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

Mt. Meru, Waterfalls, and Raha!

It felt like a very adventure-filled weekend.  Saturday was the camel safari, and on Sunday we went on a hike to the base of Mt. Meru to see a very impressive waterfall.  Let me start by saying that I am not a hiker and have never been a hiker, and really wasn't sure what the difference was between going for a walk and going for a hike.  Apparently it's hiking whenever you're not on paved roads?  I would have to check on that, but that's the feeling I'm getting so far.  Either way, I am now addicted to "hiking" (or just walking for an extended period of time) and want hiking gear for Christmas (do you see how I slyly throw my Christmas list into this?  I'm going to make this a recurring theme so that by the time I'm home, everyone will have done all my Christmas shopping and buy me very satisfying presents).

Anyway, this hike was pretty awesome.  It was also not the easiest; being in Tanzania we are already pretty high up, and elevation headaches and swelling are pretty common (or I'm just tired and out of shape, but I prefer to blame outside sources).  The first part of the hike we were mostly on unpaved roads and got to meander through some really local villages, which was pretty cool.  We had a pretty steep climb to get us up to where we needed to go, but I can proudly say that I didn't fall at all (at least on the way up).  Instead we took some sweet pictures and saw some great views.  

After awhile of hiking up, we started to descend and take a trail path down towards the waterfall (this was a 25km walk).  This is when I started to fall.  Walking downhill has never been my strong suit, and I took my first big fall on the way down one of the steep paths.  Once we got all the way down, we got to traverse a river.  In the beginning, I tried to follow the rocks and make sure I didn't fall in.  Obviously it was only a matter of time before I actually fell in, so once I did, I no longer worried about stepping carefully on the rocks and just walked through the water (which was actually very refreshing).  The river was pretty fun to hike through; I surprised everyone (including myself) with a successful climb up some big rocks, only to be followed by an unsurprising fall off of them, but it was fun.  Definitely challenging, but totally worth it when we made it to the waterfall.  The waterfall was awesome; it's the kind of thing you see that makes you really appreciate the beauty and power of nature and the fact that it's untouched (also, I apologize for using a phrase like 'the beauty and power').  But it was pretty awesome, and I somehow managed to climb up right behind it and let it soak me.   

We hung out at the waterfall for a little while.  The water was actually freezing and once I was soaking wet, I got pretty chilly.  The dread started to sink in when we realized we had to hike all the way back the exact way we came, which means that our steep descent was going to be a very challenging incline.  After falling a few dozen more times, we actually managed to get up the very steep hill and made it back to the top, and then got to enjoy a refreshing downhill walk for awhile.  The walk back became much more interesting when Morris introduced us to Raha, which is a locally brewed banana beer.  These things cost about 400 TSH each, which is about 20 cents (can you beat that?).  And, they don't taste bad at all.  We filled up a backpack with them and it made the fifth hour of hiking much funnier and more manageable.  I will also say that I actually fell down more times on the downhill walk back than the rest of the hike, but only because 1) walking downhill is hard for me and 2) the roads are so dusty and the rocks are slippery and 3) obviously the banana beer.

On the sixth hour of our hike, we stopped at a little village where the woman who cooks for us, Susan, owns her own restaurant.  We stopped there to get something to eat and drink, and in my banana-beer induced state I broke my no-meat bandwagon and had some (I must say) delicious chicken.  Luckily, by the time we were finished there (which was hours later), we got cabs to take us the rest of the way home.   

I realize that I have been posting a lot of fun weekend adventures we have been having, but have been getting a ton of questions from everyone about every day life and what I'm up to during the week.  Let me just say that my every day life and weeks are not nearly as exciting or fun (yet), but that I will get on that for my next blog and hopefully have a lot more interesting insight about life in Africa.  Until then, let's all be thankful that my computer is fixed and I am no longer catatonic about it.  

Meserani Snake Park and the Maasai

Today was a pretty spectacular day in Arusha; for me, it was by far the best day I've had here so far.  Life in Arusha is sometimes really easy and sometimes really challenging.  We are pretty privileged as far as living accommodations go here (living in our guarded compound with cooks and housekeepers is nothing to complain about), but every once in awhile, no matter how open your mind, you can't help but get a little frustrated with taking another cold shower under a spout because your shower head is broken again or getting harassed by men  and having them try to follow you home (peanut M&Ms really help through those times).   Not that I wasn't expecting some of these things, but it still gets to even the best of us every once in awhile.  That, in conjunction with a broken laptop, has, I will admit, gotten the better of me earlier this week.

