Tight-Tushied Warthogs

Hi friends! I'm back in Arusha after an AMAZING week on safari :) As you can probably tell from the tone of my previous post, the last few days of homestay before we left were really emotional. On Friday, we had a Baba Jack “lecture” about power. He had us read, “To hell with good intentions,” a speech by Ivan Illich addressing the problems with Westerns travelling to other countries with intention of helping. It is definitely a worthwhile read, but be prepared to feel angry, claustrophobic, powerless, and frustrated. http://www.swaraj.org/illich_hell.htm

Safari was a much needed break from upsetting unanswerable questions. Last Sunday morning we left for Tarangire National Park, one of Tanzania's 16 conservation areas that in total cover 34% of the country. Within minutes of entering the park, we were greeted by a bachelor herd of elephants, a family of three twiga (giraffe), and a sounder of warthogs! Warthogs are probably the funniest wildlife to watch. They have short legs but run fast with their tail sticking straight up in the air like an antenna. Babu Leeky told us the reason for this adaptation is so they are easier to follow, but the last one in line always also has his tail up. They have really tight butts, unexpected for a general pudgy animal. I always laugh when these silly creatures appear. After arriving at our campsite, we set up our tents under a massive baobab tree. I like looking at the baobabs almost as much as the wildlife. They are majestic solitary trees – there is no such thing as a baobab forest – and they trunks often form interesting shapes due to the elephants that rip off their juicy bark to eat during the dry season. That evening we went on our first game drive. We had barely left the campsite when we ran into a huge troupe of baboons! Baboons are never boring to watch – they are always busy playing, grooming each other (which is a bonding activity between males and females), and trying to mate. Yesterday I even saw a baboon licking another one's butthole. Mmm. On that drive we also got to see elephants, impala, giraffes, more tight-tushied warthogs, and a ton of cool birds. I had a huge permasmile on my face.

The next day we began our field studies. We (the students) are spilt into four groups: ruminants, non-ruminants, elephants, and birds. I am in the ruminant group. A ruminant is an animal with a complex digestive system involving four stomach compartments. Basically they eat one time, digest it, regurgitate the food back into its mouth, chew it again, and digest it again. This allows them to obtain more nutrition from their food and prevents them from being eaten at Shabbat dinners (they're non-kosher). Some examples of ruminants are giraffe, gazelles, wildebeests, a variety of antelopes species, and cape buffalo. Non-ruminants encompass all other species (primates, zebras, big cats). I'm really happy to be in the ruminant group because I'm learning a ton about animals that I wouldn't normally focus on because some of them are hard to distinguish. The first morning we just did a basic scan – identifying species, counting the individuals, and determining the type of herd. Most ruminant herds are either bachelor (all male), or breeding (all female with calves and one dominant male, also a called a harem). We were lucky to see both types of gazelles, a ton of impala and giraffe, a hartabeest, and a species I had never heard of but now love, the waterbuck. They kind of look like donkeys but are bigger, and have herds of all females which our group has named Book Clubs. When we got back from the drive we presented our information to the group and heard about what they saw, then ate lunch and had a siesta. In the middle of the day it is too hot for all animals to move around. We then went on another general game drive in the afternoon on which we saw a lion! It was sitting on a tree branch in a valley below the road my safari car was on. While I was excited to see the lion then, I was not so excited to hear a deep growl near our campsite as I was falling asleep. The next our camp cook, Oakley, told us he saw three sets of green eyes near our campsite. Green eyes only belong to carnivorous animals. It was the first time I've had to create an escape plan in case of a lion-tent attack. My best idea was to throw my pack at it. Luckily, lions don't usually eat people.

The next few days basically followed the same schedule. We woke up for breakfast at 7 am, did a morning drive with the ruminant group, doing different types of data collection, presented the data, ate lunch, siesta-ed, and went out again in the evening. While you would think looking at wildlife for six hours a day could get boring, it hasn't at all. Learning a lot about the animals makes me appreciate spotting and observing them even more, and I can't help but think about the parallels between animal behaviour and human behaviour. I also frequently imagine what it would be like if humans behaved like some of the animals we have seen. For example, the dik dik, a type of antelope which is ridiculously cute. It is one of the only species in the savannah ecosystem that pair-bond for life (they are monogamous); this is probably because their average life span is three years, and their lifespan is so short because their defense mechanism in the presence of predators is to freeze on the spot. I keep picturing what it would be like if people suddenly froze when they were scared or anxious.I have also been wondering what it is like for the wildlife to see us driving around in safari cars. Do they think we are a new species of really fast, noisy, and smelly beings?

