Cradle of Love, MWEDO School for Girls, and the Future Stars Academy

I feel like I haven’t posted anything in forever, but really it’s only been a week.  A week here feels like a month, so although I feel like I have been here for four months, it has only actually been four weeks.  That also means I’m almost halfway through with my time here, and I am incredibly sad about that because it has taken four weeks, but I am absolutely in love with Tanzania and two months here will not be nearly enough time to spend here.  I will just have to choose to live in denial and pretend I am never leaving, thus making my time here much more enjoyable.

I had to do a lot of mind-shifting this past week about what it is I’m doing here.  Before I came here, I had a really strong, clear sense of what I thought I would do here, but once I got here, my mentality shifted.  It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but instead of remembering the initial reasons I came, I got a little too caught up in how much I could do here for myself, and basically planned a weekend trip to as many other countries as I could get to (Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, maybe even Zambia…) which would have all been amazing places to go.  In fact, next weekend I was supposed to be going to Rwanda, but then found out I can’t go because my passport is in Dar es Salaam (where the embassy is trying to get resident VISAS or something like that), and I won’t get it back in time to go.  At first I was totally bummed about all the trips I was going to miss out on, but then something really great actually happened.  I basically got over it, remembered why I had come here in the first place, and realized that instead of leaving every weekend to go somewhere cool, I can stay in Tanzania and soak up as much as I can in my (overly) short time here.  It has been a huge relief, and now, instead of stressing out about going as many places as I can in short periods of time (including booking plane tickets, bus tickets, getting more VISAS to go abroad), I have a better, renewed sense of vigor about why I initially came here.  (This comes from the certainty I feel that I will make it back here one day, and whenever that is, I can make sure I get to Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia, and all the other places I am “missing out on” on this trip.) 

That said, I can get my head out of my ass and catch you up on the awesome stuff I have been up to this past week.  There were three main things going on, which will be continuing throughout my time here (aside from fort building and impromptu hip hop parties we have been having around the house, which do happen).  These things would be volunteering at an orphanage, Cradle of Love; volunteering at a Maasai School for Girls; and working for the Future Stars Academy.  

Cradle of Love:  This is the orphanage we have been volunteering at for a day or two every week.  It is an orphanage for young children and babies, so the oldest kids there are four years old.  The kids are really sweet, and really just want to be held and get a lot of attention from you.  As is the case with kids, you usually get one or two particularly funny stories, and my first time visiting CoL was no exception.  We took the kids outside to the garden area where the older kids played in a blow up pool.  Most of the smaller children didn’t like the water, so they just hung out in the grass with us.  I had two little guys on my lap, and they were clingy little guys and I was sitting cross-legged but really needed to stretch my legs, so I pulled them off for a second and just laid down on my back and had them each sitting on either of my legs.  [Side note that is relevant to the story: a lot of the kids who didn’t end up going in the pool took their bathing suits off and ran around naked.] One little guy, Marky, was standing near me naked watching the other kids in the pool at this time.  Well, as soon as I lay down on my back, I guess Marky took a few steps closer, but I couldn’t really see.  Next thing I know, everyone is laughing (there were about 5 other people from my house who went to CoL as well) and I feel the unmistakable feeling of a child peeing on me.  I happened to be wearing khaki pants, and he got both the left and right legs.  He must have just had some juice, because Marky really unloaded on me.  Obviously, thanks to Dieter and Declan, I can’t say this was the first time I’ve been peed on, but it was the first time I had to sit and endure it because I couldn’t jump up and fling the two little guys who were sitting on my legs off of me, because that would probably scare them.  So, I got really peed on.  Luckily I got one of the boys in the pool to hose off my pants, and I went on my way.  The rest of the day was a lot of fun; I played with a few kids that I ended up really liking, read a few books (including The Hungry Hungry Caterpillar, a classic).  We stayed long enough to help out with dinner, which was somewhat organized (which was impressive because there were kids running around everywhere).  The little, little kids just get held and fed, so I fed a little girl.  She was a real trooper, because they get some pretty big portions (which is a good thing) of their dinner (which was a porridge, corn-meal kind of thing) and she got pretty tired and full about ¾ of the way through.  Each bite after that was a struggle, and she might have even fallen asleep halfway through, but she eventually ate all of her dinner and we left after.  It feels good going there; I think you have to go into it and immediately overlook the fact that they are all orphans and just think of it as a bunch of kids at daycare, otherwise it might make me a little too sad or depressed, but it was a pretty fulfilling day and I’m certain I will be doing it again this week.  We didn’t take any pictures, because we weren’t sure what the protocol was regarding taking pictures of the children, but it looks like it’s okay (there were other volunteers there taking pictures), and the kids love playing with the cameras, so next time I go I will be sure to snap a few photos (and will be hoping to have dry pants for the pictures).  

