An overflowing heart of thankfulness!

Some moments from the past week, both the mundane and the exceptional…

Laundry:
I did laundry by hand for the first time. It was quite a lovely experience. Here there are two options for laundry. You can pay three dollars and get the mamas to do it for you. They come Mon/Wed/Fri and wash your clothes so well you wouldn’t know that that your socks had been red-brown with dirt before the mamas turned them white again. The other option is to do it yourself in a bucket with some soap and whatever skills you happen to have. There is a print we have in my house in North Carolina of some Samoan women gathering in seaweed along the rocky shore of Samoa. When I was doing my laundry I felt just like those Samoan women, except I was doing laundry in a bucket instead of gathering seaweed in the ocean. I worked super hard at getting my clothing clean and darn if I didn’t do a good job I don’t know who did (besides the mamas!). It was also a wonderful moment for me of really being present with what I was doing. Here, there is so much to process and think about and understand and learn, that my brain is working overtime even while I dream. But as I washed my clothes there was nothing for me to think about or do except just be there with my soap and my red-brown water and my slowly getting whiter and whiter socks. I thoroughly enjoyed this, and I also enjoyed putting on my clean socks today and knowing that it was all due to my own hard work.

Orphanage:
Well, we went to an orphanage, just like every other cliché American group of students… and it was quite incredible! We built them a seesaw and a clubhouse to play on and in, laughed and ran around playing ball and soccer, and loved every minute of the dusty afternoon. There was so much joy and love and real life inside of the children. The orphanage we went to is known for their deep care for the children. It turns out that people in this area of African have started orphanages purely to make money for themselves. This may seem contradictory, but orphanages often get a fair amount of money from NGOs, the gov, and private donors and so people are able to fee the children the minimum, and make a fair amount of money for themselves. I know this may come as a shock or just pretty messed up, but at this point I feel like I am learning all the sides to every coin (it turns out most of them have more that two). I can imagine that maybe the family who started the orphanage had nothing before and now they can feed themselves and send their children to school. I am not saying that this is the case for all of them, or that it justifies using the orphans as means to make a living, but I am saying that the story may not be as clear as it first seems. In any case, we went to an orphanage with a very good record of sending the almost all of the money and donations they receive towards the health and well being of the children and it was a beautiful and rich experience of joy, love, and play.

Jiguz Night 2010:
Jiggers (spelled jiguz by our Swahili teacher when he was sounding it out!!!) are sand fleas that burrow into your fingers and toes and make egg sacks and live in your skin until they feel like going somewhere else or die. In a nutshell, they are repulsive! I have so far had three, as has my roommate and another student. Jiguz night 2010 was an evening spent in the chumba (dining room area) digging jiggers out of at least three students feet one of which was the biggest jigger anyone in the whole camp has ever seen! Eeewwwwww! It was huge and the egg sack was giant and the whole thing was super satisfying and utterly gross! So far no one has had a jigger get infected or anything else bad happen (besides having them in your feet or hands in the first place), which has been nice. It has also made me incredibly aware of my feet and their cleanliness, which can’t hurt.
Hope you enjoy!
Lovingthepinkandorangesunsetseverynight,
Sara

Bits of Life

Hamjambo friends and family,

I know this is a lot. I was going to post them as separate sections, but our internet is off and on (just like our water, and electricity, and schedule, and so on) and sometimes I am not able to be on line, so you can pace yourself and read one or two at a time!

General life and Culture:

             I was talking with a friend today about what it is like when people ask us,  “how are you?” or “How is it in Tanzania?” and I feel like standing open mouthed in front of them not knowing what to say. I told another friend today “there is nothing I have to say about my time here that is in any way mundane.” I think  that just about sums up my feeling lately and yet slowly day by day I am starting to feel more and more at home (perhaps it is just that home doesn’t have to mean mundane!). Today and yesterday we visited two bomas, one of the Maasai tradition and one of the Iraki tradition (note- Maasai is pronounced MA-sigh not ma-SIGH as most people pronounce it). A boma is a place where tourists (mostly European but also Tanzanian) can come and see certain tribes cultural heritage. Both of these experiences were very interesting and very different from one another. At the Maasai Boma people live in huts made of sticks and mud and have a pen for their goats and cows. When we arrived they greeted us by singing and dancing in their traditional cloth and jewelry. We were then led around by one of the young men who spoke English and showed us their way of life. It was interesting to see how they portrayed their culture as a primitive way of living, as if it and they were stuck in a historical moment. Although many Maasai live in similar ways there are distinct advances in basic technologies in their villages today.

