TravelStream™ news feed for member forreymr on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/forreymr en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 12 Nov 2007 06:15:07 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1194865320/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1194865320/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1194865320/tpod.html Mon, 12 Nov 2007 06:15:07 -0500 To the wilds of Tanzania: Meredith's attempt to completely freak out friends and family, especially her Grandpa who she loves very much.

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Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

It rained today. I'm talking torrential down pour soaked in two seconds rain. It was cloudy and muggy when I woke up, which was a nice change from bright sun, oppressive heat, and muggy. I was about to walk to Savei to use the internet and do a little research when I noticed that there were huge thunderheads moving in from the ocean. Caroline and I decided to go up on the roof to watch the storm come in, which probably wasn't the smartest thing to do (seeing as there are many metal objects on the roof), but whatever. That is one of the most intimidating and ominous sights I have ever seen. The clouds were moving so fast. Then all of the sudden the storm hit us and we were immediately soaked. It was amazing. I felt way more clean than I ever do after taking a shower here. Caroline and I danced and shouted and made complete asses out of ourselves, pausing every so often to laugh at the amount of water we could wring out of our clothes. It was way better than puddle jumping. It was more like the puddle jumped on us. All the horrible smells and heat were washed away. The air smelled wonderful for once and it wasn't too thick to breathe. It was the first time I have actually been cold in a long time. Finally we decided we should probably go in and dry off. As we sloshed down the stairs the cleaning ladies just stared at us. Angel kept exclaiming, "just look at your clothes!" I tried to explain to her that we did it on purpose but she just kept shaking her head. It was so nice to change into a long sleeve t shirt and my basketball shorts. Lona and Caroline came down to my room and we had hot chocolate and rye bread with butter. It was fantastic knowing that no one expected us to go anywhere in the rain. My roommate was telling me that sometimes if it rains too hard, they will cancel classes. I felt so relaxed. It kind of reminded me of last march when Jessica, Jess, Caroline, Autumn, Sarah and I went to Long Beach. We got there at around ten at night and there was freezing mist but we went out and frolicked on the beach anyway. (By the way, Caroline and I want to have a similar beach trip this spring so be ready girls.) I miss the rain so much. Oh it was just great.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1192977060/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1192977060/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1192977060/tpod.html Sun, 21 Oct 2007 10:33:30 -0400 To the wilds of Tanzania: Meredith's attempt to completely freak out friends and family, especially her Grandpa who she loves very much.

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Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

As my dear friend Mitch would put it, I am going batshit insane. Classes here are going to kill me. They are absolutely ridiculous. I can't handle it. I try to put it into perspective. I mean if everyone in the US had to attend college taught in Spanish, but English was our first language, the education scene would be a lot different. And I also realize that I am at an absolutely gigantic university, so naturally I won't get the same intimate type discussion that I am used to in PLU classes. I am just really frustrated. While the professors are actually showing up to most lectures now, I still don't learn anything. My classes (except for intro to dance) all have over two hundred people in them. The professors mumble and don't know how to use microphones correctly. My African Political Thought prof likes to tell everyone that we still lynch black people in America for fun. It takes a whole class period to get across that in negotiation, there are two parties involved, but in mediation there is a neutral third party. You would think that if it took a whole class period to explain that concept that there would have been lots of interesting examples of negotiation vs. mediation. You would be wrong. It was a whole hour of repeating that concept, but changing the wording ever so slightly each time. That's Peace Making and Conflict Resolution, which should be a great class. But it isn't. We never get anything accomplished. And then there are seminars. Good lord. The structure for classes here is that you have two lectures a week and then a seminar period which is supposed to be smaller to create room for discussion. Except there are still about fifty people in each seminar group, so even if everyone got a chance to talk, it would only be for about a minute and nothing would still get accomplished. And nothing gets accomplished anyway because of how seminars are run. There are small groups (ranging from two to ten people) who get a seminar question. They research the question and write a paper on it and then present to the class and are supposed to facilitate discussion. However, most of the seminar presentations I have pleasured witnessing end up just reading a seven page paper start to finish in a voice that is barely above a whisper. So I can't understand enough of the presentation to ask any questions which I guess is everybody else's excuse too because the questions that get asked are ridiculous. I can't think of any good examples right now because I just came from my seminar group meeting and I'm a little ticked off. They talked in Swahili the whole time, which I understand. Again I wouldn't want to speak in Spanish outside of class if the rest of the people in my group were native English speakers. However, I informed everyone that I only understand a little Swahili and only when it is spoken slowly. Regardless of this information, they would talk at very high speeds, laugh and point at me, and then ask me what I thought of the discussion. I haven't the foggiest. So they'd laugh and point at me again, and then talk really fast. And then they would ask me questions about the structure of the paper, which I could actually help with. For instance, they asked if looting, plundering, and piracy should all be separate points. No, I told them. Looting and plundering should be one point; piracy should be an example of that point. Ah then grave robbing could be its own point. No. Grave robbing is a form of plundering. Really? Well maybe we'll make it its own point anyway. And then I am informed that two of the guys are going to write the whole paper and tomorrow we are going to get together and see if it needs to be changed. What the hell was the point of the two hours I just spent listening to Swahili I didn't understand? No point. Whatsoever. I offered to type the paper so hopefully I can do that and correct spelling errors and such. For the longest time (when they were talking in English by some chance) they kept asking if I knew a word that to me sounded like intamboment. I asked if they could write it down (giggling ensued). Entomboment. I still didn't get it. More giggles. I asked them to explain it. You know its when you bury a king. Ah yes. Entombment. No o. Again, I realize that this is not their first language. It is just really, really, really, really, frustrating. And then one of the guys in my group tries to be helpful, but his version of being helpful is hitting on me.
I am so sick of the guys here. We were at a party last night put on by the faculty of arts and social sciences. I have never been around so many drunk and desperate men in my life. I had one of Caroline's silver rings on my ring finger. Sometimes that worked. I basically punched one guy in the stomach because he kept grabbing my wrists and pulling me into dance with him when I really didn't want to. He was only like five foot, too. I could have just sat on him. Finally, Brice's roommate Benson pulled me away and put his arm protectively around me and gave the guy a really dirty look. So I guess I'm not sick of all the guys here. Benson's pretty cool. He kept telling everyone to respect his American sisters. I just wish people would ignore me. In the US, guys would almost never come up to a girl and be like "Hellowhatisyourphonenumber" all in the same breath. And if they did, I'm pretty sure any girl would say weirdo and walk off. I want to go back to a land where I can just be friends with guys. That would be nice. I am tired of explaining why I won't give a guy my phone number. I am tired of seeming like a bitch when I don't answer when guys ask me questions about myself. I am tired of suppressing myself in general actually. Girls are supposed to be so demure or something here. I'm not demure. I am loud and sarcastic. I like baseball. I have a concept of personal space. I miss my freedom of being to go places by myself, especially at night. I have had three dreams of I-5 and one dream of I-90 in the past month which I think explains how much I miss my car and the freedom that gives me. I just want to be me, and it is hard here. And gosh darn it, I want to not sweat.
Alright. Enough of my complaining. I really am enjoying myself here. It is not like I want to catch the next flight back to SeaTac or anything. It is mainly campus life that gets me down, so I try not to spend too much time on campus. I love going into town and exploring Dar. I love traveling on the weekends. I have heard that Tanzanians are super nice, except for the ones in Dar, and I'm starting to believe it. When we go traveling, people bend over backwards to help us find where we need to be, or find a good restaurant to eat at. You ask somebody a question in Dar, half the time you just get a weird look and a short answer. We went to Iringa a couple weekends ago, and I haven't felt that welcomed since we were on Rubondo. It was a very pretty town and I want to go back there really bad. Maybe in December. Iringa is in the mountains so it doesn't get as hot. By December, Dar is going to be an oven.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1190551860/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1190551860/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1190551860/tpod.html Sun, 23 Sep 2007 08:54:34 -0400 To the wilds of Tanzania: Meredith's attempt to completely freak out friends and family, especially her Grandpa who she loves very much.

