7/23/09
So it's been almost three weeks since I've been back in the United States and I still think about Africa every day. Whether it's the bunches of facebook pictures my fellow travelers are posting, my attempts at starting my scrapbook, my slow initiations at raising money/awareness for Mama Sarah, or conversations I have with friends about my incredible journey...Africa is not easily leaving my mind.
Although I am not going to lie and say I am not enjoying falling back into the routine of all the material comforts and luxuries of my life here in San Diego... I do want to use this journal to serve as a reminder of what I have learned from this trip, what I hope will stay with me forever. As the dust settles from the trip, I have had the opportunity to have many great conversations with many great people about my journey. Many of the conversations have detailed the amazing feats of nature we witnessed on our two safaris (and trust me I will never forget that either!), but the ones that seem to be sticking with me are those about the people I've met and the "type" of trip I went on. Something I have realized over the past three weeks is that NOT ONE person in my life this time around (as opposed to when I did a similar trip to Ecuador in 2007) said "You're PAYING to VOLUNTEER?"...and I have to say I am so thankful for this small token that further illustrates what amazing and wonderful people I surround myself with these days. I am truly blessed to have the support and love from each and every family and friend needed to undertake journeys like this one. I am so lucky to have brothers who have similar values to my own and who undertook this trip with infinitely open hearts and minds. I love that upon my return multiple people have told me they would like to take a similar trip in the future.
As far as the people I met and the culture I experienced, I have had some great instances of self-reflection as well as wonderful conversations focusing primarily on acceptance, spirituality, religion and love. I am blessed to have friends that can help me see different angles of situations: "maybe faith is faith, and maybe it's always good no matter how it begins". I am blessed to have friends that "just don't get it" either: "we never have to agree with spending the equivalent of food for a small country on something that is going to be put in the ground...no matter how famous the person was". I am blessed to have friends that stand up for the acceptance of all people: "ALL means you don't get to pick between race, religion or sexual orientation...it means ALL". I am blessed to have friends that ask tough questions and open my heart to multiple possibilities: "maybe we aren't supposed to know the WHY behind disparity, maybe we are just supposed to do our small part to change what we can of it".
Amani,
Valerie
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
A Fine Farewell
7/5/09
We officially left Africa yesterday evening :-( Right now we are on the flight back from Amsterdam to Newark…we are going on 24 hours of traveling with about 10 still left to go! I can’t believe the whole month is already over and all three of us agree that it went way to fast. The last couple days in Moshi were fun and sad at the same time….we were so sorry to say goodbye, but we were excited we all felt better to enjoy the end of the trip. Friday was our last day of placement and our school as well as Matt’s had some special events planned to surprise us. Matt’s school got him some Tanzanian fabric which they wrapped him in during a little goodbye ceremony with the teacher and all the kids. At our school they surprised us with cookies and juice (which by the way we weren’t supposed to drink since we didn’t know if it came from a jug or if it was just straight water with mix…but really how can you say no?)….so amid our eyes looking at each other saying, “well if we get an intestinal parasite we know how” we enjoyed our cookies and juice…and I am happy to report that all of us are feeling just fine. Then they surprised us even more with a small wood carving of an animal…Stephen got an elephant (which prompted me getting an awesome video of all the kids singing that crazy elefant elefant song) and I got antelope. The teacher I worked with also bought me a beautiful conga that says “Your pleasure if my pleasure” or something to that effect in Swahili. It was such a nice ceremony, all us girls got teary-eyed. Then they let us play all day and just enjoy the kids….we brought a fun art project so we helped them all make little shaker instruments out of toilet paper rolls we had been saving, beans, and markers…it went over so well except some of the older kids decided to take the beans out of theirs….thus destroying the instrument…luckily many of the kids guarded their instruments so tightly so they could take them home, to the point of making me hold them when they went to the bathroom and tucking them inside their shirts when playing duck, duck, goose :-) Then it was time to say goodbye….man I’m going to miss those kids! In addition to it being hard to say goodbye to the kids and teachers, it made me so sad to think we wouldn’t be back there working with Catherine and Lauren next week…I honestly have no idea how everything with the placement mess at the beginning worked out so perfectly to put us together! Just amazing luck I guess!
Friday night most people in the house had left for weekend trips so the nine of us that were around decided to get a hotel in town for the night so we didn’t have to worry about the 11pm curfew….it was a fun last night in Tanzania which included the bartender playing “Born in the U.S.A.” for us when it turned midnight of the 4th of July :-) Saturday, we succeeded in spending every last cent of our tsh on souvenirs and gifts…I even ran out at the end when I was buying some earrings so I traded my watch for two sets of earrings haha! I know, I know but I was going to leave it in Tanzania anyway so I figured it was a good deal :-)
Overall, the trip was a perfect balance of giving back to our “brothers and sisters” that weren’t born with the same blessings as the three of us while at the same time having a blast with amazing new friends that I hope will stay a part of our lives in the future! We can’t thank our parents enough for giving us the opportunity to go on this amazing adventure of a lifetime and providing the chance to learn just how well the three of us really do get along :-) This is definitely a month none of us will ever forget!
Amani,
Valerie
We officially left Africa yesterday evening :-( Right now we are on the flight back from Amsterdam to Newark…we are going on 24 hours of traveling with about 10 still left to go! I can’t believe the whole month is already over and all three of us agree that it went way to fast. The last couple days in Moshi were fun and sad at the same time….we were so sorry to say goodbye, but we were excited we all felt better to enjoy the end of the trip. Friday was our last day of placement and our school as well as Matt’s had some special events planned to surprise us. Matt’s school got him some Tanzanian fabric which they wrapped him in during a little goodbye ceremony with the teacher and all the kids. At our school they surprised us with cookies and juice (which by the way we weren’t supposed to drink since we didn’t know if it came from a jug or if it was just straight water with mix…but really how can you say no?)….so amid our eyes looking at each other saying, “well if we get an intestinal parasite we know how” we enjoyed our cookies and juice…and I am happy to report that all of us are feeling just fine. Then they surprised us even more with a small wood carving of an animal…Stephen got an elephant (which prompted me getting an awesome video of all the kids singing that crazy elefant elefant song) and I got antelope. The teacher I worked with also bought me a beautiful conga that says “Your pleasure if my pleasure” or something to that effect in Swahili. It was such a nice ceremony, all us girls got teary-eyed. Then they let us play all day and just enjoy the kids….we brought a fun art project so we helped them all make little shaker instruments out of toilet paper rolls we had been saving, beans, and markers…it went over so well except some of the older kids decided to take the beans out of theirs….thus destroying the instrument…luckily many of the kids guarded their instruments so tightly so they could take them home, to the point of making me hold them when they went to the bathroom and tucking them inside their shirts when playing duck, duck, goose :-) Then it was time to say goodbye….man I’m going to miss those kids! In addition to it being hard to say goodbye to the kids and teachers, it made me so sad to think we wouldn’t be back there working with Catherine and Lauren next week…I honestly have no idea how everything with the placement mess at the beginning worked out so perfectly to put us together! Just amazing luck I guess!
Friday night most people in the house had left for weekend trips so the nine of us that were around decided to get a hotel in town for the night so we didn’t have to worry about the 11pm curfew….it was a fun last night in Tanzania which included the bartender playing “Born in the U.S.A.” for us when it turned midnight of the 4th of July :-) Saturday, we succeeded in spending every last cent of our tsh on souvenirs and gifts…I even ran out at the end when I was buying some earrings so I traded my watch for two sets of earrings haha! I know, I know but I was going to leave it in Tanzania anyway so I figured it was a good deal :-)
Overall, the trip was a perfect balance of giving back to our “brothers and sisters” that weren’t born with the same blessings as the three of us while at the same time having a blast with amazing new friends that I hope will stay a part of our lives in the future! We can’t thank our parents enough for giving us the opportunity to go on this amazing adventure of a lifetime and providing the chance to learn just how well the three of us really do get along :-) This is definitely a month none of us will ever forget!
Amani,
Valerie
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Smiles
7/2/09
Smiles are the best gift in the entire world. Seriously, smiles are universal no matter what language you speak…whether it’s the smile of a child when you make a funny face, the smile of the older person when you provide them with their only meal of the day, or a smile through tears as you say goodbye to a new friend. Today, I was lucky enough to experience each one of those smiles.
