July 30th

This was my bed at "camp"

We finally had a short day today. We went into town to visit a primary school which only admits kids who are HIV positive, and many are orphans. The facility was very nice, and of course the kids were super excited to have visitors. When we walked in, they all stood up and started "singing" songs for us, which mostly consisted of melodic yelling, and it was pretty funny. One of the songs was "If you're happy and you know it..." so we sang along with them for that one. Then we helped teach numbers and letters for a bit before speaking with the founder of the school. SHE was amazing. Her organization includes not only the school, but also a bunch of other staff who train community members to speak with their communities about HIV/AIDS so that they get all of the facts straight.

After lunch, we visited another facility which promotes "a positive life" for people who are HIV positive. They have a tailoring course so that people can develop some life skills to be self-sufficient, and they also provide interest-free loans for people who are HIV positive so that they can start up their own business. Once they have paid back their loan, they can get another one if need be. Many Tanzanians can live healthily with HIV for 30 or more years, so programs like this increase their quality of life infinitely. So far, we've seen several charity type organizations, and the ones which are started by Tanzanians seem to be the best. Outsiders just can't know all of the cultural challenges that Tanzanians face, and often times their ideas of success are different from a Tanzanian's.

The next three days we're going to be camping at a Maasai boma, so more on that later.

July 29th

ZEBRA!

Ngorongoro crater was even cooler than anticipated. It's a giant crater left by an extinct volcano about 10 miles wide. It's a conservation area with a TON of natural wildlife, so there are some dirt roads cutting through it for people to see the animals. I was expecting to see some animals, but figured they'd probably be really far away, but we got extremely lucky. I was about 2 meters from two sleeping lions!! And we had some zebras and a herd of wildebeests cross the road in front of our vehicle. I have seriously about 50 pictures just of animals.

I'll tell you what we saw based on the lion king characters because that's what we did the whole time. When we started singing Hakuna Matata, our driver was very confused. I found out that "pumba" actually means warthog! Simba means lion, and rafiki means friend. Anyway, yeah, I'm excited to look at the pictures from today. I was also about 3 meters from an elephant, and a giraffe crossed the road right in front of us after we left the crater. So yes, basically THE MOST touristy day of our trip ever, but it was fun. We all had fun giving each other a hard time... with me being the target a lot of the time... which is good because I can probably take it better than most people.

July 27th

Me, Esther, and Stacey

Today we went to church, and then broke off into groups of 2 and 3 to have lunch with different families in the congregation. Before we had been paired off, a 9 yr old girl had sort of taken a liking to me, so our teacher said I should go with her family. She immediately grabbed my hand and lead me to her house, with her family in tow behind us. A bunch of their neighbors came and had lunch with us, so me and the other girl I was with, Stacey, hung out with all of the girls. There were two that were around our age, and the 9 yr old and an 11 yr old. One of the older girls started trying to teach us some Kiswahili words, but the only ones I remember are "kuku" which means hen, and "mbwa" which is dog. The girls then took us out around their farm. They grow coffee, bananas, beans, and some other things. As we were walking around, more little kids accumulated, and I was holding at least one random kid's hand at all times. It was good though because they knew where it was OK to walk, so I could easily follow them. Yep, that was about it for today.

July 26th

This is Ben. He gave us a tour, and I think he's somehow related to Lesikar. And that's a huge wheat field behind him.

Ok, so yesterday we went to a Maasai Village for half the day. The Maasai are a tribe in Tanzania and an ethnic group Kenya who have tried very hard to keep their traditions despite Westernization, and they have so far been pretty successful. We got a tour of the village and went to the market. The markets can be overwhelming at times because there are so many people trying to get your attention. We obviously stand out, and when Tanzanians see white people, they automatically think dollars. It's especially bad for me because I never want to buy anything, haha. But I finally broke down yesterday and bought a cloth thing there that I can use as a scarf or shawl. After the initial sensory overload, I became more comfortable and really enjoyed it.

There was one guy there who caught my attention by saying "Hello sister?" (or actually 'sistah') and when I looked, he waved me over. I hesitated, so he said "Just come and please look." So I said ok. After standing next to him just looking at the different fabrics he had laid out on a mat on the ground, I said "OK! I looked!" and started to walk away, but then went back, laughing, and he saw that I was joking and started laughing too, and shook my hand to say good one. Then he asked me where I was from and whether I was a student. He was no longer trying to sell me anything, so it was nice just to be able to talk to him. After that had a lecture and then went home.