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Mwanza, Tanzania

Ah yes. Back at the Nkome ranger station. When our contact had told us there was a park vehicle going back to Mwanza and we could catch a ride, we were again, foolishly thinking Land Cruiser. As we got off the boat at Nkome, we saw a small green Toyota pickup. Just one of those little dinky ones, smaller than my parents' little Mazda pickup. It had bars forming kind of a cage over the top of the bed of the pickup. We were joking around, saying wouldn't it be funny if that was our ride to Mwanza. We sit down and play some cards because we're told it will be a while before we leave. Then a lady comes up to us and says that we will be traveling together. So we do the whole long Tanzanian greeting process and she concludes by saying, "ok you can load your things into the truck." Oh yes, it was the little green pickup after all. And were we the only other passengers than the woman? No. There were three grown people in the cab of the pickup besides the driver. And I think there was a baby in there too. In the bed of the pickup was all of our luggage, all of the rest of the passenger's luggage, the four of us, and probably six to eight more people. Eight of us were standing up, bracing ourselves against in the four little squares formed by the caging. Lindsey and I were in one square, the top bar right at about Lindsey's teeth level, and hitting me, unfortunately, in the middle of my shoulder blades. We lather up on the sunscreen and take off. I would like to mention that these are not paved roads. They are little back roads that not even the Off Road Express had been on. At one point Lindsey turns around and asks if I think we're going one hundred miles per hour. I say pish posh, we can't possibly be going that fast. Then I take a look at the trees blurring by and realize that we are probably pretty close. With each bump my shoulder blades slam into the back bar, producing lovely bruises that I discover when we get back to Mwanza. I try to brace myself better but the woman in the square next to me is being rather greedy with the amount of the bar that we share, so I can't find a better place to hold on. We go on this way for about three hours until we finally get to Gaeita (or however you spell it). Two people thankfully get out. We're standing around, eating some bananas when one of the guys we were riding us asks if he can help us find where we are staying in Gaeita. Apparently someone told him that's as far as we were going. We freak out a little bit and tell him that we understood we were going all the way to Mwanza. He said that they were picking up a few bags of coal, and as long as we didn't mind sitting on those we could ride the rest of the way to Mwanza. We said not a problem. Then we see the bags of coal. There are three of them, about as big as I am. We pile those into the back of the pickup, along with the luggage and the remaining people (I think there's like eight or nine of us in the back at this point). Most of them sit on the bags of coal, but there's not quite enough room so Lindsey and I sit on the luggage. Another three hours to the ferry through the countryside around Lake Victoria. It is a gorgeous area and we got to see a lot of villages that we probably never would have seen had we taken more traditional forms of transportation. Little kids would run behind our truck and yell Wazungu. All the Tanzanians with us would just laugh. It was obvious that they don't get a lot of white people in these parts. Our faces are caked with dust. So much so that at one point the cries changed from Wazungu to Wahindi (Indians). It was a nice change I guess.... About a half an hour away from the ferry, my parents called to wish me a happy birthday. It was quite incredible to be hurtling through the Tanzanian countryside in the back of a pickup, and be talking to my parents, sitting in their kitchen in Colfax. Oh modern technology. We finally got to the ferry. I was so glad to be out of that truck. Looking back on it, that was a great way to travel, but in the moment, I was absolutely miserable. My back was numb unless I tried to stretch, in which case I felt the bruises all up and down my spine and shoulder blades. I was the dirtiest and sweatiest I think I have ever been, my hair ten times thicker from all the dirt (my perceptions of dirtiness though were soon to change, but that is a story for another time). We spent the ferry ride, leaning against the back of the pickup, grateful to not be in it, trying to shoot our dirtiest looks to the Tanzanian guys taking pictures of us with their camera phones. And then they would laugh at the pictures. Yes I realize we're white, I realize we're dirty, I realize white people don't usually ride in the backs of truck. But does that really mean you have to take a picture to commemorate the event and send it to all your friends?
We made it back to the Deluxe Hotel, this time with double rooms that were only 2500 Tsh per person. The beds were a lot more saggy than our singles, but we were a couple of floors higher, so we could only feel the base of the music and the phlegmy coughing of some guy who sounded like he was about to die. Brice met up with us for a birthday dinner at the vegetarian pizza place followed by my first "legal" glass of wine and couple shots of rum at the New Mwanza Hotel (there is no drinking age in Tanzanian, made obvious by the fact that one of our waitresses at a bar in Dar was fifteen).
The next day we spent wandering around Mwanza by ourselves. The Mwanza we knew before no longer existed. Maybe it's because it was a Friday, maybe it's because we weren't in a group of four, but all of the sudden, I was getting insistent cat calls and "hey baby's." Guys would grab my arm and then wonder why I didn't respond to their "Mambo!" I don't know if I've mentioned this before but it makes me so angry when the Tanzanian guys complain about American girls being snotty and unwilling to talk to them, but they make us behave that way because they assume we are like the girls in Jay Z videos. I am not easy, my name is not baby, and I realize that I'm white. When you say these things I will shoot you an angry glare, slap your arm away and keep walking. You do not really care where I am going, so why do you ask? If I told you where I was going, what would you do? I am a human being just like you, so treat me like one. I am lucky to possess a strong something (I don't know what I can call it) and I am able to shake the guys off, and not let it bother me. Monika, unfortunately, is way too nice, and can't tell them to get lost with the kind of force necessary. She met up with us crying, after having spent a day being tailed by one guy and being harassed by a handful more. We kept telling her to stop apologize for crying, that it is ok for her to be feeling angry and annoyed and violated. We decided to have dinner at the New Mwanza hotel because it was completely devoid of harassers and had surprisingly good Indian food. We spent a good three hours at dinner and it was a lovely way to end our Mwanza adventure.
Since the train was filled going back to Dar, and the Scandinavia bus line no longer running out of Mwanza (why the high quality bus line no longer runs out of the second largest city in Tanzania is beyond me), we decided to go home via Arusha, stay with my pastor's wife's brother, and then take a bus to Dar the next day. The only bus line we found open however, was a bus called the Air Jordan that would be leaving at six in the morning on Saturday. It would be our next and last form of sketchy transportation.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1190380500/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1190380500/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1190380500/tpod.html Fri, 21 Sep 2007 09:18:01 -0400 To the wilds of Tanzania: Meredith's attempt to completely freak out friends and family, especially her Grandpa who she loves very much.

