculty member there with 30 or so A-level students. A few minutes later the academic master shows up and opens the administration office. Not a single O-level student arrived for the first day of school. This usually happens - the students (especially at boarding schools) don't arrive until a few days (or weeks) after the term starts. There are many factors as to why this happens. For one the students must pay their school fees before coming (or bring it with them) and that's a large amount of money they need all at once. Then on top of that they need money to travel to school. Starting July 1 the price of petrol/gas increased and therefore bus fares have increased. As an example from our site to Dar it used to be 8,000 Tanzanian shillings and now it's 10,000 T.sh. When many Tanzanians make less than 1,000 T.sh. per day it's difficult to pay just a little more. So I didn't teach at all last week. This week I finally had about half of the students I should have (about 40 out of 80 total) so I went into the classrooms and talked with them about their break and did a little review of Algebra, what we ended with last term.

Russ and I were invited to a circumcision celebration in a village. We rode our bikes out there and entered a drumming and dancing party. The boys in our tribe are circumcised when their father says they are ready. A bunch of boys usually from different families are all done together. They are circumcised then they live by themselves in a sort of fenced in area for a few days while the elders of the village teach them to become men. I didn't see any of the boys but Russ did enter the fenced in area and said they were covered in dried mud from head to toe with a cloth around their waists. They live like this for a few days, cooking their own food, then wash off the mud and re-enter the village as men.

Follow the Zebras

Chris Arrives

Our friend, Chris, left America to fly half way across the globe and spend a month with us in Tanzania. Since we didn't want to use vacation time to pick him up at the airport, and that Dar is expensive, we sent our good friend, Matayo, to pick him up and bring him to our town (just like when Russ's dad visited). Chris had quite the welcome party when he arrived as a bunch of PCVs were in town precisely when his bus arrived. I baked a cake for his arrival and also for Becky's birthday. Chris was doing well for travelling continuously for three days. He spent a week at our site trying different foods, taking some pictures, and going on a hike with Russ and Matayo. Unfortuneately Russ got sick half way through the week so I showed Chris around. I'm sure people thought Chris was my second husband. =) He brought and left a lot of great reading material that has kept us busy. I remember one dinner with Chris when we were eating corn on the cob, which was a gift from another teacher. It was boiled just like we would in the states. We each started to chow down on our half pieces when Chris realized it wasn't sweet American corn but tough, chewy, bland corn. He ate a few more bites then declared, "I can't eat this" and left the remainder on his plate. I guess after nearly two years I've gotten used to the corn that makes my jaw hurt after a few bites - and actually think it's good! Oh how my standards have changed.


