tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65970220980534248052024-03-28T11:35:28.169+02:00Justine's Post-Swazi AdventureChronicles of an RPCV's four month adventure learning Swahili in TanzaniaJustinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07323105619171902251noreply@blogger.comBlogger140125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597022098053424805.post-84164779918914533912012-08-21T14:07:00.003+02:002012-08-21T14:07:31.605+02:00Welcome to Hell!When I lived in Nairobi as a junior in
college, I was so busy trying not to be a tourist that I never made it to some
of the coolest places in Kenya. So when my professor, Dr. Elke de Buhr,
proposed that the group go for “a little hike” around Mt. Longonot and then
spend a few days at Lake Naivasha, I strapped on my Chacos, called “dibs” on
the front seat in the matatu (the only seat with a seatbelt), and headed 2
hours north of Nairobi for the weekend.<br />
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<span lang="EN-US">I think the rest of the story is best
told in pictures:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Mt. Longonot National Park is what
remains of a volcano that erupted sometime around the turn of the century. As
we were driving to the park’s gate and snapping photographs of the donkeys
grazing at the base of the giant crater, it didn’t occur to us that what Elke
had described as “a little hike” would involve us climbing straight up the side
of a mountain.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US">Ashley (a friend from Tulane) and I made
it up the mountain in about 2 hours. Two sweaty, sun-drenched, exhausting
hours. Expecting “a little hike,” I was wearing sandals and SPF 15 sunscreen,
and only carrying half a liter of water. We were also ill-prepared for the
delightful combination of 30 mph winds and lots of fine volcanic dust, which
literally made our teeth muddy. It was rough.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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People coming down the mountain, who had
already made it to the top and around the crater, kept telling us it was worth
it so we forged on. And they were right!</div>
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Inside the crater was a completely
separate ecosystem, which you could see from the top. (You have to repel to get
into the crater, and I wasn’t about to do that…) There are little lakes covered
in some sort of bright green vegetation, and lots and lots of birds I couldn’t
identify.</div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The distance around the crater (which
was a pretty difficult hike, too) was about 7km. Ashley and I did about 1/3 of
it, then turned around and walked back to our starting point. (So, really, we
walked about 2/3 of the way around the crater, since we backtracked.) We then
sat in the dirt like children (some high schoolers were making fun of us) and
took pictures of the view below.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">After about an hour up top, we headed
back down the steep, steep mountain to the base gate and found some much
deserved cold beer and cookies. It was really difficult not to slide down the
dusty path, but I managed to make it down without falling down once! (And,
judging by the dust on everyone else’s butts, I think I was the only one who
didn’t fall down.)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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The next morning (on my birthday!),
after some much needed R&R and a GIANT buffet dinner at Lake Naivasha’s
Fish Eagle Inn, we took a matatu to Hell’s Gate National Park. In the heart of
Masaai land, Hell’s Gate was supposedly named such after the eruption of Mt.
Longonot created a massive cloud of ash that suffocated plants and animals and
rendered the area uninhabitable.</div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Today, it’s a giant gorge full of
baboons (which we didn’t see) and baboon poop (which we tried our best to
avoid).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">At the main gate, a group of about 8 of
us rented dilapidated bikes (for $4 a day) and biked the 8km (4 miles) to the
beginning of the hike. (There were no helmets for rent. I asked and they
thought I was crazy.) </span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US">The road took us through a game reserve, past herds of
zebras, water buffaloes, wildebeest, and a variety of DLCs (deer-like
creatures). We biked through pits of volcanic soil, which was so dense and soft
that our wheels wouldn’t turn and our bikes would abruptly stop and tip to one
side or another. We saw families of eagles who nest high on the rock formation
in the park, and heard a Masaai folk tale about the pillars of stone that were
once women who were upset about being married off and were turned to stone by
the gods for looking back towards their villages as they walked away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">At Hell’s Gate gorge, we took a 2-ish
hour hike with a guide whose name I forget. He told us stories of growing up in
a Masaai village, about being shunned from his family for letting a cow eat
poisonous leaves one day when he was in charge of the herd. As punishment, he
was sent to a boarding school, which ended up being the best thing that could
have happened to him. When he was 13, he returned to his village for a
traditional Masaai right of passage to manhood, where he was trained as a warrior
(Moran) and sent with a group of 40 age-mates, all boys, to find and kill a
lion. He told us that he threw his spear first and hit the lion’s elbow, so the
lion attacked him. He pulled up his pants legs and showed us giant bite and
claw marks that he said were from the lion, and told us how the other boys
attacked and killed the lion while the lion was busy trying to eat him. He
survived and because he was the first to throw his spear, he got to keep the
lion’s mane and, when choosing wives from all the eligible ladies in the
village, he got to choose first. I’m not sure how much of his story was true,
but it was certainly interesting.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US">Also, Hell’s Gate gorge was apparently
the inspiration for the landscape in The Lion King, so we quoted the movie and
sang songs all afternoon. It was the best hiking trip ever.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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The next morning we hired a boat and
boat driver to take us hippo- and bird-watching on Lake Naivasha. We learned
about the invasive water hyacinth and Louisiana crawfish that, combined with
the massive Italian and Dutch flower plantations, are wrecking the ecosystem in
Naivasha.</div>
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<span lang="EN-US">We saw kingfishers, storks, herons, and
a bunch of other birds I can’t identify. </span>We interrupted a hippo family’s morning
nap. We watched our friends' boat almost capsize when their driver ran them into a bunch of mangrove trees. A fun time was had by all.<br />
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In the afternoon, before heading back to
Nairobi, we stopped at Crater Lake National Park, another volcanic area with a
variety of wildlife. Members of our group who had gone the previous weekend
(before class began) described it as very Jurassic Park-like, and they were
absolutely right. We took an hour-long walking safari through the savannah,
where we confused zebras, witnessed a duel between male impalas fighting for
control of a herd of females, and chased a giraffe through the trees to get a
good picture.<br />
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<span lang="EN-US">Dehydrated, sunburned, and generally
exhausted, in the late afternoon we headed back to Nairobi in our private
matatu (minibus). We were supposed to stop at the Rift Valley Overlook to take
photos, but by the time we got there I was the only person still awake so we
continued on back to the hotel. I managed to stay awake long enough to shower
and tuck myself into bed before it even got dark out. It was an awesome little
vacation, a much needed break from our intense course back in Nairobi, and a great
way to spend my 26<sup>th</sup> birthday.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Now we’re busy conducting and compiling
research about water access in Kibera, so sometime this week I’ll update you
all about actual school-related things. On the 18<sup>th</sup>, I’m headed to
South Africa/Swaziland to visit some Peace Corps friends, Pasture Valley
Children’s Home, and my Swazi family. I’ll keep you posted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Love!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US">(PS I know this blog post is late, but it's taken me several days to get to internet! I'll update more later, as I'm now done with my project and have moved on to Swaziland!)</span></div>
Justinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07323105619171902251noreply@blogger.com115tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597022098053424805.post-2748305357237486832012-08-09T21:46:00.004+02:002012-08-09T21:46:44.021+02:00Conspiracy Theories, Shiny Things<br />
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I’ve officially been in Nairobi for a week(!) and I only
today figured out how to control the temperature in the shower to settings
other than “freezing” and “scalding.” (There’s an switch on the water heater,
which is in another room, that controls the flow of electricity to the pump,
which controls the temperature.) Hey, I’ve been busy… </div>
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We started off the week with a brief introduction to the history
of East Africa and of the conflicts in Somalia, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, DR Congo,
and Sudan that have pushed hundreds of thousands of refugees to Kenya since the
late 1960s. Once they arrive in Kenya, they’re supposed to stay in one of two
major refugee camps established to house them: Kakuma in the north, which is
mostly Sudanese refugees, and Dadaab in the east, which is predominately
Somali. In reality, though, as conflicts rage on for decades (particularly in
Somalia) and the prospects for return and repatriation seem increasingly remote,
tens of thousands of refugees have made their way to Nairobi in search of a
more permanent existence. </div>
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Estimates vary widely as to the number of urban refugees
living in Nairobi, but the actual population probably falls somewhere between
80,000 and 450,000. Probably. </div>
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Tuesday morning we took a class field trip to Kibera, the
largest “disadvantaged living area” (aka “slum”) in East Africa (and possibly all
of Africa?), to talk to a few refugees about their experiences in coming to and
living in Nairobi. After a 20 minute bus ride through roads more pot-holed than
those in New Orleans, we arrived at the Koinonia Community Project (<a href="http://www.koinoniakenya.org/">www.koinoniakenya.org</a>) compound a whole
mile away from where we started. Koinonia is a sort of comprehensive skills
training center for undocumented migrants and other residents of Kibera where
they teach wood carving, painting, batik-making, sewing, and other handicrafts
(and also provide free or very cheap health care for undocumented migrants at
their in-house clinic). We took an awkward mob tour through the narrow shipping
container where John, a Congolese refugee, was teaching the art of wax removal
to his 12-year-old batik-making apprentices and stared in anticipation as an
old Rwandan wood carver turned a stump into an intricately carved Jesus and
lamb. We asked them, as tactfully as possible, about their journeys to Kenya
and where they considered to be “home.”</div>
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Valencio, a 23-year-old Rwandan man, told me about
witnessing the genocide when he was just 5 years old. Since then, he’s lived in
Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Kenya, with the surviving members of his
extended family who are now scattered across East Africa. Now he carves
stereotypical African masks for shipment to some overpriced home décor store in
Italy. He told me about tensions and distrust among Rwandan refugees living in
Kibera. He would like to be a graphic designer but can’t even afford
cigarettes, let alone a laptop and a degree. (I didn’t bother to point out that
maybe if he saved his 100/- a day instead of spending it on cigarettes…)</div>
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I wandered away from the group to talk to Frederic, a
middle-aged Rwandan man sledge-hammering away at a giant Nubian Jesus carving
commissioned by a local Cathedral. He told me his life story, about how he’d
grown up in a rural community in the south of Rwanda and how his family were
farmers. He’d left in 1994 as well, not because of some fear of violence (he’s
Hutu) but because everyone else seemed to be leaving and he thought it would be
interesting. He ended up in Gabon, then on some mission in Congo-Brazzaville,
then returned to Rwanda by boat (this part I think he was lying about, but
perhaps I just don’t understand geography). </div>
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From his portfolio he pulled out a picture of himself
from 2001. In the picture was a carving he’d done: a pile of machetes in the
shape of Rwanda, turned on its side with two women marching along the border
holding torches above their heads. Standing next to him was Bill Clinton.</div>
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“Do you know Bill Clinton?” he asked me. “I do. And I
know the truth about Bill Clinton.”</div>
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For the next 45 minutes, Frederic told me about how Bill
Clinton had hired Osama Bin Laden to assassinate the president of Rwanda in
1994 in hopes that the country would collapse into genocide (which it did).
Clinton and the other super powers, he said, wanted to build a military base in
the south so they could spy on Russia and wanted access to the mineral wealth
in the Congo, but the Rwandan president was standing in their way. So, the
genocide happened and Clinton and the rest of the world didn’t intervene
because they had secretly started it. They hand-picked Kagame’s puppet
government, trained a bunch of Black Americans to look like Rwandans and
infiltrate the country (to spy, of course), and never paid Osama. September 11,
he said, was punishment for America because Bill Clinton still owed him money,
and the War on Terrorism is an American cover-up designed to obscure America’s
involvement in the genocide. </div>
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Amazing.</div>
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Other students heard similar conspiracy theories about the
genocide in their conversations, which was incredibly surprising to me. Is it
just that particular population of people who had fled the country who felt
that way? Are these opinions widely held by Rwandans still living in Rwanda? Or
is Frederic just crazy and persuasive enough to convince all of the other
Rwandans at Koinonia that his particular version of events was the truth? </div>
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We made our way through the overpriced, non-price negotiable
gift shop (where I paid an Mzungu price for an adorable clutch) and headed back
to town. In the afternoon, I continued my shopping spree at Kazuri Bead
Factory, an income generating project started for single mothers in Nairobi
some 35 years ago. They dig their own clay from here in Kenya, make it into
beautiful hand painted beads and then sell it abroad for exorbitant prices. We
took a tour through the factory where clay was being wet and pressed and dried
in flat sheets. Women were busily rolling, flattening, and poking toothpick
holes in damp clay, then leaving it in the sun to dry. In another building we watched
them paint and glaze, fire and string their beads into beautiful necklaces. </div>
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I asked our tour guide a million questions unrelated to
the process of necklace- and earring-making. How much do the ladies make per
hour? (40Ksh starting, with regular annual raises.) Are they paid bonuses or
commission? (Not really, but they get promoted if they do well.) Do they get
some form of health plan? (Yes, there’s free care for immediate family at the
on-site clinic.) Is there a lot of turnover? (Only one woman has quit in the 17
years the guide has worked there for reasons other than wanting to be a
stay-at-home mom or moving out of Nairobi.) Basically, the place is perfect. They
provide paid training, paid vacation and medical leave, opportunities for
certifications and non-job related workshops, educational savings accounts for
kids’ secondary school fees, and some of the most competitive pay in the city
for women of very low educational level. And, they make some really pretty
stuff. (I'll post photos as soon as I have access to internet that works for more than 4 minutes at a time.)</div>
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The majority of my week, though, has been unrelated to
jewelry shopping. I’ve been going to class in the morning, eating a delicious lunch
of beans and rice and Fanta at a little café surrounded by monkeys (all for
less than $2.00), going to class in the afternoon, researching in the evening,
eating my fill of cheap fruits and vegetables, and going to bed. All while
wearing awesome earrings from Kazuri. </div>
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Tomorrow (Friday) the whole group is headed up to Mt.
Longonot National Park for some marginally school-related activities (“maybe
the tour guide will be a refugee or something”), then on to Lake Naivasha for the
weekend. We’ll be going on a bike safari and hiking and staying at a place the
Lonely Planet describes as “a plywood palace,” so I should have some interesting
tidbits to report after the weekend. </div>
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And next time I
write, I’ll be 26! Woot woot!</div>
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Love from Nairobi.</div>Justinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07323105619171902251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597022098053424805.post-76811884430471880112012-08-05T17:12:00.002+02:002012-08-05T17:15:37.167+02:00Motherland ahoy!After nearly a year and a half break from the African
continent, my hands are once again slick from hand washing powder, my feet have
a nice bronze glow from walking in the red dust, and my nostrils are black with
the soot of diesel exhaust. I’m back!<br />
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I arrived in Nairobi late Thursday night with wide eyes
and swollen ankles and checked into Milimani Backpackers on the edge of town.
After a short night of failed attempts to reset my days and nights, I set out
early Friday to explore the city with a fellow American and an Irish girl I met
at the hostel.</div>
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In the 6 years since I was last in Nairobi, so much has
changed. The taxi driver who picked me up from the airport warned me that the
Chinese had “taken over” and built up the city, but there’s more to it than
that. Modern looking, neon-lit mega hotels with quasi-African names have sprung
up in previously abandoned industrial areas. Billboards advertising four new
prepaid cell phone networks colorfully line the streets of town where
previously SafariCom had the monopoly. The matatus (mini buses) all have signs
and prices, standardized by city ordinance, and new trash cans warn of the
hefty fines for littering in the streets. The city council has even banned
smoking outside of all private residences within city limits, including smoking
on buses, in restaurants, and while walking down the sidewalk. </div>
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Still, the place is familiar. The sidewalks are broken to
pieces and full of unexpected 2-foot-deep holes where cement barricades have
been uprooted by stray cars. The overcrowded streets are full of white and
yellow striped taxis and westerners’ Land Cruisers, their windows and door
panels engraved with VIN numbers to prevent theft. Prices are negotiable by at
least 50% to account for the “mzungu” (white person) mark-up, and
twenty-something men at every turn shove business cards and brochures in your
face while shouting “Jambo! Nice safari, good price!” Women with improbably
high heels and brightly colored wraps walk next to Muslim women in full hijab,
only their brown eyes showing. And my favorite building, which looks like an
upside-down Lego man, is still a great start over point when I get disoriented
in the look-alike streets of downtown. </div>
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Friday morning we wandered with an affected sense of
purpose in search of a chemist (pharmacy with clinician on hand to write
prescriptions), a working ATM with reasonably unshady-looking security guards,
the Agricultural Campus of Nairobi University (where we were paraded around and
introduced to several classes) and cheap authentic Kenyan food. Eventually we
ended up on the fourth floor of an office building/casino at Wambo’s Food
Place, a questionably clean glass-walled cubicle of a café lined with benches
(no room for tables!) that offered standard fare at local prices (and also
manicures). I ordered a heaping plate of pilau (spiced rice) with beef, a side
of sikumu wiki (kale and cabbage), and a mug of chai (milky Kenyan tea). The
whole meal, including tip, set me back 100 shillings ($1.30) and gave me enough
energy, despite my lack of sleep, to spend the rest of the afternoon haggling
for fabric and scoping out dressmakers for what promises to be an exciting
addition to my wardrobe. Just before dusk, I made the smog-filled trek back to
the backpackers and tucked my exhausted self into bed at 7:30. </div>
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This morning (Saturday), I woke up bright and early as the
rest of the dorm packed for their early bus to Tanzania. I took a hot(!)
