Home away from home...

Yesterday we had our first homestay of the semester. The weather decided to become temperamental for the 1^st time since we’ve been here (of all days) and gave us torrential downpours all morning. So there we were eating breakfast dressed in skirts, backpacks full of sunscreen, cameras, hand sanitizer, and gifts for the family crossing fingers that the rain would soon pass. Sure enough by 8am the rain lighted up as we headed to our designated vehicles, to spend the day with our host families.

View from our host family's house

Me being me I was pretty nervous not knowing what to expect from our homestays. Two students were paired with each family so Lexi and I headed off to meet our new family. As we dropped off each student at their respective host families the more nervous I became, watching them wave goodbye as the car pulled away. Sure enough we were the last two students in the car and our host family was literally on top of a mountain. I could tell cars never really traveled up there since our driver Nina had to back up several times to figure out the best route to take (OFF ROADING!). We finally got to the top and Palo gave us our jug of water and food for the families and said they’d be back at 445. He assured me I’d be okay since I must’ve looked like a deer caught in headlights the terror that ran across my face. Before I even had time to speak a boy came running up the hill immediately greeting us and grabbing out bags of food. His name was Reginald and he was the oldest child in the family, and he spoke pretty decent English. He brought us to the house and all the children came running. I was ecstatic to see so many young children, that I already knew this would be a good day. The mama, mama Deao sat us down in what was a small living room with 2 couches while all the children gathered round. She  speak much English but she knew commands such as sit! and come! I didn’t speak much Swahili but Lexi came to the rescue (she’s pro at it). So whatever she said I just repeated and sure enough a conversation got following about where were from, what we study etc.etc. We leaned that there were 6 children all ranging in ages from 1-18. The 3 yr old Ustifina took a liking to me, of course, so we played around. Then the father came in, Fastine John (I can’t spell). He spoke a little better English and continued talking to us while the mama left the room.

Our photo shoot

            Not being able to participate in conversation, and the fact that I can’t sit still for very long I went to go see what the mama was doing. She was cooking tea for us. She didn’t command me to cook or clean like I thought most host families would make us do but I wanted to help. So I stirred the pot and helped make the best chi tea ever! (tea I’d pay 4 bucks for at starbucks). We sat back in the living room and enjoyed some hot tea. Then mama brought corn in and we helped peel the kernels off the corn. Peeled corn for so long I got blisters on my thumbs. Lexi helped mama cut cabbage and I pulled out my camera to take pictures. The children went crazy wanting to be photographed every minute, and Reginald, I called him Reggie loved taking pictures of us. After a while of sitting and conversation Reggie took us to the field to pick corn. His English was very good and when we asked him how old he was he said 28! Hahah that gave us a laugh, but he was 18 and we enjoyed talking to him. The father then took me to show his cows, I had trouble understanding what he was saying but they had about 8 cows and baba (father) watoto (children). So a family of cows? Anyway after that, and Reggie still had my camera and he wanted to go on top of the hill to take pictures. Okay that’s a lie, I wanted to go take pictures. So he took us up and the view was breath taking. We had our own little photoshoot on the top of Moyo Hills. Beautiful!   

Some of the children even came up to join us. Soon lunch was ready, mama served us ugale and cabbage and I’m pretty sure more tea.