            The Iraki Boma (Iraki is the main tribe in this area of Tanzania and many of our staff come from the Iraki tribe) was very different. The people who showed us around living in a modern cement house next to the recreated examples of historical houses they had made of sticks and mud. They showed us how the people used to live and showed us an example of the beaded wedding skirts they used to make and the way the made clay pots. It was clear that they were not living like this anymore, but that this was a part of their ancestry. It was very interesting to think about how each tribe chooses to portray their culture and how it appeals to tourists looking at the cultures.

Safari!

            Last Saturday, while most of you who are reading this were fast asleep, I was on Safari in the middle of the day. We left early in the morning to catch the animals at their prime active time, but stayed all day and continued to see animals throughout. I will give a list of some of the animals we saw and then I will tell you about my favorite things! We saw many baboons, impala, wildebeest, zebras, hippos, an African fish eagle, giraffes, elephants, dik diks, bush bucks, hyraxes, African buffalo, yellow billed storks, pink backed pelicans, Little bee-eaters, superb starlings, a malachite kingfisher, both helmeted and crested guineafowl, vervet monkeys (which have sky/bright blue balls), a black-backed jackal, a mongoose (not sure what kind), warthogs, ostriches, an African harrier hawk, and probably a few that I am forgetting. I was blown away. I had no idea we were going to see that much in one day and at one of the smaller National Parks. I remember being in our land cruisers (yes we get to stand up on our seats so that we poke out of the skylights in the top of the cruiser) and we rounded a corner to come upon a plain full of zebras, wildebeest, impala, and African buffalo grazing. After being speechless for a few moments, a friend who was standing next to me said “Seeing this plain full of animals makes me realize that I didn’t really believe this still existed.”

After hearing that I realized that I didn’t truly believe that most of the animals I saw that day still existed. I cannot describe to you what it is like to see a baby elephant, not more than waist high, nestle partially underneath its mother, as its mother pulls browse from a tree with her trunk and feeds herself. I think my heart fell out of my chest as I was watching the elephants, but I am sure they will take good care of it. Another wonderful moment was when we were driving back thought the park we were passing a territory of hyraxes that we had seen on the way, but this time they were making a complete racket. Then, out of the brush, came a black-backed Jackal loping along. The hyraxes were sounding their predator alarm for the Jackal. I must admit I have not been all that into animal behavior, but watching interactions like these is enough to sway anyone!

Daily Life

Classes have also been wonderful, but we have a lot of them. It is hard to fit everything into one day. We go on nature hikes at 6:30 am, have breakfast at 7:30, classes till lunch at noon, then classes from 2-5. Sometimes we have other activities like visiting the Bomas, but many days we just have lots and lots of class. It is super interesting because we are beginning to understand the whole picture of the environment and conservation efforts here (including the wildlife, the people and their culture, the language, the political and historical background, the different ecosystems…), but also exhausting. Our professors are wonderful, but sometimes it is challenging to understand them in terms of their pronunciation and accent.

Swahili

            One of the hardest things about being here is that Swahili is the national language of Tanzania, which means that very few people speak English outside the cities. This is super interesting, but also challenging because we have no way to communicate… yet. We are struggling to learn Swahili, which is much harder than learning any language I have ever tried. When learning Spanish, French, German, Latin, Italian, Portugeas… we understand where many words are coming from. We understand relationships between words and their roots, sentence structure, and their derivation. Swahili isn’t like any language I have ever come into contact with. Without those associations, learning Swahili is like memorizing sounds. Since I am not an auditory learner this is even harder for me! Oh goodness, if you have any good language learning wishes to send my way, I sure could use them!

Much Love

            I have been missing all of you and homely things a lot, but I am so full of learning that it is hard to even have time to communicate how much I think about you. I hope you are enjoying all of this and I am sending my love and hugs all around the world to whatever wonderful place you might be in (New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Canada, France, Peru, California, Maryland, Italy, India, Missouri, Indiana, Puerto Rico, Kenya, Austraila and many more I am sure I am forgetting)!

Lovelovelove,

Sara

Beautiful places and beautiful people

Hello from Tanzania!
What an amazing four days this has been! I spent Sunday night/Monday on the plane and in the airport in Nairobi continuing to get to know my group of people and playing a lot of card games in between napping. We flew to Kilimanjaro on Monday night, but we got in too late and so we stayed in a hotel. We then left for our camp in Rotia (a tiny village). We drove across Savannah and grass land with acacia trees. We saw two giraffes, a few zebras and buffalo, huge termite hills, some baboons and many people with their livestock! It was overwhelmingly beautiful, shocking, and hasn’t completely sunk in. We then arrived at the most beautiful new home I could have wished for. We have hot water for showers, delicious food, a beautiful garden, and gracious and smiling Tanzanian staff and faculty. I am blown over! I am also amazed because this entire place was built in about 2 months. Many things here don’t work or are forever being fixed, but it is not an inconvenience, merely a reminder that this place is new, and is a work in progress in an African country.

