jen in tanzania

not all who wander are lost...

2008-11-25T22:08:00.006+03:00

Tomorrow afternoon I fly into New York City! I have just spent a great week in England visiting family and friends... I'll spend the next few months in the USA reconnecting, resting, and getting organized for my next journey.

My years in the Peace Corps, and my months traveling through Southern Africa, are officially over. Which means that I'm not going to be updating this blog anymore. So, thanks for keeping up with me over the last few years.

Its been wild.

na upendo,
jen

Cape Town

2008-11-18T21:22:00.005+03:00

On Saturday the 15th we arrived in Cape Town, South Africa. We checked into Long Street Backpackers and walked around town. I loved Cape Town! It is a beautiful city and really FUN as well.

There are lots of cool people, good shops, tasty restaurants, and amazing scenery. That night we went out to a hip-hop bar and stayed there, dancing, until well after our bedtime!

On Sunday we had a lazy brunch and then took the cable car up to the top of Table Mountain. It was unreal! The cable car itself was pretty cool because it spins around the whole time you are going up. And then, suddenly, you arrive at 1000 meters above the city and ocean below you! It reminded me of an English Moor up there - a lot of boulders, a cold wind, some fog, and some really eery but gorgeous hiking trails.

Maya and I decided to hike down the mountain on a track following Skeleton Gorge. We first hiked to Maclear's Beacon, which is the highest point on the plateau, and then we walked down the gorge (which takes about 3 hours). It was, again, stunningly beautiful.

It was also basically deserted, so we hiked alone past little waterfalls, over boulders, across streams, and down a few ladders! We ended up in Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden and had a quick look around before heading back to town. That night we saw some live music and had a quiet night.

On Monday we spent most of the day shopping and walking around town. The highlight of the day was meeting Ommy and Peter, two Tanzanian guys who sell Tanzanian crafts, paintings, and other souvenirs in Cape Town. Somehow Maya realized they spoke Swahili and within minutes we were - all four of us - smiling so wide! I think we were all grateful to speak some Swahili after being away from Tanzania for so long. We ended up going out that evening with them, outside of the tourist areas of Cape Town. We continued to speak Swahili the whole evening and I was thrilled that I was able to spend my last night in Africa hanging out with people from back home! It was the perfect end to a perfect journey.

On Tuesday morning, I picked up a dove of peace as a reminder of my adventure across Southern Africa and my time in Peace Corps. It's too early to ruminate much on the deep truths that Maya and I found in the last few months, but I think there is one thing that we already agree on: the journey is the destination...

On Tuesday afternoon, I boarded an airplane and left Africa.

Windhoek to Cape Town/ Intercape Bus: 19 hrs

2008-11-14T22:46:00.002+03:00

Today, Friday, we woke up early at the flat and spent the day shopping around Windhoek. At 6:30 pm we boarded an Intercape bus to Cape Town. It's a long bus ride but a very comfortable one in these fancy buses!

I'm sad to leave Namibia... It's been a fun time, full of beautiful scenery and fun times with fellow PC volunteers...

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Sossusvlei and the Namib Desert

2008-11-14T22:37:00.002+03:00

On Tuesday morning we rented a car in Swakopmund with an RPCV from Namibia named Ian. We then drove south, to the famous sand dunes of Sossusvlei. During our drive we took a quick devour to climb a big rock in the middle of nowhere.

After a few hours of driving through canyons and the desert, we arrived at the national park. We met a Dutch couple, Beerd and Michele, and invited them to share our campsite. It ended up being a great idea because it was great fun having all 5 of us to hang out... And we were able to use their cups and plates, too!

After getting settled in and making veggie burgers on Tuesday evening, we all watched our first sunset over the dunes. Then Maya and Ian and I went over to the staff quarters and hung out with a bunch of the Namibian workers. They were so much fun and it was nice to escape from the tourist-route for a couple of hours. We woke up before sunrise on Wednesday and headed into the park. We climbed Dune 45 and watched the sunrise from over the massive red dunes.

Then we headed to Sossusvlei and Dead Vlei, which are valleys formed at the base of huge dunes. In Sossusvlei, water collects in the pan every 5 years or so, after a rare big rainfall has caused the river there to run again. Dead Vlei, as its name suggests, is cut off now and so water never collects, as is apparent by the stark dead tree trunks littering the pan. Some of the others spent an hour climbing the biggest dune, while I spent time just wandering the pan. It was breathtaking.

We then went back to our campsite for lunch and a rest. We went back to the park in the evening for sunset. We brought wine and found our own dune to hike, just the 5 of us, totally away from other visitors. We watched the sun set and the moon rise from the top of the dune, then thoroughly enjoyed running down the dune at full-speed.

We then went back to the campsite before going to bed early, exhausted. On Thursday morning we woke up early and drove back to Swakop, dropped the car, and hitched to Windhoek. We stayed with Ian at his friend's flat, and we went out to a club called Funky Lab :)

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Random depressing thought of the day:

2008-11-10T19:30:00.002+03:00

"The UN estimates that over a billion people lack access to safe drinking water, 1.2 billion have no access to any sanitation facilities and 1.5 million children die of water-borne sanitation-related diseases every year.

And all of that while people in the developed world - that's you and me - use hundreds of litres of drinking-quality water a day, flushing 70 percent of it down the toilet."

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Opuwo to Swakopmund

2008-11-09T21:58:00.002+03:00

We left Opuwo early on Saturday morning and caught a lifti to Kaminjab. We passed Etosha National Park and a lot of scrubland, so it was a beautiful drive. In Kaminjab we had lunch with two PC volunteers before catching another ride to Outjo. We crashed there for the night at a backpackers, and got on the road again early this morning. We were lucky enough to catch a free hike all the way from Outjo to Swakopmund!

After arriving here in town we did some grocery shopping and then walked down to the beach. Tomorrow we'll just be around town, finding a rental car so that we can head out on Tuesday morning to Sossusvlei... One of the largest sand dunes in the world!

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¡

2008-11-09T21:50:00.001+03:00

"A life is not important except in the impact it has on others"
-Jackie Robinson

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Opuwo and my Himba friends

2008-11-08T03:27:00.006+03:00

On Wednesday, Maya and I arrived in Opuwo in the evening. We are staying with a volunteer here named Kate. The first thing we noticed when we walked through the town are the amazing tribal clothing that people here wear. There are a number of tribes in this region, but three of them in particular wear very, very unique clothing (the Himba, the Thimba, and the Herero)

Here are a Thimba woman and child I met outside of the supermarket:

Maya and I relaxed yesterday afternoon at a fancy hotel lodge on the hills surrounding the town. The view was unreal and we really, really enjoyed the pool!

Today we went with a local woman named Queen Elizabeth to visit her family's village. She is of the Himba tribe, and although she dresses more modernly than her other relatives, she was able to explain a lot about her culture and to translate for us while we tried to talk to the women who we made friends with. The village tour was a bit like visiting a Maasai village in Tanzania: somewhat disconcerting because, since you pay to tour the village, you feel slightly as though you are exploiting the people somehow... and yet, this family has found a way to balance tourism and to use it to their advantage. The money they earn from welcoming us into their village can help them with education and healthcare. And we also brought gifts of flour, sugar, and bread when we arrived. And because of the system they have set up, they are able to continue with their cultural traditions in a robust and proud way. I like it.

The Himba people defy simple explanations, and if I try to describe them, it will just sound cliche. So I will let the photographs speak for themselves:

the election and the road

2008-11-05T17:36:00.000+03:00

We really enjoyed watching the election with some PC-Namibia girls. It was a fun slumber-party in Brie's school library. First we went to her homestead to see how she lives:

Then we set up shop in the library for the election vigil:

We didn't sleep a wink: Obama spoke to the crowd in Chicago at about 7 am, our time. As soon as we wiped away our copious tears, we drove back out to the main road, where the other girls dropped us off and we said our goodbyes:

Maya and I then headed west. We hitchhiked, as usual. There aren't so many other cars on the roads, after all....

!

2008-11-05T05:28:00.000+03:00

It's a beautiful world...

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Today is The Day

2008-11-04T11:02:00.002+03:00

I woke up this morning and - first things first - pulled my Obama tshirt over my head. It's gonna be a good day today. We're going to go to the open market here in Outapi today to buy some beads, and then this afternoon we are headed out to the village of Nakaheke. There is a volunteer out there (who I've never met) whose school received a donation of a TV with cable for their library. So tonight we have a slumber-party in the library! I never would have thought that I'd be watching this election in a small Namibian village near the Angolan border, in a school library. I'm a little bit sad that I wont be able to celebrate with a glass of champagne or even a beer. But it doesn't matter, really:

Today is The Day.

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Outapi

2008-11-03T10:53:00.000+03:00

The halloween party on Saturday night was really fun! Everybody was dressed up in ridiculous costumes and there were even a few Namibian friends who got into the spirit! We partied and danced at the once small shack-bar in the village, and then fell into our tents for a good sleep.

His village and school both reminded me a bit of Newala... Lots of sand and big trees (although they weren't mango or cashew trees, alas):

The next morning we jumped into a pickup truck again and eventually ended up in the town of Outapi. We are staying with a volunteer named Carly at her site for a couple of days. We were really happy on Monday to just relax at her house, read gossip magazines and get some laundry done. Sometimes it's nice to have a day of down-time, especially since we haven't really rested for a full day since... I don't even know! We also went to visit a famously large (and hollow) baobob tree in her town:

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Ondwanga to Oshidute

2008-11-01T13:58:00.002+03:00

Last night we hung out with some volunteers in Ondwanga and stayed at a guy named Paul's house. It was nice: its hot and desert-like here, but beautiful. We are in Owomboland, so most of the people here are from the Owombo tribe. There are a lot of traditional homesteads here, with small round mud houses and lots of goats running around. This morning we headed northeast and will soon arrive in a small village called Oshidute, really close to the Angolan border. We're going to have a halloween party with about 15 other volunteers deep in the village! We all have costumes, so I think it will be a riot...

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Swakop to Ondangwa: by car / 7 hrs

2008-10-31T16:23:00.004+03:00

Maya and I took public transport out to the hitching point at edge of Swakopmund town this morning around 8 am. We only had to wait about 25 minutes before a nice guy stopped and - in stroke of good fortune - was heading, like us, all the way to the North of Namibia. We agreed to contribute the equivalent of $5 each for petrol, and hopped in his car. Thus a journey that might have taken 10 hours, with lots of waiting on the side of roads, turned into these 7 hours of air-conditioning.

We just now passed the "red line", which is the demarcation point between Northern Namibia and the rest of the country. The line is way north of the middle- in fact, its a pretty narrow strip across the top of the country. But it marks the two different worlds of this country. The southern part of the country, below the line, are fences, big farms, the developed world, and a lot of desert. Above the line are wide open tribal lands, dense scrubland, traditional villages, and no big farms. The red line is actually a big fence across the country, keeping various livestock and farming diseases quarrantined one either side of the border. But it effectively also marks where many of the tribal "homelands" were established during apartheid. These were the lands that black people had to live on, unless they had employment or other good reason to be living in a designated township elsewhere in the country.

We're excited to be up here... We should arrive in Ondwanga pretty soon, where we will be staying with a PC/Namibia volunteer and hanging out with a number of them this weekend.

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jumping out of an airplane

2008-10-30T00:51:00.000+03:00

This morning Maya and I woke up bright and early and jumped out of a small plane over the Namib Desert! We jumped tandem with guys from Ground Rush Adventures and it was unbelievably cool. It wasn't even scary after the first 3 seconds (when I actually had to jump out the door of the plane)... It was just this loud wind, beautiful clear sky, blue ocean and white expanses of sand... After opening the parachute we did some fun spins and I even got to drive for a few minutes! It was so peaceful, gliding down to earth with my body just hanging in a harness. I remember after bungee jumping 10 years ago I immediately said, 'never again!' I can't say the same for skydiving... The rush was nothing but fun.

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Sandboarding and Swakopmund

2008-10-29T02:10:00.000+03:00

This morning Maya and I went sandboarding on Dune 7, which is just south of Walvis Bay. It was really fun and easier than snowboarding. I'm not much good at either of these sports, but generally enjoy going down slowly and laughing at myself. Maya is a bit of an expert but she had a pretty wild wipe-out, so she is more sore than I am tonight!

After sandboarding, we went into town. The towns here remind me a bit of Upington: Namibia was administered by South Africa until 1990 so apartheid was very much here as well. So the town is very pretty and European-seeming, but very racially stratisfied as well. The White people mostly live right next to town in beautiful houses... Lucy lives in the Colored township and works in the Black township... We spent some time in both areas and they aren't too different except that it is clear that skin color is as closely connected to wealth as it is in South Africa. Lucy's job seems great though: its a multi-purpose community center but we met a bunch of kids who attend their after-school program, which seemed like genuine fun!

After heading back to Lucy's and packing up, we caught a ride back here to Swakopmund. We are now staying with another volunteer named Megan for a couple of nights. Swakop seems to be a nice quiet town, not too different from the other towns we have visited lately. Megan lives right next to a casino... I bet she never thought she'd be next to a casino when she joined Peace Corps Namibia!

Trivia for the day: this is the town where Angelina Jolie had her daughter Shiloh.

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Windhoek to Walvis Bay: hitchhiking / 6 hrs

2008-10-28T01:53:00.000+03:00

Around 10 am on Tuesday, Maya and I took a public taxi out to the hitching spot on the B1 highway. We were took three rides overall: the first guy took us to the police checkpoint on the edge of town, then the cops helped us to get a lift to Okahandja. After having lunch there, we got a lift with a mine-worker to Swakopmund and then one last short ride to Walvis Bay. Maya and I are trying to stay mostly with Peace Corps volunteers in Namibia, so we spent the night with a fun volunteer named Lucy and her friend Mike, a Canadian guy.

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Upington and some history...

2008-10-27T23:32:00.000+03:00

Upington was a fairly uneventful place to spend our last day in South Africa. It reminds me a bit of cities in the American Mid-west: wide deserted streets, lots of pavement and stopsigns, pickup trucks, and a KFC fast-food joint across from the 24-hour gas station. It was a nice place to stroll around, to buy ice-cream, but other than that there wasn't much to do.

