"There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered."-Nelson Mandela
After one long journey I am back at home.
We left Peace House on Wednesday Aug 18 and had a 9 hour bus ride back to the coast. We presented our research projects to a handful of University of Dar professors on Thursday. Jarod presented first. We thought things were going well until the Dar professors started tearing into everyone after their presentation. They were ruthless! There were actually no bad comments after my presentation (I was sweating) probably becasue it was perfect. Haha- but I think they like it becasue it was sort of technical and had something to do with thier definition of engineering. These guys were definetly easier on the American students and were totally ok with ripping the Tanzanian students apart. After everyone presented, a professor did tell us that everyone did well, and this was just thier way of showing their support....good grief.
We said goodbye to Joel after we had lunch that day. He was not able to go to Zanzibar with us because he had to travel home to visit his mother who was ill. The rest of the remaining group had our last dinner (thank heavens) at Chickin Hut in Dar, then got on the boat to Zanzibar at 6 am on Friday.
We arrived on the tropical island around 9:30 and had breakfast. This place is paradise. Think white sand beaches, palm trees, sun, heat, blue-green water and local fisherman scattered across the sea. After we ate, we headed to the Tembo Hotel- the place where Kurt had made reservations for a night. This hotel was beautiful- arabic decorating, big pool, and it was on the beach. Too bad we never got to use the facilities. Apparently we didn't have reservations (even though the prof. talked to them on the phone AND e-mailed them). We figure that they booted us becasue we only wanted to stay there one night. So the Tembo Hotel recommended another hotel and we ended up staying there. It was also super nice, and I got a queen size bed to myself!
We walked around Stone Town (where we got off the boat) on Friday and on Saturday we ventured off to the east side of the island to the beaches. We got on a Dalla Dalla in Stone Town that was headed to our hotel. The Dalla experience is different on Zanzibar becasue you are pretty much sitting in the back of a flatbed truck that is covered and has benches. The ride was great- until we got about 15 minutes outside of town. I swear they just cram as many people as possible into these public transportation devices! Bryna and I were practiacally sitting on top of one another, and my back was jammed into a wooden post. Soon after I lost feeling in my legs. I guess it's all part of the experience...
An hour and a half later we arrived at our resort. Talk about my wildest dreams! (Thanks NSF). We stayed in little huts on the beach and ate delicious meals in the lodge. We went swimming in the ocean, tried to teach Damson how to swim, and Patty and I took advantage of the pool. I finally got my few hours of sun on the beach in this summer!
None of us wanted to leave the next morning. If I had my way, you would be able to find me still laying under one of the cabana's on the beach. But we headed back to the port and got on the boat back to Dar. Patty, Bryna, Kurt and I picked up our bags that we had left at Damson's house and all of us headed to the airport. Bryna and I left first to go to Nairobi, Kenya then on to London. All of our flights went off without a hitch and we made it home safely.
In the words of Damson and Cara's attemted Swahili translation: 'Hapana Mwisho'- it is not the end. I hope I get to see all of my Tanzanian friends again. This trip was life changing and an awesome experience. We are so lucky and aught to be thankful for all that we have, becasue many other people we share this earth with aren't as fortunate.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Nane Nane
Yesterday was Nane Nane (eight eight- as in the eighth day of the eighth month), the agricultural holiday in Tanzania. We went into town around 2:30 pm and headed to the fair grounds after a short stop at the local craft market.
The fairgrounds are HUGE, and admission was 1,000 Tanzanian shillings, which is equivalent to about $0.80 US. I am so glad we got to experience this because I feel like we really got a taste for an African fair. We went to the fairgrounds on Thursday this week mostly to just check it out- as the holiday runs for about a week and there were a lot less people there and we were able to talk to many organizations that had booths set up. We learned much about local cook stoves, cashew harvesting, the national parks, drip irrigation and some about the water supply in Arusha.
On Saturday, there were so many people there and it was super dusty from everyone walking around. It was much crazier than earlier in the week. There was a traffic jam about 1.5 miles away from the fair grounds so it took us awhile to get there- but totally worth it! We walked around and were attracted to a stage that had performers dancing and singing. Then they started to advertise condoms. Of course Patty, Bryna and I had no idea what was going on, it had to be translated by Damson. Apparently this kind of thing is common at fairs in Africa. It was pretty entertaining.