Stephen, Lauren, Ann and I went back to Mama Sarah’s today for the last time before our family has to leave. Stephen and I were able to some of Matt, Stephen and my clothes along with some shoes and the sheets we brought for the safari. I have known this entire time that Mama Sarah is an angel to these group members, but today more than ever before I saw exactly how much she really puts them before herself. We were going on two home visits today so we brought food for the group member at each house….we also had a chance to meet the only orphan in the group who is infected by HIV (luckily the hospitals here are equipped with medicine so when a woman with HIV gives birth they can prevent the spread to the child, so only 1 of the 20 orphans is infected). His caretaker was gone to the forest for work so from the impression we gathered he was just kind of fending for himself so Mama Sarah asked if we could get some food for him as well, which of course we were happy to do. So by this point we have bought food for three members as well as some oranges for the “healthier” members attending the group. Mama Sarah went along with us on all the errands without complaint….we then asked her how she was feeling and she said, “Fine but kind of dizzy”. I asked if she was dizzy from taking the medicine without food and as she looked down at her feet she admitted, “yes, we don’t have any food right now”. What!?! How many of us could say that we ever in our lives have fed people not of relation to us when we ourselves were going hungry…none of us….and I am pretty sure none of us ever will. We were so thankful we thought to ask so we could make sure she and her family had food also. At the end of the visit I took pictures with the members so when I get back you all can see their faces. Also, I may enlist my mom (don’t worry mom if you aren’t feeling up to it this week) to help us start a webpage for Mama Sarah’s group. I will have a copy of their mission statement and what they hope to do to self-sustain themselves (i.e. get on their feet and stop relying on others for outside money) as well as the group members and their overall goals. So needless to say, telling Mama Sarah goodbye today was so hard and I will never ever forget the four visits I have had to this amazing group.
Amani,
Valerie
Smiles are the best gift in the entire world. Seriously, smiles are universal no matter what language you speak…whether it’s the smile of a child when you make a funny face, the smile of the older person when you provide them with their only meal of the day, or a smile through tears as you say goodbye to a new friend. Today, I was lucky enough to experience each one of those smiles.
Stephen, Lauren, Ann and I went back to Mama Sarah’s today for the last time before our family has to leave. Stephen and I were able to some of Matt, Stephen and my clothes along with some shoes and the sheets we brought for the safari. I have known this entire time that Mama Sarah is an angel to these group members, but today more than ever before I saw exactly how much she really puts them before herself. We were going on two home visits today so we brought food for the group member at each house….we also had a chance to meet the only orphan in the group who is infected by HIV (luckily the hospitals here are equipped with medicine so when a woman with HIV gives birth they can prevent the spread to the child, so only 1 of the 20 orphans is infected). His caretaker was gone to the forest for work so from the impression we gathered he was just kind of fending for himself so Mama Sarah asked if we could get some food for him as well, which of course we were happy to do. So by this point we have bought food for three members as well as some oranges for the “healthier” members attending the group. Mama Sarah went along with us on all the errands without complaint….we then asked her how she was feeling and she said, “Fine but kind of dizzy”. I asked if she was dizzy from taking the medicine without food and as she looked down at her feet she admitted, “yes, we don’t have any food right now”. What!?! How many of us could say that we ever in our lives have fed people not of relation to us when we ourselves were going hungry…none of us….and I am pretty sure none of us ever will. We were so thankful we thought to ask so we could make sure she and her family had food also. At the end of the visit I took pictures with the members so when I get back you all can see their faces. Also, I may enlist my mom (don’t worry mom if you aren’t feeling up to it this week) to help us start a webpage for Mama Sarah’s group. I will have a copy of their mission statement and what they hope to do to self-sustain themselves (i.e. get on their feet and stop relying on others for outside money) as well as the group members and their overall goals. So needless to say, telling Mama Sarah goodbye today was so hard and I will never ever forget the four visits I have had to this amazing group.
Amani,
Valerie
DA
7/2/09
The kids at my placement are freaking adorable! I am really going to miss them when I leave. Yesterday, they were so great when I got to placement after being absent Tuesday because they all ran up to me and were all fighting over holding my hand so I ended up in with like three kids on each arm. I have some really great videos of the kids from the last two days (yes we can use our cameras now because the mean man is totally sucking up to us so we don’t tell CCS he made me cry)…but anyways...I can’t wait to share the videos when I get home! Wednesday this week, we spent the afternoon in town eating at the Coffee Shop (Tuna for the first time…woohoo), shopping (a second woohoo), and hanging out on the rooftop restaurant that overlooks the city.
Warning gross content ahead: Another necessary mention in this blog before I leave is just how much we all now know about each other’s bodily functions. Not exaggerating, I think we talk about diarrhea or vomiting every single day. It’s a common topic of conversation at like every cab ride and every meal. So for example, we now all use Catherine’s term DA, which stands for Diarrhea Attack, all the time….one of us has spent an entire hour with diarrhea on the hole toilet at the crater, one of us tried to hold a DA for 2 hours at placement before finally turning pale and sweaty and giving in to the scary, nasty toilets, and one of us diarrhea’d a little in his/her (nameless) pants…seriously just a little.
Amani,
Valerie
p.s. I’ve never really had a roommate in my whole life…so what I’ve learned from this trip is that I have a low tolerance for them…yay for sharing a condo with only Matt when we get back!! :-)
The kids at my placement are freaking adorable! I am really going to miss them when I leave. Yesterday, they were so great when I got to placement after being absent Tuesday because they all ran up to me and were all fighting over holding my hand so I ended up in with like three kids on each arm. I have some really great videos of the kids from the last two days (yes we can use our cameras now because the mean man is totally sucking up to us so we don’t tell CCS he made me cry)…but anyways...I can’t wait to share the videos when I get home! Wednesday this week, we spent the afternoon in town eating at the Coffee Shop (Tuna for the first time…woohoo), shopping (a second woohoo), and hanging out on the rooftop restaurant that overlooks the city.
Warning gross content ahead: Another necessary mention in this blog before I leave is just how much we all now know about each other’s bodily functions. Not exaggerating, I think we talk about diarrhea or vomiting every single day. It’s a common topic of conversation at like every cab ride and every meal. So for example, we now all use Catherine’s term DA, which stands for Diarrhea Attack, all the time….one of us has spent an entire hour with diarrhea on the hole toilet at the crater, one of us tried to hold a DA for 2 hours at placement before finally turning pale and sweaty and giving in to the scary, nasty toilets, and one of us diarrhea’d a little in his/her (nameless) pants…seriously just a little.
Amani,
Valerie
p.s. I’ve never really had a roommate in my whole life…so what I’ve learned from this trip is that I have a low tolerance for them…yay for sharing a condo with only Matt when we get back!! :-)
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Pole!
6/30/09
Boo for being sick in Tanzania! Sorry I haven’t updated recently, but I got sick yesterday and stayed home from my placement today…just a head cold/fever but it still makes me so mad to be sick...don't worry mom both Matt and I are feeling better...no Malaria. Anyways, other than that, the last few days have been good. Saturday night a few of us went out to a mzungu bar called the Watering Hole and had a blast! The bartender is from Germany (Bonnie I totally couldn’t remember the name of the city Ruven is from!) and when we first got there we were the only ones in the bar so he let us play Michael Jackson music (since we were there for the “tribute” they’d had the night before, although we did partake the black/white shot-taking in his memory). Catherine and Lauren and I even got up on the bar since there was no one else there haha :-)
Then Sunday, about 7 of us went on a coffee hike at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro. We hiked for about 5 hours total and then we got to take part in the making of the regional coffee and try it….it was soooo good, even Matt and Stephen liked it! We also hiked to a giant waterfall. We didn’t get to try the banana beer famous to the region because we ran out of time…which was fine except the reason we ran out of time was because we had to keep waiting for the group from the other CCS house that came too. We learned that we are definitely the athletic house (I forget if I wrote in the first safari journal that a third house was there and it was full of weird hippies who said they weren’t “messing with nature” aka they were DRINKING the water and NOT taking their malaria pills….no wonder they spent the whole weekend in the bathroom). Needless to say, with each other house we meet we grow more and more grateful that we are all here!
Monday, I woke up feeling kid of yucky and spent most of my placement sneezing, but I was still able to help out the classroom. I felt a little better around lunch so I decided to keep my appointment to go back to Mama Sarah’s. Lauren, Catherine and I went to her place and took one of the members to get a haircut….after that we drove into town so we could by some medicine for her group that they’d been out of since last week. That took quite a bit of time so that ended our visit (which was good because I didn’t want to do home visits to sick people if I had a cold myself.
