In Tanzania Peace Corps we have three different sectors of which people volunteer in; Secondary Education with emphasis in math and sciences, Health Education with focus on HIV/AIDS, and environmental volunteers. I have told my fellow volunteers in other sectors that I don’t think that I would have been able to stay here for two years in their sectors because their jobs are ambiguous and their role is driven by their communities; which in many cases resulting in volunteers being targeted by people looking for easy money. I thank God for my students, if it weren’t for them I think my frustrations with the administration, corrupt community leaders, and the bureaucracies of the government school system it would have driven me out of this country; their role in my work here has driven me near the edge of insanity, but believing in education and the drive of my students have kept me grounded with composure.
Since arriving at Mzumbe I have been working with our HIV/AIDS club at our school in different capacities. I teach them lessons from our Peace Corps life skills manual, provide updated data and facts to my best ability, and distribute magazines that deal with the issues of HIV/AIDS that are provided by Peace Corps. This year I started a service learning project with my students motivated by their desire to be better informed and to be educators to their peers. They guided the project from observing the needs in our community and what our goals are for the club. They found local doctors at the Mzumbe University Hospital to facilitate a two day seminar to train HIV/AIDS peer educators. They worked with the doctors and provided goals and objectives to the facilitators while making a schedule for the two day training. The students wrote many parts of the grant that we received to pay for our facilitators and other necessities for the two day training. The students owned the project, it was theirs and that was my favorite part of managing this event.
The week before the training was to take place I got really sick and diagnosed with bronchitis pneumonia. I was in Dar es Salaam with the Peace Corps medical staff up until the Thursday prior to our Friday-Saturday Training. I had asked one of the facilitators to make some copies for the training because I was worried I was not going to get released to go back to site. I explained to our medical staff at Peace Corps that I needed to get back to my site for our training because people had to be paid and I was the one who the grant was under. I got released in time to get back Thursday night, in time for our training the next day. We had invited 10 students from three other neighborhood secondary schools, and had 35 students from Mzumbe participating so our training provide education to 65 Tanzanian students with the goal they would be peer educators in their respective schools and communities. During the training I monitored the activities and made sure topics kept moving with the schedule and food was prepared and delivered on time. I was pleased with the work the facilitators did and the students seamed to take a lot of good information from the training, which was transparent from our pre-test/post-test results.
During one of the sessions I heard the doctor talking of ‘lazy beans’ and was curies on what topic he was talking of. I was worried that maybe there was an outbreak of lazy beans that I needed to know about; if one eats these beans do they become lazy? By eating lazy beans can one acquire HIV? If we have lazy beans today could we have lazy tomatoes, corn, onions, or lazy bananas tomorrow? But as I listened in to the doctor these ‘lazy beans’ were a group of women who are sexually attracted to other women, a mere mispronunciation. I was relived; I don’t have to worry that my idle beans sitting in my pantry will become ‘lazy beans’ after all.
At the end of the second day the one of the doctor/facilitator dropped the inevitable bomb. I had a bad feeling from the start of working with this man that he was going to try and exploit the training and get more money then we had mutually agreed upon. After paying him for his facilitating fee he asked to be reimbursed for making copies, which was appropriate for him to do so. He asked for 100,000 TSH ($80 US) for the 260 copies he made! When I asked him for the receipt he said it was done for him on credit, most likely printed from his office at the hospital or his home printer. He already had a copy of the grant that we had written which clearly showed that we had a total of 15,000 TSH allocated for making all of our needed copies. I was beside myself at the audacity of this doctor to try and charge me the American (In his eyes we all have unlimited amount of money at our disposal) 10 times the local price. I felt insulted, I am volunteering my time in Tanzania for 2 years and here is a local doctor who drives a SUV who lies to my face and hoping I am unaware to his ploy. Him fully aware of our funding I asked him, where he thought I would come up with the money for this charge it being half the amount of money I get a month for my living allowance? I pulled out my wallet and showed him the only 5000 TSH I had and mockingly asked him, do you want me to eat this week? He TOOK THE MONEY and left!
He had full right to be reimbursed for any charges he occurred for making the copies but his lack of integrity infuriated me; being a Doctor a person well-off and valued member in the community I hoped him to be more honest. After discussing the circumstance with my neighbors and fellow teachers I came to learn he wasn’t as respected in the community as I thought and was known for operating in fraudulent schemes in the past. Another lesson to me that corruption has infiltrated Tanzanians and most sectors of commerce in Tanzania.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
3 Peaks
Long time since the last update… I don’t know what defense to use, so you can pick one you like:
- I am having the time of my life and it’s hard to put my experience into words; especially after delaying an update for my blog for so long.
- Computer was broke for awhile until I got a part shipped from the U.K. and making time at the internet café isn’t in the schedule.
- I got pneumonia.
- Think I have become a cynic and don’t want to expel my frustrations to the world.
- My life here seems commonplace to me now and things have been coming routine to me.
In June my school had their big mid-term break and my last chance to vacation during my service here in Tanzania so I tried my best to make the most of it; I think we succeeded.
I have been fortunate to make good friends with a couple; Nathan and Andria from Salida Colorado living in the town closest to me Morogoro. Not only is it great having people from home that have similar interest and similar backgrounds as I do but they have a really nice house and a car! As a Peace Corps volunteer you get very accustomed to riding your bike every where and putting your life in the hands of the public transportation system; so a friend with a private car is a luxury welcomed after a year and a half in Tanzania. As my holiday approached Nathan and I (Andria had to work) decided and planned an adventure across Tanzania to see parts of the country we hadn’t seen before while trying to avoiding the exploited cost of the Tanzanian Park system.
After weeks of planning and maps marked out Nathan and I were off on our three peak adventure. Our plans where conceived after weeks of reading travel books, talking with Tanzanians and other volunteer, inventorying resources, and compelled for an adventure. Plan: four hikes; 2000 year old rock paintings, Mount Hanang (peak one), an active volcano Oldoinyo Lengai (peak two), and Tanzanian’s second highest peak Mount Meru (peak three).
The first leg of the journey was an 8 hour drive from Morogoro to Kolo rock paintings via Dadoma. The first leg of the drive was a nice scenic drive to Tanzanian’s capital, Dadoma all on paved roads… the last we would see for some time. In Dadoma we picked up a Peace Corps Volunteer who was looking for a ride north to Kondoa which by his luck was on the way to Kolo. After dropping off a grateful Peace Corps volunteer who got to by-pass his four hour bus trip by a two hour drive in an air-conditioned Land Cruiser we arrived in Kolo where the rock-painting parks office was located. We weren’t able to locate the camp sites our guide books talked about but we were able to find the village officer who let us park in his compound and pitch out tent for the evening. The next morning we packed up camp and met our guide and paid our park fees at the Kolo office.
We visited five sites of primitive rock paintings some said to date back over 3000 years ago. The sites where scattered around the rift valley escarpment and about 30 minute drive from each other and another hour hike from each parking area. The paintings were lackluster because of the age and deterioration of the sites and the amount of recent graffiti at some of them. Despite their lackluster it was appealing for its historical context and hiking around the hills. Most the paintings were a deep red shade said to be made from the juice of a fig and animal fat most of the paintings were depicted animals like giraffes, zebras, leopards, rhino and humans hunting, snaring, and drying their hides. We spent most the day visiting rock paintings sites and we then made our way to visit and crash at a environmental volunteer’s site who was living near Katesh/ Mount Hanang the fourth highest peak in Tanzania.
Like most mountains in Tanzania Mount Hanang is volcanic in origin and has long since blown its caldera. On our way to Katesh we wanted to shave off some of the driving time so we decided to try and take a shortcut and veer off the major roads, and like most short cuts I have taken in my life we got lost. Luckily Mount Hanang is visible from hundreds of kilometers away on a clear day and we knew if we kept it in front of us we would get there eventually. The thing about back/dirt roads of Tanzania is that they crisscross cattle tracks. Most of Tanzania is open to pastoral people so there is countless number of roads/tracks that go this way and that and one has a hard time discerning between a cattle road a ‘real’ road. This was when we started to mastering our techniques of finding our way on back roads and figuring out how lost we were. One technique was following the tire tracks, we thought this was the sure fire way to make sure we were on the right track but as fool proof as it sounds is much harder in practice, as cars might only pass once a week. The other way was asking locals, this was easy because there was always people walking around and it wasn’t ever very long until we came upon people we could ask, but the problem with this was we were dealing with yokels and the site of a car and white people often rendered them speechless or incomprehensible. The other problem with this technique is that Tanzanians like to agree and say what they think you want to hear. So asking a question like “Is this the way to Dongabesh?” you would insistently get ‘Ya’ regardless of the way you are heading. We had to be wise of the people we stopped to ask and how we asked our questions, it became a fun game that would last our entire trip. In our own defense we had good sense of direction and navigation (I had my GPS) skills but somehow we never knew exactly where we were on the map but did know where we were and were we needed to go.
We arrived at Tara’s home a fellow volunteer near Mount Hanang just as the sun was setting and grateful we had found our way. Her house is a typical home in a small village for Peace Corps volunteers in Tanzania, no running water no electricity. We paid her neighbor to watch the car over night and filled the night drinking warm beers and playing a Tibetan dice game that Nathan had brought along. The next morning we went to the village of Katesh where we were to start our hike. We were given instructions from fellow volunteers on how to hike the mountain and where to begin our hike. We parked our car at a guest house where we made reservations for that night and started on our hike. We were instructed that the hike would take about 12 hours and we had a late start and had about 10 hours of day light to work with. The first half of the hike was primary through farms and homesteads of locals who live on the slopes for better rains; the second part was in the forest and the start of the crater rim that slopped around to the summit. The hike was a good warm up to our up coming hikes, and the first of our three peak tour. We twice had the privilege of seeing a male bush buck scamper through the forest on the mountain, which was rare as no other Peace Corps volunteers had seen any wildlife on the mountain on their hikes. The hike provided beautiful views of the surrounding country and the countless number of volcano craters scattered around the Rift Valley escarpment and the few salt lakes in the area. On our descent we approached a man carrying a machete as we draw near to the farms and homesteads. Both Nathan and I were hoping that this guy was going to the forest to cute down timber; but as we soon learned we weren’t that fortunate….
We were apparently in an unmarked forest reserve and needed a forest permit to enter their forest. They were asking for 30$ U.S. for permission to enter the forest we were just leaving. As I explained to him that we didn’t have the money and that he wasn’t getting any money from us, we resorted to plan B: Take us to your Leader. We were escorted to our guest house by four yokels with sticks and machetes. At our guest house we were introduced to the newly appointed Hanang Forest Officer, we will call him James. Since James was the newly appointed officer there who by chance was coming from his previous post the Uluguru Forest Office (my back yard forest) I thought it appropriate to inform him the flaws in the system. How could his office justify trying to charge two residents of Tanzania 30$ U.S. a day to visit, after the fact we had already left the unmarked/unpublicized forest reserve. This ‘guard’ of his only came after us after being informed by a belligerent guide who we did not hire that morning on advice of fellow volunteers, the guide then informed the guard we were on the mountain without a permit. I think what got us off the hook was to point out the irony if the half dozen women we saw that day cutting down timber illegally for their cooking stoves continued unhindered in their forest reserve that both the guard and the officer would be out of a job without a forest (the area has suffered far too long without forest management). And we might be more inclined to pay if it was advertised to us before going into and before we had already left the forest. James saw our side of the story and was sympathetic, we bought James a beer and shared dinner together for his time; looks like we beat the heat on this one.
