Duma Duma Duma

Yesterday we did more interviews. We talked to one family where one of the kids was making motor boat noises the whole time and another kid who peed right next to us as we were talking to his mother and grandmother. We also talked to another family where only the grandma was home. She was old and I’m pretty sure she was senile. She would babble for about five minutes and then the guide would pretty much just say “she doesn’t know.” At one point he said “her son’s keep bees and they use honey but she doesn’t know beeswax.” It was great. Haha.

After the interviews we came back to camp and discussed we had learned. Apparently they use trees here to cure STDS and treat AIDS. They also think that planting trees makes it rain. There are some really interesting beliefs here…

Yohanna is back in camp and doing pretty well. I was so relieved to see him back in camp! It's unclear on whether his collar bone is broken or not but he's got a pressure wrap on it and is obviously in a lot of pain. 

Molly suggested that we make Yohanna a get well soon card. I made him a tinga-tinga inspired one with birds on the cover because one of my favorite moments with him was when we were bird watching and he just said "I like birds." I had all of the staff and students sign it. Pascal had the funniest note. He wrote "no more riding on motorcycles. If you fall off again I will fire you." It was hilarious because Pascal is a driver and he has no authority to fire Yohanna. I think it was just his way of telling Yohanna to stay safe in the future.

At dinner I finally saw Yohanna so I gave him his card. He had the best reaction to it. At first he smiled and said "for me?" Then he saw the birds and said "Oh, soon I will be able to fly." Then he opened up the card and just got this huge smile on his face when he saw all of the notes and signatures. After he had looked at the inside of the card he hugged it to his chest and walked around with a huge smile on his face for a few minutes.

Today we went to Ngorongoro Crater. I woke up around 5 this morning and was so excited for the day I just laid in bed and smiled. I thought I was too excited to go back to sleep but then I promptly did.

We had to wait a long time to get a pass to enter the crater and the main building was closed for renovations so we had to figure out how to amuse ourselves. Christian ranted about how much the office staff sucked for pretty much the whole hour that we waited. Some of us stood around and chatted. The best was the group who started playing vegetable showdown. Vegetable showdown is the game we played the other night were two people duel by acting out an adjective and a vegetable. They got Kioko to play and that was great. He pretty much just jumped around and waved his arms like the kid he was dueling with but it was really funny. At one point the two dueling students ended up rolling on the ground across the parking lot. Christian just looked over at them with a confused and said "next thing we know the baboons will come and join their game." I laughed and said "it's all fun and games until someone gets bitten..."

After the first gate but before the second one we stopped for a lecture. It was so cold! It was windy and we had our lecture behind a little hill so that we could get a break from the wind. It must have looked ridiculous to all of the tourists to see us all sitting in a huddle (we were literally sitting on top of each other trying to get warm).

The first unique animal sighting that we saw was three lions. When we first drove up it looked like there were two dead lions but then they moved and we saw that 1) they were alive and 2) there were actually three lions. There were two males and a female just lounging and soaking up the sun.

The second cool thing we saw was a cheetah. It was sitting when we drove up but then it seemed to get uncomfortable with all of the cars so it got up and started walking away. -News update: I am currently sitting by the fire. The maasai students just asked me why we are so flexible. I am sitting with my legs crossed so I was confused until they showed me their efforts to cross their legs. Anna goes "they can't do anything!" And then it was clarified that the maasai can't sit with their legs crossed. Next we need to show them yoga.- It wandered into some reeds and then came out a while later. It wandered away and we followed it. I'm so glad that we waited and followed it because it broke into a jog to pass the cars. After it got past the cars it took off sprinting into the center of a mixed herd of wildebeest, zebras and gazelles. The herd took off and we lost sight of the cheetah for a while but when they settled down and we still couldn't find the cheetah we figured out that it had failed to catch whichever animal it was gong after.

After a few minutes the cheetah popped up out of the grass and started walking towards some of the gazelle. It wasn't paying attention to the wildebeest and a bunch of them started to gang up and follow it. The wildebeest gained speed and dropped their horns until the cheetah turn around and threatened them by swatting at them and dropping into a crouch. When the cheetah tried to get up and walk away again the wildebeest started to chase it again and the cheetah was forced to stop walking and face them again. So it ended up that the cheetah was just sitting and watching the wildebeest who were watching him. It was funny because there were zebras wandering in the middle of the standoff who seemed completely oblivious to the fact that there was a cheetah there. After a while the wildebeest got bored and started to wander away but as soon as the cheetah stood up they all turned back and watched it again. Since the gazelle were alerted by the wildebeest behavior and the wildebeest wouldn't leave the cheetah alone the cheetah ended up just walking away. At that point we had watched the cheetah for about an hour and a half and decided to go find something else. It was very interesting though because it made you wonder about all of the challenges that cheetahs face to eat. The whole time I was watching the cheetah all I could think was how amazing it is that cheetahs haven't gone extinct.

After the cheetah we saw a zebra that had been recently attacked. It has scratches on it's neck and shoulder from the encounter. The zebra obviously wasn't feeling very well; it was standing right on the road and didn't move when we drove up.

Tinga Tinga

Today was a non-program day. In the morning I went on a hike to a waterfall. On the drive to the hike Molly was making Mario cart noises as she got stuck driving on the sidewalk (we couldn't find a solid looking bridge to get off the sidewalk and back onto the street), flew over bumps, and chased chickens and goats off the road with the car. Also, every time that we went by cabbage fields El would yell "cabbage!" in a hilarious voice so that just enhanced the drive.

The hike was awesome. We started in a banana farm and then split off into the woods. From there we hiked up a river bed. Because it is the dry season here the river had been reduced to a small stream so there was plenty of exposed rocks to hike on. I absolutely LOVED the waterfall. There wasn't very much water flowing down the falls but it was still really nice. I climbed up as far as I could and then climbed back down, took my shoes off and walked around in the pool at the bottom of the falls. Riverside hikes are my favorite hikes and, even though I'm horribly out of shape, I had a great morning. I only fell once and barely got scraped so it's all good.

After the hike I walked to a painting shop that we had visited last session and asked them if they would teach me how to do a tinga tinga painting. To my surprise they said "yes, of course," invited me in, and set me up with a painter to teach me. They had me pick a canvas first. I picked a square one and the teacher started to sketch the general shapes for me but then I changed my mind and started another one on a long rectangle. As soon as he started drawing the giraffe outline on that canvas I knew that I had made the right call to switch canvases. After sketching a very rough outline of a giraffe, a tree and some birds the painter showed me how to fill in the painting. He would do I little of one section to demonstrate the technique and then I would replicate what he had done and finish painting that part.

First, the tree, giraffe, and bird silhouettes were filled in with black paint. Then the paint had to dry. Drying took about an hour and a half and I watched another painter work and talked to the men who worked at the shop while I waited. The painter was doing knife paintings and he worked impressively quickly. The knife paintings seemed to be all very deliberate randomness. They offered to let me try but I said I would just watch. Once my silhouettes were dry I filled in the shading on the giraffe with a line of white paint spread out with a stiff brush. Then colored in the white sections on the birds as well as the spots on the giraffe. After that I used black paint to fill in the details on the birds and outline the white sections of the animals so that they stood out against the white background. Once this was done I added grass under the giraffe's feet using the same stiff-brushed technique as the shading. Finally I signed my name.

Everyone at the painting shop was amazing. They talked to me as I worked and continuously complimented my work. I think that they were genuinely impressed (one guy asked me if painting was my profession) but maybe they just complement all tourists; either way it was really nice. They also took pictures of me working with my camera so that I would have documentation of the creation process. And they offered me food and got me a coke. I spent about 4 hours in the painting store and they entertained me and taught me the whole time.

The day ended with me running back to the cars with my still-wet painting in my hand because Molly called and said we had to go. I had a great day though. I think that if we go back to Mtu Wa Mbu I will go back to the painting place and ask if I can make another painting :]

Going... Going... Gone for $2,000!

Last night the Olympic Games came to camp. Just before dinner the lights in the dining hall were turned off and dramatic music started to play. Then we started to hear the dinner bell ringing from outside. It got louder until Julia came running into the dining hall. She had a piece of Obama fabric tied as a cape over her shoulders. Marssia was right behind her with an American flag head bandanna on her head and the Olympic "torch" in her hand. The torch was a flashlight with orange and white paper taped around the edges. They ran through one doorway, out the other and then back in through the kitchen entrance.

After dinner we split off into four teams and played vegetable showdown. The counties were Canada, Soviet Russia, Lichtenstein, and Mesopotamia. I was Switzerland because I had a headache and didn't want to play. Vegetable showdown consists of two people basically dueling but when you get three steps away an adjective and vegetable are yelled out and the people have to act them out as best they can. For example, slimy eggplant or athletic lettuce. The competitors were very official and shook hands cordially before dueling.