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Rubondo Island, Tanzania

Oh Rubondo Island. We continue with this tale filled with sketchy transportation with the boat ride from the Nkome ranger station to Rubondo Island. This is a super cool boat that we took. Imagine a long white row boat that could sit about six people. Now cross that with a canoe and stick a motor on the back and you have our next mode of transportation. The guy running the motor got in first, we handed him our bags and he stored them under a tarp. Then our guide got in. He was carrying a fairly big rifle. We tried to ask why but he chose not to answer us. I assume it was for wayward hippos and crocodiles but one can never be sure. We strike out across Lake Victoria at a pretty good clip and the guide gives us a tarp so we don't get wet. I loved every minute of it. It had all the fun of being close to the water that a canoe brings you, but the exhilaration of a motor boat. Plus, the lake is gorgeous. We would get into some parts of the lake where you couldn't see any landmass anywhere and I could have sworn we were on the ocean. We passed by many small islands, but I didn't get many pictures because I didn't want my camera wet, and we were going a little too fast to assure a non blurred outcome. Finally, after an hour and a half of excellent boating through increasingly choppy water, we arrive at Rubondo Island. We were immediately greeted by Lindsey's contact on the island and the head of the national park, who was a woman and we were all excited about that. We had been seeing far too little of women in powerful positions. They were genuinely happy to see us and made us feel like we had been friends forever. Apparently we were the only guests on the whole island, and they only get about 500 guests a year. If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend going because they treat you like royalty. They took us to our bandas. Now when we heard we would be staying in bandas we were expecting very little. A few cots, hopefully mosquito nets of some form, an outhouse out back, very shack like. However, what we got was the Ritz Carleton of bandas. First of all, they were way bigger than we expected. We walked up on to our porches that were not more than twenty five yards from the shore. Oh yeah that's the other thing. We had two bandas for the four of us. As Anna and I walked into ours, we were greeted with the sight of a bright and airy room. It had two large windows, clean linoleum floors, a locking cabinet for our belongings, and the best part: two queen sized beds with full box mosquito nets. It was the most glorious sight I have ever seen. Then we saw there was a door on the other side of the room. We go through it and find that there is a shower room, and a toilet room with a western style toilet complete with toilet paper. Anna and I almost cried. After a long day of ferries, Off Road Expresses, and boats, this was way more than we could have possibly asked for, or even hoped for. It was getting close to dinner time, so as the sun was setting over the part of the island that was across the bay from our bandas, we were led to where we would prepare our food. Again, when we heard we would be cooking our own food, we expected it to be over a fire. We had looked for aluminum foil but hadn't found any so we were praying that they had some sort of cooking utensils. But once again, the fine people outdid themselves, we walked into a small shack (really more what I was expecting our bandas to look like) to find a three burner kerosene stove, a sink, and a cupboard full of plates, cups, silverware, and more pots and pans than we could shake a stick at. And believe me, we tried, but the stick shaking just wasn't happening (I've always thought that was a funny expression so I thought I'd include it). Our guide person was apologizing that they didn't have the new kitchen built yet and hoped we could make do with these humble accommodations. We just looked at him like he was crazy and assured him a million times over that this was more than excellent. We made rice with carrots, onions, and the random spices we had bought. Did I mention we forgot salt and cooking oil? Because we did, and that was really annoying. Our rice was flavorful, but it really could have used that salt. I also attempted to sauté some of our raw peanuts with some spices without oil. It worked surprisingly well, and we had our appetizer. It was obvious we cooked way too much, but we finished what we could and then made some tea, and sat on these huge stone benches around the dying embers of a bonfire that had been roaring earlier. It was a full moon, and the lake had quieted since our trek earlier in the evening. It was so peaceful. We talked for a couple hours about how much it sucks being a girl (especially a white girl) in Tanzania, religion, and general ponderings of the universe. Then we went back to the kitchen, washed our dishes, and returned to our bandas to find that electricity had been turned on for the evening hours. I still can't believe how nice this place was. As I spread out in the acres of room in my queen size bed, I marveled at the fact that my feet weren't even close to pushing out the end of my mosquito net. Then I drifted into the best sleep I have had since coming to Tanzania.