Being in the park has also made me really consider the idea of humans as animals. While the idea of a national park created solely for the purpose of preserving “pristine wilderness” that excludes all human settlements (many communities of Maasai were evicted from the area of Tarangire) implies that humanity is intrinsically separate from true nature, there is nothing like an elephant coming a little too close to the safari car to remind us that we are completely a part of the chain of life, not on top.

One highlight from the few days we spent in Tarangire occured as we were driving to Tarangire Lodge to hang out for the afternoon and judge the tourists and the concept of high-end tourism. We saw three twiga by the side of the road but didn't slow down because the top of the car was down and we were all seated. Normally, when we drive by animals either run away or become vigilant but do not move. This time one of the giraffes starting running with the car. I know there are no words to describe the elegance and majesticness of a giraffe moving at full speed or why I felt tears well up in my eyes. It was one of those purely sensual moments and I wish I could share my visual memory of it with everyone.

The next day we left Tarangire to head to a town called Mto wa Mbu. The name of the town translates to Mosquito River because the town was originally all swamp. We pitched our tents in a public campsite in town and spent the afternoon on a cultural tour. We learned about the rice and banana fields, visited local carvers and painters, and tasted local banana beer. Our tour guide really emphasized how Mto wa Mbu was a place where many tribes and religions live together and harmony, which was strange considering that we heard gunshots and screams outside the campsite during dinner. We found out the next day that a Muslim in the town had been accused of a crime and beaten to death. That night the Muslim community was gathering to protest and police officers fired shots to disperse the crowd. One of the most frustrating aspects of being a student here so far has been the insincerity of some of the Tanzanian's opinions. In both focal groups, I felt like the locals were responding to our questions the way they thought they should. For example, when I asked a group of men what their ideal woman was like, they gave the stock answer that her values and respect of others is most important. I was looking for a vivid visual description (big/small boobs? long/short hair? chubby/thin?), but clearly none of them thought it was appropriate. I hope as I spend more time here and begin to do research, I will begin to break through this communication barrier and have real deep conservations.

Mto wa Mbu is ten minutes away from Lake Manyara National Park where we went for a game drive the next day. Lake Manyara is really cool because it is part dense tropical forest and part flat grassland. There is also a hippo pool where we could get out of the cars and watch. Personally, I'm not so turned on by the hippos but it was pretty funny when one farted. The coolest thing we saw there was a stampede of cape buffalo, wildebeests, and zebra!! It was absolutely breathtaking, and all the herds ran towards the largest herd of giraffe we'd seen yet! There was also the darkest giraffe we'd seen – darker skin means the giraffe is older. The black giraffe was a seriously wise looking babu(grandfather). Okay, I'm really out of time (the cafe is closing, oops). I miss and love everyone a lot. :)

A baobab tree :)

Animal bones at Ndarakwai.

The treehouse by the watering hole where we watched warthogs frolick and the sunset.

Not sure if you can see this, but the small brown thing beside the river is a warthog, and there is a herd of zebra behind him. 

My baby kaka (brother) Deonis. Smushiest face ever. 

Goat Cake

Goat friend.

The view of Mt Meru from my homestay house.

Big elephants (tembo in Kiswahili). They are taller than the safari cars and this one was less than 15 feet away!

Impala 

The thorns of an acacia tree. These trees are everywhere! And animals like giraffe have adapted leathery tongues so they can eat the leaves around the thorns. 

It's because you're so white.

Hello! I'm in Arusha for the day before leaving for a safari in Tarangire National Park and Lake Manyara. While I've LOVED the homestay this far, I'm excited about camping again. This time I only packed one t-shirt and one pair of pants/shorts (the zip-off ones ;)) to wear. It's been raining pretty hard here recently – some people think the rain season has started unusually early – so we're all hoping our tents hold out.