Our first stop this morning was in a forested area on the side of the road. We discussed the effects of the installment of roads on wildlife. Roadkill is not generally well studied here but just by casual observation it seems that dogs and small nocturnal carnivores (civets and genets) are the most commonly killed species. We learned that one of the main ways that people are trying to decrease roadkill is by building tunnels under roads and bridges over roads that the animals can use. Animals such as hyenas and lions often adopt drainage pipes as homes too so it is becoming a useful habitat component. Elephants are the most interesting animals that we discussed in relation to roads. If you install a bridge once the elephants discover it they will consistently use it and teach their young to use it. They also have been observed imitating road noises in some areas. It is thought that they imitate road noises to help teach their offspring what roads are.

After the short lecture on the road, we walked around in the forested area next to the road for a little while. There were lots of little holes from civets and genets. There were also little balls built by dung beetles left laying around. The main trees were acacias. The most common one is a type that forms a symbiotic relationship with ants. The tree has a bunch of little balls all over it and the ants live in them. The ants help the tree by crawling onto and biting any animals that try to eat the tree. Kioko kept poking at branches to show us that ants and he ended up with ants all over him. We asked him "don't they bite?" and he said "well... yes" and then proceeded to someone frantically try to brush them all off. Haha. He showed us another tree called a sandpaper tree. It had little orange berries all over it. Kioko ate one so I ate one too. It tasted pretty good (just sweet) but was very sticky and immediately started to dry out my mouth. So of course I convinced some other students to eat some. Then we were all practically running back to the car to get  water because our mouths were uncomfortably dry. The sad part was the water didn't really help...

Our second stop was a curio shop where we had been last session. The owner of the shop explained to us about the process of obtaining Tanzanite and other materials that he sells. Tanzanite is green or brownish tinted when it is mined and it is only after a heating process that it turns blue and/or purple. It is considered a semi-precious stone currently but the shop owner believes that it will be given the status of precious soon because there is so little of it that is unmined. Tanzania is the only place in the world where Tanzanite is mined and there is only one place in Tanzania where you can get it.

The third place that we stopped was in a game controlled area outside of Mtu Wa Mbu. We sat under a tree between two maasai bomas for our lecture. The maasai came out of their houses when they heard us drive up. One of the little boys came running out naked with some cloth in his hand; a couple of steps out the door I think he realized he was naked because he skidded to a halt and covered himself sheepishly. The maasai crowded around where we were sitting and I learned later that they thought that the rangers were trying to sell their land to us. Once they figured out that was not the case they just watched us and listened to the rangers talk (they spoke in Swahili and our teachers translated).

The rangers explained to us how their game controlled area worked. The unique aspect of game controlled areas, compared to national parks, is that hunting with a permit is legal in game controlled areas. There are three kinds of permits that are issued: tourist permits, residential permits, and special permits. The price of each permit is based on the animal that the person wants to hunt. A person pays for the number and type of animals that they want to kill and then they are free to hunt that animal (with a ranger) until they kill their approved number or their permit expires (whichever comes first). Tourists can kill any animals except giraffes, cheetahs and rhinos during the hunting season. Giraffes are not killed because they are the national animal and the other two are not killed because they are endangered. Residents can kill animals for sustenance during the hunting season. This means that they can hunt buffalo, wildebeest, antelope species and other prey species that are used as a food source. Special permits are given to important individuals and locals for special occasions. Special permits allow for individuals to kill animals that are not normally hunted and/or animals outside of the hunting season.

The most interesting part of the lecture for me was the prices of the permits to kill certain animals. For a tourist to get a permit to kill a lion is only $2,000. Granted, they have to pay lodging, guide fees, etc, but I thought this was an extremely low price. Considering the rate that the lion population is decreasing I think that the Tanzanian government needs to strongly consider increasing this price or taking lions off of the list of animals that people can legally hunt. An elephant permit costs $15,000 and if the tourist succeeds in killing an elephant they must forfeit the tusks to the authorities. It only costs $250 for a permit to kill a wildebeest. For locals a permit for a buffalo is only 100,000 Tzs (~ $80). I couldn't believe that it was so cheap. It's great for the people though because a buffalo could feed a whole village.

On the drive back I asked Kioko what incentive people had to follow the law and get a permit. He said that killing without a permit could result in jail time or going to court (fines or jail). He also said that taking a ranger with you is often very beneficial. The rangers know the best places to find the animals and are usually very competent with a gun so that if the person with the permit cannot find/kill an animal the ranger usually can.

After lunch we had a computer lab. It consisted of analyzing the data that we had collected on safari so that we could start making our posters. Christian went through everything and then we split off into groups. First Gasper came up and told me he had no idea what was going on. Then Fahaad. Then Moses. So basically I was swarmed by lost East Africans. It was a lot of fun trying to explain what we had to do to them. Gasper was pretty much hopeless but Fahaad just needed general directions and Moses was a very funny mixture of wanting to do it himself and having no idea what he was doing. Gasper also had a computer that was very uncooperative so it made it that much harder to explain everything to him. I had a great time explaining the assignment to them.

Dinner was a dance party. It was awesome. I love the group of students here this session. Someone brought an Ipod dock so various people's ipods were plugged in and we just jammed. We heard everything from build me up buttercup to wagon wheel to earth wind and fire. Everyone was singing along and dancing. Dancing the way you do in your room when no one is watching. It was hilarious. The best dinner I've had here yet.

Unfortunately, during announcements we found out that Yohanna had been in an accident. He was riding a piki piki (motor cycle) and fell off. He has a broken collar bone. I know none of you know Yohanna but he's one of my favorite people here so please send good thoughts his way. He has a newborn baby and could use any help he can get to heal as quickly as possible.

Get Out and Walk

Today we went to Manyara Ranch. It is a protected area where people can graze their animals but can't hunt. The morning wasn't very interesting. We saw a few cool birds, including a go-away-bird, but not much else. The afternoon was awesome though. I was on top of my spotting game.

The first thing I spotted was mostly an accident. I thought it was a waterbuck. Waterbuck are common and that wouldn't have been all that exciting but upon closer inspection we found that it was a lesser kudu. Kudu are very rare in this area and Manyara Ranch is pretty much the only place you can find them. They are large antelope with big twisting horns, thick stripes down their throat and thin stripes on their sides.

The second animal spotting was also an accident. I spotted a pile of bones on the ground and I asked Christian if he could back up a little so I could see what animal it was. He said no, but I could get out and walk over there to check it out. I was shocked because we're hardly ever allowed out of the cars but I wasn't going to miss my chance so I hopped out of the car. The pile appeared to be a dumping area for the maasai boma; it had an equine skull as well as a lot of miscellaneous bones. I was almost done looking at it when I spotted a spotted turtle shell. I thought that was a weird thing to be in that pile so I picked it up. It was alive! It was a leopard tortoise less than the size of my palm (maybe a year old). Christian told us that it was probably eating some of the bone pieces because tortoises require a lot of calcium as they are growing.

The third thing I spotted was the best. I saw these rounded ears sticking out of the grass and I knew that it was some kind of predator. I exclaimed "hyena! no, lion. hyena... predator!" It turned out it was a lioness with 3 cubs. They got up and walked away from up when we stopped but since we were in Manyara Ranch we were allowed to follow them. Christian drove after them and we watched them climb around on the edge of a ravine for a few minutes. It wasn't very good conditions for pictures but it was still awesome to see lions on the move- especially cause I had spotted them!

Notes and Forgotten Moments (2)

1) Giraffes coats get darker as the giraffes age.

2) Lion cubs' noses are black, turn pink, and then turn blacker again with age. You can tell a lion's age by the amount of blackness on its nose. The color of its mane however depends on climate and genetics rather than age. Generally a lion's mane is darker in a cooler climate than in a warmer one.

3) Apparently there was a blue monkey in camp last session. None of us knew about it though. Haha.

4) The fence around camp is a new edition. It was put up because of the hyena attacks in the area. There used to just be bushes lining the property. The fence was only finished a week or so before we arrived.

5) Yohanna is selling bows and arrows in the camp duka. They are very different from bows and arrows that I have used in the US. The bows are made of wood and very stiff. Yohanna showed me that the usually shoot the big bow kneeling and with the bow braced on their knee so that they can get better leverage. The Arrows are much meaner looking than most of those in the US. They varied but the common theme was very nasty looking spikes in the sides of the arrow heads. Yohanna told me that if you shoot some of the more extreme ones into an animal you have to rotate them and shred the flesh around them so that it is possible to pull them out.

6) Many of the maasai have small circles burned onto their cheeks. I asked Yohanna why and he told me that traditionally sick children were given the mark as protection to keep them from getting sick again. It was prescribed by the village medicine man. Today, however, Yohanna said that the burns have become a sort of a fashion statement. Almost all Maasai have the burns as a decorative cultural mark. However, Danson told me that some of the tribes are moving away from the markings because they are moving into towns, modernizing, and sending their children to public schools.

7) This morning there was a white-browed coucal in the dining hall. Martha caught it. I was really excited because I love those birds. They have really intense bright red eyes. It was sad though because the bird was struggling and losing a lot of feathers. I started asking Martha to let it go and Yohanna started yelling at her so she released it out the window. It was a great thing to see first thing in the morning. I didn't even know white-browed coucals lived around our camp.

8) We were doing a field exercise that involved using a couple of measuring stick tied together with a string and a level to create terraces in the land. One of the groups started limboing when they were done with their exercise. It was hilarious to watch.

