August 8th, 2007
Where does the time go?
More than 10 months done, closing in on the one year mark...absolutely crazy to think about. Been almost a month since my mom and cousin left, but it seems like just the other day that we were sucking dust on the roads of the Serengeti. Was overall a great trip - had a couple days in Dar, then went to Zanzibar, the national parks (Tarangire, Serengeti, Ngorongoro, and Manyara), my host sister's in Arusha, and then my school. Dar was...Dar, with the exception that the Kempinski hotel is insane. Maybe my standards have been lowered, but I don't think so - probably the nicest hotel I've stayed in in my entire life.
Zanzibar was nice, though maybe I was expecting a bit too much from it. The beaches are gorgeous, and the hotel we stayed at was amazing, but Stone Town didn't quite live up to my expectations. I think most of my gripe with Zanzibar is that it felt way too touristy. Everything about the place, most noticeably peoples' attitudes, just left me with a less-than-stellar reaction. For example, here in my village young kids will greet me by saying "shikamoo" (the respectful greeting used for elders), or even "good morning/afternoon/evening" (though usually it's good morning, no matter the time of day). On Zanzibar, kids yell "jambo" (a greeting reserved exclusively for tourists) at you while sticking their hand out so you can give them something. And I know that kind of attitude isn't present only on Zanzibar, to be sure - one of the reasons I go to Moshi so infrequently is that I get tired of being called mzungu - but it was much stronger and more obvious on Zanzibar. A result of tourism, and in some ways not all that surprising, but still, it kind of tarnished my image of the place.
The national parks were great all-around, and it was nice I think spending less time in each park but going to more than 1 or 2 parks, because the variation in scenery is worth it. Tarangire has loads of baobab trees, the Serengeti has flat, grass-covered plains that stretch as far as you can see, the Ngorongoro crater is simply awe-inspiring, and Manyara had a more closed-in, foresty feel to it. It was a lot of driving, to be sure. Part of me likes driving, because you see more than you would have if you had flown, but the drive out to the Serengeti I definitely could have lived without. From the south of Tarangire to the western Serengeti was almost 12 hours, and the roads in the Serengeti are awful this time of year (no rain = massive dust). Maybe driving one way wouldn't have been so bad, especially if we had started from Ngorongoro instead of Tarangire, but flying at least one way would have been a better idea.
I think my favorite park was Tarangire, and I believe my mom felt the same as well. Partly because I liked the scenery second-best after Ngorongoro, partly because we saw a wide variety of animals in a small area, and partly because it wasn't stuffed full of people. In both Ngorongoro and the Serengeti, a "rare" animal sighting (i.e. rhinos or any of the cats) will usually net a huge crowd of Land Cruisers parked right near the animal(s), making it feel more like you're at a circus than observing wildlife in its natual environment. Tarangire and Manyara were much quieter, which is nice. After you've seen all the animals for the first time and the shock value wears off, the surroundings for watching the animals become more important, and that's when the presence of too many other people can get annoying.
Manyara was enjoyable, and kind of a relaxing, quiet end to our safari. Like Tarangire in that there were few people, though there were less animals than Tarangire.
The Serengeti was impressive simply because of the size of it all - where we stayed (in the western part, only maybe 50 km from Lake Victoria) there were plenty of trees, but in the eastern and central parts of the park, it's just flat, open, treeless space. We were also there during the annual wildebeest migration, which was very interesting. By then both animals (zebras migrate along with the wildebeest) were old hat, but seeing herds of literally thousands of animals was awesome.
I was surprised we didn't see more animals than we did in Ngorongoro, but the scenery in the crater would be worth it on its own even without the animals. I also got two of my best videos there - one of a pair of lions hunting, and a hilarious one of some baboons playing on top of a water storage tank at the entrance to the park. My other favorite video came from Tarangire, which was of two giraffes fighting.
Also, if any of you reading this are planning a safari, let me know and I can give you the name of our guide. Really, really nice guy, and was not only knowledgeable, but also seemed to genuinely enjoy nature and care about the animals. Some guides will get right up close to the animals (which is neither good for the animals nor safe), but he was always careful to create as little disturbance as possible. A good guide can really make or break your trip, so it was fortunate that we got a really good one.
The only sad part of the trip was that, instead of going to Morogoro to visit my host mother's house, we had to go visit her in the hospital in Dar. I had heard that she had an operation on her stomach a short while after IST, and after talking to her a few times, she said she was being transferred to Muhimbili Hospital, which is the national hospital in Dar. She was still there by the time my mom and cousin arrived, so we wound up staying an extra day on Zanzibar (instead of going to Morogoro), and visited her in the hospital instead.