Udzungwa Mountains National Park

John's flight arrived in Dar just after our bus did so we tried to find a taxi with a resonable price to downtown (6 km from the bus station). It was Russ's turn to negociate and the taxi drivers were giving him a hard time. We finally found a guy who would take us for 5,000/= (others were asking for 15,000/=). We hopped in the taxi and got off at the hotel while Russ continued on to the airport to pick up John. Chris, myself, and Angus (who was going home to visit his family in England) went and grabbed something to eat while we waited 2 hours for Russ and John to return. Someone didn't follow our advice of geting his VISA before arriving. =) We all went to bed early that night as the next day we were on a 7 am bus to Mang'ula, where the headquarters of Udzungwa Mountains National Park is located. That was quite a ride. We drove on tarmac road for 6 hours then on really bad, pot-holed, dirt road for 2 hours until we reached our destination in the middle of nowhere. Of course there were people standing in the aisle so we forced our way through to the door, as nobody moved out of the way, and got off covered in dust, thinking which dirt road to follow. We decided to go to the park headquarters first and we remembered seeing the sign just a few minutes before we got off the bus. On the way we saw a bunch of monkeys swinging in the trees gazing at us as we gazed back. The park fees were, for a 24-hour pass, $20 per person and a mandatory guide is $10 per group, and there was no camping gear available. I didn't think there was a lot of choice in terms of hiking trails. There were some 13 km trails, more advanced camping trails which spanded over a few days, and the waterfall trail which you needed to hire a driver to get to the start of the trail ($10 per group). We decided to book the Sanje Falls trail for the next day. The park ranger asked where we were staying and we said we haven't chosen a place but thought of trying the Twiga Hotel just down the road. He said it was under renovation so we walked to town and then through town to find a nice place to stay. Little did we know that there was a seminar taking place so all of the nicer hotels were fully booked. We settled on a hotel in town for 2,500/= a night for a double! That's about a dollar a person a night! The amenities of this lovely accomodations include: squat toilet and cold showers outside our rooms, "swiss cheese" mosquito nets, one roach, very loud truck horns at 4 am, and a crazy man yelling at 5 am. But seriously, the venue was alirhgt. It was run by Zula, a very nice, sweet woman, who looked after us like her own children. The next day we woke up and made our way back to the park headquarters. While walking we stopped at various chai (tea) shops to collect breakfast (chapati, donuts, water). We made it to the headquarters, paid our fees, hired a driver, and off we went. The Sanje Falls trail is a 5 km loop hike with a lot of elevation climbing. We saw lot of different species of monkeys and plant life. I thought I did surprisingly well for not being in shape. Our guide did a nice job of explaining things. We made it to the top of the waterfall and snacked on some dried fruit and nuts (thanks mom!), took some pictures of the rice and sugar cane fields below which continued as fas as the eye could see. We taught Chris and John a common greeting in Tanzania of "Mambo" with the reply of "Poa." They practiced non-stop! Out of the blue Chris would turn to John and say, "Mambo," and John (wait for it: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 seconds) would reply with a delayed "Poa." This happened the entire trip and the only thing that kept it interesting was counting how many seconds it took John to reply. Then we crossed the top of the waterfall in bitterly cold water and made our way to see the two much smaller falls. Chris and John dived right in to a pool of one of the falls while I took pictures of the "Minnesota Penguins." We then proceeded all the way down to the end of our hike. While waiting for our driver we stopped at a bar and drank cold sodas and water, or in John's case, a cold beer. When we got back to the headquarters we debated whether or not to spend another day in the park. The only other resonable option for us would be the 13 km hike which went up and down, up and down. We thought it wasn't worth another $20 each and I know I couldn't do it (although I encouraged the guys to go ahead) so we decided to return to Dar the next day. We bought bus tickets on our way back, grabbed a bite to eat, then relaxed until dinner. At dinner we were joined by our guide that day, whom we invited, and his friend, not invited but warmly welcome. We bought them meals and beers and called it a night. On our 1 minute walk back to our hotel we passed by a white pick-up truck. As John walked by we heard a loud scream and something surfaced out of the bed of the truck. John immediately screams back at the thing while raising both arms in defense. The thing turned out to be a goat with bounded legs trying to get our attention to release him. All of us cracked up laughing to the point of tears of the ridiculousness of the circumstances. Just mention "John's goat" to me and I get the giggles.