9) Ninah and Pascal made hats out of some leaves while we were all having a field lecture. The leaves were fuzzy and almost had a velcro interaction when they were stuck together. It was so funny that I think most of us were watching them more than Mwamhanga (the teacher).

Schule

For our community service we had to come up with an activity to do with the kids at the primary school. The requirements were that it had to be educational somehow and wildlife related. After much discussion, we decided to describe animals to the kids and then have them guess what they are. Danson, one of the Kenyan students, and Gasper, one of the Tanzanian students, helped me translate the descriptions into swahili. That was a very interesting process because Gasper put so much thought into it. Before he translated everything he discussed the english sentence with me to make sure he understood the meaning and then he would talk to Danson and determine the best translation. He also kept wanting me to change the order in which the statements were made. I'm not really sure what his thought process was but I just put everything in the order he wanted. It took at least an hour for us to come up with five animal descriptions with translations that everyone was happy with. Haha.

When we presented our game to the group the kids really liked it. They caught on quickly and started hopping in their seats and waving their hands in the air as we described the animals. One kid who looked to be about half of the age of the others would figure out all of the animals after our first or second sentence and then proceed to wiggle around until we finished and either called on her or someone else. Another kid guessed totally random and wrong animals every time. It was really cute.

After we were done with our game we asked the kids if they wanted to teach us anything. They said a song and then sang four or five songs for us. Most of them were songs in english that were similar to those that I sang as a kid (if you're happy and you know it and one like the wheels on the bus except they sang about getting ready in the morning). After the songs they formed a circle and sang and danced. Then we split off into smaller groups and played duck duck goose. It ended up being a mixture of duck duck goose and tembo tembo simba (the version we'd taught them last time). After a little while that died off and we played land rover (red rover). I felt bad because the little kids were getting beat up when we played. One kid got knocked flat on her face and started sobbing. I brushed her off as best I could but she didn't seem comforted so I just let her get over it. After a little while she was laughing at the rest of us so I guess she was okay. I also played the hokey pokey so that the younger kids could participate. They thought that was great; especially when I stuck my butt in :D After the hokey pokey we played hand games. Someone taught the kids hand clapping games and they had to remind me how to play; I haven't played since I was about their age.


When our time was up the kids walked us back to camp. They shook our hands, gave us high fives, took pictures with us and said goodbye about a million times. One kid came up to me and grabbed my hand like we were having a thumb war but just pressed against my hand as hard as she could. I pushed back and made faces and noises like I was pushing as hard as I could. She thought that was hilarious and kept saying "tena! tena!" (again! again!). Then she said "tosha" (enough), walked away, and then turned around and came back again a couple of minutes later to do it again. Finally I said "tosha tosha" and escaped back into camp.

Nyani Tea Party

Yesterday we worked on papers pretty much all day. We got to chose our topic so I did mine in zebra habitat use, behavior and associations with other animals. Kioko gave me an awesome book to use as a resource called Portraits in the Wild: Animal Behavior in East Africa by Cynthia Moss. I think I'll need to buy it when I get home. Its a very well written book full of interesting behavior information.

Today we went to Tarangire National Park. This time our car didn't get attacked by tse tse flies! It was so much better than last time.

The best part of the day was when we were in the middle of a herd of elephants. One of them was sniffing us. That meant it was staring at us with its ears fanned out and its trunk straight up in the air. Then a baby came up and was copying it. We started the car to move away and it scared the baby. I have two pictures in a row: one of the baby sniffing and one of it with its trunk still up in the air but its mouth dropped open and its tongue sticking out in surprise. Its a very funny sequence. The other awesome part was when we started the car it upset one of the older females and she started threatening our car. She stuck her ears out, trumpeted, and started walking towards us. Then some other elephants who were a little farther away got upset too and started threatening our car also. It was really cool. We were supposed to be counting the elephants and getting distance readings of how far they were from the car so I was just like, "Ninah, can we stop when its safe?"

I had my first bush bathroom break. I had to wait for a time when there were no cars going by because if someone catches you out of the car in the park you can get a huge fine. I also had to pee right next to the car because there were impala, zebra, and elephants pretty close to us so it was too dangerous to go behind a bush.

We stopped at a lodge for lunch. I saw the East African students taking a group picture so I ran over and offered to take it for them so they could all be in it. After that I got in a picture myself. We gave Moses the camera and boy was that a mistake. Apparently Moses is not very technology savvy. First he was holding the camera upside down. Then he didn't adjust the zoom so the pictures were just of one of the guy's crotches. We finally got a decent picture but it was absolutely a hilarious mess. I have never had so much trouble taking a group picture.

On the drive back to camp Ninah told me all about my future and his. He told me that I had to stay in Tanzania. I had to marry a Tanzanian man and get a job in tourism. He also told me that he is building a house in Karatu and is going to have baboons and cheetahs in his house. He said that he is going to train a baboon to drink tea and eat lunch and dinner. According to Ninah you can train a baboon to do everything in four years and if I come to his house to visit in two years his baboon will say "Hello. How are you?" I asked him if he would have a dik dik and he said "No, only happy animals. Maybe a simba." I don't know where Ninah gets these stories from but I love it. He is always entertaining :]

African Mama

This morning we interviewed the community. We had a local guide and translator who helped us to communicate with the people that we stopped to talk to. Our guide this time was very friendly and he looked about 13 but he was 18. After our interviews when we were walking back he took out his phone and started playing a Lil' Wayne song. We talked about music and jammed as we walked back to camp. Then one of our cars drove by so we all crammed in. There were four of us in the back seat and the driver as well as two guides in the front seat. I kept relaxing as we went over bumps so that I was squishing the people next to me. It was very fun.

Before lunch I went to the tailor and picked up the clothes I had ordered. My pants and shirt were ready. They are great. The pants are blue with yellow birds (chickens?) and eggs. The shirt is green with a paisley-type pattern. It's prettier than paisley but I don't really know how to describe it... The pants are pajamas. I am SOOOO excited to have pajama pants with pockets: do you realize how hard that is to find in the US? The shirt is a kind of dressy shirt with a collar and elbow length sleeves. I was so excited about my clothes that I just kept them on as I walked back to camp.

On the way back to camp I stopped at Yohanna's house. Yohanna's wife had a baby the day that the session one students left. She and the baby just got home from the hospital a day or two ago. When we asked Yohanna what the baby's name was he said Black Mzungu (black white person) and he said that he was going to get her a camera and sunglasses so that she could be a mzungu. It was hilarious. Then we asked him what her name really is and he said "Leslie the Great." I thought he was kidding about that too but today when I asked his wife the baby's name she told me it is Leslie. One of the students last session was named Leslie and she told him if he had a girl he had to name her Leslie and, unless this is an extremely elaborate joke on the students, he really did as she asked.

The primary school children were on lunch break so there were a bunch of them walking down the road. A lot of them ran up to me, said hi, shook my hand, asked me how I was and what my name was. I answered them, reciprocated their questions and told them I would see them later. One group of girls started running with their arms spread for hugs when they saw me. I gave them all hugs and they showed me the lip gloss that they all had on. One of them pulled the lip gloss out of her pocket and wanted to put it on me. I leaned down and she did my lips for me. The girls loved that :D

When I got to lunch I told the staff "I am African today." Cecelia told me that if I took some charcoal and painted my face then maybe I could be African. I laughed and said "Oh yea, I'll need a head scarf to cover my hair too." Gasper, one of the Tanzanian students, told me that I looked like an African mama.

Coffee Coffee Coffee

This morning the rest of the group went hiking to the elephant caves but because we had already been there we went to Gibb's farm. Gibb's is a coffee farm and resort. The first place we went when we got there was the bathroom and even that was impressive; there were two rolls of toilet paper (one hanging on each wall) in the stall and a gorgeous view looking out over the farm from the sinks.

We just walked up and hoped that someone had time to give us a tour. Luckily they had a guide free to give one. The best part it was free except for the tip we gave our guide.

The guide took us through the organic gardens first. They had everything there from herbs to vegetables to fruit. They had two types of thyme, oregano, parsley, basil, rosemary, dill, mint, broccoli, artichokes, squash, turnips, carrots, lettuce, spinach, peas, string beans, chili peppers, chives, tree tomatoes (they are most similar to pomegranate as far as I can describe them), rhubarb, strawberries, papaya, bananas and, of course, coffee! The best part was that we could try everything. I ate some kind of flower that is used as a garnish, thyme (lemon and normal), oregano, parsley, mint, peas, string beans, tree tomatoes, and strawberries. I also licked raw coffee beans: they have a sugary taste to them. The tree tomatoes were surprisingly bitter but once you got to the inside the seeds were good. The strawberry that I had was probably the best strawberry I've ever had in my life. The guide was awesome because when we liked something he would just pick more of it for us. I couldn't believe it because we were not paying guests. I hope I didn't get giardia or anything from eating raw unwashed food. Time will tell I guess...

After we finished in the gardens we went to see the animals that they kept. They had pigs, donkeys and cows. They kill one pig every two weeks at a butcher block that they have there on the farm. They keep the cattle for milk. The animals ranged in age from newborn to full grown breeding adults and I was generally impressed with the conditions that they were kept under.