Things progressively got better.  I ventured out more than usual and started to see a lot of the good stuff in Arusha.  Many of the people are incredibly friendly; it is not uncommon to end up chatting with someone for a few minutes and realizing you have some sort of connection (yes, a lot of the guys do try to ask you where you live and whether or not you're married, but as long as you give them a vague enough answer, you are mostly okay).  We found a great place to eat, simply called Fast Food.  It is one of those great dive places where for 2,000 TSH (Tanzanian Shillings, which is the equivalent of about $1.20) you can get a giant plate of delicious food.  I got a huge plate of rice with curry sauce, beans, and grilled vegetables.  Next time I am trying something else, that I'm sure will be equally delicious and equally as cheap.  Fast Food has been a great find so far, and I imagine we will be frequent customers.  Thus (sorry for saying thus), as frustrating or uncomfortable as life can be here (and it really isn't too terrible at all), there is definitely some awesome stuff that I am realizing you just have to be open to finding.  It's definitely there.

Today, we found some of that awesome stuff that I keep alluding to in spades.  We went to Meserani Snake Park, which is located about 25km west of Arusha.  The day consisted of three parts: a guided Maasai tour, a camel ride to a Maasai village, and a walk around the snake park.  All three were excellent.

Our Maasai guide's name was Lessica (aka Jessica with an L, in case that wasn't blatantly obvious) and he took us on a tour of the Maasai Cultural Museum.  [Really briefly, for those who may or may not be aware, the Maasai people are a semi-nomadic ethnic group in North Tanzania and Kenya, and are known for being warriors and cattle-herders.]  Anyway, as far as museums go, theirs was really interesting and really depicted life as part of the Maasai.  We saw how their huts are built (with cow dung and ash from fires) and learned that there are two beds in every hut, one for the women and children and one for the men (the men and women don't share a bed unless it's a special occasion ... maybe this is something Ralph and Cathy want to consider?).  Something also pretty interesting we learned was that the jewelry and adornments that people have tell others who they are, and you can tell by what a woman is wearing if she has children, grandchildren, and (wait for it) whether or not she is circumcised.  Yes, circumcision was a pretty significant portion of the museum, as it is an important rite of passage in Maasai custom (and something we heard about a lot today).  A few things we learned: boys get circumcised around the age of manhood (about 15) and have to be prepped for the ritual because they are not allowed to cry, make noise, shake, or basically react in any way during the process.  This includes blinking (they can choose to either close their eyes or keep them open, but whatever they choose they have to do for the duration of the process).  If they do cry, they are outcast from society (pretty harsh, right?).  Another interesting piece of information - women are also circumcised, which is a little disconcerting (as I imagine it would be for most females to imagine having to go through that).  Thanks to the Tanzanian government, it is actually illegal now for women to be circumcised, but we were told that about 30% still go through with it, and that it is by choice.  Sorry to talk so much about circumcision, but it actually was fairly interesting and if I had to hear about it, you have to hear about it.  The rest of the day was much nicer, though, I can assure you.

After the cultural museum, we got to go on a camel ride to a real Maasai village.  I was very apprehensive about getting on a camel; I have always heard that they are mean and dirty creatures, but I must say the camels we had today were lovely and I apologize to camels everywhere for the bad reputation they have (unless they deserve it, but the ones today certainly did not).  Getting on and off of the camel is the most terrifying and thrilling part of the ride. I didn't realize that camels are very tall, and to get on the camel, they sit on their legs so we can climb onto a makeshift saddle.  This is all well and good, but then when the camel goes to stand up, it's long legs thrust you forward and you feel like you're going to fall off.  It is all pretty awkward but actually really fun.  Same thing with getting off the camel (which actually is the only thing scarier than getting on).  The camel leans all the way forward and you have to hold on to the handle bar in front of you while leaning as far back as possible while not falling off.  If you see my current Facebook picture, it really captures the feelings I had while trying to descend the camel.  Fun stuff, really.

