Safari

Giraffes, elephants, monkeys, and hippos: The Tanzanian country side is beautifully decorated with an abundance of African wildlife. The girls and I arranged a safari excursion to Makumi National Park this past Saturday. 5:30 am came around and we hopped into our hired van that conveniently picked us up at our doorstep. After a short one hour drive, we reached the park gates; literally within one minute of being inside the park, there was monkeys running on the road and zebras crossing in the distance. Once we reached the safari area, we hired a guide and were on our way. The first animal to greet us was a lone giant, standing strong, chomping away at some grass, the Massai Giraffe. Standing about 5 meters away, he stared directly at us as if he was studying us as much as we were he. He stood tall, not moving an inch, before he turned away abruptly as if to say; move along now, shows over. After our first encounter with a giraffe, many more were to follow. The openness of the East-African landscape-broad rolling grasslands dotted with lone acacia trees- makes spotting a giraffe an easy feat. Their long legs and great neck stretch high to eat from the lone trees.

The following half-hour of our trip had us studying hippos as they bobbed about in the pond, gazing at packs of Impala standing on alert for predators, and laughing at Baboons as they played about with their family. We managed to see a great number of elephants in various herds scattered throughout the park. As we approached one herd of approximately four females, two babies, and at least one male, we were reminded that these animals are wild, unlike the many we see at zoos all over the world. We were at a standstill when all of a sudden the male of the group began flapping his ears wildly, shaking his head, raising and blowing his trunk, and running straight towards us. He charged us and came to a halt at about 15 feet away. I guess this was just his way of saying “screw off.” Luckily, I managed to capture this moment on video, so stay tuned for that.

Throughout the day, we managed to see more elephants and giraffes, monkeys, crocodiles, hippos, zebras, impalas, various birds, a giant lizard, water buffalo, saddle-billed stork, and wildebeests. Unfortunately, there was no Simbas for us L but that’s okay. You basically have to spend the night to be able to get up early enough to catch the lions in the morning, so we were grateful enough to have been able to see as much as we did.

Netball

Yesterday Katie and I had our first net ball experience. And wow… was it a treat. First off, we met James at Faraja and he led us to where we would be playing. Once we got the field, what are the chances that school was just getting out. So here came over 100 wide-eyed children screaming Mzungu, pointing, and running towards us. So as James set up the court ( by attaching metal rings to giant sticks, digging a whole into the group and ramming them into place), we were swarmed by children looking at us as if we were on display at a zoo. We were in Chamwino which not many foreigners ever venture off into so we were being examined from all angles. Once James set up the court and some girls trickled in, we were to be begin. James put us on opposite teams and told us to start. Neither Katie nor I had any idea what netballs was, never mind how to play it. James doesn’t speak English, none of the girls do either, and we were unable to use the little Swahili we knew to communicate that we didn’t know the rules. But, the show went on. With the lines drawn in the dirt and teams made, we began running around, unsure of which direction to go or if we were even supposed to be running. Well, having Mzungu’s in Chamwino alone was an exciting event, now picture Mzungu’s running around with no idea what they’re doing. Our crowd (of say close to 150 people at this point) was roaring with laughter and screaming cheers when we did something right. We continued to play for about an hour and I think we have the basics covered now.

The language barrier was immense but it didn’t prevent the game from going on. This was definitely the toughest situation to date that I’ve had to face in Africa. It’s in times like these where you both panic and have a freak show because you have no idea what’s going on, or you just laugh and take it like it is. In my opinion, the only way to survive here is to live each day and laugh it out. Once we were finished the girls all came up and “nipe tano-ed” us (give me 5) and all asked when we would be playing again. I guess we made the cut. The following Thursday, since we play every Tuesday and Thursday, the girls showed up with their version of jerseys. They were blue skirts that had nice watermelons and mangos for decoration. Oh, did I mention that it is mandatory to play netball in skirts? So Katie and I were each given a uniform and… well, lets just say we were too fat to fit. The only way we could wear them is if we hiked them up to almost right under our boobs. We looked great.