Once the tour was over we browsed the gift shop and ordered some coffee. The coffee was delicious. I don't even like coffee that much but I was so satisfied when we left. And it was only $2 for two large cups of locally grown freshly brewed coffee.

After we finished our coffee we met back up with the rest of the group and headed to Karatu. I was so confused when we got to Karatu because we came into town a different way than usual. It took we pretty much all day to figure out that we were in an area of town that I actually know. It was depressing how lost I was just because we came into town a different way.

The best part about Karatu was going to Fahaad's house. Fahaad is one of the East African students and Karatu is his home town. We got to meet his mother, father, brothers, sister and a handful of extended family members. They were all extremely nice and their house was very nice too. They owned a compound area that was built in a U shape that included living space, toilets, and covered garage-like areas where they kept machines to process food. Faahad invited us all into his room- which, by the way, was big enough to hold two full size beds, a couch and a coffee table- and brought us sodas. People here are so hospitable and polite. Fahaad and his family told us that the giraffe is the national animal of Tanzania because it is peaceful and polite like the people of Tanzania. I will miss the people here so much when I have to go home. Before we left Fahaad's middle brother rapped for us and his youngest brother sang us a couple of songs that he had learned in school. Then we got a picture with his whole family and they told us that we could come back and visit even if Fahaad wasn't there.

My Awesome African Birthday

Around 3 am this morning I woke up and was so excited about my birthday that it took me forever to fall back to sleep.

This morning for breakfast we had banana bread (which I love) so I was very happy.

At 7:30 sharp we headed to Manyara National Park. We saw so many dik diks in the park. I think that they knew that it was my birthday and I love them so they placed themselves in visible areas. Haha. We also saw lots of giraffes and elephants. And rock hyraxes. I've never seen them in Manyara before today. We saw mongooses too. They were funny to watch because they were constantly running around and vigorously digging.

After the park we went to Pizza Point for lunch :] I ate a whole pizza by myself and enjoyed every bite of it.

From Pizza Point we headed to the orphanage. Finding out that our community service project was at the orphanage today was a present in itself. I love the orphanage and the children there. The kids are amazing. They are getting comfortable in their new home and they remembered me. They were calling my name :D I helped paint a zebra on the wall of one the bedrooms. Some other students painted lions, a cheetah, and elephant holding baloons, flowers and bugs. After I was done painting I went outside and played with the kids. Isa braided my hair again and when he was done Baraka, another kid, gave me a wonderful side pony tail.

The kids were very rowdy and they completely exhausted me. They wanted to be carried, swung around and danced with. It was a blast. They found the music on my phone and started playing that. They loved the music and were very happy to find my African playlist. I found some very funny videos on my phone of the kids dancing that other kids had taken. In order to escape and get a drink of water I shoved my phone in my pocket and danced away. They thought that was funny and most of them let me go and found another mzungu to bother.

When I walked to the car to get my water and take a break they followed me looking for music and pictures. One of the kids stole my water bottle and tried to drink from it; the top was on so no water came out though. He was really confused and tried to drink from the bottom too before figuring out he had to unscrew the top and chugging down the rest of my water in three or four gulps. I pretty much just stood there and watched him in shock. Haha.

When it was time to go the kids walked me to the car and gave me big hugs before I got in. I can't wait to see them again!

I slept most of the ride back to camp and then we had a little down time before dinner when we got back. I took time to look through my pictures from the day and take a shower. Well, the water was freezing so I washed my hair under the faucet and wiped the rest of me off with wipes. It was close enough to a shower: in the end I was clean.

I was the guest of honor at dinner because it was my birthday. I walked in the dining hall and everyone cheered and yelled happy birthday. There were ribbons and balloons hanging from the ceiling and a special seat just for me. My seat had balloons on the back and ribbons, a candle, a bouquet of flowers,and a birthday card on the table in front of it. The flowers were beautiful and the card was cute. I especially loved the messages that the other students wrote in the card; they ranged from simple to funny to sweet. It was really funny because when I got in line for food no one had set there things down next to my seat (meaning it was looking like I was going to have to eat along) but luckily people joined me once they got their food.

I got bumped to the front of the food line because it was my birthday. It was funny though because I walked up to the front of the line and said "they said I have to come up here and cut in because it's my birthday" and one of the girl's responses was "can you cut behind me?"

After dinner there were more festivities. The RAP activity was a song that the camp staff sings a lot. When the MOD did the demo he did a special version for my birthday:

"Jambo, jambo bwana
habari gani
mzuri sana

Wageni, mwakaribishwa,
Tanzania hakuna matata

Lisa hakuna matata"

And then Burrah, the ascari who always sings the song, didn't know they did it special because of my birthday added "Courtney hakuna matata." It was really cute and I just sang along.

Next was cake time. The lights were turned off and the cook crew came out carrying a cake (with candles of course) and singing. They set the cake down in front of me and I tried to blow out the candles; unfortunately they were trick candles so even after about 4 attempts they kept coming back. African trick candles are much more interesting than American trick candle; they shoot off sparks like sparklers occasionally. It's a little scary :]

Once we dealt with the candles I could finally get to the cake itself. There was a nice border on one side but on the other side the end of the word birthday fell off the cake (it actually said birthda). When I was laughing at this Molly explained that because I requested special frosting they didn't make enough to cover the whole cake and they had to cut off about an inch on one end. The frosting was amazing. I requested chocolate and they made a chocolate butter cream frosting. In my opinion that made it the best cake we have had in Tanzania and I ate multiple very large pieces.

Some people had very interesting cake eating habits. I was given a hard time about serving others before myself but I love middle pieces so I gave out the edges I had to cut to get to the middle. Kioko didn't want any frosting so he cut a piece and then left the frosting. Molly only wanted the frosting so she ate his frosting plus a little more that she cut off the top of another piece. For a while the frostingless piece looked sad and lonely but then another girl happily ate it. The best was after most people were done one of the girls came and sat across from me and was scraping the remaining frosting edges off of the aluminum foil. She ate a LOT of frosting and later commented "Ugh, I feel like I have a brick in my stomach."

My favorite way that I was told happy birthday today was the way Courtney said it to me. She walked up to me, took my hands, and very seriously said "I have something I've been meaning to tell you... Happy birthday!!" I was so worried she had something serious to tell me. Haha.

After dinner we all sat around the fire. The Kenya students tried to teach us how to do traditional Maasai dances. We were all pretty horrible at it, especially the woman's dance with requires a lot of shoulder shaking. I was laughing too hard to really make a solid attempt at the moves or the grunting-type sounds that accompanied the dance. Ninah also tried to teach us a song. It was a really pretty song and from what I could understand it was about loving Tanzania. We did okay until about 4 lines in and then we all collapsed into laughter because everyone butchered the words so badly. Ninah said he would write down the lyrics for us later so that we could learn it properly.

So, basically I had an amazing birthday and I am going to bed happy. Nala salama.

Coconuts

Today we went to Lake Manyara Park. We saw a lot more animals than the first time we went to Manyara last session; I hope that's a good omen for the rest of the trip. I'm exhausted right now and my stomach hurts so I'm not going to go into details but there wasn't a lot of new or super exciting stuff. We were asking about the palm trees so Joseph, the driver, got out of the car and grabbed on of the nuts for us. Everyone was like "oh no! What are you doing? Don't get eaten!" I kept the nut so i can open it later and see what its like. Later we saw an eagle owl which is a large owl with pink eye lids. That was really cool. We also saw a young elephant who wasn't very good with his trunk. He kept trying to pull up grass but it wasn't working so he'd use his foot to kick the grass loose as he pulled and then eat it. It was very smart of him. I'm really excited for tomorrow. We're going to Manyara in the morning, to pizza point for lunch and then to the orphanage to volunteer and help them paint in the afternoon. And it's my birthday! I'm so excited that we have a good schedule for my birthday!

Poo poo poo

We are the gopher girls. We always go fer guys but they never go fer us. We don't know why...

^ That's my new favorite song that I learned today. At the end you stick your front teeth out and make a rodent noise.

Our focus today for class was dung. We spent all morning learning about animal poop. Then in the afternoon we went to Lake Manyara and walked transects looking at poop samples. They gave us bags of samples from 5 or 6 different species and we carried them around to use for comparisons as we found our own samples. It was actually really fun. The Kenya students were hilarious because they kept playing with the poop like it was a soccer ball. They were kicking and juggling chunks of poop. They also talked to the Maasai kids who were herding cattle a lot. The kids were very interesting because there was something about them that made them seem like miniature adults more than kids...

I generally love this group of students. I actually feel bad when I'm "antisocial" and go off and do my own thing for a little while.

Oh! I learned how to play bao today! Bao is the game that I bought last session. It is similar to mancala and one of the Tanzanian students taught me to play. I kicked his butt. Beginners luck I guess.

New Session New Friends

First, as a side note: the staff here are some of the most amazing people.

