One Month Later

Today is the first day we have had class in the classroom in about a week, and since we had six hours of class it’s been a long day. Sunday we had a traveling lecture to a Wildlife management area and people talked to us about what they were doing to conserve land and the animals. They are doing a lot more for the environment than some other people we have talked to. The drive was about two and a half hours so we spent a long time in the car, and since time management isn’t a thing in Tanzania we were late getting to lunch because we were going to a “picnic area”. When they say picnic area in Tanzania I’m thinking a great view with some rocks to sit on. So we turn on a dirt road, see some giraffes and zebras along the way. And long behold we enter into another lodge. We aren’t sure how they talk these lodges into allowing 28 dirty kids come in, sit on their couches, and eat food from our packed lunches. Not to mention we were there for about 2 hours. Once again no time management, but it’s always nice to be out of our box.

Yesterday we had another traveling lecture we went to a secondary school and looked at their garden. As we were walking around the secondary school I also fell in a hole because I can’t walk properly. If only I wasn’t such a klutz all the time my life would be a lot easier. Then we saw where they make bricks for their houses which was kind of cool. They showed us new stoves that have been invented and we ended the day going to a primary school where we planted trees that they kids have been growing. So I have officially left my mark on Africa with a tree!

Today we had 4 hours of swahili which is forever and then a guy came into class to talk to us about lion trophy hunting. It was an awesome presentation that told us the negatives and positive of trophy hunting and also just about how lions live. I have officially been gone for a month today! And I honestly can’t believe how fast it’s going. We leave for Kenya in three weeks and I will be in the serengeti in two and I have finals next week. Time is flying and I know I’m not going to be ready to leave, besides the fact that I will get to eat good food.

Pictures

Just some pictures!!

In Tarangire we say probably 300 elephants it was awesome

Its kind of hard to tell in this photo but there are zebras like 50 yards away from us just grazing

Zebra Hug!!

The cubs aren't present in this picture but I like them because they are standing up!

Lions, and cheetahs, and rhinos, Oh My!

Greatest. Day. Ever. We went to Ngorongoro Crater yesterday which is a conservation area, meaning that the Maasai still live in the area but they are not allowed to harm the animals. The crater was formed by a volcano falling in on itself. So when you are at the bottom of it you are essentially surrounded by mountains which is pretty awesome all in itself. 

Driving up and down the crater was pretty terrifying because you can see all the way down the mountain and you are going on curves, it was slightly like the Road to Hana in Hawaii. So once we enter the crater we see mass amounts of zebra, cape buffalo, and wildebeests. If I was to add all of these together throughout the day we saw well over 1,000. Baby zebras are little calls of fur and I love them.

Then Yohanna points out that there are cheetahs sitting in the middle of all the commotion of the grazing animals. Unfortunately they were too far away for my dinky camera to get pictures of but it was still awesome. Surprisingly they just sit and watch all the animals they normally eat if they aren’t hungry and the animals just go on with their day. My new obsession is warthogs (pumbas in swahili) I think they are the greatest, we saw a warthog family taking a mud bath which was awesome.

Also out in the distance, we saw Rhinos!!! There are only 28 in the entire park and we saw 2 of them. We sat and watched them forever and one of the staff members that was with us kept tell us we needed to leave because he could smell lions and he needed to take us to them. Then is phone started ringing and he told us they were not calling him. So he told our driver where to go and long behold a family of lions!!!! There were 2 males, 2 females, and 2 cubs. One of the females went off on her own, but we got awesome pictures of the other lions. They are so beautiful!

The animals at the park are so funny. One wildebeest sat in the middle of the road and would not move we had to go around him. The baboons often enjoyed doing this too. We later say another female lion in the grass and 2 wildebeests were walking toward her and she began to stalk them. They go so close to her and we could tell they knew something was wrong. She flinched a tad and they both ran away. But it was still awesome to see her stalk her prey. 

A lot of the animals all hang out together, we saw an elephant in with the zebras and wildebeests. Yohanna kept referring to the elephant as a walking house because 6-8 wildebeests could fit inside. He is a Maasai and he grew up in the conservation area, so he was tell us all kinds of things and every time there was a new bird he would tell us to look it up in the book so we were learning a lot.

