Safari, Interview, classes, and Jay-Z....

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Trip Start Aug 08, 2006 Previous
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Entry

  Arusha, Tanzania
Thursday, October 5, 2006

Last time I left you, my entry was a bit unnerving because there had been a riot, an energy crisis, and two pick-pocketing attempts.  I hope that I didn't scare anyone away from traveling to Africa because that's not what I meant to do.  Ironically, the next day I was in class and a student asked me to step outside to talk to a journalist.  The journalist (from a Dar Swahili newspaper) was writing an article on "how the West perceives Africa" and wanted my opinion as someone who clearly likes Africa.  He asked me why all western media portrays Africa's conflicts, health issues, and negative stigmas but never speaks positively. [And in fact, in a Boston University study I read later that surveyed the biggest US newspapers, they found that there were barely any positive articles about Africa (an excerpt of the article is below, the rest can be found at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/580.html.)] He asked me what the solution was and we talked about a combination of informed journalists from Africa who could write about their country themselves and an active commitment of "western" countries to writing positively about Africa

afrika!

.  After that interview, it got me thinking about how I portray Africa in my writing and in my stories.  Africa as a continent has so much to offer, such as beautiful beaches, towering mountains, and diverse wildlife but it also has amazing culture, the warmest people, and so much potential.  I know that I might be preaching to the choir because if you're reading this you probably have some interest in what Africa is really like but I thought I would just mention it.  After this excerpt more about the safari and classes....

["Today, we call on the media to be more fair and balanced in its coverage of Africa. We spent a good part of the day examining the record of coverage of some America's most distinguished publications - The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and US News & World Report. We reviewed their coverage of the continent over a 10-year period - from 1994 to 2004. We found their coverage of the continent to be anything but fair and balanced. For example, here in South Africa (under the leadership of the present government and that led by Nelson Mandela, this country has had the longest period of sustained economic growth in its history. That story has yet to be told in the detail in which South Africa's problems are covered.

The record of coverage of other parts of the continent is equally abysmal

baboon under the picnic bench

. One of the more notable areas of progress on the continent over the last ten years has been in the area of education, yet, it was the smallest category covered with only 20 articles. APARC's State of Africa Report 2003 highlighted some of the noteworthy achievements in education: a literacy rate in Botswana of 90 percent, the enrollment of an additional 1.7 million children in primary education in Kenya, the rise of persons in teaching training colleges in Ghana to 8,500 from a low of 6,000 in the year 2000, and the construction of more than 600 new classrooms over that past year in Malawi. [1] These, or similar gains from 1994 to 2004, were not reported in the more than 2,700 articles surveyed from The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, or US News & World Report.

The findings of this (and other) surveys indicate that coverage of Africa, by the leading sources of American media, is, at best, dismissive of the continent's progress and potential, and thus leading to continued "exotification" and marginalization of the African continent. At worst, coverage disregards recent trends toward democratization, betraying an almost contemptuous lack of interest in the potential and progress being achieved on the continent. Underneath the present major American media coverage are buried stories of untold and unpublished growth, reform and sustainability. While this survey was not intended to establish a causal relationship between perceptions about Africa and the preponderance of negative coverage of the continent's democracies, it is logical and reasonable to conclude that there is such a correlation between negative coverage and negative perceptions."]

Safari!

Baby elephant

Day 1:  Last weekend, I headed up to Arusha via bus with my new Norwegian friend, Trude to go on safari.  It was a 10-½ hour bus ride and in the end, we were happy to get off!  When we got there, the hostel that we had found in the Lonely Planet book was full so we went across the street to another hostel that seemed a bit sketchy but ended up being just fine.  It was night when we got there and the electricity was off so we weren't quite sure what we were getting but at $4,000 TSH ($3), the price was right!  After talking to the Massai man who had checked us in, we headed to a nearby safari company he recommended, Jackpot Travels.  Trude and I were worried at first because Arusha is renowned for it's "fly catchers" or people trying to scam you into cheap safaris.  However, the guy that we met seemed legitimate and we wanted to leave in the morning so we booked at $250 for two days: Lake Manyara and the Ngorongoro Crater.  We were told that two British chaps and a Canadian guy would be with us (they were on a five-day safari).  We were happy to have to company.  Then we went to find Pizzarusha, a small pizza place in town to eat as much as we could after the foodless bus ride!  (We did have a power bar and some cashew nuts!)