Since my last entry was cut short, I want to catch up a bit. About a week ago we had another Baba Jack led lecture about two readings. One was a couple chapters out of Dead Aid, by Dambisa Moyo. Her main point is that macro-scale aid is actually perpetuating Africa's poverty by supporting corruption, stimulating inflation, and creating a psychology of dependency and inferiority (this is really summarized). The other reading was by James Ferguson. He discusses the amoralization of economic discourse. A great example he provides in Lawrence Summers' declaration that it is economically efficient to dump our waster into developing countries. I agree with him that the whole concept of “efficiency” is sterile, cold, and devoid of any sense of humanity. While I had read Dead Aid before, reading the articles together made me re-evaluate my initial acceptance of Moyo's stance. The fact is she herself uses the same amoral economic language to prove her point. She even uses Pinochet's Chile as a good example of a dictator helping a country achieve growth. Clearly, she still cares more about economic growth than people's lives. I would never wish a dictator like Pinochet on any nation. Ferguson's article also talks about how the West is associated with individuality while African society prioritizes social relations. However, I think that recent African history has shown that many African leaders (i.e. The Big Men) have acted purely in their own self-interest, pursuing Western images of wealth and power at the expense of their people. Even on a smaller scale, it seems like many Africans (I should just say Tanzanians, or even Bangatans because these are the people I am really interacting with) admire America. Everything about it. For example, when we had a focal group about development and aid with 5 Bangatans, we asked what they thought about American foreign policy. They responded that they thought it was good because America intervened in international conflicts when countries needed help. We then asked directly whether they thought the US acts for its own benefits or for the benefits of the other country, and the group unanimously agreed that the US always acted selflessly. All the students in the group were shocked. I was scared – is the US actually successfully bullshitting people around the world about their foreign policy? Yikes.

So, when we all came together to talk with Baba Jack, I mentioned my disturbance at the idea that Africans themselves are now driving the bus towards Westernization. If this is true, who are we to come here and discourage their pursuit of economic wealth and adaption of Western culture. This led me to the idea that African who don't have money equate it with happiness (I mean cash – most goods such as food are traded without money, it is almost unnecessary in village life yet everyone seems to need more), but to people who do have it is so clear that money does not equal happiness. Excess cash in Bangata seems to go to goods like nicer clothes and electricity, luxuries compared to the needs of others in the rest of the country. I should mention that Bangata is in the top 25% of the country's income and is not really representative. The whole thing about this that really moved me though was the fact that I was thinking and saying these things was only possible because I come from a place of privilege. I feel like I know that happiness is more than material goods, but am I wrong? I can never completely understand the view that money is happiness because I've never needed to. It really hit me the innate otherness that I will always carry with me in Tanzania. I will always be a mzungu, and being a mzungu gives me power I didn't ask for and can't get rid of. All of this is really heavy, and though I can't consider anything I'm doing studious, I feel like I'm always thinking and it's nice because it's about things that I care about.

I also finished reading The Doors of Perception, which was a really interesting compliment to my experience. Here are some cool quotes:

“Literary or scientific, liberal or specialist, all our education is verbal and therefore fails to accomplish what it is supposed to do. Instead of transforming children into fully developed adults, it turns out students of natural sciences who are completely unaware of Nature as the primary fact of experience, it inflicts upon the world students of the humanities who know nothing of humanity, their own or anyone else's.” - I guess this is what this semester's “experiential” learning is all about, and this was nice reminder to teach us through our senses and interactions

“To be shaken out of the ruts of ordinary perception, to be shown for a few timeless hours the outer and the inner world, not as they appear to an animal obsessed with survival or to a human bring obsessed with words and notions but as they are apprehended, directly and unconditionally, by Mind at Large – this is an experience of inestimable value to everyone and especially the intellectual.” - Word. This seems really similar to the goal of religious meditation and also Sartre's description of existentialist nausea. Is the desire to explore our consciousness inborn and eternal? Huxley elaborates on how we “take refuge from inner and outer reality in the homemade universe of common sense – the strictly human world of useful notions, shared symbols and socially acceptable conventions.” I like this image a lot and I think that because I have been surrounded by things, speaking a language, interacting with people, and eating food that has been completely foreign to me up until now, I do not have any labels or symbols of reference for them. This has really helped me just experience things as they are. Sometimes it's so overwhelming, I think I'm going to explode, in a good way of course.

This Thursday we had another focal group about culture and gender. It was REALLY interesting and I'm fascinated by perceptions of love and sexuality here. I'm thinking of studying this for my Independent Study Project at the end of the semester. I'm out of time again, oops. I'll be back in Bangata after a week of bonding with giraffes, which I am now sure are my spirit animal (I switched over to a gazelle for a while, but now I'm back to giraffe). And, because I feel like this post has been pretty heavy, here are some pictures of the trip thus far. Lots of love :)  

This is a cool tree we learned about in Ndarakwai. If you throw a rock at it, it bleeds a milk that is enjoyed by baboons, but poisonous to humans.