Next morning we got up fairly early to make our breakfast of oatmeal. Most of our fruit hadn't fared very well on the off road express, but we had a few bananas left that we mashed into the oatmeal, along with some granola and dried fruit that Anna brought. It was quite delicious, as oatmeal almost always is when you're in a camping/camp type atmosphere. We would discover the next morning that if you put peanut butter in the mix too, it made it even better. As we were washing our dishes, one of the park workers came in and tried to wash our dishes for us. We said we were perfectly able and they'd done more than enough for us already. They would try to do our dishes for the rest of the time that we were there, and we only let them on the final morning when we were pressed for time. They were really way too nice to us. Our guide Simon then took us to the Park office where we paid our fees which were less than we were expecting. We paid ten dollars for what we thought would just be a hiking tour of the Island, but we got a lot more. We did hike around the island in the morning and that was really cool. Everything is soooooo green and thick. I have about a million pictures of trees. We saw bush bucks, sitatungas, and tons of huge spider webs made by tiny spiders. We hiked up to one of the tallest points of the island and got to look out over all of Lake Victoria. Well not all of it, because it's huge and it would be nearly impossible to see all of it. But it was a good view anyway. As we were hiking back down at about noonish, Simon was like, ok what do you want to do now. Lindsey informed him that we would like to hike on more trails. He informed us that that was the only hiking trail on the whole island. Ahhh we say. He suggests that he could probably get a park vehicle and drive us around the island though. We said that sounds grand. We went back to our bandas to eat a fine lunch of peanut butter cucumber sandwiches (don't knock it until you've tried it) and the rest of our fruit while Simon went to get what we assumed would be a land cruiser. We assumed wrong. Simon walks up and informs us that the small car isn't working so we would have to go in the back of a big truck if that was ok. We said sure, why not, imagining a large pickup. We were wrong again. It was a big blue truck, not unlike trucks used to haul gravel and rock to and from construction sites. Ahh yes. So these two guys help us into the back and we rumble off into the jungle.
I have come to the conclusion that riding in the back of a big blue truck is really the only way to see a jungle island. Granted we scared most of the animals away with the throaty engine, and yes we had to duck, dodge, and divert branches of trees so that they wouldn't hit us in the face, but that was way too much fun. We saw these flowers called fireball lilies that only bloom for two weeks out of every year, and I felt very privileged to be there at a time when I could see what really looked like little balls of fire popping up through the dense undergrowth. We saw all the tell tale signs of elephants (mainly dung. Things I never thought would come out of my mouth #16: There's elephant dung on the tire of our car.), including a tree one of them had managed to push into the middle of the road. No worries though. The guys that had helped us into the truck jumped down, pulled a pair of machetes out of who knows where, and start chopping up the tree. It was moved in less than fifteen minutes, and we're talking a big tree. I was impressed. I really wanted to try my hand with the machete but I figured I'd probably end up losing some sort of appendage, so I didn't ask. A little while later, Simon stops the truck and we all get out. He takes us through some trees and to the edge of the lake. What is in the lake, you might ask, less then fifty yards from these fearless travelers? Hippos. Tons of Hippos. Just hanging out in the water. Now I wish that Simon had a gun, though he assures us that they are more afraid of us and won't come out of the water. Did you know that hippos are the most dangerous animal in Tanzania? It was sooo cool to see hippos in their natural habitat and not in the zoo. I still made sure I knew my friends with the machetes were.
We drove back to the bandas as the sun was setting through the trees, another great night of potatoes and carrots, tea, and huge queen sized beds.
I woke up on the morning of my 21st birthday, August 30, 2007, to the words, "Meredith, there's a hippo on the beach." Oh what a way to start a new year. We had made plans the night before to watch the sunrise over Lake Victoria because, come on, how many times in your life do you have the opportunity to do that. Monika, being the only morning person of the group, offered to get up early and start boiling water for tea. On her way to the kitchen she was walking along the beach and looked up and found herself a couple yards away from a hippopotamus, indirectly between it and the water, which is not somewhere you want to be. The way Monika tells it is that "The hippo looked at me, I looked at the hippo, the hippo went (Monika makes a really fun hippo roaring sound), and then I ran away." By the time I got out to the porch, I could just see the dark shape of the hippo, lumbering along the sand, presumably to go join its friends. Then, with a cup of peppermint tea in hand, I watched the sunrise. Have I mentioned how gorgeous and huge the sun is in Africa at sunrise and sunset? Because it is. Now granted I'm not usually conscious for sunrise in the US but I'm pretty sure it doesn't look like this. I am pretty sure the intense orangey red color of the sun and the hues of pink, orange, and purple the sky adopts are pretty unique. I can never get enough of it. We ate breakfast, packed our things and got back into the boat. Did you ever play with a parachute in elementary school PE? I remember we would do this wave type thing with the parachute where you would raise your portion as the person next to you was bringing theirs down. The parachute would just flow in this really cool way, and that's what the water looked like. No real waves, it just looked like the surface of the water was solid like the parachute flowing up and down. Man that was nice. Simon took us around to some of the smaller islands to see crocodiles. One of them almost ate a bird but the bird got away at the last minute. Lindsey and I were sad that we hadn't had our cameras ready because that picture would have won the Wang Center photo contest for certain. We get back to Nkome and wait at the ranger station for another park vehicle that has offered to take us back to Mwanza. Again, we were expecting a Land Cruiser. Little did we know that this would just be one more form of transportation to break the Hartsel Sketchiometer...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1190276160/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1190276160/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1190276160/tpod.html Thu, 20 Sep 2007 04:19:57 -0400 To the wilds of Tanzania: Meredith's attempt to completely freak out friends and family, especially her Grandpa who she loves very much.