Today, I stayed home from placement and slept from early last night until noon today, waking up on a off since my nose was so stuffed. I feel a lot better now but nowhere near perfect. This afternoon we went to Amani Orphanage (Mom that’s the home for the Street Children group) and the boys and about 4 other volunteers played soccer with the kids. Another four of us watched and chatted with the kids. Our team did pretty well at first but definitely lost in the second half (keep in mind they were playing kids who were like 9-10). They have a really nice facility there and the boys are planning on going back at least one more afternoon this week…I want to also but they are going Thursday for sure and I am already committed to going to Mama Sarah’s which I also want to do….too much to do and too little days left :-( I still can’t believe we leave Saturday! Ok I think that’s caught up on everything….crossing my fingers that I’m all better tomorrow!
Amani,
Valerie
Boo for being sick in Tanzania! Sorry I haven’t updated recently, but I got sick yesterday and stayed home from my placement today…just a head cold/fever but it still makes me so mad to be sick...don't worry mom both Matt and I are feeling better...no Malaria. Anyways, other than that, the last few days have been good. Saturday night a few of us went out to a mzungu bar called the Watering Hole and had a blast! The bartender is from Germany (Bonnie I totally couldn’t remember the name of the city Ruven is from!) and when we first got there we were the only ones in the bar so he let us play Michael Jackson music (since we were there for the “tribute” they’d had the night before, although we did partake the black/white shot-taking in his memory). Catherine and Lauren and I even got up on the bar since there was no one else there haha :-)
Then Sunday, about 7 of us went on a coffee hike at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro. We hiked for about 5 hours total and then we got to take part in the making of the regional coffee and try it….it was soooo good, even Matt and Stephen liked it! We also hiked to a giant waterfall. We didn’t get to try the banana beer famous to the region because we ran out of time…which was fine except the reason we ran out of time was because we had to keep waiting for the group from the other CCS house that came too. We learned that we are definitely the athletic house (I forget if I wrote in the first safari journal that a third house was there and it was full of weird hippies who said they weren’t “messing with nature” aka they were DRINKING the water and NOT taking their malaria pills….no wonder they spent the whole weekend in the bathroom). Needless to say, with each other house we meet we grow more and more grateful that we are all here!
Monday, I woke up feeling kid of yucky and spent most of my placement sneezing, but I was still able to help out the classroom. I felt a little better around lunch so I decided to keep my appointment to go back to Mama Sarah’s. Lauren, Catherine and I went to her place and took one of the members to get a haircut….after that we drove into town so we could by some medicine for her group that they’d been out of since last week. That took quite a bit of time so that ended our visit (which was good because I didn’t want to do home visits to sick people if I had a cold myself.
Today, I stayed home from placement and slept from early last night until noon today, waking up on a off since my nose was so stuffed. I feel a lot better now but nowhere near perfect. This afternoon we went to Amani Orphanage (Mom that’s the home for the Street Children group) and the boys and about 4 other volunteers played soccer with the kids. Another four of us watched and chatted with the kids. Our team did pretty well at first but definitely lost in the second half (keep in mind they were playing kids who were like 9-10). They have a really nice facility there and the boys are planning on going back at least one more afternoon this week…I want to also but they are going Thursday for sure and I am already committed to going to Mama Sarah’s which I also want to do….too much to do and too little days left :-( I still can’t believe we leave Saturday! Ok I think that’s caught up on everything….crossing my fingers that I’m all better tomorrow!
Amani,
Valerie
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Heartstrings
I hope you are all as moved by this blog as I was by the events I am about to write about. I had the chance to go back to Mama Sara's yesterday with more plans to go back next week. We went on more home visits to bring food and company to the group member suffering from HIV. The woman we had seen Tuesday that we went back to see yesterday looked like a different person..she looked so much stronger I hardly
even recognized her. She told Mama Sara that the reason she looked better was because of the food we brought Tuesday...the food that cost us each about $1.50! She had had to take her medicine (provided by the group when funds are sufficient) with no food prior to that because she has no money and it was making her terribly sick. These people are living in conditions we would never put our pets in and
solely relying on Mama Sara's help (who has HIV herself). Despite how emotional the two visits have been, it's an incredible experience to see first hand what you can do to help people in such a short time.
Also, I found out from talking with Mama Sara that the amount of money it would take for them to put a deposit down on a place of their own is only about 5,000 in US dollars. Two of the volunteers who left two weeks ago we able to help her set up a bank account that we can have access to from the United States. So i am planning on collecting my own money up and if anyone else would like to donate to help raise some money for this woman who is doing amazing things for a lot of people when she hardly has anything herself. I think it's powerful also to see first hand where your money is going and we went to Mama's Sara's own home to see where she stored the medicine, etc. She lives in a small cement place with her children. Please let me know if you'd like to contribute and I'll have all the info when I get back. I am looking forward to updating you all on my visits to the group next week. I know Monday we are taking one of the members to get his haircut :-)
Amani,
Valerie
even recognized her. She told Mama Sara that the reason she looked better was because of the food we brought Tuesday...the food that cost us each about $1.50! She had had to take her medicine (provided by the group when funds are sufficient) with no food prior to that because she has no money and it was making her terribly sick. These people are living in conditions we would never put our pets in and
solely relying on Mama Sara's help (who has HIV herself). Despite how emotional the two visits have been, it's an incredible experience to see first hand what you can do to help people in such a short time.
Also, I found out from talking with Mama Sara that the amount of money it would take for them to put a deposit down on a place of their own is only about 5,000 in US dollars. Two of the volunteers who left two weeks ago we able to help her set up a bank account that we can have access to from the United States. So i am planning on collecting my own money up and if anyone else would like to donate to help raise some money for this woman who is doing amazing things for a lot of people when she hardly has anything herself. I think it's powerful also to see first hand where your money is going and we went to Mama's Sara's own home to see where she stored the medicine, etc. She lives in a small cement place with her children. Please let me know if you'd like to contribute and I'll have all the info when I get back. I am looking forward to updating you all on my visits to the group next week. I know Monday we are taking one of the members to get his haircut :-)
Amani,
Valerie
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Watching History
6/25/09
Yesterday afternoon (Wed), we went to the ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda) to see where the hearings for those accused of taking part in the mass genocide of over 800,000 people in 100 days that occurred in Rwanda in the early 1990’s. Once again on this trip we were very lucky because…we saw a trial! Not only did we see A trial, but we saw the closing arguments of the prosecution of the Chief of Staff of the Rwandan Army, Augustin Ndindilyimana. I definitely need to google him for more information when I get home but from what the closing arguments were saying, it sounds like he was one of the most powerful people in Rwanda during the genocide. This was a joint trial for 4 people but we think it was only talking about him on these specific closing arguments and he was the only one present as far as we know (although they mentioned the others names). The other being tried in this same case are Battalion Commander, F-X Nzuwonemeye, I Sagahutu, and Chief of Staff of FAR, Augustin Bizimungu. So if another wants to google and e-mail with info on them…feel free…Mom :-).
We sat in a side room off the courtroom that ran the length of the courtroom with a window so we could see everyone in court. We had headphones to listen and one of the stations translated to English if the person wasn’t speaking in English. Most of the talking was done in English and in French. I think Stephen may have been a little bit bored but Matt and I were completely enthralled and sad we couldn’t stay the whole day and listen to some of the defense too. We had to watch a boring video after, but the short time spent watching history be made in that courtroom was completely worth it. Ok off to placement.
Amani,
Valerie
Yesterday afternoon (Wed), we went to the ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda) to see where the hearings for those accused of taking part in the mass genocide of over 800,000 people in 100 days that occurred in Rwanda in the early 1990’s. Once again on this trip we were very lucky because…we saw a trial! Not only did we see A trial, but we saw the closing arguments of the prosecution of the Chief of Staff of the Rwandan Army, Augustin Ndindilyimana. I definitely need to google him for more information when I get home but from what the closing arguments were saying, it sounds like he was one of the most powerful people in Rwanda during the genocide. This was a joint trial for 4 people but we think it was only talking about him on these specific closing arguments and he was the only one present as far as we know (although they mentioned the others names). The other being tried in this same case are Battalion Commander, F-X Nzuwonemeye, I Sagahutu, and Chief of Staff of FAR, Augustin Bizimungu. So if another wants to google and e-mail with info on them…feel free…Mom :-).