shower, threw on my clothes from Friday, and headed into town with two new
arrivals I met at the breakfast table. My goal for the day was to find the
Masai Market, a tourist trap full of mass-produced, “my-uncle-made-this” goods
sold at exorbitant prices. In 2006, the market was a daily affair set up on an
uneven plot of land on the outskirts of the CBD, but in the years of
development since it has been displaced by the cement pillars of a new
overpass. I’d heard rumors that the place to go for “local” prices was the
Saturday morning market in the parking lot of the Kenya International
Conference Center (KICC), the tallest building in town (and topped with the
only helipad in Nairobi). We navigated the heavy police presence surrounding
Hilary Clinton’s entourage and made our way to the colorful madness of the
market. </div>
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At the door, we were swarmed by men greeting us in the
kind of Swahili that is printed on tourist t-shirts and offering to show us
around the market (in exchange for a hefty commission from any purchases). I
quickly fended them off with my Swahili and made my way to the piles of brightly
colored fabric in a sea of beaded jewelry and black shoe-polished figurines. I
unfolded (and refolded) kitenge, khanga, and kikoy (3 types of fabric),
negotiated for local prices on earrings made of wood and sisal, and explained
repeatedly to harassing men why I speak Swahili. (Incidentally, all I bought
was a plug converter so I could use my computer!)</div>
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Perhaps the biggest (and most fantastic) difference
between this visit to Nairobi and my previous experiences in the city is how
comfortable I am with Swahili. I’m can so much more easily negotiate my way
through both the market and the city as a whole, which is even more helpful
than I expected. I’m confident that I know what is going on most of the time,
I’m quick to ask questions about things I don’t understand so that I don’t end
up in an unsafe situation, and I’m able to easily fend off anyone trying to
take advantage of me. I was worried that I’d forgotten some of the more complex
grammar rules and advanced vocabulary since I last took a Swahili class in
2010, but it has all come flooding back! I’ve sort of embraced every
interaction with Kenyans as an opportunity to practice my Swahili, and everyone
so far has been really helpful, especially in correcting my Tanzanian Swahili
into Kenyan Swahili. </div>
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So far, it’s been an awesome experience, and my actual
purpose for being here hasn’t yet begun! Tomorrow (Sunday) I’ll be moving to a
proper hotel (where hopefully there’s enough water pressure to wash the days
old conditioner out of my hair!) and on Monday I’ll begin my course. We’ll be
learning about urban refugees who have fled famine and violence in Somalia,
Sudan, Ethiopia and elsewhere who have ended up in Nairobi’s slums, and meeting
with organizations (both international and local) that work to provide services
and support to the refugees. I’ll have a better idea of what exactly we’ll be
doing in the next 2 weeks when I actually have a syllabus, but regardless of
what we end up doing I’m sure it will be exciting (and will give me
opportunities to use my Swahili)!</div>
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After the course is finished I’ll be heading to Swaziland
to visit my host family and all of the kids at Pasture Valley Children’s Home,
so there will be more blog entries to come!</div>
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In the meantime, if you’d like to call me my number is:
+254 729 731 349</div>
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Love from Kenya! (It just doesn’t have the same ring to
it…)</div>
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Justine</div>
Justinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07323105619171902251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597022098053424805.post-23031589002699040062010-12-23T10:33:00.000+02:002010-12-23T10:33:21.346+02:00Swaziland!Sanibonani! I'm back in Swaziland and LOVING it. Nothing has changed in the four months I've been gone. The babies still reek of pee, the men still make inappropriate inquiries into my sexual preferences, the kombi drivers still drive WAY too fast, and it still feels like home to me. <br />
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I arrived on Tuesday and made my way to my homestead on Wednesday morning to find Eliza (my dog) in good health, baby Mpendulo Siyabonga walking and pantsless, and everybody else super happy to see me. I've spent the last 2 days watching Disney movies with the kids and visiting homesteads of old friends, where they offer me chicken intestines to snack on and beg me for Christmas presents. <br />
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It's good to be home. :)<br />
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Now I'm on my way to Pasture Valley Children's Home for Thurs/Fri/Sat for their Christmas festivities, then I'll be back to my homestead on Saturday to celebrate with the family. I'll write a more comprehensive, less scatter-brained blog later this week, too.<br />
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Happy holidays to everyone in the US, and I'll be back in a couple weeks!!<br />
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Love from the Swaz!<br />
PhindileJustinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07323105619171902251noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597022098053424805.post-26833124282966079092010-12-18T10:51:00.000+02:002010-12-18T10:51:08.638+02:00Nitaondoka!! (I'm leaving!!)My much anticipated return to Swaziland is rapidly approaching, and as I wrap up loose ends in Iringa I thought I'd post a blog with lots of fun pictures of my last 2 weeks. I went hiking, visited an orphanage, went hiking again, cooked lots of delicious Tanzanian food, and took more pictures of Obama things and the vermin with which I cohabitate. Unfortunately, the internet is SUPER slow today and I can't post any of them, so the hour of internet that I bought will now be spent reading CNN.com instead of posting an amazing blog and downloading NPR podcasts as I had originally anticipated.<br />
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But TOMORROW I will begin my long-awaited 2 days of travel with an early morning bus to Dar, an overnight in the airport, a 5 hour flight, and another bus. Then, the next day, more buses and one kombi to get back to my homestead. I've never been so excited to sit idle for 36 straight hours...<br />
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Anyway, the next time I write I'll be in Swaziland again!! And in just a few weeks, I'll be home! Woot woot!Justinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07323105619171902251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597022098053424805.post-88340902909949541642010-12-14T13:32:00.000+02:002010-12-14T13:32:23.451+02:00Bribery, unemployment, and other consequences of bathingSaturday morning I woke up mostly deaf in my left ear. At first I thought it was just residual water from some reckless bucket bathing the previous evening, but after failing at all attempts to empty my ear canal I began to worry that it was a side effect of the malaria prophylaxis I’ve been on for the past 2.5 years—a very real and very frightening possibility. (It wasn’t.) <br />
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An hour later I found myself in the waiting room at Aga Khan Regional Medical Center in Iringa, my brand new Tanzanian Government Medical Card in one hand and To Kill a Mockingbird in the other. The nurse called my name (“Chestina Amosi” according to my medical card) and escorted me down the hall into Doctors Room 1. The room looked strangely like my dormitory at UKZN in South Africa—the one where I could touch all 4 walls from the comfort of my half-twin-sized bed. There was a cot-like green plastic-coated bed attached to the wall, a broken-down desk at its foot, a built-in wardrobe/closet, a rust-stained sink, and a tiny barred window mostly devoid of glass. A white coat-clad doctor sat at the desk, so fully engaged in some horrible Nigerian soap opera that he didn’t acknowledge my presence for a good 30 seconds after I sat down. Finally he got around to the normal “what’s wrong with you?” doctor questions and scribbled my answers illegibly inside my patient file. He looked into my ear with an ear thingy of questionable cleanliness, petted my hair quite inappropriately while whispering things that in the US would result in a sexual harassment lawsuit, and said “Yes, there’s something in your ear. Give me 30,000 Shillings and I’ll get it out for you.” (30,000/= is $20.)<br />
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Me: “Excuse me?” I’d been told that the 1500/= I’d paid at reception was the only charge.<br />
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Him: “The fee for the procedure you need is 30,000/=.” He sat back down at his desk and tucked his ear thingy back into its case without cleaning it.<br />
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Me: “I don’t even HAVE 30,000/=!” This was absolutely true—I’m on a budget for my last week in Tanzania, and I hadn’t budgeted for an ear debris removal.<br />
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Him: “Well then how much can you pay?”<br />
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When I saw that he was willing to bargain I knew he was lying. I showed him the lone 4000/= in my wallet, asked him if he could write me a receipt, explained to him that I was a lowly student/volunteer and tried to impress him with my Kiswahili in hopes that he’d help me without paying a bribe…you know, like he’s paid to do. I was polite but confident, and firm in my refusal to pay for anything I wouldn’t get a receipt for. <br />
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When he saw that bribery wasn’t going to work, he changed tactics. He got mean. “That is the fee when I treat Wazungu,” he told me. “If you want to be treated like everyone else, you should go to Arusha where all the other Wazungu live and you can see an Mzungu doctor. Or go back to your own country because we don’t want you here.” Then he insulted me by saying, amongst other things, that I was a bad person and a liar, that I was dressed like a man, and that my family should be ashamed of me for wearing jeans and not covering my hair. <br />
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I’m stared at him in disbelief, trying to read the nametag clipped to his jacket. He noticed and threw it in his desk drawer. “You’re wasting my time,” he said, resuming his Nigerian soap on his computer and tossing my medical chart into a pile on the window sill. “Leave.” <br />
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The Kiswahili word he used to tell me to leave is a vulgar word generally reserved for animals or attempted pickpockets, and would more accurately translate as “f*** off.” I was angry. “What’s your name?” I asked. He ignored me. “I would like to know your name so that I can report your behavior to your boss.” <br />
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Him: “I have things to do. You are wasting my time. Leave.”<br />
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I found my way down the hallway to the Hospital Administrator’s Office and barged in on a Board Meeting full of Italian(?) nuns and brownish non-Tanzanian men most likely of Yemeni descent. (Iringa is full of Yemenis.) I was given a seat at the table and relayed my list of complaints in impressively fluent Kiswahili while the woman at the head of the table shook her head in disbelief. Apparently, they’d had lots of complaints about this particular doctor, especially from foreigners, and this was going to be the last one. They handed me some paper and asked me to write a formal letter of complaint (in English) while they finished their meeting.<br />
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Four hours and a lengthy discussion with the Hospital Administrator later, I left the hospital no less deaf than I’d arrived. Instead, I’d gotten a formal apology, a free bottle of completely ineffectual ear drops, and the satisfaction of knowing that the rude, dishonest, extortionist of a doctor had been fired. Booyah.<br />
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If you’re keeping score, that’s Justine: 2, Tanzanian Corruption: 0.<br />
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Economists say that the cost of corruption in African countries is as much as 50% of GDP. If my experiences thus far in Tanzania are in any way representative of the country (or continent?) as a whole, I believe it. Another example:<br />
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In November TANESCO, the government-run electricity company, began rationing electricity by instituting scheduled power blackouts throughout the Iringa region. My neighborhood had no electricity between 8am and 8pm on Sundays and Thursdays, there was no power in town on Tuesdays and Fridays, and the local radio station (when it had power) announced additional power cuts for other days and evenings on a daily basis. It was extremely inconvenient, both for my computer- and internet-loving self and for every business in town. Government offices were closed on blackout days, butchers’ meat rotted, restaurants stopped selling dairy products and frozen things, and every other business in town was either dark or closed. <br />
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Then, last week, the blackouts suddenly stopped after one of the local newspapers exposed the corruption behind the whole ordeal. Apparently the head TANESCO office in Dodoma (the capital city) didn’t even know about these supposedly government-sanctioned blackouts. The fake power shortage had been created by the dishonest employees of the Iringa Regional TANESCO who were looking for unofficial year-end bonuses: any business willing to pay a couple hundred thousand Shillings to the brilliant scheming TANESCO employees flipping the switches wasn’t subject to the power cuts. For the big tobacco, clothing, cooking oil, and candy factories just outside of town, a couple million shillings in bribe money was considerable savings compared to lost days of production at the peak of the consumer season. But while the employees of TANESCO were lining their pockets every other business in town was losing money. <br />
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And the costs of corruption aren’t purely economic. Police officers who take bribes in exchange for allowing un-roadworthy and overcrowded public buses and dala-dalas (mini-buses) to continue operating are endangering the lives of everyone taking public transportation. Driving schools that “pass” students in exchange for 100,000/= without any instruction at all fill the roads with horribly unsafe, unlicensed drivers who endanger everyone. In the local police force, the most coveted job is that of traffic patrol on the Ipogoro Highway that connects Dar Es Salaam with the southern parts of Tanzania, Malawi, and Zambia, because the bribes paid by drug smugglers, human traffickers, and overloaded 18-wheelers in a single day can amount to more than an average police officer’s annual salary. Plus, government employees, doctors, and other persons of official capacity who become accustomed to being bribed end up refusing to do their job unless they’re paid a bribe, meaning that law-abiding citizens refusing (or unable) to pay bribes can’t get passports or electricity or debris removed from their ear canals by paying the official price.<br />
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In my most recent semi-victory, the non-monetary cost of corruption at the Aga Khan Regional Medical Center is my hearing. After my whole ordeal on Saturday, I learned that the hospital doesn’t even have the tools to remove foreign objects from ear canals, so I actually wouldn’t be any better off had I paid the doctor his 30,000/=. Monday I visited a very friendly non-extortionist doctor at the local public hospital, who helped me for FREE despite the fact that he’s paid about 90% less than the doctors at Aga Khan. He said it was probably just wax (or possibly a dead bug) and gave me some other ear drops and an excuse to lie in bed all afternoon and watch re-run episodes of Scrubs on my computer with my ear full of medicine. (And he assured me that it’s not from the malaria meds, which means it’s not permanent. That’s important to me.) So far, though, nothing’s changed. And it’s super frustrating being half-deaf in a country where, under the best circumstances, I only understand about 50% of what’s going on. <br />
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It couldn’t have come at a worse time, either. Since this is my last week in Tanzania, I’ve got a 3-hour oral exam on Thursday which will be recorded and kept on file by the school in case I ever need proof that I speak/understand Kiswahili. Hopefully by then I’ll at least be able to tell how loudly I’m talking and understand all of the examiner’s questions. We’ll see…<br />
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Other than my Thursday exam, my last week in Tanzania is shaping up to be just like each of the past 11 weeks. I’ve got 2 days of classroom time, 1 afternoon trip to a local children’s home where a bunch of German doctors are repairing cleft palates (maybe they can fix my ear?), and 2 Tanzanian cooking classes. Then, Sunday morning, I’ll begin a 2-day trip consisting of a 10-hour bus ride to Dar Es Salaam, an overnight in the airport, a red-eye flight to Jo’burg, and a 6-hour bus ride ending in my glorious return to Swaziland. <br />
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I’m so excited to be back in the Swaz that I’m already packed for the trip (except for my computer, my Kiswahili books, and 6 meters of wax print fabric that I have yet to buy), and I’ve already sold all of my clothes, blankets, furniture, and other non-essentials that I’ll be leaving behind. I’m giddily eager to see my host family and friends and Eliza, to see the result of my big Partnership Project 4 months later, to visit Jenn and the kids at Pasture Valley Children’s Home, and just to be Phindile Simelane again. I’m going to eat cream cheese and multi-grain Cheerios, drink cheap red wine, and ride 15-passenger mini-buses with less than 30 people on them. Compared to Iringa, Swaziland is a veritable land land of plenty. (Maybe I’ll even find an honest doctor to remove the debris from my ear!) <br />
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Then, in 24 short days I’ll be home!Justinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07323105619171902251noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597022098053424805.post-44940697449834102092010-12-07T13:33:00.000+02:002010-12-07T13:33:03.785+02:00My week in pictures, followed by THREE blogs in one day. Rain makes me productive.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifwCLzH4oOxNhZs4t6ZF3NoPuJF7nFzc9HIoweE3giEuiLqE4Os88nVB_8GbhKpx30BRmdAWhcKgGe7WkStVC5-Rg8RGl5wxVGE-KGdQbSTJFWtunasJjRBw1OnVObyP3neZkWr4-sEMg/s1600/DSC07192.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifwCLzH4oOxNhZs4t6ZF3NoPuJF7nFzc9HIoweE3giEuiLqE4Os88nVB_8GbhKpx30BRmdAWhcKgGe7WkStVC5-Rg8RGl5wxVGE-KGdQbSTJFWtunasJjRBw1OnVObyP3neZkWr4-sEMg/s320/DSC07192.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An "Obama Smoothline" ballpoint pen.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgobDH_oO_IBIPSe_cSc6-gdceOLFm1XTDkm7pRi0_cNAlPoaHZKbPtEQJmLJM9B9MJAkZeWXju4GWN84vMp2z7CSkJ9CqzKRtSSKzx4ARynDg8PmI46d5gY2syx77tTxo_ztGyOAqjXQs/s1600/DSC07245.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgobDH_oO_IBIPSe_cSc6-gdceOLFm1XTDkm7pRi0_cNAlPoaHZKbPtEQJmLJM9B9MJAkZeWXju4GWN84vMp2z7CSkJ9CqzKRtSSKzx4ARynDg8PmI46d5gY2syx77tTxo_ztGyOAqjXQs/s320/DSC07245.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mwajombe Duka La Vitambaa Bora (Mwajombe Fabric Shop Deluxe) apparently thought it necessary to have a big picture of Obama on their sign. They don't even sell fabric for suits...but they DO sell linoleum and carpet and candy.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO5WNdMc8STRbX74Z1fcm2Kx-twPwHa7LHS4ljlNCqGC7K6hc8DgAa4P_wZFudkg-vy91TxsDGjfF_HUzPnScVsnr2YPFmnJbSvykzYG7l1-SrMaJengz0fHSJt3NCoND-JbSmI_OntQ8/s1600/DSC07238.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO5WNdMc8STRbX74Z1fcm2Kx-twPwHa7LHS4ljlNCqGC7K6hc8DgAa4P_wZFudkg-vy91TxsDGjfF_HUzPnScVsnr2YPFmnJbSvykzYG7l1-SrMaJengz0fHSJt3NCoND-JbSmI_OntQ8/s320/DSC07238.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Can you find the pretty lizard? He has a blue body and bright red head and stares at me through the window during class sometimes. This is as close as I can get to him before he runs away, though.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfByV_G8IfxHO5GRjGW9k1dLoKOImvGfWB8OIwF71yLAmWd6IB6GqlY29sJF5dVE80FZLm_CaW6SPguD57eM9eNJupscERsgwcN-FAkH_Hsf8FN-tOaNDeVsm7EN1Qhq38JuJ4BV8-VCw/s1600/DSC07252.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfByV_G8IfxHO5GRjGW9k1dLoKOImvGfWB8OIwF71yLAmWd6IB6GqlY29sJF5dVE80FZLm_CaW6SPguD57eM9eNJupscERsgwcN-FAkH_Hsf8FN-tOaNDeVsm7EN1Qhq38JuJ4BV8-VCw/s320/DSC07252.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> I know I post lots of pictures of vermin, but that's because I spend a huge portion of my life dealing with them. This guy I found in my shoe when I wanted to go for a run the other day. Instead I took this picture, squashed him, and watched TV. My Kiswahili teacher says he's poisonous, so I don't feel bad about killing him.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRxjHjE9fwVsjIlTnoutcrUtXbzDc3yE4p5qiKBeUHnEN_5Vea2KZ501xRCijnKPGaEs4srp7g3rIXhHMcU5Wpb9YUEu6hgi2uffHkokfllxLvWPIHSAkwkzdZyRifVbpyvv0TuLbkf7s/s1600/DSC07204.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRxjHjE9fwVsjIlTnoutcrUtXbzDc3yE4p5qiKBeUHnEN_5Vea2KZ501xRCijnKPGaEs4srp7g3rIXhHMcU5Wpb9YUEu6hgi2uffHkokfllxLvWPIHSAkwkzdZyRifVbpyvv0TuLbkf7s/s320/DSC07204.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Every time it rains, my house becomes infested with slugs. This one I found in my kitchen on a bag of sugar. Gross.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNCMQd9TZ6edIHWPJYktgdrfUCZ_aresf7ipyHAO8ya9NHfY3P5qNmJpvCB6gRsyxqTRaSmoIlJ1aPuC4buYY7-4ujdPfBeXbksbAaw2kkOv7Vml28LWGrjJiOBPs8BDTtSQNNHULCRe4/s1600/DSC07226.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNCMQd9TZ6edIHWPJYktgdrfUCZ_aresf7ipyHAO8ya9NHfY3P5qNmJpvCB6gRsyxqTRaSmoIlJ1aPuC4buYY7-4ujdPfBeXbksbAaw2kkOv7Vml28LWGrjJiOBPs8BDTtSQNNHULCRe4/s320/DSC07226.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Slugs! Ew.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMC6B_gdpGrPvwAUUUBEmZf0DMxcKKB_VGRwN9E7LL7O4syLMFvyKhCN33QemFNy73DusJedBWNwFJkrL8EOUT4LsW6SFBd3nCO35mimB5ej4fmEajXUB_72UuyC5DCwS9yLngUAm3BoI/s1600/DSC07242.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMC6B_gdpGrPvwAUUUBEmZf0DMxcKKB_VGRwN9E7LL7O4syLMFvyKhCN33QemFNy73DusJedBWNwFJkrL8EOUT4LsW6SFBd3nCO35mimB5ej4fmEajXUB_72UuyC5DCwS9yLngUAm3BoI/s320/DSC07242.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Apparently December is the beginning of "fly season," and that's no joke. At any given time, I can clap my hands and kill at least one fly. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>Justinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07323105619171902251noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597022098053424805.post-12663783951059911502010-12-07T12:52:00.001+02:002010-12-07T12:52:03.975+02:00Girls and BoysGrowing up in the US, I’ve always been told I can be anything I want to be. As a kid, I played soccer and learned karate and took piano lessons. I made a self-toothpasting toothbrush for the 4th grade invention fair and competed against boys in history day and debate competitions. I learned how to drive a car and went to college. And I did most of it while wearing pants, despite the fact that I’m a girl.<br />
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American women of my generation don’t generally see their gender as a handicap. Sure, statistically women still make less money than men in the corporate world, and there’s that whole biological baby-making thing that separates us from men, but most Americans women don’t view themselves as inherently inferior to men. Most American MEN don’t assume they’re inherently superior to women. We don’t define ourselves in relation to our fathers or our husbands, we sign our own official documents, and it’s been several decades since any woman has happily been called “Mrs. [husband’s name].”<br />
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But here in Africa it’s a different story…<br />
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When I tell Africans that I’m 24, single, and childless, they pity me. They don’t care that I graduated college with honors, that I’ve accomplished a lot of things professionally, or that I’m happy with my life. I am a childless, husbandless failure of a woman—a failure who insists on wearing the clothes of men and refuses to cover her hair. When I enrolled for my courses abroad in South Africa, because I’m female the university enrollment forms required the signature of my father or, in the case that my father was dead, my paternal grandfather or brother—NOT my mother or the gender neutral “parent or guardian.” (Sorry Dad, I forged your signature…but technically I, too, am J. Amos.)<br />
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I’ve written before about the frustration of gender inequalities in both Swaziland and Tanzania. I’ve told stories of spousal abuse and corporal punishment, of girls who have no time for homework because their fathers and brothers expect them to wash clothes and cook meals for them, of smart girls whose post-graduation plans are limited to marriage and motherhood, and of a hundred other manifestations of gender inequality that I witness every day. <br />
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Now, as I spend my every morning studying the intricacies of the Swahili language, I’m realizing that even the language is sexist. Sure, Romance languages have masculine and feminine nouns, and there are gender-specific words in English, too, that have somewhat sexist connotations. Feminist linguists argue that words like “human,” “mankind,” and even “woman” are sexist, and at weddings the bride is still symbolically “given away” by her father to her new husband. But Kiswahili takes it to a whole new level, particularly as the language relates to marriage and relationships. <br />
