Tanzanian Road Trip

Day 1:
9 hours on a bus to Dar es Salaam watching TERRIBLE Tanzanian movies.
Day 2:
3 hour ferry to Zanzibar. Fell in love at first sight of the shore. Wandered around the maze that is Stonetown, broke a shoe, drank citrus sugar cane juice while someone repaired it, ate lobster and Zanzibar pizza by twinkling starlight at a posh shore side outdoor market.
Day 3:
Caught in a flash flood while wandering Stonetown. Other shoe broke. Drove to North Coast, watched women with colorfully wrapped heads and bodies fishing thigh deep in the aquamarine waves with pots and nets (in my memory it looks something more like a creative dance they did together in a circle than individual work.)
Day 4:
Rose with the sun and took a long walk “private” beaches. We later learned that we were trespassing on a beach behind the hospital. Hopefully we weren’t exposed to anything too dangerous. Took the ferry back to Dar and got sunburned watching the sailboats on the waves from the deck. Walked around the less-than-inspiring city of Dar in the ridiculous heat and humidity with our luggage. Took a packed mini bus to Bagamoyo. It was incredible, I have never had so little room for an hour and a half ride. Ate the best fish in Tanzania. Woke up that night to sweltering heat and the sound of the generator cutting off and our only fan spinning slowly to a standstill.
Day 5:
Woke up something like 10 pounds lighter due to loss of water weight. Declined the original plan of bicycle tour of Bagamoyo. Went to slavery museums and 13th century mosque ruins. Washed myself in ancient holy water at the promise that I might become the next Obama. Caught in rainstorms riding another packed mini bus. Switched to pikipikis (aka motorbike taxis) to get to our next hotel. Unfortunately, the tires stuck in the mud, and with all my luggage on my back the driver and I slowly tipped over. I decided to walk the rest of the way.
Day 6:
Rose early with the sun again, and attempted to talk to and photograph the fishermen heading to sea in their boats. They said “twende!” and for only the impending plans to travel again that day I declined. Took a daladala back to sweaty Dar. Found myself walking around with my big backpack through cracks between moving buses. Funny the heat from the engines was no different than the surrounding air. Hung out with Alfred’s family. Got a midnight tour of the city, which included where to find American style french fries.
Day 7:
Alfred’s sisters wedding. Quite the opposite of the first wedding we experienced in Tanzania, this one was more formal than prom. A classic black and white color scheme, huge banquet and everyone in beautiful dresses and suits. Though there were several traditions that reminded me I was in Tanzania still, like the cutting of the Tanzanian wedding cake, a roasted goat. Also, the groom and bride were from different tribes, so each tribe was introduced and took turns standing up in the middle of the room to do a traditional tribal dance. Because I was sitting with the Chaga tribe, they made me stand up and dance with them. Everyone thought this was hilarious, as the emcee bellowed, “Welcome white Chaga!” So at the very least I was able to contribute to the black and white theme.
Day 8:
Woke up with a terrible cold but a seven-hour drive ahead of me. We left Dar and sweated all the way north to a town in the mountainous rain forest called Amani, which means peace. Enjoyed a long car ride with Alfred’s cousin by marriage who was from Bandon, Oregon (what a small world). When we arrived we checked for food at at least three different shops in the village but no one was cooking. Finally scrounged up some fry omelettes (chips maii, so good!) and then went on a night hike in search of chameleons.
Day 9:
Got up and threw our stuff in the car. Ate toast and eggs in the middle of nowhere while watching the news about the Italian Prime Minister getting hit in the face. Oh globalization. 7 hour car ride back to Arusha. At about hour 3 we were routinely stopped by police who inquired about my lack of seat belt. The car didn’t have one. The policeman says, “Okay, please pray.”

These are the things I am most looking forward to when coming home in 4 days!

Hugging family and giving presents
Drinking milk
Starbucks holiday cups
Christmas cartoon movies and holiday lights
Leg warmers
New journal and book
Washing machines and dryers
Bathtubs
WRITING MY THESIS :0)

My First Thanksgiving Away

It didn’t really hit me how far away from home I was until two days before Thanksgiving. I broke out the mulled spices and I poured my roommates spiced drinks until I’m sure they were fed up with me. We turned on Charlie Brown Christmas and thought about holiday lights and huge turkey dinners.