Back at the camp-site we watched Northern Cape families enjoying their weekend as kids splashed in the kiddie-pool, dads barbequed sausages, moms lounged on blankets, and teenage boys pumped music on their car stereos. South Africa (before and during Apartheid) developed some very interesting racial classification terms: namely, every person was called either White, Black, or Coloured. A Colored person was basically anybody who didn't fit into the first two categories- for example people of indian, asian, or mixed-race descent. These classifications were sometimes fairly arbitrary and occasionally even technically wrong. People could appeal their classification but whatever their label, it affected strongly the type of life they would lead. Every person had to carry an identity document at all times, and each town had designated areas for each race. Marriage, housing, schooling, jobs - everything was relevant to your racial classification: so, for example, a black parent might be forced to live in a different township from the white other parent and their colored children.

Of course all of that ridiculousness is long-gone today, although it still exists informally in the sense that every town has a White area, a Black area, and a Colored area. Often when locals are describing their town to us, they will explain quite matter of-factly who lives where. In Upington, there are many more Colored people than we have seen elsewhere. To a large extent they have formed their own culture and are a distinct group, speaking Afrikaans rather than any tribal language and yet remaining separate from the white tribes (those being the English and the Afrikaners).

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Upington to Windhoek: Intercape bus / 12 hrs

2008-10-27T01:46:00.000+03:00

At 6.30 pm on Sunday we boarded another Intercape bus, again heading west. We crossed the border into Namibia at about 9 pm. The journey was uneventful except that the air-conditioning was broken on this bus... And as we pulled into Windhoek around 6:30 am on Monday, the whole bus broke down. Luckily we were only 3 blocks from the Chameleon Backpackers, so Maya and I hiked over there and checked in. After relaxing for a few hours we walked around Windhoek to get our bearings and then hung out at the hostel for the night.

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Soweto to Upington: Intercape Bus / 11.5 hrs

2008-10-25T00:52:00.000+03:00

At 6 am on Saturday, Maya and I groggily got out of bed, slung our packs over our shoulders, and walked up to the main road. We quickly jumped into a public minibus and rode for about 45 minutes to Park Station in central Jo'burg. It only took that long because the driver was trying to fill every seat so he stopped every 30 seconds... We eventually arrived and checked in with no problems.

Around 7.30 am the Intercape bus left the station and we headed west, into the Northern Cape near the Namibian border. The ride was long but easy: the bus was a double-decker, air-conditioned, and had super-recliner plush seats. Nothing like that in Tanzania! We arrived in Upington around 6 pm and hiked with our packs out of town to a camp-site at a local park. We set up our tent, hitchhiked back to town for dinner, and then retreated to our tent for an early night of difficult sleep. I'm getting too old to be sleeping on the ground without any kind of mattress!

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Soweto, tsotsi-style...

2008-10-24T20:05:00.000+03:00

Maya and I just spent a ridiculously fun 2 days in Soweto ( South Western Township), which is only about 20 minutes from Jo'burg. There is a hostel out there owned by a local Sowetan guy, Lebo. So on Thursday afternoon we took a minibus out there. We were a bit nervous to go to a township, I guess, but only because so many people had hyped up how dangerous Jo'burg and the townships are. In reality, though, we had no idea where we were going but countless people were kind and friendly and helpful and so we made it to the hostel without incident.

After dropping our bags we went for a walk around the neighborhood, which is Orlando West. Soweto is said to have about 4 million residents, and is the wealthiest township in the country. Orlando West is also considered the 'Beverly Hills' of Soweto. And in fact it IS a really nice neighborhood: most families seemed to be at least solidly middle-class. After eating kota (Soweto's answer to chipsi mayai: half a small loaf of bread hollowed out and filled with chutney, chips, cheese, and fried eggs. Yum) we then went back to the hostel and met Joachim (a german guy volunteering as a soccer coach for the year) and Kalefu (a young Sowetan working at the hostel).

We quickly convinced them to take us out to their local shebeen (unlicensed bar) and we ended up hanging out at The Shack and Pinky's until 1am. We made friends with these two amazing Sowetan woman: Jane works at the Nelson Mandela Museum (his old house in Soweto) and Senele is a documentary film maker. We talked to them about crime in Jo'burg, and they were circumspect... Basically said that we all just have to live our lives, to be smart but not to live in a bubble. They were surprised how easily we fit in with local people, about how comfortable we seemed. We related our frustration with the malls and the security walls of Jo'burg, and the concerned looks we get when we tell people that we prefer to ride public transport.

We talked politics with some older Sowetan folks at Pinkys, and realized the similarities between our two countries. One old man asked us why, if we truly love our country, we aren't eager to currently join the US Armed Forces... I responded that citizens are plenty patriotic when they question and refuse to participate in the unjust actions of their government. He just smiled and nodded knowingly. Eventually we got a ride back to the hostel and slept in the next morning.

The hostel offers bike tours of Soweto but we wanted to go off the tourist route and see something different. So we asked Kalefu to take us to Kliptown and some of the shanty areas of Soweto. So together with him and Joachim, we embarked on a four-hour ride. It was fascinating and at times very depressing. We rode through some middle-class areas with manicured lawns and fancy cars parked outside... And we rode through sections of town with tin shacks, no electricity, trash everywhere, and stagnant water in the pathways.

In Kliptown we were invited into the house of an old woman who was raising 3 grandchildren alone, one of whom was severely physically and intellectually disabled. On the whole, though, I saw that facilities were better than in Dar es Salaam's slums: there were water taps on every street spouting water that is safe to drink and that, according to residents, never run dry. There were also porta-potties on every street that the government empties every week!

While we were in Kliptown we went into a small museum commemorating the writing of the Freedom Charter in that area in 1955. It is a beautiful document, although it espoused beliefs that were (of course) quite contrary to goverment policy at the time... and so it became part of the reason that not long afterwards the ANC was banned and forced into exile.

We then headed back to the hostel and rested for a few hours. Around 7pm, Kalefu's friends Sean, Sipo, and Mhase came in their 2 cars to pick us up. Together with Kalefu and Joachim, we piled into the cars and went to the once-a-year Soweto beer festival. We pumped South African house music and laughed as we sped, Tsotsi-style, through Soweto's streets. The boys quickly fixed Sean's flat tire on the way, and after about 5 minutes we came upon the beer festival: basically a huge party on the streets surrounding a fairgrounds where they had erected some big white tents and set up DJs for those people willing to pay 50 cents to go inside. We hung out on the streets for a while, and then met up with Jane again and went inside to dance for a few hours.

Once again, Maya and I had a brilliant time and found that the friends we came with were protective of us... Although there wasn't much to worry about. We were clearly the only white people for miles around... And everybody seemed really happy to see us. We met a lot of fun people and we found it interesting that everybody knew we weren't South African before even talking to us. I guess it's just unusual for white South Africans to hang out in the townships. I don't know why; frankly we had been supposed to spend Friday night in Jo'burg again but decide to stay in Soweto because we were having such a great time.

After a while we went back out to the street party and watched Sowetan testosterone: at a small 4-way stop intersection, guys pulled their cars into the middle and ripped massive wheelies. I'm talking tires smoking, engine revving, girls waving out of sunroof, car spinning wildly doing 360 after 360, other dudes on the street running close and then jumping out of the way... Huge circles were burned onto the pavement after each car drove away. This went on for a while, with cops driving past and not caring, clearly.

We got back to the car to find that one of Mhase's windows had been smashed (but nothing taken), and after running out of gas on the road, we pulled into a petrol station only to find that the party was continuing there. Folks were dancing on the roofs of cars, cheering wildly, and revving their engines to compare how much smoke they could generate under the rear wheels. By the time we got back to the hostel, it was 4 am and we were exhausted but happy!

The Apartheid Museum

2008-10-22T18:01:00.002+03:00

"My blood will nourish the tree which will bear the fruits of freedom. Tell my people that I love them and that they must continue the struggle. Do not worry about me but about those who are suffering." -Solomon Mahlangu ... executed, 1979.

The museum here in Jo'burg does an incredible job of describing the recent history of South Africa, from early white settlements to the ideological extremes of apartheid in the 1960's. I cried more than once watching video footage of police brutality in Soweto in the 70's and reading about the conditions under which most of the citizens of this country lived for so many generations.

People lament that South Africa is a violent country today... But how can we fail to attribute much of that to the injustice - and violence - that has been inflicted on black people in this country for centuries? Its strange to realize that I was born in the year that Mahlangu was executed and that I grew up during apartheid... Its easier to learn about history when we are safely removed from it by claims that it was a long time ago... But this wasn't. It was yesterday.

Thankfully, despite seeing firsthand that this country isn't perfect, I can definitly see that it has come a long way. Peace and equality and respect have arrived... The economic and geographical redistribution will follow with time. Inshallah.

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Johannesburg

2008-10-22T17:42:00.001+03:00

We arrived yesterday to infamous Jo'burg... People tell us its the
murder capital of the world so we came in a bit nervous. In reality,
it doesn't feel any different than any big city I have been to. It's
true that it is dangerous, and we are - of course - being careful...
But folks are just living their lives here. We're definitely the only
white people riding public transit... But we're so used to that that
we wondered at first why people were so surprised to see us there!
Most of Jo'burg, anyway, seems to be suburban. Our hostel is
surrounded by shopping malls and gas stations. Tomorrow we'll venture
to the more urban areas, I expect.

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Bahati (AKA Pablo) Boma

2008-10-21T13:05:00.002+03:00

"Dust in our eyes our own boots kicked up
Heartsick we nursed along the way we picked up
You may not see it when it's sticking to your skin
But we're better off for all we let in

We've lost friends and loved ones much too young
With so much promise and work left undone
When all that guards us is a single center line
And the brutal crossing over when its time

Well I don't know where it all began
And I don't know where it all will end
We're better off for all that we let in..."

-Indigo Girls

I'll remember Bahati for the time he made me drive his car to Makondeko... just to prove that I knew how to! For his square shoulders that made him look like a linebacker. For dancing at the Umoja disco in a white surfer's rash shirt. And for that damned smile that came so quick so his face. Newala, and especially JW, are in my thoughts today as they bury a much-loved young member of the community. Wish I could be there.

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Hmm...

2008-10-21T12:33:00.003+03:00

Maya and I left Sabie this morning and are now on our way from Nelspruit to Johannesburg. I have two comments about transportation in South Africa: first of all, I was shocked this morning when our minibus left Sabie on time - at 10am on the dot, even though half of the seats were still empty! Just weird. My other comment is perhapsone to be worried about: just now, for the first time ever in Africa, all passengers on this minibus had to list their full name and a phone number for their next of kin on a register! Should I be scared? The roads here are amazing - yellow and white lines, stop signs, cross signals, working stoplights, and road signs everywhere. Just posh. But perhaps equally dangerous...

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They call it kloofing

2008-10-21T00:15:00.002+03:00

Today Maya and I went canyoning in the morning (called kloofing in SA) and then caving in the evening. Both were rad! The canyoning was in the Mac Mac River and was basically hiking down a riverbed in a wetsuit and helmet... There were times when we had to jump off cliffs into the river, or swim thru pools, or slide down tree trunks, or swing on vines. We also explored two amazing waterfalls and went behind them both. The water was freezing but the environment was lush mossy jungle... Just what we needed!

In the afternoon we stopped by another backpacker's place and met the owner, who was really friendly and immediately welcomed us to enjoy his trees. At 6pm we went night-caving, which was a little scary but very fun. Climbing through tiny openings, getting smeared in mud, and even blowing out our candles to just sit quietly and listen to the bats swooshing past our heads... After leaving the caves we went to a very tall waterfall and just looked and listened to it in the dark.... Very peaceful.

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Mozambique to South Africa

2008-10-19T22:30:00.002+03:00

We've arrived in the small town of Sabie, near Nelspruit, not so far from the border with Mozambique. We're near the Drakensburg Escarpment and it's beautiful here! Tomorrow we go canyoning and caving...

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Sightseeing in Maputo

2008-10-18T03:22:00.000+03:00

Maputo is a beautiful city with some really fancy buildings. It's also quite developed and seems to have a fun nightlife, too. Here are a few views of the city:

Tofo to Maputo: car / 7 hours

2008-10-17T01:02:00.005+03:00

We got a free lift to Maputo with some new friends who we made on Tofo Beach... it was a sweet ride and lots of fun. Way better than the bus, as usual.

We have spent 2 nights with the family of our old Country Director (from back in Tanzania) and it has been an amazingly relaxing experience. Christine's family is fun and they all totally remind me of the way I grew up. It has also been pretty awesome to use a laundry machine and eat cereal at midnight.

Tait left this evening on a night bus for Johannesburg. Maya and I feel as though we have lost our legs. What will we do without our Food and Beverage Coordinator? It is going to be a hungry month.... but at least we have soap now.

Tomorrow we will leave here and begin our overland journey westward. I booked my plane tickets today, also: I fly a very circituous route from Cape Town to London on November 18th (via Jo'burg and Qatar)... and then after visiting family in the UK, I will fly into NYC from London on November 26th.

Diving on Manta Reef

2008-10-13T13:16:00.004+03:00

On this day I went scuba diving with some other backpackers on Manta Reef, which is near Coconut Bay and Inhambane. I did two dives and both were amazing. Lots of big fish, eels, some nudibranches, batfish, and even devil rays. Unfortunately we didn't see any manta rays, though. But before the dive we came alongside a humpback whale sow and calf, which was rad. And between the dives we went snorkeling with a whale shark, which was basically ridiculously cool. Did you know that the whale shark is neither a whale nor a shark but is actually just the biggest fish in the world? We swam with a baby, but he was about 15 feet long and maybe 4 feet wide!

Here are some of the folks I went diving with:

After the diving I met up with Tait and Maya again and had some drinks at the backpackers' place we are staying at. Our last night was fun despite the number of CBR's we had to employ...

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the closest thing to fate...

2008-10-12T10:38:00.006+03:00

"I like what is in Work - the chance to find yourself.

Your own reality - for yourself, not for others -

what no other man can ever know.

They can only see the mere show,

and never can tell what it really means."