Herding the cattle to water

            We enjoyed our delicious meal and then Lexi took our her frisbee. It started off as all of us throwing the Frisbee around, mama too and then it turned into an intense game of ultimate Frisbee. Mama was fierce running all over the place guarding Lexi diving for the frisbee. Good thing I was onher team. The father wasn’t really around much I think he was working more on the farm. After being all hot a sweaty from such an intense game we got to herd the cattle down the hill to fetch water. Ironically other SFS students Nicolette and Isabella were staying at the house we were walking to. HODI HODI we screamed (knock knock) as they appeared in the doorway. “Oh we were just taking a nap”. Hahah a nap. We were quickly ushered inside by their host family and told to sit while the boys fetched water from the back of the house. There we talked with their families, who were extended family members of our host family. Isabella told us what they’ve been doing all day and one of their activities was playing with puppies. “Puppies” I exclaimed! “Lucky!” Upon hearing this one of sisters grabbed 2 puppies from the next room and brought them back for me. Puppies had their own photoshoot, and the family loved it. Soon it was time to leave and we grabbed our jugs of water and headed back up the hill. Not of course without taking pictures first. We headed back home and continued our game of Frisbee. It was around 4 just as we were having more rice and cabbage when Nina showed up. “Nina,” I said“what are you doing here? It’s only 4” “Yeah but it looked like it was going to rain.” The family sat him down and served us some more tea and chatted with him. I told him I wasn’t ready to go just yet. He went back to the car, while I sat and made bracelets of the beads that I brought with me for the family. They loved it. Sure enough 4:45 came and Nina said it was time to say our goodbyes. I hugged everyone goodbye and the 3yr old was crying. So the son Reggie grabbed our backpacks, I picked up Ustifina and carried her to the car. It was sad to leave because I didn’t realize how much fun I’d have with this family. I had a wonderful day getting to spend time with this family, and they told me I was welcomed back anytime. Especially because they wanted me to bring the pictures I took, which I fully intend to. I felt so lucky to have such a great loving family all the way in Africa!!

By the end of the day:

Cups of chai tea: 5

Total number of pictures: 180

Learning Swahili: sawa sawa (okay..ish)

A perfect day with my host family: priceless

Tse-Tse Flies and Safari Rides

Maasai Boma

Sorry I’ve been really slow about these blogs. These past 3 days (Mon, Tue, Wed) have been jammed pack with such amazing activities. After our papers were done we finally got to relax and enjoy ourselves, starting with a goat roast on Sunday evening. Yes I saw a staff member, Johanna kill, skin and roast a goat. It was quite an experience, a little uneasy but I did taste it after it was cooked over an open fire. Taste like chewy chicken, but at least I tried it. Then Monday for our Swahili culture class we went to a Maasai Boma to learn about women and their traditional cultures in the Boma. A boma is a small hut/house made out of cow dung and acacia trees. It was very hot and tiny inside but the people who live in the community were extremely friendly. After visiting the boma we got to shop at their local store were they make Maasai jewelry. It was beautiful and I brought some bracelets to bring home. Tourism is very important in the Maasai community, because they depend on us for a source of income to feed and support themselves. After the boma we came back to camp to have lunch before heading off to do community service. That afternoon we went to a local orphanage to play with children!! They also needed people to paint the boys sleeping quarters and cement one of the floors. So the jeep that I was in headed off into Mtowa mbu to pick up cement and paint. Have you ever hauled cement before? Heavy as s**! (but we didn’t end up needing the cement because the person who was supposed to teach us never showed, maybe next time.) Since we had to stop in town we were the last car to arrive and there we were bombarded by 40 children wanting to be picked up, touch us and play with us, it was so cute. Another student brought recorders to donate so they enjoyed running around playing with the recorders all afternoon. We also started painting some of the rooms in the orphanage as well. It was really enjoyable and very rewarding, and we also get to return later on in the semester to finish painting and maybe start cementing. 

         Tuesday we woke up at 630 to have breakfast before driving 2 hours to Tarangire National Park. I can’t even describe the beauty of the park. Lake Manyara x100. I've never seen so many herds of elephants in one place. It was awesome just driving around and observing different animals. (elephants, impala, monkeys, giraffe, ostriches, and more). It was extremely hot and we kept getting bitten by these tse-tse flies, they itch like hell after. So after getting bitten and sunburned we went to a lodge in the park to get drinks, food and swim. SO MUCH FUN! I swam and went tanning out by the pool and got myself a shirley temple YUM. We then stopped at a local store to check out tanzanite. Tanzanite is Tanzania’s famous gem stone but it’s resources are in decline. We went to go see it, to see if we were interested in buying it, but it was very, very, expensive so I bought some postcards instead to mail home. 