The camels took us to, like I said, a local Maasai village, where we were greeted by a big group of children who came running when we showed up.  They were really friendly and immediately clung on to all of us, and we spent at least an hour playing with kids and walking around and seeing where and how they lived.  A lot of stuff to talk about here; first, there are baby goats everywhere, and even though I have never been one to swoon over animals, those things were pretty freaking cute.  Tiny little guys, and I even held one without dropping it or throwing up.  In terms of the Maasai kids, they were all over the place.  There were about 20 kids, probably from around eighteen months to ten or eleven years old.  I think what we were told is that the Maasai are polygamists, and so they have a lot of children, and all of these children were the grandchildren of one person I think they were talking about, so basically they were all cousins.  Being 1 of 20 cousins is actually sometime I am very used to, but I can only imagine what would have happened in the Butler grandchildren grew up like these kids (it would actually be pretty interesting if all 24 of us lived in a couple of huts together - I bet Emily, Ronan and Declan would be ruling all of us and Dieter and Laura would probably be our slaves).  They seem  to govern themselves (but are incredibly respectful of their elders), so the littlest kids were carried by slightly less-little kids, and there was definitely a hierarchy you could see from the 10-12 year old boys.  It can be a little tough seeing kids who have less than what I'm accustomed to seeing, but if you look past the dirt, the baggy clothes, and some of the flies (which were all there), we got to see some really happy children.  They really loved our group, and I noticed that they were particularly interested in watches, aviators, and cameras.  They sang some songs for us, including Twinkle Twinkle, and then wanted us to sing for them.  So I sang In the Jungle (even though I forgot the words, at which point the kids sang their own, better version of the song) and I taught them the Chicken Dance.  They mostly wanted to play, hold your hand, have you swing them around or toss them in the air, and just be near you.  There really isn't anything that's quite as rewarding as spending time with kids and making them laugh, so it was definitely a good day.  I think a lot of us who went today will find ourselves volunteering with kids throughout the next few months here in TZ.

We took camels back to where the Cultural Center is, and had lunch made for us (toasted tomato and cheese sandwiches, which always hit the spot, at least for me).  Then we had some free time to walk around some Maasai tents (which are basically for buying stuff) or we could visit the snake park.  My friend Sarah and I decided to see the snake park, which turned out to be awesome.  I don't know about everyone else, but I happen to be terrified of snakes (they are near the top of my long list of things I'm afraid of, right up there with hippos and birds), and even when they are in cages, they are pretty intimidating.  The snake park had AWESOME snakes, including a few gigantic pythons (one which had pictures of a human it had eaten and a buck), black mambos, cobras.. all sorts.  The park also has crocodiles, and, better than crocodiles, BABY crocodiles.  I'm talking tiny little guys (who, surprisingly, do not scare me at all, whereas stink bugs scare me, so go figure).  There were also some lizards, and some turtles.  The coolest thing about the park is how close you can get to the animals - not like a park or a zoo at home where you are well-guarded and far enough away.  If I wanted to, I could have reached out and picked up a baby croc, which I didn't do.  However, something I DID do was hold... a snake!  Obviously, if you know me at all (and I'm assuming you do, because basically the only people who read my blog are my mom and Jennifer) I would normally cry and run away from a snake, but I held that black mambo like it was a snuggly puppy (also, it wasn't a black mambo at all, it was like the safest, nicest snake in the park with no teeth or venom, but I prefer my version of the story).  I also held a turtle, which isn't scary at all.  The only other scary thing to note in the park - a badass vulture.  So there is this vulture that sits in his cage, and when Sarah and I walk back, it literally hisses at us (I don't know if you would say that birds hiss, but it hissed at us).  Then, it flew to the front of the cage (flapping it's giant wings VERY angrily) and started biting the cage and making noises like it wanted to eat my soul.  My fear of snakes is one thing, but birds are a whole different story, so I screamed and ran away from that crazy mo fo.

I think it was around 3:30 when we finally left.  It was a long, tiring, exhilarating, and extremely fulfilling day.  I'm sure there will be many like it to follow (hopefully minus that stupid bird), and I am greatly looking forward to them.  In fact, tomorrow we are going for a hike to Mt. Meru, so I'm sure I will have a lot to write about then.

Here's a few more pictures taken throughout the day:

I also want to post a video of the Maasai children singing to us and some more pictures of the Maasai children in general.  It was really wonderful getting to spend some time with them.

I hope you all enjoyed the addition of pictures to my blog.  I know you aren't actually reading it, so at least now you can pretend to know what I'm up to!  

Nights Out In Arusha

At Via Via! 

Celebrating Morris's Birthday! 