-joseph conrad

I don't want to jinx myself, but it looks like I'll be back in Tanzania starting in May of next year. A real job, an inspiring project, and a schedule that allows me to be remain in the US for some very important events early next year. And yet, I can enjoy my time in the US knowing that tunalongela nundu...

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tofo beach

2008-10-12T10:25:00.003+03:00

Here are some shots of the beach in Tofo and the girls trying out their surfing skills with our new friend Jit, who gave them a few pointers:

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Vilankulo to Tofo: car & minibus / 7 hrs

2008-10-12T10:11:00.003+03:00

On Friday the 10th we left from the house of the pc volunteers who we were staying with at 8 am. We decided to hitchhike south, which worked out damn well... Some Italian contractors picked us up and a ride that should have been 4 uncomfortable hours in a hot bus turned into 2.5 hrs in an air-conditioned private car.

From Maxixe we still had to take two chapas to Tofo, so we didn't get in until 3pm. The beach has been amazing, though. Tofo's waves are fun and there are lots of backpackers here to entertain us. It's definitely a different scenethan we are used to, but its fun for a few days to hang out at atourist spot. We've been chillin with a lot of South African and Israeli folks, which makes for some interesting conversations. It's a good place for us to regroup as we get ready for Maputo: Tait flies home in less than a week, and Maya and I will head overland towards Angola after that.

So reading on the beach and writin letters is a perfect pastime for this weekend... Along with enjoying the live music and bonfires on top of the dunes at night.

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Magaruque Island

2008-10-10T00:07:00.003+03:00

Tait and I took a boat trip to the Bazaruto Archipelago today with two Mozambiquan boat drivers and two other tourists. After a rough boat trip out and a jury-rig for our maimed 15hp engine, we were psyched to arrive inside the small reef surrounding Magaruque Island. We lazed on the beach all day and went swimming and snorkeling.

The tourists we went with were 2 guys, one from Spain and the other from Canada. They are traveling together and were really spontaneous and fun. They brought wine and amarula for the sunset ride back...

I saw some rad fish underwater, which just reminded me how badly I want to get out scuba diving at some point on this trip. I'll admit, the boat wasn't in the best shape and it didn't calm my paranoia that the crew member wore a life jacket throughout our boat journey. I later decided that it might have just been a fashion statement, though... Considering he also didn't take it off for the 4 hours that we were on the island!

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Naam Tunaweza

2008-10-09T15:24:00.003+03:00

"Naam, watu wengi wa dunia hii wanataka Obama apite. Ashinde urais wa Marekani. Wanaamini kuwa atasambaza neno lake la 'MABADILIKO' ili nao liwafikie. Ameamsha imani mpya, matumaini mapya kwa watu wa dunia."

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Chimoio to Vilankulo: bus & pickup / 6 hours

2008-10-08T11:21:00.003+03:00

Tait and I grudgingly woke up and got to the bus stand at 3:30am today for our bus south. The ride was less painful than I thought it would be... Now we are in the back of a pickup truck with 5 Mozambiquan Obama supporters!

Actually pretty much everybody we meet tells us that they hope he will win but then asks us haltingly , 'Will Americans really elect a black man?' My answer: 'Si, Estamos Juntos!'

We'll be in Vilankulos in about 15 minutes, where we will stay with some Peace Corps volunteers here for the next two nights.

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Chimoio to Penha Longa and back: 3 days

2008-10-07T01:57:00.004+03:00

"They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force - nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others. They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind ... The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much."

- J. Conrad, Heart of Darkness

On October 5th, we jumped in a minibus to the small town of Manica and then another minibus to the village of Penha Longa, on the border of Mozambique. We spent most of the rides talking to English-speaking people sitting next to us:

One was a woman in her 60's who had been a Freedom Fighter during the war with the Portuguese and had lived as a refugee in Tanzania for some time. She lived in TZ because, during the war, the rebels based attacks on the Portuguese colonists from their camps in and near Mtwara Region. The rebels began their struggle in Dar es Salaam in 1962, and fought until 1975 for the independence of their country.

We also met a man who had lived in Zimbabwe for many years in order to avoid fighting in the civil war that went from 1975 until 1992 here in Mozambique. He described the reasons behind the war, which basically boil down to some simple Cold War logic: After Portugal gave up the fight to keep their colony, newly independent Mozambique had a Marxist government and had support from the USSR and other similar countries.

The government of Mozambique also supported "rebels" from Rhodesia and South Africa (ie, those who were opposing the aparteid government at the time). So other powerful countries - mainly the Rhodesian and South African governments, with some assistance from the USA - supported a rebel movement (RENAMO) who basically waged a war against its own people by destroying infrastructure and making the country ungovernable for 16 years. In this way, the country was destabilized and unable to provide support to the "enemy".

As the Cold War ended and aparteid crumbled, outside funding and support for RENAMO ended. The civil war was quickly over: nobody here in Mozambique really wanted the war, anyway.

Most of the people of this border area - both Mozambiquan and Zimbabwean - are of the Shona tribe. Their homes are beautiful little rondavels and they even paint them with earth-colored clays. The local people communicate with one another mostly in Shona. The Mozambiquans second language is Portuguese, and the Zimbabweans (who know English) can only speak to locals here in Shona. There is definitely a very large number of Zimbabweans who have left their country and crossed over the border for the jobs and safety of Mozambique. The police stop every lory heading out towards this forest and "fine" (or bribe, really) every Zimbabwean without papers about 5 dollars on-the-spot. It seemed that about 25% of the people on our lorry paid that fine when we were on it. The hike to the villages over the border is only about 3 hours.

We stayed in the woods at Quinta de Fronteira for 2 nights. It was beautiful eucalyptus forest and we were finally able to hike in lush vegetation for the first time in weeks. We explored the surrounding forest and waterfalls during the day, and we cooked our own food over a campfire at night.

On October 7th Tait and I hiked back out and took a lorry back to Chimoio.

(Maya decided to stay for an extra night and to eventually meet us in Tofo in a few days). Tait and I stayed at Pink Papaya again for a night before our early bus to Vilankulo.

Tete to Chimoio: bus / 7 hours

2008-10-04T01:39:00.000+03:00

We woke up at 3 am and hauled our butts to the bus station for our bus to Chimoio. I do not have any idea why Mozambiquans insist that every bus should begin it's journey at that ungodly hour, especially when the bus then arrives at its destination before noon!

We arrived at 11am and went to the Pink Papaya backpackers', which was really cozy and nice. We met two PC/South Africa volunteers who had just COS'ed, and we walked around Chimoio town to buy vegetables for a big and delicious salad that we made at Pink Papaya. Wequickly realized that the only people who we can communicate with are the Zimbabweans who live here...since they speak English.

At night, we went with the other PC girls to an AMAZING pizza place: it was definitely the best pizza I have had outside of New York City. It was rad to hear more about PC in other countries and to get a volunteer's viewpoint of the interesting struggles facing South Africa only 14 years after aparteid.

Here are some interesting murals regarding HIV rates and prevention of transmission that we found painted on the walls near the border yesterday:

Blantyre to Tete: mostly hitchhiking /12 hrs

2008-10-03T23:56:00.003+03:00

We crossed the border into Mozambique in the middle of a long day of travel. We left Blantyre early in the morning and hitched and then took a minibus to the edge of town. We then hitchhiked again and got a lift... strangely enough, with a taxi driver! He took us all the way to the border of Malawi and Mozambique, and we ended up giving him a little bit of money as a token of our thanks.

The second taxi that drove us the 5 km in between the borders was uneventful...except tbat I have never been in a car with two drivers before. I guess the other 6 of us in the car weren't able to make enough room for this dude elsewhere in the car.

At the border we met a really nice Malawian guy who drives a huge petrol tanker. He offered us a free lift to Tete, so we rode in style for the last 4 hours, relaxing on his mattress in the cab of the truck and watching a great sunset through his windshield.

We got to Tete late at night, after crossing a cool suspension bridge over the Zambezi River, and checked into a pretty dodgy hotel (perhaps aptly called "Hotel Kassuende"... which means Hotel Syphillis in Kiswahili). We ate a quick meal and went to bed early in order to catch our 3am bus heading southward.

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that's how she lives....

2008-10-02T03:37:00.000+03:00

"If anyone speaks badly of you, live so that none will believe it."

resting in Blantyre

2008-10-02T02:58:00.000+03:00

We decided to rest at Nick and Lindsday's house in Blantyre for a whole day and night! We lazed around the house, made Mexican food, and watched the vice-presidential debate at 3am on CNN.

After the debate we went to bed for about 3 hours before waking up at 8am and heading out... We knew that it would take a long day of travel to get across the border into Mozambique.

Mount Mulange in 48 hours

2008-10-01T03:03:00.000+03:00

On Tuesday the 30th we woke up early and began our ascent on Mount Mulange. We didn't ever plan to actually summit, but knew that a simpler route over the saddle of the mountain would be just as beautiful. The hike up was grueling for me - 7 hours with my back aching like hell since we had slept on concrete.

We had a nice lunch on the top of the saddle, though, and soon after arrived at the "hut" where we would be spending the night. In fact, it was a beautiful cabin, fully stocked with all of the supplies that we would need to cook our dinner over the fire.

In the morning, I lazed on the deck of the cabin while the girls explored, and soon after, we began our hike down the mountain. As we crossed another saddle and came upon the full view of the side of the mountain that we would be descending on, we were shocked to see that heavy smoke blanketed much of that side of the mountain. We hiked over freshly burned terrain for about 4 hours and eventually, toward the bottom, had to actually run past flames that were 12 inches from our sneakers and blisteringly hot! It was scary for a few minutes there, although we made it through just fine.

In the end we came out upon a stunning tea plantation and eventually Mulange Town, where we soon caught a minibus back to Blantyre and Nick and Lindsay's house. Our legs were already starting to ache from the hard slog downhill all day.

Blantyre to Lhubika: minibuses / 2 hours

2008-09-29T03:20:00.000+03:00

We had been texting for a few days with a PC/Malawi volunteer named Scott who lives at the foot of Mount Mulange, the highest peak in Malawi. He offered to take us up on the mountain for a night and to let us stay in the hut that he can stay in for free as a Forestry Extension Worker.

We took minibuses from Blantyre out to his village at Lhubika and went shopping with him to buy food for our hiking trip. We then went to his local bar with him and danced for hours with really friendly people! It was my first time to go out and really hang out with Malawians, and I really enjoyed it.

We then walked back to Scott's house and crashed there for the night. He has no extra beds or even bedding, so we slept on the hard concrete. I have decided that I will never do that again.

Senga Bay, Lake Malawi

2008-09-28T03:25:00.000+03:00

Maya and I decided that we needed one last weekend on Lake Malawi before leaving the freshwater behind. So on Friday the 26th we left Lilongwe and headed to Senga Bay. We hitched halfway and then jumped in a minibus from Salima. We stayed at a place called Cool Runnings and just chilled out for a few days. We swam, read, and ate a lot of vegetable curry. We also woke up at 3am to watch the first presidential debate.

On Sunday the 28th we took a minibus and then hitched partway to Blantyre, where we met up with Tait. She was already at the house of a fun couple named Nick and Lindsay, who we all hooked up with through mutual friends. We went out to pizza and then repacked our bags into smaller loads for our impending hike up Mount Mulange.

politics

2008-09-24T14:11:00.004+03:00

I filled in my Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot today.
It's a beautiful world.

Mpamila to Lilongwe

2008-09-24T00:30:00.002+03:00

On Wednesday September 24th, we took a lorry to Ntchisi town from Mpamila (this is the road, above). The lorry was packed full of people... and four goats who were tied up and laying at our feet. I was disturbed by their obvious discomfort, but I think by the end of the journey, Maya's discomfort was even greater. One of the goats decided to relieve himself all over her feet... So she had awesome little pellets in her flipflops when we climbed out of the tray of the lorry.

We then boarded a dala to Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. We stayed at the PC transit house there, which was incredible. The volunteers in that country are fortunate to have a safe and friendly place to stay when they come to their capital. Not only is it comfortable and free, but it also gives the volunteers a chance to be friends with one another because they actually see other volunteers, even those from distant regions, fairly often! We stayed for two nights and basically just enjoyed the comforts of the town- internet, good food, hot showers, shopping, and cold beer.

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Tukombo to Mpamila: bus & pickups / 8 hrs

2008-09-21T16:49:00.000+03:00

On Sunday the 21st, we walked out to the main road and tried to hitchhike. With the four of us, however, it was basically impossible to get a lift, so we ended up getting in a bus to Mwansambo turnoff. From there we took a pickup to Mwansambo and then switched to a lorry for the final stretch to Mpamila.

Bright's village is amazing: she is right on the edge of the Ntchisi Forest and we spent our first day there (Monday) just enjoying the view, doing laundry, making friends with kids, and lounging on a straw mat on her courtyard. We watched the stars and listened to the BBC at night, and relished in reliving our Peace Corps days with some lukewarm bucket baths....

On Tuesday, we took an awesome hike around the forest with Bright and also with her friend Alanon. We goofed around in the forest, climbed rocks, and had a picnic lunch under the trees.

We had a great time. Bright was a great host and Alanon was hilarious! They rock.

Livingstonia to Tukombo: by foot, lorry, & bus: 4 hrs

2008-09-19T18:45:00.005+03:00

On Friday the 19th we woke up early and started hiking from Mushroom Farm all the way down the escarpment on the road. We knew that there is no regular transport, and we also knew that with our heavy bags on our back, the hike would be painful. It was.

Luckily, after about 1.5 hours of walking, a random lorry passed. We got a lifti (we wouldn't have taken no for an answer!) and made it back down after an easy 20 minute ride. We then had chai with a rasta named Elijah who speaks Kiswahili, and then jumped on a bus to Mzuzu. Luckily we also ran into a Peace Corps volunteer from here in Malawi who was heading to the same place as us - a PC beach party (we had been invited a few weeks earlier via text message).

Jim helped us to get to Mzuzu, where we jumped into a rented van with 15 other PCVs and headed out to the village of Tukombo (near Chintheche beach). We then set up our tents on the beach along with about 40 other volunteers, and spent the next two days swimming and hanging out on the beach. On Saturday night us volunteers took over the local bar and danced until 2am.