             Wednesday was our next day off. In the morning they organized an early bike ride around Lake Manyara but I opted opt to sleep in instead. By 11 we were off to Mtowa mbu for some pizza and shopping. Not New York style pizza but still pretty damn good. We all then we went shopping in the market I bought fabric so I can make a dress. This experience in the market was a lot better then the last one. Or maybe I’m getting better at saying no and bargaining. I love bargaining that’s one thing I’ll definitely miss in the states. Anyway it was a lot of fun and I didn't cry this time. Now were back to classes and some homework assignments aka more papers have been piling up, but that’s okay I've had a lot of fun these past few days. Next week we start our homestays and then it's off to Ngorogoro Crater on Friday!

Non-Program Day

Karatu Market

So our internet has been down for the past couple of days, which is why I haven’t been able to post much. This is from last Tuesday (2/7), which was our first day off.. In the morning we went to an Iraqw boma, which is a house that was built into the ground. We learned about a traditional wedding ceremony with the natives and participated in a dance. After the boma we drove to Karatu market to shop but we mainly walked around the market square with other locals that we met in town. After the market we drove to an even bigger market square. It was like a once a month flea market where people trade cows and animals, as well as clothes and other goods. It was a little overwhelming since there were hundreds of people there. Me and Ashley (an SFS student) just ended up browsing around looking for some fabric so we can make dresses out of them. (we didn’t find any we liked). However, people were following us all around trying to sell us bracelets and trinkets or whatever they had on them and they wouldn’t take hapana asante (no thank you) for an answer. So we walked back to the cars and they followed us and kept persisting us to the point where I jumped in the vehicle to get away. But they still reached their hand inside wanting money. I felt really bad and that was probably the hardest part of the market. After that exchange was over we drove to a local bar called happy days for some cold beer and American food. It was delicious and a lot of fun. After happy days we ended up going back to camp for dinner (though no of us ate much cause we were so full from the bar) and I had no motivation to do homework after such a long day in the sun. So I took a cold shower and went to bed. Overall good day.

Kioko teaching us how to plot and survey grass

            Wednesday we went to Lake Manyara again the afternoon. This time we drove to the outside park corridors to study grass. We got out of the cars and were roaming the plains collecting grass samples and plotting points for a field exercise. I actually enjoyed it. It was a change instead of being stuck inside the classroom for 3 hours. I don’t know if anyone else like it though, I know it sounds kind of boring. After we were done we got to walk to the edge of Lake Manyara to jump in the mud and take pictures. The walk was very long and hot across the plains but we were close to some cape buffalo and saw bones from a zebra carcass. The cars came to pick us up at the lake to drive us home. It was so hot, I’ve never craved a cold glass of ice or ice cream this badly before. But I shove down those thoughts because I have 2 ½ more months before I can get my hands on some ice cream. Monday is our first community service day where we get to go to a volunteer at a local orphanage and then Tuesday were going to Tarangire National Park followed by our day off on Wednesday, so these next 3 days jam packed.

Me in front of Lake Manyara

Safari 101

I’m dirty and smelly and my body is sore but this is the beauty of riding atop jeeps all over Lake Manyara National Park. This weekend we traveled the vast safari to experience our first field exercise. Saturday we woke up for breakfast and had a morning lecture of Wildlife Ecology. We then had a quick break for lunch before piling into the jeeps to head on over to Lake Manyara National Park. We were half way there when one of the jeeps broke down behind us, so we had to turn around, (since our driver was the mechanic) and stop to help them. And as I soon find out, this happens a lot. When we got to the entrance of LMNP we all met together for a last quick bathroom break as I wondered the main trails and saw my first Olive Baboons leaping across trees above me. Me and another SFS stood watching them when herd plopping noises next to us, thinking they were throwing food/nuts at us we actually realized they were pooping. So we quickly ran back to the cars before one of us got hit. We then started our tour. The beauty of the land was unreal it’s so hard to capture on camera what I really saw as we blazed through the trails. Of course we also had homework assignments to complete along the way so it was pretty difficult managing the papers and my camera as we flew across the park. We had to conduct 5 observations of all the animals we saw as well as a group sheet of each mammal we saw along the trails. My jeep was a lot of fun as we learned about the different behaviors of animals with Vedasto (our SFS coordinator) he's like my African version of Todd Fuller :). After a while we gave up on field observations and decided to take pictures instead. We saw baboons, zebras, cape buffalo, elephants, giraffes, vervate monkeys, dikdik and impalas. Unfortunately my camera broke towards the end of the trip while we were taking pictures of giraffes (of course it happens then) so that pretty much ended it and I started practicing my Swahili words with Vedesto instead. As soon as we got back to camp I plugged in my camera and took the pictures off my SD card before they were lost. It worked! And I got to keep all my previous pictures! By the time we got back we were all starving so we sat down and ate dinner. I quickly passed out after from being out in the hot sun all day. From this assignment we now have to write 2 papers from the observations we recorded in the field.