We went to the hippo pool and saw hippos, and we watched people. The tourists here are so funny. We show up to a park in shorts, t-shirt and flip flops because we all take our shoes off in the car anyways. Most people are in full out safari gear and hiking boots... why do you need hiking boots, are you planning on getting out of the car? We always get a good laugh out of the rich old people. But there was one girl, wearing a dress, hair straight as can be, and a HUGE bow in her hair. Where do you think you are going? The Jersey Shore? It was really funny. After a day in the trucks I have a layer of dirt on me, which makes me look super tan for photos at least! SO it was an incredible day and I don’t think I will ever get over what happened.

Today we had a non program day. First we went to Fame Clinic which is a clinic opened up by two Americans from California. They have 48 Tanzanians working there and it is incredible. They are building a ward where they will be able to do operations and an inpatient ward. All of their electricity is going to be solar powered when it is done. They have a pharmacy and they will also get radiology when the new ward opens. The people are amazing and what they are doing is so incredible for the people in surrounding areas. It also makes tourists feel really comfortable when they have something happen to them. I think I may open a spay and neuter clinic here... except for the fact I won’t make any money because people won’t pay for that. So I have to become rich first...

Then we went to the pool and laid out all day. I pulled the feet hanging off the edge into the pool and it worked great. I even managed to get a tan line on my farmers tan. Once again it was a beautiful lodge and it was just nice to relax. Then we went to Happy Days for lunch, the food is just alright them... much like all the food here. It started pouring and I was on the verge of falling asleep to the sound of rain on the tin roof. Walking out of Happy Days I fell down the wooden stairs... my life. 

Then we found out that a place in town had ice cream so we convinced our German professor to stop and get ice cream. It was one of those “Dad can we stop on the way home?” Kind of things and he was like does everyone want to go, and obviously we did so he stopped for us! It was pretty awesome considering is personality is lacking most of the time. I ended the day with a cold shower because once again the power was out. But I’ve completely fallen in love with Africa.

Class in the Field

Papers are coming together and I can see the light of the weekend. We are going to a National Park on friday (where we could see lions!) and we are going to a pool to relax on Saturday, which hopefully means I can somewhat even out the awesome tan lines I have accumulated.

For class yesterday we had a filed lecture, which meant we went to the top of Kilimatembo and received lectures from all of out professors. The view makes it very hard to concentrate on anything that is being said, and with finals about 12 days away I should really be listening to lectures. Its hard to believe that in 17 days we are camping in the Serengeti and we leave Kenya in only 25 days!! Its gone so fast!

But after lectures we went for a walk in a forest and we looked at the trees and such. Yohanna, one of the assistances, was shaking fruits off a tree so we all grabbed one, and you squeeze it out of the skin and you just suck on it. It has the flavor of a warhead so we were all loving it. Then you just spit out the pit. One of our professors tore sap off the tree and was licking it, but I didn’t want any part of that. Then we went to a rock face and climbed up the side of it to get a good look at the view, and yet again it was beautiful. We also saw an ant lion which is part of the small five! We didn’t have any class after noon so it was a day of just working on papers. Which wasn’t too bad.

I took my fabric to the tailor and he is making me a strapless dress that goes to about my knees. It’s having a zipper and lining and it is only costing 25,000 shillings which is about $16, so costume made dress including fabric for about $32 ... I’ll take it! A bunch of us are going to take all of our extra fabric and have a bunch of head bands made which is only 2,000 shillings so a little over a dollar! I go to pick my dress up on the 29th so hopefully it looks good.

Yesterday I was MOD which is like student of the day where you do a reflection, make announcements, and then do a presentation. So I clearly had to tell the famous Hot Gary and Reggie Wayne story, and everyone loved it. I showed the pictures and all!

This morning we went bird watching for class and identified as many birds as we could. It was pretty much just a hike up to Moyo Hill where we sat for a while and then we walked back down the hill to camp to finish up our papers. I still find myself in disbelief that I am actually in Africa because its so green in Tanzania and it doesn’t look like Pride Rock at all, its more Timon and Pumba style. 