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For example, when asking someone if they’re married in Kiswahili, the question depends on the gender of the person you’re asking. To a man, you ask, “Umeoa?” which literally means “Are you married?” To a woman, you ask, “Umeolewa?” which translates to “Have you been married by someone?” The verb that means “to marry” is active for men and passive for women, so men marry and women are the victims of marriage. If someone asks an unmarried woman if she is married, her answer translates as “I am not yet married,” and it’s improper to answer without the “yet” part. But men are simply “not married.”<br />
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In divorce, the language is similarly one-sided. The verb “kuacha” means to throw out, to drop, or to leave behind. It also describes what a man does to a woman when he no longer wants to be married to her (aka divorce), but it cannot be done by a woman. Essentially, when a couple divorces in Kiswahili, the man throws away his wife and the woman is thrown away by her husband—even if the woman legally initiates the divorce proceeding, which is rare but allowed in all of East Africa. The woman then becomes an “mke aliyeachewa,” or “woman who has been thrown away by someone” (aka divorcee), but the man simply becomes single again—there is no word to describe a man who is no longer married. <br />
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The linguistic inequality, I think, stems from the centuries old legal arrangement of wives being the property of their husbands—a notion that very few modern American woman would agree with, but that still holds true in many developing countries. Similarly, children are the property of their fathers, not their mothers. (This also happens in the US when, by default, children are given their father’s last name, but today it’s really the choice of the mother.) In the Tanzanian National Anthem, the second verse thanks God for blessing Tanzania and for blessing “the wives of men and their children.” NOT women, men and children—the wives who belong to the men, and the children who belong to the men. Apparently nobody cares whether or not God blesses unmarried women. <br />
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And maybe this is something that will change in a generation’s time, like it did in the Western world, after girls start going to college and women start getting top jobs in the corporate world or government and start demonstrating their competency outside the realm of cooking, cleaning, and child rearing. Until then, I’ll be frustrating my Kiswahili teacher by making the language of marriage and divorce gender neutral by using a reciprocal verb suffix—“kuoana” (to marry one another) and “kuacha” (to divorce one another)—even though I know it’s technically incorrect. For now, at least. Justinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07323105619171902251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597022098053424805.post-85360846180043615592010-12-07T12:39:00.002+02:002010-12-07T12:50:58.035+02:00Mosquito nets, malaria prevention, and the challenge of public health.PSI, a US-based NGO that promotes family planning and disease prevention internationally, set up a malaria education/prevention station a couple blocks from my house last week. With funding from the Global Fund to Prevent TB & Malaria and USAID (that’s YOUR tax dollars at work), they distributed free insecticide-treated bed nets to all families with children under the age of 5 and hundreds of malaria prevention pamphlets that are now half-buried in the muddy streets of the neighborhood. In the last decade, programs like this one have reduced the number of malaria-related deaths in children by the millions, but after several years of seeing these programs implemented in Africa, and after discussing the logistics of PSI’s campaign with my Kiswahili teachers, I can’t help but wonder how much more successful such programs would be if the people designing them had a better understanding of the culture of the country in which they’re working.<br />
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From an American perspective, we think that by giving people the education and resources they need to prevent themselves from getting a disease, they’ll do it. If we distribute mosquito nets to families and tell them these nets will keep their kids from dying of malaria, they’ll use them. Right? Unfortunately it’s not that simple, for a number of reasons:<br />
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1. Since the Global Fund is focusing on preventing disease in children, all the nets PSI distributes are for child-sized beds. This would work in the US, where babies sleep in bassinets and cribs and twin-sized beds, but most African under-5’s sleep in a full-sized bed with their parents or siblings. A crib-sized net is pretty much useless here. <br />
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2. Many African families sleep on foam mattresses or grass mats on the floor of a one-room house. During the day, the beds are stacked against the wall and these rooms are used for cooking, bathing, radio listening, tea drinking, homework doing, and a hundred other daily activities, so permanently installing a insecticide-stinking mosquito net in the middle of the room isn’t exactly practical. (In fact, it’s probably a fire hazard.) And taking it down and putting it back up every day gets old really quick.<br />
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3. The nets aren’t distributed with the hardware and/or ropes needed to hang them, and most families don’t have these things just lying around. Four little hooks and enough rope to hang a single net cost about 25% of an average family’s monthly income. Who can afford that?<br />
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4. There’s no way to ensure that the people receiving the nets actually need them. Families that received free nets last year collected new nets again this year, and there’s no way to prove that someone who says they have a 2-year-old doesn’t actually have a 2-year-old. Since many children are born at home, there’s no master list of all children under the age of 5, and many children aren’t counted by any government registry until they enroll in the first grade. Basically, anybody who wants a net gets a net. Or two.<br />
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5. Mosquito nets have considerable market value so many families sell them. Hotels constantly need new nets for their malaria-fearing foreign guests who expect clean, hole-less nets over their beds. Dress-makers use the tulle-like netting as a lining for dresses. Fishermen double up the netting to make low cost fishing nets. And others are just re-sold as is to the net-needing public at the local market, which is how I ended up with my not-free PSI/USAID mosquito net. <br />
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6. Treatment for malaria is widely available and 100% free courtesy of USAID, WHO, and other organizations. At any hospital or clinic, children and adults with malaria or malaria-like symptoms gets chloroquine or primiquine, usually with a free overnight stay in a warm, comfy bed and a couple of meals. So why bother prevent it when you can treat it just as easily, plus perks? <br />
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I can’t help but wonder if there’s a better way to prevent malaria in Africa. If PSI gave out full-sized nets, how many more malaria-related deaths would be prevented? If the nets came with a couple yards of rope, would more people hang them? If PSI distributed them door-to-door, would fewer nets be given to families that already have nets? If nets were given to new mothers at the hospital or clinic after birth or when the child is brought in for his first vaccinations, would the number of nets distributed more accurately match the number of infants in the country? If retailers found to be re-selling free nets were punished in some way, would they think twice about re-selling the nets? If parents had to pay for malaria treatment, would they try harder to protect their kids from it in the first place?<br />
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Most importantly, does the benefit of this kind of mosquito net distribution outweigh the faults of the program and warrant its continuation? I think so.<br />
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No public health program implemented in the developing world (or anywhere, really) is 100% effective. The eradication of polio is most often cited as an example of a successful public health initiative, but 10 minutes in any African city full of polio-crippled beggars will prove that polio hasn’t been eradicated. But if the alternative to a program that reduces new infections of HIV by 5% is no program at all, isn’t that 5% still worth working for?<br />
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I found myself asking a similar question a few years ago when I was working for A Wider Circle, a fantastic DC-based non-profit that provides nutrition education, after school programs, job training, and furniture to low-income families in DC, Maryland, and Virginia. Day after day I taught low-income seniors how to make heart-healthy fruit smoothies and helped Hurricane Katrina refugees move free furniture from Bethesda demi-mansions into their tiny FEMA-subsidized apartments, and I felt like it was worth it. <br />
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But I remember one Saturday morning when a woman with a Baby Phat track suit and a fancy cell phone rolled up in her big black Escalade, a flock of Nike- and Roca Wear-clad children in tow. We helped her load her new bedroom set into her Escalade and strapped a brand new mattress to the roof, reserved for her a dining room set and big color TV, and sent her off with a big bag of day-old high end pastries from a Georgetown bakery. The other volunteers and I couldn’t help feeling taken advantage of. Were we giving up our Saturday mornings to give free things to selfish pseudo-poor people in expensive clothes? If a woman driving an Escalade could get a free queen-sized mattress from an NGO, why was I sleeping on a broken-down twin mattress on the floor of a walk-in closet? <br />
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Mark, the organization’s director, was the only one who was still smiling. He asked us, “If 99% of the families we help actually need the help we give them, is it worth putting up with the other 1% who are like that woman?” We agreed that it was. “What if 25% of the people we help are like her, and only 75% actually need the help. Should we keep working?” Sure, we said—those 75% of families are still better off than they would be without our help. “What if 95% of the people we help are like her and only 5% actually needs us?” By our own logic, that’s still 5% of families that are better off because of our work, so we should keep working. But what’s the threshold?<br />
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With any project intended to help people, there’s going to be failures. Selfish people who don’t need help will get free stuff, and people who actually need help will be overlooked. Mosquito nets that are intended to protect a child from malaria will be sold so his mother can buy new shoes or pay school fees, and when the child gets sick his new shoe-wearing mother will take him to the hospital for free treatment. Where there’s free stuff, there’s someone waiting to take advantage. But there are also people whose lives can be saved by free food, and children whose lives can be improved by free health care, so shouldn’t we keep providing it? The only alternative is to deny help to EVERYBODY, which punishes the freeloaders of the world by refusing to help people who actually need it. That’s not really fair either, is it? <br />
<br />
Even if the world will never be FAIR, I hope that the work that NGOs and aid agencies and I myself do at least helps make life little less UNFAIR. That’s reason enough to keep distributing mosquito nets, to keep learning a seemingly useless African language, to keep trying, right? I think so.Justinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07323105619171902251noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597022098053424805.post-77643544510616512112010-12-07T12:33:00.002+02:002010-12-07T12:33:48.020+02:00Corruption and the clash of cultures at the Iringa Regional Immigration Office94 days ago I got a 90 day visa for a 108 day long stay in Tanzania. Standing at the immigration counter in the Dar Es Salaam airport, sweating profusely and exhausted from fourteen hours of travel, this 18 day discrepancy seemed much less important than taking a cold shower and finding a horizontal place suitable for sleeping. I didn’t worry about it again until about a month ago, when I paid my first visit to the regional immigration office in Iringa.<br />
<br />
On my first visit the official on duty told me I didn’t need another visa, despite the fact that my current one would expire 18 days before my flight back to Swaziland; he recommended that I overstay my visa and beg forgiveness at the airport. The next week I went back in search of a more legal answer and was told I could either get a $200 student visa or spend a weekend in Malawi and renew my multiple entry visa by default at the border. On my third visit, after explaining my situation the official launched into a tirade about the theft of culture, which I was clearly guilty of. I smiled, nodded, and pretended to be listening while contemplating the feasibility of a weekend trip to Malawi.<br />
<br />
But it got me thinking about the export of culture. For better or worse the internet, cell phones, television, air travel, and technology in general have made the world a much smaller place than it was just a decade ago. Fashion trends, political systems, religion, language, music, cuisine— things once confined to a specific country or culture are now available throughout the world. Many African radio stations broadcast American Evangelists’ sermons and programs like “Focus on the Family,” and in the afternoon every TV in Tanzania is tuned into Spanish soap operas dubbed into English with Swahili subtitles. Muslim women in Zanzibar have Gmail accounts. Swazi grocery stores sell Danish butter cookies made in Dubai and Kellog’s Corn Flakes, and just about everybody wants to learn English. While accusing me of the intellectual theft of his mother tongue, the angry immigration official was wearing dark wash Levi’s with a big knock-off Calvin Klein belt buckle and making notes with a Bic pen imported from Thailand by a South African company. <br />
<br />
But even more than dark wash jeans and corn flakes, what amazes (and sometimes appalls) me is the IDEAS that are exported together with all of these THINGS. In Swaziland, people who watch the TV broadcast of the American Bishop T.D. Jakes’ sermon think that America is full of racist Christian fundamentalists; Swazis who watch WWE wrestling think all American women have gigantic boobs encased in vinyl like big pornographic sausages, and that all American men have funny mustaches and fight each other with folding chairs while wearing spandex. A Tanzanian woman who had seen an episode of MTV’s “Cribs” featuring the ridiculous mansion and car collection of the rapper 50 Cent asked me how many Lamborghinis my parents owned, and I have a really hard time convincing people that not everybody in America is white and wealthy. A couple months ago, when walking down the street in wide leg jeans and a ribbed tank top, an older Muslim woman asked me why I was “wearing the uniform of the prostitute,” because clearly anyone who wears pants is a hooker. The understanding of American culture that’s exported around the world is that we’re all gluttonous, wasteful fatties with mattresses stuffed with Dollars where we sleep with a different partner every night and talk about how much we hate Black people. <br />
<br />
Every day I spend in Africa I find myself fighting this perception of Americans. Countless times, I’ve explained that not all Americans are White or rich or wear suits to work every day. I’ve explained that not all Americans are Christian, and that American culture is not monolithic; that the US is a country of immigrants and diversity and multiple political parties and socio-economic classes. I’ve tried to explain that if I knew a bunch of multi-millionaires eager to fund the higher education of strangers I wouldn’t be spending my weekends writing essays for scholarship applications, and I try to dispel myths of selfishness and gluttony through my behavior. But as I compete with the TV shows like “Cops,” bags of free food labeled “Aid from the American people,” and the ridiculously short skirts of celebrities in the Entertainment section of the newspaper, sometimes it feels like a losing battle.<br />
<br />
In my immigration office standoff, though, I was victorious. After several return trips and many hours of practicing the argumentative tense of Kiswahili, the Regional Immigration Director locked my passport in his desk drawer and demanded that I pay him $100 to get it back. I pulled my other passport out of my bag (I have 2—one that Peace Corps gave me and my personal one) and shrugged off his threat as I showed myself to the door. Ten minutes later, I had a free 30 day visa extension and a mug of sugary tea and biscuits. And now at least one immigration official in Tanzanian knows that Americans are smart, persistent and refuse to pay bribes. Even while wearing a prostitute uniform. That’s me doing my part.Justinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07323105619171902251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597022098053424805.post-53326174727001894332010-11-13T14:29:00.000+02:002010-11-13T14:29:02.154+02:00Obama lovin', dresses, and smoked grasshoppers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcFZGSpUFav8ptV98sshH-QXNlbomszHplz6ADfd7ILQ74P_jvbX3vBjxp5OKE4IgBKaEoZKeI9Sy7ZC0p04EElGilk172jZV9ARkWmJTS6oDoV_doDby2yBMl_pKrdaF6qhQkCk7QfVk/s1600/DSC07032.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcFZGSpUFav8ptV98sshH-QXNlbomszHplz6ADfd7ILQ74P_jvbX3vBjxp5OKE4IgBKaEoZKeI9Sy7ZC0p04EElGilk172jZV9ARkWmJTS6oDoV_doDby2yBMl_pKrdaF6qhQkCk7QfVk/s320/DSC07032.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtWh3SpC45X4EXSqSw-oVNojNVNNo4GgJDsm4VRRuMzjScIBf8PmoWisHpQNO76PbfeqxzAbZ7w6bqoTAgSquKtZexzJZ9RarJ8dDDDHGQQdU4rKivR9Hm1cdnE9MxxvylwIv_5AYMfeY/s1600/DSC07116.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtWh3SpC45X4EXSqSw-oVNojNVNNo4GgJDsm4VRRuMzjScIBf8PmoWisHpQNO76PbfeqxzAbZ7w6bqoTAgSquKtZexzJZ9RarJ8dDDDHGQQdU4rKivR9Hm1cdnE9MxxvylwIv_5AYMfeY/s320/DSC07116.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifpuKZ9n5N-iUl4esK7-cISG6JGeNy4E0eIB0nkJ0KjKbh6AC6itZkyQ0N12n-VxpuG40XztRiFJGL_Wrjm9_meaL8Q7A3B2UcNxWods3VdgwlBMNP1hiLxrtrSyTA5EjXcd-R0NtVZ4c/s1600/DSC07124.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifpuKZ9n5N-iUl4esK7-cISG6JGeNy4E0eIB0nkJ0KjKbh6AC6itZkyQ0N12n-VxpuG40XztRiFJGL_Wrjm9_meaL8Q7A3B2UcNxWods3VdgwlBMNP1hiLxrtrSyTA5EjXcd-R0NtVZ4c/s320/DSC07124.JPG" width="246" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Africa LOVES Obama. Obama chewing gum, Obama ballpoint pens, Obama backpacks. You name it, I've seen it. A couple weeks ago, I found Obama underwear at a used clothes market, complete with airbrushed Obama on the butt and a waistband that said "Commander in Chief." Still, who buys used underwear?</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWDhCFuTdgo48h2FLtp4JkzdufjsuUoPzg08O41oR3Gw7Z9tNljm9CGXR301_r-8ADIKoKc7Yr0Oda2X15NleS71CCjkBPgeMRWW642UQw20IZKpyndcDoeI2aItAx1_6dWjYmcilrH1Q/s1600/DSC07187.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWDhCFuTdgo48h2FLtp4JkzdufjsuUoPzg08O41oR3Gw7Z9tNljm9CGXR301_r-8ADIKoKc7Yr0Oda2X15NleS71CCjkBPgeMRWW642UQw20IZKpyndcDoeI2aItAx1_6dWjYmcilrH1Q/s320/DSC07187.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2rW7JHIulWmBBfDWiHhQRrI32MnI2dCwu8-TlWma-mpFmUu8xQdS0xHjAn8gxbgFOhk-D90fcxmYowbhkxXC_-WCcd8R7argp_rDFN84tUak7oXHK_3xCk0DZvtqdXowRnq_Xw4K5Slg/s1600/DSC07169.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2rW7JHIulWmBBfDWiHhQRrI32MnI2dCwu8-TlWma-mpFmUu8xQdS0xHjAn8gxbgFOhk-D90fcxmYowbhkxXC_-WCcd8R7argp_rDFN84tUak7oXHK_3xCk0DZvtqdXowRnq_Xw4K5Slg/s320/DSC07169.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's amazing how an $8 dress with big cartoon fish on it can make me feel pretty, but it does. Fabric here is so ridiculous it's amazing. Last week I found a piece of gray and purple cloth with bright green and orange vacuums vacuuming bright yellow and blue carpets. I had to seriously restrain myself from buying it and having it made into a dress...</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHUlNL-TWM8-ylMUFoZvqFr5VhVQD9f4mgArvP6w9Z9B-InMtQ1huskqxZeREo-mcoL6VtcOmRr_YnMEa75BgQDPxuhdtI_gqANPoseudFJEJAo2ZEayv6hT3-jYMyEc6tcx_N6E8Lv1Y/s1600/DSC07179.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHUlNL-TWM8-ylMUFoZvqFr5VhVQD9f4mgArvP6w9Z9B-InMtQ1huskqxZeREo-mcoL6VtcOmRr_YnMEa75BgQDPxuhdtI_gqANPoseudFJEJAo2ZEayv6hT3-jYMyEc6tcx_N6E8Lv1Y/s320/DSC07179.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb9e6qJI-RCHU-CRxC2nmhGTI0PrdvtzT6rcGcBKoi2svWSRGpCWZTvLGvKofqIi21HqL4zghR5CMHnqC6Mv9iiHU3Ca4qVrBNXi-0MB6o9RQE8Qt4GgMzkX-kLn-YqqQ8fA0oWokqAew/s1600/DSC07184.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb9e6qJI-RCHU-CRxC2nmhGTI0PrdvtzT6rcGcBKoi2svWSRGpCWZTvLGvKofqIi21HqL4zghR5CMHnqC6Mv9iiHU3Ca4qVrBNXi-0MB6o9RQE8Qt4GgMzkX-kLn-YqqQ8fA0oWokqAew/s320/DSC07184.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On Friday, I had a toasted egg and cheese sandwich with a side of smoked grasshoppers for lunch. Yum! They're super tiny this time of year, crunchy, and taste like just about anything else that's smoked. But they look scary.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8QpR5vbNAvvP6btSQO4OMqD30G0SRRlvcoCbUZh6p2ZWLvIiIiZk9AIUgzu3iO8FgM-Gp_j5JbRv_dVU7TraB_cwkfweuEdFxpSvy4tgQovZamQPzCysWEzckcTmvvgv8iGXmYoyVVnM/s1600/DSC07126.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8QpR5vbNAvvP6btSQO4OMqD30G0SRRlvcoCbUZh6p2ZWLvIiIiZk9AIUgzu3iO8FgM-Gp_j5JbRv_dVU7TraB_cwkfweuEdFxpSvy4tgQovZamQPzCysWEzckcTmvvgv8iGXmYoyVVnM/s320/DSC07126.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In Swahili, L and R are interchangeable, so this actually means "Death Row." I love misspelled graffiti. </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjBUg1TXp8C5aQMdIGOixrjetx3EdINrGSDlo6aB76R4MKxejDYInt75D1MlQtBEULPsVGlUgxQkDoG86rHNfTBf-zHRiFzXaqbVUvPkal7iofc0r3x9NpMiYzscJRy8n6KF6G4EIpmCs/s1600/DSC07138.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjBUg1TXp8C5aQMdIGOixrjetx3EdINrGSDlo6aB76R4MKxejDYInt75D1MlQtBEULPsVGlUgxQkDoG86rHNfTBf-zHRiFzXaqbVUvPkal7iofc0r3x9NpMiYzscJRy8n6KF6G4EIpmCs/s320/DSC07138.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I have developed mosquito-squashing skills of epic proportions. Gross, yes, but very necessary.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjoecpBSuNhIDziPcQCDOPiBbxcpKSMGdimkWk04BoVxZQ2PVYKL2GPggrC2JKRfMvCzI7HjzlDp5I_eraOrGS1AzJOSexICj91jDEyEDuePHWJfu1Ll8DYjTmnUNgltyzHehygA8djmQ/s1600/DSC07143.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjoecpBSuNhIDziPcQCDOPiBbxcpKSMGdimkWk04BoVxZQ2PVYKL2GPggrC2JKRfMvCzI7HjzlDp5I_eraOrGS1AzJOSexICj91jDEyEDuePHWJfu1Ll8DYjTmnUNgltyzHehygA8djmQ/s320/DSC07143.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My life is so uneventful that I take pictures of the baby papaya inside my big papaya. That's exciting to me. (Kind of a cool picture, though.)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Justinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07323105619171902251noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597022098053424805.post-12381858088489539032010-11-08T12:17:00.000+02:002010-11-08T12:17:20.981+02:00How I almost paid $276 for a 16-oz 7-UpYesterday was a typical lazy Tanzanian Sunday. I was awakened at 7:00am by the children discreetly banging on the window by my head in an attempt to wake me up so we could play. An hour later, half-way through the second showing of The Lion King in as many days, my host mother delivered a 5-gallon bucket of heavily chlorinated water from the local price-gouging water distributor (he picks up the slack when the government shuts off the neighborhood’s supply for weeks at a time). Sweet! I washed my hair for the first time in 11 days (gross, I know), threw on some reasonably clean clothes and started the 20-minute walk to town intent on some exercise and several hours of therapeutic online shoe not-buying. <br />
<br />
After lunch, I stopped by the ATM and perusing the local market for the week’s stock of fruit and dry goods, browsing a few local wax-print fabric shops along the way. (African fabric is my kryptonite.) An hour later, tired from the hot sun, I was drawn to a tiny fabric-and-cold-drink shop on the corner of the bus rank, where I stopped for a 7-Up. Sitting down on one of the shop’s two stools, my messenger bag between my feet, I struck up a conversation with the shop’s owner and took little notice when two men walked into the shop. They dirty-fingered through the fabric hanging on the walls, and one bought a Coke and introduced himself to me. He knelt in front of me and unfolded a bright orange piece of fabric covered in yellow fish and blue flowers, mumbling something intently to his friend who was kneeling to the side of him. I returned to my conversation with the shop-keeper, sipping my awesomely cold 7-Up. <br />
<br />
When I felt him bump my bag, my initial reaction was to reach down and move it out of his way. And then I realized that his hand was deep inside my bag, his dirty fingers wrapped around my wallet. I threw back the gaudy/fabulous fabric as he stood up, my wallet in hand. I demanded my wallet from him as he stared at me with a deer-in-the-headlights look. I lifted up my nearly empty glass 7-Up bottle like I’d seen in bar fights on TV and stared back at him menacingly while his accomplice and the shop-keeper ran out of the shop to escape the crazy white lady. Bewildered, the thief handed me back my wallet and apologized. I told him where he could go and that Jesus had seen the whole thing, stared at him with the evilest, most hateful look in my repertoire and demanded, bottle in hand, that he leave. He protested half-heartedly that he still had half a Coke left as he made his exit, and I rummaged through my bag to make sure my camera and other things were still there. (They were.) A minute later, the shop-keeper came back and apologized for abandoning me and I sat down to finish off the dregs of my 7-Up, recovering from the adrenaline rush that comes from being the almost-victim of an almost-crime and contemplating the almost-weapon in my hand. <br />