The peak of Kilimanjaro from the top of the hill we hiked in Ndarakwai.

Playing with the orphan elephant in Ndarakwai! Normally people aren't allowed near them let alone touch them, but the rangers must have been in a good mood and let us :)

The door to my family's kitchen building.

Mama Dori! The best mama in Bangata. She sings while she cooks. We look at each other and start laughing for no reason. When I told her I did well on my Kiswahili quiz, she was so happy I felt like one of her actual children. Ninapenda Mama Dori.

Our sitting room.

That's all for now because it takes a century for each picture to upload. P.S. The title of this post comes from a funny experience yesterday. My homestay cousin, a 23-year-old studying animal production in Arusha, brought over a 2-year-old mtoto (baby/child). She set her down to play with me but the child looked at me with eyes filled with fear and hid behind my cousin. When I asked my cousin why the baby was scared of me, the title was her answer.

Goat Cake

Hi friends! I don't have a ton of time right now, so this will be a pretty short update. Right now, we're in town for the day to practice our Swahili. In the morning we went to the central market to buy fruits and vegetables, and stopped in a cafe for a snack! The market really reminded me of the Arab Market in Jerusalem - the smells, the crowded booths, the shopkeepers trying to get you into their shop. A favourite phrase here is "To look is free." It was overwhleming but also nostalgic :).

For the past week I have been up in Bangata with my wonderful homestay family. I feel like I should explain more about them. Mama and Baba Dori have three kids all of whom live in Arusha to go to private schools. The oldest, Dori, is 10, and the youngest, Deonis, is 4. REALLY young to be sent off to school. But, Mama Dori is adamant that they receive the best education they can afford. I feel really torn about this because I'm not a more standardized education is worth splitting apart families. Deonis (we call him Deo) cam home last weekend because there was a big party for Baba Dori's sister, and when I asked on Monday if Mama Dori was sad he was gone, she started crying :(. I felt like crying too. Deo is the coolest little man on the planet. He is hyper and playful and adventurous and says my name every few minutes. It must be so hard to let him go and grow up away from home. Anyway, two sons of Mama Dori's sister live with us - Danieli, who is 14, and Stephano, who I think is in his late teens but I'm not sure. Danieli also goes to school in Arusha but comes home every weekend. At first I was upset there were not kids to play with around the house, but now I am really happy about it because I have bonded with my Mama. I always sit with her and help cut vegetables for dinner. I speak broken Swahili to her and she responds in broken English. She is always smiling and laughing and is just nice to be around :). Baba Dori works during the day as a veterinarian and comes home around dinner time, which is pretty late (around 9:30 - I always pass out right after dinner). He is really laidback and unlike some families where the Mama eats alone is the kitchen, he always eats out of the same bowl as my Mama.

Speaking of food, it's surprisingly great here. Basically every meal comes with a starch, a meat dish, and a vegetable dish. Since I told my family I don't eat meat, there are sometimes two vegetable options. The starch is always either rice, pilau (spiced rice with vegetables), ugali (this translates as strong porridge, it's a mix of cornmeal and water), spaghetti noodles, or mashed potatoes. At every meal we eat a leafy green called chinchi that I just learned is a type of wild spinach. Sometimes we have beans or a potato stew. Everything is cooked in a healthy serving of oil called Fresh Fry which is solid until heated mmm - probably the reason some people haven't been feeling well. While there isn't a ton of variety everything is flavourful and fresh. And we always have mango, pineapples, and bananas as desert. Yum.

The biggest source of excitement this past week was definitely the party at my house. It was a send-off party for my Aunt Glady who is moving to the Babati region to get married. The whole week prior to the party guests and family members were arriving from all over Tanzania, and Mama and Baba Dori were busy planning the budget and menu. The day off, our house was crazy busy. Tons of neighbours came over to help cook - there were at least five three stone fires going at once. I tried to help cook but they only let me break up the spaghetti noodles after I apparently cut too much skin off a cucumber. I wished they had taught me the right way, but I guess they wanted to get it done fast. It was kind of frustrating though when I heard the Mama next to me say "machini" - people here think Americans have a machine to do everything for them and therefore can't do anything themselves. A moment of otherness on an otherwise great day.