Thanksgiving morning I received a phone call from my family who had gathered in Salem. What a bittersweet morning! I heard the voices of half of my family members from across the world singing “We’re all together again, we’re here… and who knows when we’ll be all together again, singing we’re all together again we’re here!” I found myself singing this song the rest of the day, and it reminded me how far I was from where I came from.

And yet, it reminded me also how lucky I am to be able to explore the world so far away from home. In order to celebrate Thanksgiving, the 6 girls in my house organized a proper feast: we gathered all our favorite people in Arusha at the Chinese restaurant next door. It was a diplomatic affair as we had representatives from Sudan, Tunisia, India, Tanzania and Benin to experience the wonders of the Thanksgiving tradition.
I must say it was the least politically correct Thanksgiving dinner I have ever experienced. Topics of conversation included how many turkeys America had consumed for the day, the animosity between pilgrims and “Indians”, and various other stereotypical and potentially derogatory assumptions about people groups and their traditions.

The next day, instead of battling the insanity of black Friday at home, we left early in the morning on safari in an ancient caldera. We saw lions, rhinos, elephants, giraffes, hyenas, ostriches, zebras, gazelles, buffalo, baboons, hippos, and the like in their element. Maybe a similar experience to those of you who went shopping? :0)

Lushoto

14 hours on a horrid bus in a period of 36 hours. And I am telling you it was worth it.

Victoria and I found ourselves at the front of the bus, thinking this was lucky. But the bus acts much like a matatu, stopping to pick up passengers for short distances. Of course this is once all seats are already filled so people are standing in the aisles bracing themselves on your shoulder, accidentally pulling your hair, resting their bags in your lap and the like. Not to mention it is the storage place for all the big bags that cant make it past seats through the skinny aisle, including huge sacks of maize flour. A couple hours into the trip I realized the floor, which was our only place to store our backpacks for the trek, was soaking wet. When the wet got onto the tops of my feet and didn’t dry, I realized it was oil, and it had soaked all the way through my flip flops! I changed into my tennis shoes quickly, but the ick had covered my legs from the straps of my backpack. Such a mess. I sacrificed the shoes to the bus gods hoping the trip back would be less eventful.

The drive to Lushoto was GORGEOUS. Blooming baobob trees, fields of pineapple bushes and termite hills, so lush. By the fifth hour we made it into the mountains, which I have never seen anything like. Looked like something in a Dr. Seuss book. Waterfalls and streams cutting through the canyons, gray slate rock home to strange trees and bushes.

We got off the bus and were greeted by my dear Heidi, who took us to our 6 dollar guest house and fed us chips mai (best TZ dish ever, basically a French fry omelette). We then set off on our hike, which was pretty easy, considering afterwards we learned we had hiked 8 miles. The end destination, the famed “viewpoint”, was incredible. Basically, it was a rock ledge to sit on, thousands of feet up from the valley floor, where you can see nearly everything between Arusha and Dar. I cannot even begin to describe the vertigo you might encounter there. And it was GREEN as far as I could see, with grey mountains on all sides. We basked in the sun on the rocks for a while as it set and sipped sodas. In the face of so much beauty I found I couldn’t even be mad upon realizing that our neighbor girl had run out my camera batteries when she left my camera on a few nights ago.

Headed back to the guest house where the power kept flickering on and off. Though we slept with the lights on because we really couldn’t be sure nothing was going to crawl out of thin air, or the huge open drains in the bathroom or the bedding for that matter.

The ride back somehow dragged out from 6 to 8 hours, with many screaming children and painfully rattling windows. Also, I began noticing the crazy amounts of hustling that took place on the bus. We pulled over every 20 minutes to pick up one thing or another, huge sacks filled with charcoal, stacks of crates filled with empty soda bottles, even a lone unaccompanied knap sack here and there. They do really smart business.

a typical friday in arusha

Selina, Eunice and I went into the Tribunal Friday morning, thinking it would be business as usual. We walked through the security checks, and Selina tried to throw some garbage away in a big bin and was chastised. "That's not for garbage." Upon asking what the bin was for, we learned it was for containing explosions. huh.