<br />
To me, the worst thing about being robbed isn’t usually the phone or money (or the fancy Basotho blanket) or whatever I lose, it’s the feeling of being violated. In that sense, an attempted robbery is just as bad as a successful one. And I’m pretty sure those guys followed me from the bank just waiting for the perfect chance to move in, which makes the whole incident even scarier. But at least I know I can hold my own in a fabric slash soda store in the event of an attempted robbery by a pair of unarmed men, assuming I’m drinking a 7-Up. And maybe now I’ll have some sort of post-traumatic aversion to fabric stores and I’ll stop buying wax-print fabric. Probably not, but maybe.<br />
<br />
Aside from that, my life is pretty uneventful: class every day, internet café most afternoons, homework in the evenings, and the occasional 24-hour marathon of The Office, which is what I did all day Saturday instead of writing an essay for a scholarship application. Oops.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I’ll be home in exactly 2 months! Exciting, right? Can’t wait!<br />
Justinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07323105619171902251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597022098053424805.post-90119116035767625022010-11-05T16:42:00.000+02:002010-11-05T16:42:16.114+02:00Pictures I've been trying unsuccessfully to load for a week.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsCrL0I_ChKKxVId80BijMtR4pL3MfSkypsNfELR8DY8WTJmIZrSqsmRGDNRBrh5mW1zxHjeP0GXO6j5ieRR1fgSMzjRybA82gg_W0XDsR_z8gUW-CaoKDVjaSDaNASXDDZ6LmF8bO0Jk/s1600/DSC07055.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsCrL0I_ChKKxVId80BijMtR4pL3MfSkypsNfELR8DY8WTJmIZrSqsmRGDNRBrh5mW1zxHjeP0GXO6j5ieRR1fgSMzjRybA82gg_W0XDsR_z8gUW-CaoKDVjaSDaNASXDDZ6LmF8bO0Jk/s320/DSC07055.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I found this chicken foot on my way home from class the other day. Gross.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXCbuQ08iIfr0FNBYF4AY7kD28trhhqZ5Us75hRsEWNKCx7bc_cmsGHZyuAFg1juRLh0SFB_eB9yxCkkv0vw1nhz1lQaW1hRI2gGQhYGfgwMRv0_pmybCJmhxZA4-2KPgMkrdiy6WaEs4/s1600/DSC07024.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXCbuQ08iIfr0FNBYF4AY7kD28trhhqZ5Us75hRsEWNKCx7bc_cmsGHZyuAFg1juRLh0SFB_eB9yxCkkv0vw1nhz1lQaW1hRI2gGQhYGfgwMRv0_pmybCJmhxZA4-2KPgMkrdiy6WaEs4/s320/DSC07024.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I buy milk in bags.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRnL-mLr5S_9MhQ8GYny6E9h1b-NtnRxq8nqZWfm_YwRispC6LVOgFNBwFEelie1Ja_PwF-m5E6XdZ6_tKIefjJ1geNeWF_25NkEsbizyAbkk5JwxBQn9LkJM2A5tDtbrV6XVZeN2T5Zo/s1600/DSC07034.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRnL-mLr5S_9MhQ8GYny6E9h1b-NtnRxq8nqZWfm_YwRispC6LVOgFNBwFEelie1Ja_PwF-m5E6XdZ6_tKIefjJ1geNeWF_25NkEsbizyAbkk5JwxBQn9LkJM2A5tDtbrV6XVZeN2T5Zo/s320/DSC07034.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I made DELICIOUS Rice Krispies Treats for my host family, but unfortunately Tanzania only has multi-colored marshmallows and all the green, yellow, and blue ones make green. (The pink seems to be irrelevant in the color mix...)</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0ynvz-lzVQx_UNqDcRTfZWG7cLtnicIxb4d-B6SwpmwBL7UmQW8Vw-s4P2I9QhECKkQ70YkZsbQh52NkhriTAo4c3lQq2hkozFwAzlvb6VdEuQ5t76OmufUF9FGAWKVKwDIZd4O-uOn4/s1600/DSC07044.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0ynvz-lzVQx_UNqDcRTfZWG7cLtnicIxb4d-B6SwpmwBL7UmQW8Vw-s4P2I9QhECKkQ70YkZsbQh52NkhriTAo4c3lQq2hkozFwAzlvb6VdEuQ5t76OmufUF9FGAWKVKwDIZd4O-uOn4/s320/DSC07044.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tall Horse Cabernet Sauvignon is my best friend. Unfortunately I find it difficult to crave wine when it's a bazillion degrees in my house, which is actually good news for my bank account because this stuff is EXPENSIVE here.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDryLonzaOtbaM500b7BpIWnW8qU1eDXmdmNS-nrw1TfoS4VjyhyN-LfNlAv8PdgrPfBfWqr_DEkAJfj1povJJeu7EBVoO6nftiUbwFKQ57ddPqqDtYR2ChrqPj0xhaCAGZmnJ3949z1I/s1600/DSC07046.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDryLonzaOtbaM500b7BpIWnW8qU1eDXmdmNS-nrw1TfoS4VjyhyN-LfNlAv8PdgrPfBfWqr_DEkAJfj1povJJeu7EBVoO6nftiUbwFKQ57ddPqqDtYR2ChrqPj0xhaCAGZmnJ3949z1I/s320/DSC07046.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The little shop at my school where I buy stuff during class if I'm hungry. They advertise candy bars, Pringles, Coke, Red Bull, Heinz Baked Beans, Duracell batteries, etc., but really all they sell is deep-fried doughnuts.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGHtopH44sFXRNH68VZd5CRTto4iM0Qt7eLdqJhuHd6IPMD8P4uOp5vSoTIEzD6UAghAz3ye_vCkLcY8fdApdchIizLghUoIlI8-Dte75zVJ7sI3cnQy4KXs12c3BD_YcEJ8tmiIxji8k/s1600/DSC07052.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGHtopH44sFXRNH68VZd5CRTto4iM0Qt7eLdqJhuHd6IPMD8P4uOp5vSoTIEzD6UAghAz3ye_vCkLcY8fdApdchIizLghUoIlI8-Dte75zVJ7sI3cnQy4KXs12c3BD_YcEJ8tmiIxji8k/s320/DSC07052.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Furaha means "happiness." Sometimes when I'm having a bad day, I eat a large quantity of happiness. That's a healthy response to stress.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Justinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07323105619171902251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597022098053424805.post-7405028505925714432010-10-29T14:24:00.003+02:002010-11-02T15:46:35.972+02:00Democracy Shmemocracy: Party Politics in Tanzania<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRon_hZGksaHDmX4jnvWyMqe92v0XK7zbOVytl6xuD67IGvOy_69KMKjG9wB1ZHDCuXCw53vAh7tQQWGk5TIOyFLoWQqR4mpg7xBLTozv0l14ebrOZ5moI_4KJAG-bkVw-OE7iAMpn9hQ/s320/DSC07077.JPG" width="240" /></div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRon_hZGksaHDmX4jnvWyMqe92v0XK7zbOVytl6xuD67IGvOy_69KMKjG9wB1ZHDCuXCw53vAh7tQQWGk5TIOyFLoWQqR4mpg7xBLTozv0l14ebrOZ5moI_4KJAG-bkVw-OE7iAMpn9hQ/s1600/DSC07077.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Despite a handful of predictable disputes in the voting process, election outcomes, and the fairness of the Electoral College, the US is a democratic country. Even if it’s not a PERFECT democracy—if Wyomingans are over-represented and some voting districts slightly Gerrymandered—there are still certain democratic aspects of our government that we can always count on: We will ALWAYS have an election the second Tuesday of November. The candidate declared the winner will take office, and the loser will peacefully and respectfully leave office. An opposition candidate running for public office isn’t in danger of being assassinated by the incumbent party’s not-so-secret pack of AK-47-wielding thugs. Voters are not threatened or intimidated at the polls, and our votes are confidential so we don’t fear reprisal for voting for one candidate over another. And, most importantly, we assume with pretty much 100% certainty that the number of votes counted is equal to the number of votes cast, and that the outcome of the election isn’t maliciously rigged to ensure an incumbent party victory. <br />
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On the other hand, there’s Africa. Here, elections are postponed indefinitely without reason by an incumbent who fears being ousted. When long-awaited elections actually happen, sometimes people’s votes aren’t secret and the government forces are scary enough that everyone votes for the incumbent out of fear. If an incumbent leader happens to lose an election, he stays in office and appoints the actual winner of the election as Prime Minister (Kenya in 2007, Zimbabwe in 2009). Opposition candidates, party leaders and organizers, and vocal individuals who speak out against the government’s policies or management are “disappeared” (kidnapped and killed) or assassinated. And, in many countries, so-called “democratic” elections are more for show than anything, held only to prove to international donors like the US that the government is “trying” to democratize and is therefore worthy of aid. (There’s also an outside chance that a democratically elected leader will be assassinated by an outside force…like the CIA. Ex: Patrice Lumumba of the Congo in 1961.)<br />
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Tanzania is a great example of the strange incarnation of “democracy” in Africa. The country held its first post-independence election in 1961, shortly after independence from the British. In this election, Julius Nyerere was elected as the first president of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, which he combined into “The United Republic of Tanzania” (“Tan…ia” for Tanganyika and “…zanz…” for Zanzibar…get it?). Nyerere and his Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM, Party of the Revolution in English) wrote the constitution and established the foundation for modern politics in Tanzania, including the systematic suppression of opposition parties. Nyerere held the presidency for 24 years until the country’s first “multi-party” democratic elections in 1985. Ali Hassan Mwinyi (President 1985-1995), Benjamin Mkapa (1995-2005), and Jakaya Kikwete (2005-present) have all been member of the CCM political party, and Kikwete is expected to be re-elected again this year. <br />
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On paper, Tanzania is a democracy. The country has a democratically elected leader voted for by the entire 18-and-over population of Tanzania, and elections are held every 5 years on the last Sunday of October. Opposition parties are allowed to form and operate without official legal repercussions, and the constitution allows Tanzanians the freedom of association with any party they choose. (Currently there are two serious opposition parties: CUF and Chadema. Chadema is the largest opposition party on the mainland, and CUF on Zanzibar.) On election day, people go to the polls and vote in privacy, and votes are sealed in their boxes by officers of the law before being transported to the nearest vote-counting station. The person with the most votes takes office, the other candidates are the losers. Et cetera.<br />
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But, in practice, it’s a lot more complicated…and a lot less democratic. Voters are discouraged from registering to vote or kept from voting by tactics similar to those used on African American voters in the 1960s. The CCM uses government funds (a LOT of government funds), government airplanes, government buildings, government workers, and government media and television outlets, and other government resources to promote itself, but the CUF and Chadema have to fund their campaigns through private donations solicited largely from a population of impoverished Tanzanians. There’s even rumor (though somewhat more substantiated than rumor…) of CCM officials buying the voter registration cards of under-35’s for as little as $4 so that they can’t vote for Chadema come election day, or “losing” entire pages of registered voters names at the polling stations. (They have two sections for voting: under 35, and over 35. Since it’s under 35’s who tend to vote Chadema, by losing just one page of voters’ names it’s very easy to eliminate non-CCM votes.) In rural areas, police (who are government employees under the CCM government) intimidate uneducated voters by hinting that their safety could be jeopardized if CCM left power, and on election day they stand outside polls with their automatic weapons so that nobody forgets who holds the power. Candidates who draw attention to CCM corruption or Kikwete’s failed policies end up in jail on “treason” charges and are no longer eligible to run for office; others running for local offices mysteriously die of “natural” causes. This year, the government announced that colleges and universities (which are usually closed until after the election) would open 3 days BEFORE election day, meaning that the largely Chadema-supporting college population will be away at school instead of at home to vote on Sunday, and there’s no option like absentee voting. And then, even if all the CCM-favoring election-skewing plots prove ineffective, there’s always the fall-back option of just tampering with the votes before they’re officially counted. After all, it’s the polling station workers (hired by CCM) and police officers (hired by CCM) who are responsible for securing the votes and certifying their validity. <br />
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On Thursday afternoon I attended a Chadema (Chama Cha Demokracia na Maendeleo, or Party of Democracy and Development) political rally for Doctor Slaa, the most popular opposition presidential candidate on the mainland. Despite the fact that he never showed up (TIA, right?) and that I only understood about 40% of what various candidates yelled crazy-African-preacher-style over the loudspeaker, it was a really interesting and enlightening experience. I made friends with two high school teachers and we discussed (in Swahili!) the election, the history of Tanzania, and the platforms and promises of various parties and candidates. <br />
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At one point, I asked them if they thought Doctor Slaa would win on Sunday and they both laughed at me like I was ridiculous. They were there to show their support, they said, for any kind of non-CCM change, but it has to happen gradually. Five years ago, an opposition rally like Thursday’s NEVER would have happened. Candidates would have been afraid to speak out against CCM, and people would have been afraid to show up to such a rally for fear that their businesses or families would be harmed as a result of their participation (or just their curiosity). “Chadema isn’t campaigning for 2010, they’re campaigning for 2015. We’re all here to show other people that if they, too, can support another party and not be killed.” They said that if on Sunday they vocally vote for Chadema and then aren’t punished by the CCM, maybe their CCM-fearing friends and neighbors will consider voting for someone other than CCM in 2015. <br />
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They also laughed when I asked if Tanzania had ever had “free and fair” elections. According to the Carter Center, which monitors this kind of thing, Tanzania’s 2000 election was fair, but 2005 was rigged in favor of the CCM, and regional elections on the island of Zanzibar have never been fair. But my teacher friends (and most everyone else I talk to about it, including Tanzanians, expats living here, and second- or third-generation immigrants) say that the country’s never had a democratic election. The concept of democracy is simply too new for anyone to trust its effectiveness and safety, so they just vote like they always have, even when CCM was the only party in the race. One of the teachers said he suspected that only about 30% of votes cast for Chadema would actually survive the ballot box long enough to make it to the official count, and that CCM had decades of experience in buying votes, fabricating ballots, and in their own special kind of less-than-impartial vote counting. <br />
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Even if this ISN’T true (which, honestly, who knows?), it’s frighteningly undemocratic that the people of Tanzania have so little faith in their trustworthiness of their government, and so little belief in the importance of their vote, that this kind of belief even SEEMS believable. Whether it’s true or not, if you were worried that you might be killed, injured, denied a job, or punished in some other way for voting for an opposition candidate, and were 70% sure that your Chadema/CUF vote would be thrown away anyway, wouldn’t you just vote CCM, too? It’s amazing to me that people still run for office on a non-CCM ticket, or donate to non-CCM political campaigns, or show up to non-CCM political rallies to show their support for NOT the CCM. (There’s no free food at said rallies…but sometimes there is at CCM rallies.) If there was complete political freedom in Tanzania, how many more people would support Chadema over the CCM?<br />
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Anyway, it’s something interesting to think about as we near Election Day in the US. When you cast your vote next Tuesday (and please do…especially if you’re a Democrat), you’ll be doing it without fear for your life, and you’ll be confident that your vote counts for something regardless of who you vote for. That’s a right (well, we consider it a right) that most people in the world simply don’t have, even in so-called “democracies.”<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4KDGVTo0z0ifyxMBneIP07o5qhJhQKoLDWsi7Alm1C6wEqQskApzipXdoIhk_hZLJWvYSe11FjA4NFsQRTWrXX6h6p-RHIt61JboJHNqIe0i-WlHQOym1pWjKjC0CUWGnW7_zEWCqyJw/s320/DSC07091.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="240" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chadema is an approximate acronym that stands for Chama Cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo, or The Party of Democracy and Development. Chadema is the largest opposition party in Tanzania (on the mainland at least), and this is their flag. </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBavYILh6g2cZbxJo_CtOZJ1J8U8MfYJGem0wQGv_hUEoe1hy1M536kG8Wnn2O7f80weFbiV3v9vAveh-Fb9GVR-fOswbhCn9qGlQttzbDM6k8Pj1a4V01k9sM3baW7reayFwvrVtT9PQ/s320/DSC07086.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chadema supporters holding up peace signs to show their support of Doctor Slaa, the main challenge to the incumbent President Kikwete in Sunday's election. The sign there translates to "Doctor Slaa--You are our only hope. We believe in you, and we need Chadema!"</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBavYILh6g2cZbxJo_CtOZJ1J8U8MfYJGem0wQGv_hUEoe1hy1M536kG8Wnn2O7f80weFbiV3v9vAveh-Fb9GVR-fOswbhCn9qGlQttzbDM6k8Pj1a4V01k9sM3baW7reayFwvrVtT9PQ/s1600/DSC07086.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiToUqKJxNCN9Ud0GBwuSFtdBjnt7u4rO4eJByvjl0oIEAmJ5Q__td5obw7B4l1SdUzidDC9agNMYaDJ9TJ_mzWooTBnL5NskBEEUr98mQ9s-aevdtX_evafyPp9PW2SekhoT0n_pCw-rg/s320/DSC07104.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="222" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vuvuzelas have taken over the world! This guy is also wearing a Chadema flag as a shirt and his sweet dance moves kept me entertained during long speeches I only partially understood.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiToUqKJxNCN9Ud0GBwuSFtdBjnt7u4rO4eJByvjl0oIEAmJ5Q__td5obw7B4l1SdUzidDC9agNMYaDJ9TJ_mzWooTBnL5NskBEEUr98mQ9s-aevdtX_evafyPp9PW2SekhoT0n_pCw-rg/s1600/DSC07104.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRon_hZGksaHDmX4jnvWyMqe92v0XK7zbOVytl6xuD67IGvOy_69KMKjG9wB1ZHDCuXCw53vAh7tQQWGk5TIOyFLoWQqR4mpg7xBLTozv0l14ebrOZ5moI_4KJAG-bkVw-OE7iAMpn9hQ/s320/DSC07077.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="240" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A little boy toting around a pro-Chadema sign at the political rally on Thursday afternoon. It translates as "We believe in you, we need you Doctor Slaa! Doctor Slaa is the lion of the war!" And then there's a sentence I can't read because all the letters are crammed together.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRon_hZGksaHDmX4jnvWyMqe92v0XK7zbOVytl6xuD67IGvOy_69KMKjG9wB1ZHDCuXCw53vAh7tQQWGk5TIOyFLoWQqR4mpg7xBLTozv0l14ebrOZ5moI_4KJAG-bkVw-OE7iAMpn9hQ/s1600/DSC07077.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDfRg5QaO349o9a6UNXbov-GQ0bFHs8Kag3e2Z1hY4JHZ2FHFP0GkysrPgRL1A_FqYkvfVnEAAkvXr_yvl5GUId7E-7bQkSjLleAQJxAF772yvI2zp77ULQMgoYR6XF3fZVd_J9ZwO2bU/s320/DSC07075.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="240" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The HQ for the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party for the Iringa Region. That guy is President Kikwete.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDfRg5QaO349o9a6UNXbov-GQ0bFHs8Kag3e2Z1hY4JHZ2FHFP0GkysrPgRL1A_FqYkvfVnEAAkvXr_yvl5GUId7E-7bQkSjLleAQJxAF772yvI2zp77ULQMgoYR6XF3fZVd_J9ZwO2bU/s1600/DSC07075.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>Justinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07323105619171902251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597022098053424805.post-37871463067396589812010-10-28T13:00:00.005+02:002010-10-28T13:08:44.819+02:00What's newsworthy, anyway?As part of my ongoing quest to reconnect myself with the developed world, I’ve been checking out CNN.com and downloading NPR podcasts and trying to compensate for 2.5 years of being out of the current events loop. In the last month, I’ve learned about the suicides of gay teens in the US, the kidnapping and subsequent release of an aid worker in Somalia, earthquakes and tsunamis in Southeast Asia, the rescue of 33 miners in Chile, an outbreak of cholera in Haiti, a Pennsylvania woman who allegedly killed her 4 children, etc. These things matter.<br />
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But right next to those stories I see others about Lindsey Lohan’s most recent “tweets” about her drug problem, rapper TI’s parole violations (he tried to buy several machine guns from the trunk of an undercover cop car in a grocery store parking lot, got out on parole, and then rolled up next to a cop at a stop light while smoking something illegal...), $8000 bejeweled i-phones, and all sorts of things that are of absolutely no consequence to 99.99% of the world. <br />
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And I start to wonder: Is this really NEWS? And, more importantly: WHO CARES? Aren’t there more IMPORTANT things going on in the world?<br />
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Then yesterday I stumbled across the most recent annual report of UNAIDS (the UN Agency for AIDS) at the UNAIDS Blog (www.unaidstoday.org). Arguably, AIDS is a little bit more important than Sandra Bullock’s most recent beach vacation with her adopted baby boy (especially since it directly affects at least 35 million more people than does their vacation) but stories about HIV/AIDS aren’t really news anymore. And I understand why…it’s depressing and showing no real signs of improvement. Since the “discovery” of the virus in 1981, there have been very few changes in the world of HIV: developments in anti-retroviral drugs that slow the progression of the disease, increases in funding and efforts by humanitarian organizations and governments to thwart the pandemic or mitigate its impact, countless failed vaccine trials and curative drugs for the disease, and a steadily increasing rate of infection with the largest concentration in Sub-Saharan Africa. <br />
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But, for the 33.4 million people in the world currently living with HIV, their friends, their families, and their communities, it’s a pretty big deal. <br />
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As Americans, HIV is something that we’re able to easily write off as being someone else’s problem. We believe that it’s something that affects people who have casual sex or use drugs, or affects poor Africans that we have no relation to whatsoever, and most of us don’t know anyone who is HIV-positive or who has been affected by HIV in some significant way. <br />
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In reality, though, it’s something that affects everyone, not just gay men and drug users and prostitutes you’ll never meet. It affects women who are raped in the Congo. And children of women who are HIV-positive. And people who undergo traditional blood-letting ceremonies as rites of passage, during which they’re cut with shared razor blades. And it affects people of all races, all religions, all nationalities and ethnicities, and in all countries. <br />
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Here are the statistics I found most sobering:<br />
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<div style="color: red;"><i>There are 1.4 million people in North America living with HIV, and an estimated 55,000 people were infected in 2008 alone. In 2008, there were 25,000 AIDS-related deaths in the US. Though the adult prevalence rate is only 0.4% in the US, some cities (like San Francisco and Washington, DC) have rates higher than those of African countries.</i></div><i><br />
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<i><br />
</i><br />
<div style="color: orange;"><i>Since the beginning of the epidemic in the 1980s, 60 million people have been infected with the virus, and 25 million have died of AIDS-related causes. </i></div><div style="color: #ffd966;"><i><br />
</i> </div><div style="color: #ffd966;"> </div><div style="color: #f1c232;"><i>Each year there are an estimated 2.7 million new infections in the world, 40% of which are in young people aged 15-24. Another 430,000 children born with HIV each year.</i></div><i><br />
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<div style="color: #6aa84f;"><i>Sub-Saharan Africa is home to 67% of global HIV infections (22.4 million people), and 91% of new infections among children, and the epidemic has orphaned more than 14 million children in Africa alone. </i></div><i><br />
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<br />
<div style="color: blue;"><i>Less than 40% of people who are HIV-positive know that they are HIV-positive, and unless they know they can’t get treatment or protect their partners and unborn babies.</i></div><i><br />
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<div style="color: purple;"><i>For every two people starting treatment for HIV, another five are infected with the virus.</i></div><i><br />
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<div style="color: magenta;"><i>Only 38% of HIV-positive children in need of treatment are currently receiving it.</i></div><i><br />
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<br />
<div style="color: #a64d79;"><i>One in three HIV-positive people also suffers from tuberculosis, which is the leading cause of death among HIV-positive people. (Yet TB is both preventable and curable.)</i></div><br />
And it’s not just the 33.4 million infected who are affected: it’s the families that take care of them, the children they orphaned, the friends who have to watch them go through depression and eventual decline, the employers who suffer the effects of absenteeism, insurance companies that have to cover the cost of exorbitantly expensive anti-retroviral drugs, the communities that suffer in the absence after their death (especially in the developing world), and everyone else in the world who pays taxes to a government that provides aid for HIV-positive people. (That last category probably includes you.) <br />