James that night over dinner told us a story of a man earlier that week that was killed by villagers of a different tribe after he killed a baby of a mother who witnessed him killing an elephant. The mother apparently made a commotion when she found the man with his slaughtered elephant and threatened prosecution. So the man killed her baby in reaction to her outrage, and he was then killed by her village.
The next morning our goal was Katesh to Karatu via the main…cattle track? I would say 75% of the day was either being lost or wondering if we were lost. We ended picking up a sweet old lady looking for a ride to a town at the junction of the main road we were looking for; I think that was the first car she actually had been in other than the daladala buses here. In Karatu we were given a cell phone number of a return Peace Corps volunteer from Libya who loved hosting guest. She proved to be a gracious host and an affirmation that you can meet the most interesting people living and working abroad.
Our next peak to climb was Oldoinyo Lengai the only active volcano in Tanzania and the only active carbonate volcano in the world. Oldoinyo Lengai comes from the Maasai language Maa meaning Mountain of God. They believe their god who granted them the ownership of all cattle in the world has resided in the active volcano. Maasai believe that sacrifices of cattle and goats done near the mountain will bring rains or help cure ailing relatives. The Maasai are pastoralist and known to be fierce warriors whom would not succumb to slavery or western ideals and culture, still to this day many still wear traditional robes draped over their shoulders and only feed almost exclusively off their cattle. The volcano lies just outside the Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area and south of Lake Natron which is the largest breeding ground in the world for the pink flamingo. This area is part of a much larger Maasai Steppe, a region that is among the most extensive of any Tanzanian tribe. The drive out to our camp ground near Lake Natron was through the most desolate, dry, dusty, barren land I have ever witnessed. In 100 degree temperatures we drove in dust pools which took control of our Land Cruiser like two feet snow drifts, and kicking up a tail feather of dust that went on for hundreds of yards past the car. With no sign of water and land that was well over grazed it was remarkable we past any inhabitants. Before arriving to our campsite we passed three gates constructed by Maasai to enforce a toll for passing. It was absurd to have to pay a toll at these homemade gates on a road that isn’t maintained but when a six and half foot African with a spear and sword asks you to pay a toll, you pay the man.
We stayed a few days at Lake Natron, spent time haggling with the locals, watching jackals chase flamingoes and hike to waterfalls. Our most important task was to climb Oldoinyo Lengai it took a long time to find our guide Li who was willing to climb the volcano with us, he seamed to have the traits we were looking for; young and full of vigor. We would start our hike at 1:00 a.m. in the morning to make our summit by sunrise, and to beat the heat of the day. The volcano proved to be the hardest five hour hike I have ever done due to the loose volcanic ash footing, the severe slop, and lack of a trail to the top. The Volcano last erupted in 1998 and the landscape of hardened lava flows was a transparent reminder we were hiking on a very active volcano. After testing our tenacity we arrived at the calderas rim, and there was no mistaking the lapse in judgment I had made in wanting to climb Oldoinyo Lengai. The ominous steady noise of the boiling rock, smoke, and the orange glow of lava made me feel vulnerable beyond my comfort level. After taking in the great spectacle of an active volcano from its caldera and a few pictures I was exited to begin my journey as far away as possible. It was much like a colonoscopy; glad to have it out of the way and done with but never wanting to go back.
After arriving back to camp and a safe distance from the volcano we packed up the car with our Maasai trinkets and were hurried to get somewhere where the dust didn’t infiltrate every space of our belongings and our body. The next stop was a camp site Mto wa Mbu to clean-up, swim, and mingle with cute American tourist, I love American women. While at dinner in Mto wa Mbu Nathan and I were enjoying a beer while we waited for our 1.5 kg of grilled goat when a mob of Tanzanians started walking down the street. Nathan and I both gave each other the look of, ‘are you ready to run!’ I started asking people what was going and why were all these people gathered. The story we got was that a man walked onto someone’s farm and stole a bunch of bananas from its vine ($5 value) and was caught and his leg was chopped off! The mob was carrying him to try and get him to the hospital in Arusha; I would be surprised if he survived the night. Another reminder that the mob rules in Africa; no one has faith in the systems of government here.
Mount Meru the second highest peak in Tanzania was our next objective. After stocking up in Arusha for backpacking supplies we made our way to the Arusha National park gate, where we were able to find a camp site just out side the park. Colobus Camp Site which by our luck on the evening of our arrival was surrounded by a family of feeding giraffes.
We arrived early the next morning at Arusha National Park headquarters to pay are only national park fees of our trip. We drove around the fabled park where John Wayne’s Hatari was shot before we headed to the trailhead and parking lot for Mount Meru where we would acquire our armed ranger for our trek to the summit of Meru. We had our trek scheduled for a three day trip with the last day being our summit attempt and descent back to the trailhead; we were highly discouraged by the park employees for restricting our hike to three days and not hiring porters for our bags but as Coloradoans and experienced hikers we felt up to the task. The first day was a four hour hike through woodlands where we saw duikers, bush bucks, and water buffalo which is really a unique experience at Meru because most safaris you are restricted to your cars so having the intimate experience of seeing African wildlife by foot was fantastic. On our hike to the first hut we had passed a 4x4 on the trail that was bringing down an exhausted hiker who tried to do the hike in three days. The driver was joking with our guide after he found out we were trying to summit in three days, that he would be back to pick us up for rescue in two days; now the pressure was on. At each of the camps we stayed at they had well maintained huts for us to stay in which was virtually vacant other than one other couple from Holland. The second day to Saddle Hut was a hike that was to be along a ridge of the crater and much steeper than the previous day. We kept passing lots of signs of elephants in the forest but didn’t ever get a chance to see one from the trail. The best animal sighting of our trip occurred this day as we walked up a side of a ravine and just on the other side a hundred yards off stood a very large male bush buck. It was a great sighting because of the size of the male and how he appeared in the only opening of brush on the opposite side of the ravine and we stood there together trading glance for unforgettable moments of time. Saddle Hut provided our first views of Kilimanjaro and our staging point for our summit attempt.
We planned our departure on the fact that we wanted to be on top of Meru in time to see the sunrise and careful not to arrive too soon such that we would have to wait at the summit in the freezing temperatures at 14,980 feet. We left at about 2:30 a.m. for our hike. It proved to be a beautiful night with plenty of stars in the sky we hiked with the aid of our head lamps. This being the third peak of our trip Nathan and I had our pace in sync and we were covering a lot of ground passing the only another group who had left an hour and a half before us. The summit proved to be very cold, even after climbing Kilimanjaro the previous year and experienced with the high altitude climate in Tanzania I was still under dressed for the frigid temperatures. We arrived at the summit, Socialist Peak just in time for the great show that Mother Nature had in store for us. It was a beautiful site to be above the clouds and to see the sun rise up from behind Kilimanjaro and the extensive pallet of colors that she used in the sky that morning was out of this world.
We enjoyed our time on the summit as long as we could before we had to start moving to get our blood flowing. We hiked back to Saddle Hut to grab our packs and make the rest of the descent to the trail head. The descent was uneventful other than passing a few buffalo, wart hogs and another group on the way up and by chance one of the porters in the group happened to be our assistant guide on Kilimanjaro Sam.
After our hike we loaded up into the car and made our way to Moshi to stay with a friend of Nathan’s. That night we cheered to a fantastic trip and I relearned the healing powers of beer on aching bones and muscles, works every time.
- I am having the time of my life and it’s hard to put my experience into words; especially after delaying an update for my blog for so long.
- Computer was broke for awhile until I got a part shipped from the U.K. and making time at the internet café isn’t in the schedule.
- I got pneumonia.
- Think I have become a cynic and don’t want to expel my frustrations to the world.
- My life here seems commonplace to me now and things have been coming routine to me.
In June my school had their big mid-term break and my last chance to vacation during my service here in Tanzania so I tried my best to make the most of it; I think we succeeded.
I have been fortunate to make good friends with a couple; Nathan and Andria from Salida Colorado living in the town closest to me Morogoro. Not only is it great having people from home that have similar interest and similar backgrounds as I do but they have a really nice house and a car! As a Peace Corps volunteer you get very accustomed to riding your bike every where and putting your life in the hands of the public transportation system; so a friend with a private car is a luxury welcomed after a year and a half in Tanzania. As my holiday approached Nathan and I (Andria had to work) decided and planned an adventure across Tanzania to see parts of the country we hadn’t seen before while trying to avoiding the exploited cost of the Tanzanian Park system.
After weeks of planning and maps marked out Nathan and I were off on our three peak adventure. Our plans where conceived after weeks of reading travel books, talking with Tanzanians and other volunteer, inventorying resources, and compelled for an adventure. Plan: four hikes; 2000 year old rock paintings, Mount Hanang (peak one), an active volcano Oldoinyo Lengai (peak two), and Tanzanian’s second highest peak Mount Meru (peak three).
The first leg of the journey was an 8 hour drive from Morogoro to Kolo rock paintings via Dadoma. The first leg of the drive was a nice scenic drive to Tanzanian’s capital, Dadoma all on paved roads… the last we would see for some time. In Dadoma we picked up a Peace Corps Volunteer who was looking for a ride north to Kondoa which by his luck was on the way to Kolo. After dropping off a grateful Peace Corps volunteer who got to by-pass his four hour bus trip by a two hour drive in an air-conditioned Land Cruiser we arrived in Kolo where the rock-painting parks office was located. We weren’t able to locate the camp sites our guide books talked about but we were able to find the village officer who let us park in his compound and pitch out tent for the evening. The next morning we packed up camp and met our guide and paid our park fees at the Kolo office.
We visited five sites of primitive rock paintings some said to date back over 3000 years ago. The sites where scattered around the rift valley escarpment and about 30 minute drive from each other and another hour hike from each parking area. The paintings were lackluster because of the age and deterioration of the sites and the amount of recent graffiti at some of them. Despite their lackluster it was appealing for its historical context and hiking around the hills. Most the paintings were a deep red shade said to be made from the juice of a fig and animal fat most of the paintings were depicted animals like giraffes, zebras, leopards, rhino and humans hunting, snaring, and drying their hides. We spent most the day visiting rock paintings sites and we then made our way to visit and crash at a environmental volunteer’s site who was living near Katesh/ Mount Hanang the fourth highest peak in Tanzania.
Like most mountains in Tanzania Mount Hanang is volcanic in origin and has long since blown its caldera. On our way to Katesh we wanted to shave off some of the driving time so we decided to try and take a shortcut and veer off the major roads, and like most short cuts I have taken in my life we got lost. Luckily Mount Hanang is visible from hundreds of kilometers away on a clear day and we knew if we kept it in front of us we would get there eventually. The thing about back/dirt roads of Tanzania is that they crisscross cattle tracks. Most of Tanzania is open to pastoral people so there is countless number of roads/tracks that go this way and that and one has a hard time discerning between a cattle road a ‘real’ road. This was when we started to mastering our techniques of finding our way on back roads and figuring out how lost we were. One technique was following the tire tracks, we thought this was the sure fire way to make sure we were on the right track but as fool proof as it sounds is much harder in practice, as cars might only pass once a week. The other way was asking locals, this was easy because there was always people walking around and it wasn’t ever very long until we came upon people we could ask, but the problem with this was we were dealing with yokels and the site of a car and white people often rendered them speechless or incomprehensible. The other problem with this technique is that Tanzanians like to agree and say what they think you want to hear. So asking a question like “Is this the way to Dongabesh?” you would insistently get ‘Ya’ regardless of the way you are heading. We had to be wise of the people we stopped to ask and how we asked our questions, it became a fun game that would last our entire trip. In our own defense we had good sense of direction and navigation (I had my GPS) skills but somehow we never knew exactly where we were on the map but did know where we were and were we needed to go.