We have spent the last two days doing orientation and today we began class. We have four classes; Wildlife Management, Wildlife Ecology, Swahili and Social Culture, and Socio-Economics and Environmental Policy of East Africa. Learning Swahili is super challenging and as it is the official language of Tanzania (Kenya’s is English) you need to speak it to communicate with the people here, including some of our staff. Yesterday we learned some greetings and were then sent out into Rotia to greet people and walk around a bit. You can imagine that this was pretty intimidating, but also exciting.

Two other students and I went walking with one of our staff, Elias, who took us on quite an adventure. We were walking down a dirt road greeting people we passed when we heard drums and people singing. Elias told us in broken English that it was his tribe’s dance and took us to see. We came upon a small group of people, four elder women who were drumming on one drum with sticks, and a group of mostly men who were doing a bouncing-jumping dance and singing (very different from West African dance, but very interesting). One of the women gave us sticks and sat us down in front of the drum without any direction or a moment to think or watch or take the scene in! We did the best we could while Elias laughed and laughed and everyone continued to dance and drum. It was an overwhelming and hilarious situation. I found myself trying to keep up with the elders in a jumble of rhythms and song, and as soon as I thought I might have the rhythm, it would change! After that, Elias took us by the two churches in town, a Lutheran church and a Catholic church, and then visited the local clinic. He took us into each room with sick people and we greeted them and smiled and told them we were sorry they were there… as best we could in Swahili. Well, it was more than we had bargained for on our first day in town I can tell you that, but it was also a humbling and exquisite experience.

It is still sinking in that this is my new home… this beautiful place with yellow birds and fuchsia bougainvillea and smiling people (both students and staff). I am trying to remember to breathe and take time to slow down so that I can let everything sink in.
inspiredandexhausted,
Sara!

 

Just Flowers

 

One of my favorite statues of Mary and baby Jesus

(Westminster Abby)

 

Parliament

 

The London Eye with MORE bikers!

 

Big Ben

 

Beautiful architecture and a few bikers

 

We got to see the changing of the horse guard

 

Plaza + Big Ben

Hello from London!

Talk about surreal. We just spent our 13-hour layover in London touring the city with 75,000 bikers that happened to be here for an annual bike-around-London event. We walked the tourist attractions in London, just about all of the main ones… Big Ben, Parliament, the Thames, Westminster Abby, the London Eye, St. James Park, and Buckingham Palace. We got sandwiches and ate them in a park lying under a sycamore tree. I put a leaf in my journal with the thought that I might not see a sycamore for the next four months. Do they have large hard woods in Tanzania/Kenya? I sort of assumed not, because they would need a lot of water and nutrients to be so big and tall, neither of which are in abundance all year round in Northern Tanzania or Southern Kenya. I am really curious to see the vegetation there and how it varies with the water availability and distance from the mountains.
Next time from Tanzania!
Sara

There she goes...

Hi Everyone,
          I have been singing this song in my head a lot lately, thinking of all of my friends and I who are gallivanting around the world right now (I guess it should go "there they go..."). The thing is I only know the first two lines so it  quickly becomes repetitive, sort of comforting, sort of aggravating.

Anyways,
  I hope everyone is settling into their fall and enjoying life. Tomorrow I leave for Kenya and Tanzania for the fall semester, so I have started this blog so that you can track me (I will also have e-mail access so send me an update about your life when you get a chance!). I am going on a study abroad program through The School for Field Studies. I will be living in a bush camp in southern Kenya at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro and in Northern Tanzania in a similar bush camp. The bush camps are  fenced in areas with cabins and a dining hall/common building (where the is electricity and internet at night). There are thirty kids, mostly from the states, who are going with me. We will take classes daily about the birds, plants, and animals in the area. We will also be collaborating and doing service work with a community of Maasai people in a village near by. We will go on a few hiking trips (including touring Amboseli National Park) as well as spend the last month participating in directed research projects.

Just to give you a bit of back ground...The program is trying to mitigate the tension between the Maasai people, who have just started farming what was open grass lands, and the animals (giraffes, zebras, eland, wildebeest, elephants...) who use(d) that open grass land as a migration route between two national parks. You can tell there would be conflict if an elephant was trying to migrate through a cornfield (probably for the farmer and the elephant). The program is gathering information that is needed to figure out if the Maasai people can have a sustainable livelihood that does not interfere with this migration route.

So, I am off (if I can get everything in my suitcase...)! Traveling from Raleigh to Newark to London to Nairobi to Northern Tanzania (where I will spend the first half of the semester). It will take at least two days and may be more like two and a half. Ugh. But then I will be there! Hope everyone is well.
Farewell from North Carolina!
Sara