After making tea and settling into our offices, we began hearing sirens, and were called into the office of one of our colleagues. "Come see the presidents!" So we crawled out her window onto the ledge to watch the procession. Tanzania's president, Kikwete came first. He and his crew paused and smiled and seemed to enjoy the large group of traditional African dancers welcoming them. He was followed by the presidents of Burundi, Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda. We saw the first three from the balcony, but upon some angry glances and gestures from the security on the ground we realized we were making people nervous. So we saw the last two from only 10 feet away down on the ground. I was really surprised at how loose security seemed. Undoubtedly there would have been five times the amount of security used for these five men used for Obama.

Our classmates were having a different adventure on this morning. It had rained something like inches the night before, making the drive to see Heifer projects in Arusha quite interesting. I was getting texts about adventures of the car getting stuck in the mud. I was bummed I missed that.

I had lunch with a wonderful friend from Australia, though we were soaking wet and really cold from the downpour outside. We treated ourselves to steak and red wine, and I had the privilege of explaining what snow was like to someone who had never seen or touched it. I must have done an okay job because her face looked as excited as a little kid finding out its a snow day (of course, I had to explain snow days to her, too). I think my mind was equally blown when she told me that often times Christmas day after opening presents they have an outdoor pool party.

We went to the infamous Spices and Herbs Restaurant last night. It was the first time I had been back since the robbery, and they patched the bullet holes! We went for a ritzy Ethiopian dinner and fashion show.

There you have it. Typical Friday in Arusha. Always something going on :0)

started off the weekend well...

We might have gotten ripped off by the fees. Turns out the trail is only a few km from our apartment. Which is incredible, a 3 minute taxi and an hour walk to a breathtaking waterfall in the middle of a jungle.

They gave us each a hiking pole. But ¾ of the hour walk was through a village. Can you just imagine two white girls walking through a village leaning on poles through the muddy roads? Nobody else needed poles to get around. A woman in her 60’s saw the irony in this as well, she came up to me with a smile and made a gesture toward the pole, as if to say she wanted it and would be able to put it to better use. Somehow despite the language barrier, I shared with her my agreement, and she laughed and turned and carried on down the road, at a JOGGING pace.

There were so many children that collected around us as we stopped to admire the avocado, mango, papaya, and PEACH trees. We could hear them shout MA- ZUUUN- GU! From far away and suddenly they were right behind us. One particular group was all whispers and giggles and kept trying to sneak up behind us to scare us. So I turned around quickly to startle THEM. The poor kids, you should have seen the look of terror on their faces! Though this quickly melted back into their fine senses of humor and we all laughed for some time.

We finally made it to the waterfall, which involved some jumping over ant hills and sliding down steep mud hills. We came across another American (who just graduated from a Quaker school, go figure) and his two guides. Just as we made it down to the bottom of the climb, before I could even pull out my camera, the sky OPENED up. We were caught in a downpour. Thunder pounded and fat raindrops made it difficult to see. We took quick pictures and then scrambled back up the hill. Victoria, myself and our guide joined with the other hiking group and they led us to a small cooking shack to keep dry. The problem was we were already completely drenched. So after the rain showed no sign of letting up, we convinced them to let us keep walking.

What a sight that must have been. The roads were FILLED with water, and people were standing under cover, staying dry. And here we come traipsing along in a thunderstorm, with our metal poles mind you, and covered in goosebumps having to wipe the heavy rain from our faces. They shouted to us in sympathy, “Poleni!” One lady even offered us to come to her house for milk. A little later we came across a couple of trucks that had gotten stuck in the mud, I shouted “Poleni!” to the men trying to free the vehicles, and got some great smiles back.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get warm for quite some time, despite drinking hot tea and wearing two pairs of sweatpants at a time. And not surprisingly I feel like I am coming down with something. But it was SO worth it. That was the most fun I have had since, last weekend. :0)

c'est la vie?

Today at the office we were frantically asked to prepare a speech on the role of ad hoc tribunals in ending impunity for war crimes. About an hour later I was in my supervisors office as people were running in and out asking questions passing around phone calls. All of the sudden someone comes in and states that they are very busy as “there has been a plane crash, but everyone is fine.” Then she ran off down the hall (retelling this I am picturing the white rabbit in Wonderland.) Turns out a plane went down in Kigali, and the man we were writing a speech for was on it. Only bruises though, so we are carrying on with the speech.