The ceremony began around 3pm and began with a sermon from the local priest. Then there was a gift giving parade. Everyone who came walked down the aisle with gifts - money, kangas ( a piece of material that is used for everything here! I wear one over my shorts to walk to school every day), plates, cups, cooking pots, and other husehold items. My family brought our goat down the aisle! I was very relieved to see this because when I had walked out of the house before the ceremony I came face to face with a whole cooked goat. It looked like a whole goat had been put in the fire - hair and all - and it was standing up on a wooden plank. And I thought it was the cute goat that I'd been hanging out with for the past week! Luckily, it wasn't. My goat friend was just moving to Babati. The cooked goat came out at the end of the ceremony. It was really interesting to watch - basically the bride-to-be was presented with a knife and cut the first piece like a birthday cake! She was fed the first piece by her bridal assisant. (By the way, both of them were wearing gold shiny gowns, and gems and sparkles all over their hair). Then, she cut pieces of goat, put them on toothpicks and hand fed them to all the elders in her family. Mama and Baba Dori each got a piece, and I was very happy they did not bring me up with them. I am really lucky I got to experience such an exciting cultural event.

Anyway, I have a lot more I want to share, but no time. I just finished reading The Doors of Perception, and have a lot of thoughts about it and how it relates to my experience here. Next time, I guess. Lots of love.

Mimi ni Helena.

Hi friends!

I realized after I finished my last blog I never explained the title. Mzungu is the Swahili word for any white-skinned tourist. We cannot walk down the street without getting chants of Mzungu! Mzungu! The cool thing is is that it's not meant to be rude, more a term of excitement, and locals get excited when they realize we're students here and can speak some Swahili. Right before I walked into the internet cafe last week, a young man looked me straight in the eyes and said "Mzungu, I love you." It made me smile :) This blog's title refers to the fact that my name has been officially changed back to Helena. Apparently Canada is the only place where my name exists. When people ask my name and I respond mimi ni (I'm) Alannah, they say "Ooohh Helena. Helen." (The h is silent) I kinda like it.

Anyway, I guess I should pick up where my last post ended - the Maasai bomma. I don't want to say too much about the Maasai now because later in the program I will be doing a homestay with them and will know more. But, basically a Maasai bomma is a small community of mud and stick homes. Bomma is also the name of each individual home. Normally each community has one main man and he lives there with all his wives. His brothers can also live there with their wives. Maasai practice polygamy and wifesharing, meaning that men can sleep with their friends' wives and it's totally fine. A phrase we heard over and over from our Maasai teachers is that Maasai don't feel jealousy. In the bomma (community) we were split up into smaller groups and each group was taken into a bomma (hut) to take to one of the mamas. A bomma is tiny. It is a circle with no windows and no room to stand up in. It was shocking how dark it was considering that outside the midday sun was beaming. Inside the small circle, there is a small fire pit where mama cooks - the bomma is also very smoky. There are also two alcoves in the walls, beds. Mama sleeps in one with the children and Baba (the father) sleeps in the other when he decides to stay over with that wife. I was seated in one alcove and the mama was in the alcove right next to me. I couldn't see her except for her feet which were decorated with numerous beaded anklets and teal plastic sandals. Mike came with us to translate. The mama began the conversation. "Do you have children?" We all answered no. "Why?" she asked surprised. We answered that we're not married and busy studying at college. When we asked her old she was, she said she didn't know, she only knew how old her children were. We asked about the other wives - did she get along with them? Again, Maasai not feel jealousy. She also told us that in her little free time (Maasai mamas do all the work - milking cows, cooking, cleaning, etc.) she liked to sit under trees and talk with her friends. That was something I can relate too. She asked about what we liked to eat and when I told her I was a vegetarian she let out a hearty laugh and said something in Maa (Maasai language). I asked Mike what she said, and he responded, "She thinks it's weird." Eventually, it was time to leave the smoky dark hut and we did followed by mama. I was surprised by her appearance. Her feet had seemed thin and frail but she was a strudy woman of about my age with big breasts heavy with milk for the baby who was hanging peacefully from a peace of fabric wrapped around her back. I thought about how I could have been her had I been born here instead of Toronto. Different ways of living.