We left the fair grounds around 6 pm. We made our way to an expensive little coffee shop to get something to drink. After we had our lemon and mint juice (yummy) we witnessed thieves running down the road. People were shouting 'mwizi' (thief) and a huge crowd was chasing after these men. It was quite a sight, and there was more than one mwizi running down the road. Apparently Nane Nane is a huge time for thieves to make a killing. Don't worry- all of us are safe and still have all of our belongings.
The pictures in the previous post are:
One of the sand filters I have created in a water bottle to show the students how water can become cleaner just by filtering through the earth. I think it will be more entertaining to show this little experiment to the Biology teacher here at Peace House. He didn't believe me when I told him that water is naturally filtered by seeping through the many layers of the earth.
The other pictures are of some of the Form 1 girls here at the school. I was hanging out with them on Friday afternoon while we were watching the boys soccer team beat a team from the other side of town. They were pretty hilarious, and one of them loved touching my "soft" hair. I told them I need a hair cut, but they told me that I needed to grow it out longer to be beautiful. I think that most of them are still bitter about having to have short hair here, per school rules. One of my new friends also informed me that I had let the sun ruin my nose- apparently my freckles are noticeable.
Good news: Harry Potter 6 is coming to the Arusha cinema next week and everyone in our group is pshyced! We have been busy catching up on all the previous Harrry Potter movies from a ridiculous copy we bought on the street.
Only 2 weeks left in Tanzania!
The fairgrounds are HUGE, and admission was 1,000 Tanzanian shillings, which is equivalent to about $0.80 US. I am so glad we got to experience this because I feel like we really got a taste for an African fair. We went to the fairgrounds on Thursday this week mostly to just check it out- as the holiday runs for about a week and there were a lot less people there and we were able to talk to many organizations that had booths set up. We learned much about local cook stoves, cashew harvesting, the national parks, drip irrigation and some about the water supply in Arusha.
On Saturday, there were so many people there and it was super dusty from everyone walking around. It was much crazier than earlier in the week. There was a traffic jam about 1.5 miles away from the fair grounds so it took us awhile to get there- but totally worth it! We walked around and were attracted to a stage that had performers dancing and singing. Then they started to advertise condoms. Of course Patty, Bryna and I had no idea what was going on, it had to be translated by Damson. Apparently this kind of thing is common at fairs in Africa. It was pretty entertaining.
We left the fair grounds around 6 pm. We made our way to an expensive little coffee shop to get something to drink. After we had our lemon and mint juice (yummy) we witnessed thieves running down the road. People were shouting 'mwizi' (thief) and a huge crowd was chasing after these men. It was quite a sight, and there was more than one mwizi running down the road. Apparently Nane Nane is a huge time for thieves to make a killing. Don't worry- all of us are safe and still have all of our belongings.
The pictures in the previous post are:
One of the sand filters I have created in a water bottle to show the students how water can become cleaner just by filtering through the earth. I think it will be more entertaining to show this little experiment to the Biology teacher here at Peace House. He didn't believe me when I told him that water is naturally filtered by seeping through the many layers of the earth.
The other pictures are of some of the Form 1 girls here at the school. I was hanging out with them on Friday afternoon while we were watching the boys soccer team beat a team from the other side of town. They were pretty hilarious, and one of them loved touching my "soft" hair. I told them I need a hair cut, but they told me that I needed to grow it out longer to be beautiful. I think that most of them are still bitter about having to have short hair here, per school rules. One of my new friends also informed me that I had let the sun ruin my nose- apparently my freckles are noticeable.
Good news: Harry Potter 6 is coming to the Arusha cinema next week and everyone in our group is pshyced! We have been busy catching up on all the previous Harrry Potter movies from a ridiculous copy we bought on the street.
Only 2 weeks left in Tanzania!
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Desperate Researchers...
Well, it's official. The girls house is hooked on Desperate Housewives. No we don't have a TV, but Divina conveniently has all the seasons saved on her computer. We are currently in Season 3 and watch a new episode in our free time. Maybe that should have been someones research project...
The internet at the school has been extremely slow lately, that's why I haven't been able to update the blog. But here is what has been happening:
I collected the water consumption data the Peace House students collected for me last week and I have been busy crunching numbers. I still have some data to run, but my current estimate is that an average student here uses about 55 liters of water per day. I am currently in the process of measuring the level in the waste water treatment pond every day. My research will not be done once I leave here, I need some serious internet time, and right now that is just not possible. The group is currently focusing on gathering all the research we need from the field, while we are physically in Tanzania, and then finish our reports once we are stateside- which is coming up faster than any of us would like!