Becoming Real Life

I feel like I have been in Arusha for a month already, but it has not even been a full week yet, which is a good thing, because if it were that I've been here for a few months already, I would have nothing to show for it.  I definitely enjoyed myself the first week in Arusha, and although I think I definitely needed the time to get accustomed to life here a little bit, I haven't done anything productive yet.  Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, at least for now, and it was nice to have a few carefree days in Arusha before starting my internships.  The first weekend particularly was a lot of fun, and I have really enjoyed getting to know my housemates.  I feel like I'm back in college a little bit (which can be a good thing and a bad thing…) and I am enjoying the company of the house, cooking and having meals together, playing soccer with everyone, and just getting got know people and making new friends.  All good stuff.  

However, I have been feeling a little off so far, and I think it's because even though I know I'm in Africa, I don't really feel like I'm in Africa yet.  I get bits and pieces of the feeling, like when I walk briefly through an open air market or when we run out of water in the house, but that could happen anywhere.  So I think I'm waiting for that feeling to hit me that I am definitely in Africa.  I'm sure it's coming, and I'm sure when it does I will be very excited about it, and probably even make it a Facebook status (because nothing is real unless it's on Facebook, right?)… I think the other part of it is that usually when I travel, I feel comfortable in a new city almost immediately; I walk around, get to know it, and really engage with it, and for some reason, I just haven't done that yet with Arusha.  And it's not that I don't like the city, I just think that I am more guarded and cautious here than anywhere else I have been.  I think since I got here a week after everyone else, I am more reliant on them to answer my questions and tell me where things are or what to do rather than figure it out for myself.  

Again, none of this is a bad thing.  It's probably better to come into a new city with a little bit of humility rather than run around acting like you own the place, but I would like to stop feeling like such a dunce all the time (even though I'm fairly certain that might never actually go away…) and start feeling like I belong in Arusha and have a reason to be here.  Hopefully that starts tomorrow, when I start my internship with Kamamma.  I am a little nervous about it, mostly because of the very creepy and uncomfortable meeting I had on Friday, but I'm feeling good about it and I'm pretty sure nothing could be worse than my Friday meeting and that it can only get better from there.  

Until then, I should probably stop complaining and acting like my life sucks, because today I sat under a gazebo in 80 degrees and got tan.  Instead, I'll post some more sweet pictures showing how awesome it is over here.  :-) 

This is the road to get to our house, and the typical kind of road you see around Arusha.  That means it's bumpy and I have a difficult time walking gracefully and without tripping (pretty sure I have a hard time on smooth pavement with that, too).  Something I have been noticing is just how dark it gets at night here, so when we walk on the roads at night, it's really dark.  Which certainly doesn't make walking on the roads any easier.  However, it is pretty incredible when you look up and see the stars and see how close they are and how big and bright.  That's when I appreciate the darkness (until I immediately trip and then get frustrated again). 

A view from town of Mt. Meru (taken from someone else's camera which is much better than mine and that I probably need to invest in soon enough...) It's pretty awesome that this is the view from our backyard.  You can also see it from most spots around the city.  

Here's most of my housemates (but not all!) sitting around the table where we have dinner together every night

A typical dinner...so far the meals have been really good!  Nothing yet that has matched my love for the food in Costa Rica, but I'm sure I'll find something to give it a run for its money...

Fresh, homemade guacamole!  Yes, we have a food processor in our kitchen.  Not that I would know how to make guacamole.  As is per usual, I let others do the cooking and I enjoy the eating (by the way, thanks to Trish and Sarah for the guac!)   

Really pretty flower in the tree outside

Another picture of the house, in case you forgot what it looks like :-) 

What Exactly Am I Doing Here? I'm Not Quite Sure Yet...

I am trying to acclimate myself here in Tanzania, and although most people can speak English, their native language and what is most commonly spoken on the streets is Swahili.  Most of the students here take a Swahili language class twice a week, but since I am a full-time intern, I am learning my Swahili "polepole" (which means slowly) and from other people.  The most pleasant surprise for me was when I found out that people here really do say "Hakuna Matata"  just like in the Lion King!  And, just like in the Lion King,  it means "No Worries" which is a really appropriate philosophy to life in Tanzania.  

Some other useful words and phrases are "Jambo" which means hello (although people will actually more commonly use "Mambo" instead) and "Habari" which means how are you or what's up.  I am learning to respond by saying "Nzuri" or "Nzuri sana" which means well or very well.  People welcome you everywhere you go, and they do that by saying "Karibu" or "Karibu rafiki" which means welcome and welcome friend.  Yes, the word for friend is "Rafiki" just like the baboon in the Lion King (I guess Disney really did their research for the movie…) 

The two last Swahili phrases I'll put up today are ones that I find most useful.  The first is "Sawa Sawa" which means OK, and I pretty much use that whenever I don't know what the person was saying to me.  The other one, and a phrase everybody should learn in every language, is "Wapi Choo?" which asks where the bathrooms are (obviously, this can come in handy).  