We sat in a side room off the courtroom that ran the length of the courtroom with a window so we could see everyone in court. We had headphones to listen and one of the stations translated to English if the person wasn’t speaking in English. Most of the talking was done in English and in French. I think Stephen may have been a little bit bored but Matt and I were completely enthralled and sad we couldn’t stay the whole day and listen to some of the defense too. We had to watch a boring video after, but the short time spent watching history be made in that courtroom was completely worth it. Ok off to placement.
Amani,
Valerie
Busy Busy
6/24/09
Whoh-this week has flown by and the internet at the house has been broke so I haven’t done a very good job with the journaling. Let’s start with placement this week….the teacher of my class is back! Woohoo! What a difference have two sets of eyes in the class makes…not to mention a teacher who actually speaks Swahili. The kids have been great and it’s been really nice to have another adult in the room to chat with. The teacher I’m with is Madame Ester and she was gone because her son had to have surgery. She has two kids (8 and 9) and they both go to school in Kenya and live with their grandmother…I can’t imagine how hard it must be to not see your little kids during the year! So in short this week at school has been great so far…and no crying…we even got to take pictures at recess today….O-H-I-O with the little ones haha :-)
We have had a busy schedule after school this week…Monday was a Batik art class where they showed us how they do the famous East African art of Batik…we learned something interesting about the artistic talents of the Niemiec kids :-) Also on Monday, we went out after dinner to get ice cream sundaes at a place called Deli Chez….yum! 3 scoops ice cream sundaes for 2,500 tsh…about 2 bucks.
On Tuesday, after placement we went to an HIV support group to make up the placement time we miss Friday on the safari. Wow-talk about emotionally draining. We visited three homes of members who were too sick to come to the support group. It was incredibly sad to see the way they live and how often they are shunned by the community. Lauren, Catherine and I are going to try and go back there and help next week after placement if we can. They won’t let us go officially as a placement because they meet in the yard of someone who sells soda in the evening and says they can stay there til 6…they don’t even have their own place to meet. But we are going to try and go on our own…I felt such a connection to Mama Sarah, she is the women in charge who is also HIV positive, I really want to do more to help.
After the HIV group, we came back and got ready to go to a cultural dinner and dance….hahahaha is really all I have to say about the night! Matt and Stephen completely stole the show…they were hilarious! Not only was Matt’s dancing crazy/awesome/hysterical but then after when the acrobats were showing people how to climb up the pole and do tricks…Matt and Stephen went after them twice….and actually DID close to what they showed!! It was insane haha. Everyone was laughing so hard at them and I got some pretty sweet videos of Matt’s dance moves (unfortunately I didn’t have my camera on me for the acrobatics so you’ll just have to take my word for it!
Ok, We are about to head to Arusha to the location of the Rwanda Criminal Court trials….so cross your fingers that the trial today is public and not private.
Amani,
Valerie
Whoh-this week has flown by and the internet at the house has been broke so I haven’t done a very good job with the journaling. Let’s start with placement this week….the teacher of my class is back! Woohoo! What a difference have two sets of eyes in the class makes…not to mention a teacher who actually speaks Swahili. The kids have been great and it’s been really nice to have another adult in the room to chat with. The teacher I’m with is Madame Ester and she was gone because her son had to have surgery. She has two kids (8 and 9) and they both go to school in Kenya and live with their grandmother…I can’t imagine how hard it must be to not see your little kids during the year! So in short this week at school has been great so far…and no crying…we even got to take pictures at recess today….O-H-I-O with the little ones haha :-)
We have had a busy schedule after school this week…Monday was a Batik art class where they showed us how they do the famous East African art of Batik…we learned something interesting about the artistic talents of the Niemiec kids :-) Also on Monday, we went out after dinner to get ice cream sundaes at a place called Deli Chez….yum! 3 scoops ice cream sundaes for 2,500 tsh…about 2 bucks.
On Tuesday, after placement we went to an HIV support group to make up the placement time we miss Friday on the safari. Wow-talk about emotionally draining. We visited three homes of members who were too sick to come to the support group. It was incredibly sad to see the way they live and how often they are shunned by the community. Lauren, Catherine and I are going to try and go back there and help next week after placement if we can. They won’t let us go officially as a placement because they meet in the yard of someone who sells soda in the evening and says they can stay there til 6…they don’t even have their own place to meet. But we are going to try and go on our own…I felt such a connection to Mama Sarah, she is the women in charge who is also HIV positive, I really want to do more to help.
After the HIV group, we came back and got ready to go to a cultural dinner and dance….hahahaha is really all I have to say about the night! Matt and Stephen completely stole the show…they were hilarious! Not only was Matt’s dancing crazy/awesome/hysterical but then after when the acrobats were showing people how to climb up the pole and do tricks…Matt and Stephen went after them twice….and actually DID close to what they showed!! It was insane haha. Everyone was laughing so hard at them and I got some pretty sweet videos of Matt’s dance moves (unfortunately I didn’t have my camera on me for the acrobatics so you’ll just have to take my word for it!
Ok, We are about to head to Arusha to the location of the Rwanda Criminal Court trials….so cross your fingers that the trial today is public and not private.
Amani,
Valerie
Birthday in the Serengeti
6/21/09
Ok, before I go into how crazy lucky we were on safari AGAIN! I forgot an important event from last week. I wrote before about how we went to the Chagga Village and the waterfall…but I forgot to say how eventful our van ride over there was. It started raining pretty hard on our way there (which in Africa is always interesting thanks to both the dirt roads and the non-four-wheel-drive vans). So we were driving up this good size hill when our van got completely stuck in the mud. So we all had to climb out while some passing villagers, the boys and our guide pushed the van down the hill in the mud until it could build up enough momentum to keep going! Also, we had a bet on who would be the first to fall in the muddy hills (no one guessed me)…and it was…me :-)
So last Wednesday was an exciting day…then there was Thursday. It was by far the worst day of placement so far (and hopefully ever). It was raining so we couldn’t have recess and the teacher David, who is awesome, said we could take pictures in the classroom since it was muddy. So it’s like the middle of recess time and all of a sudden the head guy (who is like never there and never helps with anything) comes into my room and says loudly and rudely, “Why are you taking pictures? It’s time to work!” so I think most of you who know me well know exactly what’s coming next…yup you’re right…I started crying. I can’t get yelled at, especially when I’m not doing anything wrong…I always, always, always cry when I do. So then I’m so embarrassed it just makes me cry harder. He tried to apologize but I couldn’t look him in the eye or I would cry more…Lauren and Catherine who are there too are scared of him also and said they would have done the same thing so that made me feel better! Also, David apologized and then just talked to me as if I wasn’t crying which was exactly what I needed….on the plus side I kids sure started behaving well then!!
Ok enough of that, time to talk about the safari! Thursday we drove to this insane campsite with running water and….drum roll…BEDS in the tents! Then Friday we drove to the Seregeti. We were seriously there for like 30 minutes when we saw a leopard in the tree, two lions in trees that had just ate but were sleeping, hyenas and vultures eating a zebra, a family of cheetahs about 50 yards away and a ton of elephants, zebras, and wildebeest. Then Saturday we woke up early to head out toward where the migration was. It’s impossible to describe the number of animals we saw…it was honestly over 10,000 zebra and over 10,000 wildebeest and that number might even be really low! We saw a few more lions attempting to hunt (by the end of the two weekends our lion number count was over 25!) and another leopard sleeping in a tree. But by far the most amazing thing we saw this weekend was a cheetah hunt…again the prey won out but getting to see a cheetah sprint is one of the most incredible sights in the world! The hunt started with 5 cheetahs lying right by our jeep with zebra and antelope close by. The five cheetahs were one mom and four grown cubs…this in itself was amazing because our guide said that the probability of a mother cheetah being able to raise 4 cubs is only 20% because the male leaves after the female gives birth and she has to hunt for food and care for the cubs. They didn’t catch and kill the gazelle because they spotted a lion in the distance and even if they killed something the lion would just come and fight them to claim the kill for itself. Next, we went to this hippo pool with like 50 or more hippos in it and the lesson I learned is that in real life hippos are NOT a cute as they are in Fantasia. All they do is lye around like blobs and poop and fart in the water…it was super gross but kind of funny at the same time. The whole time we kept feeling like we were in the Lion King. They told us that a popular conga (a type of fabric women wear around their waists with different sayings on the back) says “Hollywood made millions off Africa, why can’t Africa?”…very sad, but also very true.