We arrived at Tara’s home a fellow volunteer near Mount Hanang just as the sun was setting and grateful we had found our way. Her house is a typical home in a small village for Peace Corps volunteers in Tanzania, no running water no electricity. We paid her neighbor to watch the car over night and filled the night drinking warm beers and playing a Tibetan dice game that Nathan had brought along. The next morning we went to the village of Katesh where we were to start our hike. We were given instructions from fellow volunteers on how to hike the mountain and where to begin our hike. We parked our car at a guest house where we made reservations for that night and started on our hike. We were instructed that the hike would take about 12 hours and we had a late start and had about 10 hours of day light to work with. The first half of the hike was primary through farms and homesteads of locals who live on the slopes for better rains; the second part was in the forest and the start of the crater rim that slopped around to the summit. The hike was a good warm up to our up coming hikes, and the first of our three peak tour. We twice had the privilege of seeing a male bush buck scamper through the forest on the mountain, which was rare as no other Peace Corps volunteers had seen any wildlife on the mountain on their hikes. The hike provided beautiful views of the surrounding country and the countless number of volcano craters scattered around the Rift Valley escarpment and the few salt lakes in the area. On our descent we approached a man carrying a machete as we draw near to the farms and homesteads. Both Nathan and I were hoping that this guy was going to the forest to cute down timber; but as we soon learned we weren’t that fortunate….
We were apparently in an unmarked forest reserve and needed a forest permit to enter their forest. They were asking for 30$ U.S. for permission to enter the forest we were just leaving. As I explained to him that we didn’t have the money and that he wasn’t getting any money from us, we resorted to plan B: Take us to your Leader. We were escorted to our guest house by four yokels with sticks and machetes. At our guest house we were introduced to the newly appointed Hanang Forest Officer, we will call him James. Since James was the newly appointed officer there who by chance was coming from his previous post the Uluguru Forest Office (my back yard forest) I thought it appropriate to inform him the flaws in the system. How could his office justify trying to charge two residents of Tanzania 30$ U.S. a day to visit, after the fact we had already left the unmarked/unpublicized forest reserve. This ‘guard’ of his only came after us after being informed by a belligerent guide who we did not hire that morning on advice of fellow volunteers, the guide then informed the guard we were on the mountain without a permit. I think what got us off the hook was to point out the irony if the half dozen women we saw that day cutting down timber illegally for their cooking stoves continued unhindered in their forest reserve that both the guard and the officer would be out of a job without a forest (the area has suffered far too long without forest management). And we might be more inclined to pay if it was advertised to us before going into and before we had already left the forest. James saw our side of the story and was sympathetic, we bought James a beer and shared dinner together for his time; looks like we beat the heat on this one.
James that night over dinner told us a story of a man earlier that week that was killed by villagers of a different tribe after he killed a baby of a mother who witnessed him killing an elephant. The mother apparently made a commotion when she found the man with his slaughtered elephant and threatened prosecution. So the man killed her baby in reaction to her outrage, and he was then killed by her village.
The next morning our goal was Katesh to Karatu via the main…cattle track? I would say 75% of the day was either being lost or wondering if we were lost. We ended picking up a sweet old lady looking for a ride to a town at the junction of the main road we were looking for; I think that was the first car she actually had been in other than the daladala buses here. In Karatu we were given a cell phone number of a return Peace Corps volunteer from Libya who loved hosting guest. She proved to be a gracious host and an affirmation that you can meet the most interesting people living and working abroad.
Our next peak to climb was Oldoinyo Lengai the only active volcano in Tanzania and the only active carbonate volcano in the world. Oldoinyo Lengai comes from the Maasai language Maa meaning Mountain of God. They believe their god who granted them the ownership of all cattle in the world has resided in the active volcano. Maasai believe that sacrifices of cattle and goats done near the mountain will bring rains or help cure ailing relatives. The Maasai are pastoralist and known to be fierce warriors whom would not succumb to slavery or western ideals and culture, still to this day many still wear traditional robes draped over their shoulders and only feed almost exclusively off their cattle. The volcano lies just outside the Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area and south of Lake Natron which is the largest breeding ground in the world for the pink flamingo. This area is part of a much larger Maasai Steppe, a region that is among the most extensive of any Tanzanian tribe. The drive out to our camp ground near Lake Natron was through the most desolate, dry, dusty, barren land I have ever witnessed. In 100 degree temperatures we drove in dust pools which took control of our Land Cruiser like two feet snow drifts, and kicking up a tail feather of dust that went on for hundreds of yards past the car. With no sign of water and land that was well over grazed it was remarkable we past any inhabitants. Before arriving to our campsite we passed three gates constructed by Maasai to enforce a toll for passing. It was absurd to have to pay a toll at these homemade gates on a road that isn’t maintained but when a six and half foot African with a spear and sword asks you to pay a toll, you pay the man.
We stayed a few days at Lake Natron, spent time haggling with the locals, watching jackals chase flamingoes and hike to waterfalls. Our most important task was to climb Oldoinyo Lengai it took a long time to find our guide Li who was willing to climb the volcano with us, he seamed to have the traits we were looking for; young and full of vigor. We would start our hike at 1:00 a.m. in the morning to make our summit by sunrise, and to beat the heat of the day. The volcano proved to be the hardest five hour hike I have ever done due to the loose volcanic ash footing, the severe slop, and lack of a trail to the top. The Volcano last erupted in 1998 and the landscape of hardened lava flows was a transparent reminder we were hiking on a very active volcano. After testing our tenacity we arrived at the calderas rim, and there was no mistaking the lapse in judgment I had made in wanting to climb Oldoinyo Lengai. The ominous steady noise of the boiling rock, smoke, and the orange glow of lava made me feel vulnerable beyond my comfort level. After taking in the great spectacle of an active volcano from its caldera and a few pictures I was exited to begin my journey as far away as possible. It was much like a colonoscopy; glad to have it out of the way and done with but never wanting to go back.
After arriving back to camp and a safe distance from the volcano we packed up the car with our Maasai trinkets and were hurried to get somewhere where the dust didn’t infiltrate every space of our belongings and our body. The next stop was a camp site Mto wa Mbu to clean-up, swim, and mingle with cute American tourist, I love American women. While at dinner in Mto wa Mbu Nathan and I were enjoying a beer while we waited for our 1.5 kg of grilled goat when a mob of Tanzanians started walking down the street. Nathan and I both gave each other the look of, ‘are you ready to run!’ I started asking people what was going and why were all these people gathered. The story we got was that a man walked onto someone’s farm and stole a bunch of bananas from its vine ($5 value) and was caught and his leg was chopped off! The mob was carrying him to try and get him to the hospital in Arusha; I would be surprised if he survived the night. Another reminder that the mob rules in Africa; no one has faith in the systems of government here.
Mount Meru the second highest peak in Tanzania was our next objective. After stocking up in Arusha for backpacking supplies we made our way to the Arusha National park gate, where we were able to find a camp site just out side the park. Colobus Camp Site which by our luck on the evening of our arrival was surrounded by a family of feeding giraffes.
We arrived early the next morning at Arusha National Park headquarters to pay are only national park fees of our trip. We drove around the fabled park where John Wayne’s Hatari was shot before we headed to the trailhead and parking lot for Mount Meru where we would acquire our armed ranger for our trek to the summit of Meru. We had our trek scheduled for a three day trip with the last day being our summit attempt and descent back to the trailhead; we were highly discouraged by the park employees for restricting our hike to three days and not hiring porters for our bags but as Coloradoans and experienced hikers we felt up to the task. The first day was a four hour hike through woodlands where we saw duikers, bush bucks, and water buffalo which is really a unique experience at Meru because most safaris you are restricted to your cars so having the intimate experience of seeing African wildlife by foot was fantastic. On our hike to the first hut we had passed a 4x4 on the trail that was bringing down an exhausted hiker who tried to do the hike in three days. The driver was joking with our guide after he found out we were trying to summit in three days, that he would be back to pick us up for rescue in two days; now the pressure was on. At each of the camps we stayed at they had well maintained huts for us to stay in which was virtually vacant other than one other couple from Holland. The second day to Saddle Hut was a hike that was to be along a ridge of the crater and much steeper than the previous day. We kept passing lots of signs of elephants in the forest but didn’t ever get a chance to see one from the trail. The best animal sighting of our trip occurred this day as we walked up a side of a ravine and just on the other side a hundred yards off stood a very large male bush buck. It was a great sighting because of the size of the male and how he appeared in the only opening of brush on the opposite side of the ravine and we stood there together trading glance for unforgettable moments of time. Saddle Hut provided our first views of Kilimanjaro and our staging point for our summit attempt.
We planned our departure on the fact that we wanted to be on top of Meru in time to see the sunrise and careful not to arrive too soon such that we would have to wait at the summit in the freezing temperatures at 14,980 feet. We left at about 2:30 a.m. for our hike. It proved to be a beautiful night with plenty of stars in the sky we hiked with the aid of our head lamps. This being the third peak of our trip Nathan and I had our pace in sync and we were covering a lot of ground passing the only another group who had left an hour and a half before us. The summit proved to be very cold, even after climbing Kilimanjaro the previous year and experienced with the high altitude climate in Tanzania I was still under dressed for the frigid temperatures. We arrived at the summit, Socialist Peak just in time for the great show that Mother Nature had in store for us. It was a beautiful site to be above the clouds and to see the sun rise up from behind Kilimanjaro and the extensive pallet of colors that she used in the sky that morning was out of this world.
We enjoyed our time on the summit as long as we could before we had to start moving to get our blood flowing. We hiked back to Saddle Hut to grab our packs and make the rest of the descent to the trail head. The descent was uneventful other than passing a few buffalo, wart hogs and another group on the way up and by chance one of the porters in the group happened to be our assistant guide on Kilimanjaro Sam.
After our hike we loaded up into the car and made our way to Moshi to stay with a friend of Nathan’s. That night we cheered to a fantastic trip and I relearned the healing powers of beer on aching bones and muscles, works every time.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
New Years onZanibar
My good friend and fellow volunteer Albert had reserved 16 rooms at a Pemba resort for three nights on the northern coast of Zanzibar for the New Year and forty-some close friends planned on spending days sipping on sugar and alcohol filled drinks and bringing in the New Year on Zanzibar, it sounds good right? New Years on Zanzibar.
Sorry mom and dad I didn’t bring a camera and most my stories…well… I don’t want to bore you so, I best feel a picture will describe my experience on Zanzibar.
After our stay on Zanzibar it was back to the main land of Tanzania and we had a week conference in Dar es Salaam for our Mid Service Conference and medical check up. The conference was a lot of fun to see and exchange remarkable stories with all the volunteers I trained with in September, October, and November of 2007 many of whom I hadn’t seen since our training. It was also nice to get a full check up from our Peace Corps medical unit; it’s always good to know your running on all cylinders.
The best part of the conference was the place we stayed at right outside the city-center of Dar es Salaam. It was a hotel/camp site with full bath facilities, camp sites, wood huts with a bed, bar, and a beach on the Indian Ocean. The resort had just changed management a year ago to a newly wed couple from Zambia/Peru; they had friends staying there that week for the holidays and a wedding from Zambia, South Africa, Czech, Tanzania, Namibia, and England. So the week was spent sharing good stories, games of cricket on the beach, company, and cuisine with people just as diverse as the places they call home from Professional African Hunters to people operating non-government organizations. It was a serendipitous joining of star crossed friends, which made me, redefined what it means to be truly welcoming and cordial. After our conference in Dar es Salaam and a memorable going away party from the people at our hotel, it was back to Mzumbe with time to start preparing for the new school year.