I have only been here for four days so far, but it actually feels like much longer.  I am trying to come up with some sort of schedule or routine, but it is proving difficult to do so far.  What's not proving difficult so far has been hanging out with everyone in the house, making friends, and going out in Arusha.  I went to my first bar/club on Thursday night to Via Via, which kind of reminded me of a small-scale, African version of Seacrets in Ocean City.  There is an inside and outside bar, a stage for concerts (and if no concert, then a dance floor with a DJ), and actually a karaoke screen at the outside bar.  I went out with almost all 15 people from the house, and have to say that I greatly enjoyed myself and had a good time checking out the nightlife in Arusha.  The clientele was surprisingly pretty diverse, or at least different from what I had anticipated.  There are a lot of Europeans in Arusha, and a lot of Germans.  We even ran into some other Americans at the bar, and some Canadians.  There were also really local Arushans and Masaii people at Via Via.  It was definitely a fun first night out and I am interested in what some of the other bar and club scenes will be like. 

On a note of success, I finally am getting (most of) my bearings and can make my way around Arusha (at least, to the two or three places that I really need).  The area that we are in and where we mostly go is all within walking distance.  I went on a bit of a hike when I walked with some girls over to the Shop Rite, which is a pretty far walk (you really have to take a cab back with all the bags you carry).  It's nice to have a Shop Rite to pick up some essentials, since we have to make our own lunch every day.  Trish and I stocked up on yogurts, cheese, bread, and apples and peanut butter.  It's been really getting us by so far, and I just rely on our cooks to provide me with traditional African cooking.  I know my limits when it comes to skills in the kitchen, and I've figured out that if I do the dishes, I can get Trish to cook anything that's deemed somewhat fancy (like grilled cheese or eggs, which are both way beyond my means).  

Although I have really enjoyed my first half-week in Tanzania, next week is going to be a big change, as I will be starting both of my internships.  I had a meeting today to meet with the director of Kamamma Integrated Development Initiatives, a local NGO that focuses on community empowerment and capacity building, with specific emphasis on education.  I don't want to say too much about the meeting, but I will say that if ever I were to have a breakdown while here in Africa, it would have been today (since the breakdown didn't happen, hopefully that means it never will).  Let me just say that the meeting was bizarre and uncomfortable, and I probably would have cried if Trish had not gone with me.  The office is only about a five minute walk away, but for some reason, we were taken to their second office which is located in an area of Arusha that is, let's just say, on the other side of the tracks.  However, even though the meeting was not really what I was expecting, I am still excited and hopeful that the internship will be meaningful and that things will fall into place.  It seems like I will have a lot of freedom to plan and implement my own development project, and will be splitting my time between working out of the office here in Arusha and going on site (which is about 30 kilometers away) to implement my project.  It is a good opportunity to be thrown into international development and realize the difficulties of pursuing development goals in an underdeveloped area.  It will definitely be a challenge, but I am hoping I will rise to it.  

http://www.kamamma.org/

Tomorrow morning I have a meeting about my other internship, which is with an NGO called Future Stars Academy.  This seems like something that is less demanding and that will be more obviously rewarding and fun, as it is a youth soccer program.  FSA seeks to use soccer as a way to develop Tanzanian youth into not only better athletes, but better individuals,  using soccer as a means to teach children all of the rewarding things that playing for a team and working towards a goal can teach us.  I am really looking forward to helping with FSA, and even to coaching a girls team (although I am obviously worried that my soccer coaching skills are not up to par; however, I remember that if my mother could coach soccer, I'm pretty sure anyone can…) :-) 

http://www.futurestarsacademy.org/the_academy.html

I hope everyone has a good weekend!  I am planning on waking up at six tomorrow morning so that I can stream the US men's soccer game vs. Costa Rica (they are playing in California so I am 11 hours ahead)…let's hope the technology can stand it.  So far, I've had a better internet connection here than I ever had at home (but that's probably because I lived in a house with dial up until 2010…)

Missing everybody!!  Hope to talk to you all soon, and I am also really hoping that I get better at blogging and can start telling funny stories soon, because if you are as bored reading this as I am writing  it, I will understand if you stop checking in.  I will hopefully be back to my old shenanigans soon enough and will provide you with a healthy dose of hilarity. 

Hasta luegoooooo (just until I learn how to say this in Swahili…)