Dar es Salaam

The next morning we make our way to the main road buying donuts, chapatis, and the like for our anticipated 8-hour bus ride. Our bus was two hours late and while we waited Russ befriended a Maasai herding his cattle. When our bus finally arrived we shoved our way to the back of an already packed bus on bumpy dirt road to our seats. The bus made frequent 15-20 minute stops along the way so we didn't reach Dar until 5 pm or so. That night we had Summy's Street Chicken - a Dar favorite. The next day we took a short "ferry" ride (5 minutes on a freight-turned 500 passenger loading barge) ride to Kipepeo, a resort area with white sand beaches resembing the east side of Zanzibar. John went for a swim in the Indian Ocean, Chris played soccer with a local, and Russ and I chatted with another local. After a few hours of sun and sand we headed back downtown for lunch at Albasha, a lebanese restuarant, then chilled at the hotel until dinner at Retreat, a vegetarian Indian restaurant. The next day, Friday, we went to the PC office so I could get some cash from the safe and they guys could use internet and see where all the volunteers hang out in Dar. We had lunch, (pizza) at a very Western outside food court then walked half an hour over to another western shopping area for ice cream. On our way back we stopped at an art market to check out some paintings then back to town on a stuffed dala dala (minibus) in which Chris commented it was something like "playing twister" with 20 people in a small vehicle. Russ and I took a taxi to the airport and welcomed Hannah and Allison to Tanzania! Unfortunately Catherine, Russ's sister, missed her connection for the same flight so she would be arriving a day later. The girls say they were stuffed on the plane so they weren't as hungry as we were but had a little something to eat none the less. The next day Hannah, Allison, Chris, John, and myself took a bus to Moshi while Russ stayed in Dar to pick-up Catherine.


Moshi

The bus ride, using the bus comapny Dar Express, was the most safi-est (best) ride in Tanzania - even better than the luxury Scandinavia bus company. The seats were two and two (no middle seat), the cushions were soft, clean, wide, lots of leg room, overhead space, all windows functioned properly, seatbelts, and we got sodas, water, and candy. The only issue was that Chris and John had the very front seats, or as Chris put it "the ejection seats." However I told him to wear his seatbelt. There was a tv on the bus and at one point they showed a Tanzanian comedy that was way too loud and then gospel music videos. When we arrived in Moshi I lead our group to the YMCA and found our reservations got screwed up and it was completely full. It was eventually worked out and the boys each took a single room while us girls shared the double suite: two beds put together, our own bathroom, lounge area, and satellite tv. The boys went swimming in the pool while we waited for our safari company, Tanzania Journeys, to arrive for our pre-safari briefing. Our safari guide/driver, Amani, went over the itinerary with us. We knew we were camping and because tents were provided we thought sleeping bags were too. Apparently not. Chris and John brought sleeping bags but the rest of us didn't. Tanzania Journeys did some behind the scenes work and quickly "hired" 5 sleeping bags for us, each costing 10,000/= each for the entire safari. Russ was borrowing some gear from a friend about an hour outside Moshi and Tanzania Journeys went out of their way to get the gear, using their own vehicles, and didn't charge us a thing. After our meeting, we walked to town and met up with some PCVs for dinner and drinks. We returned to our rooms and us girls had a sleep-over - sharing one big bed and trying to talk through the unbelievably loud wedding music until it stopped at around midnight.


Lake Manyara

The next morning we met the rest of our safari "support group," and headed to Arusha to but water in bulk (apparently water is not included with food on safaris). We stopped at the campsite outside the park for a delicious lunch then entered Lake Manyara where we were greeted by Blue Monkeys close enough to touch! Amani said they were looking in our vehicle for food. By the way our safari vehicle was awesome! It seated 9 people, including the driver, and the roof opened for better viewing (we would say "transform" when we opened the top - that's what you get when 3 guys are giddie to see the upcoming Transformers movie). We followed the path to find other animals such as: mongoose (mongeese?), trumpeted hornbills, baboons, bushbucks, impalas (in bachelor herd), giraffes (Maasai species – the two other species are found in Kenya), yellow-billed and other storks, cattle egrets (on hippos), hippos, egyptian geese, warthogs, zebras, brown hornbills, monitor lizards, spoonbills, african fish eagles, wildebeests, dik diks, water buffalos, pelicans, elephants, and lesser bush babies. Thank you, Hannah, for writing down all of the animals we saw during the whole trip! As we stopped to take pictures of animals, we'd give Chris the best position as his professional SLR camera (with 4 different lenses) trumpted all of our point and shoot cameras combined. At one point we came across about 100 baboons just hanging around. At the Hippo Pool we learned of John's infacuation with hippos. We came within a few feet of an elephant grazing and witnessed a baby elephant "relieve itself." We all thought it was a great day and were thankful we were convinced to include it in our trip. Usually tour companies try to get you to spend more money on more things, right? Well, I didn't feel that way with Tanzania Journeys. We thought to save a little money we would not include Lake Manyara when originally booking. However, through recommendations from other PCVs and Tanzania Journeys we eventually added it, and were very happy we did. Back at Kiboko campsite we waited for Russ and Catherine to arrive before eating dinner. Tanzania Journeys was very accomodating to us and our supplies vehicle waited for Russ and Catherine to arrive in Moshi then took them straight to our campsite, not charging extra for the slight change in plans. We went to sleep with the sound of lesser bush babies screeching and jumping around in the trees above out tents.