The day after the Maasai bomma, we all took down our tents, packed up our stuff, and headed to Arusha, a medium-sized town on the side of Mt. Meru. The few days we had in town flew by as they were packed with our first two Kiswahili lessons, attempting to do laundry by hand, and running errands in town. Luckily, the hotel we stayed at had a nice bar where we could all hang out and relax each night. On Friday, in the middle of Kiswahili class, the homestay coordinator came to give us pictures of the family we would be living with for three weeks in Bangata, a village outside Arusha. The picture I received showed a mama and a baba standing with four children in between them. The sheet of paper attached notified me that I would have many pets at the homestay - 5 cows, 4 dogs, 9 chicken, and 4 goats and sheep. I was excited to have kids to play with and nervous about the whole thing. I anticipated many awkward silences when my broken Kiswahili wouldn't be enough to hold up a conversation past greetings. Afterward, we got a brief lesson on important cultural do's and dont's. Important ones included: giving, receiving, and eating with your right hand, not crossing your legs or arms in front of elders, and covering your mouth when yawning. We also learned some Swahili words not to mispronounce:
Hakuna matata = no worries, but hakuna matiti = no nipples
Kunywa = to drink, but kunwa = to poo
Kuelewi = to understand, but kulewi = to be drunk

I spent the rest of the day reading Baba Jack's paper on the political economy of Tanzania. It began with the following warning: "Note: Always questino authority and check your source; i.e. this is my perspective/polemic and you should ask Tanzanians and yourself about theirs and your 'historical perspective.'" :) Some interesting ideas in the paper:
 - the idea of the relationship between core and periphery areas and the historical trends of core centres exploiting peripheries of many scales (from rich/poor neighbourhoods of cities to developing/developed countries)
 - the USA has the only veto votes in both the World Bank and the IMF's decision making process - scary
 - I marked the following stats as WTF: in 2006, the net worth of the 358 richest people was equal to the combined income of the poorest 45% of the world (2.3 billion people); and, the assets of the top three richest people (in 2008) in the world was more than the combined GDP of all the UN titled "least developed countries" and their 600 million inhabitants. WTF!!
 - cool quote: "The word 'poverty is, no doubt, a key word of our times, extensively used and abused by everyone. Huge amounts of money are spent in the name of the poor. Thousands of books and experts' advice continue to offer solutions to their problems. Strangely enough, however, nobody, including the proposed 'beneficiaries' of these activities, seems to have a clear and commonly shared view of poverty. For one reason, almost all definitions given to the wor are woven around the concept of 'lack' or 'deficiency.' This notion reflects only the basic relativity of the concept. What is necessary and to whom? And who is qualified to determine all that?" - Majid Rehnema

As homework, we were supposed to write a one page "concept paper" responding to the reading. Mine turned out to be an angsty clusterfuck about how the best thing I could do for Tanzania was leave.  Who am I to be the nth Mzungu to come here to try to find a solution to a problem we created. Also, it seems like the West is largely admired here - youth have begun leaving their traditional family occupations infavour of Western-modeled education, everyone here loves Obama - whether or not it's a good way of life for thew country. It seems hopeless to convince Tanzanians to go back to their traditional lives (not even sure if this is good/fair) and going forward in the Western model predict disaster - environmental degradation, income inequality, extinction of tribal cultures and languages. Clearly the world can't sustain business as usual but it seems like large scale change is impossible so we're waiting around for a major disaster to enforce it. Yikes?

Baba Jack did a follow-up on the reading before dinner. He began the lecture by demonstrating the idea of privatization by giving us each a beer from a Tanzanian brewery that had been bought by a South African company and continued the lecture barefoot. I sat there mostly enraged wondering whether inequality was an inherent element of human nature. I then changed my mind when thinking of traditional hunter-gathering societies, but that makes it seems like civilization (if we define from the creation of private property) is inextricably linked to inequality. Baba Jack said some things that were hard to here:
 - idealism is a way to maintain the status quo
 - change happens on a small scale
 - power expressed through violence is a major part of why things are so shitty in the world today
It's hard to be learning about real problems in the world and know that I can't really do anything to truly change the system because of the way the system works (it's effed up). Anyway, it is probably good to be thinking this way realistically than fantasizing about a world in which money doesn't run everything. To quote Lou Reed, "And I guess that I just don't know."