This session the student group is very different from the last one. The best thing about it is that there are four students from East Africa. I just spent over an hour talking to them about what we learned last session and the US. We pulled up google maps to show them America. I even zoomed in to show them my house. One of the other girls showed me that you can get the street view and the first thing I saw was my car. I had no idea you could do that. I was just as surprised as the African students and we were all cracking up that we could practically see in my front window. Plus how they happened to have a picture when my car was home was really funny because it was a recent picture (mom, your honda was in the driveway) and I'm barely home recently. After we looked around the street view for a little while one of the students said "Thank you for the tour of your house" and we all started cracking up. We looked at another student's house and then the Mississippi River as well as New York City. It was so much fun to see all the East African students' reactions and try to explain everything to them.

Also, today when we were driving in the jeep I was waving and saying hi to a lot of people. One of the kids was standing really close to the road so when I put my hand out to wave he pulled his arm back and gave me the hardest high five he could. It surprised me so I wasn't holding my arm very well and it flew back into the side of the car. It really hurt but it was also really funny. I guess I'll be more careful about sticking my arm out in the future. Haha.

Paka, Tumbili and the Beach

First things first: I love my Tanzania jersey that I bought so much that I wore it for 3 days in a row.  Well also I was travelling and didn't have a lot of options as far as changing clothes... But still.

Day One

After checking in at the backpackers' hotel we walked to the bus station to get tickets for the next day. It was quite and adventure to get there. The whole time we had to dodge cars, vans, piki piki (motorcycles) and people yelling "mzungu!" There are no stop signs, no street lights, no crosswalks and pedestrians don't really have the right of way so you just have to keep your eyes open and take your chances when walking.

Once we got to the bus station we were immediately swarmed by people asking where we were going. Two men lead us to a tiny booth and told the man there that we wanted to go to Tanga. The man at the booth didn't speak or really understand English so the men who had greeted us translated and I just used a lot of pointing and hand signals. Our efforts got us 3 tickets to Tanga for $10 each. Ten bucks for an eight hour bus ride: not to shabby.

On the way back to the hotel we stopped in a couple of shops. In one shop the guy told us "Today prices are cheap! Tomorrow they will be more expensive." Then, realizing he had just told us his things would be expensive he added "only a little more." I also tried to stop and watch some men who were making tire shoes but they started laughing at me and stopped working to watch me. They tried to talk to me in Swahili but I didn't understand enough to explain that I just wanted to watch so I walked away.

The toilets at backpackers' were very interesting. About half of them were situated so that you could barely sit on them because they were so close to the wall. Also, most of them sprayed water all over the seat when you flushed. I thought people were just peeing all over the seat and I was really confused how girls had managed to get pee on the whole toilet seat.

Day Two

On the walk to the bus station we were swarmed by even more people than the day before. They all wanted to know where we were going and help us buy tickets. I ended up just pointing to my bag and saying "ticket" every time someone walked up and asked where we were going. When we got to the bus station getting on the bus was surprisingly easy. And once we were on the bus, other than the people standing next to the bus trying to sell snacks and drinks who kept trying to get our attention, no one bothered us.

The bus was a very interesting experience. First, they played a cheesy asian action movie with english subtitles of the first few hours. Second, every time the bus slowed down in a town area people would run up the the bus yelling and trying to sell snacks, drinks, and groceries to the passengers. Third, the bus crashed:. A truck in front of us stopped and I don't know if the bus driver wasn't paying attention or he'd been driving too closely to the truck to stop but we swerved off into a ditch. Luckily the bus was large enough that we just hit the far side of the ditch and didn't really fall in so the driver just backed right out again. Fourth, the bus only stopped once in the 8 hour trip for a bathroom break. Five hours into the trip the bus stopped and everyone got off: we got off too and just hoped the bus wouldn't leave us. I bought a skewer of beef which was delicious.

When we got to Tanga we were so confused. The bus stopped but we didn't know where we were in Tanga so we had no idea where we were trying to go. I tried to ask the man behind us using a map and simple swahili but he gave us a complex swahili answer and I had no idea what he said. Then I leaned out the window and asked the men who were standing there. One was a taxi driver and he recognized the hotel that we were trying to get to and said that he would take us. By the time that we got to the front of the bus he was standing at the front steps yelling "Me first! Me first! Remember?"

The whole taxi situation was very confusing. When we got in the taxi the man we had talked to got in the drivers seat but then another man ran up, the first man got up, and the new man got behind the wheel. The first man ended up sitting in the passenger seat. For all we knew the taxi could have been going anywhere but then we started to see a couple of streets that we could find on the map. From those streets we could see that we were going the right way. Suddenly we passed the hotel. The driver stopped at the next hotel and the passenger told us "this is a good place for white people." The place looked nice but it was more like a motel and that didn't seem as safe as the other one. Luckily, when we explained to them that we had reservations at the hotel we had just passed they took us back there.

From the lawn of the hotel we could see the Indian Ocean. At dinner we watched a guard chase and scold vervet monkeys that were invading the lawn. There were also cats everywhere and they surrounded us as soon as we got food. The staff kept coming by and chasing the cats away too.

Our room had air conditioning and a tv. Both were amazing luxuries :D

Day Three

We woke up too late for breakfast but we had some food in the room so it was okay. After we snacked we walked down the road to check out our beach options. The first thing we ran into on the road was a giant snail. Its body was about four inches and it had a huge conical shell. After we moved on from the snail, we saw lots of random paths that disappeared into the trees towards the beach but we weren't sure what we would run into if we went down there so we kept walking. We found a small beach that was 300 tzs for the day (~20 cents), a yacht club that was 2,500 tzs for the day (~$1.25), and a public beach that smelled disgusting but had a lot of cool shells.

On the walk back to the hotel I stopped at a little duka for a coke. We had to sit at the shop while I drank my coke so that I could return the bottle and get my change. There was a really nice cat there who actually rubbed up against our legs and liked being petted.

Back at the hotel we sat down for lunch in the pavilion. Meals here take a very long time to come if you order them at a restaurant so we just sat and soaked up the atmosphere. The Tanga area was so gorgeous with all of the baobabs and palm trees, the ocean view, and the breeze coming off the water. When lunch came it was delicious. I ordered a tomato and cucumber salad. It was really just a large plate of sliced cucumbers and salads and a roll but I've been craving fresh veggies all trip so I loved it. The other girls got ice cream for lunch. It was a huge dish filled with strawberry ice cream. I tried it and it was delicious.

When we started thinking about dinner Courtney's only comment was "we can go to dinner and then watch another movie!" We loved having tv. Haha. At dinner we watch a gecko climbing on the ceiling as we ate. The cats begged the whole time but they didn't bother us too much. We enjoyed the entertainment. When we were done eating and got up from the table the cats swarmed the table looking for any bits of food we might have left behind.

After dinner I was sitting in bed messing with my phone and I realized that the random thing on the top that I couldn't identify was a flashlight. A flashlight on a phone, what a brilliant idea! It saved me a couple of times when the power randomly went out when I was in the bathroom.

Day Four

We got up in time for breakfast! It was a good thing too because they had toast, fresh fruit and cereal with COLD MILK!!! I ate about 5 bowls of cereal because it was the first time cold milk and cereal were available here. I made myself sick because I ate so much food.

After breakfast we all passed out for a couple of hours and then went to the pool. The pool was gorgeous. It was clean and cool but not too cold. There were pool chairs, palm trees, and a view of the ocean.

We tried to ask the hotel staff if we could get snorkling equipment but they just seemed really confused. They just made a funny face and said "snork?"

At lunch the cats were extra brave and the monkeys decided to see if they could get food too. When I tried to shoo the cats away one of them thought I was throwing them food so they clawed me. But I guess its kind of my fault because I had thrown then food at one point... They were so cute though! Little calico and tabby kittens... I couldn't help myself. After a while the monkeys realized we had food and they came over too. At first it was cute- just one monkey sitting a few tables away from us- but then he started moving closer and more of them joined him. The monkeys chased the cats away. We waved at one of the waitresses and yelled "tumbili!" She just laughed and sauntered her way over. When she got to us she said "they aren't afraid of girls..." A little while later a man came over and shooed them away. They returned as soon as he walked away but then he got a sling shot and that chased them off for the rest of the meal. Can you imagine if part of your job was to chase monkeys away from guests??

After lunch we walked into town. On the walk into town a caravan of cars with a police escort passed us. A man told us that the caravan was for the president's wife. We didn't really know where we were going so we stopped and asked a woman who said hi to us. She was like "oh, the market? This way. I'll show you." At first I was freaked out that she just stopped what she was doing to show us the way but then I remembered that people are just like that here. One of the other girls got freaked out though so when we passed a fruit stand I just thanked the woman and said that we would stop there instead. I was frustrated that the other girl was being so nervous but at the same time I wasn't going to make her go anywhere she wasn't comfortable and I didn't want to keep going by myself.

On the walk back to the hotel we stopped in a park. The parks in Tanga were beautiful. They were the first public parks, like those in america with paths and benches, that I've seen here. After we left the park we went by a baobab tree that had pods on it. I wanted to get one so I stopped and tried to pick one. They were very velvety though so when I jumped I couldn't get a good enough hold on one of them to pull it off the branch.