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Lake Victoria, Tanzania

So, if you recall, we arrived quite late at the Mwanza train station, get a taxi and tell the driver to take us to the Deluxe Hotel. Or the Hotel Deluxe. I can't remember. We cram into the taxi with all our stuff, exhausted, but highly amused by the Barry White that is coming out of the speakers of the car. However, as we get closer to where we think the hotel is, the Barry White is drown out by this deep base, in what I soon realize is Sean Paul's Temperature. We pull up to the Deluxe Hotel and figure out that the Sean Paul is coming from the bar that our hotel is above. We linger on the sidewalk briefly wondering if this is really where we want to be, but by that time it's around midnight and we really didn't want to try to find another hotel at that time of night in a strange city. So we go into the front desk and meet the guy with whom we'd been talking on the phone. He says ok I have four singles. And we say no no, we asked for two doubles. Apparently they didn't have any doubles left and we decided that we would just be fine with the singles. We walk up the concrete staircase, in which the concrete walls are bright blue (though at first I thought they were green because it was kind of dingy lighting). At the first landing we see a poster advertising an energy drink. Not just any energy drink though, one that promotes sexual vitality. This place just keeps getting better and better. I get to my room. I can now feel "Who let the Dogs Out" pulsating through the floor. My room is small but clean, as far as I can tell. The bed is actually long enough and it had a huge mosquito net which made me extremely happy. I can't tell you how annoying a small mosquito net on a small bed is. I put my back pack in the small cabinet and open the door to the bathroom to assess that situation. The light didn't work, so I opened the door wider to see what it had to offer. There was a western style toilet without a toilet seat or toilet paper, but I had brought my own toilet paper, and as long as it's not a squat toilet, I'm happy. Occupying the same general area as the toilet was the sink and a shower head, both of which drained onto the floor. By this time I could feel the techno version of Shania Twain's "I'm keeping you forever and for always..." I climb into bed, tuck the mosquito net under the mattress, and am lulled to sleep by the booming "Hips Don't Lie" coming from below, as well as the raucous laughing and yelling and hacking by the drunk people on the street. I'm pretty sure the Deluxe Hotel is the coolest place I have ever stayed. What luxury you can get for only 4000 Tsh (less than four dollars) per night.
We spent the next day bumming around Mwanza and making sure we had food for our excursion to Rubondo Island the next day. Mwanza is a very clean city, especially compared to Dar. We also didn't get hassled very much by the men which was a nice change. That however would not last, as we got extremely hassled once we got back from Rubondo, but I'm getting ahead of myself. After spending some time in an internet cafe sending off journal entries to Barbara (gross), we went to the market to by food for the two dinners a couple breakfasts, and the lunch that we would have to cook for ourselves on Rubondo. So we bought a kilo of rice, a couple kilos of potatoes, some carrots, peanut butter, bread, oatmeal, onions, garlic, and some other odd spices. Oh and bananas and oranges. We had no idea how much food to get so we just got a lot and figured we could give the left overs to the rangers. That night for dinner, we ate at this amazing vegetarian pizza place that had national geographic channel playing on a tv in the corner. It was absolute heaven. We got three pizzas and ate them all, including one with avocado on it. It was so nice to just hang out with the girls too. Since we had to catch an early ferry to Kamanga the next morning, we cut our evening short and went back to the Deluxe Hotel, where (surprise surprise) techno Shania Twain was vibrating my floor. It was good to be home;)
The next morning I awoke to the sounds of Justin Timberlake at five in the morning. Oh yes, the bar was still in full swing on a Tuesday morning. I packed up my back pack complete with six litres of water, a kilo of rice, and I don't know how many peanuts. We had decided it would be safer to pull mass quantities of cash out of the atm in the morning rather than late the previous night, however, the first four atms we went to did not seem to want to work that early in the morning. I totally felt their pain because I really didn't want to be working that early in the morning either, but I really would have appreciated it if they could have just given me some shillings. We decide that we'll have to find an atm elsewhere because it was getting close to what we thought was our ferry departure time. Once we get to the ferry, we realize that whatever information we had was terribly out of date because the ferry didn't leave for another half hour. So Lindsey and Anna made another last ditch effort to find some place to give us money as Monika and I held our place in line. Before they returned the gates for the ferry opened and Lindsey and Anna weren't back yet. Monika and I started to panic ever so slightly. Just when we thought all was lost, we see them making their way through the crowd with a bag of chapatti for breakfast. Their atm run had been successful.
The ferry ride was amazing. We left the dock right as the sun was coming up over the fishermen making their boats ready for the day. It was an incredible sight that I'm pretty sure a camera just won't capture. It hadn't become hot yet, and as we cruised over Lake Victoria (as much as a ferry can cruise, I suppose), I felt quite at peace. We met a guy (I can't remember his name) that was heading home after majoring in interior design in Kenya. He was really cool to talk to, and kept hitting on Anna, though not in a creepy way like most of the guys we'd encountered. We asked him to take a picture of the four of us so we could document this major moment in our travels, and he took like six pictures from all different angles with each of our cameras (well except for mine. Mine decided to be unkind and run out of batteries and for some reason I put my spare ones at the bottom of my bag, under the six litres of water, kilo of rice, and some odd kilos of peanuts).
We reach Kamanga and realize we have no idea what bus we need to catch to Nkome where the national park station is where we catch our boat to Rubondo Island (wow that was a terrible sentence. I apologize English majors). We talk to this Pentecostal minister who happens to know the bus driver (we are so damn lucky). He tells us our bus will come at 9 so we should just get some breakfast and wait. The ferry port at Kamanga obviously doesn't see a lot of wazungu. No one spoke English and I loved that. We got some tea and andazi (fried dough of some sort) at a little café next to the water wear everything was cooked over a fire in big metal pots in the middle of the café. It was almost nine so we walked back over to where we saw buses congregating. Long story short, the bus didn't actually come until 11. During that time we sat on some rocks and journaled. While we were doing that we were harassed by the local men, who would leer at us and talk about us to their friends in Swahili. That was fun. And then there was the old woman. She was wearing tattered kangas and was missing some teeth. Her face was worn and weather beaten. She spoke in slurred Kiswahili, but she was obviously asking for food. We gave her some of our oranges and bananas, but she kept asking for more. We didn't know what to do. We had tons of food with us, but we were pretty sure we'd gotten just about enough to last us on Rubondo. There are no stores on the Island and no one lives there but a handful of park rangers and the animals so we knew we needed to pack everything in. Plus if we gave her more food, then the other beggars in the area would come over and we definitely didn't have enough for all of them. I have never been so uncomfortable or morally torn in my life. And she would leave. She sat there with us until our bus came making eating motions, and from what I could tell, was saying something about how God blesses those that give to the poor. I never know what to do in those situations because I am extremely blessed. But I was in a strange area, and an extremely rural area at that. No atms, no phones, no nothin'. I needed to be able to get home somehow, right? Gah I don't know... It was really hard.
And then came the bus. It is called the Off Road express, I kid you not. It is tall and wobbly. On the inside, the ceiling is covered with red and pink linoleum. The luggage rack is covered with burgundy flowered contact paper and the walls had a kind of brown and cream contact paper. There might have been chickens on the roof, I'm not sure. There was about two feet of stuff piled on the roof. It was nuts. When we got on, people were already sitting in the aisle but four guys gave up their seats for us. I thought they were being nice because we were women, because that happens sometimes in the daladalas, men giving up their seats for women. However, as we bumped and jolted along these unpaved roads, some women got on with babies strapped to their backs, if anyone deserved a seat it was these women, but nobody moved. That's when we realized we got seats because we were white. I was so angry, but I was wedged in my seat so tightly that I couldn't move and there were mountains of luggage in the aisle in front of me as well as people. Anna had more room so she made one of the women sit down in her seat. All the Tanzanians just stared at Anna as this mzungu girl stood in the aisle. The Off Road Express hurtled us through the countryside at speeds I can only imagine. It was a very narrow road so when other cars were coming, the driver would basically swerve into the ditch but keep going the same speed, maintaining somewhere between a sixty to forty degree angle to the ground. It wasn't until I got off the bus that I remembered that Tanzanians drive on the opposite side of the road, and yet when we were tipping, we were always tipping to the right which means in essence, our driver was swerving towards oncoming traffic to avoid it. Intriguing, no?
Everything we had read about getting from where the bus stops in Nkome to the park station said we were going to have to rent bicycle taxis. This worried us because we had a crap load of stuff. We got off the bus, looking wearily at these spindly bicycles with a slightly longer seat on the back. Then, out of nowhere, these two park rangers swooped down on us and said we have a car waiting for you. I have never been so relieved in my life. We all cram into a little four door sedan and we rumble through the countryside a little more, African music blaring from the stereo. I relax for the first time since the ferry. More tales to come...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1190186880/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1190186880/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1190186880/tpod.html Wed, 19 Sep 2007 03:54:05 -0400 To the wilds of Tanzania: Meredith's attempt to completely freak out friends and family, especially her Grandpa who she loves very much.