Don't worry- it hasn't been all work. We definitely leave time to play. Last Friday we went into town and spent some time at the craft market and I picked up the jogging pants my parents sent me at the post office- thanks so much! Last Saturday we hung around campus during the day and Bryna, Joel and I ate in the dining hall. I think it was the most flavorless meal I have had here yet. We always have rice or ugali (like mashed potatoes, but made with corn flour) with beans, but this ugali and beans just tasted like mush. Yum....But dinner that night was much better becasue we went into town and had BBQ at Khan's- the guy who sells auto parts during the day, then turned his place into a restaurant at night. After dinner we went to a bar on top of the Arusha Backpackers Hotel to have a few drinks of Konyagi- Tanzanian gin. On Sunday a few of us went into town to attend serivce at Arusha Community Church, which was being led by some of our friends in the area. It was very nice and after the service I met a gentleman who had been living in the Arusha area for 12 years, but was born and raised in Laurium, MI and graduated from Finlandia University. It really is a small world...
The internet at the school has been extremely slow lately, that's why I haven't been able to update the blog. But here is what has been happening:
I collected the water consumption data the Peace House students collected for me last week and I have been busy crunching numbers. I still have some data to run, but my current estimate is that an average student here uses about 55 liters of water per day. I am currently in the process of measuring the level in the waste water treatment pond every day. My research will not be done once I leave here, I need some serious internet time, and right now that is just not possible. The group is currently focusing on gathering all the research we need from the field, while we are physically in Tanzania, and then finish our reports once we are stateside- which is coming up faster than any of us would like!
Don't worry- it hasn't been all work. We definitely leave time to play. Last Friday we went into town and spent some time at the craft market and I picked up the jogging pants my parents sent me at the post office- thanks so much! Last Saturday we hung around campus during the day and Bryna, Joel and I ate in the dining hall. I think it was the most flavorless meal I have had here yet. We always have rice or ugali (like mashed potatoes, but made with corn flour) with beans, but this ugali and beans just tasted like mush. Yum....But dinner that night was much better becasue we went into town and had BBQ at Khan's- the guy who sells auto parts during the day, then turned his place into a restaurant at night. After dinner we went to a bar on top of the Arusha Backpackers Hotel to have a few drinks of Konyagi- Tanzanian gin. On Sunday a few of us went into town to attend serivce at Arusha Community Church, which was being led by some of our friends in the area. It was very nice and after the service I met a gentleman who had been living in the Arusha area for 12 years, but was born and raised in Laurium, MI and graduated from Finlandia University. It really is a small world...
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Oops...
On Sunday morning Divina, Bryna, Joel and I walked down to the classroom block to catch the staff transport that leaves around 9 am to go to into town to church. We got there about 10 minutes to 9, but there was no bus. We called the driver and he said they had left a half hour earlier to take one of the teacher's kids to the doctor. Gee- thanks for letting us know. But the driver said he would be back to get us in awhile. Awhile turned into 45 minutes, so we called him again. This time he said he had a flat tire (which was probably a lie so he wouldn't have to come get us). But we waited until 10:30 to see if he would show up. He didn't- so we gave up. As Joel said, "We were at church spritually."
For the rest of the morning, and part of the afternoon the Chui House (the leopard house where the girls live) watched Desperate Houswives. It's Divina's favorite show and she has all the seasons on her computer. We were soooooooo productive.....not.
Later we played some volleyball with some students and Bryna, Divina and I went on a run. When we got back to the school Bryna identified where the sewage smell we noticed earlier was coming from. One of the manholes for the sewer system was overflowing and raw sewage was bubbling up by the security station at the gate. I had Divina ask the gaurds how long it had been like this, and he said the system had been blocked up since Friday and it was blocked up on purpose. Of course it was blocked up on purpose- it was my idea. Good Heavens- my research project had raw sewage leaking in tot he road outside of Peace House property. Oops.
The maintenence guy that was going to block up the system was supposed to do it last Tuesday...but I guess on Tanzanian time that means 3 days later. I thought the experiement was complete crap (literally) because I had no way to measure how much sewage I had lost. I wanted to measure what volume of waste was entering the system per day. I didn't take a measurement and hoped that the system would be unplugged as soon as possible.
The good news is that I talked to the maintenence guy this morning and he has been taking measurements for the time that the system was blocked up- so it wasn't a total loss. Now I just have to see what kind of data he has.
