Kwaheri, Tanzania!

I left Tanzania yesterday, or maybe the day before.  I am a little confused and thrown off by the time difference and the many hours of traveling I have been through so far, and have no idea what time it is or where I am or what I am doing.  I would prefer to be left alone right now and sleep for about fifteen hours, but I feel like it would be a real disservice to my time in Tanzania if I don’t write at least a few things about my past two months. However, I'm going to apologize if it does not sound coherent, because right now the thought of putting coherent sentences together certainly does not appeal to me.  

Arusha was definitely not the city I was expecting it to be.  I think in my mind I had a very rural, African village pictured, but that is not the Arusha that I now know at all.  Arusha was surprisingly more developed than I would have thought; our lives there were really comfortable and there wasn’t really anything that I had to live without (sometimes hot water, and a dryer, but that was basically it).  In some ways this enhanced the experience since we weren’t physically suffering in any way, but sometimes I think I felt a little cheated out of a more typical African experience.  However, I know from much traveling that you can’t really change the place you are, so you just have to choose how much of it you embrace and experience.  And while I eventually found Arusha to be charming and sometimes a little bit suffocating at the same time, I still definitely loved it.  It took much longer than usual for me to find all those little things that endear a city to me (good finds for eating, cool areas and neat markets and that sort of thing), but it happened, and Arusha really does have a lot to offer.  I especially liked any time we got about ten minutes away from where we lived and out of the “downtown” area, especially when I went to the schools and homes and neighborhoods of my soccer players and got a legitimate feel for what life is like for them here.  I found many of the people to be incredibly warm and hospitable, and it really sucks that now that I’ve really found my niche within Arusha and tapped into all of its appealing qualities, I have to leave.  I definitely need to go back. 

The entire two months spent in Tanzania were great.  I loved working for Future Stars Academy, and am really hoping that I can work it out to come back next summer and work with FSA for a few more months.  Initially, it wasn’t the type of internship I had envisioned myself having here, but once I got more involved, I got really into the work I was doing here.  It is really hard to work for such a small organization, particularly one that is in its beginning stages, but I learned so much about grassroots development and how challenging it can be.  There was a big difference between doing the behind-the-scenes organizational work and the easy part, which is playing with the kids and spending time with them, but I thoroughly enjoyed the entire experience.  I am a little sad to have left so early, and for awhile was really tempted to change my ticket, because in the next two months FSA will be hosting its own tournament and I wish I could be there.  I think I learned some really enlightening lessons about how challenging it is to create and maintain an organization, and how frustrating it can be when you genuinely believe in your organization but have a hard time garnering the outside support you need.  Definitely learned a lot. 

I have briefly gone back and read some of my earlier blogs, as well as went through the journal I kept while in Arusha, and its so weird to me to read how I felt at the beginning of the trip, especially comparing it to how I feel now at the end of it.  The first few weeks were harder on me than I remember, and it took longer than usual to really feel completely content in the city, but now leaving it, I feel like I am leaving behind a really comfortable life.  The past few weeks in particular have really been my favorites, especially once we found really cool day trips that are all around Arusha to experience (I think my two favorite places were definitely the Black Panthers’ UAACC and Kilimanjaro).  Tanzania is a really beautiful, incredible place, and I feel like I got a great base there, but honestly wish that I had more time to do more.  Ten weeks seemed like a long time in the beginning, but now that I left, I wish I had ten more weeks. 

It would be hard to reflect on my time here without thinking about the people I have gone through this experience with, since the people you are with generally can make or break a trip.  In the case of Tanzania, the people I was with definitely enhanced every aspect of being here.  The people I met from Arusha, the people I interned with, the people and children and women who we spent time with when we volunteered, were all really warm and wonderful people.  It’s hard here when it comes to meeting people – you have to put up a defensive wall at first and keep your guard up, because at the end of the day, you’re in Africa and you have to be careful, but the more at ease you become, the easier it is to break down those walls and barriers and really interact and communicate with people, as well as appreciate them more.  There was also a great dynamic and energy with the people I lived with in the house.  I thoroughly enjoyed living with them and sharing my experience with them; initially, I thought it would be miserable living in a house with 15 undergrads, but I am really impressed with them and think they are a pretty exceptional group of people. I also really loved living with the East African students who were in the house with us; I got to meet a great group of guys that I otherwise never would have known, and they are really warm and wonderful people.  I was very sad to say goodbye to everyone.  I had a great two months with them, an even better last couple of weeks, and spent my last day in Arusha hanging out with some of my favorite people, drinking wine and wrapping up my life in Tanzania.  Pretty good stuff. 

Every time I go on a trip, I always like to pick one thing that was the best part and one thing that is the worst part.  Well, I usually pick 10 things that are the best parts, but no matter what, the worst part for me is always leaving.  Even given all the hardships and annoyances that come with living in Arusha sometimes, if I could I would definitely stay longer and do more.  Leaving a place is always the hardest part, especially places that you enjoy so much.   My mother always tells me you should always leave a place wishing you did more rather than wishing you had gotten the hell out of there much earlier.  I certainly agree, and so I feel mostly okay about leaving, and am leaving Tanzania feeling completely satisfied with my time here, but certainly not full.  There is a lot more I plan on taking from Tanzania in the future. 

I have thought a lot about studying abroad when I was an undergrad and how it is similar and different to studying abroad as a graduate student.  I think expectations are much higher as a graduate student – when I was an undergrad, I had no expectations from any trip except to have as much fun as I possibly could, and to do, see, and meet as many new things and people as possible.  I still am very similar to that in many ways, but I think I travel now with much more direction and expectations from my time abroad.  This is probably a good thing; I’m very much the same person, but I think that there is a slightly more mature version of myself traveling these days (I would like to emphasize the word slightly there).  Some of the most life changing trips I had were during my undergrad days, particularly those to Costa Rica and then to Spain.  I had expected my time in Tanzania to be equally life changing, but something I am finding out about myself the older I get is that trips are less life changing, and instead are more reinforcing and solidifying to who I am.  That doesn’t mean I don’t learn things, and there are lessons I am going to definitely be taking with me from Tanzania, but the more I understand myself and who I am and what I expect out of places, I don’t find trips to be completely life changing anymore, as much as they are just enhancing.  I hope this makes sense.  It probably doesn't, since it kind of doesn't to me, but luckily nobody will be reading this anyway, since there are no pictures included.  :-) 

It’s crazy to think that as soon as I leave here I am going to Sierra Leone.  I can only imagine what I will see and learn there; I know it will be completely different from Tanzania, which is a good thing, because I don’t want to have to compare the two.  I feel very excited about spending some time in Freetown, sad about leaving Tanzania and missing it, stressed out about the amount of school work that has been piling up in my absence, and mostly really exhausted.  This is actually all good stuff, as I prefer to work from a place of exhaustion and a bit of hysteria, and I think I crank out my best performances under such conditions. 

To wrap this up, Kwaheri, Tanzania!  I will miss you terribly, think about you often, and hopefully be back to visit you again someday.  In the meantime, the next time you hear from me will be from Freetown, Sierra Leone!