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See, it’s way more important than Vince Vaughn’s slightly homophobic one-liner in his latest movie, which happened to be the second “Most Popular” story on CNN.com sometime last week…right after “How to make your YouTube video go viral.” Hard-hitting, life-changing stuff, right?<br />
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And it’s not just the lack of caring about HIV that gets me, it’s also the KINDS of HIV and AIDS-related things that are deemed newsworthy. (And I’m guilty of it too in this blog post…) All the news is negative. It’s about failures and wasted money and deaths and new infections. There’s nothing about the fact that this year there are 10 times as many people on ARVs than there were just 5 years ago, which means less deaths and less orphans than before. Stories about the rate of HIV infection stabilizing in countries like Botswana and Lesotho are relegated to the bottom of the Africa section on CNN.com, even though for Botswanans and Lesothoans that’s a big deal. Stories about people working to change the lives of HIV-positive children or NGOs that are making headway in preventing new infections are relegated to local newspapers even though those individuals and NGOs are a big part of the reason that the pandemic seems to be slowing in a lot of countries. And every failed drug trial or failed vaccine really is a step closer than the one before, but all we see in the news is that YET ANOTHER drug has failed to prevent/cure HIV.<br />
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So, yes, HIV is bad. It’s horrible. I actually can’t imagine anything worse than a virus with a 100% fatality rate that disproportionately affects poor women and children in developing countries. But every step taken against HIV is a step in the right direction. Every 15-year-old HIV-positive child who is still alive thanks to ARVs from WHO is progress. Every teenager who chooses to use condoms to protect himself from HIV infection like his MSF-funded summer camp taught him is one more person who will be spared infection. Every pregnant woman who learns her HIV status at her local free clinic and follows all the rule of PMTCT gives birth to one more HIV-negative baby. Many governments and international organizations, and countless NGOs and individuals are working hard on a regional or individual level, changing future of the pandemic a little bit each day. And researchers are much more familiar with the HIV virus than they were 30 years ago when this whole pandemic started. <br />
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So that’s what I call “news.”Justinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07323105619171902251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597022098053424805.post-22515798337606777232010-10-23T13:14:00.000+02:002010-10-23T13:14:42.625+02:00Laundry, faith, parasites, dresses, and more laundry<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"></span><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">As I sat through 3 hours of Kiswahili examination on Friday morning, I realized just how far I’ve come since leaving Swaziland only 7 weeks ago. I’ve said goodbye (for now) to some great friends, spent 3 weeks on one of the most beautiful islands in the world, moved into a cute little house in the middle of nowhere in southern Tanzania, and gained a level of proficiency in Kiswahili far beyond what I thought was possible in such a short time. I’ve found a grocery store selling good South African wines and butter without any ingredients derived from plastic (this is an accomplishment in Africa), established myself as a “regular” at both the local internet café and the town library, and perfected the art of haggling for things like papayas and wax-print fabric. It’s amazing how the little things in life can make me feel productive and accomplished.<br />
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One thing that never ceases to amaze me here is how much time people—and specifically women (myself included)—spend simply trying to live. After an exhaustingly busy day in Africa it’s possible to have accomplished what would have taken just 30 minutes in the US. Take my host mother, for example. She wakes up every morning at 5:00am to start heating the water for the kids’ morning baths and to get breakfast started. She spends at least an hour grinding maize kernels into a fine maize flour with a mortar and pestle, and then builds a fire in the charcoal stove to make the breakfast porridge. After sending the kids off to school, she sweeps the whole house with a bunch of grass tied together with a string, and “mops” the floors by hand with a bucket and rag, then makes several trips to the river with a 5-gallon bucket to fetch enough water for laundry. She spends several hours every day washing the kids’ school uniforms (which she magically keeps white) and play clothes and everyone’s blankets and towels by hand with a bucket of dirty water and a smelly soap that leaves her hands dry and cracked. If she needs more vegetables or anything for cooking, she walks and hour to the municipal market in town, or catches a chicken in the backyard for slaughter. When it’s time to start preparing the afternoon meal for the kids, she beats stalks of rice against a tarp on the ground to remove the chaff before she can wash and cook it. After the kids have eaten and she’s washed all the dishes, it’s time to fold clothes and then start dinner and, which means more maize grinding or wheat winnowing or picking small stones out of bags of beans. Then, after more dishes and cleaning and sending the kids off to bed, she spends a couple hours sewing with her hand crank-powered museum piece Singer machine making dresses for local women, her only source of much-needed income (about $10 per week) to pay the kids’ school fees and buy their cheap laundry soap and charcoal and support her oldest son and husband’s fondness for beer. Sometime just before midnight she goes to bed to rest up before starting the whole process over the next day. No wonder few women in Africa have jobs…they’re too busy doing work. <br />
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And, honestly, it’s not been so long since women in the US lived the same sort of life. Things like indoor plumbing and water heaters that turn bathing into a 5 minute time commitment are relatively recent inventions in human history, and anyone over the age of 40 would likely be wholly unsympathetic to my complaints about hand-washing clothes because they probably had to do it too. But now, Americans have machines that clean dishes and wash and dry clothes and suck the dirt up off the floors, and to heat our stoves we just press a button and wait. We even have slow cookers that cook our food when we’re not home, or restaurants where we go so we don’t have to cook at all. If we want to cook, we drive our cars to the grocery store to buy already-butchered meat and pre-cut and pre-washed frozen vegetables and chaff-less rice, and then store everything in our refrigerators and freezers and cabinets so we don’t have to worry about running out of food for a while. All of the things actually required to live (hygiene, food, etc.) have become something we do in addition to our “jobs” in the US and we don’t consider it work, but here just LIVING takes so much time that women don’t have enough hours in the day to do silly things like study or have a job.<br />
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I know I’ve been living like this for 2 and a half years now, but since I bought my plane ticket home a couple of weeks ago I can’t stop making comparisons between my life here and what it would have been like had I decided to return straight home 7 weeks ago. Today, for example, my “laundry day” would have consisted of dragging a bag of clothes to the laundry room, dumping them in the machine with a cup of soap, and pressing a button instead of spending 2 hours scrubbing things by hand. If I’d wanted to check my email or post a blog in the US I would have just sat down at my computer instead of walking an hour to and from town to use the internet. I would’ve just called Domino’s or stopped by a sandwich place for lunch instead of spending an hour making lunch if I was feeling hungry but lazy. When I get back to the US, I’m sure I’ll be much more grateful for things like Chinese take-out and vacuums, I’ll never complain about the $2.50 I have to pay at the Laundromat, and I’ll be just a little bit fascinated when I turn a knob and hot water comes out. <br />
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In addition to the mandatory hours of chores and classes I did this week, I also visited a local children’s home with my teacher Upendo as part of a “language out” (field trip) for Kiswahili. Daily Bread Life Children’s Home on the outskirts of Iringa is home to 36 boys and girls between 9 months and 13 years, and it was started in 2006 by a husband and wife team of Tanzanian pastors. It’s an incredible place. They’ve got two big dorm-style buildings for the younger kids (one for boys, one for girls), and a big house for the high school-aged kids that is comparable to an American home. Several house mothers take care of the kids, plus a full-time preschool teacher, a cook, and volunteers who help with homework and things. They’ve got showers and a modern kitchen and school-like cafeteria hall, a library where the kids do their homework, and a preschool for the 12 kids under the age of 6. They also have a small infirmary with a part-time nurse who takes care of the kids when they’re sick, and skills training courses in metal work and sewing for the older kids that double as a source of income for the home. It’s an incredible operation, well-run and done for all the right reasons. I was VERY impressed with the home (and with the home’s ability to raise money from American donors…) and also with the woman running it, with whom I practiced Kiswahili conversation with for about an hour.<br />
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One of the things that always amazes me about places like Daily Bread Life Children’s Home (and Pasture Valley in Swaziland for that matter) is that somehow witnessing the misery of children strengthens their founders’ faith in God. Example: The head matron of Daily Bread Life told me the story of a little girl they took in last summer. Her mother had died during childbirth when she was very small, leaving her alone with her father who molested her from the age of 4-6. When she was 6, she almost died of TB, and the government removed her from her father’s custody when she was 7. Now she’s a malnourished 8-year-old HIV-positive orphan whose mental development is so far delayed that she’s ill-prepared for pre-school. For the matron, this story was an example of God’s incredible compassion: He had sent this girl to her so she could live a better life, and so that everyone at the home could be touched by her story. This girl’s suffering had actually strengthened her belief in God.<br />
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And then, on the other hand, there’s my reaction to this story, which is basically the exact opposite. When I hear stories like this I’m pretty sure there’s no God. If there was, wouldn’t He prevent things like this from happening? Would He really let poor women die during childbirth just because they don’t have the money to go to a hospital? Would He willingly let a 6-year-old little girl suffer and eventually die from an incurable virus given to her by an evil man? If He really existed, couldn’t He punish the HIV-positive father who molested her instead? I’m pretty sure the all-powerful, all-knowing, all good God that Christians put their faith in and praise every day wouldn’t let things like this happen. It’s stories like this and all the human suffering I’ve seen in the last 2 and a half years that make me think that either He doesn’t exist, He doesn’t care about people, or He’s just plain mean. <br />
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Still, if someone is doing something good to reduce the impact of HIV or to improve the lives of children living in poverty, I can hardly criticize them for the root of their motives. After all, her faith is what drives her to work so hard to improve the lives of these kids and what gave her the confidence to start the home in the first place, and that’s a GOOD thing from any perspective. I just happen to do things for a very different, even contradictory reason. I do it precisely because I don’t believe there IS a God looking out for us. I believe we have to take care of ourselves and each other because nobody else is there to pick up the slack if we don’t. The only thing that makes me think that MAYBE there’s a God is that women like the head matron (and Peter and Michelle at Pasture Valley) exist, but if bad things weren’t happening to good people all the time there wouldn’t be any NEED for people like her, right?<br />
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Anyway, that’s what I think.</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">In other news, I learned yesterday that I have Schistosomiasis, a disease also known as Bilharzia or Snail Fever, that's caused by five types of parasitic flatworms or blood flukes (also, snail larvae) called schistosomes that set up camp in your spleen/liver and reproduce until you kill them. It's a mostly Africa thing, I think, and it comes from contact with freshwater, which probably means that there were snail larvae living in my bathwater in Swaziland. Cool! There are no symptoms or anything, and if I never treated it it probably wouldn't be a problem for at least 10 years, but I think it's kind of funny. There are parasites currently living in my spleen/liver/kidneys! It's a pretty unique souvenir of my Peace Corps service... (Maybe I should go to the pharmacy and get some Praziquantel to kill them.)<br />
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While I'm in town I'll also be searching for some ridiculous African wax-print fabric so that my host mother can make me a dress in the style of a picture I stole from the J.Crew website. It seems a little funny to use brightly-colored fabric covered in pictures of lipstick or skeleton keys or spaceships or something to imitate a $225 dress, but I’m a fan of dresses and I’m prepared to pay her more than the market price to make it for me, so everybody wins. (Excluding, of course, the people who will have to be seen in public with me when I wear my awesome African dress…)<br />
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So, until next time…<br />
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Baadaye!<br />
Justine (and her schistosomes)<br />
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PS: Sorry I’m picture-less yet again today. I’ve developed a pretty boring daily routine so it’s rare I see or experience anything photo-worthy, unless you think the inside of the library or the internet café are exciting (which they aren’t, I assure you). And I hate drawing more attention to myself by pulling out a camera in public, and think it’s rude to take pictures of people without their consent. But I’ll try to do something exciting this week.<br />
</span></div>Justinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07323105619171902251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597022098053424805.post-30011096093147511732010-10-22T14:42:00.001+02:002010-10-22T14:50:07.747+02:00More Kiswahili than you ever wanted to know<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"></span><br />
<div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Fact: In Kiswahili, the word “yeye” (pronounced yay-yay) means both “he” and “she,” rendering it impossible to determine the gender of the person about whom you are speaking. And yet the language has 27 different demonstratives to mean “this” or “that.” </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">I sometimes wonder if some of the grammar rules of Kiswahili were invented just to confuse me, yet I still love the language. Here’s why:</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Kiswahili (literally “the language of the Swahili people”) belongs to the Bantu family of languages indigenous to East and Central Africa, and is currently spoken by about 90 million people in Tanzania (including Zanzibar), Kenya, Uganda, northern Mozambique, and some parts of Somalia, DRC, Rwanda, and Burundi. (It’s the national language of Kenya and Tanzania and one of several official languages in Uganda.) Though the language has very African roots, modern-day Kiswahili has been largely influenced by the frequent movement of people throughout the region, by spice and slave traders traveling the coast of East Africa, by indigenous African languages of different dialects, and by colonialism. Today, about 25% of Kiswahili words are of Arabic origin, and there are quite a few recognizably Portuguese, Hindi, German, and English words in the mix, too. </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Kiswahili is an “agglutinative” language, meaning that one word (a group of letters between two spaces) is made up of several different parts that take on a certain meaning when put together, kind of like a compound word. Take, for example, the following sentence (pronounce EVERY letter, including vowels, phonetically):</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ninampiga. (pronounced: <i>nee-nah-m-PEE -guh</i>)</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">This one word, which translates as “I am hitting him” or “I am hitting her,” is a complete sentence that can be broken down into the following parts:</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ni-na-m-piga.</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ni = I (subject)</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">na = am (present tense marker)</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">m = him/her (object)</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">piga = hit (verb)</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Seems easy enough, right? </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">But then come the Noun Classes. In Kiswahili, every noun (person, place, thing, or idea) is assigned to a Noun Class, and each of the 7 Noun Classes comes with its own set of prefixes, pronouns, and complicated rules. For example:</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Kitabu hiki ni kikubwa. (This book is large.) </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Kitabu = book</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">hiki = this</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">ni = is</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">kikubwa = big/large</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Because the noun “kitabu” (which is the subject of the sentence) starts with “ki-,” every subsequent noun or verb has to start with the prefix “ki-“ to make it agree with the subject. So if the subject (noun) changes, EVERYTHING changes. For example: </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><u>Ki</u>tabu hi<u>ki</u> ni <u>ki</u>kubwa. (This book is large.)</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><u>Vi</u>tabu hi<u>vi</u> ni <u>vi</u>kubwa. (These books are large.)</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Or</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Vioo <u>vi</u>meharibika. (The mirror is broken.)</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Kikombe <u>ki</u>meharibika. (The cup is broken.)</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Mkono <u>u</u>meharibika. (The arm is broken.)</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Gari <u>li</u>meharibika. (The car is broken.) </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Basically, the word “broken” can be written any of the 12 following ways: <u>a</u>meharibika, <u>wa</u>meharibika, <u>u</u>meharibika, <u>i</u>meharibika, <u>li</u>meharibika, <u>ya</u>meharibika, <u>ki</u>meharibika, <u>vi</u>meharibika, <u>zi</u>meharibika, <u>pa</u>meharibika, <u>ku</u>meharibika, or <u>mu</u>meharibika. Oh yes, there’s 12 different ways to say “broken” depending on what noun you’re saying is broken…and that’s just in the present tense. </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">And then there’re the verbs, which change depending on how they’re being used. There’s a reciprocal formation (“they are hitting each other”), a causative formation (“he caused her to hit him”), a stative formation (“he is being hit”), a prepositional formation (“he hit her with…”), etc., and with each formation the verb itself changes with suffixes. And there’s different rules for verbs that are “pure Swahili” and those which are derived from Arabic and those which are derived from English, for verbs with double vowels, for those with an initial vowel of “u,” etc.</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Suffice it to say that it’s a complicated language. But there are rules to explain nearly everything, and there are only a handful of exceptions to the rules so it’s easy enough to remember them. And, for the most part, once you get the hang of it the language makes sense. </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Another super complicated concept that actually makes sense is that of Swahili Time. The Swahili are, traditionally, an agricultural people whose day begins at sunrise. Since we’re right around the equator, sunrise happens around 6:00am every morning. So doesn’t it make sense that TIME (the counting of the hours) would start then, too? Thus, “saa moja” (hour one) is what WE Westerners would call 7:00am. “Saa mbili” (hour two) is our 8:00am. And so on. Noon “English” time is “hour six” Swahili time, as is English midnight. It’s not so difficult once you get used to automatically adding and subtracting 6 hours to whatever time people tell you or what you see on your watch. And, honestly, does it really make sense that the rest of the world starts the new day in the middle of the night?</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Another sort of linguistic-cultural difference between English and Kiswahili that I really appreciate is the vocabulary used to describe family. While, in English, we have aunts, uncles, cousins, step-parents, half-siblings, etc., in Kiswahili this all changes. The sisters of your mother (maternal aunts)are ALSO called your mother, and you distinguish between “mothers” by stating their place in the birth order. Thus a person who would be called your “aunt” in English is either your “big mother” or “small mother” depending on if she’s older or younger than your biological mother. In the same way, paternal uncles are “big father” and “small father.” And, because you have lots of mothers and fathers, all of their children (which we would call “cousins” in English) are your brothers and sisters. “Cousins” are only the children of your maternal uncle or paternal aunt. And the word “ndugu” describes ANY family relation, whether it be your niece or your step-half-great-aunt. Family is family, and I like that. </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">(I also really appreciate the fact that Justine is a relatively common name in East Africa so nobody says “oh, like Justin Timberlake” when I introduce myself, and everybody knows how to spell it and pronounce it properly. Amos, my last name, is also a common first name here, so my name is easier in East Africa than it’s ever been in my life! It’s kind of nice. Strange, though, to hear people call my name when they’re not talking to me…that’s never happened to me before.)</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">So, now that you know more than you ever wanted to know about Kiswahili, here are some marginally useful phrases for you. Try to read them (aloud is easier) pronouncing every consonant phonetically. The emphasis in every word is on the penultimate (second to last) syllable, and vowels are pronounced like this: </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">A= “ah” </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">E= “ay”</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">I= “ee”</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">O= “oh”</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">U= “oo”</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Jina langu ni Justine. (<i>JEE-nuh LAWN-goo ni Justine</i>: My name is Justine.) </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ninatoka Marekani. (<i>ni-naw-TOE-kuh mah-ray-KAW-nee</i>: I come from America.)</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Mimi ni mwanafunzi. (<i>MEE-mee ni mwah-nah-FOON-zee</i>: I am a student.)</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Habari yako? (<i>huh-BAR-ee YAH-koh</i>: How are you?)</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Nzuri sana. (<i>in-ZOO-ree SAW-nuh</i>: I’m fine.)</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Asante sana. (<i>uh-SAWN-tay SAW-nuh</i>: Thank you very much.)</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Sasa nimechoka kujifunza kuhusu Kiswahili. (I’m tired of learning about Kiswahili now.)</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Because I’m sure you are. Pole sana. (<i>POE-lay SAW-nuh</i>: I’m very sorry.)</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Anyway, that’s a basic introduction to what I spend at least 4 hours every day speaking and writing and reading and otherwise studying. I’m halfway through the intermediate level course now and I’m finding I can understand enough of what people say to me to convincingly fake a full understanding of the language, which is really all you ever need. </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">I’ll write more about the goings on in Iringa slash my life in another Blog, to be posed sometime this weekend. For now, though, I’ve got 2 hours and 14 minutes of battery on my computer and I’m going to watch 2 hours and 13 minutes of the TV show Scrubs from my external hard drive. Afterwards, I’ll write a short summary of each episode in Kiswahili so I can count the whole 2 hours and 13 minutes as productive homework time. I have the kind of master procrastination skills that can only come from years of experience. </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Halafu, sasa hivi… (<i>huh-LAW-foo SAW-suh HEE-vee</i>: So, for now…)</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Baadaye! (</span><i><span style="font-size: small;">buh-DYE-ay</span></i><span style="font-size: small;">: Later!)</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">Juh-STEE-n</span></i></div>Justinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07323105619171902251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597022098053424805.post-56331844238163089992010-10-17T10:15:00.000+02:002010-10-17T10:15:39.398+02:00Stories and skepticismI know this may come as a big surprise, but I’m a talker. I strike up conversations with strangers, dogs, children, myself. About anything. Any time. Anywhere. And apparently I’m no less garrulous in Kiswahili, as my teachers Upendo and Steward found out this week. Since my class is one-on-one and tailored to what I want to do and what I want to learn, we spent the whole week practicing conversation before moving on to more advanced-level grammar, which I think was actually really helpful language-wise. It also gave me a great insight into some of the “history” of Iringa and an introduction to the local folk lore.<br />