Home-Stay!

Well its been three weeks since I arrived in Tanzania and I am still loving it more than anything. This week has been more paper writing (surprise surprise) We went around and talked to local farmers in Rhotia about there main concerns about the farming season and they said that they are supposed to start planting in January but we haven’t gotten any rain so they havent been able to. So all of the elders in the village got together and prayed for rain, and long behold its been raining almost all day today! I think thats really amazing.

The other day one of the girls found a worm in her water, so we are all on high alert for parasites and none of us are sick yet, so hopefully that keeps up. We made a joke about having a hair in your water, first world problems... having a parasite in your water, third world problems, I guess its Africa, Hakuna Matata. 

Today we did our home-stay, it was an experience. We were paired together and dropped off at a house for about 10 hours. Ashley and I arrived and shortly found out that long behold we were at the house of a guy who helped with the tours, so he spoke English, we really lucked out since we have only been learning swahili for about a week and a half now. First they had us sit in the room, alone for a while. Then it was tea time, the only problem is I do not like hot drinks, so I tried my hardest to drink it and as soon as I was done, they refilled my glass. 

He then got on the subject of swahili words we knew, one being eggs, so they asked if we like hard boiled eggs, and Ashley said yes, next thing we know there are hard boiled eggs on the table, again something I don’t eat. Then we were sitting and there was a chicken trying to get under the door. The father asked if he ate chicken in America and we said yes... big mistake. The next thing we know is out Mama has the chicken and then the son grabs a knife, five minutes later, dead chicken.

We then went into the “kitchen” to help with lunch. By helping, I held the baby for an hour. You can imagine how awkward that made me feel. They also had baby kittens, which I had to pet. I assumed that if they had fleas I would already have them from sitting on the bed so I went for it. We had cabbage, chicken, soup, and a Tanzanian dish which is just corn starch and water. Since I am a very very picky eater, I ate bits of each and then claimed I was full. 

After lunch we went for a walk and then played with the kids for a couple hours. andthe kids just pretty much took pictures the whole time and we did clapping games, it was pretty fun. The family wants us to come back on Sunday to bring them printouts of the pictures. 

          We had a ton of laughs throughout the day. One being the chicken situation and while we were in the kitchen a child, probably 2, had a knife, and he was putting it in his mouth, and no one around us seemed to car. Then all of the sudden a cow walked into the kitchen and started licking used dishes, just normal things occurring. We just had to go with the flow and let things happen, it was a great time. We started to really get along with the family toward the end which was good. We had a lot of fun and it was an awesome experience to have. We had so much fun and I’m really excited to do my next home-stay in Kenya! Now we have more papers to write and I am very, very ready for dinner

Three days of sun and fun

Its been a busy busy 3 days, so every time I’ve arrived back at camp I’ve been too tired to blog. This has probably been the most exciting 3 day streak yet.

Monday we went to a Maasai Boma and they danced for us and showed up their house. Its such a different way to live but its really cool. All of their jewelry is really awesome so I made a couple purchases in the little shop they had set up. Then we headed to an orphanage to paint the boys room and to play with the kids. They were just happy if you were holding them which was kind of sweet. A lot of them had lost their parents because of AIDS which was really sad. They had songs they sang to us in English but we aren’t positive that they actually knew what they were saying. After the orphanage we went to s store and looked at some Tanzanite. It is running out so I think I am going to purchase some and make it into a ring when I get home. 

Tuesday we woke up extra early and we hit the road at 7 to go to Tarangire National Park. We started our safari at about 10 and we drove around until 1. As always the park never disappoints  we saw Giraffes, Elephants (like 150 of them!), and a tone of other grazing animals that are way to many to count. The elephants got slightly too close for comfort at certain points. One male elephant was very angry with us and looked like he was about to charge so that was pretty stressful. We had to inch our way toward him and he was sticking his trunk out at us which is a defensive mechanism. We also made a bunch of elephants stampede in the opposite direction and we heard two make noise! Surprisingly giraffes are a lot darker then I thought they were once you see them up close. After the safari I found the destination of my honeymoon.... We went to the lodge to go swimming and have lunch and a beer. We walked in and saw the most amazing view ever. From the balcony you could see elephants eating and walking. So we all laid out and enjoyed the view and the pool, it was paradise. Then we went on another hour game drive but everyone was pretty worn out from the mass amounts of sun. I only got burnt on my hand, which is good besides the fact it is so painful! That night the cooking staff made us a cake for Valentines day which was a great way to top off the day.

