Rules of the Road...

If I or someone I know does not get hit by a moving vehicle while I’m here in Tanzania I will be incredibly impressed.It’s amazing how much I took for granted the basic principle of rules of the road.  Pass on the left, use your turn signals, stop at stop signs, pedestrian have the right of way...and so on.  Surprisingly even with the lack of regulations (I’ve only ever seen a police office watching a road twice, one who was creating a toll..i.e. making the taxi drivers bribe their way through... on the way to the snorkeling adventure, and when the President of Tanzania was in Bagamoyo) I have only seen one accident.  But here are some of the more interesting sights I’ve seen regarding the road...

Piki pikis (motorcycles) are perfectly good mini-vans and pick-up trucks.  I’ve seen a father riding with his wife and two children on a piki piki.  Mom sits sideways on the back with one little one in front of her, Dad sits in front of him, and the baby (maybe 2 years old) sits in the front with its hands on the handle bars looking like he’s driving.  I have also seen a piki piki carrying a load of 2x4s that would definitely need a pick up back home.

While sitting in a traffic jam in Dar, I saw several dala dalas (public buses) just turn and drive over to the sidewalk (dirt path where people and stands are walking/sitting although I use sidewalk here very loosely) and start making their way toward their destination that way.  It caused mayhem for a couple of seconds before the traffic jam just extended to the sidewalk and now instead of a two lane standstill we had a three lane standstill.

Pedestrians never have the right of way.  Unless you are willing to be run over (and I have now come close to being clipped by the mirrors of piki pikis and almost had my toes run over by a dala dala) it is your job as the pedestrian to get out of the way...even if you think you’re on the “sidewalk.”

While taking a dala dala home from Dar one weekend my friend Lauren were given seats on the dashboard of the bus and the driver had to keep craning his neck to attempt to see his mirror around us.

I would recruit stunt motorcycle drivers from Tanzania, they have no fear and they never go slower than 50 miles an hour (even through the heart of town.)

Getting ready to Peel Banana  

Mango Day

Cookie day!

Thanks to a generous donation by my parents I have been able to buy the kids at AMAP treats twice a week.  We started out with banana Fridays...we taught the kids the chant “Peel Banana, Peel Peel Banana...Go Bananas, Go Go Bananas” which they all go crazy for and now every time they want to sing it (which is pretty much all day) they either show me their banana (hands cupped together high over   their heads) or they get this sheepish grin on their faces and they go “Madam...Peel Banana” and then giggle with huge smiles on their faces.  It’s so cute. 

And the bananas are a huge success as well!  One of the crazy things to learn here is that there is very little concern about trash cans.  Trash piles up in the streets there are impromptu dumps all over the town.  So it’s really funny to watch the kids finish              

their bananas.  Rather than look for a trashcan (something we teach kids in the States almost immediately) the either drop the peel or throw it over their shoulder into the kid behind them or walk a few steps out of the classroom and chuck it as hard as they can.  At times this is hysterical, but also very sad.  This country is beautiful, but the amount of untreated trash everywhere really destroys the landscape.

After two success with bananas we changed it up and brought the kids cookies.  Another great day!  They are so funny about snack and treats.  Some gobbled them right up, others ate them like we’d eat an oreo...twist open the two sides, eat the center, and then smash the two ends back together.  Others would horde them away into their backpacks for later and still others would nibble a little at a time so that their cookies would last them all throughout the rest of class.

Mango day was a riot...every single one of the kids enjoyed their slices of mango down to the very core but the best part was that every single one of them was a sticky mess.  Their fingers, their faces, their clothes...everything.  We were probably their mom’s worst nightmare (since all clothing is washed by hand here).  But it was worth it...especially when we realized that we had enough to give out seconds and feed the mommas (wonderfully ladies who wash all the children’s dishes and always prepare their meal for them) as well.

Today we brought all the kids a juice box of mango juice (mango is the common theme because they are about to go out of season here).  Juice boxes were the most interesting snack to watch them take on.  First there is the challenge of the straw, getting it out of the paper and then placing it properly into the bow at the assigned spot.  Next, because we had the juice frozen overnight to keep it cold while it sat waiting to be eaten some of the boxes had a slush like consistency that the kids found so interesting.  Finally for those with just juice they were so cute trying to get every last drop of juice...even ripping the boxes open to inspect the inside to make sure that the box was in fact finished with juice.

On Thursday we’re taking them pineapple...