Oldupai Gorge

The next morning we went on a village walk where we were greeted by enthusiastic children, who, after having their pictures taken, wanted to see themselves on the digital cameras. The villages we walked through were different from ours in that there was a banana forest and available water. When we were done with the tour we hopped into our transformer and drove to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Main Entrance. To get to Serengeti you need to drive around the Ngorongoro Crater Rim so we were entranced by the crater as we drove along. We stopped to eat a packed lunch on the rim before making our way past the crater and down the other side to Oldupai Gorge. The gorge itself wasn't that impressive. There's a visitor center with archealogical references to the site, a gift center, and a framed picture of Hillary and Chelsea Clinton of when they visited the gorge. We listened to a 10 minute speech about the uniqueness of the area and learned that the name Olupai came from the Maasai word for a local plant found in the area. Somehow the name got confused and the gorge is also called, incorrectly, Olduvai Gorge.


Endless Plains

Leaving the gorge I noticed that the land became very dry and flat. Amani said that all the thick ash from Ngorongoro created while it was still active blanketed in and around Serengeti National Park so that no trees could take root. It was quite amazing to look in all directions as far as the eye could see and still find to variation in elevation. The word Serengeti comes from the Maasai tribe and means Endless Plains. It was such a beautiful and awe inspiring place. We entered the park and saw thousands of Thompson’s gazelles, impalas, wildebeests, and hundreds of zebras and stopped occasionally for photographs. As the sun set the clouds in the sky became more photogenic and the temperature began to drop. We came to our unfenced Seronera campsite just as the sun set. Our tents were ready and waiting for us as well as hot drinks but no shower facility (it's being renovated). Dinner was awesome, as usual, with a soup started, spaghetti, ground beef stew with chapatis. All night I could hear the frog-like sounds of thousands of wildebeests all around, fearful that they would trample us as our campsite had no fence and no guard.

The next morning at breakfast there was talk about a hyeena walking around the campground sniffing tents at 4 am. We all gathered into the transformer, transformed, of course, and headed off to find animals. We first came across a group of baboons. One was munching on the head of a baby impala while another "got busy" with a female right in front of us. We saw a trail of wildebeests off in the distance all going south. Amani said the wildebeests should not be going south this time of year and that they were confused and would probably realize it when they discovered zebras going north, then change direction to follow the zebras. Apparently wildebeests are lost without zebras. Later that morning Amani found a male lion up in a cluster of rocks, who stood up, just for us, of course. Back to the campsite for lunch, then back to the park for more animal viewing. We passed the hippo pool, again, then made our way our next campsite, Ikoma, and all along the way stopping for giraffes, warthogs, zebras, a female lion just lying in the road, and joined the traffic jam to stare at a hard-to-see leopard sleeping in a far away tree. We had some good laughs at the campsite which had no shower facility (yet) and wooden toilets which obviously toursits had no idea how to use. The sunset was gorgeous that evening and again we fell asleep to the sound of wildebeests grazing in the nearby fields.