MWEDO Maasai Girls School: On Thursday, we had what was probably my favorite day of the week.  We went to go visit this school because we want to volunteer there throughout the semester (even though I will only be here for another month) and wanted a proper introduction to the school, the staff, and the students.  It was a really fantastic experience.  First, we met Esther, the head teacher of the school and the faculty.  They had a little tea and breakfast for us, and we spread out and sat around the room talking to the various teachers that work at the school and got to hear about their classes, their teaching experience, and what they thought of the education system overall in Tanzania (which I will probably comment on later when I get a better understanding of it).  After that, we got a tour of the facility, which was pretty nice.  It is actually in the process of getting more developed, and in the next year they will have a two-story building (their first) that will be the teacher offices, resource rooms, and a computer lab (something they currently don’t’ have).  There are dorms at the school, as many of the girls live at the facility (others take busses in from other villages nearby).  We visited three classrooms, Form 1, Form 2, and Form 3.  (Form 1 is the first years, but this is a secondary school, so the first year at secondary school is mostly girls around 13 or 14 years old).  There were five people from my house who went; Molly, Sarah, Esther, Carolyn, and myself.  We introduced ourselves in each classroom, and each time after we introduced ourselves the teacher asked the girls which names they remembered.  They seemed to always remember Esther (which is a really popular name over here) and Jessica, although they laughed at the way I say Jessica, because here they spell it Jesca.  Each of us actually found at least one namesake in the school (although they spell differently; I believe Molly is Mali here), except for Carolyn.  We just don’t come across any Carolyns here.  We let the girls ask us questions, and most of them were generic and asked which states we were from (which led to me drawing what I think was an outstanding map of the US…) and asked about the whether, what kind of food we eat, and general stuff like that.  Except for one girl, who decided to ask me if people in America believe in God or evolution?  I wasn’t prepared for that question, and due to my answer, she may spend the rest of her life questioning some of the things I told her.  Who knows?  Not to pick favorites, but our favorite class that we visited was the Form 1 class, because they asked us the most questions and we had a really good time in there.  So good, in fact, that we got to take all the girls in that class outside for an impromptu multi-cultural experience, where they sang and danced for us, and then wanted us to sing and dance for them (which we did, and there is a video of us trying to sing Sweet Caroline to the girls, which they thoroughly enjoyed).  We ran around outside with the girls, played games, and ended up staying for lunch and eating lunch with the girls in the cafeteria.  The girls at the school are fantastic – they are funny, smart, and really ager to talk to us, sit near us, take pictures with us, and be around us.  We took tons of pictures, which we are planning on printing out and bringing back up to the school when we go next time.  Our subsequent visits are going to be slightly more productive, and we are going to help teach some classes, but Molly and I want to make sure we get some recess time and are thinking about planning a mini-track and field, or games, day, so hopefully that happens.  (Also, I didn’t take most of the good pictures, so once I get them from the other girls who went, I will post them.)  