The volunteers were friendly and welcoming and we had a great time, especially with a girl named Bright. Coincidentally, Tait and Bright went to summer camp together 18 years ago, although they hadn't seen each other since. We all got along really well, and so decided to take Bright up on her invitation to visit her village after the party...

Livingstonia and Manchewe Falls

2008-09-18T18:27:00.004+03:00

We woke up with an amazing view from of our tent off of the escarpment, with the sun shining over Lake Nyasa (sometimes also called Lake Malawi). We hiked up to Livingstonia, which took an hour or so but wasn't much fun because it was really hot and dry.

Livingstonia is an old mission town that was started by a missionary named Dr. Laws way back during the colonial days. It was set up in memory of David Livingstone, who was a Scottish explorer and missionary who was famous for "discovering" for England many areas of Africa... in fact, he was reportedly the first Westerner to see Victoria Falls.

We went to the Stone House and had lunch of nsima (exactly like ugali) before walking out of town to Manchewe Falls.

We checked out the falls for a while - Maya and Tait hiked around and I decided to just lay on my belly on the edge of the falls, listening to the roar of the water. So much fun.

We also met some rad kids who hung out with us and showed us around the falls. They were a riot....

Back at the Mushroom Farm for the night, we met a 50+ woman from New Zealand who had recently returned from backpacking in the Eastern DRC (Goma area and surrounds). I was jealous, I won't lie.

Tanzania to Malawi: by dala, coaster, bike, taxi, dala again, lorry, and jeep...

2008-09-17T17:35:00.001+03:00

We left Mbeya, Tanzania at about 8am and took a dala to Kabwe on the outskirts of the city. From there we boarded a coaster (a small bus) and passed through Tukuyu on our way to the border. At the end of the line we had to disembark and jump on bicycle taxis for the short distance to the actual border post. We were then stamped out of Tanzania, for the last time on our US Peace Corps passports....

After crossing a short bridge by foot we then were stamped into Malawi. What a great country - no visa and no fee is required for US citizens! We then had to jump in a taxi (our only option) to Kasonga, where we went to the bus stand and found a dala that transported us about 2 hours to the small town of Chitimba, where we jumped off and found a lorry going up the escarpment to Livingstonia.

We rode on the lorry for about half of the way and then a jeep pulled up behind us on the steep switchbacks. Turns out it was the jeep owned by the folks who run the hostel we were headed to, so we hopped into their vehicle for the last 30 minutes of the drive.

We stayed at a place called the Mushroom Farm - high up on the escarpment on the way to Livingstonia, which is a small town on the top of the plateau. The Mushroom Farm was great - they have awesome outdoor showers and a composting toilet. It is very rustic and a good place to relax for a few quiet days.

Malawi seems pretty similar to Tanzania in so many ways, and because we were still in Northern Malawi, we even ran into a few people who speak Swahili! That was a relief, because we are still struggling with the realization that we can't communicate as easily now that we are in a country where Chichewa is the national language... we miss Swahili a lot...

Sumbawanga to Mbeya: Sumry Bus / 6 hours

2008-09-16T17:57:00.001+03:00

We took an incredibly dusty ride from Sumbawanga to Mbeya on Sumry bus. They are a luxury line and I frankly can't imagine what the non-luxury buses look like on this route. It was a long 6 hours - I was nauseous most of the time although I managed not to puke during the ride.

We stayed with an American woman in Mbeya who runs an orphanage she started a few years ago called The Olive Branch for Children. She is a great woman and, from what I can see, is very passionate about the work. Plus she put us up for a night - almost complete strangers!!!

We all went for Indian food at Mbeya Hotel, which was delicious-tasting. However, soon afterwards I retreated to the bathroom and vomited all over the floor. So that was fun. Still not sure what caused me to feel sick, but I am guessing a combination of bumpy roads and the dust. Anyway, I felt better soon afterwards.

We decided to take this route (after the falls, heading for Malawi via Mbeya) because crossing into Zambia would have cost us 100 USD for the visa, and we didn't even plan to spend much time there. It was a good decision - it was nice to have one last night in Tanzania.

she makes me want to vomit

2008-09-16T15:19:00.000+03:00

"Sarah Palin does not possess the experience needed to lead this country, not does she uphold the issues that are important to me as a female voter. Feminism is not simply about achieving the power and status typically held by men. It's about protecting and supporting the rights of women of all classes, races, cultures, and beliefs. Palin's record and beliefs do not align with this. She was chosen by John McCain specifically because he believes that American women will vote for any female candidate regardless of their qualifications. He is wrong."

http://womenagainstsarahpalin.blogspot.com/

.... "Perhaps like us, as American women, you share the fear of what Ms. Palin and her professed beliefs and proven record could lead to for ourselves and for our present and future daughters. To date, she is against a woman's right to choose, environmental protection, alternative energy development, freedom of speech (as mayor she repeatedly brought up the question of banning books), gun control, the separation of church and state, and polar bears.

We want to clarify that we are not against Sarah Palin as a woman, a mother, or, for that matter, a parent of a pregnant teenager, but solely as a rash, incompetent, and all together devastating choice for Vice President. Ms. Palin's political views are in every way a slap in the face to the accomplishments that our mothers and grandmothers so fiercely fought for, and that we've so demonstrably benefited from.

First and foremost, Ms. Palin does not represent us. She does not demonstrate or uphold our interests as American women. It is presumed that the inclusion of a woman on the Republican ticket could win over women voters. We want to disagree, publicly."

Kasanga to Sumbawanga: Bus / 8 hours

2008-09-15T17:50:00.000+03:00

We boarded a coaster-sized bus at 6am and headed for Sumbawanga. The ride was uneventful except that it was extraordinarily packed with people to the point where there was one dude sitting in a window with his entire body hanging outside of the bus. Although the driver was passing numerous people on the side of the road who wanted to board (but couldn't because there just wasn't one inch to spare), we suddenly screeched to a halt beside an old grandmother-type: turns out she is the mother of one of the bus' employees, and the driver couldn't ethically leave her behind. So he entreated us passengers to "be patient, to do our bests" and we all smooshed a little closer together to fit grandma onto the bus. Ouch.

We arrived in Sumbawanga and met three interesting guys over lunch. One was a PC volunteer from a neighboring country, and he was traveling with two Zambian guys who are traders who cross the border fairly regularly for business. They were really fun and nice guys and we ended up having dinner and beers with them. We also learned how to make an ashtray out of toilet paper. Fascinating.

Kasanga to Kalombo: lorry, bike, bishop's car / 7 hours

2008-09-14T17:04:00.003+03:00

We planned to leave from Kasanga at 7am for the journey to Kalombo Falls (the third-highest waterfall in Africa, as rumor has it). We had made friends with a Tanzanian guy who offered to guide us to the falls - not that we needed a guide to get in, but the falls are WAY off the beaten track so we needed somebody who knew how to get there. We had also made friends with an older couple who ride their bicycles around countries in their spare time - he is English and she is Argentinian. It was her 60th birthday on the day of our waterfall hike, and we all decided to go together!!!

Unfortunately, when we woke up, our guide told us that the operator of the boat we were supposed to rent had gotten too drunk the night before and wasn't waking up. Furthermore, the wind on the lake was causing the waters to be too choppy. So we changed our plan and decided to find a way to the falls by land...

We waited by the side of the dusty (and deserted) road for almost two hours. Finally a large cargo lorry truck picked us up and gave us a lift to Kawala (only about 30 minutes away by vehicle). We then hopped out and started walking to the next village, where we spent about 20 minutes bargaining with men who had bicycles and were willing to rent them to us. Most of the bicycles were in such crappy condition (including not having brakes, gears, etc) that we decided to pay an extra two dollars and hire the guys for the day also so that we could just hitch rides on the bike racks on the back. (Plus, I'm lazy. You already knew that.)

We rode our bike lifti's for two hours to the last village before the falls. We then left the bikes with an old man, accumulated a shocked crowd of 30 people, and walked about 15 minutes to the falls. They were beautiful! We swam in the top of the falls (only about 20 feet from the edge, but the water wasn't running hard at all because its the dry season!) We also had a picnic lunch and them climbed onto our bellies and lay on the top of the cliff next to the falls. It was a LOOOONG way down.

We then realized we were ridiculously late and would probably miss the last bus to pass Kawala in the evening. We walked back to the bikes and jumped on for the ride back. Less than halfway there, suddenly a landcruiser pulled up behind us: it was the Catholic Bishop of the region who had been deep in the villages baptizing babies. Of course we flagged him down and piled on top of each other into his car for the suddenly short trip back to Kawala.

I do not exaggerate: as we were pulling up to the Kawala intersection, the only bus of the day was approaching AT THAT EXACT SAME TIME. We literally waved the bus down from inside the car, jumped out and took a quick picture with the bishop, and then climbed onto the packed bus for the 15 minute drive downhill that would have taken us hours of walking in the dark had we missed that bus.

In other big news: after showering and having ugali for dinner, I asked Tait and Maya to check out the "splinter" I thought I had in my foot. Instead, it was my first Funza! These are also called Jiggers... they are small bugs that plant egg sacs in your foot... it seems like a splinter at first until it comes out... if you dont cut around it and pull the egg sac out whole, you are in trouble: if the sac breaks, then miniscule eggs go everywhere and will probably re-infest your foot. Tait and Maya know a lot about them, because they are much more common in their old region of Njombe. They were miracle-workers, and got my first funza out in 10 minutes and intact! What a relief.

Mgambo to Kasanga: MV Liemba ferry / 31 hrs

2008-09-12T12:32:00.001+03:00

The MV Liemba is generally believed to be the oldest operational passenger ferry in the world. It was built around 1913, sunk after WWI, and was only raised and rebuilt after 8 years.

On friday the 12th the ferry was a bit late, which was a relief since it meant we didn't have to board in the dark At 10am we were met by the Mahale motorboat and given a lifti out to the ferry. The ferry basically just heaves to in the harbor and waits for people to jump aboard from small boats that they pull up alongside. It's scary and dangerous- people swinging bags, babies, and chickens over the water as the waves make the boats crash together and everybody fights to get aboard - or off the ferry, if they have arrived at their destination - before the next person shoves them out of the way or the ferry closes the boarding door and starts to motor away. This not to mention that most Tanzanians can't swim, so falling overboard would be particularly scary!

Regardless, we boarded eventually and got first-class cabins luckily. The third- class area is in the bottom of the boat, overcrowded and hot and uncomfortable. The top area, first class, was really nice and we had a fun day just lazing around on deck, reading.

We met some interesting Zambians and Burundians and even other wazungu travellers, and stopped every few hours - including during the night - to exchange passengers and to load more dagaa (sardines) onto the ferry. The sacks of dagaa eventually reached all the way from the third class deck up to the first... So we promptly climbed over them and spent some time hanging out with all the trader guys who sleep outside on top of their dagaa throughout the journey.

After getting a good night's sleep in our cabins, we spent another day chilling out on deck and arrived in Kasanga, near the border of Zambia, at 5pm on Saturday the 13th. We eventually found a small leaky dhow whose owner agreed to take us across the harbor to Kasanga and to the only guest house in this tiny village. We arrived, soaked, around 7pm and had beans and rice and beer before going to bed.

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Quiet Day in Mgambo

2008-09-11T12:01:00.001+03:00

Today we slept in and then spent the morning writing letters and reading. In the early afternoon we walked to town along the beach. There was a lot of dagaa (sardine-type fish) drying on every patch of sand or bare ground.

We hung out briefly with a bunch of shipwrights (boat builders) on the beach who were making a big wooden hull. They said it takes them about two months to make a complete boat, with only the most basic tools available to them.

We then went into town and walked around, accumulating large crowds of children and having a great lunch at Mateso's house. We had dinner back at the MEMP house after packing and then returned to town for one last beer with Mateso.

We went to sleep knowing that we could be woken up at any time with the news that the ferry had arrived in the harbor... Boarding in the dark would have been really difficult and we weren't looking forward to it...

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More chimps & Mahale to Mgambo: boat / 1 hr

2008-09-10T11:22:00.004+03:00

On Wednesday September 10th we hiked out to see the chimps around 9am. By this time they had arrived within half an hour from our camp so we found them quickly and watched them for an hour again with a number of other guides and trackers. We had a cool conversation about HIV and gender issues in Tanzania with the guys.

We then went to visit the Flycatcher Safaris camp since we wanted to see how the rich folks visit Mahale. It was a really cool camp run by some fun young Americans who had been raised in Arusha. After returning to camp and packing up, we boarded a motorboat to Mgambo, a small village about an hour from the park. It was here that we would wait for the ferry to head further south on the lake. Luckily we must have made a good impression on the park rangers, because we somehow scored a free house to stay in in Mgambo.

We didn't even know what was happening until suddenly we were dropped off outside the Mahale Ecosystem Management Project (MEMP) house and told to explain to the guard there that we would be its guests until the ferry arrived! This was particularly phenomenal because by then we heard that the ferry was running about a day late. After dropping our bags we walked to town, where we found a cool woman named Mateso who fed us chapati and eggs and beer. There wasn't much food in town because of Ramadan, so we were lucky to make friends with her! The kids of Mgambo were shocked at seeing white girls in their village, and we were followed and giggled at all night long. At one point we looked towards the corner of the grass fence at the bar and saw no less than 10 faces staring at us... Eventually we called them over and answered all their questions about American girls and Arnold Schwarzeneger and karate... And of course, why we feed corn to cows in America instead of making ugali out of it.

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Searching for Chimpanzees

2008-09-09T10:57:00.003+03:00

On Tuesday September 9th we awoke early and were ready to begin the chimp search. Unfortunately our guide Hussein showed up and explained to us that the trackers had been out for hours looking for the chimps... And found them at the far edge of their feeding range, halfway up a mountain with impenetrable underbrush.

We decided to hike out there anyway and wait to see if they descended back to the paths. We hiked from 8am until about 2pm, listening on our handheld radio for the trackers to give us any good news. We were tired and hungry but sat on a ridge and resigned ourselves to the possibility that we might not see chimps that day. Suddenly we heard the telltale woops and hollers of chimpanzees... After another half hour of following the sounds, we found them near the river, making their way back towards our camp.