<br />
Folk tales and superstitions are a part of every culture. In American culture, it’s largely luck-related—broken mirrors, walking under ladders, black cats—and most people don’t take it too seriously. Tales of watermelon vines growing in kids’ bellies and the existence of the tooth fairy are something we out-grow by the time we celebrate our first double-digit birthday. In many countries in Africa, though, folk tales once developed as cautionary tales for children or as explanations for the unknown are still very much alive in the modern culture. In Swaziland I heard stories of a man-sized python in the Lubombo region that changed colors and swallowed up cars, held my host sister’s son while she used the toilet so as to not jeopardize his future chances of finding love, and was repeatedly warned against the dangers of star-gazing, which is the leading cause of incontinence. <br />
<br />
Here’s one of the local legends of Iringa, as told to me by Upendo and adapted from Kiswahili by yours truly:<br />
<br />
<i>About 10 years ago, in a small village outside of Iringa, there lived a man who dreamed of owning a big general store. He desperately wanted to be able to buy his wife new dresses and wanted to send his son to university, but he’d been unlucky in business and, one day, went to an mganga (a traditional spiritual healer or so-called “witch doctor”) as a last resort. The mganga performed some rituals and explained to the man that to be successful in business, he would have to be willing to make some sacrifices, including some which may hurt his family. The man agreed, and the mganga took a few hundred shillings as payment and promised him that his life would soon turn around.<br />
<br />
The next week, his healthy teenaged son died in his sleep. Desperately, the man and his wife took the boy to the hospital, hoping the doctors could do something, but to no avail: the boy was dead. Remembering what the mganga had said about needing to make sacrifices for money, the man was angry with himself for killing his son in the name of greed. The day he and his wife buried their son, the man confessed his role in the boy’s death to his wife, who promptly left him. The man fell into a state of despair. He let his hair grow long and spent his nights crying outside the hospital, praying that God would undo what he’d done in the pursuit of money. <br />
<br />
After many months, the man went back to the mganga and asked him to bring his son back. The mganga gave him a piece of bark from a secret tree and told the man to keep it in his pocket, wrapped inside his money, but to never let it touch the ground and never let anyone else see it. The man followed these instructions to the letter for many years until, one day, he went to pay his bus fare and dropped all his money and the piece of bark onto the ground. He immediately yelled for everyone on the bus to close their eyes but his strange request begot more questions than compliance, and everyone began arguing over WHY they had to close their eyes. They were worried the man was trying to rob them.<br />
<br />
But while they were busy arguing, the piece of bark lying on the ground started to grow into a person. It was a man, about 6 feet tall, with long-neglected hair, an unshaven face, and fingernails so long they were curling. He was completely naked and filthy.<br />
<br />
When the people on the bus finally stopped arguing long enough to notice the man, they all ran with fright off the bus at the next stop. All except the man, who stayed on the bus staring into the eyes of his son, brought back to life. <br />
<br />
Unable to believe his eyes, the man asked the bus driver to take them to the hospital immediately. There he had doctors and nurses look over the boy to see if he was really real. They cut his fingernails and hair, shaved his beard, washed him up, took his vital signs, and declared him both alive and human. He could breathe, he could walk, his pupils dilated properly in response to light, but he was mute and timid to the point of absurdity. <br />
<br />
Then, every Thursday since, the man and his son have stood outside the Iringa Government Hospital to talk about the miracle. For 100/= Tanzanian Shillings you can see the son, who is very much human, and for 100/= more you can even shake his hand! </i><br />
<br />
(When I asked Upendo if I could go and see the man and talk to him about his son as part of a language field trip, she said that several weeks ago the two of them went to Dar es Salaam to visit special speech doctors and figure out why he couldn’t speak, but that SHE saw him last year and can vouch for the authenticity of the story. My other teacher, Steward, confirmed the story and said that when the man and his son return from Dar we can go see them.) <br />
<br />
Upendo and Steward went on to tell me that I shouldn’t use the bathroom at night because ghosts (who are the angels of hell) haunt bathrooms at night and will stare at me while I pee, and that that TANESCO (the Tanzanian government-owned electricity company) can’t run power lines through cemeteries because the spirits of the dead disrupt the power supply. I learned that a Chinese-run construction company that’s currently building infrastructure in the area works on roads during the day but on bridges at night because bridge building requires the help of wizards who are allergic to sunlight. They also warned me that if ever I smell the familiar cinnamon-cardamom smell of pilau rice immediately after a loud THUMP on the roof of my house, I should immediately stop talking so that the evil spirits (who dropped the pilau, I guess?) won’t find me. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSvfm6r-1l1crmcr4vNNSkofU6EaiHs4PZ-jW2WERCDd8zvegA4xJnXOc4UY5mMqOMzeOM-EzCWTHNBRyrRcOY_UCuJ6TmI9JGHCSAEy8j8uj5O_-ZyuWlOrnBa9yCRbGpSLbzUbuXyAE/s1600/DSC07021.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>While I’m steadfastly skeptical about all things even remotely supernatural, I find superstitions and tales like these very interesting from a purely anthropological perspective. For most of these stories, I can imagine a situation in which they were told to teach a lesson (like how it’s bad to blindly pursue money) or to explain something inexplicable (like why the Chinese people work at night). One of the most fascinating things about these kinds of stories, I think, is how they combine traditional aspects of culture (like the <i>mganga</i>) with more modern concepts like hospitals, buses, and electric companies, to make them more relevant and believable, and how they evolve to include specific details like the names of communities and hospitals. They also combine Christian beliefs (like the man praying to God for help and the very existence of cemeteries where people are given Christian burials) and traditional spiritual beliefs indigenous to the culture, which is very much how Christianity works in Africa. (Both Upendo and Steward are devout Born Again Christians, yet they wholeheartedly believe these stories. When I ask how they reconcile the inconsistencies between the two paradigms, they laugh and say I can’t possibly understand because I’m an Mzungu.) <br />
<br />
Upendo also told me about a mysterious but very serious illness that afflicts high school-aged girls in Tanzania. Usually at school, the girl falls to the ground and appears to be having a seizure. Her eyes roll back in her head and she begins to speak in an unknown gibberish language, apparently channeling the words of her ancestors or other important people from the world of the dead. Then, after a few minutes, she snaps out of it and has a new sense of spiritual devotion but no memory of the incident itself. The lucky girl then becomes more respected among her peers because of her special connection to another world.<br />
<br />
While I’m personally very skeptical (couldn’t girls just be faking seizures to be more popular?), I find striking similarities between this “illness” and a similar condition I’ve heard plagues high school girls in Swaziland. I’ve also read in for a medical anthropology course about similar phenomena in Southeast Asia and some parts of Central America (including the disease “amok” from which the phrase “running amok” is derived). Is it more probable that each culture has developed a strikingly similar lie, or is it possible that it’s true? Does not believing in a such an illness, as Americans, make us immune to it and make believers susceptible to it? <br />
<br />
Who am I to judge what is true? I still won’t walk under a ladder.<br />
<br />
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</style><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">The best $4 I ever spent! Last weekend, after a night of particularly un-ignorable buzzing in my ear, I overcame my claustrophobic hatred of mosquito nets and got one. It was subsidized by USAID and PSI as part of the “Roll Back Malaria” project funded under PEPFAR (apparently), which is amazing. Since the short rains have KIND of started this past week, the population of mosquitoes in my house has reached epic proportions. One night this week, I woke up in the middle of the night and counted over 40 mosquitoes clinging to the outside of my net just on the section by my head. Without this net (and the malaria prophylaxis I’m taking) it’s a good statistical possibility that I would have malaria by now. Also, it doubles as a very convenient storage/display place for earrings. Thanks PEPFAR!</span></m:defjc></m:rmargin></m:lmargin></m:dispdef></m:smallfrac></td></tr>
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</style><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">The Iringa Municipal Market. I spend a lot of time here talking to people in Kiswahili and buying once “exotic” fruits like mangoes and papayas for really, really cheap. The other day I refused to buy a mango for the equivalent of $0.12 because I thought it was too expensive, never mind the fact that in the US I’d pay like $7 for a mango at Whole Foods. This billboard says “Reduce the use of trees for charcoal by properly using your charcoal-burning stove” and has pictures illustrating the importance of little doors and whatnot to protect the flame. Most people here, including my host family, use charcoal stoves to cook. The gas stove that I have is so uncommon that I had to buy it from an Indian restaurant. Those big baskets in the lower left of the photo are the big baskets that all the fruit and veg sellers use to transport their produce. One or two of these big baskets is strapped to the back of a bicycle or Vespa, to the top of a dala-dala (mini-bus), or to a big hand-cart you can hire to transport stuff through the town, kind of like the flat-bed things at Sam’s Club but made of wood.</span></m:defjc></m:rmargin></m:lmargin></m:dispdef></m:smallfrac></td></tr>
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</style><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">A vehicle for some political candidate from Chadema party (the largest opposition to the incumbent CCM in the Iringa region). These drive through the town blasting music (its trailer is full of speakers) and singing the praises of the candidate by loud-speaker, kind of like a parade except all the time. There are cars for every candidate, every party, and sometimes non-political things. Like the local church, which advertises the times and topics of its Sunday sermon this way while blaring really loud Tanzanian Gospel music.</span></m:defjc></m:rmargin></m:lmargin></m:dispdef></m:smallfrac></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi36omfB6y4MWWa8rXsalwlQ8_a7K83u_fJq_PfC-FTagm-Bs5FAuV-42EU26V3x9BKugjAkALD7hpWozYMGD2xDhbPn9HOYiHxmrKa7AUVg8hGtKopAp2fkp7RhKZxu786hcVO0eDgcDY/s1600/DSC07000.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX7r7aLWDNH5F_toGDhg-_H-ZoFROiC8lCiulpGtpjWq_h24QPs6EkhF61SId6_ShfSyMFB0c9DlDpEWvyQzb3oQdaWIZy3CJgRoM22u8cgo3gwXx3uPa4fQUP_uVExG8p7libCTYvd6Y/s320/DSC07011.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
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</style><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">The local river, which I cross a minimum of twice daily, is full of trash and dragonflies. (That little orangeish-red guy is a dragonfly.) I would say with 98% certainty that someday I will slip and fall into the river on my way to school. I’ve had some close calls already.</span></m:defjc></m:rmargin></m:lmargin></m:dispdef></m:smallfrac></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX7r7aLWDNH5F_toGDhg-_H-ZoFROiC8lCiulpGtpjWq_h24QPs6EkhF61SId6_ShfSyMFB0c9DlDpEWvyQzb3oQdaWIZy3CJgRoM22u8cgo3gwXx3uPa4fQUP_uVExG8p7libCTYvd6Y/s1600/DSC07011.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf6ducNZIFXJGuoyKhFWj7xYJ0t-EQ8zBMK8Qm5OyzAO3jrlPTTcLx4P-T88mlnVhHyAAgQqHhZTaBSMQFcQ3AjryYba-l58uPFH40E9xHe3KAJbxAlsEWY2eW4w_ZzqqEYS-Kwa5w8AI/s320/DSC07014.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">It’s a miracle anything grows here! The “soil” is straight-up sand in most places, and the only consistent water supply comes from the river, which makes terraced gardens like this one on the bank of the river necessary. </div></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRc0Lf331QpodG7ZkZzX5EOV1RQ2yDDVl5UVtxP1YCQUaNHnUmRwv4kxC691JHyv_aabQT9IvYoIwE8FyeORENUeYRx2aB-bvioP2-HihAYHIOcDXv6B6ucGSrMlXa8ckXuyJz38zrkF0/s320/DSC07019.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">Saturday, I bought some <i>nyama ya ng’ombe</i> (beef) from the local butcher nearest my house. It was cheap ($0.60 per pound), but I’m pretty sure it had been hanging in the back of his little shop for many, many days. Those black parts are little bits of kidney that the butcher threw in for free, which I gave to a dog, and the newspaper it’s sitting in is what it came in. In the future, if a butcher shop is so full of flies that I’m afraid to speak for fear of inhaling them, I’ll refrain from buying that butcher’s meat. I cooked up these mysterious bits with a garlic, red onion, and peas, and then made a sauce for the meat with honey and broth. It was delicious, but I’m still waiting for the digestive consequences of this endeavor.</div></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRc0Lf331QpodG7ZkZzX5EOV1RQ2yDDVl5UVtxP1YCQUaNHnUmRwv4kxC691JHyv_aabQT9IvYoIwE8FyeORENUeYRx2aB-bvioP2-HihAYHIOcDXv6B6ucGSrMlXa8ckXuyJz38zrkF0/s1600/DSC07019.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Justinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07323105619171902251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597022098053424805.post-50366970762960230062010-10-10T11:01:00.005+02:002010-10-10T11:12:35.026+02:00Anonymity and cream puffsAfter an exceptionally sedentary Saturday spent staring at my Kiswahili books and reading a 372-page novel in its entirety, I decided it was time to start my long procrastinated plan of getting in shape by going for a run through the township. I dug out my long neglected running shoes and shorts, stretched my lower extremities, and started out at a pathetic beginner’s pace in the opposite direction of my daily route to school, excited to explore the unknown corners of the neighborhood. I ran past clusters of rickety shacks where wanawake (women) were selling vegetables, past a CCM political rally with speakers blaring musical praises of President Kikwete, past vinyozi (hair salons) where women were having polyester hair extensions painfully braided into their real hair, past a cemetery/community garden where people can buy small plots of land for EITHER burial the burial of a loved one or for planting vegetables (maybe for one until you need the other?), past a small “grocery store” (that sells only booze) where a group of men was passing the afternoon with beer and WWE… <br />
<br />
And past and endless chorus of hundreds of children screaming “Mzungu! Mzungu!”<br />
<br />
While I realize that most people, especially children, don’t mean anything malicious when they scream “white person” as I walk past their house every day or run past them on the street or sit next to them in a dala-dala (mini-bus), after two and a half years of being constantly reminded of my skin color I’m REALLY tired of it.<br />
<br />
As an ex-pat (and white woman) living in Africa, one thing that’s taken a lot of getting used to is the amount of attention I receive. Constantly. Every morning walking to school and every afternoon walking back home, I tell the same 150 curious people that I’m “nzuri” (good) because they always ask. When I buy vegetables at the market, everyone around me stops and whispers to their friends about what I’m buying and what I’m wearing and about my strange yellow hair. School children beside me on the dala-dala surreptitiously touch my hair and giggle. When I’m walking in town, people constantly stop me to ask where I’m coming from, where I’m going, where I’m from, what I’m doing, if I have a boyfriend, where my family lives, if I will pay for their kids to go to school, etc. If I walk into a shop and ask, in flawless Kiswahili, for two rolls of toilet paper, the cashier laughs and then repeats my request to everyone else in the shop as if it’s the funniest thing that’s happened all day. <br />
<br />
The attention I receive from men is even MORE ridiculous. If I sit down in the Iringa town park with a book on a warm afternoon, I immediately become a magnet for men begging for money, jobs, or a wife (or, most commonly, all three). Men sit down next to me in the internet café and ask me incredibly personal questions while I try my best to ignore them and focus on the pay-by-the-minute internet in front of me. They slow down in their cars or on their motorcycles to a walking pace so they can pester me for the entirety of my 20 minute walk back to my house in the evening (which I then have to turn into a 40 minute walk as I try to lose them so they don’t know where I live). If at any time any man approaches me in a restaurant, in the market, or in the internet café, 98% of the time this is the conversation that ensues: <br />
<br />
Him: “Where are you from?”<br />
<br />
Me: (obviously annoyed) “America, but I live in Frelimo.”<br />
<br />
Him: “You are beautiful. Do you have a boyfriend?”<br />
<br />
Me: “I don’t want one.”<br />
<br />
Him: “I will help you by being your boyfriend/Look how nice my body is./How do you control your sexual urges?”<br />
<br />
Me: (firm, but polite) “You are rude, please go away.”<br />
<br />
Him: “Give me your phone number so I can call you and we can get to know each other.”<br />
<br />
Me: “No.” (usually I have to say this MANY times)<br />
<br />
Him: “Well then give me money/find me a sponsor in America to pay for my schooling/give me a job.”<br />
<br />
Me: “Go away” (in a less polite way, roughly the Kiswahili equivalent of “go screw yourself”)<br />
<br />
It’s enough to make me long for the anonymity of being just another white girl in Kansas, or to make me fantasize about public transport in DC where nobody cares where you’re going or where you came from or what you’re doing. I dream of being able to walk down the street and not having a single person ask me for money, try to sell me something, and of going to shops where things have prices not determined by my skin color. <br />
<br />
Modest dreams that will be realized in just 89 days. <br />
<br />
That’s right, after two and a half years abroad, I have FINALLY bought a return ticket to the US! I’ll be leaving Tanzania on December 20 and returning to Swaziland to spend 2 more weeks with my friends and host family before beginning the 24-hour flight back to the US of A on January 6. I’ll arrive in DC on the morning of January 7 and will spend a day with Jess, Brittney, and any other friends who still remember me after 2 long years, and then return to Kansas the following morning (January 8) to be reacquainted with long-lost grandparents, parents, and siblings. <br />
<br />
To recap, I’ll be in…<br />
<br />
Tanzania: now to December 19<br />
<br />
Swaziland: December 20 to January 6<br />
<br />
DC: January 7<br />
<br />
Topeka, KS: January 8 to August <br />
<br />
When I get back to the US, I plan to spend at least a week eating all the things I’ve missed in Africa (cream puffs from Sam’s Club, margaritas, Guapo’s chips and salsa, strawberry-kiwi Snapple, gourmet cheeses, all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet, Dulce de Leche cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory, Papa Murphy’s Pizza, chocolate silk pie from Perkin’s, etc.) and making up for 6 missed Christmas/Thanksgiving feasts and lots of missed birthday celebrations with family. Then, after getting a new driver’s license and a cell phone and finding a gym so I can lose all the weight I gain from eating half of Topeka, I’ll ideally find some sort of menial but magically high-paying job to occupy my time until I move to New Orleans in August. Woohoo!<br />
<br />
Until then, I’ve decided that every time someone yells “Mzungu” at me I’ll stop, look confusedly around, and ask “wapi?” (where?). This makes kids laugh and run away, which gives me a chance to escape. As for fending off the men, I think I’ll ask my Kiswahili teacher to teach me some more offensive phrases on Monday.<br />
<br />
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">The view of the township of Frelimo from atop the ridge by my house. Most of the houses are made of mud bricks or cinder blocks and have corrugated iron roofs which, after a year, become red with rust. All the streets are dirt, which makes it fun when running or walking because every passing car makes it impossible to breathe for a solid 20 seconds. Can’t wait for the rainy season in November, when the streets will be made of mud that I will, undoubtedly, fall face-first into!</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">The beautiful, allergy-inducing Jacaranda tree-lined streets of the town of Iringa. This is the main street (Uhuru Street) in town, and those vehicles in the picture are dala-dalas.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">All around the Iringa municipal vegetable market there are billboards like these with health- or sanitation-focused message, which is something I definitely identify with and appreciate. This particular one makes me laugh. It’s a message about the importance of putting your rubbish in a dumpster to keep the town clean because if you don’t, kids will go through it and play with what they find. If you notice in the foreground of the center panel, a child is blowing up a used condom like a balloon. Yum.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">Every morning on my way to school I walk through a big community garden area where people grow vegetables and keep banana orchards. There’s also a brick yard where a man makes and sells mud bricks to people who are in the market for bricks. I think it’s an interesting point of comparison between Swaziland, where the brick yards sell cinder blocks made of cement, and Tanzania, where the bricks are made with dirt and water and are beat into shape with a piece of wood. Welcome to the ‘hood.</div></td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">This is the “butcher shop” closest to my house…the one my Kiswahili teacher recommends buying my meat from. (No thanks.) Butcher shops here that sell pork say “kiti moto” on them, which literally means “hot chair.” It took me a while to figure out why all the warm furniture stores sold pork. </div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
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</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWD4NH3uA4iealhePKcc7Yj6d72SYQB-N8RHXnzT1kuSHrRriT97UAugO4iMp6vEdGp91anKsEpcWLusDH8XX5MRcnT2FZPj1nzs0VOyTvkwM80g_RotqNFrY-aX8ERj3DM9zy4e4GIh4/s1600/DSC06973.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"></div></div>Justinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07323105619171902251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597022098053424805.post-71186030335461974762010-10-02T13:54:00.002+02:002010-10-02T14:38:11.071+02:00Slummin' It in IringaI never thought a half dozen of slightly poop-covered eggs could make my day, but as started on the 20 minute walk home from town on Thursday afternoon with my little bag of eggs, I felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment. I’d asked a random person where I could buy fresh eggs, understood his directions well enough to find the shop, bargained with the shopkeeper, and successfully purchased 6 eggs for a local price. All in Kiswahili. <br />
<br />
Booyah!<br />
<br />
After almost a week here in Iringa, I think I’m starting to figure out how things work. I’ve found a cute little house just outside of town and staked out the quickest walking routes between home, school, and town. I’ve found a restaurant that serves American-style hamburgers with actual mustard, figured out how much vegetables and things SHOULD cost at the market (prices for everything except bananas are negotiable), and successfully purchased a 3 month supply of things like sugar, salt, and rice by the kilo from random little shops. I’ve mastered the art of the squat toilet (even when wearing pants!) and, after a ridiculously difficult application process, secured a membership to the Iringa Branch of the Tanzania Public Library Service and established myself as a regular in their study room. And I’ve FINALLY stopped saying “sanibonani” and “yebo” to people and started speaking Kiswahili with confidence. <br />
<br />
Little bits of confusion (and the popularity of green and pink toilet paper) aside, I’m really starting to like this place.<br />
<br />