 Sauti za Busara

What an amazing music festival.  Acts from all over east Africa, people from all over the world, with two new fantastic friends...life couldn’t get much better.  Music ranged from traditional to more modern works but everything was so incredible to watch.  It’s not like being at any American concert or festival...there are no special effects, no stage changes even between acts, no frills, just pure talent on stage for the masses to enjoy.  It was incredible.  One of the coolest parts was getting to show off our resident status with resident festival badges that we wore around all weekend.  Yep that’s me...a resident of Tanzania...no big deal ha! It was great.  The second coolest part was seeing a ton of people that we knew from Bagamoyo at the festival.  So not only did we have badges that said resident but we felt like residents because we knew our way around and there were so many familiar people around.

My favorite performance of the weekend was Muthoni The Drummer Queen from Kenya.  She sang, she rapped in English and Swahili and sometimes would alternate between both in the same line, she played the drums, she danced, she made the crowd interact with her performance by dancing and singing along...she was incredible!  In the middle of the act she gave a mini speech to introduce her next song all about believing in your dreams.  She asked the crowd, “How many of you know those people who have boring jobs that they hate and all they really              

                                        want is to go and follow their dream?” A bunch of people put their hands up and she goes “Don’t be one of those.” The conviction in her voice made you really believe her, it made you believe that she was following her dreams and that she really wanted everyone in the crowd to follow theirs.  She was so great!

Auggie and the rest of our snorkeling crew!

Fleeting Encounters

"Oh, there are so many lives.  How we wish we could live them concurrently instead of one by one by one.  We could select the best pieces of each, stringing them together like a strand of pearls.  But that's not how it works.  A human life is a beautiful mess."

                                      Gabrielle Zevin

I have been absolutely blown away by the awesome people I’ve met while traveling.  Each and everyone of them has been so cool, whether they’ve been following their dream, saving the world, making a return trip to a beautiful place, or all of the other reasons for their appearance in the same place as me I’ve met some truly incredible people.

Ken and Alex lounging on the beach.

Ana Maria: I met on the plane here.  She works for the UN in the Sudan and was on her way back after spending some time in New York.  Originally from Mozambique she’s lived and travelled all over the world, speaks five languages, has a daughter my age who she just advised to take a semester off to find herself (so cool), and believes in peace for the Sudan she’s just not sure she’ll see it in her life time.  When she found out that I was a volunteer she told me about really cool volunteer opportunities through the UN and gave me her phone number and email address and told me that if I ever found myself in Mozambique I must contact her so that she can set it up for me to stay with her family.

Kenn: I met in Zanzibar on my second visit there.  He’s from Denmark and is currently traveling the world researching soccer training regiments because he’s really interested in youth soccer and one day hopes to right a book and open a training school in Dar es Salaam for individuals who want to work on both their futbol skills and also continue their education.  Kenn’s in his mid 40’s and he left a computer tech job in Denmark where he made a ton of money to follow his dream of opening this school.  

Stephen and I in the pilot and co-pilot seats!!!!

Alex: I met in Zanzibar on my second visit there.  She is originally from Barcelona Spain and recently moved to Zanzibar to manage the hotel that I was staying in.  Only 22 she said that she and her three best friends decided that they all wanted to do something different so they all spread out.  One is in New York City, one is in Belgium Germany, one stayed in Barcelona, and she made her way to Zanzibar.  (Kinda reminds me of four other best friends...).  She said she wasn’t totally sure if this was where she wanted to end up, but for now she was loving her time in Zanzibar, she had a good job, and she got to wake up on a beautiful island everyday...life can’t get much better than that.

Stephen: Our pilot from Dar to Zanzibar.  Since the plane we took only had six seats I got to sit in the co-pilot seat and Stephen taught me everything there is to know about flying planes (or at least what all the controls meant).  Originally from Tanzania, but he lived in the states for over 10 years spending most of his time in Maryland where he went to college.  He said he moved back because flying between Dar and Zanzibar meant he would get to fly smaller planes which are more fun to fly than the big jet liners.    He was so nice and gave us his phone number saying that any time we need a pilot to just call him. 

Auggie: I met on the first trip to Zanzibar.  He was one of the divers on the snorkeling trip.  Originally from Argentina, he followed his wife, who is volunteering, to Zanzibar and has been spending his time getting his master diving certification.  So funny, he and the other master diver who was local kept all of us laughing even when Kit and I got slightly seasick.

Alex: I met on the second trip to Zanzibar.  Alex had been to Tanzania a few years ago, teaching English in Dar for seven months and enjoyed the country so much that he decided to holiday here for two weeks.  Originally from England, he had a fantastic accent, was incredibly sarcastic, and really knew his way around so it was really fun to hang out with him for a few days.  However, he did make all of us feel really bad about our lack of swahili skill with his superior ability to communicate with the locals.