We sat and watched for only an hour, which is what the rules dictate. We also had to wear surgical masks in order to keep them from getting human diseases from us. They were amazing and huge and so undisturbed by having humans watching them! This one troop of about 60 animals have been totally habituated to humans so they just act as if we aren't there! Except occasionally when a male wants to remind us of his strength...

In one funny moment, we were all sitting on the side of a trail when a male chimp decided to walk past us, one foot away from our bodies... He clearly has low self-esteem because as he passed Tait, he grabbed a stick from the path and smacked her on the back! She was brave enough to sit there quietly and take it, which is exactly what she was supposed to do. I mighta run away like a baby! After leaving the chimps, we hiked back and arrived at 5pm. We went for a swim on the beach, made dinner, and fixed up our tent before going to bed exhausted!

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Bilenge to Kasiha: motorboat / 30 minutes

2008-09-08T23:07:00.001+03:00

On Monday the 8th we woke up at Bilenge headquarters and checked into the park, then took a quick boat ride to the Kasiha huts, which is where backpacking travelers stay in the park. We were the only people there during our stay, except for the baboons, which was cool. The huts were actually really nice cabins and there was a large shared kitchen area where we cooked all of our own food (we brought everything we would be eating from Kigoma).

After making lunch we took a hike to a small waterfall and enjoyed the scenery with Hussein, our awesome guide for all of our hikes in the park. This dude is rad- he's 23 years old and hikes all day looking for chimpanzees... Even while fasting, during Ramadan. That means that from sunrise until sunset, nothing passes his lips- not even water. When hiking in the Mahale Mountains. Nani ni shujaa?

After returning from our hike we watched the sunset over the lake and made dinner. We went to bed early in anticipation for our early-morning start on the search for chimps....

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Facts about Mahale and Lake Tanganyika

2008-09-08T22:52:00.000+03:00

Lake Tanganyika holds 17% of the world's fresh water. It is 670 km from north to south, making it the longest lake in the world. It is almost one mile deep, making it the world's second deepest lake.

The lake has 400 species of fish in it, 250 of which are different species of cichlids. 98% of these species are endemic to the lake, meaning they occur nowhere else in the world. One such species is the Lake Tanganyika Water Snake, which lives full-time in the water and is venomous but has never bitten anyone (according to the books we have read and every person we have asked)

Mahale National Park is located on the eastern coast of the lake, 120 km south of Kigoma. It is accessible only by boat or plane. It is 1613 km square in size. It has the world's largest protected population (about 700 to 1000) of the eastern subspecies of chimpanzee: 'pan troglodytes schweinfurthii'

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Kigoma to Mahale NP: Car 2 hrs / boat 3 hrs

2008-09-07T22:29:00.001+03:00

On Sunday August 7th we finally arrived in Mahale at about 9pm. The free car lifti took us as far as Kilando, where we had to wait with a whole gaggle of shocked children for about 30 minutes for the boat to arrive. Tait taught the kids frisbee while Maya chilled with the kids and i wandered to one of the village's small shops. We were starving since we started our journey so suddenly that we hadn't eaten lunch. Unfortunately it is Ramadan this month, which means that in mostly Muslim villages, finding cooked food during daylight hours is pretty impossible. I bought us some candy and we boarded the boat around 6pm.

The 20 foot fiberglass hull had a 40 hp engine and we leaned back onto our bags for a magical 3 hr ride. The sun set over the lake and the stars started shining on the water... We arrived smiling at Bilenge park headquarters at 9pm and spent a free night in a spare room there because it was too late to check into the park. Some park employees shared their rice with us and we gratefully stuffed our faces before falling fast asleep.

--
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Muskrat says...

2008-09-07T16:07:00.003+03:00

"You've got to be able to make those daring leaps or you're nowhere!"

--
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Mahale - bound!

2008-09-07T15:58:00.003+03:00

We've had a crazy couple of days but I'm writing this from the bumpy front seat of a jeep as we speed down a red dusty road on our way to Mahale, finally! On Saturday morning we went to the Mahale park office here in Kigoma and planned to get a boat out to the park. The problem is that there are usually two boats that bring people south from Kigoma, down Lake Tanganyika towards Malawi. But these days one of the boats is busy ferrying refugees back to the Congo since the authorities are trying to close the camps. So there is only one ferry, but it doesn't leave until Wednesday and we want to get in the parks much sooner. Some tourists pay ridiculous amounts to take a private boat but we just can't afford that.

Luckily we made friends with some park workers and asked them to help us get a free lift on a park boat. Everything has worked out perfectly- we couldn't get on the park boat yesterday so instead we called our pilot friends who deliver UN supplies to the Congo. The project manager took us snorkeling at Jacobsons Beach. Both the lake and the beach are amazing, and the cichlids and other fish were unreal! We then went to the airport to meet the rest of the crew- 5 of them are South Africans along with one American and one Filipino guy. We watched their C-130 plane land and then we boarded to sit in the cockpit, check out the loading bay, and play around with the headphones!

After that we went back to their fancy hotel and had a poolside barbeque before heading to the danceclub till 3 am. The guys were really fun and total gentlemen as well. I think they just get bored hanging out with the same guys every day!

Today we thought there was no boat so we were lamenting being stuck in kigoma another day. Suddenly half an hour ago we got a phone call- could we be ready in 5 minutes? A park employee is sick and this jeep is driving two hours to a village where he will pick up the sick guy and we will board the mahale boat for another few hours! We'll be there by dark...

--
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The United Nations

2008-09-05T23:08:00.003+03:00

"Son of man, keep not silent, forget not deeds of tyranny. Cry out at the disaster of a people, recount it unto your children and they unto theirs from generation to generation."

The last few days have been very UN - themed. I just finished a great book about working in conflict and post-conflict settings called "Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures". I highly recommend it for anybody interested in overseas aid work.

We also met a Tanzanian doctor on the train who works in one of the three refugee camps here outside of Kigoma. He works in the one camp that hosts Burundian refugees. There are two other camps that host Congolese refugees. There are about 40,000 people in each camp although the government is trying to send them home and shut down the camps this year.

This evening we went to swim at a fancy hotel in town and we met 6 UN pilots who ended up buying us beer and dinner. They fly to the Congo and back every day to deliver food and supplies to the UN peacekeepers there. I was very jealous of their work. I don't want to be a pilot, of course... But i am feeling the pull of international aid work these days. I know it seems naive and idealistic, if not just dangerous... But it might just be where i am headed. If i want to help the most vulnerable among us, the UN has the right mission. Their execution is often flawed, but then again, i dont know of anybody who has it exactly right these days...

--
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Dodoma to Kigoma: Tanzania Railways / Actual 28 hrs

2008-09-05T22:53:00.002+03:00

The train ride was generally uneventful. It was hot and uncomfortable at times but we had our own cabin so were able to relax and read a lot, anyway. On Thursday night i figured out why most of the windows are plywood: as we passed through a town notorious for thieves, somebody threw a rock in the pitch black night and broke one of the few remaining glass panes in our rail car.

We arrived at 6 am in Kigoma and were picked up by a friend of a friend who dropped us off at a guest house outside of town. After a much-needed shower and nap, we headed into town to explore...

--
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Carl Jung

2008-09-04T21:00:00.003+03:00

"Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own
heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakes."

--
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Dodoma to Kigoma: Tanzania Railways / Estimated 30 hrs

2008-09-04T02:18:00.004+03:00

We boarded the train about an hour ago but we haven't left the station yet... When we got in our cabin we found squatters in our beds... and I also found that my bunk was wet and smells of urine. Awesome. We also have been duly warned by the conductor: keep the windows closed at all times because of the thieves on the roof of the train. One man will hold another's ankles as he swings off the side of the speeding train and reaches into the rooms to steal bags and valuables. Our lights must always be out in our cabin, also, so that the thieves cannot see in the windows. Which would be hard for them, of course, since the big top pane of the window is made of plywood anyway. Oh yeah... And we have to keep our door shut to keep out the thieves who might grab things as they walk past our room.

After the conductor finished his impassioned instructions to us, Tait made the understatement of the night: "I guess these are desperate times..." Regardless, all of these rules make for an interesting journey for me, the girl who gets claustrophobic if a bus window isn't open wide enough for the breeze to give me serious windburn! The estimated time until arrival is 30 hours. If we ever pull out of this damned station, that is. But it's now two am, so i am going to go to sleep now on my urine-soaked bed ...

--
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Dodoma Delay

2008-09-04T01:55:00.002+03:00

We waited in Dodoma for a total of 19 hours and the train has finally arrived for us to board at one am in the morning. Luckily we spent the day making friends with the staff at the New Dodoma Hotel. I highly recommend any high-end traveler in Dodoma to stay there. The food is good, the staff are awesome, and the lounge chairs are great for reading and sleeping if need be...

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Waiting in Dodoma

2008-09-03T11:28:00.004+03:00

Our train to western Tanzania has been delayed by a derailment somewhere near Morogoro. Because of everything we have heard about the trains in Tanzania, this didn't surprise us much. Luckily we are flexible in our plans and don't have any concrete plans till October! We'll get there eventually. We're spending the day pretending to be guests at a fancy hotel next to the train station. We've already had a breakfast buffet and might have a dip in the pool later. Dodoma is actually the political capital of Tanzania, despite the fact that Dar es Salaam is the center of the country in so many other ways. So we might head over to the Parliament later with my brother Isaac. Unfortunately they aren't in session right now so I'm not sure how much we will see when we go. Either way it will be nice to walk around a bit and to hang out again with my brother. It was so rad to see him yesterday!

--
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Abraham Lincoln

2008-09-03T11:12:00.002+03:00

"The best way to fight your enemy is to make him your friend"

--
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Dar to Dodoma: Al Saedy Bus / 6 hrs

2008-09-02T11:29:00.004+03:00

I am on the bus heading from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma today. Most of my posts from now on will be via my cellphone... I love technology! Tonight i am excited to hang out with my homestay brother Isaac from Kilosa. He is teaching now at a secondary school in Dodoma. I haven't seen him in a few years but he was my first real Tanzanian friend way back in 2005, so it is somehow fitting that he will be the last one for me to say goodbye too, also.

--
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westward-bound

2008-09-01T18:21:00.005+03:00

"And ever has it been known

that love knows not its own depth

until the hour of separation"

niko free

2008-08-23T13:31:00.003+03:00

I am no longer a US Peace Corps volunteer!

It's a funny feeling - while it is nice to be free and to not have to obey any of the silly US Government rules anymore, it is still somehow scary as well. For the first time in three years, I will have no more handholding. No more free medical care. No more pre-determined direction in my work or my friendships.

I am on my own.

I now begin a 3-month journey with my good friends Maya and Tait. We don't have anything planned except for a pre-purchased train ticket from Dodoma to Kigoma on September 3rd. Everything else is up for debate, and allows for last-minute decisions, until mid-October, when Tait will need to fly out of South Africa. Maya and I will then continue traveling until mid-November.

Tomorrow I will board a bus to Mtwara, where I will spend three days saying goodbye to Jamila and Moshi. Bakari is also coming from Newala to talk about Jiamini Scholarship business. He has been accepted to study full-time at the Institute of Social Work in Dar es Salaam, starting this September, for his Diploma in Social Work! He has agreed to return to Newala and to run Jiamini for us after he attains his degree. In the meantime, his brother and sister-in-law (the parents of Baby Jenny) will be holding down the proverbial Jiamini fort in Newala.

the macha's

2008-08-22T04:58:00.000+03:00

I went to say goodbye to some of the Macha family in Dar, also. It was cool to hang out with them even though I rarely have seen them over the years. But they still feel like my family!

more goodbyes

2008-08-21T13:30:00.010+03:00

I went to Mtoni (an area of Dar es Salaam) to say goodbye to my friend Shella and her amazing family yesterday. As usual, it was uplifting to hang out with her for a few hours. We ate ugali, carried water on our heads, and played with all the little babies at their house.

Shella lives with her mom and dad, her two younger brothers, and her mom's most recent kids: twin girls who are about a year old. She also has two older sisters, both of whom have their own infants and live very nearby.

Shella has had to drop out of high school twice in the last two years -- both times, her dad ran out of the money to pay for her school fees. The most recent time, this was due to the birth of the twins, who are very loved but clearly put a financial strain on the family. They were not a planned pregnancy - mom is in her mid-40's!

One thing that I love about this family is the strength of the women - they are the overpowering personalities and they are beautiful, fun, hopeful, and STRONG women. Shella sang a cool song for us about women's rights and empowerment.... she got so excited when I pulled out my new camera that she burst into song! (I met her years ago through a Community Theatre group - she is a great drummer and dancer too). I tried to put the video of her song onto this website, but I can't seem to get it to load.

She's going back to school next year. She has found a full-time tutoring program that crams four years of high school into two years. At $200 per year, I think I can swing it. If I ever get a real job, that is :)

film trailer

2008-08-21T11:19:00.002+03:00

Getting Word Out has posted a short trailer of their documentary from Rombo. It's pretty amazing and I highly recommend you check it out:

http://wazifilm.com/

EDUCATE YOURSELF

2008-08-21T10:51:00.002+03:00

Kelly Dobbins, a middle-aged factory worker ... said... “What’s pushing me toward McCain is Obama. Who is he? Where does he stand?”

Sorting out white-voter discomfort with Mr. Obama is tricky business. Most speak of unease with his newness. But one in five primary voters surveyed in the Edison/Mitofsky exit poll in Pennsylvania said race was a factor.

Ivan Stickles, a carpenter, worked on his motorcycle in his driveway in Hopewell. Mr. Stickles, 57, is not taking what he sees as a gamble on Obama. “There’s this e-mail that he didn’t shake hands with the troops,” Mr. Stickles said of a rumor that is false. “I don’t have the time to check out if it’s true, but if it is, it’s very offensive.”
- NYTimes 8/21/08

Sometimes I get so frustrated and angry at my countrymen. The fact that people say of Obama "where does he stand?" or "did he not shake hands with the troops?" just shows how lazy we have become. It isn't really all that hard to read, to research, to learn things for ourselves. If the only thing we know about candidates is what the attack ads show on television, and what some racist idiot email-forwards us, then OF COURSE our "facts" are going to be wildly inaccurate.