Day 2:  The next morning we met the safari operator at his office to take us to the bank to take out $250 in Shillings

Beautiful views of Lake Manyara Park!

.  For some reason or another, all fees to the operator and to the parks must be paid in US dollars.  We then met our British travel friends, Jon and James, who we were excited to find out were around the same age and quite funny.  They have checked out several other tour operators (6 or 7) and had gone with, Jackpot, which made Trude and I feel much better about our decision.  We then went to pick up our fifth traveler, a French-Canadian named Claude who had come to Tanzania to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. However, in a test hike up Mt. Meru (the 2nd highest mountain in Tanzania) he got pulmonary edema (extreme shortness of breath from high altitudes) so he was advised not to hike anymore.  He seemed pretty bummed about it and as it was a charity hike and he had been raising money for it for some time.  However, the company he went with put him on this safari instead of leaving him to do nothing.  So with our group of five, Jon and James - the Brits, Claud - the French- Canadian, my friend - Trude, the Tanzania guide- Mike and me - Jessica, we were off on our safari (side note: safari means journey in Swahili).

Lake Manyara was an awesome park to start in and because it was our first day we were all pumped to see anything.  The park itself is very green and a beautiful backdrop to any picture.  We saw tons of elephants, some hippos, monkeys, all kinds of antelope, plenty of zebras, and more

beautiful!

.  It was an awesome day.  And I have to say that half the fun of going on safari is being in the Landrover.  During the day, we would all hang out of the top of the car whenever we could and would often sit up there if there were no park rangers around.  It was a lot of fun.  That night we camped at Lake Manyara and it was actually a bit cold.  The Arusha area is the coldest in Tanzania and we really needed our long sleeves, which doesn't mean much to you Bostonians or Maine-iacs but in Africa you don't really expect cold weather!  The campsite was great with a small bar where we ate the meal provided by our cook.  After dinner and some conversation, a bunch of us went to look for shooting stars. Trude has never seen a shooting star so she was determined to!  The sky was absolutely beautiful with no light pollution at all. We saw about 10 shooting stars and just talked about life.

Day 3: We were all determined to see as much as possible so we asked Mike, our tour guide if we could get out really really early so we decided to wake up at 5 am even though we had gone to bed at 1230 am.  Everyone was a bit tired and chilled in the morning as we headed to the Ngorongoro Crater.  At first, it was difficult to see because of the fog but when the fog lifted and the sun came out it was amazing.  The Ngorongoro Crater itself isn't as beautiful as Lake Manyara but you see lots of animals

Birds!

.  It's a large open plain and zebras, antelope, ostrich, and wildebeest are everywhere.  We saw a male lion pretty close up, some rhinos but they were pretty far away, a leopard in a tree, some cheetahs checking out their lunch (my favorite sighting of the whole trip), a hippo pool with flipping hippos, and plenty more.  It was a great day and I have tons of pictures of everything (even video of the hippos flipping!)  [Side note: I'm waiting on a photo compressor and then I'll get them up on the net.]  I'm also getting copies of the boys' pictures because they had intense lenses that were like a foot and a half long.  I think they might be able to count the teeth on the lion in their pictures because their zooms got so close. That night, Trude and I left sadly to take the 1- ½ ride back to Arusha.

Day 4: Sunday we got up early to go to the Massai market to buy some crafts and headed back to Dar on another 10 ½ hour bus ride.  This time it seemed a bit longer!

Classes:

Ok, so after a wonderful and adventurous weekend, I came back to find that classes were starting!  And as Melinda said in an email "Jess, you're the only person I know who would be sad that classes hadn't started yet" but was getting a little worried about the legitimacy of my time here

Close to the Elephant

!