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Mwanza, Tanzania

So, if you recall, we arrived quite late at the Mwanza train station, get a taxi and tell the driver to take us to the Deluxe Hotel. Or the Hotel Deluxe. I can't remember. We cram into the taxi with all our stuff, exhausted, but highly amused by the Barry White that is coming out of the speakers of the car. However, as we get closer to where we think the hotel is, the Barry White is drown out by this deep base, in what I soon realize is Sean Paul's Temperature. We pull up to the Deluxe Hotel and figure out that the Sean Paul is coming from the bar that our hotel is above. We linger on the sidewalk breifly wondering if this is really where we want to be, but by that time its around midnight and we really didn't want to try to find another hotel at that time of night in a strange city. So we go into the front desk and meet the guy with whom we'd been talking on the phone. He says ok I have four singles. And we say no no, we asked for two doubles. Apparently they didn't have any doubles left and we decided that we would just be fine with the singles. We walk up the concrete staircase, in which the concrete walls are bright blue (though at first I thought they were green because it was kind of dingy lighting). At the first landing we see a poster advertising an energy drink. Not just any energy drink though, one that promotes sexual vitality. This place just keeps getting better and better. I get to my room. I can now feel "Who let the Dogs Out" pulsating through the floor. My room is small but clean, as far as I can tell. The bed is actually long enough and it had a huge mosquito net which made me extremely happy. I can't tell you how annoying a small mosquito net on a small bed is. I put my back pack in the small cabinet and open the door to the bathroom to assess that situation. The light didn't work, so I opened the door wider to see what it had to offer. There was a western style toilet without a toilet seat or toilet paper, but I had brought my own toilet paper, and as long as its not a squat toilet, I'm happy. Occupying the same general area as the toilet was the sink and a shower head, Both of which drained onto the floor. By this time I could feel the techno version of Shania Twain's "I'm keeping you forever and for always.." I climb into bed, tuck the mosquito net under the mattress, and am lulled to sleep by the booming "Hips Don't Lie" coming from below, as well as the rucous laughing and yelling and hacking by the drunk people on the street. I'm pretty sure the Deluxe Hotel is the coolest place I have ever stayed. What luxury you can get for only 4000 Tsh (less than four dollars) per night.
We spent the next day bumming around Mwanza and making sure we had food for our excursion to Rubondo Island the next day. Mwanza is a very clean city, especially compared to Dar. On Monday
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1190184960/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1190184960/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1190184960/tpod.html Wed, 19 Sep 2007 03:23:44 -0400 To the wilds of Tanzania: Meredith's attempt to completely freak out friends and family, especially her Grandpa who she loves very much.

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Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

I would like to take a quick break from the telling of my sketchy trip to tell you about the start of classes. It is absolute hell. However I'm getting over it. Classes technically started on Monday. However, the only people that have been showing up to class are international students and maybe a few Tanzanians. No professors. A fat lot of nothing. I've been lucky and actually sort of had two sociology classes in which it was my friend Monika and I, a few Tanzanian men, and the professor. They only lasted about a half an hour and consisted of the professor telling us to remind our friends that classes have started. I don't think anyone else in my group has even had that much of a class. I'm going to Globalization and Development later today so maybe I'll get lucky again. I should also probably get around to registering at some point but no one seems to fussed about expediting that process either. Everyone keeps asking the international students why we're so uptight. We apparently need to be flexible, go with the flow. However, most of us are leaving December 22, which, since the "start" of school was pushed back a couple weeks, means we leave before the semester officially ends. Thus, we would actually like to have some class work to show our professors when we get back to the states so we can get credit for the time we spent over here. The Tanzanians just laugh at us. Oh and then there is the whole problem with roommates. So the university has known since February that there will be thirteen American students coming for the fall that need to have Tanzanian roommates as part of their program grade. When did they start trying to figure out rooms? Last week. Who were our roommates? Europeans. Interesting. We went in and tried to explain our case but they were saying there weren't enough rooms which doesn't make sense at all. Finally, a girl from the Brown University group made up a housing chart on her laptop in which everyone had a Tanzanian roommate. The warden looked at it and was like oh yes that will work. So we think it's all fine and good, but some how three of our girls still ended up with European roommates while other girls who are not required to have Tanzanian roommates, have them. Luckily (and this is a very selfish thought, I realize) I have a Tanzanian roommate and I don't have to move any more. She hasn't moved in yet but half of my room is just waiting for her. I even have the little wheat weaving thing that mom bought for whoever my roommate would end up being sitting on the desk. It was really sad last night though, not having Eva around. She has been a good roommate and I am sad that I now have to walk up three flights of stairs to visit her. I am way too lazy. Hopefully my new roommate will be friendly and outgoing. Otherwise, it may be an awkward semester. Ooooo and I need to get a kitenge and fashion it into a curtain because there is no curtain on my window at the moment, and I'm on the first floor. Problem. Ah well. Its all part of the experience.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1189259820/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1189259820/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1189259820/tpod.html Sat, 08 Sep 2007 10:40:55 -0400 To the wilds of Tanzania: Meredith's attempt to completely freak out friends and family, especially her Grandpa who she loves very much.