 Esther and me on the way to the school

Molly and Sarah...back of the bus! 

Jessica and Jesca :-) 

Molly and Mali (finding our namesakes) 

Future Stars Academy: This is the non-profit soccer league I have been coaching for and also interning for.  This weekend was a big weekend for us, as it was the kickoff weekend and the start of games.  Something extra cool happened, and the head coach of the Tanzanian national team, Jan Poulsen (who is from Denmark), came for the weekend to show his support of Future Stars.  On Friday, Maka and I went to the TGT field, where the adult team had a friendly match for Jan to come watch.  The TGT field is a fantastic facility (including an amazing view of the sunset), and after the game we had a screen and did a little presentation, talking about FSA, the kids, and how the organization plans to move forward (and what it needs to move forward, which obviously is funding).  I made a slideshow that was shown (I will include some of the pictures from the slideshow on here), and we passed out fliers trying to generate support.  The facility was more like a country club, and it was filled with a whole bunch of European ex-pats, with an extra large Dutch community (isn’t that veird?!).  It was pretty cool to meet some new people, mingle with some adults, and meet the national coach.  However, Saturday was a much better day, because Jan came to the season opener, and that day our girls got to play their first game.  Not that winning is the most important thing, but they happened to win 8-0, which gave them a great morale boost and their spirits were pretty high.  However, the fact that they won was obviously not the most important thing; to me, the best thing about the game was the support they got from the entire league.  They got to play their game on the big field, and the boys’ teams filled the bleachers and cheered wildly for the girls team the entire game.  It was really supportive, and given many attitudes that people have about girls’ sports, I was very impressed with the support the girls got that day.  Maka and I really love our team; the girls are great, and now that I know all of their names and they know me a little better, we have a great rapport and a good sense of camaraderie on the team.  After the game, we sat with our girls’ team and some of the younger boys’ teams and watched the older boys team play.  Everyone was in a great mood, we were cheering and dancing and taking pictures and videos, and Maka and I got to talk to the national coach for a while, which was pretty nice.  I am really excited for the rest of the season, and the opener set a great precedent for things to come. 

Men's friendly on the TGT field 

Jan and Alfred, who is my boss and the founder of FSA 

 There were awesome sunset pictures, and I probably could have put up 10

FSA girls getting amped up for the game! 

The team's cheer before the game

Love this video: the team and the boys celebrating a goal! 

Maka and I after the game!

 Hanging out after the game! 



I feel like this has been a lot of information.  Hopefully I won’t have to write this long again in the next post; just figure that everything I did this past week, I will be doing again next week, with maybe a few new things thrown in. There is actually a mini-safari planned for next Saturday, a quick overnight to Lake Manyara and Ngorororo Crater (which is supposed to be pretty spectacular), so that will be replacing my Rwanda remorse.

Have a good week everyone, I will leave you with a video of my first rainstorm in Tanzania :-)

Arusha National Park

I know that I have said this at least three times since I've been here, but today was by far the best day I've had here again.  I guess this is a good thing things keep getting better, and it would not be so good if I peaked my first week, so I am happy to know that things seem to just be getting better and better.  I am getting more accustomed to everyday life and figuring out how to spend my time here evenly so I can get a lot of work done but see a lot of awesome stuff as well.  Today was no exception, and I went on an awesome day-safari to Arusha National Park.

I had to put this up - a really distant view of Mt. Kili (or, as my father would call it, Krakatoa).  You can't normally see it, and this was the first time I've seen it since I've been here.

All of us hanging out of our van: Stephen, Maka, Minje, Trish, Molly, and me. 

All of us at the top of a crater: Maka, Minje, Molly, me, Trish and Stephen.  

