The sponge phase

Habari gani za Tanzania!

I feel very much like a sponge. Every day, new sights and sounds to absorb, more culture to sink in and try to understand. I’ve been here a week now, and definitely am starting to feel like I know the city of Dar es Salaam a bit more.

Our student guides Emmanuel and Hamida took us into Mwenge, a nearby town, where we saw a big marketplace and a really impressive, beautiful woodcarver’s market. We were very popular, as everyone here has the impression that because we are Wazungu (white people) we have a lot of money to spend. We also spent a day a very nice, expensive private beach, which I understand is nicer than any beach in Mexico. First time in the Indian Ocean! On Friday night they took us to see a live Afro-pop/Reggae band, which was the most phenomenal, energetic, talented band I’ve ever seen. We danced so hard, and exchanged dance moves with some Tanzanians. They love to dance, but their movements are smaller, more finer and calculated in the hips and feet.

To get to all these places, we take daladalas. Oh, the daladala. Not recommended for the paranoid backseat driver–seeing the corners they cut, the spaces they try to fit through, and the speed at which they move makes you certain you will not make it in one piece. Also not recommended for the claustrophobic. Never would have guessed 25 could fit in a van the size of an American 12-seater van. Also, the door fell off of the first daladala we rode.

The trees on campus–acacia, I think–have branches that produce vines that hang down to become roots when they meet the ground. They make for excellent swings and Tarzan-style vines. The trees themselves are great for climbing, and I’ve spent a good deal of time in their branches.

The associate dean of students at the University had a welcome dinner at her house. Here, we saw “other half”–a nice house, big, gated, whitewashed, structurally sound. They roasted us an entire goat. And I mean entire–the appetizer was intestine soup. Goat stomach, anyone? Mmm.

We finally started our Kiswahili class today, after a week of getting by on minimal greetings and the few nouns we’ve picked up. It feels really good to be learning a language again, especially because we need it here! It’s study time!

I am very happy to be here. Though I often feel uncertain, cautious, or shy here, I have felt that there is no other place I could be. And though I remember where I come from, I am eager to establish some roots here. Salama,

Abby

Trust no-one, guarantee nothing

(So I thought I succeeded in posting this blog last week, but apparently I didn’t. This is as written from Day 3, sorry it’s late. Also, I forgot to explain the title–our first orientation involved a lot of late and last-minute re-scheduled sessions, our American director Dr. Roberts telling us not to stress about this “Tanzanian time”, and officer Emmanuel Wombura warning us repeatedly to “trust no-one.” It became the phrase of the week. Here’s the blog…)

Mambo!

Well, it has been quite the fiasco to actually obtain internet here, but I now have a student ID for the University of Dar es Salaam, and access to (very sketchy, inconsistent, slow) wireless!

I am staying in the dorms here at the University, which is public, attended by thousands of very studious, well-dressed Tanzanians and a handful of foreigners like us–Wazungu. The students are very friendly and we have some guides who show us around and answer our many questions about Tanzanian culture. We have yet to start our Kiswahili course, so pretty much the only thing we can say to the locals are “Mambo,” (What’s up) “Poa,” (It’s cool) and “Asante” (thank you). Turns out a phrase I learned several years ago–”Poa kachizi kama indizi” is a real Swahili phrase and means “crazy cool like a banana.” Go figure. Since there are 20 other Americans to get to know and none of us know Swahili, I haven’t really had the opportunity to talk to many Tanzanian students (though most speak English), so I definitely have much to learn and experience as far as the local culture, but there is time.

Besides being jet-lagged, I’ve woken up in the night to monkeys howling, and very vivid, dreams from malaria prophylactics. Last night (in my head), some other folks from the program and I were in a cave making pancakes on a camp stove.

As far as I can tell, the entirety of the diet consists of rice, beans, a cabbage/spinach stirfry, chicken, beef, ugali (gluey, starchy corn-flour paste that you roll around in your hand and eat with other dishes), and fruit. The fruit, though, is yummy! Banana, papaya, avocado, orange, so far. Probably more in the markets, which we will get to visit eventually. One meal costs the equivalent of a little over $1, and a drink is about a third of that.

The trees are driving me crazy. I keep asking locals what they are, and no one knows. Beside me is a baby baobob, palms, and I’m sure there are several varieties of acacia, but I don’t know what the ones are that look like bottle-brushes, or the ones that have flowers but no leaves. The ecologist in my is craving an adequate field guide.

Computer is about to run out of battery. My next task is to figure out the power outlets and adaptor.

Waiting

On Saturday I depart for Tanzania! 45 hours in transit. 8970 miles covered. 22.5 hours in Zurich, Switzerland. Whew!

I will be there until December 18 on a study abroad program called Ecology and Human Origins. I’ll be learning Swahili and taking classes at the University of Dar es Salaam (capital city), camping in the Serengeti plains while doing a 6 week independent research project (probably an anthropology project on the relationship between local people and plants/ecosystems), and then doing a homestay with a native family.

So in case you are unfamiliar, Tanzania is in East Africa, just south of the equator, bordered by Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, Mozambique, Lake Victoria, Lake Tanganyika, and the Indian Ocean. It is a very peaceful, ethnically diverse country, home to the many wildlife conservation parks such as Serengeti National Park (think safaris), Africa’s highest peak Mt. Kilimanjaro, and famous archaeological sites Laetoli and Olduvai Gorge where the earliest evidence of hominids was found.

This week, in addition to packing, I’ve been reading a lot, trying to learn as much as I can about the country and the people and the history. This animal, the elephant shrew,  in the picture below? It’s closest relative is, you guessed it, AN ELEPHANT. Whoa.

Elephant shrew