Day Five

We had the breakfast buffet again but this time I also ordered eggs. The eggs were normal scrambled eggs but there was a mysterious soggy thing in the middle. It tasted kind of like chicken broth but I have absolutely no idea what it actually was. During breakfast we watch as the hotel staff set up the lawn for some sort of large event. We couldn't tell what it was going to be but it looked like a wedding.

After breakfast we went to the beach. As we were leaving the hotel a woman and the front desk asked us where we were going. When we said the beach she said "you don't like our pool?" We laughed and I told her "I just want to touch the ocean!"

We went to the yacht club beach. The best part about the yacht club is the way that Tanzanians say yacht. They pronounce every letter here so that combined with their accent means it comes out as a pretty much unrecognizable word. The second best thing about the yacht club was a sign that said "We like dogs, you like dogs, but no dogs allowed." There was a picture of a german shepard on the sign; I have not seen a single dog that looks like a german shepard in Tanzania.

The Indian Ocean was amazing. The shore was rocky but the water was warm and got deep really quickly so you didn't have to touch the bottom very long. The water was very salty but that may just be because I'm used to Lake Michigan.

There was a floating dock so we swam out to it. There were a couple of local guys hanging out on the dock so we talked to them for a while. We talked about the differences between Tanzania and America. They were freezing but we were laughing because it was about 70 degrees and partly sunny. One of the guys was training to be captain and he had very good english. He asked us how you can tell the difference between Americans and Tanzanians. Courtney misunderstood him and pointed to her skin. He said "No no! There are negra Americans!" I said attitude: Americans are much more stressed and self-involved. He liked that answer.

It started to cool off so we headed back to the shore. I shell hunted for a while. I mostly found clam shells, tiny hermit crabs, rocks and little broken pieces of shells. I also almost fell because I made the mistake of walking on a cement platform that turned out to be surprisingly slippery.

One of the boys, Alli, asked us if he could come to our hotel and see us tonight. Courtney and I both paused awkwardly and then I told him "no, we're leaving tomorrow so we'll be busy packing." When we were walking back to the hotel he drove by us with some of his friends and we waved and kept walking. Things got interesting when we got back to our hotel and saw their car in the parking lot. I wasn't convinced that it was the same car but then we walked into the hotel and Alli was standing in one of the hallways. Then I was creeped out. A while later someone knocked on our door but I couldn't tell who it was so I didn't answer. Then we got a call. Courtney told me to answer it so I did. At first I wasn't sure who it was but then he said "this is Alli. My friend is staying here. Can I come to your room and say goodbye?" At that point I was scared and mad. I said "we told you we didn't want to see you at our hotel! Goodbye." When we went to dinner I was still kinda freaked out but no one bothered us. A few days later Alli sent Courtney a facebook message and apologized multiple times. I feel a little bad but I DID NOT want to be followed to my room!


So... to back track a little a couple of other interesting things happened on the walk back to the hotel. First, as we were walking I was watching the ground a lot to make sure I didn't trip on a root or stone. While watching the ground I saw part of a shell sticking up. It looked really big so I made Courtney stop, grabbed a stick, and started digging. Courtney was laughing at me and I was a little afraid a car might hit us cause we were so close to the road but it was totally worth it. I pulled out a snail shell that's at least as big as my fist. It was packed with dirt but I took it back to the hotel and washed it out. The top point is broken off and there's a chip on the bottom rim but it's really in great shape (especially considering it was buried on the side of the road). The second cool thing on that walk was a parade of wedding cars. The first car in the line was a pickup with a brass band in the bed. There were men with trumpets and trombones and when they passed us they turned and leaned so that they were playing directly at us. It was very funny.


We felt like complete intruders at dinner. The lawn was covered in chairs and chairs, there was a platform draped in fabric, and there were strings of lights running over everything. It was gorgeous. The wedding reception was in full swing and there was a constant stream of guests walking past our table to join the party.  Most of the guests ignored us but a few of them gave us weird looks like "why are you here?" We just kinda slumped in our chairs and observed the party while we ate, trying not to be wedding crashers. There was a lot of dancing. People danced their way down the aisle when the first group came in. Then when the bride came in a mini marching back announced her arrival and she danced her way down the center aisle with a bunch of people dancing after her and everyone else waving white handkerchiefs in the air.

Goodbyes

The last full day in camp I woke up extra early to go see the sunrise. Yohanna lead and two ascaris came with us: all three carried spears in case any hyenas were still lurking around. Yohanna's spear was pretty much as big as him. It looked really goofy but I bet he could use the spear well if he needed to. The morning star as well as another star and a planet were burning brightly in the sky as we walked. The walk itself was a little perilous in the dark but we got to the top of moyo hill without incident. We almost walked into a big spider web and there were these bugs making a very loud and unnerving buzzing sound. Then the sun started to come up. It was a very bright pinkish red. You couldn't look at it for very long because it rose and brightened to so quickly.

After the hike was breakfast and the program debrief. The debrief was very long, sad, and mostly irrelevant to me because I wasn't really leaving. Lots of people were crying and I was sad they were leaving but mostly I just wanted desperately to go get back in bed.

Once the debrief was done I got in bed, pulled my sleeping bag up under my chin and just lay there cozy and happy. After an hour or so I drifted off. I slept through lunch and practically until dinner. I felt so much better when I woke up!

Dinner that night was amazing. They cooked everything we had asked for and more. There were roasted chickens (including the head and the feet), fried fish, beef kabobs among other things. No one could figure out how to cut up the chickens so I cut for everyone (yay meat science class!). The cutting wasn't perfect (it's a lot harder to butcher a chicken after its cooked than before) but everyone seemed happy enough with what I was doing. There wasn't much left when I finally went through the food line- most people had taken the good stuff- but there was enough for me to get full so I was happy.

After dinner we had cake and ICE CREAM! The kitchen staff here is absolutely amazing. We hadn't had ice cream all program so it was a perfect last day treat.

We all ordered t-shirts and we pitched in a little extra so that we could surprise the staff with shirts too. They loved them. They all put them on immediately. Then we went and got our shirts and took a whole bunch of pictures with everyone.

After the pictures we sat by the campfire. Ninah tried to teach us how to whistle his way but I completely failed. Chiara almost passed out because she kept trying to whistle and failing. Then Alexa showed us the dance moves that Abel had showed her. That was hilarious.

In the morning there were even more pictures and goodbyes. I almost missed the group picture because I was in the bathroom. And when I ran up to jump in the picture I almost fell down the hill everyone was standing on. Luckily Palo caught me. I didn't feel too badly though because Cecelia also almost fell down the hill.

In the shopping center we stopped at on the way to the airport I got a salsa wrap. It didn't have lettuce but it had fresh tomatoes, avocado, some kind of spinach or something and a chicken salad like mixture. It was amazing. I was so stuffed by the end of it I felt kinda sick. It was totally worth it though! 

After an hour or so at the shopping center we were pointed in the direction of our hotel. We walked out with  no idea what we were looking for (other than the name) or how far away it really was. Luckily we stumbled upon the backpackers' hotel after a couple of blocks.

Update

Thank god for being off the bus. Over the past 4 days I travelled to tanga (the coast) and back. I'll write a good post when I have my computer back tomorrow. Assuming there is Internet in camp...

Bartering and Braids

Yesterday was market day in Karatu. This market is in a field outside of town and it only happens once a month. It consisted of thousands of people. People had everything from fabric, to shoes, to food, to animals spread out on blankets and tables. There were a few tents but mostly they were set up for people to escape the sun. There must have been a couple of thousand people in the market. It was overwhelming but really the only part I didn't like was the street gang guys who came up to our cars and then spent almost the rest of the time following us through the market and hassling us. One guy that I recognized from another town came up to us and shoved things in our faces and after saying "No I don't want anything" a few times I told him to go away. He hung around for a few more steps and then stalked off, making sure that I heard him call me a bitch as he went. It really made me angry but that was only one man so I tried not to let what he did ruin the experience for me.

This morning I got up early to go to church. There is a catholic church in town that many of the locals go to. When we arrived there was a choir singing outside and a group of children standing nearby. When the service started the choir walked into the church lead by the children and followed by the alter boys and the priest. The children were dancing a shuffling walk, the choir was singing, some of the men were shaking envelops full of rice to keep the beat, a keyboardist was playing and the priest was waving the smoke thing that they always wave when they walk into the service. I didn't actually understand any of the service because it was all in swahili but it was like a service at home plus a lot of singing. And dancing. The children danced for every song and the choir itself swayed back and forth and danced a little for some songs.

There were nuns sitting behind us. Three of them were white women who were about 80 years old. Apparently they had founded the church and are currently trying to pass control of the church over to the community so that they can retire.

We left church after we'd been there for over 2 hours. It was a really long service but they were just doing wrap up announcements when we left. I guess the man who was talking was asking for donations and he jokingly complained when we all got up because he said he was planning to get a lot of money from the white people. He was like "oh no they're leaving!"