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Dodoma, Tanzania

This is the first installment of the trip that broke all concepts of what my friend Monika deemed as "sketchy." We have now had to recalibrate the Monika Hartsel Sektchiometer to take count for the experiences of this trip.

Lindsey, Monika, Anna, and I decided we wanted to go to Lake Victoria and Rubondo Island for part of our independent travel time. We thought it would be a lovely week spent with the girls on the edge of the second largest lake in the world. Little did we know that this trips would push our boundaries of sanity, patience, and yes even hygiene. We began our trek in Dar. The power had gone out the night before so none of our phones were charged, and I wasn't packed, hoping that the power would come back on in the morning. What a foolish hope. I pack in the dark, trying not to wake Eva as I stumble into everything in our room. I decide against showering since cold showers in the morning aren't my favorite thing in the world, and I decided that cold showers in the dark in the morning would be even worse. Eventually we are all packed and strapped into our backpacks, ready to head out the door. Overall I feel this is going fairly smoothly. It is a fine Saturday the 25th of Agust. Then as we were walking back from dumping our garbage before going to the bus station, Anna trips over a root, bites the corner of her lip, draws a lot of blood and scrapes up her knees and hands. However, she claims its nothing and we hop a daladala to the bus station, as she mops her self up. We get to the bus station and are immediately assaulted with the typical "Hey sistas, where you going?" "Need a ticket?" "Very cheap price" We battle our way through the fray, led by me with my best, its seven oclock in the morning please do not approach me face and get to the Shabiby bus office. They lead us to where our bus should be and say wait there and then they leave. We wait. We wait some more. It is getting dangerously close to 8 oclock and no bus. The seven thirty bus is there and the eight thirty bus is there, but no eight. Lindsey starts to panic. As luck would have it, we strike up a conversation with two Mt. Kili guides, one kind of normal (David) and the other a rastifarian (Elia or something like that). They are super nice and decide that they aren't going to get on their bus until they are sure that we are safe and secure on our bus. They leave us breifly and start arguing in swahili with a couple different bus drivers. As it turns out, our bus hit something on the way to the station and thats why it was late. David and Elia stay with us until it shows up. Elia had some very deep rasta words about the world being a giant classroom and we're all teachers and students at some point. I was highly amused. Finally our bus shows up with a big crack in the front windsheild. David and Elia push us through the crowd, carrying our bags for us, get us seated in our seats and our bags stored. I think I could have kissed them. They were so amazingly helpful and were not trying to get anything like some of the people we encountered. They just wanted us to get on our bus. It was lovely. The Shabiby bus was the first sketchy activity of the trip, though pales in comparison to our later modes of transportation. Everything about the Shabiby bus is red, from the luggage racks to the plastic covered seats. I was sitting next to a woman and her baby which takes up a lot of room so I was on the edge of my seat for most of it. I really wasn't complaining though because the ticket to Dodoma was only 10,000Tsh (we got a discount because one of the guys at the office thought that Lindsey was cute). It was bumpy and nothing like our Royal Coach bus at the begining of August. However, we make it to the Dodoma train station with only sort of sore backsides and a good couple of hours until our train leaves.

Oh the Train. At the time, it rated probably about a five on the Hartsel Sketchiometer. We chose second class to save money so our compartment held six people. We walk in and we see this small room with three bunks on each wall, sick pea grean in color, tattered leather constraints haning off of the sides in an attempt to keep you safe from falling out of your bunk as you tried to catch some sleep in the bumping and roling of the train. Aside from being small and hot, it wasn't really all bad. I mean sure, we were supposed to be stopped in one town for four hours but really it was only two and we almost missed the train, but who doesn't like a bit of adrenaline. Monika and I had gotten off the train to find some lunch, but since it was sunday by this time, most everything was closed. So we decide to go to this little...place...by the train station which would probably rate about a 13 on the ten point scale of the sketchiometer. It was dirty, there were flies everywhere, someone was fainting in the kitchen, two women were having a cat fight outside as onlookers just laughed. The waitress didn't speak any English and her Swahili was very hard to understand. We finally managed to order some eggs and rice which seemed the safest option at the time. Then, as we were waiting for our food, this extremely drunk man came and sat down with us and started talking to us in extremely fast, extremely slurred Swahili. Needless to say we caught about one word of it. I don't think I have ever been so uncomfortable in my entire life. Finally, we understood that he was asking us where we were going and we said Mwanza. Someone at the next table looked up, and yelled "Mwanza treni dakika tano" Which we figured out meant our train was leaving in five minutes. Monika and I were more than happy to get away so we run, but then the waitress runs after us looking for money for food we didn't eat, but we gave it to her anyway and keep running. Then the creepy guy from the table is running after us, so we run faster but he catches up with us and gives us a plastic bag filled with eggs and rice. Great. We get back to our compartment with a little bit of time to spare. It was so stressful. The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful. Tanzania is a beautiful country. The landscape is very dramatic especially in the setting sun, and no one has sunsets like Africa. There were these huge rock formations scattered about between lone trees and bushes and then the sky turns purple orange behind them and suddenly the edges of everything become sharp and distinct against the sun. It is absolutely phenomenal to behold. We finally get to Mwanza at about 11:30pm Sunday night (over 24 hours in a train=gross) and manage to find a taxi to the Deluxe Hotel. What follows will have to be saved for another entry.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1187004060/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1187004060/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1187004060/tpod.html Mon, 13 Aug 2007 07:48:59 -0400 To the wilds of Tanzania: Meredith's attempt to completely freak out friends and family, especially her Grandpa who she loves very much.