The park was (obviously) awesome.  Unfortunately, there are no predators there (and no, not the creepy guy predators that roam the bars, but stuff like lions and hyenas), but we got to see a ton of cool animals, including giraffes, zebras, warthogs, flamingos, hippos, water bucks, and a few types of monkeys.  We drove around in a guided van whose roof came up so we got to stand the whole time (minus the times we fell down, because the roads are quite bumpy), which was pretty cool in and of itself, but seeing the animals was also pretty fantastic.  I never knew what the big deal was about safaris, especially since I've seen a lot of the animals before in various capacities (aka the zoo), but I get it now why it's so awesome to see them in nature as they are meant to be.  It was pretty spectacular to see a family of giraffes walking around and monkeys running across the road, or to watch hundreds of flamingos make a whole lake pink and then take off in flight like they were a long runway at an airport.  That stuff is all pretty awesome and I already crave more of it, and can't wait until I take a four-day safari through the Serengeti (which I'm doing the week before I come home).  

Anyway, I don't feel like I need to say much more about this, because the pictures really speak for themselves.  I wish they came out a little better; you know how it is whenever you see something awesome and you snap a picture of it and it never looks as great as it did when you saw it with your own eye, but obviously pictures are the next best thing to actually seeing it for yourself.

One thought that I have been having since I've been here, especially when I do all these cool touristy-kinds of things, is that it's a shame that more local people don't get to experience what I get to experience here.  I feel like I always think back to Costa Rica, probably because it is my favorite place I've ever been, but in Costa Rica one of the most wonderful things about it is that not only do tourists from all over get to experience it, but its own citizens equally enjoy and reap all the benefits of living in such a wonderful country.  It is much different over here, which is slightly disappointing, because for the most part it is only the tourists who get to really experience all of the awesome things that I've gotten to do in a mere three weeks and it's not many of the people who live in this amazing place.  I'm not sure the most effective way to change that, and I'm sure it all goes back to development and the fringe detriments of dependency on tourism.  I will have to come back to this the more time I spend here and see what I end up thinking about it, but that's something that's been on my mind today.

Enough about that.  Enjoy the safari pictures…hopefully next weekend I will have another sweet adventure to talk about.  Or I might just sleep.  I feel like I'm always tired here, and the coming week is going to be particularly busy.  Tomorrow I submit a business proposal plan for one of my internships, as well as turn in a micro-finance project which I will hopefully get approved and get to start implementing shortly.  I will also be volunteering at an orphanage two days this week (Monday and Friday), as well as volunteering at a Maasai school for girls (Thursday).  Oh, also this Friday the national coach from the Tanzanian soccer team will be coming for a fundraiser and then on Saturday will be at our soccer games to kick off the soccer season, so hopefully there will be a lot to blog about later this week!  

Have a great week everyone!  Enjoy the cool weather at home - I hear fall is on it's way and I'm very jealous to be missing out on my favorite time of year! :-)

I'm gonna try to end this with a few videos from the safari.  I'm not sure how great they turned out, and you might have to excuse some of the commentary (I'm hoping that maybe the sound doesn't always come through...)   

Arusha: A Lot More Than You'd Think

I am starting to fee like I can’t catch up on anything.  I want to write about the week before I get to the weekend, and the next thing I know it’s the weekend.  Time really flies here; I can’t believe I’ve been here for two weeks already.  I honestly feel like I just got here yesterday.  It’s making me realize that eight weeks will certainly not be enough, even though that’s all I have here.  I would prefer not to think about the fact that I have to leave much sooner than I want to, and instead want to catch you all up on everyday life, because that’s what everyone keeps asking me about in emails!  Looking back on my first couple of blog posts, I don’t really blame anyone for asking questions.  I have no idea what I was writing about, and I certainly had no idea what I was doing here or what was going on.  It’s taken a few weeks, but I finally feel completely comfortable and at home here.  I knew it would happen eventually, and I’m really glad it did, but again, it makes me really sad that I only have two months here, meaning I only have six weeks left of feeling this way!