So after all the animals, on Saturday night they whipped out a birthday cake for Matt (we have NO idea how because we were in the middle of nowhere told them Saturday morning about the B-day…they still managed to make a cake with no prior knowledge to get ingredients and NO oven!) —in the jelly icing it said “Happy Birthday Maick” :-) somehow the name got lost in translation but it’s the thought that counts…Matt’s name is always wrong, even on the door here at homebase it says Methew.
On Sunday, we headed back to Moshi which was about a 10 hour drive…it turned into more than that though because a huge rock hit the bottom of one of our cars so they had to fix it on the side of the road. Thank goodness our drivers are good mechanics because there was something wrong with the u-bolt attachment to the suspension (Does that make sense Paul?) and they fixed it in like 45 min. We stayed in our car but I guess at one point the car fell off the jack and everyone gasped because they thought our driver was going to be trapped beneath the car…thank goodness the other guys are strong and caught the car! We were still lucky though cuz we passed another car from a different company on the way back and they had gotten 5 flat tires in the weekend and were out of spares! When we got back to home base they had dinner waiting for us and ANOTHER cake for Matt :-)
Amani,
Valerie
Ok, before I go into how crazy lucky we were on safari AGAIN! I forgot an important event from last week. I wrote before about how we went to the Chagga Village and the waterfall…but I forgot to say how eventful our van ride over there was. It started raining pretty hard on our way there (which in Africa is always interesting thanks to both the dirt roads and the non-four-wheel-drive vans). So we were driving up this good size hill when our van got completely stuck in the mud. So we all had to climb out while some passing villagers, the boys and our guide pushed the van down the hill in the mud until it could build up enough momentum to keep going! Also, we had a bet on who would be the first to fall in the muddy hills (no one guessed me)…and it was…me :-)
So last Wednesday was an exciting day…then there was Thursday. It was by far the worst day of placement so far (and hopefully ever). It was raining so we couldn’t have recess and the teacher David, who is awesome, said we could take pictures in the classroom since it was muddy. So it’s like the middle of recess time and all of a sudden the head guy (who is like never there and never helps with anything) comes into my room and says loudly and rudely, “Why are you taking pictures? It’s time to work!” so I think most of you who know me well know exactly what’s coming next…yup you’re right…I started crying. I can’t get yelled at, especially when I’m not doing anything wrong…I always, always, always cry when I do. So then I’m so embarrassed it just makes me cry harder. He tried to apologize but I couldn’t look him in the eye or I would cry more…Lauren and Catherine who are there too are scared of him also and said they would have done the same thing so that made me feel better! Also, David apologized and then just talked to me as if I wasn’t crying which was exactly what I needed….on the plus side I kids sure started behaving well then!!
Ok enough of that, time to talk about the safari! Thursday we drove to this insane campsite with running water and….drum roll…BEDS in the tents! Then Friday we drove to the Seregeti. We were seriously there for like 30 minutes when we saw a leopard in the tree, two lions in trees that had just ate but were sleeping, hyenas and vultures eating a zebra, a family of cheetahs about 50 yards away and a ton of elephants, zebras, and wildebeest. Then Saturday we woke up early to head out toward where the migration was. It’s impossible to describe the number of animals we saw…it was honestly over 10,000 zebra and over 10,000 wildebeest and that number might even be really low! We saw a few more lions attempting to hunt (by the end of the two weekends our lion number count was over 25!) and another leopard sleeping in a tree. But by far the most amazing thing we saw this weekend was a cheetah hunt…again the prey won out but getting to see a cheetah sprint is one of the most incredible sights in the world! The hunt started with 5 cheetahs lying right by our jeep with zebra and antelope close by. The five cheetahs were one mom and four grown cubs…this in itself was amazing because our guide said that the probability of a mother cheetah being able to raise 4 cubs is only 20% because the male leaves after the female gives birth and she has to hunt for food and care for the cubs. They didn’t catch and kill the gazelle because they spotted a lion in the distance and even if they killed something the lion would just come and fight them to claim the kill for itself. Next, we went to this hippo pool with like 50 or more hippos in it and the lesson I learned is that in real life hippos are NOT a cute as they are in Fantasia. All they do is lye around like blobs and poop and fart in the water…it was super gross but kind of funny at the same time. The whole time we kept feeling like we were in the Lion King. They told us that a popular conga (a type of fabric women wear around their waists with different sayings on the back) says “Hollywood made millions off Africa, why can’t Africa?”…very sad, but also very true.
So after all the animals, on Saturday night they whipped out a birthday cake for Matt (we have NO idea how because we were in the middle of nowhere told them Saturday morning about the B-day…they still managed to make a cake with no prior knowledge to get ingredients and NO oven!) —in the jelly icing it said “Happy Birthday Maick” :-) somehow the name got lost in translation but it’s the thought that counts…Matt’s name is always wrong, even on the door here at homebase it says Methew.
On Sunday, we headed back to Moshi which was about a 10 hour drive…it turned into more than that though because a huge rock hit the bottom of one of our cars so they had to fix it on the side of the road. Thank goodness our drivers are good mechanics because there was something wrong with the u-bolt attachment to the suspension (Does that make sense Paul?) and they fixed it in like 45 min. We stayed in our car but I guess at one point the car fell off the jack and everyone gasped because they thought our driver was going to be trapped beneath the car…thank goodness the other guys are strong and caught the car! We were still lucky though cuz we passed another car from a different company on the way back and they had gotten 5 flat tires in the weekend and were out of spares! When we got back to home base they had dinner waiting for us and ANOTHER cake for Matt :-)
Amani,
Valerie
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
E-I-E-I-O
6/17/09
Ah yes, this was the moment I was waiting for…the reason I created this blog. It has been three days since I wrote and I definitely would not have made myself stay up to journal if this wasn’t a blog others were reading. In other words, this is going to be short and to the point so I can go to bed :-) First, thanks to all of you who commented (even if it was because my mom told you to).
Ok so Monday and Tuesday of this week we had our placements in the morning. My placement continues to be great, but I definitely have a lot of respect for teachers of little ones because man my patience runs thin sometimes. Like for example when one of my little troublemakers decided it’d be a good idea to climb up on the desk, up on the windowsill and hang from the bars on the window…nice. Overall, though it’s an amazing placement and I get so excited when the kids show progress in such a short amount of time. One of the funny things that happened this week was courtesy of my fantastic artistic abilities: We were singing Old MacDonald Had a Farm so I was “drawing” the animals on the board and writing the names so they would understand. Well, much to the kids’ delight, my horse looked like a poorly drawn lion and my monkey looked like a crazy octopus (yea, I know, bad). I can however have them understand my drawing of a cow because the cows here have this weird hump on their backs (kinda like camels)…so I was drawing a cow and it was going downhill like the monkey/lion but then I drew that dang hump and poof “cow, cow, cow” they all screamed :-) Stephen is enjoying our placement too and I think his favorite song the kids sing is “elefont, elefont, go to the bath, no no no, why why why, because I’m too big, because I’m too big”. Matt is enjoying his too but what a different experience he has….like none of his kids speak English and most of them may only eat the one meal they get when they come to daycare. He said Monday it was raining so the kids were late cuz they have to walk so far so they didn’t get breakfast at all :-(
Today, we didn’t have our placements because they took us on this hike to a waterfall and a visit to the Chagga village (another of the native tribes). It was so beautiful and we all went swimming near the falls. We also had the chance to go in some ancient Chagga tunnels that they built to hold the women and children during attacks from the Maasai tribes and to hide the whole family (even cows etc) during the times of the slave trade when white people would come to steal Africans from their homes. It was really interesting and it was nice to get some exercise hiking to the falls.
Ok, time for sleep…we are off to the Serengeti tomorrow to track the migration!! (I know can you freaking believe it!?! We can’t!)
Amani,
Valerie
p.s. addendum to last entry…the velvet monkeys…I walked too close to one and it tried to eat me….ok maybe it didn’t try to eat me but it sure scared the crap out of me. I took a picture of it as it looked right at me and started making this crazy noise and running toward me. All of its friends then started chasing all of us down the road as we sprinted back to our jeep….oops!
Ah yes, this was the moment I was waiting for…the reason I created this blog. It has been three days since I wrote and I definitely would not have made myself stay up to journal if this wasn’t a blog others were reading. In other words, this is going to be short and to the point so I can go to bed :-) First, thanks to all of you who commented (even if it was because my mom told you to).