Woman from Snorkeling:  I really wish I could remember her name but she’s originally from Greece and said she ended up in Zanzibar because she was bored at home and was looking for a change and that the moment life in Zanzibar stopped being fun she’d make another change...how cool is that!

Even if I never see a single one of these people again it’s really cool to think that our paths have crossed and that sometime in the distant future we might have a fleeting thought about one another again.  Regardless of how brief the encounter there is always the possibility that the connection will have a lasting impact...amazing.

Tuma

Guards carry guns, wear uniforms, and are typically a bit intimidating.  Tuma isn’t any of the above but he’s my favorite guard on the compound.  He has one of those personalities that draws people in...everyone loves him, he’s easy to talk to, funny, genuine, and very approachable.  If any one of the volunteers needs help buying bananas so that we don’t get ripped off with a muzungo price we take Tuma, when Lauren can’t sleep (which is frequently) she goes out and hangs out with Tuma, when we have a question about town or how to get somewhere we ask Tuma, he is the perfect kaka mkubwa (big brother).

He also has a pretty amazing story as well.  Born in Kilimanjaro Tanzania, the eldest of three brothers Tuma has been expected to take care of his family since the age of 12 when his father died.  At 12 I was still going to summer camp and trying to figure out which counselors were dating each other not trying to figure out the best source of employment to find to support my family.  But now at the age of 23 Tuma has a good job (although it is one where he has to work 7 days a week, there are no holidays, and days off are only granted if you’re sick...like you have malaria, not like you have a chest cold and just don’t feel like going to work/class) he’s been able to make enough to send his two younger brothers to school, send himself to school part time and send money to his mother who still lives in Kilimanjaro.  Hearing him talk about how much he misses his family is probably the hardest part of listening to Tuma’s story.  He hasn’t seen his mother in a long time and since Kilimanjaro is over a 10 hour bus ride to Bagamoyo unless she’s able to come here it is almost impossible for him to see her.  Even seeing his brother who is only a few hours away in Dar is difficult.  The only time he can get there is when he’s on the night shift and a visit to his brother means not sleeping that day in preparation for work so that he can make his way there and back.

 There are so many people who have a Tuma like story, and it’s amazing how none of them believe that someone or something out there owes them anything for the hardships they’ve suffered.  Tuma’s story is the perfect example of the self made man and his also one of the happiest, most easy going people I’ve ever met as well.  It’s hard  to think about all the complaining I’ve done in my life when my story doesn’t even begin to compare to the people I’ve met here.  It seems like everyday I find a new reason to be thankful for what I have and the people in my life...so thanks everyone I am very grateful for everything in my life including all of you! 

Jacob with the quilt..which he loved!!!

Jacob

The whole family!

Finally after being in Tanzania for 3 weeks and multiple attempts to find days and times to meet up Jacob and I finally got to see each other on Saturday!  I took a bus into the airport where we met up and we saw each other from across the airport and both got huge smiles on our faces and hugged and there was a lot of “Dudes” and “I’m so excited to see you!”  It’s amazing how friendship works, even though I haven’t seen him in over a year its like nothing has changed.  He’s still the awesome person I meet two summers ago we spent a wonderful day together like no time had passed at all!

After our greeting Jacob took me on my first dala dala ride (dala dala’s are the buses here where they pack them full to the brim similar to subway cards) to get to his neighborhood.  Quite the experience especially in Dar es Salaam where traffic rivals that found in New York City but there are very few established rules of the road so everything is just a ridiculous jokey for position.  On the ride we talked about my volunteer placement and his classes (currently undergraduate students at Dar University are on strike because inflation has caused the cost of living to go up but the student’s stipends have not increased and there is a lot of unrest.  Police opened fire on a group of protesters and hauled a bunch off to jail and used tear gas on huge crowds.  If the students strike for more than three days in a row that sets the entire semester back by about two months so Jacob is hoping for a peaceful resolution quickly).  Jacob is really enjoying his studies, which is a mixture of public policy and sociology, but he finds that it’s really tough being a student and a new father but he is working hard at both jobs.

Once we got to his house where he and Salome rent two rooms we sat down and I gave him the quilt everyone from Kirchenwald helped make...he absolutely loved it!  (which I had no doubt that he would loved...for as long as I’ve known him he’s been a sucker for sentimental stuff).  He immediately called Salome in from the other room so that she could look at it and they discussed how’d they’d rearrange the furniture in the one room so that they could hang it on their wall!