To start fielding the questions about what life is like here, from the people I live with to where and how I live to what the town and people are like in Arusha, let me start by saying that none of it was exactly what I was expecting.  I guess in my mind, when I think of Africa, I think of that quintessential African village (which certainly exists, in many places, actually), but Arusha is certainly not that.  It is much more developed that I expected.  I mean, we have a ShopRite, tons of salons, and computer stores that fix Macs, so it is certainly not a struggling African village.  However, even for being a relatively more developed area, there are still differences here that make you realize you are certainly not in Baltimore (or whatever US city you would like to insert).  We frequently lose power and internet, stores run out of things (like sugar!), the water turns off and runs out…these all can be a little annoying sometimes, but I am actually learning to enjoy them and treat them as part of what I signed up for.  It would be pretty disappointing to show up to Africa and have it be exactly like it is at home.   Now I appreciate the power outages, showering under a cold spit (it makes the random warm showers much more with it), and losing internet so that we have to play innovative games around the house (so far this has meant trying to capture people and ‘fumigate’ them with air fresheners when they are in their rooms). Feel free to enjoy the pictures from our last cabin fever night, which culminated in an amazing victory for me in a heated game of Egyptian Rat Screw.  

Arusha isn’t a big city (I know because I have managed to figure out where everything is, and if I can do it, it can’t possible be that big).  There are basically two roundabouts you need to know, one is the elephant roundabout and the other is the clock tower (and if you think it’s a Big Ben type of clock tower, you are mistaken, it is a third that size).  I know I’ve mentioned this before, but walking around Arusha is more or less a death sentence.  Road safety is something to be desired.  We are collectively getting better and more aggressive at walking and maneuvering the roads, especially around the roundabouts.  There are cars everywhere, and lots of traffic.  (Side note: Toyotas are everywhere, as well as lots of Fords, Land Rovers, and even a good amount of Nissans.)  The dangers of walking aside, being in Arusha is really nice because you have some of the niceties of a city, such as good restaurants and places to go out at night.  We don’t eat out often (because we get dinner cooked for us) but there are a few places to note so far.  Africafe is a haven for when you are craving something delicious – they have a frozen chocolate mocha that is pretty much the best thing I have ever tasted, and if you are craving pancakes with syrup, they have it there.  Their food is really good, a little more pricey, but going there is a nice treat.  There are also some great local places we have found.  I’ve talked before about Fast Food (eating a traditional plate for two dollars is pretty amazing), and we also tried a place last Sunday called Nick’s Pub that had fresh fish and chips.  Now, the fish was a little different, and I think we were all taken aback when the fish came out on the plate complete with it’s eyeball peeking out at me, but it was fresh and really delicious and came with a dipping sauce that we have been unable to identify but is my favorite sauce I’ve encountered in awhile.  Another note: dust.  Dust is everywhere.  My first day here I think I sneezed about fifty times in a row; now I start every day with an allergy tablet.  There is literally just dust everywhere, on the roads, on your clothes, everywhere.  I don’t know what I would do without Claritin and Allegra. 

The people here are a mixture of good, bad, interesting, and sometimes annoying.  On the whole, I wouldn’t use the word annoying, but there is a particular creeper named Michael who tries to walk me home from wherever I am every day and get me to go on Safaris for him (he also told me yesterday that I shouldn’t be worried that I’m 24 and not married yet).    You do encounter a lot of men who heckle you a little bit, or instead of being mean and heckling you, are overly friendly and want to marry you.  It’s mostly harmless and just awkward and annoying when you think of all the different ways to turn them down (I told Michael yesterday that I was moving to Kenya).  Good word to know: Hapana (it means no).  Unfortunately it took me two weeks remember to use it, but it’s becoming number one Kiswahili word in my vocabulary these days.  Other people I’ve met are much more satisfactory.  The various tour guides we have had, the people working at the NGOs I have been interning with, and the women here are all incredibly friendly and helpful.    