After church we came back to camp and helped cultivate the nursery and plant trees. First we took thin plastic tubing that was cut into segments and stuffed it with a dirt/manure/sand mixture. It was interesting because the tubes didn't have bottoms; you just packed the dirt in on a flat surface and it held together when you lifted it off as well as you were gentle with it. After we had each created a few planting pots we each were given a handful of seedlings. We used a stick to drill a hole in the center of each pot, stuck a seedling in the hole and used the stick to push dirt sideways to fill in the area around the plant. Some people were using their fingers to pat the dirt back into place but our teacher said that wasn't a good way to do it because it could create airpockets under the dirt that would cause the seedling to dry out and die. Once all of the seedling were planted we got some seedlings that had time to mature and planted them around camp.

It was pretty cool because we planted way more seedlings than our camp needs and our teacher explained that he wanted to take the more mature seedlings and plant them around the community. The trees could be strategically planted so that they could help combat the severe erosion problems that are occurring here or given to local people to plant on their property so that they would have more access to wood for fires, etc.

In the afternoon we went to the maasai market again. I got a tanzania soccer jersey and a couple of pairs of earrings but mostly just watched other people try to barter. Most the students who are leaving were trying to barter clothes, waterbottles and whatever else they could so they didn't have to take them home. One girl kept getting overwhelmed though so she would just all of the sudden yell "no! mine! Nevermind, I don't want to trade!" I was just following her around and cracking up at her failures at trading.

For lunch we stopped at pizza point. I finally caved and got pizza. It was so nice to have "normal" food. A pizza and a coke. Mmmm.

After lunch we walked around near the restaurant for a while. We found a painting shop where the man was in the process of making a painting.  His paintings were magnificent and it was very interesting to see them in various stages of doneness.

Last but not least, we went back to the orphanage. The kids swarmed us as soon as we got out of the car. They showed us the progress that they had made since we were last there (the bathrooms are now almost done and most of the bedrooms are put together) and then we played with the kids. One girl wrapped herself around my waist and kept rubbing her face on my stomach. It tickled so I started laughing and she thought that was hilarious. She kept doing it until I started tickling her back; then she ran away giggling.

We went to the field that we cleared last time to play soccer but the kids wouldn't let me go long enough to run around. So instead of playing soccer I sat down and let my hair down. Five or six kids surrounded me. They played with my hair and my watch, grabbed my arms and hands, and tried to take off my ring and bracelet so that they could wear them. I thought they were going to break my watch because they were pressing all of the buttons in all sorts of combinations in an effort to get it to beep and/or the light to go on.

My favorite kid's name was Isa. It was really confusing at first because they kept yelling at him and I didn't know if they were talking to me and just getting my name wrong... Isa took two strands of my hair and twisted them together and then tried repeatedly and futilely to tie a knot in the end to hold the twist in. He was singing the whole time with a beat every time he did another twist. Then, when that wasn't working very well, he spent a long time smoothing my hair down as flat as possible. He kept smoothing it over my ears and my face and yelling at the other kids whenever they touched me and messed up his work. After a while of that I showed him how to do a braid. He loved that and picked it up before I was even done with one section (I think someone must have showed him that before). It was great because he started singing again and was saying something like "chop" every time he crossed a chunk of hair back into the braid. When he got to the bottom of a braid he had me hold it so that he could re-position his hands to tie a better knot in the bottom. After a while he got tired and just laid down across my lap. I loved Isa. I can't wait to go back and visit again.


Before we left we sat down with the kids and took pictures. They also sang us a bunch of songs and I tried my best to sing along. We begged Molly to leave us there when it was time to leave. I'm so glad that isn't the last time I get to go to the orphanage!

Dove Rescue

I'm sitting in the library waiting to give a presentation right now and a dove just flew in. Birds fly into rooms quite often because the doors are almost always open and the windows have bars but not screens... This time the windows weren't open though. I didn't realize that a medium-sized bird could make so much noise just by flapping it's wings. It was the noise of its wings that made me turn around. It flew up to the window and tried to get out but since the glass was closed it got stuck between the bars and the window. At this point I would like to give a shout out to Dr. Becker and say thank you for teaching me how to handle birds. I tried to catch the bird in my jacket but the bars made it impossible: luckily it wasn't interested in attacking me. I pinned it's wings and grabbed its feet so that it could perch on my fingers. Its heart was beating like crazy but it stopped moving except for blinking. I carried it outside, set it on a bush and released my grip. It sat there paralyzed for a second and then suddenly flew hastily away. Bye bye red-eyed dove :]

Lions and Dancing

It's so strange... In a way the amazingness of this country has worn off. I'm just comfortable here... Most people are leaving Tuesday. I'm really glad I don't have to say goodbye yet but I have to admit I'm a little jealous of them. I want normal food, my good friends, and my mom.

Today we had one of Tanzania's leading lion experts, Dr. Bernard Kissui, come to camp and talk to us. Did you know that out of the approximately 30,000 lions that are in Africa an estimated 17,000 of them live in Tanzania? That's means over half of Africa's lions live in Tanzania! I'm so glad I came here: it's hard enough to spot a lion here, I can't imagine how difficult it is in other places. Haha. Dr. Kissui explained to us how they track and observe lions, what the main threats to lions are, and the research being done to reduce conflicts between people and lions. Human-lion conflicts kill 18% of the lion population on average yearly. Isn't that crazy? I was shocked that such a large percentage of lion moralities were caused by illegal human activities alone.

I thought that the most interesting thing that Dr. Kissui discussed was the measures that are being taken to protect lions. The method that he went into the most detail on was having people build predator-proof fences to keep their livestock in. He explained that currently most people only kill lions in retaliation to livestock deaths; they don't just go out hunting lions for sport. He said that, while putting up proper fencing pretty much eliminates livestock deaths from lions, it has been extremely difficult to convince people to invest in such methods. The cost of putting up a corral with chain link fence for most people is $500-1000. This means that to get a fence the owner must be convinced to sell a cow or two. Selling cow, their livelihood, for some wood and metal makes no sense to the people here. Over 3 years Dr. Kissui only convinced 2 families to invest in predator-proof fencing. ONLY TWO!! Since that time the researches have set up a system in which private donations are used to pay for half of the cost of fencing and more people have been convinced to invest in the fencing but they still have only gotten about 140 families to get better fencing. Private donations are not a sustainable method to fund their project so they are looking for other ways to receive funding and/or convince families to install the fencing without financial aid. My goal, when I get back home, is to see what I can do to convince organizations like Heifer International, which sends animals to needy families and teaches sustainable methods of living around the world, to invest in supporting a fencing program. I don't know if anyone will listen but if they would support fencing projects it would help feed people and prevent human-wildlife conflicts that are detrimental to both humans and animals.

Dr. Kissui's lecture was about 40 minutes longer than it was supposed to be because he engaged us so much and kept stopping to discuss issues. It was awesome.

After the lecture was dinner and after dinner every night is RAP. RAP is reflection, announcements and presentation. Every night a different student is in charge of the reflection and presentation part. Tonight the student in charge had the staff preform traditional dances from their tribes. The staff came dancing into the dining hall singing, stomping and waving bush and tree branches (apparently the branches give you good luck and a long life). It was very funny and interesting. They grabbed a girl whose birthday was today and made her join them. They did two different dances (one Iraqwe and one Maasai) I have to get a video of it from someone else who had a camera because it was one of the best RAPs we've had. By the time it was over my mouth hurt from smiling and laughing.

The Funniest Telephone Conversation I've Ever Had with a Stranger

So we just called to try to make reservations for the time between sessions...

Courtney made the first call. She tried to tell them her name but they didn't understand. From my end it just sounded like "Courtney. C-O- Lisa. Lisa." Hahaha. Apparently they could understand Lisa better. Mostly there were just a lot of confused looks, awkward pauses and the person on the other end of the phone saying "HEELLLOOO?"

Courtney started to make the next call but the man couldn't understand her so she shoved the phone in my face. Once I clarified that the price he was giving us was in Tanzanian shillings I had to have him re-explain the room options to me. I had him explain the rooms three or four times and I think we booked a single room with a large bed that can sleep three people but I really have no idea. At one point both the guy I was talking to and I just started both cracking up because neither of us could understand each other. We're bringing a sleeping pad with us just in case we don't get exactly the room we think we booked :]

Serengeti

Day One

I still felt really sick but I loaded my butt up into the jeep and just went with it.

When we got to Serengeti I found a group of skulls that briefly distracted me from feeling sick. I inspected them and made one of the other girls take pictures of me with them. I love bones!

Back at the cars, I asked Pascal, one of the staff members, to refill my water bottle for me. The top of my water bottle is small so he spilled water everywhere and my feet ended up soaking wet. I was walking around telling people about it and jokingly complaining when he waves me back over to the truck and proceeds to wash my feet off meticulously. I was telling him I was just kidding and laughing so hard at how carefully he was washing my feet. Then I very carefully walked back to the car and got in before my feet got dirty again.

We stopped at Olduvai Gorge. Olduvai Gorge is the cradle of mankind. It is the home of many of the most famous hominid archaeological digs in history. I was honestly more excited to see them birthplace of man than I've been to see almost anything else this trip. It was just a big canyon but it was so cool to know that that is, as far as we know, where everything started. We had a brief lecture on the geological features of the gorge and the research and archaeological digs going on there. I learned that the gorge is actually correctly called Oldupai. It is named after a type of plant that grows there but an archaeologist misheard the name and, since he was famous, people have been mispronouncing the name ever since.  