School has since started, a week behind schedule do to food not being delivered to our school cafeteria. It seams the problem is solved for now… This year I am teaching form III Math, a much easier syllabus to teach than my A level students but I do enjoy the students more. I am looking forward to working with my students this next year and still can’t believe that I am on my downward side of my two years here. Am I going to be ready to leave in November?
Sorry mom and dad I didn’t bring a camera and most my stories…well… I don’t want to bore you so, I best feel a picture will describe my experience on Zanzibar.
After our stay on Zanzibar it was back to the main land of Tanzania and we had a week conference in Dar es Salaam for our Mid Service Conference and medical check up. The conference was a lot of fun to see and exchange remarkable stories with all the volunteers I trained with in September, October, and November of 2007 many of whom I hadn’t seen since our training. It was also nice to get a full check up from our Peace Corps medical unit; it’s always good to know your running on all cylinders.
The best part of the conference was the place we stayed at right outside the city-center of Dar es Salaam. It was a hotel/camp site with full bath facilities, camp sites, wood huts with a bed, bar, and a beach on the Indian Ocean. The resort had just changed management a year ago to a newly wed couple from Zambia/Peru; they had friends staying there that week for the holidays and a wedding from Zambia, South Africa, Czech, Tanzania, Namibia, and England. So the week was spent sharing good stories, games of cricket on the beach, company, and cuisine with people just as diverse as the places they call home from Professional African Hunters to people operating non-government organizations. It was a serendipitous joining of star crossed friends, which made me, redefined what it means to be truly welcoming and cordial. After our conference in Dar es Salaam and a memorable going away party from the people at our hotel, it was back to Mzumbe with time to start preparing for the new school year.
School has since started, a week behind schedule do to food not being delivered to our school cafeteria. It seams the problem is solved for now… This year I am teaching form III Math, a much easier syllabus to teach than my A level students but I do enjoy the students more. I am looking forward to working with my students this next year and still can’t believe that I am on my downward side of my two years here. Am I going to be ready to leave in November?
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Tubing Mgeta River
Have you done this before? Have you seen it done before? These are the questions I get when the topic of tubing to Mgeta come up. Have you heard anyone that has done this? Have you ever seen the river? Can you swim? Do you know you could possibly fail?
Yes, it was the answer to the last question that made me reply regardless of the question, I don’t know; but I am going to try.
The story really starts a few months earlier on a failed attempt to visit a water fall near Bunduki village. The road from Mgeta to Bunduki is in the Mgeta River valley in the Uluguru Mountains and flows down hill to Mgeta. Walking the road you are always with in a few hundred yards of the river, and I remember looking from the road and remembering my Poudre River tubing days in Colorado and said “that river looks like a tube could float down it.” So the idea was born, and when my visitor for Christmas were eager to explore the Ulugurus the first thing in my mind to do was Mgeta River tubing.
After many of the guest (the smart ones) had departed my home either to go back home or continued travel; four of us Bev, Sarah, Matt, and I left for the Bunduki and Mgeta River, on the other side of the mountain from my home in Mzumbe. Day one we left my house and for the first hour we walked through fields of hand planted corn and cassava trees. After crossing a small stream at a field of bee hives kept by locals for their o’so sweet golden honey we started up an old no-longer-passable road through a series of small farms. After another hour we entered an enchanted mountain side known as Mongwe, which is a village/mountain community that exist and prosper because of their ‘banana tree forest’ that has been planted in place of the natural vegetation that thrives because of the high mountain tops of the Ulugurus receive more rain fall then the plains. The people in the community greet us and love all these white people that speak Swahili and are visiting their community, for the next two hours of walking through the mountain side maze of walk ways through Mongwe escorted by the 20 dirt covered self appointed miniature tour guides. As we left Mongwe we reached the main ridge separating Mzumbe and Bunduki our destination, at the top is tundra like bolder field with large rock faces shooting up to the sky. Most of my times on this pass it’s been engulfed in clouds and your visibility is limited but not this day, it was a clear hot Tanzania day where we could look out onto the savanna as far as the eye could see and not a cloud in the sky which made for breath taking views. As we skirted around this ridge and proceeded to climb up we came across a dozen peach trees, ripe with fruit! I had passed these trees never before knowing they were peach trees and now five hours into our hike these peaches are natures candy bar and the answer to our bodies’ craving for sugar. This hike makes all of us marvel at the notion that the Uluguru people live her everyday and carry everything they need on and off this mountain on there heads, and choose to live on the side of a mountain. A life style appreciated over time by some of God’s hardest working and toughest people.
After reaching our high point we started our two hour descent into Bunduki Village and for the first time the group as a whole was able to see Mgeta River, the consensus was it looked floatable but first we had to find lodging in Bunduki, food, and a way to pump four Land Rover inner tubes up to float down the river. Walking into village among many looks from the local villagers as the four white people who just strolled down their mountain with a bucket and four inner tubes slung around their shoulders looking for a place to sleep and beans and rice. We avoided questions about the inner tubes through the night not to shock the locals too much so they would not put us up for the evening. We stayed at a local grandmother’s little shop in the back among corn and the rats, it was nice. What can you expect? Bunduki never has visitors, but we will all agree they were great host and cooked a great delicious dinner for us of ugali, spinach, and eggs which the taste was complimented with a spoonful of hunger which is always the best spice for a late well deserved dinner.
The next morning Matt and I were in search of a bike pump to pump up our inner tubes, with the help of a young lad we got our tubes inflated. By now we had lots of attention from the locals as today was Sunday, great day for God and for a drink. The local bar/benches with a large drum of home made corn wine was busy that day and they couldn’t believe what we were attempting to do and the effort we did to come and swim in their river. My travel mates were finally set assured that there were no snakes or crocodiles in the river by the local people, apparently my word on the matter was not good enough; I told them it was too cold for them in the river but they didn’t believe me. By 11 o’clock we were off down the river, four tubes and one dry bucket bungeed to my inner tube and we were entering the unknown. I have to admit I felt like we had just ported through Brazil and now was floating down a undiscovered tributary of the Amazon, it was cool and for the first two hours it was a blast of small rapids and long lazy stretches of snaking down the river on a inner tube a good time and smiles all around. But like all adventures things don’t always go as planned, the river ahead started to make a low thunderous roar and the river began to pick up speed, Matt yells from behind me “maybe we should’ve walked up the river first to check out the rapids.”
I reply “Matt that sounds like that would have been a good idea.” As the deemed water ox of the group I took the rapids first and guided people from down river where to go and where to avoid large rocks. As I approached a bridge made by the local villagers I could tell by the terrain that we had to portage as the elevation began to drop and the roar of the river was louder than before. I was warning everyone up river to stop and get out their tubes as we had to get out and walk around this section of river. All was fine until my little Korean American friend was stuck in her tub and could not stop her self so I grabbed her tube and got her stopped, but in the skirmish I lost my footing in the fast current and her momentum collided with me, I was off down the river head first on my tube! After a couple four to five foot waterfalls a lost hat and lost sandal I was able to grab on to a fallen tree and to pull my-self out of the water. I only lost my lucky hat I had had it since high school, and a few bumps and bruises. It was all worth it because I gave the thirty something villagers something to talk about who were on they way back home crossing the bridge and watching these white people struggle in the river like we were seals playing in the water exhibit at the zoo and they were studying marveling at our strange behavior and asking themselves why, and wondering when the next show would begin?
It wasn’t until after three or four more portages and a few more bumps and bruises that we started to ask our selves why too. I was tenacious and not willing to give up on our goal of floating to Mgeta village, but the rest of the group thought the road a safer and warmer passage. So after pulling up my boot straps up and admitting remedial defeat on our adventure, we were out of the river and walking the road to Mgeta where there lived another Peace Corps volunteer who would be willing to put us up and feed us. Although we didn’t make it to our final destination floating on the tube we still arrived in Mgeta that evening and jumped off the 10 meter high bridge that spanned the Mgeta River, a nice bath at the end of a long day. The trip was concluded as a big success and a lot of fun stories to be told on our next adventure on Zanzibar and I with the newly titled nickname Water Ox; which I fear will stick for the duration of my time in Tanzania.
After returning back to Mzumbe and a day of rest and laundry we were off to the beach. New Years on Zanzibar, it just sounds good, I like saying it “New Years on Zanzibar.”
Yes, it was the answer to the last question that made me reply regardless of the question, I don’t know; but I am going to try.
The story really starts a few months earlier on a failed attempt to visit a water fall near Bunduki village. The road from Mgeta to Bunduki is in the Mgeta River valley in the Uluguru Mountains and flows down hill to Mgeta. Walking the road you are always with in a few hundred yards of the river, and I remember looking from the road and remembering my Poudre River tubing days in Colorado and said “that river looks like a tube could float down it.” So the idea was born, and when my visitor for Christmas were eager to explore the Ulugurus the first thing in my mind to do was Mgeta River tubing.
After many of the guest (the smart ones) had departed my home either to go back home or continued travel; four of us Bev, Sarah, Matt, and I left for the Bunduki and Mgeta River, on the other side of the mountain from my home in Mzumbe. Day one we left my house and for the first hour we walked through fields of hand planted corn and cassava trees. After crossing a small stream at a field of bee hives kept by locals for their o’so sweet golden honey we started up an old no-longer-passable road through a series of small farms. After another hour we entered an enchanted mountain side known as Mongwe, which is a village/mountain community that exist and prosper because of their ‘banana tree forest’ that has been planted in place of the natural vegetation that thrives because of the high mountain tops of the Ulugurus receive more rain fall then the plains. The people in the community greet us and love all these white people that speak Swahili and are visiting their community, for the next two hours of walking through the mountain side maze of walk ways through Mongwe escorted by the 20 dirt covered self appointed miniature tour guides. As we left Mongwe we reached the main ridge separating Mzumbe and Bunduki our destination, at the top is tundra like bolder field with large rock faces shooting up to the sky. Most of my times on this pass it’s been engulfed in clouds and your visibility is limited but not this day, it was a clear hot Tanzania day where we could look out onto the savanna as far as the eye could see and not a cloud in the sky which made for breath taking views. As we skirted around this ridge and proceeded to climb up we came across a dozen peach trees, ripe with fruit! I had passed these trees never before knowing they were peach trees and now five hours into our hike these peaches are natures candy bar and the answer to our bodies’ craving for sugar. This hike makes all of us marvel at the notion that the Uluguru people live her everyday and carry everything they need on and off this mountain on there heads, and choose to live on the side of a mountain. A life style appreciated over time by some of God’s hardest working and toughest people.
After reaching our high point we started our two hour descent into Bunduki Village and for the first time the group as a whole was able to see Mgeta River, the consensus was it looked floatable but first we had to find lodging in Bunduki, food, and a way to pump four Land Rover inner tubes up to float down the river. Walking into village among many looks from the local villagers as the four white people who just strolled down their mountain with a bucket and four inner tubes slung around their shoulders looking for a place to sleep and beans and rice. We avoided questions about the inner tubes through the night not to shock the locals too much so they would not put us up for the evening. We stayed at a local grandmother’s little shop in the back among corn and the rats, it was nice. What can you expect? Bunduki never has visitors, but we will all agree they were great host and cooked a great delicious dinner for us of ugali, spinach, and eggs which the taste was complimented with a spoonful of hunger which is always the best spice for a late well deserved dinner.