I feel like I am jumping all over the place a little bit here, but going back to some of the stuff with our house that I forgot to talk about before.  First, I really love this house.  I never expected to feel so comfortable living here (the bed mattress and pillow are a little hard, but have grown on me), but the house is big and spacious and there are windows everywhere.  I guess they know what they’re doing here and they build houses for comfort, but I still can’t believe how cool it is.  I think I expected to show up to Tanzania and sweat my balls off, but I often find myself to be cold and wrapped up in a blanket, which was unexpected but much appreciated.  The weather is definitely starting to change, and I can feel it getting warmer, but as of right now I am loving it (I will also appreciate it when it gets hot and I can get my tan on 24/7).  Did I talk about our house pets before?  We have a few.  One is a hedgehog that lives in the front garden.  There are also cats around; I have personally seen the black cat who lives here and a white cat (even though the first time I saw the white cat streaking across the yard at night I thought it was a fox and I screamed).  We also have a ratmouse.  It is undetermined at this point whether it is a rat or mouse; apparently it has a black rat tail and other mouse qualities, but I actually have not personally seen it yet.  Everyone else has spotted him from time to time, and he lives under our oven in the kitchen, but I worry that I will go my whole time here without meeting him for myself (surprisingly, mice are not one of the two hundred things that scare me). 

Back to jumping all over the place, I wanted to say that the longer I have been here (and it certainly hasn’t been that long yet), the more I am seeing of areas around Arusha and that are a little outside of the city itself.  This is when you run into the more quintessential African village life that I was talking about earlier.  This isn’t where you find gated communities and guarded compounds like ours.  The people who live in these places don’t have water coolers (you can tell because people who drink the tap water have brown teeth instead of white).  Their houses and buildings are made with whatever materials they can acquire, and are built in rows right on top and next to each other.  This is not the stuff that makes you feel good about a place, but it is the real nitty gritty stuff that you need to see to understand how people live.  Life is hard here, and our existence in the privileged area of Arusha wouldn’t otherwise show us that.  You develop a better and more comprehensive understanding of people when you see what they don’t have, and I appreciate everything they do get done given their obvious setbacks.  It’s amazing, really, what people are capable of living without, and I know it’s cliché to say that and I have said and heard it many times, but it’s a whole other thing when you see it in action.  So that has been pretty cool so far. 

I’m going to wrap this up because it’s the weekend and I have go to pursue my very difficult Master’s degree in hiking and drinking banana beer.  Actually I am in the middle of working on a few projects: I am working with Future Stars Academy on community empowerment and capacity building; I am developing a microfinance project for a village in Moshi; I am communicating with primary schools in Arusha to organize a project with my Mom’s fifth graders; and I am also organizing a marketing project for the Tanzania semester program for Arcadia where I am going to do program evaluations and assessments on as many NGOs in the area as possible to generate greater interest in the program here.  In the meantime, I am working on my Master’s thesis and exploring what I think about development, aid, and poverty.   I have been catching a lot of flack from everyone about this vacation I’ve been on, and I know I tend to put the fun stuff on my blog and not the rest of the stuff, so from now on I’ll throw out some of both.  There are 24 hours in a day and you can do a lot more with those hours over here than you can at home.

In the meantime, here’s my reading list that I highly recommend to anyone who has the free time to tackle ten books.   They are informative, interesting, and have been shaping a lot of what I’ve been thinking about while I’ve been over here. 

1. Development as Freedom - Amartya Sen

2. Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and There is a Better Way for Africa - Dambisa Moyo

3. The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It - Paul Collier 

4. The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time - Jeffrey Sachs 

5. The No-Nonsense Guide to International Development - Maggie Black

6. Just Give Money to the Poor: The Development Revolution from the Global South - Joseph Hanlon 

7. The History of Development: From Western Origins to Global Faith - Giblert Rist 

8. Theories and Practices of Development - Katie Willis 

9. The Value of Nothing - Raj Patel 

10. The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good - William Easterly