Ok so Monday and Tuesday of this week we had our placements in the morning. My placement continues to be great, but I definitely have a lot of respect for teachers of little ones because man my patience runs thin sometimes. Like for example when one of my little troublemakers decided it’d be a good idea to climb up on the desk, up on the windowsill and hang from the bars on the window…nice. Overall, though it’s an amazing placement and I get so excited when the kids show progress in such a short amount of time. One of the funny things that happened this week was courtesy of my fantastic artistic abilities: We were singing Old MacDonald Had a Farm so I was “drawing” the animals on the board and writing the names so they would understand. Well, much to the kids’ delight, my horse looked like a poorly drawn lion and my monkey looked like a crazy octopus (yea, I know, bad). I can however have them understand my drawing of a cow because the cows here have this weird hump on their backs (kinda like camels)…so I was drawing a cow and it was going downhill like the monkey/lion but then I drew that dang hump and poof “cow, cow, cow” they all screamed :-) Stephen is enjoying our placement too and I think his favorite song the kids sing is “elefont, elefont, go to the bath, no no no, why why why, because I’m too big, because I’m too big”. Matt is enjoying his too but what a different experience he has….like none of his kids speak English and most of them may only eat the one meal they get when they come to daycare. He said Monday it was raining so the kids were late cuz they have to walk so far so they didn’t get breakfast at all :-(
Today, we didn’t have our placements because they took us on this hike to a waterfall and a visit to the Chagga village (another of the native tribes). It was so beautiful and we all went swimming near the falls. We also had the chance to go in some ancient Chagga tunnels that they built to hold the women and children during attacks from the Maasai tribes and to hide the whole family (even cows etc) during the times of the slave trade when white people would come to steal Africans from their homes. It was really interesting and it was nice to get some exercise hiking to the falls.
Ok, time for sleep…we are off to the Serengeti tomorrow to track the migration!! (I know can you freaking believe it!?! We can’t!)
Amani,
Valerie
p.s. addendum to last entry…the velvet monkeys…I walked too close to one and it tried to eat me….ok maybe it didn’t try to eat me but it sure scared the crap out of me. I took a picture of it as it looked right at me and started making this crazy noise and running toward me. All of its friends then started chasing all of us down the road as we sprinted back to our jeep….oops!
Monday, June 15, 2009
AFRICAN SAFARI
6/14/09
I feel like the luckiest girl alive at this very moment. Our experiences this weekend definitely contain some of the most amazing moments of my life. I took notes all weekend to help me remember every bit of it. Some of the views honestly almost moved me to tears they were so beautiful. But ok enough sappiness, let’s start with Friday...We left the house and headed to a town about an hour and a half away called Arusha to get groceries and supplies for the safari. Arusha is a pretty big town…it even had a stop light! Kind of ironically, the intersection with the stop light seemed to be running even more chaotically than those without. From there we headed about 2 more hours away to the campsite so we could see how much we were roughing it (tents already set up, real bathrooms, mats to sleep on…my kind of camping). Before dinner we went to a Maasai Village to meet some of the tribe members and see how they live. The Maasai are supposed to be one of the tribes that sticks to their ancient ways despite the influence of modernization. In some ways that seemed true, like for example they live in huts made of dung (mind you I was leaning against one of those dung walls when we were told that lovely fact) with one “room” (i.e. straw bed) for the man, one for the women and children, and one pen for the baby goats and sheep. They cook their food right in the middle of the house floor too. Some other traditional culture they kept included marrying multiple wives as young as 9 years old (usually not for child-bearing until 15, more to help around the house at the young age) and female genital mutilation. Some of the weird modernization aspects were their tables with jewelry to sell and even a website! The best part was when they gave me this traditional necklace to wear and had me go dance and jump (the tribe is known for how high the men jump—that’s how they get the ladies) with the girls of the tribe. The worst part was that dancing next to me was a baby on a woman’s back COVERED in flies…I kept trying to like blow on the baby’s face or wave my hand near it without the mom noticing because it was making me want to vomit.
On Saturday morning, we woke up at 5:30 and drove to Lake Manyara to start our animal safari adventure. Some of the animals we saw throughout the day were elephants (babies and adults), baboons all over the place, velvet and blue monkeys (more on the damn velvet monkeys to come), impala, dik dik, a snake, a kingfisher, hippos, giraffe, wildebeest, water buffalo, thousands of flamingo (literally like tens of thousands…a picture could never capture the image) and……drum roll please…THREE female LIONS in a tree oh SEVEN FEET from our car window!!! Like so close that when one roared everyone screamed, “Valerie shut your window” and Matt jumped like a foot in the air (per the report from the driver of the jeep behind us)…amazing!! The drivers said they see lions like that in the trees maybe 1-2 times a YEAR! We were soooo excited…it took us awhile to come down from the adrenaline rush.
After Lake Manyara, we drove to Ngorongoro Crater where we spent the night and had the final day of our safari. As we approached the crater it was everything we could do to pick our jaws up off the floor. The sight was absolutely breathtaking. It honestly looked like it was straight out of “Land Before Time”. Our campsite was right on the rim of the crater…beautiful but absolutely freezing. It was also a little more roughing it and definitely included peeing into a hole (too many times to count on this trip). Despite some roughing it, it had the same view as the hotel down the road where a room was $1500 a night! It was home to us, some other campers, and zebras…yup that’s right zebras (and a random warthog)…they were strolling through out tents right next to us. They were pretty close, but not quite close enough for Matt and Stephen to touch them…not for a lack of their trying though, I assure you.
Sunday morning, we woke up early again and headed down into the crater itself. Some of the animals we saw were ostrich, zebras, hyenas, warthogs, wildebeest, water buffalo, gazelle, elephants, and lions. We saw 8 more lions (so 11 lions total for the trip)! We saw a female and male lion RIGHT next to our jeep and we saw some lion cubs a bit farther away. BUT by and large the absolutely coolest thing we saw was a fight/chase between lions and water buffalo. It was so much like being in a movie it was crazy to think that it was all nature and nothing like this could ever be staged. I got some decent videos of the lion chasing the baby water buffalo and the big buffalos scaring it back away (they aren’t perfect though cuz I couldn’t watch something like that through a camera, so I just held it down and pointed it in the general direction). It was interesting to see that only the female lions hunt while the male sits and watches…like how in our species females go to the grocery store! It was also crazy to see how the zebra step in too when the lions are trying to attack to kind of shield the buffalo. Unfortunately the lions got too tired after the buffalo chased them away enough times so no kill…but it was still incredible to watch. In addition to that craziness, we also saw the elephant graveyard (lion king anyone?). The old elephants go there when they lose all their teeth before they die because the grass is all mushy and they can still eat some of it. We didn’t see any elephants there, but we saw some huge skulls. Then we headed back to the homebase, with a quick stop to ride some camels. Our 4 hour ride consisted of a great deal of time spent by Matt, Stephen and Drew making us verses to the Diarrhea song(brought on by some not so good inspiration from one of the group members)…yes I know the song sounds gross but the verses were actually pretty funny :-) Ok on that note..Lala Salama (Sleep Peacefully).
Amani,
Valerie
I feel like the luckiest girl alive at this very moment. Our experiences this weekend definitely contain some of the most amazing moments of my life. I took notes all weekend to help me remember every bit of it. Some of the views honestly almost moved me to tears they were so beautiful. But ok enough sappiness, let’s start with Friday...We left the house and headed to a town about an hour and a half away called Arusha to get groceries and supplies for the safari. Arusha is a pretty big town…it even had a stop light! Kind of ironically, the intersection with the stop light seemed to be running even more chaotically than those without. From there we headed about 2 more hours away to the campsite so we could see how much we were roughing it (tents already set up, real bathrooms, mats to sleep on…my kind of camping). Before dinner we went to a Maasai Village to meet some of the tribe members and see how they live. The Maasai are supposed to be one of the tribes that sticks to their ancient ways despite the influence of modernization. In some ways that seemed true, like for example they live in huts made of dung (mind you I was leaning against one of those dung walls when we were told that lovely fact) with one “room” (i.e. straw bed) for the man, one for the women and children, and one pen for the baby goats and sheep. They cook their food right in the middle of the house floor too. Some other traditional culture they kept included marrying multiple wives as young as 9 years old (usually not for child-bearing until 15, more to help around the house at the young age) and female genital mutilation. Some of the weird modernization aspects were their tables with jewelry to sell and even a website! The best part was when they gave me this traditional necklace to wear and had me go dance and jump (the tribe is known for how high the men jump—that’s how they get the ladies) with the girls of the tribe. The worst part was that dancing next to me was a baby on a woman’s back COVERED in flies…I kept trying to like blow on the baby’s face or wave my hand near it without the mom noticing because it was making me want to vomit.