The original operation she had was, as I later found out, for an intestinal obstruction, which is a really dangerous condition that will kill you quite fast without surgery. But while they were performing the operation, they noticed some sort of growths in the GI area (still not sure exactly where), which after some testing they determined to be cancer. Needless to say that was really disheartening to hear, as my immediate reaction was that this woman doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of surviving. However, she is now going to the Ocean Road hospital, which is I believe the only cancer institute in the country, and she's getting chemotherapy. She's going to have to take it for 6 months, after which they will do more tests to determine whether or not the cancer is gone, but my hope is that they caught the cancer early enough (since she hadn't shown any outward symptoms of it yet) that the chemo will cure her.
It isn't going to be pleasant for her - I went to visit her shortly after she had her first treatment, and it's safe to say that this cure is almost worse than the disease. She was vomiting all the time, and just generally didn't have much energy for doing anything. It was sad seeing a woman who was always happy and laughing in such a depressing state, but it seems like the side-effects get better the more time passes from the time of treatment. It's also a very expensive treatment - each dose costs almost 200,000 shillings (which is a PCV's monthly living allowance here, or about $160), which is a crazy amount of money for your average Tanzanian. I was talking to a teacher here at school about it, and she said that if she ever got cancer she would just wait at home to die, because there is no way she could afford treatment like that. Thankfully my host mother's family (including her sisters, daughters, and sons-in-law) are almost all working professionals - many of them in the healthcare field - so they have a fair amount of money. Even still, it's straining their money quite a bit, so I'm helping them pay for the chemo. My host family has never asked me for anything, which is why I knew that when one of my host sisters asked if there was something I could give them to help pay for the medicine, that they must be struggling to get enough money. A rather sad situation, but if I am able to provide the assistance that allows her to get better, then my entire time here in Tanzania will have been worth it.
Otherwise, school continues to go really well. Teaching's going to get a bit more tiresome, as I've started teaching the computer studies syllabus - this means a lot of time spent in the actual classroom writing on a blackboard, not having them in the computer lab. Writing on a board and talking for 34 periods a week instead of more self-guided work with computers is a bit difficult, but I need to prepare the kids for the national exam. Also I don't have much choice anyway, as they are paving the road that runs from Marangu up to Tarakea (on the border with Kenya), and they have to move the electric poles farther away from the road, because the paved road is going to be wider than the dirt one. Guess what happens every time they move poles? Yep, they shut the power off. So most days, the power is off from 9am until 8pm - makes using the computers a wee bit difficult.
The President of Tanzania (Jakaya Kikwete) went to Tarakea on Sunday, so I got to see him in his car as he drove by. He was supposed to come by at 10am, but in typical Tanzanian fashion he didn't actually arrive until about 11:30. So we were all lined up on the road for an hour and a half, and then he drove by in 30 seconds. But he had the window open and was waving as he went by, so I did actually get a glimpse of him.
The health club is going more smoothly now, because the school finally decided to return to the old schedule and make the last period of the day for clubs or other activities (Thursday is clubs, and other days are sports/cleanliness/projects/debate). The problem last term was that there was no set time for clubs, so even though I got permission from the academic master to have the club during the last period one day a week, if there was a teacher in the classroom in which some of the students in the health club were in, they couldn't come. Now the time is definitely set aside for only clubs, so I'm getting more done.
I'm hoping to bring the students in the health club to visit a local hospital, and also a center that my site mate works at which deals with AIDS victims and orphans. Plus there's going to be a school trip to Ngorongoro Crater either this month or next, and I'm also trying to see if it will be possible to climb Kilimanjaro this September/October with students. In addition, two grant proposals will be going to Peace Corps this week. Busy, but enjoying it a lot.
To finish this up, I'd like to share an example of why I think this country is so great - this past Saturday was the graduation for YCS, which is a Catholic students' group (this area is probably 90+% Catholic, due to heavy missionary activity). The day started with a mass, and the priest began the mass by greeting everyone, as usual. Except that he also said "salaam alaikum", which is the Arabic greeting that Muslims use to greet each other (it means "peace be unto you"). And it's not like there were lots of Muslims in attendance, as our school has a very small number of them. But he knew there were a few Muslims there, so he said it. And even more surprising, almost all of the students answered him (by saying "alaikum salaam"). There's really something special about a country where something like that happens - I know we have ecumenical services in the US, but frankly I could never imagine walking into a church or synagogue and hearing a religious leader greet the congregation in Arabic (or vice versa). There are more than a few things in this country that people could learn from Americans, but there are also some big ones that they're already ahead of us on.