This morning I unfortunately had to get up at 5:45 A.M for breakfast crew because we were leaving camp at 7:30. We drove to Lake Manyara National Park and we road bikes through town and then to the lake. I can’t even explain how beautiful it was. We were surrounded by mountains, the dried up lake, and we were riding through the grassland. There was a herd of zebras about 30 feet from us and they had to move so we could ride our bikes through, it was incredible. Then a herd of wildebeest stampeded right in front of us, again, slightly terrifying. We rode over to the hippo pool, and then a banana plantation and we looked at some art. Besides the fact that it was tiring and I can hardly sit down, it was an amazing experience. Then the jeeps drove us to a pizza place where I had the best chicken pizza I have ever had and a coke. From there we drove into town to do some shopping and I found I have a small talent for bargaining. The first thing I bought was 65,000 shillings, I talked him down to 25,000. Next I bought another piece of fabric which I’m going to make “genie” pants out of. Its purple tye-dye and awesome. The guy asked for 25,000 shillings and I got him down to 13,000. The last thing I bought he asked for 35,000 shillings and I got it for 10,000. So overall I made out like a bandit and I’m pretty proud of myself, if only I could do that in America. I may have a problem getting things home but I’ll figure it out. They all gave us cheaper prices because we are student and they are happy we are learning their culture. Since I had breakfast crew this morning we also have to wash dishes at night and since I’m a big baby and hate dirty dishes I just dry. Which consists of like 150 dishes with one towel, so it is soaked by dish 20 and its kind of a waste of time Hakuna Matata

Also while driving along the road we see all kinds of animals including, baboons (which are like rabbits here, cute when you see them just not to exciting anymore) elephant, giraffe, and I may or may not have seen an ostrich. So sorry for the long post there were just so many exciting things that happened!

The calm after the papers

Well today is the first time we have had internet since Thursday, which would normally be fine except for the fact that we had our paper due today. So we were not able to look articles up online and we had to refer to the books in our very tiny library here on camp, everyone survived though and we are all very happy to be done. The next three days we don’t have actual class we are traveling and going on another safari so its something to look forward to.

Today we had a goat roast. They brought in a goat and slaughtered it here at camp. I left camp to go hiking with a couple of the other girls. I wanted to leave so I didn’t have to hear the goat suffer. I did make it back to try the meat though. The ribs were a little fatty for my liking but the leg was pretty good, defiantly a different flavor. The meals we have here are always so interesting. We think the cooks try really hard to make food like at home, for instance we had corn on the cob, but it tasted more like wax then corn. Today they made sandwiches and everyone was pretty pumped, but they consisted of cucumbers, carrots, eggs, and jelly, not the greatest combination I would ever come up with. But hey at least they are trying.

We have been learning songs in our swahili class to help us remember words and numbers. So today we met some kids on our hike and asked if they knew the songs, they did. So we are pretty sure the songs we learn are from kindergarden class, but its really ok with us. 

We had our first thunderstorm today and the first rain that we have seen while being here. Ive decided Africa is a lot like Dale. Its 90 degrees everyday. When it rains everyone runs outside to play in it. At night the stars are beautiful. Get me a drink and a raft and I’ll be one happy camper. But I’m sitting outside writing this on the porch and a huge spider is sitting next to me, its time to go inside.

Another day, Another Animal

The past couple of days have not been all that fantastic,  just for the fact that I have been writing my papers on baboons and elephants. Yesterday was a work day all day and we had our first Swahili class and our teacher is the most fabulous women I have ever met. She has made the class a ton of fun.