The next morning Matt and I were in search of a bike pump to pump up our inner tubes, with the help of a young lad we got our tubes inflated. By now we had lots of attention from the locals as today was Sunday, great day for God and for a drink. The local bar/benches with a large drum of home made corn wine was busy that day and they couldn’t believe what we were attempting to do and the effort we did to come and swim in their river. My travel mates were finally set assured that there were no snakes or crocodiles in the river by the local people, apparently my word on the matter was not good enough; I told them it was too cold for them in the river but they didn’t believe me. By 11 o’clock we were off down the river, four tubes and one dry bucket bungeed to my inner tube and we were entering the unknown. I have to admit I felt like we had just ported through Brazil and now was floating down a undiscovered tributary of the Amazon, it was cool and for the first two hours it was a blast of small rapids and long lazy stretches of snaking down the river on a inner tube a good time and smiles all around. But like all adventures things don’t always go as planned, the river ahead started to make a low thunderous roar and the river began to pick up speed, Matt yells from behind me “maybe we should’ve walked up the river first to check out the rapids.”
I reply “Matt that sounds like that would have been a good idea.” As the deemed water ox of the group I took the rapids first and guided people from down river where to go and where to avoid large rocks. As I approached a bridge made by the local villagers I could tell by the terrain that we had to portage as the elevation began to drop and the roar of the river was louder than before. I was warning everyone up river to stop and get out their tubes as we had to get out and walk around this section of river. All was fine until my little Korean American friend was stuck in her tub and could not stop her self so I grabbed her tube and got her stopped, but in the skirmish I lost my footing in the fast current and her momentum collided with me, I was off down the river head first on my tube! After a couple four to five foot waterfalls a lost hat and lost sandal I was able to grab on to a fallen tree and to pull my-self out of the water. I only lost my lucky hat I had had it since high school, and a few bumps and bruises. It was all worth it because I gave the thirty something villagers something to talk about who were on they way back home crossing the bridge and watching these white people struggle in the river like we were seals playing in the water exhibit at the zoo and they were studying marveling at our strange behavior and asking themselves why, and wondering when the next show would begin?
It wasn’t until after three or four more portages and a few more bumps and bruises that we started to ask our selves why too. I was tenacious and not willing to give up on our goal of floating to Mgeta village, but the rest of the group thought the road a safer and warmer passage. So after pulling up my boot straps up and admitting remedial defeat on our adventure, we were out of the river and walking the road to Mgeta where there lived another Peace Corps volunteer who would be willing to put us up and feed us. Although we didn’t make it to our final destination floating on the tube we still arrived in Mgeta that evening and jumped off the 10 meter high bridge that spanned the Mgeta River, a nice bath at the end of a long day. The trip was concluded as a big success and a lot of fun stories to be told on our next adventure on Zanzibar and I with the newly titled nickname Water Ox; which I fear will stick for the duration of my time in Tanzania.
After returning back to Mzumbe and a day of rest and laundry we were off to the beach. New Years on Zanzibar, it just sounds good, I like saying it “New Years on Zanzibar.”
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Christmas Turkey
December in any Christian community I think is hectic with more people traveling and markets bustling with holiday shoppers after a fruitful harvest. It’s especially chaotic when it coincides with the break for most school aged children, and a month of heavy tourism in Tanzania. For many Peace Corps volunteers who teach at secondary schools it is also a time for much needed breaks from our villages and a chance to recharge our relationships with fellow volunteers. The plan as of September was to have Christmas at my house in Mzumbe. I had arranged a teacher friend of mine who raised turkeys to raise a turkey for our Christmas dinner, with instructions to feed it well and make it fat. White elephant gifts were arranged and a bottle of Canada’s finest whiskey held in reserve for the occasion.
Matt from my training group arrived first he had just come from Dar es Salaam he had dropped his mother and his uncle off at the airport; they had come to visit Matt and do a Safari. So days before the other guest would arrive Matt and I where on task mode; we had a turkey to kill and cook, food and drinks to arrange, and a tubing trip to plan (keep reading). We had a great time reminiscing with people from training, running around the bureaucratic halls of the Tanzanian Forestry Department in search of permits…only to be swindled, hiking the mountains, testing local beverages, and biking the never ending dirt roads of Africa. We had a good time…
When Christmas day came and the arrival of the other party guest Matt and I had completed our entire task list except for one: Turkey. As far as cooking the turkey went deep-frying was the choice most liked by the group, and it sounded like an adventure to me. There is something about the possibility of failure in an adventure that I love, to prove the naysayer wrong. Deep frying a 10 kg turkey (that we had spent $50 for because Turkeys are rear here in Africa), 15 liters of hot flammable oil, a open charcoal flame, all to be done by Americans who had never fried a turkey before; ya this has failure written all over it I am so in! The only rule of the day was no beer until the turkey is out of the oil, I have seen one too many flaming Texans on U-tube to know better; “Hey ya’ll hold my beer and watch this?”
The turkey was paid for and would be picked up Christmas morning…of course mom it was after we went to the sunrise church service. So at nine in the morning we had a large live turkey at our Christmas feast so step one: live turkey + sacrifice = delicious food. People where most curious about the sacrifice in this equation. Only three willing to take part in the sacrifice the others had their own task, film and photo crew. I being the good host that I am and I couldn’t ask any of my dinner guests to kill the turkey so the blade was in my hands. I made quick work of it and was complimented on my surgical like knife skills while preparing and butchering the turkey for the fryer, thanks dad for all the red-blooded American service learning field experience. My neighbor Edward was tickled pink to have turkey gizzards, legs, and intestines for Christmas dinner as was I to get rid of them. I borrowed a industrial size charcoal stove made out of a old car wheel and a large pot from my secondary school, the missionary couple was graceful enough to deliver us 20 liters of vegetable oil, and Matt and I rigged up a pulley system to lift and lower the turkey into the oil and a wire basket to cook the wings and thighs. The turkey had to be cooked in two portions torso/wings and thighs in the basket; because Wikipidia said that any turkey over 10 pounds is best fried in two parts. After four hours of fanning flames, balancing pots of hot oil on rocks, checking the turkey with the pulley system and meat thermometer, and making sure no one died. The turkey was deliciously cooked and served around five o’clock and I got to enjoy the first well deserved beer of the day and the most satisfying turkey I had ever eaten before. And for all the fixings I have to thank my great partners in crime in the great Christmas feast that cooked it all from stuffing down to the cheese cake! Everything was delicious and best of all we had a community of good friends and relationships that were made from unlikely cultures and personalities.
Recovering from our gluttonous holiday weekend it was time to get to business. I real adventure, not none of this prissy cooking stuff. It was time to go tubing.
Matt from my training group arrived first he had just come from Dar es Salaam he had dropped his mother and his uncle off at the airport; they had come to visit Matt and do a Safari. So days before the other guest would arrive Matt and I where on task mode; we had a turkey to kill and cook, food and drinks to arrange, and a tubing trip to plan (keep reading). We had a great time reminiscing with people from training, running around the bureaucratic halls of the Tanzanian Forestry Department in search of permits…only to be swindled, hiking the mountains, testing local beverages, and biking the never ending dirt roads of Africa. We had a good time…
When Christmas day came and the arrival of the other party guest Matt and I had completed our entire task list except for one: Turkey. As far as cooking the turkey went deep-frying was the choice most liked by the group, and it sounded like an adventure to me. There is something about the possibility of failure in an adventure that I love, to prove the naysayer wrong. Deep frying a 10 kg turkey (that we had spent $50 for because Turkeys are rear here in Africa), 15 liters of hot flammable oil, a open charcoal flame, all to be done by Americans who had never fried a turkey before; ya this has failure written all over it I am so in! The only rule of the day was no beer until the turkey is out of the oil, I have seen one too many flaming Texans on U-tube to know better; “Hey ya’ll hold my beer and watch this?”
The turkey was paid for and would be picked up Christmas morning…of course mom it was after we went to the sunrise church service. So at nine in the morning we had a large live turkey at our Christmas feast so step one: live turkey + sacrifice = delicious food. People where most curious about the sacrifice in this equation. Only three willing to take part in the sacrifice the others had their own task, film and photo crew. I being the good host that I am and I couldn’t ask any of my dinner guests to kill the turkey so the blade was in my hands. I made quick work of it and was complimented on my surgical like knife skills while preparing and butchering the turkey for the fryer, thanks dad for all the red-blooded American service learning field experience. My neighbor Edward was tickled pink to have turkey gizzards, legs, and intestines for Christmas dinner as was I to get rid of them. I borrowed a industrial size charcoal stove made out of a old car wheel and a large pot from my secondary school, the missionary couple was graceful enough to deliver us 20 liters of vegetable oil, and Matt and I rigged up a pulley system to lift and lower the turkey into the oil and a wire basket to cook the wings and thighs. The turkey had to be cooked in two portions torso/wings and thighs in the basket; because Wikipidia said that any turkey over 10 pounds is best fried in two parts. After four hours of fanning flames, balancing pots of hot oil on rocks, checking the turkey with the pulley system and meat thermometer, and making sure no one died. The turkey was deliciously cooked and served around five o’clock and I got to enjoy the first well deserved beer of the day and the most satisfying turkey I had ever eaten before. And for all the fixings I have to thank my great partners in crime in the great Christmas feast that cooked it all from stuffing down to the cheese cake! Everything was delicious and best of all we had a community of good friends and relationships that were made from unlikely cultures and personalities.
Recovering from our gluttonous holiday weekend it was time to get to business. I real adventure, not none of this prissy cooking stuff. It was time to go tubing.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Rungwe Mountain
Since the last update the incoming class of Peace Corps Trainees has finished their training and has been placed as volunteers at their respective sites. A new volunteer was placed near me as a site mate for me at another secondary school in the Uluguru Mountains. She has already decided to return back to America, “It wasn’t what I expected.” I was disappointed when I found out her decision to return before she started teaching but was not taken back.
November I made a trip to the Southern Highlands of Tanzania to work with a fellow Peace Corps Teacher and his students to map a trail from their school Rungwe Secondary School to Rungwe Mountain Peak. I left on a Friday morning and boarded a bus to Mozambique. Before arriving at the boarder of Tanzania/Mozambique I got off the bus at a village where the road to Rungwe began. After meeting up with the other volunteer and his mountain club we had a nice dinner and left for the Rungwe Mountain Peak at 10 p.m. Before I go on I want to preference this story that I was ill prepared for this trip too few clothing and not enough water, two things I should know better coming from Colorado…I feel shame. The night was perfect with no clouds and the stars painted the entire sky, half hour into our hike we saw the biggest of which we would see three, shooting stars. The first shooting star was the biggest one I have seen to date, we saw it shoot across the sky and slowly burn out into the darkness and it was amazing. The hike that night was four hours to the lower tree line of the mountain where the students built two campfires to keep warm until first light. At first light we made the last hour to Rungwe Mountain Peak, Rungwe Mountain is a dormant volcano with a large crater at the top. The crater was the former top of the volcano but now is the size of four football fields, which made for a great piece of land to play Frisbee. The crater was a lot of fun to play in and take a short nap in but the hour down navigating the steep ridge was a sign of the work it would take to climb out of the crater. By now it had been fourteen hours into our hike and I had started to become low on drinking water and the two hour hike out of the crater in the African heat was making me curios; why is it that humans find joy in making themselves suffer? From the summit of Rungwe to the next available water source was four hours back down the mountain, when we arrived at the stream I had never drunken so much untreated water in my life…ever. I am happy to say that I didn’t suffer any major illnesses despite my efforts of drinking liters of untreated water and the handfuls of wild raspberries we ate on our way down. Arriving back at Rungwe School was very sweet it had been 36 hours since I left my home in Morogoro on a bus and then proceeded to climb a mountain; the only sleep during this time came while upright on the bus and a calm nap in the crater of a dormant volcano. The first shooting star we saw that night proved to be a good omen for the trip!