On Saturday morning, we woke up at 5:30 and drove to Lake Manyara to start our animal safari adventure. Some of the animals we saw throughout the day were elephants (babies and adults), baboons all over the place, velvet and blue monkeys (more on the damn velvet monkeys to come), impala, dik dik, a snake, a kingfisher, hippos, giraffe, wildebeest, water buffalo, thousands of flamingo (literally like tens of thousands…a picture could never capture the image) and……drum roll please…THREE female LIONS in a tree oh SEVEN FEET from our car window!!! Like so close that when one roared everyone screamed, “Valerie shut your window” and Matt jumped like a foot in the air (per the report from the driver of the jeep behind us)…amazing!! The drivers said they see lions like that in the trees maybe 1-2 times a YEAR! We were soooo excited…it took us awhile to come down from the adrenaline rush.
After Lake Manyara, we drove to Ngorongoro Crater where we spent the night and had the final day of our safari. As we approached the crater it was everything we could do to pick our jaws up off the floor. The sight was absolutely breathtaking. It honestly looked like it was straight out of “Land Before Time”. Our campsite was right on the rim of the crater…beautiful but absolutely freezing. It was also a little more roughing it and definitely included peeing into a hole (too many times to count on this trip). Despite some roughing it, it had the same view as the hotel down the road where a room was $1500 a night! It was home to us, some other campers, and zebras…yup that’s right zebras (and a random warthog)…they were strolling through out tents right next to us. They were pretty close, but not quite close enough for Matt and Stephen to touch them…not for a lack of their trying though, I assure you.
Sunday morning, we woke up early again and headed down into the crater itself. Some of the animals we saw were ostrich, zebras, hyenas, warthogs, wildebeest, water buffalo, gazelle, elephants, and lions. We saw 8 more lions (so 11 lions total for the trip)! We saw a female and male lion RIGHT next to our jeep and we saw some lion cubs a bit farther away. BUT by and large the absolutely coolest thing we saw was a fight/chase between lions and water buffalo. It was so much like being in a movie it was crazy to think that it was all nature and nothing like this could ever be staged. I got some decent videos of the lion chasing the baby water buffalo and the big buffalos scaring it back away (they aren’t perfect though cuz I couldn’t watch something like that through a camera, so I just held it down and pointed it in the general direction). It was interesting to see that only the female lions hunt while the male sits and watches…like how in our species females go to the grocery store! It was also crazy to see how the zebra step in too when the lions are trying to attack to kind of shield the buffalo. Unfortunately the lions got too tired after the buffalo chased them away enough times so no kill…but it was still incredible to watch. In addition to that craziness, we also saw the elephant graveyard (lion king anyone?). The old elephants go there when they lose all their teeth before they die because the grass is all mushy and they can still eat some of it. We didn’t see any elephants there, but we saw some huge skulls. Then we headed back to the homebase, with a quick stop to ride some camels. Our 4 hour ride consisted of a great deal of time spent by Matt, Stephen and Drew making us verses to the Diarrhea song(brought on by some not so good inspiration from one of the group members)…yes I know the song sounds gross but the verses were actually pretty funny :-) Ok on that note..Lala Salama (Sleep Peacefully).
Amani,
Valerie
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Teacher! Teacher!
6/11/09
The last two days of teaching have been amazing/crazy! The kids in my class are so adorable…like seriously adorable! So adorable that one little girl peed on Catherine and she was like, “never have I been anywhere that a little kid could pee on me and it’d be ok because she’s so cute”. And their names are the best…I have a little boy in my class whose name is…”Good Luck”…spelled exactly like that. The first day when they said it I was like, hmm that sounded like they said good luck, so I looked on his notebook and sure enough, “good luck” it was.
Today, I went in to my classroom and it was all 11 kids and no teacher…then the head teacher came in and told me that my class’s teacher wasn’t going to be there at all for the next two days. So today it was me and 11 kids who speak pretty much only Swahili. They definitely take advantage of that too, but really what kid in the world wouldn’t. So needless to say I spent the whole day running around like a crazy person but I managed to do a letter/color game, make some letter/English worksheets for the kids to do and teach some numbers/math. It wouldn’t be so bad if the range of ability was from being able to trace numbers only to being able to do subtraction up to ten. It is also hard because they had about 4 pencils, 1 eraser, and 8 broken crayons for the whole class before we brought some more supplies. But regardless of the craziness it is so fun and fulfilling being there and helping and the kids are freaking awesome. I was so worried beforehand that I wouldn’t be doing any good here, but now after only three days I see how much we really are doing here. If the four of us volunteers weren’t there today there would have been 3 classes with one teacher in total!
Tonight, we are going out to dinner for the first time with promises of cheeseburgers…mmm! The food here is actually pretty good, I definitely eat a lot better here than in the states. We eat a lot of rice, beans, lots of awesome kinds of meat, and TONS of avocados. They also have Ugali which is the primary food substance of the people here. Since it is traditional they make it every night for us, but I’m pretty sure after trying it once only one of the 16-year-old volunteers still eat it. He’s like, “it fills me up”, whereas I’m like, “it tastes like playdough”. The things I miss the most (which I’m sure with shock all of you reading this haha) are ranch dressing, French fries, cheese, and cheetos.
Ok last journal for a few days since I’ll be on a SAFARI! We are going to Arusha, Lake Manyara, and Ngorongoro Crater….we are so stoked! The jeeps we are going in are really nice and it is only 6 per jeep so everyone has their own window seat and you can stand up and look through the top. They also have plugs to charge your cameras in the jeep and they bring all the drinkable water for you.
Amani,
Valerie
The last two days of teaching have been amazing/crazy! The kids in my class are so adorable…like seriously adorable! So adorable that one little girl peed on Catherine and she was like, “never have I been anywhere that a little kid could pee on me and it’d be ok because she’s so cute”. And their names are the best…I have a little boy in my class whose name is…”Good Luck”…spelled exactly like that. The first day when they said it I was like, hmm that sounded like they said good luck, so I looked on his notebook and sure enough, “good luck” it was.
Today, I went in to my classroom and it was all 11 kids and no teacher…then the head teacher came in and told me that my class’s teacher wasn’t going to be there at all for the next two days. So today it was me and 11 kids who speak pretty much only Swahili. They definitely take advantage of that too, but really what kid in the world wouldn’t. So needless to say I spent the whole day running around like a crazy person but I managed to do a letter/color game, make some letter/English worksheets for the kids to do and teach some numbers/math. It wouldn’t be so bad if the range of ability was from being able to trace numbers only to being able to do subtraction up to ten. It is also hard because they had about 4 pencils, 1 eraser, and 8 broken crayons for the whole class before we brought some more supplies. But regardless of the craziness it is so fun and fulfilling being there and helping and the kids are freaking awesome. I was so worried beforehand that I wouldn’t be doing any good here, but now after only three days I see how much we really are doing here. If the four of us volunteers weren’t there today there would have been 3 classes with one teacher in total!
Tonight, we are going out to dinner for the first time with promises of cheeseburgers…mmm! The food here is actually pretty good, I definitely eat a lot better here than in the states. We eat a lot of rice, beans, lots of awesome kinds of meat, and TONS of avocados. They also have Ugali which is the primary food substance of the people here. Since it is traditional they make it every night for us, but I’m pretty sure after trying it once only one of the 16-year-old volunteers still eat it. He’s like, “it fills me up”, whereas I’m like, “it tastes like playdough”. The things I miss the most (which I’m sure with shock all of you reading this haha) are ranch dressing, French fries, cheese, and cheetos.
Ok last journal for a few days since I’ll be on a SAFARI! We are going to Arusha, Lake Manyara, and Ngorongoro Crater….we are so stoked! The jeeps we are going in are really nice and it is only 6 per jeep so everyone has their own window seat and you can stand up and look through the top. They also have plugs to charge your cameras in the jeep and they bring all the drinkable water for you.