When we got to our campsite I chilled in the cars until everything was set up because I still felt horrible. One of the staff members is magic I swear! He made a full size mattress fit into a tiny single person tent. I watched him do it and I still have no idea how it worked!

I did walk to the bathroom while I was waiting for camp to be set up. On the way I saw dik dik, zebra, baboon, wildbeest, hyena and bird tracks so that was an awesome distraction.  After I got back from the bathroom I sat down outside my tent and waited for dinner. When Molly walked up and asked my how I was doing I just started crying uncontrollably. Other people were giving me weird looks and I just said "I'm tired and sick and I can't stop crying. I'm not trying to cry, I swear."

The smell of dinner made me feel terrible so I just crawled in my tent, unrolled my sleeping mat and sleeping bag, and fell asleep. I kept waking up with thorns in my hands though because someone had forgotten to sweep out the tent. At least they were more like burrs than real thorns...

Day Two

I woke up and still felt extremely crappy so I opted to stay in camp for the day rather than drive around. It turns out that staying in camp wasn't really any better than going out. I slept for about an hour and a half after everyone left but then it got too hot in the tent to stay inside. So I sat outside and watched the birds. I identified eight birds from where I sat all day. I was proud that I saw that found that many birds without really moving. It kind of made me feel sick to watch them but I felt sicker when I closed my eyes so oh well. Chilling and bird watching was okay except the sun moved really quickly in the Serengeti and I had to move my chair every half hour or so to stay in the shade. And then the tse tse flies came. Luckily they mostly ignored me because I have light skin and had on light clothing. I only got one bite and that was enough for me. One of the teachers was walking around camp because it was too hot in his tent but if he stood still outside the tse tse flies attacked him. 

Also, Molly made me drink re-hydration salts. You have to add them to water and let me tell you, they smell okay but they taste HORRIBLE. They made me gag so I had to steal someone's drink mix to add to them so I could swallow at least some of the package.

I was so happy when everyone got back to camp. I was so tired of being hot, pestered by flies and alone.

Day Three

I decided to go out even if I felt sick because I didn't feel any better when I sat in camp. 

In the morning we bird watched. Look up the African Fish Eagle. They are gorgeous birds: like bald eagles except they have a stripe of red on their wings. Also, my new favorite bird is the go-away-bird. Apparently they sound like they're saying "go go go away away" when they call. The staff did an impression for me which was awesome :D

I was really glad that I decided to leave camp because we had some really cool sightings. First we saw rock hyrax at the visitors center . They look like guinea pigs but bigger and fatter. There were a lot of babies and they were ADORABLE! Their favorite way to lay was draped over their mom. I took about 20 pictures of them. Also, from a sign at the visitors center I learned that female wildebeests are only receptive to mating for one day each year. One day! Isn't it crazy that they ever get pregnant?? Once I finished the short trail with the hyrax and random facts I just plopped down in the middle of a bone display area. They had hyena, giraffe, elephant, impala, and buffalo skulls as well as hippo jaws, a giraffe pelvis, and the leg bones of a few animals. I was perfectly content to just sit there. One tourist walked by and said "wow! that one looks alive!" and I talked to him for a second. I also talked to some of the rangers in training for a little while about why I was in Africa but mostly I just sat there surrounded by bones.

After the visitors center we saw a couple of leopards as well as a lot of zebras, wildebeest and gazelles. Currently the gazelles, zebras, and wildebeest are migrating through the area where we were so that was amazing: there were just patches with hundreds of them. As far as you could see there were animals.

When we were driving back to camp we saw a hippo and a lioness with her cubs. The hippo was out of its pool for the night so that was really cool to see. The lioness and cubs were absolutely enthralling. The lioness pretty much ignored us. She just kept steadily leading her cubs away but the cubs were interested in our car. They kept stopping to stare at us and even acted like they were going to charge our car a few times. I wish it hadn't been getting dark so we could have watched them longer (we had to be in camp by dark). I thought one of the girls was going to cry when we had to leave: she was begging for just another minute or two.

At dinner time I tried to figure out what I'd eaten in the past three days. This is what I came up with: 2 bananas, 2 oranges, 2 apples, a few bites of watermelon, approximately 15 crackers, and 2 small bowls of oatmeal. The weird part was I was just now (4 days in) starting to feel a little hungry.

Day Four

I woke up feeling a little better but quickly deteriorated once the car started moving. Luckily we saw a lot of animals that day so I was distracted a lot.

The first major animal we saw was a cheetah. When the car stopped I blinked and almost went back to sleep. Luckily the driver poked me and told me why we were stopped. That cheetah was pretty far away and mostly hiding in the grass but I was still SUPER excited to see a cheetah.

After we left the first cheetah we were driving along when one of the people in the back started yelling "simama! simama!" When the driver stopped and backed up we realized she had seen a cheetah at one of the water pools we had just driven by. There was one cheetah and it was chirping. They chirp to call for their partners or cubs or just generally when they are in distress. Of course the driver told us his friend had been eaten by a croc (the drivers here love to mess with us). The most amazing part was when the cheetah left the watering hole it walked right past our car. It was less than 10 feet away! Cheetahs are normally extremely shy so I felt so lucky to not only see and hear one but to have it walk so close to us.

The next animals we saw after the cheetah were lions. It was a male and a female and the male was laying in the shade of one of the cars that had stopped to watch them. Shortly after we pulled up they started to walk away. I figured they could go lay down in the grass and we'd move on because we couldn't see them any more. Actaully, the female laid down and the male tried to mount her. He got about one hump in before she turned on him. She bared her snarled at him and he jumped right off and laid down next to her like that was all he'd wanted to do in the first place. Haha.

On the way to the lodge for lunch we saw a baby zebra on the side of the road. It had obviously been injured somehow and couldn't get up. When I watched it and realized how doomed it was I wanted to help it. But then I remembered that the rangers and vets in the park don't help animals unless they are endangered or harmed because of human activities. My next thought was that I just wanted to get out and kill it. I would hate to kill a zebra but it was right on the road and obviously suffering and terrified. I just wanted to put it out of its misery as quickly as possible.

There was a buffet at the lodge but I didn't eat because I felt horrible. I took a nap on a pool lounge chair while Molly went and called the doctor for me. When I sat down and talked to him he said that he didn't think that at that point I was actually sick: he thought that I was feeling terrible because I hadn't eaten and my stomach acid was being overactive. He told me to take tums and I started crying again. I just felt so horrible and was hoping to get a for sure cure... But then I resolved that even if food made me nauseous I would eat more. I forced myself to keep nibbling and I never actually threw up. Molly grabbed some rolls and a small bowl soup from the buffet for me (everyone else paid $20 for their lunches so I just mooched a little). The soup was zucchini but it was actually really good. I was just so glad to have soup! I stuffed the rolls in my backpack and ate them as I could manage all day.

A little while after lunch we pulled over to fill up our water bottles. Jonas, the driver, filled mine perfectly without spilling a drop :] I got back in the car and then suddenly we heard the back door slam and see Jonas sprinting around the side of the car. A truck that we had struggled to pass a little while earlier was coming down the road and we couldn't let it get in front of us! Jonas jumped in the car, yelling "hurry hurry hurry!" and started driving away without even closing his door all of the way. I have never seen Jonas move that fast. We were all cracking up and cheering when we beat the truck.

We came along another of our jeeps and realized that Ninah, one of our normal drivers was riding in the back with the students. It was funny because Jonas had been trying to call Ninah on the radio all morning and he never answered. We drove up and he was just chilling in the back of the jeep, smiling, and waving a fly swatter at us lazily.

Shortly after that we drove into a huge group of elephants. There were over 70 of them hanging out by a water hole. There were males and females ranging from newborn calves to full grown adults. They were wrestling, fighting, nursing, walking, eating, drinking, playing in the water, and watching us. One kept getting closer and closer to our car and then it made a warning sound and Jonas said we had to move away. There was one that had lost the first foot or foot and a half of its trunk. Once you noticed it it was shocking but he was just eating like normal so I didn't notice until someone else pointed it out. There was also a little baby that wandered into the road and then just stood there looking lost and confused until it's mom caught up with it and guided it across.

We had to get one of the camp guards to walk us to the bathroom because there were so many animals in/around camp at night. Burrah gave me his the stick that he carries to protect us to hold. He kept handing it to people and telling them they were guards now and he was the student. He even had one of the girls marching with him and saluting. Haha. The stick reminded me of a skinny baseball bat so I asked him if he knew american baseball and showed him how you hold the bat and swing it. When Burrah was walking me to the bathroom he was telling me which animal was making with sound. He said zebra and then hyena. Then I asked him what a third noise was and he said "someone snoring." Haha. I swear it sounded like a lion but I guess it could have been someone snoring... Anyways Burrah thought it was hilarious that I asked him about that and then we started talking about how elephants snore. Apparently they snore very loudly when they lay down and sleep.

Day Five

Today I have felt a lot better. Riding in the car out of the park was miserable but it was much more bearable than the way in :] We didn't see much on the drive out of the park but it was okay because we saw so much over the past couple of days.