            Sunday we woke up at 7 for 7:30 breakfast and immediately after breakfast headed back to Lake Manyara National Park. However when our car was trying to leave the campsite it wouldn’t start, told ya this happens a lot. Luckily by 8:45 the jeep was started and we were off. This time we were only in the field to observe Olive Baboon Behavior. Basically we spent 2 ½ hrs watching each troop and recording what their activity patters were. I thought it was really interesting as other people in my jeep were getting bored. I was just not excited for the amount of work we had already piling from the past 2 days. For this we have to write another field research paper on activity behavior. So far its been a lot of papers due between the next couple of days. Let’s just say stress is pretty high right now. After our observations were done we spent the rest of the morning cruising through the Park since we had to be back by 12. We didn’t have much time to see as many animals as yesterday but it was still an enjoyable drive towards the exit. Tomorrow is our day off. We have one day off a week where they coordinate activities for us to do. Were going to see an Iraqw Boma, visit Karatu Town and Market and conclude with Happy Days, a local bar that serves dinks and American food. YUM! However, since being swamped with so much work I’ll probably have to blog about that later during the week. So stayed tuned for more fun adventures, because we’ve officially been here for a week and our semester is just beginning.

Karibu Tanzania

Today we had our 1^st day of classes (2/1). This morning we woke up at 715 for breakfast and had Wildlife Ecology at 8 with John Kiko. Let’s just say I’m not in the school mode to sit in a classroom for a 2 hr lecture. At 10 we had a 5 hr break before our next class. We all decided to grab our crazy creeks to sit outside and catch up on lecture readings (yes we already have reading assignments) and to also to soak up the sun. Unfortunately I wasn’t paying attention to my legs and they got extremely sunburned. At least the rest of me is tan. Then after lunch we had Economic Policy in Tanzania with Mwnhanga, which means son of – hanga (family name) in Swahili. I'm picking up on a lot of Swahili words already, and our 1st class starts next week. Then from 4-5:30 we took Wildlife Management with Christian. The classes are interesting it’s just hard adjusting to sit still for so long when all I want to do is run outside. Wildlife Management reminds me exactly like Habitat Management class I took at UMass with Todd Fuller, so it’s pretty repetitive. Except Todd’s stories are amazing, cause he's the man! (Miss you Brett & Kyle). However, on Saturday and Sunday we get to go to Lake Manyara National Park. So I can’t wait for that, and to break out my telephoto lens. and photograph some animals. Then after classes Christian and other students were organizing a soccer game outside the campsite and I really wanted to join but as soon as I laced up my sneakers I realized my burn was worse then I thought, so I took a shower and decided to blog before dinner.

            Kesho (until tomorrow)

Dee

So theses are our bandas. There’s 4 roommates per side, and were in Tembo Right. Tembo means elephant in Swahili. The bandas are sort’ve like mini kabutizs. Inside there’s 4 bunk beds with a shower and bathroom in each unit. And YES! flushable toilets but extremely cold showers. But it feels good to take one in the middle of the day though. Internet is wireless but in and out all the time and very very slow (i'm not supossed to be uploading pictures to my blog oops.) I’m enjoying my time here so far, I miss home and UMass more then I thought but I hope everyone is having a great semester and i'm sure I’ll be back before I know it!