After the trip to the southern highlands it was back at school to wrap up the finale term before the New Year. I was engulfed with work at school as the term came to an end with the preparation of exams, administering of exams, marking exams, getting finale grades together and filling score cards and parent reports out to mailed before we were to be released for our term break.
November I made a trip to the Southern Highlands of Tanzania to work with a fellow Peace Corps Teacher and his students to map a trail from their school Rungwe Secondary School to Rungwe Mountain Peak. I left on a Friday morning and boarded a bus to Mozambique. Before arriving at the boarder of Tanzania/Mozambique I got off the bus at a village where the road to Rungwe began. After meeting up with the other volunteer and his mountain club we had a nice dinner and left for the Rungwe Mountain Peak at 10 p.m. Before I go on I want to preference this story that I was ill prepared for this trip too few clothing and not enough water, two things I should know better coming from Colorado…I feel shame. The night was perfect with no clouds and the stars painted the entire sky, half hour into our hike we saw the biggest of which we would see three, shooting stars. The first shooting star was the biggest one I have seen to date, we saw it shoot across the sky and slowly burn out into the darkness and it was amazing. The hike that night was four hours to the lower tree line of the mountain where the students built two campfires to keep warm until first light. At first light we made the last hour to Rungwe Mountain Peak, Rungwe Mountain is a dormant volcano with a large crater at the top. The crater was the former top of the volcano but now is the size of four football fields, which made for a great piece of land to play Frisbee. The crater was a lot of fun to play in and take a short nap in but the hour down navigating the steep ridge was a sign of the work it would take to climb out of the crater. By now it had been fourteen hours into our hike and I had started to become low on drinking water and the two hour hike out of the crater in the African heat was making me curios; why is it that humans find joy in making themselves suffer? From the summit of Rungwe to the next available water source was four hours back down the mountain, when we arrived at the stream I had never drunken so much untreated water in my life…ever. I am happy to say that I didn’t suffer any major illnesses despite my efforts of drinking liters of untreated water and the handfuls of wild raspberries we ate on our way down. Arriving back at Rungwe School was very sweet it had been 36 hours since I left my home in Morogoro on a bus and then proceeded to climb a mountain; the only sleep during this time came while upright on the bus and a calm nap in the crater of a dormant volcano. The first shooting star we saw that night proved to be a good omen for the trip!
After the trip to the southern highlands it was back at school to wrap up the finale term before the New Year. I was engulfed with work at school as the term came to an end with the preparation of exams, administering of exams, marking exams, getting finale grades together and filling score cards and parent reports out to mailed before we were to be released for our term break.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
It's a Baby Girl!
Tanzania spring has sprung and things have been heating up around here. I have been busy helping to prepare for the new volunteers coming in to teach here in Tanzania and best of all officially marking a full year living in Tanzania. 33 new volunteers arrived in the evening of September 19th in Dar es Salaam after 24+ hours of traveling and ready to start their two year journey teaching in Tanzania. They didn’t come empty handed they arrived with a ton of luggage and hundreds of question, and me and two other seasoned volunteers welcomed them in Dar es Salaam and stayed up answering their questions and reassuring them they made the right decision to come to East Africa to teach Math and Science. For me it was a great way to mark my first anniversary of arriving in country and a reminder of how clueless I was getting into this experience and now how I am transformed as a veteran volunteer here in Tanzania. I spent the next five days with the volunteers while they stayed in Dar es Salaam and then took their bus trip to Morogoro, their new home for the next three months and my home for the last year. I was around during their training sessions held by the staff to help interject personal experience and the point of view from a volunteer, my only request of the Peace Corps staff while there was “don’t scare the new volunteers!” I think I succeeded; no one has packed their bags and returned home yet. While in Morogoro I held training sessions on what to prepare for at the Homestay Families that they would be living with the next three months, a session on the town and community of Morogoro with a walk around of town in small groups. The session on Morogoro gave me a new sense of pride of my home community and a reminder of how beautiful it is around here. There is nothing like adding a boost to my moral by looking through the lenses of new enthusiastic volunteers. The training experience has helped in looking back and reflecting on how much I have accomplished in the last year; from my Swahili, cultural integration, working in a Tanzanian school, and just to be able to be comfortable in the community and to feel like ‘welcome to My town Morogoro’.
The overall experience of helping with the new volunteers has been great and a great way to surge forward to the next year. The only down side was the time away from my school Mzumbe, three days spent preparing for the new volunteers with the training staff and the five days with the volunteers. I have been able to get back to site and been busy at school as well.
My neighbor and best friend here at Mzumbe Remy Mpagama have been expecting his first child with his wife Mary. Last week was week 38 of her pregnancy and I had left her and the unborn baby with strict instruction to wait for labor until I was back from my training duties with the new volunteers, we had a good laugh. Two days after returning back to Mzumbe I was over at their home enjoying dinner and Mary was having pains and felt that the time was to be very soon. That night at one in the evening Remy and his wife went to the dispensary at the Mzumbe University where they were referred to the regional hospital in Morogoro and were given a lift with the university’s ambulance. At five in the morning Remy came and knocked on my window and informed me that Mary was at the hospital and the baby was coming. I got dressed quickly and Remy and I jumped on a daladala into town. On the way there we got in accident, our daladala and another daladala got to close to each other at an intersection and hit/scraped each other as we passed. After the drivers got out and decided they were both at fault and no major damages, we were back on our way. Our first stop in town was to the bank so Remy could have money to pay for the hospital bills. But the bank employees had been on strike for the last two days and this was the first day they had been open that week so as we arrived the line for the bank was 50 meters long. Remy’s uncle met us there and held a spot in line as we went to the hospital to check up on Mary. Mary was having complication and it was hard to get a doctor to come and look at here for a diagnosis. I have two South Korean friends who are volunteers at the hospital one a nurse, and another is a doctor. I was able to get a hold of them and with in ten minutes they were both there helping Mary and finding out what was going on, and finding the doctor that was suppose to be helping. They were great! I felt guilty getting special treatment for Remy and Mary just because of whom I knew and being a foreigner, but it’s good to have friends in high places especially when getting treated at a public hospital in Africa. We found out she was having an enema and lost a lot of blood and needed a blood transfusion before she could give birth. There is not blood bank at the hospital and the nearest Red Cross blood bank could take a while to get the blood we needed. Next best thing to a blood bank is a school full of students who would love a free ride to town and a free lunch. Four students with O+ blood and a teacher escort made their way to the hospital. When they arrived and the technician who was taking blood asked if they had eaten that day, none of them had eaten a thing. So I ran with them down the street and bought them some food and they scarefed down the food and it was back to the hospital to give blood. The blood was taken and the transfusion started in a matter of an hour, I am not a blood expert but I can’t imagine too many test were conducted in that time before the blood transfusion was given. Mary was doing well but her contractions were not serious yet, so Remy and I went back to the bank to wait in line. After the bank we communicated with Mary to make sure things were well, and decided to go have some lunch. It was the first time he had eaten since the previous night and still hadn’t slept. We went back to the hospital and waited, men typically aren’t allowed in the pregnancy ward so Remy and I waited outside and a fellow female teacher kept running out side to give us updates every half-hour. At 7:30 PM September 24 Beatris Mpagam was born, 3 kg and healthy. It was a relief both mom and baby were healthy and we celebrated outside and Remy was on the phone calling everybody he knew. It was one of the longest days of my life, I was grateful to be there with my friend and a chance to experience the hospital system here.
It was great to see how our community at Mzumbe Secondary School came together to welcome a new addition to our family here. Not only the students for their blood but all the teachers who stopped by at the hospital that day, the phone calls, and arriving back home that night in a taxi honking the horn and people running to the car to congratulate Remy. Seeing how a community/tribe here rallies together for such an occasion was a great experience and provided a deeper understanding of how every community member owns situation of other community members and a great sense of unity.
The overall experience of helping with the new volunteers has been great and a great way to surge forward to the next year. The only down side was the time away from my school Mzumbe, three days spent preparing for the new volunteers with the training staff and the five days with the volunteers. I have been able to get back to site and been busy at school as well.
My neighbor and best friend here at Mzumbe Remy Mpagama have been expecting his first child with his wife Mary. Last week was week 38 of her pregnancy and I had left her and the unborn baby with strict instruction to wait for labor until I was back from my training duties with the new volunteers, we had a good laugh. Two days after returning back to Mzumbe I was over at their home enjoying dinner and Mary was having pains and felt that the time was to be very soon. That night at one in the evening Remy and his wife went to the dispensary at the Mzumbe University where they were referred to the regional hospital in Morogoro and were given a lift with the university’s ambulance. At five in the morning Remy came and knocked on my window and informed me that Mary was at the hospital and the baby was coming. I got dressed quickly and Remy and I jumped on a daladala into town. On the way there we got in accident, our daladala and another daladala got to close to each other at an intersection and hit/scraped each other as we passed. After the drivers got out and decided they were both at fault and no major damages, we were back on our way. Our first stop in town was to the bank so Remy could have money to pay for the hospital bills. But the bank employees had been on strike for the last two days and this was the first day they had been open that week so as we arrived the line for the bank was 50 meters long. Remy’s uncle met us there and held a spot in line as we went to the hospital to check up on Mary. Mary was having complication and it was hard to get a doctor to come and look at here for a diagnosis. I have two South Korean friends who are volunteers at the hospital one a nurse, and another is a doctor. I was able to get a hold of them and with in ten minutes they were both there helping Mary and finding out what was going on, and finding the doctor that was suppose to be helping. They were great! I felt guilty getting special treatment for Remy and Mary just because of whom I knew and being a foreigner, but it’s good to have friends in high places especially when getting treated at a public hospital in Africa. We found out she was having an enema and lost a lot of blood and needed a blood transfusion before she could give birth. There is not blood bank at the hospital and the nearest Red Cross blood bank could take a while to get the blood we needed. Next best thing to a blood bank is a school full of students who would love a free ride to town and a free lunch. Four students with O+ blood and a teacher escort made their way to the hospital. When they arrived and the technician who was taking blood asked if they had eaten that day, none of them had eaten a thing. So I ran with them down the street and bought them some food and they scarefed down the food and it was back to the hospital to give blood. The blood was taken and the transfusion started in a matter of an hour, I am not a blood expert but I can’t imagine too many test were conducted in that time before the blood transfusion was given. Mary was doing well but her contractions were not serious yet, so Remy and I went back to the bank to wait in line. After the bank we communicated with Mary to make sure things were well, and decided to go have some lunch. It was the first time he had eaten since the previous night and still hadn’t slept. We went back to the hospital and waited, men typically aren’t allowed in the pregnancy ward so Remy and I waited outside and a fellow female teacher kept running out side to give us updates every half-hour. At 7:30 PM September 24 Beatris Mpagam was born, 3 kg and healthy. It was a relief both mom and baby were healthy and we celebrated outside and Remy was on the phone calling everybody he knew. It was one of the longest days of my life, I was grateful to be there with my friend and a chance to experience the hospital system here.
It was great to see how our community at Mzumbe Secondary School came together to welcome a new addition to our family here. Not only the students for their blood but all the teachers who stopped by at the hospital that day, the phone calls, and arriving back home that night in a taxi honking the horn and people running to the car to congratulate Remy. Seeing how a community/tribe here rallies together for such an occasion was a great experience and provided a deeper understanding of how every community member owns situation of other community members and a great sense of unity.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Vacation in Paradise; Home of Nuclear Weapons, Global Warming, and Homosexuality
After my Kilimanjaro hike with my partner in crime Jeff he came and stayed at my home here at Mzumbe Secondary School. It was great to be able to have some one from home experience what my life is like here in Tanzania. We spent a lot of our time exploring the area on bicycles; we put a couple hundred miles on our bikes in a two week span. It was enjoyable showing him around and introducing him to my community, it gave me a new appreciation of the opportunity that I have here in Tanzania.