Iringa is a strange little town. Strategically built on a mountaintop by the Germans in the early 1900s (so they could protect themselves from the rebellions of the colonized peoples below), it’s now the provincial capital for the Southern Highlands of Tanzania, a stop-over for bus-loads of Wazungu (white people) en route to Ruaha National Park, and home to three relatively new universities. Counting college students, the town has a population of about 120,000, but most of those people must live in dorms or slums because the town itself is tiny; I can walk from one side of town to the other in 20 minutes. The town’s population is half Christian and half Muslim (mostly Omani and Yemeni families), which means that I am both awakened by the morning call to prayer and badgered to attend church, and that shops and restaurants are confusingly closed on EITHER Friday or Sunday, depending on the owner’s religious preference. There’s also a sizeable population of Wazungu who all seem to speak Kiswahili proficiently and who hang out at the local internet café all day with their laptops and eat lunch at the cleverly-named Hasty Tasty. I mostly stay away from them because I still find large groups of white people overwhelming…<br />
<br />
Lucky for me where I live, I’m the only Mzungu for miles. With the help of my Kiswahili teachers, I found a cute little house about 20 minutes walk from the city center in a township (aka slum) called Frelimo. (Frelimo is the name of the revolutionary party in Mozambique, but I haven’t yet figured out if there’s any connection.) My little hovel is a brand new, freshly painted addition to a family’s existing house, enclosed inside the family’s walled compound. I have my own bedroom, bathroom, partially-enclosed sitting room, and bathroom, and my own burglar gate-covered door. (And my electricity and water are supposed to be connected this week…) It’s a great location—a 12 minute walk to class, a 5 minute walk to the local butcher and vegetable market, and about 2 minutes to my teacher’s house—and I’m enjoying living with a host family again…even if the children just laugh at me when I try to talk to them. I’m still settling in, trying to get used to the blaring music from the neighboring bar and the insistence of the family’s maid who wants to scrub my floor every day, but it’s starting to feel like home. There are, however, two drawbacks to my new location: (1) I have to step over two constantly-flowing streams of sewage to get to my house, including the one connected to my house, and (2) I only have a squat toilet. Personally, I think the extra Kiswahili practice I’ll get from living with a host family is worth the ever-present danger of stepping in human waste. <br />
<br />
And my Kiswahili class (the reason I’m here in the first place) is FANTASTIC. I have two very experienced and very patient teachers, Steward and Upendo, and I’m the only student for the time being so it’s really intensive and interactive. Every day I do 2 hours with Upendo and 2 hours with Steward, plus “language out” sessions some afternoons when they follow me around and judge my use of Kiswahili with non-teachers. In my first week of class I had an introduction and orientation to Iringa, took a placement test (I scored a 58%, which I was very happy with), and did an intensive review of everything I learned in Zanzibar to practice conversation and hone in on weaknesses before moving on to more complex grammatical things. I’ve got a solid foundation of grammar and vocabulary, so now I just have to figure out how to use all of it! In addition to the lengthy writing and “research” assignments (mostly I have to interview people and write up the interviews) given to me by Upendo and Steward, I’ve started keeping a journal in Kiswahili and writing short stories in Kiswahili to practice the usage of the various noun classes, and it’s really helping. And I talk to myself a lot in Kiswahili. I’m not crazy, I’m practicing.<br />
<br />
On my grand tour around Iringa last week, I asked Upendo if there was a public library in town. “A what?” I explained to her that a public library was a place people could go to borrow books for free for a week or two, just to read. She looked at me incredulously and assured me that NOWHERE in Iringa would I find a place to borrow books for free because only Wazungu read novels, and that the only library that existed in town was just a big room full of tables where high school students did their homework in the afternoons. Unconvinced, I asked the owner of the local internet café about it. He pointed across the street to a big building marked “Maktaba ya Iringa” (Library of Iringa). Bingo! After a complicated application process (I have no address, no school, no employer, and no Tanzanian ID number, plus I’m a single woman without a father or husband to sign the form for me, so it took much negotiation to get a library card), I am now a proud lifetime member of the Tanzania National Library Service. <br />
<br />
In the afternoons, after class, I lock myself away in the library’s study hall for a few hours of uninterrupted Kiswahili homework, and peruse the small section of adult fiction mostly donated by the US Embassy. I’m really excited to have a temperature-controlled building full of tables, chairs, and free books within walking distance of my house, which makes me a huge dork (but I’m okay with that). I’ve decided to re-read a lot of the “classics” I hated reading in high school to see if 8 years passing has changed my perspective on them. So far I’ve re-read Animal Farm and Wuthering Heights, and started One Hundred Years of Solitude. Aside from being irritated by how whiney, sickly, and dramatic women are in early 19th Century literature, I’ve so far had a more favorable opinion of the books this second time around. Mrs. Davis, my AP English teacher, would be so proud.<br />
<br />
(I feel a little bit like Belle in the opening sequence of “Beauty and the Beast” because everybody here, including the librarian, thinks I’m crazy for wanting to read so much: “Look there she goes, that girl is so peculiar. I wonder if she’s feeling well. With a dreamy far-off look, and her nose stuck in a book. What a puzzle to the rest of us is Belle…”)<br />
<br />
Other than class and the library and my little everyday triumphs, my life is pretty uneventful. I’ve been looking for an NGO or children’s home or something else in need of some free labor where I could volunteer in the afternoons/weekends, but so far everybody either wants me to have a $1200 work permit or is located too far outside of town to be a convenient daily commute. So, for now, I’m spending my afternoons doing fake homework I assign myself, reading classic literature, applying for scholarships for grad school (any suggestions?), and wandering around Frelimo with an affected sense of purpose, surreptitiously taking pictures of things I find entertaining and trying not to step in feces. <br />
<br />
And using the super fast, super cheap internet at IringaNET every day. $14 for 20 hours. It’s glorious.<br />
<br />
Salama,<br />
Justine<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8FXOff6tAwvlSrPsCGb8gByvdEvjtAGuGjSIadLzXWv5Jr9qoWKiy7FjtUygBtMfJ0nvrTP0BbKpqWjztyvbp7Pv9H1hnxZqlwanL5QVNpbC1FFxszawRKULaryuTM2xLuDjmWc6datE/s320/DSC06948.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My house! The door on the left is my bathroom (I have to go outside to get there, but hey), and the yellow-ish burglar gate is the one leading into my house. The curtain on the left, inside the little "foyer" is my bedroom, and the one straight ahead of the entrance is my kitchen. To the right of my house (in the picture) is my host family's house.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8FXOff6tAwvlSrPsCGb8gByvdEvjtAGuGjSIadLzXWv5Jr9qoWKiy7FjtUygBtMfJ0nvrTP0BbKpqWjztyvbp7Pv9H1hnxZqlwanL5QVNpbC1FFxszawRKULaryuTM2xLuDjmWc6datE/s1600/DSC06948.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihKYCvkXwd1p8HJxVEAlrSM-a3IpCwTh7Us0H3DXoBnc3pPluaewl6uNI25rOPCssDRI-jIetunPpEsVgu_1DkkhAMcp5jugK8p5S7loa-kO_kL8gg-HxG5RGwydphBRh6p8pRljxT98E/s320/DSC06950.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="240" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A standard squat toilet. My favorite part about my toilet is how crooked it is in relation to the wall...see the lines of the tiles? Those are square with the wall. I don't understand why it's like that... Until I get my water hooked up (they say "this week" but this is Africa so who knows when it will actually happen), I'm using a bucket to flush. In my first week at my house, I've only used 25 liters of water, counting bathing, cooking, drinking, and toilet flushing! (The toilet flushing water is re-purposed bathing water.) Considering that the average American uses 250+ liters of water per day, I'm pretty proud of that.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihKYCvkXwd1p8HJxVEAlrSM-a3IpCwTh7Us0H3DXoBnc3pPluaewl6uNI25rOPCssDRI-jIetunPpEsVgu_1DkkhAMcp5jugK8p5S7loa-kO_kL8gg-HxG5RGwydphBRh6p8pRljxT98E/s1600/DSC06950.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1PW-83rmAFrlybvphLKNUbCs-I5EYZA5kCv-J9ta57bxbeGMOUMHivm2dQQPgZiaW0GF-mk0YsxPRll43YPYNLre813uVVHffFAXeiNChjiURCG_kDT5iVLymBovfaawDy8PgSlOHtXs/s320/DSC06953.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="240" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And all of that water I used ended up here, in river of sewage number two. When I took this picture, I was standing in the gate leading to my house, so you can see how I physically have to step OVER this. And it smells.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1PW-83rmAFrlybvphLKNUbCs-I5EYZA5kCv-J9ta57bxbeGMOUMHivm2dQQPgZiaW0GF-mk0YsxPRll43YPYNLre813uVVHffFAXeiNChjiURCG_kDT5iVLymBovfaawDy8PgSlOHtXs/s1600/DSC06953.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYmw8OSpKun1DOFXYA6SLFAQZDGuPeFkxR1ETI_MjOz_RJ_YvPnId6UlvdQurCc0VGnTAWEG9o4hK5DGADB-SvwdR51lFrUBfhMfAUwYPtq8F-zIogHlyh59xTSE_AMTiacQb4L_kC9RE/s320/DSC06963.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="240" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is, hands down, the WORST thing I have ever tasted in my life--even worse than the cappuccino flavored cola I bought in Zanzibar. The can is in Kiswahili, but it says "Made with the finest hops, malt, and lactose for a rich, creamy taste" or something like that, and then says "Non-Alcoholic" on the top. Had I known what it was prior to purchasing it, I would've bought a Fanta Apple instead. I think if you were to drink a beer and eat a piece of heavily cream-covered pumpkin pie, and then vomit, it would taste like Grand Malt. Why it is so popular, and so expensive, is completely beyond me. I'm nauseated just thinking about it.<br />
<br />
<br />
(And, yes, I am aware of how much I write in my Blog about food and toilets.)</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYmw8OSpKun1DOFXYA6SLFAQZDGuPeFkxR1ETI_MjOz_RJ_YvPnId6UlvdQurCc0VGnTAWEG9o4hK5DGADB-SvwdR51lFrUBfhMfAUwYPtq8F-zIogHlyh59xTSE_AMTiacQb4L_kC9RE/s1600/DSC06963.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>Justinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07323105619171902251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597022098053424805.post-6046329793797906192010-09-28T12:56:00.002+02:002010-09-28T12:56:28.571+02:00Why people fly</meta><meta content="Word.Document" name="ProgId"></meta><meta content="Microsoft Word 12" name="Generator"></meta><meta content="Microsoft Word 12" name="Originator"></meta><link href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CFourteen%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CFourteen%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx" rel="themeData"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CFourteen%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml" rel="colorSchemeMapping"></link> <m:smallfrac m:val="off"> <m:dispdef> <m:lmargin m:val="0"> <m:rmargin m:val="0"> <m:defjc m:val="centerGroup"> <m:wrapindent m:val="1440"> <m:intlim m:val="subSup"> <m:narylim m:val="undOvr"> </m:narylim></m:intlim> </m:wrapindent><style>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">After an hour-long trek with 100 pounds of luggage through the seemingly endless maze of streets in Stone Town at 5:30 Saturday morning, I was looking forward to taking a 2 hour nap on the ferry and waking up in Dar Es-Salaam. I tucked my messenger bag under the seat in front of me, fluffed up my travel pillow, settled into my big blue vinyl-upholstered seat on the ferry’s lower cabin and waited to be lulled to sleep by the rocking boat as the ferry pulled out of Zanzibar Harbor. </div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">A man in an Azam Marine Company uniform was walking up and down the aisles of the ferry, handing out little black plastic bags. I thought it humorous that the Azam Marine Company bothered to have their own bags printed up with its logo and “SICK BAG,” and informed him that I didn’t need one. I’d been just fine on the ferry TO Zanzibar, but he insisted I take one.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Ten minutes later, the puking started. As we picked up speed, the rough seas threw our little ferry violently from side to side and my fellow passengers unfolded their sick bags. I understood why the Azam Marine Company guy had insisted that I take one. This trip was NOTHING like the ferry TO Zanzibar; it was like the most nauseating of amusement park rides, complete with the stifling heat and eau de vomit. Of the 20 people sitting in my little section, 4 of them got sick in the first hour. (I had donated my sick bag to the woman in front of me, so getting seasick wasn’t an option for me.) The “puke collectors” (the guys who exchanged used sick bags for new ones) certainly had their work cut out for them. </div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">After I’d become inured to the constant echo of vomiting and the foul odor of the cabin, it was almost humorous. And then we hit a really big wave. Grown men on the left side of the cabin were thrown out of their seats, seasick women lying on the floor rolled violently towards the front deck, and the hysterical screaming began. Though most of the screaming was done in Kiswahili or Arabic (they pray in Arabic), I understood enough to know that everyone was begging Allah to deliver us safely to the mainland. And the hysteria was contagious. One teenage girl’s frantic screaming for her mother inspired twenty 30-something women to throw themselves into the aisles in fits of wailing reminiscent of a pouty 3-year-old. It was dramatic.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">I exchanged a very awkward, confused look with the Canadian girl sitting next to me, but the Azam Marine Company man assured us that this was normal. Normal? Really? These people live on an island. Shouldn’t they be used to boats and seasickness and whatnot? (Kudos to the people who work for Azam Marine Company, though. That has to be the worst job ever.) </div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">We docked in Dar around 9:30 and, after all the previously hysterical women pinned their headscarves back in place and regained their composure, disembarked no worse for the wear. I grabbed my bags and set out to find a cheap taxi to the bus rank, eager to get on a bus to Iringa. But first: Subway. I’d been dreaming of Subway sandwiches since learning about it a week earlier, so my taxi waited while I ordered a foot long chicken breast sandwich with spicy Southwest sauce. Then we braved the mid-morning traffic through Dar to the Ubungo bus station.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">As we pulled into the bus station we passed the 11:00am bus to Iringa. Leaving. No worries, though…I only had to wait 3 hours for the next one. (The Subway was TOTALLY worth it.) The taxi driver dropped me off outside the office of Abood Bus and dragged all my luggage inside to buy my ticket. Sensing my frustration (really I was just impatient to get on the bus so I could eat my sandwich), the guy behind the Iringa counter let me jump the line and gave me my choice of seats on the 1:00 bus. I paid him the 25,000/= ($16) he asked for, got my ticket and receipt in return, and made my way to the bus. </div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Sitting on the bus, though, I started to get a little worried that I’d been ripped off or tricked in some way. I’d tried to do everything right: I’d vociferously kept my bags with me at all times so I didn’t have to pay a porter and didn’t have anything stolen, I’d insisted on going to Abood’s office to buy my ticket and asked several employees for the price of the ticket before buying it, checked that the bus was in working order before agreeing to anything, made sure he gave me a receipt for the right amount, and made sure he wrote my name in on the seating chart for the bus. I’d even gotten the name, business card and phone number of the man (Imo) who sold me the ticket in case I needed anything later. </div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">And then, looking at my receipt, I noticed that it was written for 26 September instead of 25 September. I asked the man behind me how much he’d paid for his ticket: 12,000/= less than me. Something wasn’t right.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">I called Imo back and asked if he’d meet me at the bus to take me to lunch (I knew he wouldn’t come back if I told him I realized I’d been ripped off), and then confronted him about being a weasel. I threatened to tell his boss if he didn’t give me my money back, and (because he’d been so insistent on telling me he was a Born Again Christian) informed him that Jesus already knew he was a liar. He nervously changed my ticket to the proper day (which I checked and double-checked with the driver of the bus) and refunded me 6,000/= of the money he’d stolen from me. He said he’d spent the rest already on a Coke and a pack of cigarettes, which I believe, but an hour later he brought me a coke and a newspaper, so I think he felt guilty. I still paid 6,000/= more than everyone else on the bus, but, all things considered, $4 extra isn’t too bad for a Mzungu (white person) price. </div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">The 1:00 bus pulled out of the station at 1:30 (of course the 11:00 bus couldn’t have been 30 minutes late leaving…) and began the 500 kilometer, 10 hour trip to Iringa. The first few hours of the trip was uneventful: mostly paved roads, lots of little towns full of goats and bicycles, a couple potty breaks along the way. We drove through Mikumi National Park, past families of giraffes, zebras, elephants and lots of DLCs (deer-like creatures), and survived the winding dirt roads through the Udzungwa Mountains, arriving in Iringa at 10:30 Saturday night. </div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">So today is my first full day in Iringa, and mostly I’m just confused and disoriented and overwhelmed by the lack of English-speakers. So far I’ve found a cheap but safe hotel in a township outside Iringa (where I’ll stay until I can find a flat or a room to rent) and wandered around a bit looking for an internet café and being harassed by men who are quit insistent that they love me. (In Kiswahili…I just pretend not to understand.) I’m REALLY glad I took 3 weeks of Kiswahili class in Zanzibar before I came here because NOBODY speaks English. Not even a little. I suppose that’s a good thing, though, since I’m here to learn Kiswahili anyway. </div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Tomorrow I start classes again, and hopefully I’ll figure out where things are and how to get there and whatnot in the couple of days. The tourist information place is open tomorrow, which should be helpful. And maybe my teacher can help me find a place to volunteer or something. Until then I’ll just hide in my room and watch BBC Planet Earth and do Kiswahili homework. What a life.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Baadaye!</div>Justinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07323105619171902251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597022098053424805.post-81637659944325063132010-09-28T12:41:00.002+02:002010-09-28T12:55:31.489+02:00The new Blogger Photo Uploader thing is really difficult.<div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0oyvTND5ozNtyC42VkNuLEr71pwfHtFwioZHxL6dyZn6zzDGbOSciDIJdtv3nVY5A9eoNmXHEaakyLZG3vDMukO6bQYeMCjrGIUu-znKbtB68CvHruLFsaypzJPzfh-9Cwlph-J8ahhc/s320/DSC06891.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Since the official kickoff of election campaigning two weeks ago, the whole of Zanzibar has been plastered with CCM and CUF campaign posters. Most of them are CCM and they're yellow and green and say "Chague CCM, Chague (name of candidate)" which means "Vote for CCM, Vote for (name of candidate)." And then there are lots of billboards that say things like "CCM is the party of the people" and have pictures of Kikwete (the incumbent) shaking hands with disabled people. It's kind of funny how the posters and whatnot work, though...they're literally EVERYWHERE. Like graffiti.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0oyvTND5ozNtyC42VkNuLEr71pwfHtFwioZHxL6dyZn6zzDGbOSciDIJdtv3nVY5A9eoNmXHEaakyLZG3vDMukO6bQYeMCjrGIUu-znKbtB68CvHruLFsaypzJPzfh-9Cwlph-J8ahhc/s1600/DSC06891.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_Jbp-AqPl_yWSlwBXI9IaRqdtO1eTDsDqr00urWLIvt_UcrSfgg3MNMPvhUr6WjxPJVX6jwhtT7t6s3opGvACIBFGQdExwmg5HCREzMFZR6I5mT000h-53esayQKd_D_g-FHaL66-XHc/s1600/DSC06891.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix8B9mDI7Suto0HsWLmk8SnXKDSHNF-Nb772ewJgOxseol26JX2gpqF6xelDfOuemIJHOLHBVaK2YdGbIpiOBD5NK3Z8zBbE9PlJftXJ8DtgUqmh4C2LUQA9JHCgH7NB9zb_XwH8SoFiQ/s320/DSC06904.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This delicious chicken breast sandwich with spicy Southwest sauce is the reason I missed my bus to Iringa and had to take the late bus and nearly died. Totally worth it. </td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix8B9mDI7Suto0HsWLmk8SnXKDSHNF-Nb772ewJgOxseol26JX2gpqF6xelDfOuemIJHOLHBVaK2YdGbIpiOBD5NK3Z8zBbE9PlJftXJ8DtgUqmh4C2LUQA9JHCgH7NB9zb_XwH8SoFiQ/s1600/DSC06904.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDU-gIDlym54cMcb9GeKSBWXVfDT-uDpouT6bGEitLi__G9YMWwPaw-RwamDvMR4qUxcmJF65k7du-vcSMPnlGbGOmUzBSp2Pim_CeAvXzh4sTBgVaWEeRd4IHiBWj4LvF-Wp2QRZJdZw/s320/DSC06912.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View from the bus window. For about 6 hours. (The other 4 hours it was dark.) I'm happy to be back around mountains, though...says the girl from Kansas. Mountains make me think of Swaziland.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDU-gIDlym54cMcb9GeKSBWXVfDT-uDpouT6bGEitLi__G9YMWwPaw-RwamDvMR4qUxcmJF65k7du-vcSMPnlGbGOmUzBSp2Pim_CeAvXzh4sTBgVaWEeRd4IHiBWj4LvF-Wp2QRZJdZw/s1600/DSC06912.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq-7n_Y1jwzZ-lNTmjA_OZBxYotwrZ9gtIx43I6CCdV7TIJAB2L2DYbWwXTVXB_QL7dshR22B93LeW-71TBLdpCdcsD3gFLlK6sigRZOvTqW3kyk62w-s5ejaOw_5kYP-xb__xx_ZGYa0/s320/DSC06930.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Driving through the game park at sunset. Everyone thought I was crazy for taking so many pictures, but I was just bored. Unfortunately, I wasn't taking pictures when we drove past the family of elephants on the side of the road, when we nearly hit a giraffe crossing the road, or when we had to wait for a herd of zebras to cross. </td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq-7n_Y1jwzZ-lNTmjA_OZBxYotwrZ9gtIx43I6CCdV7TIJAB2L2DYbWwXTVXB_QL7dshR22B93LeW-71TBLdpCdcsD3gFLlK6sigRZOvTqW3kyk62w-s5ejaOw_5kYP-xb__xx_ZGYa0/s1600/DSC06930.