Amani,
Valerie
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
TFT
**warning: this is a long one!
Today, Stephen and I had our first experience with TFT (Tanzania Free Time). They told us here that if we are ever meeting up with anyone and we set a meeting time we have to say Mzungu time (like 7:00 Mzungu time… “white people time”) because otherwise it’s TFT…meaning we show up whenever the hell we want. So this morning we got dropped off at our placement at 8 am and school was supposed to start at eight…we waited until 8:30…still no teacher and no students. Just as we were leaving two students walked in but still no teacher. Can you imagine that happening in the
So I was put in the preschool class (more good practice for next year!). I walked in and the teacher handed me the chalk and said, “Teach whatever you like”. Haha….I actually think I did ok for no prep work and I had a great time with the kids! We did letters and some spelling first and then joined the rest of the school for recess. The little kids sit and climb all over you outside, which made our giant game of duck, duck, goose very interesting. They also LOVE boys so Stephen often got tagged goose and then had to deposit three kids on the ground before taking off running. Our favorite quote since they are all still learning English was when they wanted to be tagged they’d say, “goose me, goose me” :-) We also played this game that (based on the rough translation) was one kid in the middle saying jump and the name of a meat…then everyone has to jump, but if he/she said jump and “not a meat” and you were caught jumping you were it. So since my Swahili Vocabulary doesn’t include the many types of animal meat, we “mzungus” could always be “it”. After recess, I taught some addition and tomorrow I’m assigned to shapes and colors. Also, we learned in Swahili today that “tutaonana kesho” means see you tomorrow but if you take out the first “n” it means “let’s get married tomorrow”…maybe that’s why they laughed at me when I said goodbye today :-)
This afternoon we had a talk about the HIV/AIDS problem in
This evening we finalized our safari plans for the weekend! I really like the people we are volunteering with here AND the animals this time of year are supposed to be amazing so I am SOO excited!
Amani,
Valerie
Adventures
Last night was the beginning of what I know will be many interesting adventures! We went to a Mzungu (foreigner—or basically “white people”) bar last night where they were playing a movie on a giant screen. On our way home the van said it could fit ten, little did we know that meant four of the seats were on TOP of the van! I was too tired to be that adventurous but Matt sat up there and loved it!
So today was our second day of orientation before we start our placements tomorrow. We had the chance to meet the people in charge of our placements at lunch today and I am SO excited to get started. Stephen and I are going to be volunteering at
Amani,
Valerie
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Swahili Greetings
6/7/09
Wow! This place is amazing! I’m happy to say that my whole homesick/nervous attitude has changed from last night to today…I mean I still miss everyone but I love it here already. It’s a totally different world over here…just driving or walking down the street is an incredible experience. I am going to have to work hard to take it all in over the next four weeks.
Today we had our initial tour of Moshi, the town we are living just outside of, which included stopping by some artist’s shops and the local market. It’s interesting because the people here are so nice and friendly but many of them chat and are super friendly and then in the end ask you to buy something…even “Baba” (our house “Dad”) said that some people will be genuinely friendly, some dubious friendly and some a bit of both. My experience with that was in the market, a kid (probably 16-17) started talking to me and he was practicing his English while I practiced my Swahili. He walked along with me for about 5-10 minutes just talking, not trying to sell me anything and then at the very end when we were about to get back on the bus to leave he pulled out his crafts and asked me to buy some. I didn’t give in, but I felt totally guilty about it the whole time and he “pretended” (or wasn’t pretending…that’s still the part I don’t know) to be hurt and upset and that we weren’t “friends” anymore. We got back on the bus and almost everyone had had an experience just like mine!
One of the best parts of my day was when a small group of us decided to take a walk along the road by our house. Everything here is so novel and different from what we are used to that just walking we were all constantly like “whoh look at that!” talking about everything from the houses to the trees/plants, to the goats walking down the road. Little kids were playing soccer in the road and were all eager to wave, say “humjambo” or “mambo” and get high fives. Walking down the road is the best way to practice all the Swahili greetings: “Hujambo” – “Sijambo” for one person, “Hatujambo” – “Hamjambo” for more than one, “Shikamoo”- “Marahaba” to an elder and of course “Mambo” since we are obviously already up on the cool kid lingo :-)
Amani,
Valerie
Wow! This place is amazing! I’m happy to say that my whole homesick/nervous attitude has changed from last night to today…I mean I still miss everyone but I love it here already. It’s a totally different world over here…just driving or walking down the street is an incredible experience. I am going to have to work hard to take it all in over the next four weeks.
Today we had our initial tour of Moshi, the town we are living just outside of, which included stopping by some artist’s shops and the local market. It’s interesting because the people here are so nice and friendly but many of them chat and are super friendly and then in the end ask you to buy something…even “Baba” (our house “Dad”) said that some people will be genuinely friendly, some dubious friendly and some a bit of both. My experience with that was in the market, a kid (probably 16-17) started talking to me and he was practicing his English while I practiced my Swahili. He walked along with me for about 5-10 minutes just talking, not trying to sell me anything and then at the very end when we were about to get back on the bus to leave he pulled out his crafts and asked me to buy some. I didn’t give in, but I felt totally guilty about it the whole time and he “pretended” (or wasn’t pretending…that’s still the part I don’t know) to be hurt and upset and that we weren’t “friends” anymore. We got back on the bus and almost everyone had had an experience just like mine!
One of the best parts of my day was when a small group of us decided to take a walk along the road by our house. Everything here is so novel and different from what we are used to that just walking we were all constantly like “whoh look at that!” talking about everything from the houses to the trees/plants, to the goats walking down the road. Little kids were playing soccer in the road and were all eager to wave, say “humjambo” or “mambo” and get high fives. Walking down the road is the best way to practice all the Swahili greetings: “Hujambo” – “Sijambo” for one person, “Hatujambo” – “Hamjambo” for more than one, “Shikamoo”- “Marahaba” to an elder and of course “Mambo” since we are obviously already up on the cool kid lingo :-)
Amani,
Valerie
We made it!
6/6/09
We finally made it…safe and sound with only one major crisis along the way…Matt’s luggage got lost :-( Luckily he can share some of Stephen’s clothes and hopefully it will be found tomorrow and brought here to the homebase. We put in a missing report and they know where we are so we’ll cross our fingers…plus the driver said this is a common occurrence. We timed our travel time at 29 hours—so needless to say this is going to be a short note before I try to get some sleep.
I’m surprised to say I already have some homesickness and we’ve only been here about two hours. I think it’s because I’m not sharing a room with my brothers, which I expected but still makes me kind of sad. My brothers are in the room next door to me with two other guys and I have two roommates. We’re all pretty exhausted so we haven’t gotten to know each other too well but one is from Orlando and the other is from Denver. Ok too tired to write more now…
Amani,
Valerie
We finally made it…safe and sound with only one major crisis along the way…Matt’s luggage got lost :-( Luckily he can share some of Stephen’s clothes and hopefully it will be found tomorrow and brought here to the homebase. We put in a missing report and they know where we are so we’ll cross our fingers…plus the driver said this is a common occurrence. We timed our travel time at 29 hours—so needless to say this is going to be a short note before I try to get some sleep.
I’m surprised to say I already have some homesickness and we’ve only been here about two hours. I think it’s because I’m not sharing a room with my brothers, which I expected but still makes me kind of sad. My brothers are in the room next door to me with two other guys and I have two roommates. We’re all pretty exhausted so we haven’t gotten to know each other too well but one is from Orlando and the other is from Denver. Ok too tired to write more now…
Amani,
Valerie
Thursday, June 4, 2009
24 hours
6/4/09
I can’t believe after all the months of preparation for this trip we are actually leaving tomorrow! My main emotion is definitely excitement, with some nervous energy mixed in of course. Since it’s the day before we leave, I inevitably know I won’t get a wink of sleep tonight. Ever since I was a little kid I have never been able to sleep the day before something "big" was going to happen---the “big” events have changed over time…from first days of school to cross-country moves to important job interviews to big trips, but the insomnia has stayed exactly the same—hey I should be thankful right? Because it always means something “big” and typically great is about to happen!
For those of you who don’t know what I’m doing/why I’m going: My brothers, Matt and Stephen, and I are headed to Tanzania for a month. We are going on a volunteer trip through an organization called Cross-Cultural Solutions. I think what I love the most about these trips is that you have a group of people of different ages, different belief systems, from different cities around the globe all coming together for one reason: to help those who haven’t been given the advantages that we have been given in this lifetime. It’s an amazing concept, and I am incredibly lucky and thankful to be a part of it.
Well, I’ll wrap this first one up by saying that I will miss you all while I am gone and I can’t wait to share this experience with all of you (and also that I’m by no means a writer and tend to ramble when I speak so feel free to skim) :-)
Amani,
Valerie
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