As Jeff left my house to visit the island of Zanzibar I boarded a plane bound for the great U.S of A. to be the best man in my brother’s wedding. After forty hours of single serving cuisine and crying babies I was back home in Colorado and looking out at my beautiful Rocky Mountains, around the people that mean the most to me.
It didn’t take long for me to dive into and enjoy the luxuries of the lifestyle in Colorado: clean water, time with friends and family, high-speed internet, grocery stores, walking my dogs in the mountains, riding a bike peacefully, and beer on tap. It was paradise! I have never experience the sensation of being on vacation at home, it was an anomaly. I knew I would go home after my experience in Tanzania and my perception of the world would change. Now I have come to recognize I love where I come from, even though it has its flaws and is not perfect it’s hard to beat. I suppose it is like the old cliché ‘the grass is always greener on the other side,’ it’s in our nature as humans not to appreciate what is right in front of us. It’s easy to sit and complain and nitpick at the flaws when we live with our comfortable lifestyle around us in the States with our health care system, public schools, country wide infrastructure, and a diverse economy. I know that each one of the preceding comforts any one of which you can get on a soapbox and dissect and point out the flaws but I think it’s important to sit back and think of how far we have come. A hundred years ago think of the state of the union in America and then here in Tanzania for instance; today Tanzania a hundred years later 80% of the population are still farming acres of land with a hoe and praying for rainfall. It only takes a single session of the evening news in the States to become very critical of the state of America and to start counting down to its possible demise, as a Tanzanian once told me “it’s because of Americans fast pace lives we have nuclear weapons, global warming and homosexuality.” I have to make sure I am transparent here; I have serious issues with that comment but it’s poetic in its context that such conclusions can be made if you let the media think for you and only look at things from the surface with an uneducated and critical view of the world.
A good dose of appreciation and optimism is important when being critical of the atmosphere in America and being conscience of our roots; it has been Americans unwillingness not to accept the current state and to believe with hard work there must be and is a better way.
Since I have returned to Tanzania I have been able to dive back into school. My first week back everyone was curious about my travels and wanted to know where their gifts from America were. I don’t think that I broke too many hearts and was able to get gifts for the important people around me here in Tanzania. This week I have been busy with being teacher on duty and working with other teachers grading exams for our school and other surrounding schools, we have been putting in nine hours a day grading exams. When a student asked me how I like grading, it gave me the perfect opportunity to give him the definition of the word tedious.
Another great advantage about going home was that I was able to meet up with an old teacher now colleague at Rocky Mountain High School. We were able to organize pen-pals for our students. Today my students finished there first letters and I hope to have them in the main soon, to say they are excited about the project is an understatement! It has already been a great way to open up dialog about teaching English and American Culture, and my hope is they will learn more about there own culture too. My only issue now is that I have students other than my own in the school asking for pen-pals their age; so if any one out there would like to write a student here at Mzumbe please let me know.
In the next couple of weeks the new group of education volunteers for Peace Corp will be arriving and am looking forward to meeting them, and being some what of a veteran volunteer for them. But more than that it will mark my first year here in Tanzania, I survived and still loving my time here!
As Jeff left my house to visit the island of Zanzibar I boarded a plane bound for the great U.S of A. to be the best man in my brother’s wedding. After forty hours of single serving cuisine and crying babies I was back home in Colorado and looking out at my beautiful Rocky Mountains, around the people that mean the most to me.
It didn’t take long for me to dive into and enjoy the luxuries of the lifestyle in Colorado: clean water, time with friends and family, high-speed internet, grocery stores, walking my dogs in the mountains, riding a bike peacefully, and beer on tap. It was paradise! I have never experience the sensation of being on vacation at home, it was an anomaly. I knew I would go home after my experience in Tanzania and my perception of the world would change. Now I have come to recognize I love where I come from, even though it has its flaws and is not perfect it’s hard to beat. I suppose it is like the old cliché ‘the grass is always greener on the other side,’ it’s in our nature as humans not to appreciate what is right in front of us. It’s easy to sit and complain and nitpick at the flaws when we live with our comfortable lifestyle around us in the States with our health care system, public schools, country wide infrastructure, and a diverse economy. I know that each one of the preceding comforts any one of which you can get on a soapbox and dissect and point out the flaws but I think it’s important to sit back and think of how far we have come. A hundred years ago think of the state of the union in America and then here in Tanzania for instance; today Tanzania a hundred years later 80% of the population are still farming acres of land with a hoe and praying for rainfall. It only takes a single session of the evening news in the States to become very critical of the state of America and to start counting down to its possible demise, as a Tanzanian once told me “it’s because of Americans fast pace lives we have nuclear weapons, global warming and homosexuality.” I have to make sure I am transparent here; I have serious issues with that comment but it’s poetic in its context that such conclusions can be made if you let the media think for you and only look at things from the surface with an uneducated and critical view of the world.
A good dose of appreciation and optimism is important when being critical of the atmosphere in America and being conscience of our roots; it has been Americans unwillingness not to accept the current state and to believe with hard work there must be and is a better way.
Since I have returned to Tanzania I have been able to dive back into school. My first week back everyone was curious about my travels and wanted to know where their gifts from America were. I don’t think that I broke too many hearts and was able to get gifts for the important people around me here in Tanzania. This week I have been busy with being teacher on duty and working with other teachers grading exams for our school and other surrounding schools, we have been putting in nine hours a day grading exams. When a student asked me how I like grading, it gave me the perfect opportunity to give him the definition of the word tedious.
Another great advantage about going home was that I was able to meet up with an old teacher now colleague at Rocky Mountain High School. We were able to organize pen-pals for our students. Today my students finished there first letters and I hope to have them in the main soon, to say they are excited about the project is an understatement! It has already been a great way to open up dialog about teaching English and American Culture, and my hope is they will learn more about there own culture too. My only issue now is that I have students other than my own in the school asking for pen-pals their age; so if any one out there would like to write a student here at Mzumbe please let me know.
In the next couple of weeks the new group of education volunteers for Peace Corp will be arriving and am looking forward to meeting them, and being some what of a veteran volunteer for them. But more than that it will mark my first year here in Tanzania, I survived and still loving my time here!
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Kilimanjaro
We started our hike on a Friday with a tour company Jeff’s host family helped set up for us. We deemed our group the ‘Motley Crew’, our guide was named Simba and our assistant guide was Sam. Our first sign that we got a discounted tour company is when we were stopping by Simba’s house to pick up things like cups and other cooking equipment from his house on our way up to the trail head. We would also find out this morning that our party of hikers had grown from our original four; Maja and Jacob (Danish volunteers) and Jeff and me, to five with Eno a middle-aged educator from
We got to the trail head Machame Gate where our route would start nicked named ‘The Whisky Route’ and of course Jeff and I being the traditionalist that we are had to bring some whiskey…it’s tradition, and who are we to argue that. To get through the gate we had to wait for all the porters and guides to get weighed to make sure that they were not caring more that 25 kilograms each and that all the porters had appropriate gear. There were about thirty porters at the gate begging for the use of their services wishing that a tour company would miss plan and need additional porters. By the time we had all our porters check in and made their weight and had paid our park fees around $100
Day two we woke up to fog and clouds and a light drizzle that wouldn’t stop on this day. We left Machame Hut and had a five hour walk for the day that would bring us out of tree line and to
On day three I finally swallowed my pride and wore my trail shoes, because our hiking professional Eno from Southern California a faithful member of the Sierra Club who has climbed every major peak in Southern California had informed me that his club would not allow someone with sandals on the trail regardless if he had a pack or not; we were hiking with day packs on with water and extra clothes in them while our porters carried our packs, very nice backpacks… on their heads. With my shoes tied tight we started off on our five hour hike to Barranco Hut. The day started off like the last cold, foggy, and drizzling. And the thing that started dawning on all of us was our camp would be one of the first ones up in the mornings but always the last group to leave, the Motley Crew was always a bit disorganized. It was about noon on our hike up to
Day four started as usual as we watched all the other camps wake up and leave before us. And today we had to go up great Barranco, a stair step scrabble to the top of a ridge which we could see from our camp. It was comical watching people that morning in a continuous slow moving line of hikers and porters up this staircase of a climb to the top zigzagging across the mountain side. The climbed proved to be fairly easy that day with the slow pace that was forced by the staircase and the short hike to Karanga camp. We couldn’t believe it when we saw that for lunch Thompson Safari’s porters started ahead and set up two large tents with tables in them for the hikers just to eat lunch in. When they would finish their lunch the porters would take down the two tents and move ahead and set them up again at a different camp for the evening. Karanga camp was blessed with beautiful weather and an early arrival. Spent most the day sitting in the sun with clear skies around us and a sea of clouds below, reading a book, and watching Jeff chase ravens around that had swooped down and stolen his package of cookies. It was quiet humorous to see this raven flying away with an entire package of cookies and Jeff running after him and our porter friend Ayoubu telling me that the raven must be more cleaver then Jeff, a joke that would prove not to get old for the rest of our trip. In Jeff’s defense he did get his cookies back but felt he should relinquish some of his cookies to the raven for its gallant effort.
The following day would prove to be a nice easy hike to Baranco camp the last camp before our summit attempt. The hike was just three hours and Sam and I lightened the mood by teaching the rest of our group a simple little song in Swahili that became our marching song. I believed it might have started to annoy some of the other hikers around, not so much the song it self but the fact that we were passing other hikers out of breathe and we had enough to sing a nice little song that goes like this:
Jambo!
Jambo Bwana!
Habari gani?
Nzuri
Wageni, wakaribishwa
Kilimanjaro
Hakuna matata, hakuna matata
We arrived at Barafu Camp knowing that we were going to need to spend the day resting because we would be leaving that night at midnight to start our summit attempt with the expectation of reaching the summit for the sun rise. Barafu Camp was on a steep ridge just below the base of the glaciers at the top of Kilimanjaro. Day five was blessed with great weather and great views of Mawenzi peak from Barafu Camp. This to me seamed very unusal to have consitend good weather at this altitude. I am use to the peaks in
We awoke at midnight to a very cold evening and a slow start, again. We didn’t leave camp until one a.m. and Jacob ended up staying behind to get a full nights rest and he would start later in the morning after us. We were blessed with a full moon and it was a memorable feeling walking up the mountain that morning by moon light to see head lamps dance on the mountain side from the other hikers. This hike would prove to be exponentially more difficult then the rest of the days. The weather was cold around -10 Celsius, our water ended up being so cold that it was upsetting our stomachs at that altitude, and all of us were dealing with some degree of altitude sickness. The hike was slow, especially when we were walking on the snow fields, and the thin air influencing everyone. The push to Stela Point proved to be the most taxing. We were walking on a snow stair case and every step you took required its own breath. When we reached Stela Point we took a nice break and now had
The descend back down to Barafu Camp was enjoyable doing rapid mountain descent down scree fields and to see Eno who had fallen behind on our way continuing on to the summit and then to see Jacob on his way up to the summit feeling better than the night before. We got back down to camp by eleven a.m. and finished our whiskey and enjoyed a peaceful nap in celebration waiting for Eno and Jacob to return. That afternoon we would pack up and descent to Mweka Hut. Arriving at Mweka hut was notable putting to rest a very long and taxing day.