Today we went out by Lake Manyara and we counted grass, and looked at different types of grass, it was wild. The only thing that made it ok was the fact we were in Africa and the mountains were around us and it was beautiful. School is so much better when you aren’t actually in a classroom or class or you can feel the breeze the entire time you are in class. We went for a short walk to the shore of the lake and we found the skeleton of what we believe is a baby wildebeest. We found the rib cage, spine, and the entire skull, it was pretty incredible. We also were able to see wildebeest from where we were standing which was pretty awesome. While we were out in the field we also got the news that instead of having to do two more papers we only have to do one. So tonight I’m giving myself the night off to read and blog and maybe watch a movie. Things are still great and I tried to post a picture of an elephant on here but it was taking too long and it just wasnt worth it. Looks like pictures will have to wait until May!

Non-Program Day

Today was our first non-program day so we went to a village and they told us about their marriage traditions and they showed up some of their houses. Some of the girls were able to wear traditional wedding skirts and the rest of us wore a drape. Then we did some tribal dancing which was pretty cool. We also went into town and walked around the market. I purchased some fabric so I can have a skirt and a headband made my the tailor that live next to camp, I’m super pumped about it. The locals swarmed us with merchandise trying to get us so buy some but they just didn’t have anything that I really wanted.

Later we want to a restaurant called Happy Days which is run by people from south Africa and they serve American food and beer. So all of us sat down for some cheese burgers and some good old African beer. We tried Tuskers, Kilimanjaro, and Safari beer, all of them were pretty good and we were just happy because it was cold. So after we got back from happy days I decided the tipsy state of mind I was in was not appropriate to write my paper so I did laundry instead. Which was honestly a disaster. Most people can do their laundry in one bucket, not me I needed two. It was not the greatest experience and I think I might just have one of the locals do it for me for now on. My wife skills are next to nothing.

In town there is also a medical center called Fame Medics and it is run by a husband and wife from the states. They came to Africa one year to climb mount Kili and the husband got really bad altitude sickness and he told his wife if he survived they were going to come back and open a clinic to help people, long behold here they are. The clinic is amazing, they have a pharmacy and right now they are building an inpatient ward. They have volunteer doctors come in to do eye checks and things like that periodically for the locals. What is really nice is they have lower prices for the locals and us, but of coarse they have to charge tourists more which only makes sense. So we all feel super safe here knowing the American clinic is only ten minutes away.

We have all been stressed about the fact that if we go on a walk we might end up in someones yard. Whitney has told us that if it happens just wave and say hi and they will just wave back. It’s not a big deal at all, she said they will just talk about it at dinner “so a white person walked through our yard today” , we all found that pretty amusing.  Tomorrow will be a long day of class and working on papers since I have pretty much taken the entire day off but everyone needs a break every once in a while.

Baboons on baboons on baboons

Yesterday we had day 2 in Lake Manyara National Park but the main focus was baboon watching. We were supposed to watch one troop for two and a half hours and write down behaviors so we could write a paper about it. The troops we watched liked to run away from us so most of hour time was spent driving around looking for the baboons. Which was fine with me because we got to see a Jackel with a kill, a buffalo up close, and another elephant standing in the middle of the road not caring about the line of jeeps behind it. We only had about an hour and a half of baboons watching but it was still pretty interesting.

The cows here have a huge  bump on their back and at first I thought they all just had an iodine deficiency and it was a goiter, but it turns out that they are a camel type of cow and the bump is a way for them to store water in the heat. I think its awesome that they have adapted like that.

One really nice thing about camp is that if you are willing to learn some one is willing to teach you. Even the guards and the drivers always are trying to teach everyone different swahili words which is awesome. And if you get i a car with a professor they stio every 5 minutes to show you a different plant or bird so we are all learning a lot more then was it just in our books. 

As always the weather is beautiful and I try not to spend more then 5 minutes inside at a time. This morning we we had class outside on the side of a mountain and it was an incredible view. Now people are sitting outside working on our papers for the rest of the day!