Yesterday (Monday) we traveled to the village of Monduli, which is about 20 km west of Arusha. We met up with volunteers and workers of Global Service Core (a local NGO). They were in the village to build a hefier- which is a rain water catchment that can be used to irrigate crops in the dry season. Our group helped dig the 1m deep by 1.5 m wide by 4 m long trench that was going to be lined with plastic to store the rain water. I hope that this actually helps the family we built it for. We were actually in a Masaai village- the family who recieved this hefier was living in a small hut covered with leaves and had mud/dung walls. It was cool to see the Massaai warriors help dig the hole. The village elder made an appearance later in the morning and was talking to the warrior whose hut we were at in angry tones. Of course I couldn't understand anything since they were talking in Masaai, and it sounds like swahili, which I don't understand either. But the wife (or one of them anyway) of the warrior told us that the village elder/cheif was just a cranky old man and a corrupt leader and told us that we were doing a good thing helping them. The elder was just mad that no one consulted him first. Amends were made, and we stopped working and went into town for lunch around 2 pm. The hefier was about halfway done when we left and we came back to Peace House after lunch becasue we had a long ride in a Dalla from Monduli. We hope to get back out to the village and keep helping sometime later this week.
For the rest of the morning, and part of the afternoon the Chui House (the leopard house where the girls live) watched Desperate Houswives. It's Divina's favorite show and she has all the seasons on her computer. We were soooooooo productive.....not.
Later we played some volleyball with some students and Bryna, Divina and I went on a run. When we got back to the school Bryna identified where the sewage smell we noticed earlier was coming from. One of the manholes for the sewer system was overflowing and raw sewage was bubbling up by the security station at the gate. I had Divina ask the gaurds how long it had been like this, and he said the system had been blocked up since Friday and it was blocked up on purpose. Of course it was blocked up on purpose- it was my idea. Good Heavens- my research project had raw sewage leaking in tot he road outside of Peace House property. Oops.
The maintenence guy that was going to block up the system was supposed to do it last Tuesday...but I guess on Tanzanian time that means 3 days later. I thought the experiement was complete crap (literally) because I had no way to measure how much sewage I had lost. I wanted to measure what volume of waste was entering the system per day. I didn't take a measurement and hoped that the system would be unplugged as soon as possible.
The good news is that I talked to the maintenence guy this morning and he has been taking measurements for the time that the system was blocked up- so it wasn't a total loss. Now I just have to see what kind of data he has.
Yesterday (Monday) we traveled to the village of Monduli, which is about 20 km west of Arusha. We met up with volunteers and workers of Global Service Core (a local NGO). They were in the village to build a hefier- which is a rain water catchment that can be used to irrigate crops in the dry season. Our group helped dig the 1m deep by 1.5 m wide by 4 m long trench that was going to be lined with plastic to store the rain water. I hope that this actually helps the family we built it for. We were actually in a Masaai village- the family who recieved this hefier was living in a small hut covered with leaves and had mud/dung walls. It was cool to see the Massaai warriors help dig the hole. The village elder made an appearance later in the morning and was talking to the warrior whose hut we were at in angry tones. Of course I couldn't understand anything since they were talking in Masaai, and it sounds like swahili, which I don't understand either. But the wife (or one of them anyway) of the warrior told us that the village elder/cheif was just a cranky old man and a corrupt leader and told us that we were doing a good thing helping them. The elder was just mad that no one consulted him first. Amends were made, and we stopped working and went into town for lunch around 2 pm. The hefier was about halfway done when we left and we came back to Peace House after lunch becasue we had a long ride in a Dalla from Monduli. We hope to get back out to the village and keep helping sometime later this week.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Our group got considerably smaller on Wednesday morning. There are only 8 of us left now. And now I have my own bedroom! That afternoon I went to Mr. Peter's biology classes and talked to the students about water consumption. I told Mr. Peter that I would only need about 15 minutes of his class time, but of course he didn't prepare any lesson that day, so I improvised. I have had the students help me count how much water they use everyday here at school. I hope I get good data so I can calculate how much water an average student at Peace House uses. The kids are stressed out because they have exams all next week, but hopefully they have been filling out the notecards I have given them!
Today we went to the school's rugby match and Peace House dominated! I never realized rugby was so violent. I also realized it has been quite some time since I have been on a bus with a bunch of high schoolers. They were going nuts singing/screaming on the way back from the country club where they play. Tomorrow a few of us are planning on going into town to go to church- should be a cool experience!
Today we went to the school's rugby match and Peace House dominated! I never realized rugby was so violent. I also realized it has been quite some time since I have been on a bus with a bunch of high schoolers. They were going nuts singing/screaming on the way back from the country club where they play. Tomorrow a few of us are planning on going into town to go to church- should be a cool experience!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