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Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

This last weekend was our first free weekend in Dar. Barbara and Lori (our American profs) had left on Tuesday and we were finally free and alone in Tanzania. It was a little scary to think about, but I got over it fairly quickly. Wednesday was the Tanzanian holiday Nane Nane which basically just means that it was the eighth day of the eighth month. There aren't any really big traditions that we could find (aside from the fact that Kiswahili class was canceled) so a few of us decided that on our first free night in Dar and in celebration of Nane Nane we should find a local place with live music. We consulted the Rough Guide to Tanzania which is pretty much like our bible and saw that a place called Mango Garden had live music on Wednesdays. So Tyler, Brice, Caroline, Eva and I found a taxi (which was a great feat in itself.) and went to Mango Garden. Unfortunately our bible lied to us and there wasn't any live music but we decided to stay anyway since we already paid for a taxi to get there. And here is where we met Mama Octopus. Oh yes, that is her working name and as far as I know she's not a hooker, just a bartender. I can't remember her real name and even if i could, Mama Octopus is a way cooler than any other name she could possibly have. She is this tall, thin, Masaai woman with poofy hair. She sat down and had a drink with us and declared that we were all now her children and that we had to come back on Friday when there was live music. And we were like, for you Mama Octopus anything ;). She even found us a cab and gave us the driver's phone number so we now we have the number of a reliable cab driver which is amazingly useful. So Friday comes around and we decide that we can't stand up Mama Octopus, and we convince Lindsey, Monika, Anna, Lona, and Andy to come back with us. The band was amazing, I have no idea what style it was but it was really cool. Mama Octopus sat down with us again and gave us all hugs and a table right up front, which was a little awkward because we were the only white people there and it kind of felt like we were saying we were better than everyone else even though we weren't. I don't know its really weird. Anyway people started dancing and we joined in. It was so much fun! Everyone is so free and you can just move however you want and it was just great. I really can't describe it any better than that. Everyone was dancing with everyone else. Tyler and Andy both asked Mama Octopus to dance which was hysterical. I haven't had that much fun in a long time. After we had been there for a few hours we decided to try this club that one of our friends from the University recommended to us called Ambiance. It was really crowded but also amazingly fun. They mostly played Swahili hiphop though some Rhianna(or however you spell her name. I really do hate that Umbrella song) and Aqua made it in the mix too. I felt a little sorry for the guys because there was definitely a shortage of girls for them to dance with aside from us but they had a fun time anyway I think. They also took the job of making sure that none of us girls were getting accosted very seriously which amused me. They were always looking over and giving us the questioning thumbs up or thumbs down. I'd rather them be over concerned though than not there at all. A Kenyan prostitute cornered Brice at one point which added a bit of excitement to the evening. It was just a great night. And then we finished off the weekend by going back to Mikadi beach on Sunday. I'm glad classes will start soon because then I won't be as tempted to spend money.

Two weeks until independent travel time! Zanzibar and Lake Victoria here I come!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1186488360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1186488360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/forreymr/tanzania2007/1186488360/tpod.html Tue, 07 Aug 2007 08:07:42 -0400 To the wilds of Tanzania: Meredith's attempt to completely freak out friends and family, especially her Grandpa who she loves very much.

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Dar es Salaam, Tanzania


And now for Dar. Dar es Salaam is an amazing city. It is huge, dirty, tons of stuff going on and I love it. Traffic here is the most insane thing I have ever seen. No traffic lights, just speed bumps. Minimal traffic signs in general. Too many people stuffed into the backs of pickups. And oh lord the daladalas. Daladalas are minibuses that go all around the city and you only have to pay 250 Tsh (less than 25 cents) per ride. It's a great way to get around but there is no limit to the number of people in a daladala, so you have about maybe twelve to fourteen people sitting in actual seats but then you add five to ten (maybe I'm slightly exaggerating but not by much) more people standing or sitting on your lap if it's a friend. And mind you most of these people have not showered in recent memory. Its so great! It takes a while to figure out the system but once you do you can get pretty much anywhere. We had only been here a couple of days when Tyler, Eva, Jessica, and I decided to walk to Shoprite(which is like an American grocery store and we usually try to avoid going to it because we don't feel we're getting the real African experience. Besides markets are way cheaper and way more exciting) to get a cake for Brice and Brian's birthdays. Andy told us that when we got to the main road we should turn right and shoprite wouldn't be very far from there. However, Andy was wrong. We definitely walked for about a half an hour in the wrong direction, stopping twice to ask people that didn't speak English (and our Swahili is very limited) if we were going the right way. Both times the people told us we were wrong but we foolishly trusted Andy and kept walking. Finally we decide that Andy was wrong but we don't want to walk all the way back. There happened to be a line of several daladalas. We walk up to the first one and the driver says "Mwenge" and Jess goes "Shoprite? OK!" so we hop in this random daladala and amazingly enough make it to shoprite. And somehow we managed to catch the right daladala back to campus. Needless to say we were pretty proud of ourselves, especially since we were carrying a cake for the ride back. Oh man was that a good time. I don't know what else to tell you about Dar. The markets are crazy. I'm getting way better at haggling (Caroline will tell you that's a lie but I know how to haggle now so I say that's an improvement.) The beaches are gorgeous. We went to Mikade(I think that's how its spelled) on Sunday and there was white sand, a full bar, and the very lovely and warm Indian ocean. I could definitely get used to that. I got a little burned but surprisingly not nearly as much as I thought I was going to. Tomorrow is Nane Nane which is a celebration for farmers and a national holiday so we don't have Kiswahili class. Most of our group is going to the beach, but Brian, Eva and I are going to our teacher assistant's house because she invited us and we felt that it would be rude to say screw that I'm going to the beach. I think we're going afterwards though. And probably this weekend. Oooooo Beach.....
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