We should ALL take a few minutes to go on both candidates' websites and learn what their positions are, in their own words. We should think about the charities that we support, the organizations that we are members of: who do they endorse, and WHY?

Obama has gotten loads of press coverage in the last year - including surely hundreds of interviews. He has written two books. He has been in politics for a long time, voting publicly on issues that are important to all of us. How can a person in their right mind decide that they don't know enough about him and then decide, based on that, to vote for McCain?

What if they decided, instead, to find out more? To read? To deduce whether a rumor is truth or is nothing but hate? To think about the issues that are most important to them and to LEARN what the candidates actually believe in?

kumbe.

I was on cloud 9 for a few months there - invigorated by the possibility of change, proud of my country and its people, and so very hopeful for the future of the world. I have bragged to Tanzanians all over this country that finally - 8 years on - americans are going to elect a president who believes in working for peace, who understands that all conflicts have two sides, who thinks before he speaks, who talks before he sends aerial bombs ... and who understands that most of the world's population of Muslims are our neighbors and our friends and are just like us.

Now I'm not so hopeful. It's a depressing feeling.

Chaguo kwa mabadiliko. Bado tupambane.

kwa heri Kilimanjaro

2008-08-19T14:16:00.005+03:00

"How shall I go in peace and without sorrow?
Nay, not without a wound in the spirit
shall I leave this city.

Long were the days of pain
I have spent within its walls,
and long were the nights of aloneness;
and who can depart from his pain
and his aloneness without regret?

Too many fragments of the spirit
have I scattered in these streets, and
too many are the children of my longing
that walk among these hills,
and I cannot withdraw from them
without a burden and an ache.

It is not a garment I cast off this day,
but a skin that I tear with my own hands.

Nor is it a thought I leave behind me, but
a heart made sweet with hunger and with thirst.

Yet I cannot tarry longer.
The sea that calls all things unto her calls me,
and I must embark.

For to stay, though the hours burn in the night,
is to freeze and crystallize and be bound in a mould.

Fain would I take with me all that is here.
But how shall I?

A voice cannot carry the tongue
and the lips that give it wings.
Alone must it seek the ether.

And alone and without his nest
shall the eagle fly across the sun"

- K.Gibran

one week left

2008-08-05T11:35:00.003+03:00

This is my last week at Mkombozi Centre. I have a big Foster Parent Meeting on Saturday morning, and then after that I will come back only to say goodbye to the boys and to gather the last of my things.

I'll then spend the following week packing up my house and getting myself organized. I've got some fun nights out planned with friends, and then I head to Dar on August 18th.

I will officially no longer be a Peace Corps volunteer on August 21st.

~

2008-08-01T22:50:00.002+03:00

"Pathwalker, there is no path. You must make the path as you walk."
- A. Machado

i refuse to hate

2008-07-28T09:35:00.002+03:00

"Often have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world. But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you, so the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.

And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree, so the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all. Like a procession you walk together towards your god-self. You are the way and the wayfarers.

And when one of you falls down, he falls for those behind him - a caution against the stumbling stone. Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him - who though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone."

-KG

some statistics for you...

2008-07-25T12:16:00.001+03:00

Here are some statistics that come from a 2004-2005 demographic survey of youth in Tanzania. Most of them are general to the whole country, although if possible I do mention specific statistics relating to Mtwara Region (where I used to live) and Kilimanjaro Region (where I live now).

In Tanzania......

Only 52% of young people ages 20 -24 have completed primary school (elementary school).

2/3 of young women age 15-24 are illiterate, that is, they cannot read at all.

Women get married at about 18.5 years of age, more than 5 years earlier than men.

52% of 19 year old women are pregnant or are already mothers.

Only 12% of of women age 15-24 are using a modern method of family planning.

Only half of all young women birth in a health facility and with the assistance of a health professional.

Female Genital Cutting varies markedly by region. Overall 15% of Tanzanian women have experienced FGC but this number is declining. In Mtwara Region, less than 1% of women experience FGC in comparison to, for example, Manyara Region, where 81% do. In Kilimanjaro Region about 25% of women have experienced FGC.

11% of 15-24 year olds countrywide have been tested for HIV. Only 2% have been tested in Mtwara Region but 23% have been tested in Dar es Salaam! About 14% have been tested in Kilimanjaro Region.

Youth account for 60% of the new HIV infections in Tanzania although currently only about 4% of them (15-24) are infected.

The HIV prevalence of married women age 15-24 is double that of unmarried women in the same age group.

Half of women 15-24 and almost a quarter of men of that age do NOT know where to get a condom.

In the entire population age 15-49, HIV prevalance increases with education and wealth.

Among unmarried young people who are sexually active, 44% of women and 47% of men reported that they used a condom the last time they had sex. (This is great!!!!)

getting word out

2008-07-20T10:51:00.001+03:00

Oska

When my friend Lisa was here, I took her out of Moshi Town for a quick trip into the village. We went to Rombo, which is a rural area about 3 hours from Moshi. We stayed with my friend Megan, who was here visiting her old PC village with 4 friends who were filming a documentary there. Their work is amazing – the documentary is about HIV stigma, and they have spent the last 3 months following a woman named Mama Oska, who is living openly with HIV. They also became close to her son Oska, who is 13 years old and is also HIV+. We had the chance to spend a day playing sports and games with Oska and other children who also benefit from the work of a local community group called Tumaini Center. Tumaini helps orphans and other vulnerable children financially and psychosocially so that they can remain in their communities and living with their families.

Ryan and Oska

women singing in church

All five members of the documentary-making team are passionate about helping vulnerable children, and fun to hang out with, also! They seemed to have a great system of working together, each person contributing his/her strengths to the team. I recently received news that, during their last week in Tanzania, Breezy broke her leg at the bottom of a ravine during filming. Proof that these guys will do anything for one another: the boys took turns carrying her on their backs as they climbed, on their hands and knees, up to the top. While Megan crawled behind them holding the break in place. For over an hour. Breezy clearly is a strong woman – she was eventually flown to the USA and had surgery there at the end of a 9-day epic journey from the bottom of a ravine. She broke her tibia, fibula, ankle bones, and tore a ligament from her ankle to her knee - and ended up with 7 screws and a plate to hold it all together.

Anyway, to learn more about the documentary and the work of their non-profit back in the USA, check out http://africa.gettingwordout.com/

To Breakthrough...

2008-07-17T10:30:00.001+03:00

Tait, another best friend who has been with me for these last three years, just finished her contract with Peace Corps and is officially allowed to ride her bicycle without a helmet now. She has a cool project planned for next month or so (check out www.kicksforkili.blogspot.com) and then, on September 1st, she and Maya and I begin our epic three-month adventure through southern africa.

"Farewell to you and the youth I have spent with you. It was but yesterday we met in a dream. You have sung to me in my aloneness, and I of your longings have built a tower in the sky. But now our sleep has fled and our dream is over, and it is no longer dawn. The noontide is upon us and our half waking has turned to fuller day, and we must part. If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a deeper song. And if our hands should meet in another dream, we shall build another tower in the sky."

-K.G.

Raha - another adventure starts today ... tupes.

home alone

2008-07-14T12:33:00.005+03:00

My roommate for the last 11 months, Elizabeth, finished her contract here at Mkombozi and left Tanzania last night. It was hard to say goodbye even though I know that this one was definitely just a "see ya later"... we'll be drinking boxed wine together in some dive bar in New York City before we know it...

Eli -- Thanks for keeping me sane this year from the beginning to the end, from one adventure to another. You are the coolest 5 i know (although it's probably because you pick up 8 at your best, of course....) Thanks for putting up with all my friends (who are now yours too), for never judging, for partying with me at la liga, for listening to my endless peace corps gossip, for telling it like it is, for understanding so much, for making me bread, for calling me out when I'm acting like an 8, and for always keeping my secrets, no questions asked. I never could have known last year that my new roommate - who sounds 45 years old via email, by the way - would become a new best friend.

I can't wait to hear what adventures you find back home... and I can't wait to ongea nawe unaporudi Tanzania. Keep on channeling that 8-ness, dada. As Bartlett would say... "ruka".

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." - mandela

thanks for making me a better person. basi.

serengeti, ngorongoro crater, and lake manyara

2008-07-11T18:00:00.000+03:00

While Lisa was still here visiting, my little brother Moshi arrived from Mtwara. It was the beginning of his winter vacation, but instead of letting him relax, Lisa and I packed him onto another bus and brought him to Arusha. There we met up with four friends of mine for my first real wildlife safari to the famous National Parks! Two of the guys we went with are Peace Corps volunteers, and the other two guys are friends of theirs from the USA. Moshi had never been on a safari, of course, and had never seen most of the animals we would be looking for on our trip. I invited him because I thought it would be a fun – and educational – experience for him to see a part of his country that most Tanzanians will never visit in their entire lifetime. He was excited to go, although not too pleased about being stuck in a car every day… after the 20 hours he had already spent on buses just to arrive in the northern part of the country.

The Crew on Day One (minus Lisa, who was taking the picture)

We spent our first day on a game drive through Lake Manyara Nagional Park. The animals were pretty cool in the park. Amongst other things we saw a cheetah, which is pretty rare, and we also had a good time watching the baboons and warthogs hanging out together on the savannah.

We spent that night in a campground in a town outside of Lake Manyara National Park. and after dinner, to celebrate, we dragged our guide out to the bar for a beer and a game of pool. The next day we headed for the Serengeti... but stopped on our way at a "genuine Maasai boma" for some "cultural tourism". I found it a bit strange - this whole community had built itself around the idea that tourists pay a lot of money to walk around inside, observe "genuine" dancing, and visit the nursery school classes in the village. I talked to a few of the Maasai when there were no other tourists around - I do think it is a real village, but certainly one that was moved here for this purpose. The whole community revolves around selling their heritage - but I give them a lot of credit for figuring out a way to preserve, respect, and financially stabilize their traditional way of life. Pretty smart, really.

Yes, Lisa IS jumping with mama yeyo. Sorry Lisa, it's just too funny not to put this picture in ;)

After leaving the boma, we went to Olduvai Gorge for a few hours. The cradle of mankind!

"The gorge is a very steep sided ravine roughly 30 miles long and 295 ft. deep which forms part of the Great Rift Valley. It is situated on a series of fault lines which, along with centuries of erosion, has revealed fossils and remnants of early humankind. The time span of the objects recovered date from 2,100,000 to 15,000 years ago.Excavations in the early twentieth century by the famous archaeologist, Dr Louis Leakey, uncovered some of the earliest remains of fossil hominids at Olduvai.

Seventeen years after the first discovery of human forms, Leakey’s wife, Mary, discovered the unmistakable fossilized footprints of a human ancestor who had walked along a riverbank three million years ago. Since then, excavators working in Olduvai have found skeletal remains of a number of ancient hominids – Homo habilis, Homo erectus and Australopithecus Boisei. Old campsites and what is believed to be a butchery site, as well as a loosely built circle of lava blocks was also found suggesting that crude shelters were also built here. Other findings include hunting weapons, basic tools and remains of dead animals once killed by humans.

The name Olduvai originated from a European misspelling of Oldupai, the correct Maasai word for this region of great historical importance – named after the wild sisal plant fibre growing in abundance in the gorge."

We then headed to the Serengeti, where we saw a leopard, amongst other amazing animals like lions, etc....

That night in our campsite, we couldn't help but notice that there was little protection from the savannah surrounding us. We were the last campers to go to bed that night, and we were not a little bit unnerved by the HUGE hyenas running through the campsite, only 60 feet away from our tents…

On Day 3, we spent the morning on a game drive through the Serengeti. We went back to the campsite for lunch, and that is when the disaster occurred. Our safari car broke down. We had chosen the cheapest safari we could find (we ARE peace corps volunteers, after all…) but unfortunately that meant that there was no fancy backup car to come rescue us. They tried to fix the wheel until sundown, and then we reverted to Plan B.

Our safari guide rented another vehicle, just for the night, to transport us to Ngorongoro Crater. It was actually pretty cool – all cars are supposed to be safely within the park gates by 6pm, but since we had broken down, we were given special permission. As the sun set over the Serengeti and the full moon rose ahead of us, we barreled through the savannah until 10pm that night. We saw jackals and lots of other shining eyes in our headlights.

We arrived at our campsite on the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater, and ate popcorn while we waited for our late dinner. After eating at midnight, we wrapped ourselves up warmly in sleeping bags (it was damn cold there!) and fell asleep to the sound of zebras chewing the grass only 15 feet away from our tents.

The next morning, we packed into a new car that had arrived from Moshi overnight. Unfortunately, the new car didn’t fit all 7 of us passengers quite as well as the first car had… so things were a bit tight. But the ride down into Ngorongoro Crater made up for it! What a magical place. Words cannot describe.'

After we finished our game drive, we returned to camp and packed up our things. We then began the 5 hour journey back to Moshi, which was particularly painful because of the number of us packed into the small car. The American boys did what any 22-year old would do in that situation: they bought beer. A lot of it.

Moshi and I kept a lower profile, and were relieved to get home and relax at 10pm that night.

Overall, the safari was an amazing and wild experience. I think we were a great team and I am glad I went on the trip with these fun friends. It wouldn't have been nearly as adventurous any other way. We decided, along the way, that there would be a band and an album made from this trip. Whaddya think of the album cover?

health lessons

2008-07-09T10:22:00.003+03:00

Moshi Town and Kilimanjaro

My friend Lisa visited from the USA last month. We have known each other since elementary school but hadn’t really hung out at all in the last 10 years. It was great to see her – she is a nurse in San Fransisco now, so she asked me specifically to take her to a local hospital and to try to expose her to the Tanzanian medical system.