Ushujua Kwa Uhai- Courage for Life

Thursday night was our first talent show night that we organized. Michelle and I have been working with a local drama group here and they prepared some skits, as well as raps, dances, and songs all with a focus around HIV/AIDS awareness. This talent shows theme was Testing. With a slow turnout in the beginning, approx 100 people were in the audience, Marco ( our local project coordinator) got things rolling with him being the head MC. I would guess that near the end there was about 300 people in the audience. Three girls went on stage to perform talents which we were super excited about because female participation is a huge challenge here in Tanzania. Habibu and George, new friends I have made who are also in the drama group, were my translators for the event. I was in charge of condom distribution and demonstrations. So lets just say, I am officially a condom expert now. It was amazing to see how many people had no idea how to use a condom, or what they even were for that matter. I demonstrated the correct 12 step procedure I would say at least 15 times to probably a crowd of at least 150 people combined. Many people did not even know what it was used for, here are some of the questions I received: What does it protect from? Can I wash it and use it again? Do I wear it all day? What kind of air is in that package that makes it kill sperm? And so on... now you can see the lack of education that east africa faces. Everyone was eager to learn so I was excited to be demonstrating... at times, people were so anxious that they would actually push and shove eachother just to get closer. Thank goodness Habibu and George were there because I would have been trampled for sure!

Starting Work

This past week has been jam packed as it was the first week of programming. Tuesday was my first presentation to seconday students in an area outside of Morogoro known as Bigwa. We were greated by the second master of the school who introduced myself and the local consultant/translator that I will be working with. This school has about 700 students and the head master told us that so many students signed up to be a part of our governance workshops that they had to select students. So what they did was take the top students from different school departments and thats who we're teaching: the cream of the crop. The level of respect and readiness to learn was astonishing. The first lesson was a success and I hope that all the ones to come will be as well. This is the first time YCI has ever done Governance so this is a huge leap for the organization.

My second task was to start Gender workshops in the area of Chamwino. Chamwino is known for being low-income and under-resourced. It is also the site of high rates of youth prostitution, early pregnancies, unemployment, alochol/drug abuse, HIV/AIDS, and other illnesses. The houses in this area are stick-mud huts, usually with six to ten people living in one room. The girls that come to our workshops are un-educated and have little to no english knowledge; thus, a translator is needed at all times. Although a mere five girls attended the first workshop, many important questions they had were addressed. Their eyes were glued to our presentation as they studied our makeshift drawings of a woman's uterus and discussed details of the women menstral cycle. It was aparant that these women know little about their bodies and issues that face them so I am excited and eager for the coming weeks.

MOROGORO

The Rash.

Over the past few days here I have developed an allergic reaction to something resulting in a crazy rash. My program officer has never seen a rash like this before, and neither have any of the local Mamas so I have no idea what is causing it. We think it might be something I ate but we do not know. So I took Benadryl a couple of times and it did nothing so I had to go to the hospital. The doctor suggested getting a Cortizone injection so thats what we did. Well I didn't know it had to go in my butt! So my first hospital visit in Africa had me bent over with my pants down with a huge needle stuck in my fat. As soon as the needle was in, I could feel all the contents oozing into my body, all down my legs and into my feet. Suddenly, I was overtaken by extreme sweat and heat, followed by the most massive head rush i've ever experienced. This caused me to almost faint and then I started vommiting everywhere. I couldn't stand at this point so the nurse plopped me onto a chair where I could barely hold myself up. The head rush didn't leave so I had to lay down for 10 minutes. Once I finally had enough strength I got up and began the walk home with Marko. A walk that would normally take five minutes took me 25, stumbling along in my woozi and light-headed mannor. The rest of the day I spent laying in bed because the nauseous feeling and lightheaded-ness did not go away for a few hours. So now, here I am with a sore ass, but the rash has gone down a little. The pictures I will put up were the first stages of the rash. After this, they swelled up even bigger and were a blood red.

Mambo Vipi??

Greeting is an essential part of Tanzanian culture. Some people spend five, maybe ten minutes simply greeting eachother, typically holding hands the entire conversation. There are about 5 different ways to first greet someone and these are all based on age. When greeting an elder, it is your responsibility to start the conversation and only use the polite terms of everything. For people more around your age, "mambo" is thrown out every directions. To this, there are many ways to reply. They all, in one way or another, translate back to "fine". A typical conversation between two people could translate to this: Hey, how are things? Good. Problems? -no problems. How's the morning- Fresh. Hows the house? -Peace. How are the children- Clean. How is your partner-ok. Hows work?- Nice... and on and on and on. And the trick is... there is never a negative answer. If your parents are dead but someone asks hows are your parents, you say good. If you just found out you have cancer and someone asks how are you, you say good. The backbone of relationships are built soley on these greetings. To impress the Rastas with street talk, we throw out the ocassional, Mzuka... which they then think we're the coolest people around! It's really quite neat how much emphasis is put soley on greeting; maybe this is something our culture needs to put a little more effort into.