The next morning we packed up again, paid our bar tabs, and left the hotel for Bangata. The carride was entirely silent - we were all nervous about meeting our homestay families and being separately from all other English-speakers for the weekend. We arrived at the centre where we take Swahili classes everyday. It is a nice building with classrooms, beautiful flowers along the fence (rose trees?), and good-sized lawn to play soccer or frisbee on. After a few minutes of anticipation, Baba Jack called us out to the front of the building where a group of people from the village waited with smiles on their faces. The homestay coordinator asked us if any of us recognized someone in our family from the picture. I didn't but when one girl and her mama stepped forward at the same time and hugged, I was overcome with emotion and couldn't hold back my tears. There is something so special about seeing two complete strangers from opposite sides of the world and completely different lifestyles embrace so warmly. It really moved me and even writing about it now is making my throat sore. Then Julius, the coordinator, called out the name of each student followed by the title of who from the family was picking them up (mama, baba, kaka - brother, dad - sister, etc.) Eventually every village was gone with a student, and I was still standing there. My mama was late, he said, but she'd be there any second. I smiled. My homestay mama already reminded me of my real mama. :)

When she arrived, she gave me a great big hug. I held back more tears, grabbed my big pack, and Mama Dori (my mama's name) helped me with my school bag and moquito net. We started the short walk home. Bangata is lush and green, very different from the savannah landscape of Ndarakwai. We walked past banana, mango, and avocado trees. mmmm. The peak of Mt Meru is almost always in site. Eventually we crossed a bridge over a small river and we were home (home = nyumbani). My home is a cement building with three bedrooms and a sitting room. I am lucky that I have my own room and even have electricity (although it is often turned off by the government for most of the day and night). The kitchen is in a small building outside with a firepit and a few shelves for storage. It is attached to a chicken coop. There is also a wooden stable-type thing that holds the cows. The goats mostly roam around wild, as does one of the dogs. The chu (toilet) is also in a separate structure. It is a hole in the ground with a step on each side of the hole for feet. The first time I used the chu, there was no toilet paper. Instead there was a big bucket of water with a smaller bucket inside to clean yourself. I thought I was supposed to pour the water on my body to clean but apparently Tanzanians wipe with their hands and then use the water to rinse. I guess Mama Dori could tell I was struggling so next time I went, there was a roll of toilet paper for me. Next to the chu is another dark room - the shower. A shower means a bucket of warm water that you pour on yourself with a smaller cup. It's actually really refreshing and uses way less water than a regular shower.

I spent the first day helping Mama cook - my first task was to peel a potato. I finished one in the same time she peeled and chopped the rest. Lunch was huge and delicious - I wasn't even hungry by dinner. I also had my first cup of village chai (chai=tea in swahili) - tea leaves steeped in about a cup of water with two cups of whole milk from the cows in the yard and lots of suggar. It's creamy, hearty, and sweet. I could be a whole meal and I can't have more than one cup a day, but my family drinks it like water. In the afternoon, when I had some free time I practiced my Swahili with Danieli, a 14-year-old boy living here on the weekends (he goes to school in Arusha with the other children during the week). He is really nice and speaks some English but he's quite shy, so he doesn't say much to me. Everywhere there are strange signs of modernity in the village - everyone has a cellphone, each equiped with a flashnight due to the lack of electricity, and my family has a tv on which everyone watches All About Eve, a nightly english-dubbed filipino soap opera (it is ridiculous but everyone seems to take it really seriously).

It looks like I'm running out of time again, but so far the homestay has been really wonderful. There has definitely been some prolonged silence due to the language barriar, and other moments when I know they are laughing at my attempts to speak Swahili but my family was welcomed me in fully and warmly. Kiswahili classes are pretty long but good - everyone feels really motivated to pick up the language so we can bond with out families. We spend the afternoon walking around the village or chilling at the centre playing soccer. Today we had class in town where we practiced buying things in a market and a restaurant. I hope everything in North America is great!

Mzungu, I love you

Hello! After an afternoon spent walking around Arusha in the rain trying to find an internet cafe, I have finally succeeded (Electricity was down in the city for most of the afternoon). I only have 17 minutes and I lot to share :). After my last post (could you tell I was delirious from no sleep?) I met up with a few people also on my program and we boarded our fligt to Kilimanjaro. We arrived at about 9:30 pm (Tanzania time). The only light I could during landing was the one at the end of the plane wing I shuffled towards the back of the plane and at the door came face to face with the East African breeze. Warm and thick, it welcomed me back and I knew then that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. The smell could only be described as a combination of dust, hot chocolate mix, and a tinge of soiled diaper. Not stinky, pungent - a sticky smell.