On our last day in the Serengeti we made more loops and eventually came across another leopard, this time we could see it better, and a cheetah. It was walking in a field, scarying the nearby wildebeests and impalas. We all thought it was hunting but Amani said it was walking to the shade of a tree. Amani got John's next banana for calling it right on! After lunch, which was always packed in reusable plastic containers (another thing we liked about Tanzania Journeys because all the other comapies used throw-away containers), we made our way to Simba Camp on the rim on Ngorongoro Crater.


Ngorongoro Conservation Area

The campsite was very cold but there were zebras all around and one grazing elephant. It was so cool to hear the zebras grazing just outside our tents and we fell asleep to the soothing sounds of zebras yanking grass out of the ground. =)

We desended into the hazy crater and cruized around for 6 hours getting much closer to wildebeests, zebras, hyenas, and water buffalos than we did in the Serengeti. We came across hyenas eating a freshly caught wildebeest, saw jackals bobbing up and down in the grasses as they ran, ostriches and lots of different birds. We had to drive along a road bordered by a mountain on one side and a cliff on the other which scared the girls, which made the guys laugh.

To sum up our safari, Tanzania Journeys did an amazing job and we liked the company's non-pushy ways, how they accomodated our change in plans, and the people who guided us knew their stuff and respected the land and made for one awesome safari. Tanzania Journeys: highly recommended. Lake Manyara, Serengeti, Ngorongoro: real wonders of the world.


Zanzibar

Skipping ahead to Zanzibar...While Chris, Russ and John went to climb Mount Kilimanjaro (I'm sure they'll blog about that), Catherine, Hannah, Allison, and I went to Zanzibar. The ferry ride there was alright and went we got to Stonetown we were followed and bothered by guys trying to get us to stay at their hotels or advertise companies. We found a nice hotel (with AC, tv, and right in Stonetown) called Chavda and Hannah, Allison, and Catherine paid for the rooms (thanks, gals!) and it was really special to be treated to such conveniences. We booked Mr. Mitu's Spice Tour for the next day and then got lost in Stonetown. We had fresh lobster, shrimp, fish, for dinner at Foradhani Gardens and snacked on the famous Zanzibar Pizza (fried pastry of ground beef, egg, cheese, mayo, with a salad on top) before going to bed. The spice tour was lead by the same guy I had last time and we did the same things but I still enjoyed seeing, smelling, and tasting: elephant apple (hair gel fruit),
custard apple (soursop), henna plant (leaves), curry plant leaves (not the same as curry spice mix), three types of coconut, durian (smelly one), vanilla bean vine, cassava root, cardamom plant, clove trees, coffee plants, cinnamon bark, lemongrass, turmeric root (like ginger), pepper (white, green, black, red from same plant), nutmeg, lipstick plant, ylang ylang flowers, breadfruit, and jack fruit. And of course the lunch was the best part! Later that day we did some shopping and bought scarves and other trinkets. We took the ferry back to Dar the next day and then ate at Addis in Dar, an ethiopian restaurant, before heading to our house the following day.


Site visit and back to America

So while the guys were still on the mountain, us girls went back to our site for a few days. I showed them around and had them meet our Tanzanian friends then Hannah got sick. Her tonsils were inflamed and she had a 102 fever, at first, then 104.3, and her temperature fluctuated between 101 and 104 for 24 hours scarying all of us. I kept talking with my mom, a nurse, who said it sounded like strep throat, so we bought some penicilin in town for 3 cents a pill and she started taking it.

We met the guys back in Dar then went to craft markets where everyone picked up some souveniers, including a 30-pound wooden hippo, named Tina, which John bought. All of our friends got on their planes alright and arrived back home in America safely. We were so happy to have you guys visit us and miss you already! Special thanks to Hannah and Catherine for taking back loads of our stuff! We'll be seeing you guys next year!

Pictures are slowly being uploaded to our gallery...

Amazing month

While I'm still working on a very long blog post about the last amazing month and going through my photos to post, check out John, Hannah, Catherine, Allison, and (coming soon) Chris's photos.