Having the opportunity to meet Salome and Carin was incredible!  Salome is so sweet and is about to restart he nursing internship now that she has recovered from the c-section she had with Salome.  We sat and looked through Jacob and Salome’s wedding photo albums and then I got to hold baby Carin for awhile.  She is the tiniest cutest baby ...at only two months old she weighs about 5kg and is as long as my forearm, she’s so little and so cute!  Her birthday is November 30th and her name means a combination of love/hope/peace in Jacob and Salome’s vernacular language (everyone in Tanzania learns their vernacular language from birth, then has to learn Swahili to go to school, and then has to learn English if they want to continue onto Secondary school).  Jacob and Salome are the cutest proud parents, it was really nice to see.  I think they are both stressed about being new parents and having to finish up school but they seem to be handling it well.  Jacob sings the song “You Are the Light of The World” to Carin at night when she’s falling asleep...so precious!

Salome and baby Carin :)

After introductions and chatting Salome served a traditional Tanzanian lunch (which normally get’s served between 1 and 2 o’clock here) of rice, potatoes, beef in a stew like sauce, and the vegetable that looks like spinach but is called something else here.  And even though I have been a very strict vegetarian since arriving and I can’t actually remember the last time I ate beef I was an excellent guest and ate everything on my plate (I’m sure my parents will be shocked to hear this news). 

Once we finished lunch, Jacob asked me if I wanted to go to the largest mall in all of Tanzania...I said sure and we said goodbye to both Salome and Carin and headed for the mall.  Which was in act very large and very touristy.  The inside housed a store that looked exactly like a grocery store in the U.S. and a store that was very similar to Wal-Mart as well as a movie theater, a fast food store, and lot’s of other places that were very unlike the Tanzania I’ve been experiencing for the last 3 weeks.  It was also kind of a shock as well to not be a minority in this store, about half of the people looked like native Tanzanians while the other half looked like they were “out of towners.”  Spending the last 3 weeks typically being the only white person unless traveling in a group with the other volunteers it was a little weird to be surrounded by so many people that “looked” like me and kept wondering what they were all doing in Tanzania.  While at the mall we stopped in the grocery store to pick up diapers for Carin, and then we headed to the Wal-Mart like store and walked through the camping section and reminisced about K-Wald.  We saw a boy with longish hair, with a headband, and had Birkenstocks on and he goes...”Oh wow he kind of looks like Sioma!”...hysterical...  We found a dutch oven and talked about how good cherry cobbler is made on the fire.  He also wanted to know whether or not a bunch of his campers were back at camp this summer...I was able to inform him about a few.  The funniest part of the days was when he broke out into “Da Moose Song” (the annoying one not the fun one) really loud in the middle of the store and then burst out laughing when he realized that a bunch of people were looking at him.

Getting to hold sleeping baby Carin!!

To everyone that told me to say hello to Jacob he says hi back.  He really does miss the states and K-Wald and would love to be able to bring his whole family over someday for awhile.  Salome especially would love to work as a nurse in the states.  Before we parted for the day we made plans to meet up again a couple more times before the end of my trip to visit the orphanage he use to volunteer at, to go to the 

church that he and Salome were married in and to go to Dar and have me sit in on some of his classes (hopefully my swahili will be much better by then)...The whole day was incredible I couldn’t stop smiling he is such an awesome person to be around!  We both kept saying how crazy it was that we were together, in Tanzania, hanging out...what a crazy life this is :)

 Locals Perspective

Lauren and I in the prison ha

“Oh yea because you live in the muzungu prison.”  Frequently the locals that we meet on our cultural adventures or through our placements or just hanging out around town will ask us to go for a drink or go to a playing of local music and just about every time we have to say no because through the CCS program we have a curfew of 10pm whenever we’re sleeping at the CCS house.  This is in place for our safety because in certain parts of town, like the beach or in certain neighborhoods, late at night there is a considerable amount of drug use.... buuuutttt 10pm seems a little ridiculous when someone who CCS knows and we know from working at placements with ask us to a cultural event and we’re not allowed to go (and this is coming from the girl who had an 11pm curfew the summer after her freshman year of college because mommy and daddy didn’t like that I was dating a boy 4 years older).  I totally get the safety aspect, it was one of the reason I choose the CCS program, because I knew that it would be a really safe way to travel by myself and would hopefully ease some of my parents’ worries.  But when they start calling it a muzungu (which means white person but is in fact used as a not very nice word most of the time) prison it seems like there is a bit of over-protectiveness going on here.

This idea that we are so separated from the community also seems to hinder CCS’s whole purpose...to create a community where cultural exchange is easily feasible and there is a shared absorption of the locals culture as well as the sharing of the volunteers culture.  But let’s face it, TIA (this is Africa), as one local put it so eloquently and if we’re not going to get the full experience what was the point of coming all the way here.