Once in the airport, we met up with the rest of the group and met Reese Matthews, our academic director. We call him Baba Jack because in Tanzania when you have a child you change your name to Baba or Mama and the name of your child. He has lived in Africa for 22 years, finishes a lot of his sentences with "man," and has told us about the time he tried to drive across Africa in a white van that he let children paint with watercolours. Basically, he's wonderful. From the airport, we set out into the dark - first on a tarmac road, then on a dirt road, and then on the bumpiest road I've ever been on. We stopped once for a pee break - girls to the right of the bus, boys to the left - and looked up to see the African stars. I don't think I can properly describe how astounding they are but the enormity of the sky (we could see the stars on the horizon) made me feel like I was part of the universe - something that's easy to forget when the sky is only a small circle fighting off the encroaching little pollution each night.

Eventually we arrived at Ndarwakai, a private reserve in the Western Kilimanjaro basin around 1 am. Tired, we set up our tents in the dark, ate dinner, and listened to Baba Jack's warnings about the Black Mamba - the world's most aggressive and poisonous snake - before passing out. The sun woke me up and I peeked out of my tent. I was looking at Mt Meru, Africa's second tallest peak. After putting on the same clothes I had worn on the plane, I got out of bed to get tea (tea is huge here - a common phrase is "every time is tea time") on the side of our campsite that faces Mt Kilimanjaro, Africa's tallest. The day was clear and we could see the peak. It called to me - "Climb me." (mom, dad, alex - let's climb it ;)) However, I was soon distracted by a troupe of zebras walking by. Later that day we saw baboons, giraffes, wildebeasts, and monkeys. We also hiked up to the top of a nearby hill that is one of the steam releasers of the two surrounding volcanoes and took in the landscape. Baba Jack explained the different ecosystems and communities of the region before telling us to take some time to let the winds talk to us. This is school for the semester.

The next day was "social day." We began the day at a Lutheran Church where services were led in swahili, frequently erupted into song accompanied by an off-sounding keyboard, and finished with a small auction of community goods. The music was wonderful and I had to restrain myself from getting up and dancing. We then went to a local village to get some bia beredi (cold beer) and lunch. Over lunch, I talked to Mike (Baba Noah) a Maasai warrior who is one of our teachers. (The Maasai are a pastoralist people living in Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania. I will say more about them later.) He was killed three lions. How? He has a good technique, and drank something that made him crazy, he said. We asked where we could get some, but he said women should not drink it because it makes them fight men. He also told us that a lion kill leads to 8 days of celebration and many many girlfriends, which is why he killed 3. He has a hearty raspy chuckle and calls everyone and everything crazy.

Later in the day, we had our first "class." We pulled our camping chairs into a circle in the shade and listened to Baba Jack begin to explain the program and a bit about Tanzanian culture. Something that stuck with me was the idea of gift-giving. While at home, we try to give gifts reciprocally, here there is a constant imbalance. Baba Jack used a funny story from his Peace Corps time to illustrate: One of his favourite things he brought from America was a nice hammer. He kept it on display in his room. One day a man asked him to borrow it to fix something. Sure man, he said. When he didn't get it back that day he figured the man would drop it off later. After about a week though, he got frustrated, and went to the man's house to get it back. "Can I have my hammer back please," he asked. The man responded, "Why? Do you need it?" After thinking about it, he realized he didn't and left empty handed. Here, people give without expecting something in return, and receive without feeling the anxiety to reciprocate. I think this is really beautiful because it maintains a constant f.low of sharing, creating connections. Another Baba Jack quote I liked was "In Tanzania, without a social network you die." It made me think about how easy it is to live alone at home (in the West I guess). Even though it is possible resource-wise, living without others probably causes an emotional death of sorts. I'm really enjoying learning about what community means here.

I'm running out of time, so I will briefly summarize the rest of the week. On Monday and Tuesday, we split into four groups to do different activities - bird watching with Alex (during which we got to play with an orphan elephant that lives on the reserve!!!), wildlife (aka poop identification) with Babu Leeky, ethnobotany (aka wildlife) with Mike, and Maasai culture with Unesmo. All our teachers are Tanzanians and are hysterical. They always make us laugh at meal time. Unesmo created a detailed lie about having ten wives, which we later learned was not true. One night, we also went on a night safari where our car was nearly ambushed by a hord of water buffalo and we saw two lions!!! We also went to a Maasai bomma, which was one of the most sensually and emotionally moving experiences. Unfortunately, the computer is about to sign me off so I can't say more about it. Hopefully I'll find time to catch up later.

Lots of love