The finale day from Mweka hut to Mweka Gate was very tough on the knees dropping 15,000 feet in a matter of twenty four hours, pain that could only be healed with cold beers. The last day was a bit frustrating because it was the day to tip our guides and porters. The night before Simba came to our tent and did his nightly “How you feel everybody?” check in and game plan for the next day. Where he informed us that he should receive a 30% tip and just to give him the tips for the rest of the group and he would distribute it how he saw fit… We didn’t see it that way at all and I had to explain to him the concept of tipping, which is no way customary in
The overall experience of Kilimanjaro was great. The finances of the entire trip definitely left its wounds on this volunteer but wounds that will easily be forgotten in time for the sake of an experience with a good friend and a great adventure that will never be forgotten.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
No Food; No School
Thanks for all the birthday love, and congratulations Khloe(little sister) on Graduating!
My first birthday in
For my birthday my friends from the University Jueng In, Brenda, and Danny treated me to a trip to
Around school things are a bit quiet now after term exams for ‘O’ level and all off my students have gone home for a six week break, which also means break for me! As far as the ‘A’ level they to have been heading home because our school is being forced to close because our food suppliers have failed to receive payments for the food and has stopped delivering the food. Since all the students at Mzumbe are boarding students the school has been forced to shut down completely. It is very frustrating knowing that we are the number one boy’s school in all of
On the lighter side of things I have been doing a lot of hiking around Mzumbe I did 60 km in three days this last week, and found a short cut over the mountain to Mgeta village where my nearest Peace Corps neighbor lives. By taking the short cut I was able to cut a seven hour hike down to five hours, but the trail was very steep but beautiful. On the thirteenth of June I will be hiking
After my Kilimanjaro trip I will return home and enjoy some down time around the school by reading some, attending weddings and preparing for the up coming semester that is if we ever get food back to our school.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Elway on the Daladala
Things at school are keeping me busy enough, I am teaching three different classes so I have three different preps to keep up with, but I am happy to be busy at school it keeps me out of trouble. I have even been having Saturday and Sunday classes for my form four math students because they have regional mock exams at the end of this month. No I am not torturing my students with weekend classes; they asked to have classes on the weekends…not me. My students here at Mzumbe don’t fall into the common mold of Tanzanian students they are some of the best in the country and they know what it takes to do well on the national exams, and the truth is they are at a all boys boarding school and there just isn’t all too much to do around here.
I presented a challenge the other day for my form three students who are taking my Additional Math class. Since I will be teaching them for the next two years and be responsible for teaching them the entire syllabus before their form four exams, our challenge…best scores on the exams in all of Tanzania; I hope by putting this out there it motivates me to play my role.
The rainy season is slowing to an end and I am very thankful for it! I was falling into cabin fever and needing time outdoors, and a chance to walk to the market with out getting covered in mud. My bike here has been great to get out and see the country around me and the other small villages scattered around me. I stop now and then and talk with the villagers and they are always happy to get to talk to a foreigner who knows Swahili and I have even picked up a couple of greetings in the local tribal language Uluguru. I find it quiet calming when I ride through villages other than mine and I here people say “Luka, Luka,” if not much changes around here during my time here at least I know I have penetrated people’s lives.
I have established one truth in my experience so far here in
I want to set it straight that I didn’t have an idealistic notion that I would change the history of
With the thought of so many problems lingering in my head I wonder what the solutions could be. I have come to believe that the best work here in
The people here love their country and their culture; and a great sense of unity exists here in
There is a good amount of wealth in
This last Saturday I had a man from a neighboring village that I had never met before come to my house, he told me that he heard their was a Peace Corps Volunteer from America at Mzumbe so he wanted to pay me a visit… What he really wanted was money. His story was that his sister was in the hospital diagnosed with AIDS and he needed money for ARVs (Anti-Retroviral) because they ‘lost’ the last prescription and she wouldn’t be able to get a refill for another three weeks from the dispensary. I was first skeptical when he showed me her card for ARVs, the card is distributed to individuals who can benefit from ARVs it has the patient’s name on it the medication their taking, the dispensary they are getting them from and the dates they receive medication and the dates which they are eligible for a refill, I have had a chance to work with these cards before at our PEPFAR workshop. These ARVs are given out for free to people who have been diagnosed with HIV; this program is financed by the money from PEPFAR. The card seemed to be a forgery by all accounts, stats about the recipients CD4 T-cells was missing and it only had one date of doctor visits on it. And that he said they ‘lost’ the ARV’s was not adding up, and knowing that there is a black market for these ARV’s; people who get the ARV’s for free and turn around and sell them for money. After talking with this man for some time and being convinced that he was just looking for a hand out told him I couldn’t help him out. For the rest of the day this bothered me… Could he be telling the truth? He wasn’t asking for a lot of money, I could afford to? Could I start giving hand outs to every person who came to my door? I even thought about going to his village and tell him I changed my mind. But what I couldn’t understand was that he walked out of his village, through another village, through
On my way home last week in the daladala which is the public transportation system here best described as clown cars, for the reason that the amount of people and chickens they manage to shove into a daladala is unbelievable. I saw John Elway on my daladala, I couldn’t see his face but he had his Broncos #7
My encounter with John Elway on the daladala had me thinking on the way home, about how small this world is becoming. With internet, cell phones, and transportation everything and everyone is playing a more integral role in the prosperity of man kind. The relations we have with our neighbors are just as valuable as the relations we have around the world. What many of us are willing to through out others around the world utilize with great pride and resourcefulness, the market has expanded across the globe. So the leaders of tomorrow need to see the value in keeping good relations and a concern of the welfare of all ‘market players.’
The aid coming into Tanzania is a great thing for this up and coming country with so much to offer the world, but Tanzanian’s need to realize this and find leadership with in to push forward through the corruption and own up to the idea that they are the solution for their issues. With out this leadership
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Maasai and Turtles
A couple of weeks ago before the rainy season was in full swing I got a chance to go to a Maasai village on their market day. The village market is on Fridays and I heard about it from some teachers at school and mentioned to Haji I wanted to go on Friday to visit and he was excited because his family lived near by that same village. So I met him on a Friday morning with our bikes and we started the hour bike ride to the village. I went with my Tanzanian friend Haji who has been a great friend because he is always getting dragged a long on my adventures here at Mzumbe. I like to have my Tanzanian escort because he knows everybody and can bull shit with the best of them… he’s the Zach Smith of
The Maasai is one of the largest tribes in
So on Fridays the Maasai village has their market and all the herders will come into village with their livestock. In a field adjacent to the market all the animals which are for sale are kept. So local butchers come with their trucks and buy livestock and the Maasai can get new sandals, sword, beads, clothing, cooking material, and ex...
When Haji and I arrived on bikes of course I was getting the usual stares which I have come to like to think it’s because I am so dam good looking and not just because I am white, and it was a one of those ‘wow I am in Africa’ moments. A hundred or so Maasai all walking around catching up on the news with each other selling hides and other things, taking advantage of buying a cold Coka -Cola, and eating some roasted meat with livestock walking around. Haji knew one of the girls working a booth at the market so we left are bikes there and were able to walk around and look at the goodies, I purposely left my wallet at home because I knew I would have bought a couple of ‘impulse swords’, what could I do with a sword… As we were walking around I was wondering out load if one of my fellow teachers was there because he runs one of the butchery’s at Mzumbe. Before I could finish my sentence he was standing in front of me introducing me to his friends, it is nice to stick out of the crowd sometimes people find you. After talking with my teacher and sharing a drink I continued walking around and dreaming of Halloween costumes to be, we decided to embark to go visit Haji’s family.
Mind you that every time I go somewhere with Haji we have to meet his family, Tanzanian’s families are huge all cousins are brothers and sisters and all aunts and uncles are mothers and fathers so I have met a lot of his ‘family’. This time we were going to meet his 100% biological real parents whom lived ‘near by’ the market, ‘near by’… another 45 minute bike ride in the opposite direction from home. It was really nice to meet his parents and show my Swahili skills off (limited still but getting better) and to get out of the rain storm that had started. They were disappointed we couldn’t stay for dinner because they were going to kill a chicken for us. Haji’s mother said that I could get a wife for some goats if I wanted. I told here I was only in
A phenomenon that occurs during the rainy season is that snakes, turtles and frogs come out from hiding. I thank got I haven’t seen any snakes and always walk with a flashlight at night because I am afraid to death of snakes and I joke with my teacher friend that if I ever see one around my house I m coming to his house and will make him come over and kill it. The other day one of the students killed a black mamba and a staff member killed a viper… YA I watch where I am going when I am walking around. As far as the turtles go I haven’t seen any walking around but I have had two different people come from the near by villages in the mountains and ask me to buy turtles they have found. I just don’t see why they thing because I am white I will want to buy a turtle… their must be a rumor floating around that the Whiteman wants to buy turtles. To put I stop to the rumors, I DON”T NEED A TURTLE.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Coincidence…HIV/AIDS at the Home Front, Two Weeks After My Return From the PEPFAR Conference
This weekend I went and had my weekly Sunday lunch with my Tanzanian Family, the food was delicious as always (beans and rice) and small changes of had been made around the home. New screens on the windows, two new plates, two new GLASS drinking cups, and a new pair of shoes for Mama Rachel; most women after having their first daughter change their name to Mama ‘first daughter’s name’ because of the pride in being a fertile women, so hence my sisters name is Rachel. The new things around the home sound very minimal to our culture in the States but are a big deal for my family here. My Tanzanian father had started his new job with the city of
After dinner while looking through the new calendar with my father and telling him of my excitement on getting a new bed made this week for my home he informed me that my mother’s brother was ill. He had been ill off and on for some time and he was now in the hospital very ill. The family had been urging him to go see a doctor for some time now because many believed that he had AIDS, because of his frequent and numerous illnesses. This time he had fallen ill to Malaria and his immune system was so weak the typical medications weren’t working. I asked how the family was dealing with it and he told me it was really hard because he is still young at 30 and the family had to keep at his bed side at the hospital to take care of him. The constant travel from their village in the
That week my friend who is from the same tribe as Mama Rachel, Luguru (the people of the mountains) we decided to try and make it to the top of the peaks near my home of Mzumbe. The peaks have sat and taunted me since the day I had arrived in Morogoro much like Long’s Peak back home on the front range in
I have gotten a sense of what a celebrity might face going out in public in the States. Being white and walking through small mountain villages in
At last we reached the legendary COLD WATER spring on top of the ridge. Now the question at hand: Do I drink un-boiled water in a land of some of the worst parasites known to man? or go thirsty? …The water was brisk, COLD, and refreshing! When we arrived at the spring some of the porters where there eating sugar cane and drinking water on their way back to their village, they were very friendly and begged for us to continue on and come and visit, with promises of a wife for me and many other gifts. They said that their village never gets guest because there is no road and it is very difficult to get to. They informed us that it was about another two hours, and when we asked if we would make it back to our bikes before dark they just laughed… We continued on our way to get some more pictures of the forest and the beautiful landscape and a hope to get a window past the trees and a panoramic look of my school down below, but decided to return after the trail started dropping down the other side of the mountain and fear we wouldn’t make it back before dark. I was able to make it back right at dusk dead tired, sunburned, thirsty, and feeling thankful for the day in the Uluguru Mountains.
The following week I got news that Mama Rachel’s brother had passed away and I brought the family an assortment of fruits and my sympathy for their loss. My feeling of bewilderment and invisibility that I hadn’t fallen ill from my game of Russian roulette with the COLD WATER was disparaged by the gratitude of the life I live, when others aren’t as fortunate.
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