I'm the youngest in my course with most other masters candidates being in their early to late 30's.  The classes are really small with only 40 students in the program, which is nice. The one thing that might get a little annoying is the fact that the teachers often asks me to give the western opinion or western facts because I'm the only non-Tanzanian in the group.  Because western opinion usually involves subjects such as the minimum hourly wage in the US, why the US didn't sign the Kyoto protocol, or an explanation of the war in Iraq, it can be a bit uncomfortable.  I guess it comes with the territory!  For my program in the Institute of Development Studies, I must take three compulsory courses, which include Research Methods, Issues in Development, and Political Thought.  On top of these courses, I've chosen two optional courses Energy and Environment and Contemporary International issues and I'm also taking an intermediate Kiswahili class and auditing a public international law class.

Projects:

I'm also working on some research and side projects.  I am hoping that I'll be able to do some research for the Legal and Human Rights Center and we've been talking about a few ideas with specific concentration on the advocacy department

Elephants are easier to photograph than monkeys!

.

I've also had a new idea about my dissertation.  I might write about non-profits in Tanzania. I learned from an executive director, Sister Jean, who has worked in Tanzania for 40 years that when she started there were 5 NGOs in Tanzania and now there are 3,500.  With that fact in the back of my head, two weeks later I met an American volunteer working at a primary school in Dar who was worried about corruption in the organization he was working with.  It seems that the $1,000 dollars he had paid to participate in the program was going to build a house for the director of the program and that none of the money was going to the schools that the volunteers were working with.  It worried me that there was so much corruption in Tanzanian NGOs and I asked around for more information.  I found out that the government is currently drafting some legislation to increase NGO transparency but it's up in the air exactly who would regulate if the legislation was passed.  I've also heard many stories from Tanzania friends about people they know who get money from donors by sending pictures of fake projects or children that they don't really work with and then take the money for themselves.  These so-called "brief-case NGOs" are a big problem in Tanzania.

I've also met a Tanzanian friend who is a 3rd year law student at the University who wants to start a small program

Entrance to Ngorogoro park

.  She believes that children in Tanzania don't get any leadership, decision-making, or communication skills at a young age and that it affects the types of leaders that in Tanzania.  She wants to create a small camp for secondary school children (ages 12 -18) in order to give them team building and leadership skills.  It sounds like a great program and she really has the drive to make it work.  Tanzanians in general are pretty complacent people and it's true that even many leaders don't stand up for their rights or know how to make good decisions.  She wants to start with a group of 30 students over the weekend in December/January and see how it works.  She's hoping to get the backing of the Ministry of Education and then go to corporations to get sponsorship.  The cost is very small and because it's an initiative by Tanzania students I think it's going to work well.

Anyway that's what I have on my plate at the moment; it's not all work though.  I did make it to the Jay-Z concert last night and it was pretty fun.  He's on an international tour.  The concert was held in a venue that was much like a warehouse and it was pretty hot but I think everyone had a really good time.  I think I'm going to take it easy this weekend and get some school stuff done but there are talks of going to Kampala, Uganda next weekend!

Small side story to finish:

Yesterday my host mother was telling me about a food she had just tried that she thought I would know and like

Fawns

.  She was explaining it as scone cut in half with minced meat mixed with egg yolk in between the scone.  I had made pizza the week before and she said it was just like pizza.  I was thinking maybe it was a calzone or something.  After much confusion, she told me the place that she hadn't gotten it from and I realized that she was talking about a hamburger!  There is this amazing little place in Dar next to a gas station that sells the best hamburgers ever!  I had never thought about the egg in the burger and describing the bun without ever having had one before!  Maybe you had to be there but we both thought it was pretty funny!

Thanks for reading! I hope it wasn't too much information at once!

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

hippos	hyenas	Jake Bedor!	Lion
Lion!	little animal	More beautiful views.	On top of the landrover
one more	one more elephant!	other Safari-ers	our crew
Our first siting! An elephant!	our tent	Rounding up for protection	small fawn!
Tembo (Elephant)	three zebras	tons of Zebras!	Trude and I starting the Safari!
two zebra	View from the campsite before setting off	warthog	zebras
Zebras everywhere

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