My first safari of many more to come

Today I realized exactly why I wanted to come to Africa in the first place, and even though there is a huge beetle walking past me as I write this I couldn’t be more giddy. This morning we had Wildlife Ecology for an hour and a half and we talked about baboons the entire time. So obviously it was a wonderful class. After lunch we took our first trip to the nation park Lake Manyara, and it was incredible. For about 5 hours we drove in our jeeps standing with our heads out the roof. A lot of the time was spent frantically scribbling down notes about all the animals and counting them but we did have time to get some awesome pictures. There were elephants that were about 10 meters away from our car and the baboons were running all around it. We also saw giraffes, warthogs, dikdiks, impallas, zebras, wildebeests, cape buffalo and probably a bunch of other animals that I can’t think of right now.

It was quite the workout standing up in the car and trying not to fall since there were a lot of bumps and ditches but it was totally worth it. I probably did too much picture taking and not enough writing, its sometimes hard to remember that I’m here for school and not just to see animals. It was also a great time to bond with some people in the group because you were in close proximity with 6 other people in the car.

When we returned back to camp around seven we were all dirty (I was asked if i was really tan, turns out just dirt) and hungry. To our surprise there was pizza waiting for us for dinner, everyone was pretty happy about this. Between class and being out in the field I have been learning the most incredible things about animals, which makes me love them all even more. One thing that was sad is in Lake Manyara there are poachers that go after zebras, so in one area they ran frantically from the cars because they are terrified of people. We did get to get really close to some of them and we even saw a baby nursing from a mare. I then ended the day with a HOT shower because the guys figured out how to turn on the water heater. So no more cold showers here.

Yesterday some of us went into town, which is always an adventure. The locals love to ask the girls to marry them, (don’t worry Mike I haven’t been asked yet) and two girls were asked yesterday while we were in town which is always entertaining. As we were walking back there was a stampede of children coming out us since they had just gotten out of school. One of the little girls asked me what my name was and I told her Jessica and when I asked her what her name was she got a big grin on her face and said her name was Jessica also. But all of the other little girls started giggling when she said this. Then they all started screaming my name, so I’m pretty positive they were pulling my leg. Clever ones they are. I’m loving it more and more everyday. I’ll try to upload some pictures but tonight I’m just too tired and I have a lot of work to do, we have 3 papers due in like 5 days. Joy.

Poop

Well I didn’t see the need to blog for a couple days because all we had planned was class. But today in Wildlife Ecology we spent about 20 minutes talking about poop, which I decided was blog worthy. Not only did we talk about poop size and what you can learn from poop, we also passed poop around. The dung samples included: elephant poop, aardvark poop, goat poop, monkey poop, cow poop, and I could me forgetting some. So to say the least class was pretty amusing today. Classes can sometimes be long, but the things we are learning about are so interesting that no one really cares. The only class that hasn’t gotten my attention is Economic Policy, I like animals.

In the first blog of being here I said the water was warm, this is a false statement, it’s very cold. You must do the jump in, jump out maneuver, which is pretty easy considering our shower has no curtain. Let’s just say having the dry shampoo is a sort of life saver.

Today we learned about a bug here that looks like a flying ant, but if you kill it, the bug releases toxins that can give you second degree burns. So I don’t think I will be killing any bug with my hand anytime soon. The bugs haven’t really been bothering me like I thought they would, i have had to kill a few but they just aren’t that bad. I have seen some of the biggest bugs I have ever seen though, a lot of them look like small birds and are pretty scary. 

Last night a bunch of us went to the class room and watched lion king and pointed out things that were realistic and other things that were not. Everyone was pretty giddy about the movie and didn’t mind staying up late even though we get up at 7 every morning for breakfast, which is still my favorite meal of the day. We have eggs, potatoes, fruit, and pancakes everyday and some how it hasn’t gotten old yet.

I’m still in love with Tanzania and everyone here is great. We all spend a lot of time together and you hardly ever sit next to the same person in class or at meals, so everyone is getting to know each other pretty quickly. Also I haven’t gotten sunburned or have I been bitten by a mosquito yet (knock on wood).  The weather is so great that I was able to go for a run and have the beautiful mountains in front of me to look at for parts of the run which makes the run worth it.