She first observed an HIV prevention lesson that I taught to 20 of the boys at our Residential Centre. It was a quick, fun lesson on the fluids that transmit the HIV virus. Lisa enjoyed it, I think, but she laughed pretty hard after the lesson was over when I explained some of the words I had used. She had already gotten a pretty good idea of what I had been talking about, based on the pictures I drew on the blackboard, though :)

The following day, I took Lisa out with the streetwork team to visit some of the boys who live and work on the streets full-time. We went with the Mkombozi nurse, who took us to a small room that another woman has rented for 5 of the boys in an attempt to get them off the streets. There were about 15 boys in the room when we went, however, and a number of them seemed high on glue. This was a big disappointment for me – I have seen a lot of glue sniffing in Arusha, but until recently it was very rare to see in Moshi. Even now it is hard to spot a kid with glue in public – but clearly some of them are doing it if they have a place to hide. We helped the nurse as she bandaged small wounds and handed out de-worming medication to the boys. We talked to them briefly about the importance of hand-washing, which is clearly necessary if they are to actually remain worm-free. Of course, as I have seen during my time here, access to clean water can be a challenge even for families with their own houses. I somehow don’t think that street-based boys are going to find it easy to be strict with themselves about that.

The next day, we went to the biggest and most well-known hospital in the region – Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center (KCMC). If you have read Three Cups of Tea, you might remember that this is the hospital that was founded by Greg Mortenson’s father back in the 1960’s. We went at the request of my friend Tait, who asked me to check up on the status of a friend of hers. Tait teaches Life Skills at a vocational secondary school in Arusha. One of her students – who I will call Malaika – was there with her mother, who is HIV + and had a chronic eye problem. The woman had a large cyst on her eye that was painful and very debilitating. She thought that she would come to KCMC to have a small surgery (for the third time) to remove the cyst – she was under the impression that she would spend a night in the hospital and would be home within a day or two. Unfortunately, Lisa and I arrived just in time for the new diagnosis: Squamous-Cell Carcinoma.

Lisa and I helped Malaika and her mother navigate the complex process of getting the radiology department to do a scan of the eye. We left that afternoon feeling pretty sad: we had learned that the cancer was bad enough that the eye would have to be removed completely. There was even a chance that they would need to take out some of the socket area as well, which would have been quite painful and required a long recovery time.

A week later, Malaika and her mother returned to KCMC for the surgery – luckily only the eye itself had to be removed, and the surgery was a success! Mama is home now and in much less pain than she was in before the surgery. From what I hear, she is feeling hopeful and has even been connected to a Home Based Care organization in Arusha that will help her with food assistance for the foreseeable future. The cost of the eye surgery? 10,000 shillings…which is less than 10 dollars.

In Tribute to Bob Tipton

2008-07-03T13:13:00.003+03:00

Vagaries of Friendship

Two months ago, I went to Dar es Salaam somewhat unexpectedly, in order to say goodbye to one of my best friends in Peace Corps/Tanzania. Jason was going home to the USA, and I was heartbroken to see him leave me. He had arrived with me here to Tanzania in June of 2005 and we had worked and partied here together since those first scary days in our new adopted country. We cemented our friendship during a memorable walk through a sunflower field, and last year he was one of the few other volunteers to extend his service alongside me for this third year. This time of year – as summer arrives in the USA, and the rains begin to dry up in Tanzania – is when many volunteers tend to finish their service and head back home. Jason is now living large, enjoying the electricity and running water that he lived without for 3 years. But despite his successful service here and his excitement to see his friends and family at home, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for myself in the days surrounding his departure. I felt like I was suffering a great loss – of a friend, confidant, and travel buddy. And yet, Jason is doing just fine and he is still one of my best friends even though he lives across the ocean now.

On my way to Dar that day, I rode on the same bus that I usually do. I sat in my usual seat, directly behind the driver, and I settled in for the boring 8-hour trip on roads that I now know by heart. I turned on my iPod and stared out the window, contemplating how difficult it would be to say goodbye to Jason over the next few days.

Frailty of Life

I had thought that this bus journey would be like any other. I had ridden on probably hundreds of buses in my time in Tanzania, and until this day I had been fortunate. I had sat through many breakdowns and a number of road closures, none of which were catastrophic. And I had seen major accidents only after they happened to other people. I had been lucky.

On this day, however, a small boy ran onto the road in front of us without looking. He was hit and killed by our bus instantly. Our driver did his best to avoid the boy, but I am certain that the bus would have gone off the road and rolled many times had we swerved any further than we did. I tried at first to convince myself that we had not actually hit the boy, or that he had somehow survived the impact. But a few hours later, as all of us bus passengers watched the grieving grandfather and two uncles file out of the police station, I was overcome with sadness. Some of my fellow passengers seemed mostly just relieved that we would be allowed to continue on with our journey now that the appropriate reports had been filed. I was the first to approach the grandfather and to take his hand. I asked him to tell the boy’s mother how very sorry I was. I couldn’t say any more after that, but my eyes filled with tears and my lip trembled and grandfather quickly looked away at the ground. Other men and women then extended their sympathies as well, and we slowly boarded our bus again and resumed our journey to Dar es Salaam.

I put my iPod back on… and cried on and off for the last 5 hours of the bus ride. Before the accident happened, I had already been bantering the concept of Loss around in my head. And yet now it suddenly had a whole new meaning. It hurt me to think about that little boy. But even more than that, I couldn’t stop picturing his mother and father in their village. I knew that she would be sitting on the ground wrapped in khangas, wailing in unison with her female relatives. He would be sitting quietly on a mat nearby, surrounded by other men with somber faces. Neighbors would begin to pile into the compound, and there would likely be upwards of 50 people sleeping on that ground after nightfall. As I sat in that bus moving towards Dar, they were heartbroken over the loss of their four-year-old child.

I decided on that bus that every kind of loss, to every person it affects, is traumatic and is difficult. It doesn’t have to be as serious as death in order to cause anger and sadness. And it must be okay to experience that pain and to express that hurt. And yet, there are clearly degrees of loss, some of which I have never experienced and hope I never have to. I just don’t know if I am strong enough.

Love of Family

About three weeks ago, an employee of Peace Corps/Tanzania was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Bob was our Administrative Officer – the guy in charge of helping us with pretty much any financial or administrative issue in the office. After he was diagnosed, he was medically evacuated almost immediately to the USA. Less than a week after his arrival home, surrounded by his loving friends and family, Bob Tipton passed away on June 19th.

Bob only worked at PC/Tanzania for one year. The first time I worked with him was at my COS conference in May 2007. I remember immediately liking him – he facilitated some of the administrative sessions, but, being new at the time, he didn’t know answers to many of our questions. Instead of being embarrassed or fudging his answers, he was straightforward and hilarious. He had this dry sense of humor that bordered on sarcasm – and he was laid-back enough to put up with even our dumbest questions (although he wasn’t afraid to call people out for just being obnoxious!)

Over the last year I sat in his office on numerous occasions and pestered him for assistance for all types of administrative and financial requests. But he wasn’t all business, though. He had these three framed photographs of his children on his desk, facing out, so that I couldn’t help but ask about them every time I went in there. He was clearly a great dad – one of the photos on his desk showed his two young boys climbing all over him as he smiled at the camera. He once talked to me for 20 minutes just about his search for a good Montessori-type school for his youngest kid. And the last time I saw him, about a month ago, he had set up his iPod and speakers on his desk… and sarcastically complained to me about how folks make fun of his music choices. I think he was listening to a woman country singer at the time…

Bob was also a huge part of the Peace Corps family. He had been a volunteer in Kenya in the 1990’s, which is where he met the woman he later married, Peggy. He came back into PC this time as an employee – but was proud to show off his Kiswahili, which he still remembered pretty well despite being out of East Africa for ten years! He always treated volunteers fairly, and genuinely cared about helping us with whatever we needed. He would often tell me how much he hated it when he occasionally had to turn down volunteer requests for cash reimbursement or other purchases. I remember clearly one time when he supported me when I had a minor crisis last year in the PC office. Even more than that – I know that on at least two different occasions, when volunteers were sent home against their will, Bob shed a few tears in frustration. He had a sensitive heart that he hid with his humor and his work ethic, but he was always on our side when it counted.

The Peace Corps/Tanzania community is devastated about Bob’s death. Volunteers are shocked and hurting, and the staff members who worked with him every day are overwhelmed and heartbroken. And yet Bob’s family – especially his wife Peggy and his children Josh, Ben, and Josie – are dealing with a loss so profound, and so sudden, that my brain and my heart ache desperately every time I think about it. I am sure that the support of their friends and other family back in the USA will help them to, in time, adjust to the new world that they have found themselves in. And I hope that it helps them to know that Bob was loved by the entire Peace Corps/Tanzania family – volunteers and staff alike. Bob was a father first, and yet even with us he was a funny, honest, and compassionate man. I know that his family will find the strength to live through their loss, and yet I wonder if I could ever be that brave. Mungu awabariki.

"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a little better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success." –ANON

Thank you, Bob. You are dearly missed by us all.

mkombozi

2008-06-12T17:16:00.003+03:00

I've been really enjoying the kids here lately - just hanging out, laughing with them. Here are some photos of the center...

the youngest boys' dorm

my good friends joakim and filimon

elizabeth taught the boys how to make a bread oven out of mud

after about a week of drying, she taught the boys (and the cooks here) how to make bread

this is me and some of the boys who still live on the streets, back in March. I did streetwork (during the day...) on Tuesday, and it was great to see the kids again. Although a few of them seemed high on glue, which made me sad. Still, it was nice to connect with them for an hour or so. Most of them know me pretty well by now, and were pretty psyched to see me.

mbona kitu kigumu sana

2008-06-06T15:36:00.003+03:00

Wiki hii nimesikitika sana. Sasa sijui nisemaje..... kwanza nataka wote wajue kwamba sio muhimu kwa wazungu wa kawaida kuelewa maneno haya. Halafu naandika Kiswahili ili wajitolee wenzangu na wabongo tu waelewe... na wengine basi watahangaika tu, mi sijali. Na ninyi wabongo kabisa... basi naomba munisamehe kwa Kiswahili kibaya sana!

Nimekaa Tanzania kwa miaka mitatu. Kila baada ya miezi michache, najikuta tena ninahitaji kuaga mtu mwengine. Siku zingine ni kwa ajili ya kifo cha mtu ambaye niko karibu naye. Kifo cha mtu ndiyo ni kitu kigumu sana katika maisha yangu. Siwezi kukizoea. Bahati nzuri labda ni kwamba zaidi ya Baba Jamila, wengine waliofariki miaka hizi walikuwa sio karibu sana nami. Niliwafahamu na kuwapenda, lakini siwezi kusema kwamba walikuwa kama jamaa au ndugu zangu.

Lakini jamaa zangu wote wapo Marekani na Uingereza. Halafu nilipofika Tanzania, nikaanza kujenga marafiki wa karibu ili wawe kama jamaa kabisa. Mfano mmoja ni Baba Jamila, aliyefariki Desemba 2006. Alikuwa kama baba mdogo wangu. Na mtoto yake, Jamila, bado ni mwanangu na ataendelea kuwa mwanangu mpaka mwisho wa maisha.

Maana yangu hapa ni kusema kwamba watanzania wengi wamewahi kuchukua nafasi katika maisha yangu na kuwa kama familia yangu... na ninawashukuru kwa upendo na msaada wanao nionyesha kila siku nikiwa hapa Tanzania.

Lakini pia naomba kueleza zaidi kuhusu marafiki zangu wa kizungu hapa Tanzania. Nilipofika Tanzania nilikuwa na wazungu wengi sana wa Peace Corps. Na katika miaka hizi tumezoeana sana na kupendana. Pia wapo mavoluntia wengine waliofika miaka 2006 na 2007. Aidha wapo wazungu wengine ambao hawafanyi Peace Corps lakini tumefahamiana sana. Marafiki wote wananisaidia, wananipa moyo, na nimefurahi sana kuwafahamu.

Lakini katika wale wazungu wote, wapo wachache ambao wamekuwa kama jamaa kabisa. Kwa mfano, wapo wengine niliofika nao mwezi wa sita, tarehe 16, mwaka 2005. Ndiyo zamani sana! Kwa miaka mitatu sasa tumeshirikiana siku za furaha na siku zingine za huzuni. Baada ya miaka mengi kutegemeana, ni kitu kigumu sana kuwaaga wakiwa wanaondoka Tanzania.

Juzi ilikuwa siku ya huzini kweli kweli kwa sababu Bomba Mbaya, besti yangu, alirudi Marekani ghafla. Bomba, kwa miaka mitatu sasa, amekuwa kama kaka yangu KABISAAAAAAAA. Siwezi kutaja kila kitu tulichofanya pamoja lakini wote wanaonifahamu wanajua kwamba yeye ndiyo ni mtu muhimu sana kwangu. Aliwahi kunitembelea Newala na hapa Moshi, na mi pia nikamtembelea Njombe kijijini. Pia kwa sikukuu nyingi sana tukapanga kusherekea pamoja (mwaka mpya, july 4th, american thanksgiving, septemberfest, nk). Aidha tukaenda pamoja Amsterdam mwaka 2007, tulipojirusha kidogo.... sana.

Ukweli ni kwamba sio muda mrefu sana mpaka nitamona tena. Na bila shaka yuko hai kabisa. Vile vile, ninajua kwamba siwezi kulalimika sana. Lakini bado moyo yangu unaumwa! Sijazoea kuishi hapa Tanzania bila msaada yake, upendo yake, ushauri yake, na urafiki yake. Tangu mwaka 2005 amechukua nafasi ya kaka yangu. Amenilinda, amenichekesha, ameniongoza mpaka Bilikana's.....

Mi nitavumilia na nitaendelea kufurahi sana maisha yangu hapa Tanzania. Lakini siku zingine naona ni kitu kigumu sana kuishi hapa kwa sababu watu wengi naowategemea, wataondoka. Nimeanza kuelewa kwamba, nikiendelea kuisha Tanzania, maisha yangu itakuwa hivi hivi. Wengine wataenda kwao, wengine watafariki, na wengine watahama tu sehemu nyingine.

Labda hii ndiyo ni maisha ya mtu mzima. Nilipofika Tanzania nikajisikia bado ni kijana. Siku hizi naona nimebadilika kidogo. Nimekuwa mama na nimeanza kuelewa ugumu wa maisha kwa watu wengi duniani. Na pia nimepata marafiki ambao ninajiskia ni kama ndugu zangu. Nawashukuru mileleni.

(na we bomba... usisahau kiswahili, besti. Maneno yote hapo juu ni kwa ajili yako tu! Usirudi hapa na kiswahili kilichoharibika kibao. nakupenda brother yangu)

2008-05-21T17:53:00.003+03:00

... Your friend is your needs answered. He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving. And he is your board and your fireside. For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.