July 25th

This is Steven (our orientation coordinator) in the wagon, and Aziz (our driver) on the right.

Today we went to visit a small village, and in particular a farm run by our teacher's friends. We first went to the farm to harvest some sunflowers. We cut the heads off, collected them all in a trailer pulled by donkeys, and then beat the heads with sticks until all the seeds fell out. It was really fun, and a bunch of their extended family and neighbors came out to help us. I'm pretty sure they had a lot of fun laughing at us. Then we walked into the village to see the primary and secondary schools. The kids were still in school when we arrived at the primary school, and they began to talk very excitedly and all stuck their heads out the window to watch us walk up. Occasionally we would hear "Wazungu!" which means white people in Kiswahili. There were 600 kids in the primary school, and only 11 teachers. They are only short 4 teachers. However, attendance is 92% every day, and 74 out of 82 kids went on to secondary school last year. By the time we got to the secondary school, the students were gone for the day, but we still looked around.

When we got home, we had a couple hours free, so 7 of us decided to go to an orphanage which is about 100 yds outside of the compound we're staying at. There are 35 kids there ages 0-3. We got there right at dinner time, so after we told them who we were, they said excellent, grab a kid and bring 'em inside to eat. The kids were so eager to get attention, that especially after feeding when most volunteers leave, we'd have two or three kids attached to us at all times. They are definitely not picky as to who holds them. We'll probably continue to go there every afternoon that we have free. Alright, I think that's all for today.

July 24th

Roasting the coffee... and the little girl who didn't know what to make of all these white people.

Ok, so to elaborate a little more on what my experience has been so far... We're staying at a training center where a lot of European and Americans come to learn Kiswahili. We have little cabin type things, and I'm staying with the other girl from St. Olaf. We have our own bathroom with a shower, so that's really nice. It's sort of like we're at Tanzania camp because we're still isolated from the locals. Obviously all ten of us go on the excursions together, chaperoned by our two professors, our Tanzanian teacher, and a driver. It's really good to sort of gradually get acclimated to life here, but I know I'm going to be so ready to move on.

Today we had a culture lesson, and then we went to a coffee farm. We picked the coffee, separated the seeds from the shell, watched them roast, grind and boil it, and then we drank it! It was really fun and really cool. And the coffee was way less bitter than any coffee I've had in the States. We then went to a traditional Tanzanian restaurant and ate a ton of food. I know some people were saying that I should eat fried food before I left, but believe me, there is PLENTY of fried food here. So then we just came back for a lesson on Tanzanian politics, and had a little Kiswahili quiz. The sun came out for a couple of hours around lunch, which was really nice, but it soon got cold again. Apparently the seasons here are starting and ending later and later as well. But we know that once we get to Dar it will be hot, so we're trying not to complain. I'm actually having more time to blog than I thought because we don't really have anything to do after dinner, at least for now, so feel free to email :-)

July 23rd

Tanzania is officially awesome. I fell in love right away. We had a history lesson this morning and then we all crammed into a tiny bus and had lunch and a Kiswahili lesson at Lake Duluti. The weather right now is pretty chilly, I'd guess 50s to 60s. We then went into Arusha to change money and go to a few markets. The people are very persistent to get us to look at their things, and even if they're not trying to sell us stuff, people stare. I don't blame them because we're a big group of white people, and people always stare at foreigners anyway. It's so great because you can basically make someone's day by trying to talk to them in Kiswahili, and they will try to have a conversation with you in English if they can. The other girl from Olaf and I had one guy walking with us the whole time we were at one of the markets. He was just so happy to be helping us, making sure to point things out, and telling us what some of the different fruits were.

I'm hoping that I'll be able to learn a lot of Kiswahili because the grammar is pretty easy, it's just hard to remember what the words mean. That probably doesn't make any sense. I mean the forms are really straight forward, and the spelling is all phonetic, so I just have to remember the vocabulary.

I'm not even really feeling jet-lagged. It's kind of hard to adjust to eating my biggest meal of the day at lunch instead of dinner, but yes, I DO eat it all, Mom. I bought a kanga today which is fabric that I'll have made into a skirt and blouse with a Kiswahili proverb on it. It says something about praising God, I don't really know. But, I'm gonna go eat now, so I hope everyone is enjoying the summer :-)

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