When you part from your friend, you grieve not; For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain...

- Kahlil Gibran

who remembers this?

2008-05-16T11:26:00.000+03:00

Buttercup: That's the fire swamp.... we will never survive!

Wesley: Nonsense! You're only saying that because no one ever has...

jamila's visit to Moshi

2008-05-14T11:48:00.008+03:00

When we finished with our Jiamini Expedition to Mtwara Region (see my last posting, below) we also picked up Jamila for her school holidays. Since she goes to a private school, she has a long break this time of year. I had planned it so that I would be passing through Mtwara on the day her school closed. I asked her whether she wanted to go to Newala to stay with her step-mother or whether she would like to come to Moshi even for a couple of weeks. She was adamant that she wanted to come to Moshi - for her entire vacation - and not go to Newala unil her next holidays.

On the left is her teacher from last year, then Emily and I, and to the right is her teacher for this year:
This plaque commemorates the place where David Livingstone slept when he was in Mikindani - close to Jamila's school but not a place that she has spent much time:

It was her first time to go to Dar es Salaam. We went to a fancy hotel and took her in her first elevator. We also used the motion-sensor faucets in the bathroom, and I showed her the wonders of washing one's hands with warm water. I also took her to the beach near Dar one afternoon and she saw her first camel.. and then rode on his back:

We visited my friend Shella and her family in Dar es Salaam. They have welcomed me into their home on so many occasions, just to hang out and see an area of Dar that most tourists don't go to. Shella is in black in the front:

girl power:

I had an awesome time while Jamila was with me. It gave us time to reconnect, to become really close again. She met a lot of my new friends, came to work with me every day, and just enjoyed learning about a different part of the country. I tutored her every day and helped her to get caught-up in her studies. We even went on a quick daytime safari to a local park:

our safari car was hardcore!

tait and jamila enjoying the view:

first time using binoculars - she was shocked!

must have been her first time driving through a tree:

definitely her first time with a sun-roof:

warthog:

giraffes on a hill:

blue monkey:

colobus monkey:

Jamila's first mzungu girl friend!

Some local expat friends came with us on the daytrip. Their daughter is a bit younger than Jamila, but they got along well by the end of the day. It was interesting to watch - at first, they definitely didn't know what to make of each other. Jamila was totally confused by Heather's confidence, the ease with which she interacted with grown-ups, and of course her fast-talking English. I think to Heather, Jamila might have seemed kind-of immature and even a bit clueless. I kept wanting to tell everybody that it was Jamila's first time doing any of this - playing with a white girl, being in a fancy car, seeing safari animals, eating sandwiches on a picnic lunch.

Jamila has been around my friends and I for long enough to know that we tolerate energy, curiosity, even precociousness in children far more than your average Tanzanian. But it was her first time to meet a white girl - one that has been raised to use her brain, to be fearless, to believe in herself. Jami was definitely scared of Heather at first - but after imitating animal sounds together in the afternoon, I think they both realized how very similar all kids really are. A great lesson for them both, in the end.

I miss her like hell. I daydream about coming back to live in Tanzania, and bringing here here to live with me. I know she would come in a split-second. But if I only stayed for one year, would it be even harder for her then to go back to boarding school and a regular life? Wouldn't it be even harder then, for me too, to say goodbye?

jiamini scholarship fund

2008-05-13T17:45:00.003+03:00

In March, Katie and Brad came to visit. They are co-founders with me of Jiamini Scholarship Fund, which helps to send bright but financially strapped teenagers to secondary school. We started last year when Katie and Brad came to visit. They met Jamila and Moshi and a few other neighborhood children, and they went back to NYC determined to help.

In January of this year, 12 students sponsored by Jiamini went off to secondary school. Almost all of the children we help are either single (one parent is deceased) or double (both parent are deceased) orphans. We choose them based on financial need AND on their academic performance. Due to their difficult living situations, we do our best to secure placements for them at boarding schools in the Mtwara Region.

Only two months ago, Katie and Brad came to visit on their first official "Jiamini Expedition". We visited the schools that our children are studying at, we introduced ourselves to headmasters and extended family members, we made sure that all of our funds had arrived at the correct destinations. (As a sidenote, we each pay our own costs for the annual Expedition, in order to ensure that all donations are used for our children and related services).

We also spent a few days in Newala, choosing the newest recipients of Jiamini Scholarship Fund. We choose almost all of our students while they are in their last year of primary school. We pay the required donations for testing fees and associated costs, we enter them into tutoring programs, and we give them hope so that they see the importance of their National Exams in September.

This year we chose 12 new students who are currently in Standard 7 of Primary School. The selection process was difficult - there were so many good candidates! But in the end we reduced it to a vague algorithm - we looked at test scores and had each child fill out an application that described their home and living situation. Based on poverty level and academic achievement, we were able to create a "best guess" about which children would succeed in secondary school - but whom, without our help, would find it financially difficult to attend.

Some photos:

Brad, me, and Elizabeth (my roommate in Moshi who came along for the Expedition) at the Mtwara Airport:

We met with the Head Teachers of the local primary schools in Newala Ward in order to get their suport and trust. We decided to choose children from the 4 schools in Newala Town this year - in future years, we may expand to take students from the entire ward:

Me and one of the aspiring Jiamini students - I am reviewing his application in order to make sure that he has filled it in correctly:

Bakari taking a break to play with Baby Jenny - his niece who was named after me! (Yes, she is wearing clothes that Katie and Brad brought for her. She's an awesome kid):

Teacher Bakari. My hero!

Katie and brad cooling off in Mtwara with some juice-boxes:

Me checking in with Sophia, who is one of our current secondary school students. She studies at Masasi Girls Boarding School:

for more information, check out www.jiamini.org

compromises

2008-05-09T14:09:00.002+03:00

"You are in the midst of a war: a battle between the limits of a crowd seeking the surrender of your dreams, and the power of your true vision to create and contribute. It is a fight between those who will tell you what you cannot do, and that part of you that knows -- and has always known – that we are more than our environment; and that a dream, backed by an unrelenting will to attain it, is truly a reality with an imminent arrival.”

-Anthony Robbins

doctors and teachers

2008-04-30T12:28:00.004+03:00

"In New York City, there is one doctor for every 198 people, compared with Tanzania, where there is one doctor for every 29,143 people"

I got that quote from some random newspaper article. Sounds about right. In most villages, there is only a dispensary or maybe a health center - no hospital and certainly no private doctor's offices (except for the traditional healers) anywhere nearby. The health center is usually staffed by one or two nurses, maybe a Clinical Officer, and that's it.

A nurse studies for about 2 years for that job - so its about the equivalent of an Associates Degree. They perform all kinds of serious medical interventions including pulling teeth, stitches, etc. A Clinical Officer passes for a doctor in villages, towns, and even District Hospitals. They have about 4 years of college education, so about the equivalent to a Bachelors Degree. They do the best they can with the knowledge they have, but they are certainly not as qualified as doctors or even nurses in the USA.

Most hospitals are largely run by the nurses and the clinical officers. Generally there are only a few actual "doctors" in an entire hospital. I have seen many foreign medical volunteers come to Tanzania and, despite being 2nd year med students, they are entrusted to do surgeries that they wouldn't do in their home country for at least another 3 years.

The shortage of qualified doctors reminds me a bit of our lack of qualified teachers. (Wanna be a high school teacher? No problem - just graduate with D average from high school, take a 2-year training course, and there you go! You might be the same age as some of your students, and you surely aren't as intelligent as a few of them... but you carry a stick into the classroom. So nobody's gonna disrespect you!)

Doctors have to be paid well for their work, or else they will go work in foreign countries. Basi. The problem with teachers is a little bit more interesting and circular: many of the teachers in this country right now are ummotivated, uneducated, and sometimes even drunk. Most young people don't actually WANT to be teachers - instead, teaching is the fall-back job in case their grades are too bad for them to go to university (or even Form 6). Instead, the government will choose them (who barely passed their Form 4 exams) to a Teacher's Training College.

The pay for teachers is abysmal. Thats not to say the job isn't coveted - its better than farming, and for young people with no other options, its downright exciting. Especially because there is so little accountability - you don't have to be a good teacher here to get paid. Hell, you don't even have to show up to class most of the time! But if teachers were paid and valued as what they are - the educators of our children who are the future of our nation - then the job would be something that people actually STRIVED to do.

And this is where the circular issues come in: right now there is no accountability in the profession because the country needs even the worst teachers! (After all, some schools of 400 kids have only 7 teachers). Once teachers are paid what they are worth, there will be many more potential teachers to choose from. And then, next time a teacher gets caught having sex with one of his students or drinking before class, he won't just get transferred to another school deeper in the bush (where other kids will suffer, but less noticeably). He will get fired. And preferably, hopefully, banned from the profession forever and ever and ever.

My team at Mkombozi taught a 3-day seminar to primary school teachers last month. We discussed teaching techniques and how to support vulnerable children in the classroom. At one point I got a bit passionate (or maybe frustrated) and started to rant about the bad teachers that I have seen here. I asked these teachers if they, too, had met teachers like this. I got a resounding "YES, SANA". I told them that in my country, teachers who commit these offences are fired, arrested, and banned from teaching again. I was met with grunts of surprise, a few hands clapping, and a couple of quiet voices saying, "really? how amazing..."

zimbabwe

2008-04-24T11:39:00.003+03:00

TAKE YOUR WEAPONS... AND GO HOME!

Looks like some other African countries are finally starting to realize that this guy is totally out of control. I don't totally blame the citizens and leaders of this continent who have traditionally been reluctant to condemn Mugabe - he represents, for many, an "ideal leader" who fights for political autonomy from the West, speaks out about unfair trade policies, and wants his people to be productive and self-supporting rather than dependent on the support from former colonial powers and foreign-run businesses.

However. This guy clearly isn't the "ideal leader" that Africa needs. The country is falling apart, people are hungry, citizens are fleeing to to other countries. And now it is increasingly clear that he is, without a doubt, defying the will of his people and creating a dictatorship (through falsifying election results and crushing dissent).

I'm hoping that world leaders - particularly African ones - take serious steps to defend the Zimbabwean people from this man and his military. I'm pleased that most Tanzanians agree that Mugabe is no good for his country. I've still got one friend here who wants to name his first child Robert Mugabe... but we're working on it. Slowly but surely, I'm reminding him that the hope for an ideal leader isn't a bad thing... but this man is not the savior he is looking for.

urban outfitters will "get back to me"

2008-04-03T14:44:00.003+03:00

so, i got a form letter from urban outfitters saying that they get a lot of similar requests from people (um, really? from peace corps volunteers who had all their clothes stolen? I somehow doubt it) and that, if they decide to send me some t-shirts, they will "get back to me".

i briefly had delusions of grandeur, of slamming them for their callousness right here on my blog... and of thousands of people taking the initiative to write to UO, outraged at their conduct and demanding that they help me.

and then i remember that there are about 10 people who read this blog on a weekly basis.

so i'll wait for them to "get back to me". and i'll go to the mitumba (used clothes) market this weekend. hell, if I'm lucky, I might even get the chance to buy my own clothes back!

i'd cry. and then i'd laugh. and then i'd fork over the $3.

one of those days....

2008-03-28T09:53:00.003+03:00

Today is one of those "what the hell am I doing in this place" days.

Check out the theft report I had to send to peace corps today:

Two days ago, while I was at work, my house-helper washed my clothes (It was almost all of them, since I had just returned from a vacation a few days before). She left them on the drying lines in the yard and went home, as she usually does.

When I returned home from work at 6:30, I saw that due to heavy rains, the clothes were still very wet. I therefore decided to leave my clothes on the line for the night. Soon after, the rain started again, and continued until after I had fallen asleep.

When I left for work yesterday at 8:00 am, I noticed that the clothes were not on the line. I assumed that my landlord had brought them in, as she occasionally does for various reasons. I did not see her anywhere so I did not have time to ask her.

When I returned from work at 6:30 yesterday evening, I asked my landlord, and her groundskeepers, about the clothes. They stated that, upon coming outside around 7am, they had noticed all of the clothespins scattered on the ground. The groundkeeper's sneakers had been taken from outside his door. And all of my clothes were missing.

Upon investigation, we found that the barbed wire fence in the back of the property had been cut and that a person had clearly trespassed on our property and stolen our clothes in the middle of the night.

A partial (to the best of my memory this morning) list of the stolen items is as follows:

1 skirt
1 pair of pants
1 kanga
1 kikoi
8-9 t shirts
2-3 tank tops
And other items that I have forgotten.

I don't like to think of myself as materialistic. But, COME ON!!!! My CLOTHES? First of all, I don't know how to live without a black ribbed tanktop. Or my new "I only date Democrats" t-shirt. But even more than that... I lost all my urban outfitters t-shirts! You might think that's ridiculous, but let me explain. Those t-shirts rock because they are so soft, and long in the waist, and mainly because they are a certain blend of fabrics that withstands lots of hand-washing and line-drying. Other t-shirts fall apart, or change shape, or stretch so much that you can't wear them again. What I wouldn't do for a clothes dryer some days....

I'm going to send a sob-story email to urban outfitters and see if they can hook a girl like me up. How often do they hear a story like that?

taxes in america

2008-03-26T15:04:00.005+03:00

so, it's official. My income is so low that my own war-hungry government hasn't required me to file a tax refund for two years running now. boo-yah!

speaking of which, i hope our next president simplifies our tax system. these forms make me want to cry just looking at them. i know i don't have to file, but some folks are telling me that there might be a big rebate to be found in there for those of us who are in my tax (or no-tax, as it were) bracket. which means I might just want to figure out how to fill them in. luckily we are given an automatic extension until June...

oh, and by the way: our next president WILL simplify the tax system. Check it out:

Read Especially the End of this Article!

And for more information...

http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/Barack_Obama_Tax_Reform.htm

Did you know that we have ALL spent about $2000 each on the Iraq war in the last 5 years? I mean, if you divide up the costs of the war (which is paid for by tax dollars, of course), it equals $2000 for every single man, woman, and child in the USA...

according to this senator, anyway