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>Justinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07323105619171902251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597022098053424805.post-70024505101838949952010-09-22T11:35:00.001+02:002010-09-22T11:42:45.657+02:00Spelunking in Hammer pants and other things the writers of the Lonely Planet guide clearly didn't do in Zanzibar<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjco6ZefzO51OSp8aiy6-LxddjuyyM_1dBdiNGpWP_Vb5suAH7caFhT-QBU6HDvZFlRQymhGfmiLRIj1UnNZvSLHUdzbs5PF9A-Fs-16XzXaQ2RsQOgogt4iLHxLNSM1NTrkE3XVLR1nI/s1600/Mangapwani+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> </a></div><div class="NoSpacing">After 90 very long minutes in the back of a sweaty dalla-dalla full of slightly frightened children, Laura and I arrived at the quaint little village of Mangapwani on the northwestern coast of Zanzibar. Our lower extremities mostly numb from the trip, we ungracefully climbed over the mess of stinking plastic bags of fresh-caught octopus, henna-adorned feet, and 25-liter jerry-cans of petrol crowding the narrow aisle and made our way into the coral-stoned streets of the village. </div><div class="NoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing">The town of Mangapwani (literally “Omani Beach”) is described in the Lonely Planet guide to East Africa as “small and unremarkable,” which was enough to make me want to visit. It’s a rural village full of <i>shambas </i>(small farms), bent palm trees leaning inland from the incessant wind from the sea, and a ridiculous number of chickens (compared at least to Stone Town). It’s also home to the Mangapwani Coral Cavern, which is why we were there. </div><div class="NoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing">The Mangapwani Coral Cavern is a big underground cave full of slightly damp fossilized coral formed an estimated 1.6 million years ago. It was discovered by a shepherd boy in the early 19<sup>th</sup> century after one of his goats fell into the opening of the cave, which at the time was just a little hole in the middle of a forest. Unfortunately for the shepherd boy (who was a slave) and his fellow slaves, the discovery of the cave meant that the plantation’s Omani owner, Hamed El-Harthy, could continue to keep slaves even after slavery was officially outlawed some years later—he just hid them in the cave when he wasn’t using them. It wasn’t long, though, before the slaves living in the cave discovered two escape routes: one leading to the ocean (where lots of them drowned trying to get out) and one opening up just 90 meters from the entrance of the cave. Eventually several slaves escaped from this second passage and ran to the neighboring <i>shamba</i> for help, and since then the cave has been uninhabited (unless you believe the guide’s story about the cave’s “magical” python that improves the fertility and election results of anyone who brings it gifts of flowers or food…we didn’t see it). </div><div class="NoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing">Anyway, we followed our guide around the cave’s narrow passages, splashing around in potentially python- and parasite-infested waters and trying not to freak out when bats flew very close to our heads (I’m very afraid of bats). Our guide thought we were a hoot, too. We had expected a precariously steep staircase and a short tour and some history about slavery and whatnot, but not the clamoring around on sandy, slippery coral part. Laura was wearing a knee-length plaid skirt and bejeweled sandals, and I was wearing bright purple Hammer pants (like MC Hammer) and Chaco Z’s and carrying a messenger bag full of Kiswahili textbooks. I DID have a headlamp in my bag, which was really fortunate considering that I would have otherwise had to navigate by the dim light of my cell phone. But hey, we lived to tell about it. (And to write to Lonely Planet about their completely insufficient coverage of the Mangapwani Coral Cavern!) </div><div class="NoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing">Another must-see in Zanzibar (also neglected by Lonely Planet) is the Capital Art Studio, a little family-owned photography studio in the Shangani neighborhood of town that has photographed every important event and lots of everyday scenes in Zanzibar since the 1950’s. The walls of the shop are covered with black-and-white pictures of foreign dignitaries (including His Majesty King Mswati III) spending holidays in Zanzibar, of shop-keepers and fruit vendors, and of little gems of Zanzibari culture like women sorting fresh cloves and Yemeni boys selling coffee in the streets of Stone Town before the revolution in 1964. The shop’s owner, a second-generation Zanzibari photographer of Indian descent, had a story to go with each photo and as I sorted through a big box of old photos he narrated them with details about the time in which the photo was taken, giving them context and making them so much more interesting. He knew some of the people in the pictures, knew who the children grew up to be or where they fled to after the revolution, what happened to this building during the 1970’s or that building during some tropical storm, and he explained to me the impact of the revolution on the demographic and culture of Zanzibar (when a large part of the island’s resources, farms, business, and homes were nationalized and about 15% of the population, including most foreign-born non-Muslim residents, fled the country). I honestly think I learned more about the history of Zanzibar in an hour with him than from an hour at the Zanzibar National Museum of History! It was incredible to see how much the island has changed in the last half-century, and also how much it’s NOT changed. </div><div class="NoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing">Speaking of changes, it’s been a week since the end of Ramadan and I’m very much enjoying being able to eat in public and whatnot. Not much else has really changed except that the food vendors previously selling only at night are now selling during the day, and there’s more litter in the streets because people are eating in public where there aren’t trash cans for all their candy wrappers and plastic bags. And, turns out, like half the men in Zanzibar smoke. Who knew…</div><div class="NoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing">To mark the end of Ramadan, Zanzibaris celebrate three days of “Sikukuu.” Basically, it’s a big “we can eat now!” feast that involves fancy coordinating outfits for children and their mothers, the application of lots of colorful eye makeup on any girl old enough to walk, elaborately henna-ed hands and feet, and lots of staying up late and walking around. Kind of like a Muslim Christmas, kids get presents (mostly toy guns) and then parade around the town showing off their new clothes and toys. And they fire the cannons on the waterfront, which is a really scary way to wake up at 6am when you’re foreign and have no idea what is happening or why. </div><div class="NoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing">Some friends and I also stumbled upon a Sikukuu part two celebration in the town of Kizimkazi a full week after the rest of the island had finished celebrating. During Ramadan, women are exempted from fasting for the week of their menstruation, so the women of Kizimkazi tack an extra 6 days of fasting onto the end of their Ramadan and then celebrate the holiday a week later. There’s a bit of controversy about the Kizimkazi Sikukuu because it attracts so many prostitutes (which isn’t unlike the usual Sikukuu celebration if you ask me), but we had a good time wandering through tents selling sunglasses (at night?), toy guns, candy, chapatti and kebab at the Kizimkazi fairground. After most of the kids had gone home, we ended up at the “Casino Academy” and danced the night away to surprisingly explicit Swahili hip-hop music. Apparently it’s okay to rap about sex in English and drop F-bombs because nobody understands the words anyway. </div><div class="NoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing">In other news, I only have 3 more days of Kiswahili left in Zanzibar! (Sad.) Despite the fact that I really like my Kiswahili class and basically everything else about Zanzibar (including the decades old semi-automatic twin-tub washing machine in my apartment that I FINALLY figured out how to use), I’ve decided to give Iringa a try for two weeks or so before I decide where to live until December. If I don’t like it, I can always come back to Zanzibar. So, Saturday morning I’ll be taking the early ferry back to Dar Es Salaam and HOPEFULLY catching a bus 6 hours south to Iringa on either Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning. Monday morning I start the second phase of my Kiswahili classes at KIU Iringa. Unfortunately, nobody in Zanzibar knows anything about transport between Dar and Iringa so I have no idea how I’m going to get there, but worst case scenario I just hang out in Dar for a couple of days. It’s all part of the adventure, I guess. </div><div class="NoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing">Lakini sasa, nimemaliza. (For now, I’m done.)</div><div class="NoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing">Over and out.</div><div class="NoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="NoSpacing"><u><br />
</u></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUjCzCtB_G3jD7XqEpX6ccyhbaCFcx2isqL1yDDIPQMnGD_99ZnXdgDS_TgvPNEtqkz-97rZ9TDozu-MPPskGTyyxO5Ri9qEoqQvmC22sBHe5q5aZgYJ3REyXbL4ZGhG10Z-J7zQ7fAbw/s1600/Nungwi.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUjCzCtB_G3jD7XqEpX6ccyhbaCFcx2isqL1yDDIPQMnGD_99ZnXdgDS_TgvPNEtqkz-97rZ9TDozu-MPPskGTyyxO5Ri9qEoqQvmC22sBHe5q5aZgYJ3REyXbL4ZGhG10Z-J7zQ7fAbw/s320/Nungwi.JPG" /></a></div><div class="NoSpacing"></div><div class="NoSpacing">Yet another sunset over the white sand beaches of Zanzibar, this time at Nungwi beach in the north of the island. I never tire of watching the sun set over the Indian Ocean… Laura, Victoria, and I found a shop that sold (possibly stolen) bottles of expensive South African wine for 15,000 Tanzanian shillings (about $10) each, so instead of going to a party with a cover charge of 5,000Tsh we hung out at some plastic tables outside the shop with a bunch of Rastafarian diving instructors and drank wine.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd20lXqBo9e0mtxYjvBgKBFEkzCplFD5a1eA-Wh_eUwW0Rg71iA1f1XWAQ9KLaimK0LfPn7Vgljulha7OVi2ZC18A8EzlzAKUmBVVKJMwl__eRxX_uaPn0dMxuBs82yi4HIDWLCXUycp0/s1600/Mangapwani+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd20lXqBo9e0mtxYjvBgKBFEkzCplFD5a1eA-Wh_eUwW0Rg71iA1f1XWAQ9KLaimK0LfPn7Vgljulha7OVi2ZC18A8EzlzAKUmBVVKJMwl__eRxX_uaPn0dMxuBs82yi4HIDWLCXUycp0/s320/Mangapwani+1.JPG" /></a></div><div class="NoSpacing"></div><div class="NoSpacing">Me and Laura at the Mangapwani Coral Cavern. The light in the background is coming from the dangerously steep, somewhat slippery staircase that we used to enter the cave. The freshwater spring that pools in one of the passageways of the cave is the only source of clean water in the community, so local people frequent the cave to fetch water. And then walk up those stairs with 25-liter jerry-cans on their heads. The scarves on our shoulders are our “we’re making an effort not to scandalize the locals with our naked white shoulders” scarves, but after 15 minutes in the cave we didn’t care anymore. It was hot and stuffy.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjco6ZefzO51OSp8aiy6-LxddjuyyM_1dBdiNGpWP_Vb5suAH7caFhT-QBU6HDvZFlRQymhGfmiLRIj1UnNZvSLHUdzbs5PF9A-Fs-16XzXaQ2RsQOgogt4iLHxLNSM1NTrkE3XVLR1nI/s1600/Mangapwani+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjco6ZefzO51OSp8aiy6-LxddjuyyM_1dBdiNGpWP_Vb5suAH7caFhT-QBU6HDvZFlRQymhGfmiLRIj1UnNZvSLHUdzbs5PF9A-Fs-16XzXaQ2RsQOgogt4iLHxLNSM1NTrkE3XVLR1nI/s320/Mangapwani+2.JPG" /></a></div><div class="NoSpacing"></div><div class="NoSpacing">Me trying to get out of the cave at Mangapwani. The slightly moldy tree stump in my right hand is the only thing keeping me from falling 3 meters back into the cave, which I was pretty sure was going to happen. I don’t have enough upper body strength in my gimp right arm to pull myself out of a hole in the ground! (Eventually, though, I got out.) Please note my sweet pants in this picture. My favorite thing about my Hammer pants (aside from the fact that they’re ridiculously comfortable) is that every morning I decide to wear them I end up with “Can’t Touch This” stuck in my head for several hours. It’s a great way to start the day.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5zB4-jtyZOfsNIEKm5C3e4X72L1B8GZXyR1lmhtl5itjtrI2pRqc3zKQZcSGG02yF_WzN1ltvafjRp4ucfseBi0Wk8CWsif98q_32ilhE2fL9-5SEPznfwzHZ2nox8XKwYF9rA6fqJFI/s1600/Dhow.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5zB4-jtyZOfsNIEKm5C3e4X72L1B8GZXyR1lmhtl5itjtrI2pRqc3zKQZcSGG02yF_WzN1ltvafjRp4ucfseBi0Wk8CWsif98q_32ilhE2fL9-5SEPznfwzHZ2nox8XKwYF9rA6fqJFI/s320/Dhow.JPG" /></a></div><div class="NoSpacing"></div><div class="NoSpacing">There’s a <i>dhow</i> (traditional Swahili sailboat) at the Zanzibar National Museum of History made entirely without nails (which isn’t so remarkable since that’s how they used to be made, but it was new to me). It’s held together with tightly woven ropes laced through the adjoining boards like shoelaces, and the sail is made from tightly woven strips of palm leaf. It’s cool. (This is clearly just a picture of the front of it, which I’m sure has a more correct name than “the front” but I’m not a boat person so I don’t know what it’s called.) <br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR1ggTJaHECXeP9w_h1ocSBc-JQWgI3nFle6_pHgy7R39xGNmNb5NtwamEdZHOuXAsnov-_d99BXidjXODBSEdOGZp_wEXFQTjSYwvDL7JqitONhtKQwkBz8L623RhoJKcon3mCi_4E-8/s1600/Three+girls+in+the+woods.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR1ggTJaHECXeP9w_h1ocSBc-JQWgI3nFle6_pHgy7R39xGNmNb5NtwamEdZHOuXAsnov-_d99BXidjXODBSEdOGZp_wEXFQTjSYwvDL7JqitONhtKQwkBz8L623RhoJKcon3mCi_4E-8/s320/Three+girls+in+the+woods.JPG" /></a></div><div class="NoSpacing"></div><div class="NoSpacing">Laura, Victoria, and I spent an afternoon meandering through the Jozani-Chwaka National Park, a big forest full of hundred-year-old mahogany trees and red colobus monkeys. The troop of red colobus monkeys at Jozani, which numbers about 200 individuals, is the largest troop of this particular type of monkeys anywhere in the world, but their numbers are (slowly) on the rise because they’re being protected from poachers and all natural predators.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi96cpb8zsazuhLfNxUKMd3S3YqAlLP-Jj2vXyXBrqA0QMxm4-lrR4hRpM_j9vngmrgqUtCq7xxae7ipdXJ_015aAffXZcsz96TcjO6_fdHilwUvSXl47ob_dbrnl3xUWNY-krm8Nqbnp0/s1600/Colobus+monkey.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi96cpb8zsazuhLfNxUKMd3S3YqAlLP-Jj2vXyXBrqA0QMxm4-lrR4hRpM_j9vngmrgqUtCq7xxae7ipdXJ_015aAffXZcsz96TcjO6_fdHilwUvSXl47ob_dbrnl3xUWNY-krm8Nqbnp0/s320/Colobus+monkey.JPG" /></a></div><div class="NoSpacing"></div><div class="NoSpacing">It was really strange to see how HUMAN they were in their mannerisms, their facial expressions, and their interactions with each other. (And also how NOT afraid they were of me.) Watching them, it’s not hard to believe that we’re in some way related.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitc9xGDjK6PJ90HlNQ5hJzNb6TuCzN7eoj_qQkHc96Zkg7j3DPluweVYVzl-03w_WAXMVCVAttsKSNAxkFnZRIEztFkcHwfsmpxiD5M8s9pwINAup9eaXJ9Da4-IaRsvgqXLcOuXC8rck/s1600/Monkey+and+my+foot.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitc9xGDjK6PJ90HlNQ5hJzNb6TuCzN7eoj_qQkHc96Zkg7j3DPluweVYVzl-03w_WAXMVCVAttsKSNAxkFnZRIEztFkcHwfsmpxiD5M8s9pwINAup9eaXJ9Da4-IaRsvgqXLcOuXC8rck/s320/Monkey+and+my+foot.JPG" /></a></div><div class="NoSpacing"></div><div class="NoSpacing">I nearly stepped on this guy’s tail when I was walking on the trail through the woods. That would’ve been interesting…monkey fang marks would’ve been kind of a cool souvenir. (Rabies shots not so much.)<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgawBUWNTIGRC8k0UYnNX6WY5noMTeKdXK71RURl89Yg2xae-ISkyOr1PrzOr4yMqVUmB796Bq4Sw2UfJFk_iy_ndcLnvYUvJzBR4eczTMLaBTCmW8-RXahuY0l3B2wm3d8DRpcob5xXlU/s1600/Laura+and+me+and+chai.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgawBUWNTIGRC8k0UYnNX6WY5noMTeKdXK71RURl89Yg2xae-ISkyOr1PrzOr4yMqVUmB796Bq4Sw2UfJFk_iy_ndcLnvYUvJzBR4eczTMLaBTCmW8-RXahuY0l3B2wm3d8DRpcob5xXlU/s320/Laura+and+me+and+chai.JPG" /></a></div><div class="NoSpacing"></div><div class="NoSpacing">Nearly every night in Stone Town (in Kiswahili, "Mji Mkongwe") I venture a couple blocks from my house to Babu Chai, a little stand selling tea, coffee, doughnuts, sweet bread, chapatti, and fried eggs. My usual is a ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, and clove spiced tea with milk and sugar, and a sugar-coated deep-fried doughnut. (Healthy, I know.) Together, the tea and doughnut costs about $0.34, which is quite a good deal. For another $0.80, I can get a “Zanzibar pizza,” which is basically an egg-fried chapatti smothered in cabbage, chili sauce, fresh tamarind, and ketchup. Delish.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg31ucn61F9ml6ST1DMwSo_b0LQVxKKI6T5LFhMKA3__RYxMJrSOD1NsOmVbSQCqVyddN227SnmXF2FJzZe-37D-mPOXHzvI7F95PL48JKQ9PiaADVokQOqguafeBUDQaxaQ5peVU_rSRs/s1600/Kizimkazi+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg31ucn61F9ml6ST1DMwSo_b0LQVxKKI6T5LFhMKA3__RYxMJrSOD1NsOmVbSQCqVyddN227SnmXF2FJzZe-37D-mPOXHzvI7F95PL48JKQ9PiaADVokQOqguafeBUDQaxaQ5peVU_rSRs/s320/Kizimkazi+1.JPG" /></a></div><div class="NoSpacing"></div><div class="NoSpacing">After Victoria and Laura left (last Tuesday and Friday respectively), I befriended a Dutch girl, 3 Germans, a Korean girl and another American also studying Kiswahili at the university here, and we made a weekend trip to the town of Kizimkazi in the southern part of the island. Kizimkazi is known for its dolphins (which we saw but didn’t swim with because I think that’s mean) and for its snorkeling. We took a day trip out to a private island, did some snorkeling (over a type of coral I’d never seen before), ate a bunch of barracuda, and then nearly died of sea sickness on the SUPER rough sees (seriously, I thought we would capsize…several times) on the 2 hour trip back to Kizimkazi. Totally worth it.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyxCYzbWMTHmJ_DWtvI0-c-xXgkLqWcQswSwz_xIzk8StuwEpMP-qatAHE3Be2h-Cpq_NIi1DfDsr6lwY0ObEflvs9NNE-53Fr0lvnGk0Y0UbmKpbm5zpLMBlFWfNCjYvMKDXySWqtVCg/s1600/Kizimkazi+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyxCYzbWMTHmJ_DWtvI0-c-xXgkLqWcQswSwz_xIzk8StuwEpMP-qatAHE3Be2h-Cpq_NIi1DfDsr6lwY0ObEflvs9NNE-53Fr0lvnGk0Y0UbmKpbm5zpLMBlFWfNCjYvMKDXySWqtVCg/s320/Kizimkazi+2.JPG" /></a></div><div class="NoSpacing"></div><div class="NoSpacing">Our boat guys (friends of a friend…we were staying at their house and it was their boat) cooked us a delicious lunch of barracuda, rice, and a spicy tomato-based sauce, plus lots of fresh fruit. There was a boat full of Italians on the island, too, and we got their leftover lobsters (yum!) and some other stuff they would’ve otherwise wasted. Then, sitting at their fancy picnic table in the shade of their big umbrella, they drank their cold beers and glared at us while we sat in the sand and ate our food with our hands. (And while we rinsed our sandy watermelon in the ocean…) Apparently we’re not “private island” material. My favorite part, though, was GETTING to the little island. The boat dropped my Dutch friend and me off about a kilometer away and we snorkeled through the somewhat rough seas over lots of coral and whatnot all the way back to the island. When I’ve been snorkeling before, I’ve always stayed in a pretty small area around wherever the boat was, but it was incredible to see the diverse kinds of underwater environments I swam over in just a kilometer—live and dead coral, sea anemones of all kinds, fields of seaweed dancing in the current, sandy patches full of little bottom-dwelling critters, etc.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKkBpkLFR8u3G36iB46JDZluq-iYOOB7mpwybopQvg4PJt81LOJoVyDbiQwV2Nt2nVOQ7Vhbf1kaQVViOO6XnrULlRTMYiQJ93o_NLmpaiG57-RgqNRS5a_wbreYC5F55kh7xkga5aUMA/s1600/CUF+rally.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKkBpkLFR8u3G36iB46JDZluq-iYOOB7mpwybopQvg4PJt81LOJoVyDbiQwV2Nt2nVOQ7Vhbf1kaQVViOO6XnrULlRTMYiQJ93o_NLmpaiG57-RgqNRS5a_wbreYC5F55kh7xkga5aUMA/s320/CUF+rally.JPG" /></a></div><div class="NoSpacing"></div><div class="NoSpacing">Campaigning for the October election has begun on the island! The ruling party (CCM) has plastered the whole city with green and yellow campaign posters, but the opposition (CUF) is growing in numbers and becoming increasingly vocal. Here, from the window of my classroom, we’re watching a CUF rally where the party officially announced its candidate for the presidency of Zanzibar. The party is lobbying for the independence of Zanzibar from mainland Tanzania and for more <i>Sharia</i>-compliant laws for the island’s Muslim people. It was really interesting to see such a public display of political opposition (something I never saw in Swaziland), and also to see traditional Muslim women wearing <i>mabuibui</i> (black overcoats worn in public) who were politically vocal. It seems strange to me that in a place where the banks are forbidden from offering interest on savings accounts (it’s prohibited under Islamic law for a person to gain interest on savings or charge interests on loans) and where adult women aren’t allowed to ride bicycles, women are still involved in political rallies.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbtDep7z8Odhs26feCa5HAcub-cvdTFx1tBCpo5qcZEy9gdTjkG9Tzq-mPxRywrD2hh2JuzH6_Z2vHPjhrbHR-eWiogyy82eN1UnUdWuos9UdinBCMIMMgZ8GaWtzmmlMC8oURUgI9cP4/s1600/Chips+mayai.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbtDep7z8Odhs26feCa5HAcub-cvdTFx1tBCpo5qcZEy9gdTjkG9Tzq-mPxRywrD2hh2JuzH6_Z2vHPjhrbHR-eWiogyy82eN1UnUdWuos9UdinBCMIMMgZ8GaWtzmmlMC8oURUgI9cP4/s320/Chips+mayai.JPG" /></a></div><div class="NoSpacing"></div><div class="NoSpacing">The “chips mayai” (French fry omelet) that I think was responsible for the past ten days of digestive hell. After a week of avoiding all foods served further than 2 meters from a toilet, I finally went to see the doctor. Now, two days of Cipro later, it no longer feels like there’s a cell phone vibrating in my intestines. Oh, the miracle of modern medicine. </div><div class="NoSpacing"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Justinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07323105619171902251noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597022098053424805.post-84081651023854692822010-09-11T11:30:00.004+02:002010-09-14T15:22:58.383+02:00My week in Zanzibar, in photos<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVafcPsTQBbrAp2h7EEFGLse1DztpMeNzV4WzBtVRkq2IVveG0DX9t0DZztZ-xdJMFKFukPqjnD-bHXdcE_PSQufutKn-tZgdlZ5Sv-HuF4QyswNVlTCsP8CplEIYFaPYUvxoFmydV_Zg/s1600/DSC06715.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVafcPsTQBbrAp2h7EEFGLse1DztpMeNzV4WzBtVRkq2IVveG0DX9t0DZztZ-xdJMFKFukPqjnD-bHXdcE_PSQufutKn-tZgdlZ5Sv-HuF4QyswNVlTCsP8CplEIYFaPYUvxoFmydV_Zg/s320/DSC06715.JPG" /></a></div><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPG5wea2p40sA2Vf6WVezZa2opGOwjz5-tSfu6uvuXVcN_STJFA7sudTt4DB370AmYw1ny1AypSFJSQJRJVPt1Tpu3LUHagCgB99M8ihkrMhW7h15578n63FwhSbfHIjwkTD5ndjXwgpQ/s320/DSC06435.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The top picture is a typical Soviet-style apartment block in downtown Zanzibar Town, just opposite of the classroom where I have my Swahili classes. (I'm not sure why Blogger won't let me caption the picture properly, but it won't so this is where its caption is going to go.)<br />
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The second picture is of the street view on Creek Road in Zanzibar Town. The red-roofed stone building on the left is the Darajani Market (Sokoni Darajani) where I buy my vegetables and spices and whatnot. There's also a big fresh (?) meat and seafood market that smells like I bet you'd imagine an outdoor meat market smells like in the heat of the day on a tropical island. I've gotten really good at holding my breath for extended periods of time when I pass it.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHe1LCC4hDQlfnPmveyTjVdglc-PYm9IfHOObLAAbbnKA9o1YfaQ9RhZKq-gK2Su-OA5-x22ID5exw2V__gErGiSoqSI4qFvxTylGqGjZcoi5-8Dfu11d9r9aZzU22NdFQSx9uIlXWkZE/s320/DSC06552.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Laura reppin' Swaziland on our dhow (traditional Swahili sailboat) on our trip to Mnemba Atoll. We strung her lihiya (Swazi cloth) up on the mast like a flag and then made jokes about Swazi pirates. (Incidentally, jokes about pirates are not funny in East Africa.)</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwsYaDUDjsZC77KWJblu_a2Lyne6ARXKMser6QRbXzk-F85OBBL6GiyxAQJPLHQQM0TzixxT5M73PJ2Dq1khg-j1TxggVHOCB_TTezLk7unx-Ixh6AutPYCxQy6Lg5P_h5jfgsg_4JpFM/s320/DSC06580.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Stone Town Conservation and Development Authority" sewer cover in Stone Town. I'm not sure why, but I think they're pretty, especially when covered in sand.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh01mlNDd_xjfI56D_1jBeX-bqc-VimAtkQ_Yia-XLiyZwjqnVhsGBq5NTA_jkidDzcxqdsiCED2x2IDG0Nsq62B-g1uOv0Z1UbZwVYpfRSNK421vcgR50SDNwVBz1AHauoKmGfiuEjNSQ/s320/DSC06593.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Warning! Do Not Sit on the Tortoise." After seeing how big the tortoises were at Chunguu Island, I totally understand the need for this sign. </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTjonoF9ZIZDorITLEDJUOr5X-LZVT1shRjRZrxmEwEvz0MH8d8B1pmagWlDXGHC5WwtzifQ9uqOZ8nUvrOFofrPswKpbWYf6bZc6_Sz7X4t7LM54l4xjMZ5Olf4Z_I7NqJJFPMJez4nA/s320/DSC06634.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me hanging out with a 30-year-old Aldabra Tortoise at Chunguu Island. (You can tell she's 30 because her back says so.) She followed me around a lot that day...very slowly. Either turtles are attracted to brightly colored fabric or I am exceptionally attractive to tortoises.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3IeybQDZvMQhQN05XbmFKCrRpYlPOPjblWPj_O3VEU1cFqXtCnOXnMK9dQAhvxpkydTe4ne9sqvKk5oJT7cKaX72xZgYWJAjzmpRlIEONXWCpDylFz5-sWjZrQlL57Lzj4zXNUnLr6t4/s320/DSC06673.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">If you tickle their armpits, they stand up like this. Seriously.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBJ63FYSFFqe-lU3JuXl5enCoer5ZVHtJyl65oP-FkzPZmLPBmTy0LaruT7abhSTmqbDOSzHGTbah8Ro96QplX2WVaFTuO88PvgCyGSeMMKayF44UkxervIaD4zmPdpuLdHq4PWM2LMok/s320/DSC06701.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Biggest spider thing EVER! They have these in Swaziland, too, but I never got a good picture of them because usually I was too busy trying to get them out of my house. Gross.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPG5wea2p40sA2Vf6WVezZa2opGOwjz5-tSfu6uvuXVcN_STJFA7sudTt4DB370AmYw1ny1AypSFJSQJRJVPt1Tpu3LUHagCgB99M8ihkrMhW7h15578n63FwhSbfHIjwkTD5ndjXwgpQ/s1600/DSC06435.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHe1LCC4hDQlfnPmveyTjVdglc-PYm9IfHOObLAAbbnKA9o1YfaQ9RhZKq-gK2Su-OA5-x22ID5exw2V__gErGiSoqSI4qFvxTylGqGjZcoi5-8Dfu11d9r9aZzU22NdFQSx9uIlXWkZE/s1600/DSC06552.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaYmDhDkN8Ua1xxbpH7xiupUKHd0VWGkSNjzMTj2fBXDtDoL4O1ScMoTKGCBUPEpGXl6bv75qe_HxBNxmkf5cOH-S2j3cgowDGyeT3Aj_VVEa89yyhS_oU5-iTsu8fzcHXwZsJ346zWyQ/s1600/DSC06577.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwsYaDUDjsZC77KWJblu_a2Lyne6ARXKMser6QRbXzk-F85OBBL6GiyxAQJPLHQQM0TzixxT5M73PJ2Dq1khg-j1TxggVHOCB_TTezLk7unx-Ixh6AutPYCxQy6Lg5P_h5jfgsg_4JpFM/s1600/DSC06580.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh01mlNDd_xjfI56D_1jBeX-bqc-VimAtkQ_Yia-XLiyZwjqnVhsGBq5NTA_jkidDzcxqdsiCED2x2IDG0Nsq62B-g1uOv0Z1UbZwVYpfRSNK421vcgR50SDNwVBz1AHauoKmGfiuEjNSQ/s1600/DSC06593.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTjonoF9ZIZDorITLEDJUOr5X-LZVT1shRjRZrxmEwEvz0MH8d8B1pmagWlDXGHC5WwtzifQ9uqOZ8nUvrOFofrPswKpbWYf6bZc6_Sz7X4t7LM54l4xjMZ5Olf4Z_I7NqJJFPMJez4nA/s1600/DSC06634.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3IeybQDZvMQhQN05XbmFKCrRpYlPOPjblWPj_O3VEU1cFqXtCnOXnMK9dQAhvxpkydTe4ne9sqvKk5oJT7cKaX72xZgYWJAjzmpRlIEONXWCpDylFz5-sWjZrQlL57Lzj4zXNUnLr6t4/s1600/DSC06673.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBJ63FYSFFqe-lU3JuXl5enCoer5ZVHtJyl65oP-FkzPZmLPBmTy0LaruT7abhSTmqbDOSzHGTbah8Ro96QplX2WVaFTuO88PvgCyGSeMMKayF44UkxervIaD4zmPdpuLdHq4PWM2LMok/s1600/DSC06701.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_ns9ZDlLFNjDy-RgYetYKciO1umRYljK-CMAuLiDPUv-njq42h_JO2Fqt-Coc8Zh_dS3zqvN_zNrBIpdh7YSwjIgzNXb15elooaIf259M9sqM43bPXzAlVJrf-t_OIsMWc8l6ItA2XQY/s320/DSC06440.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another typical street scene in Zanzibar Town. If I die in the next 2 weeks, it will be while trying to cross the road at this intersection. All of the lights are faded by the sun so they are all white and nobody really knows when they're supposed to go or not go and it's kind of scary. I usually wait to cross the road until a local person is crossing the road and then just go when they go. The truck thing with the red and white side is called a "dalla-dalla" and it's the kombi (mini-bus) of Tanzania/Zanzibar. It's basically a truck with a cover over the bed and wooden benches up against all the "walls." They generally seat 20-30 people (max capacity is stated at 20), plus bananas and doors and goats and bicycles and things strapped on the top. It's not so bad for the first 20 minutes, but after that your butt/legs/feet start to go numb from being all squished up. The worst part is that, as a tall person, when I'm sitting in a dalla-dalla my knees are up higher than the seat, so it's super uncomfortable.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWE5g90OqrMWUuuX11jL1upmFV2-2qMybgaznIUSVW-HWD_fDctEytSkMPX7lcgleRpAt-APkQpX5pKUDRBVu7wjL9rDijQN5U2csDBIFq2k4Y50QH3B4S6e7IZbvi_R15R3rSlkWBjAc/s320/DSC06475.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wild cocoa beans in the forest somewhere in the middle of the island. It tastes nothing like chocolate, unfortunately.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtZVOcnDCF3biVUQDsVndM43r3Bzz3x2mAlfg_N0LJMTPM6YxjEFpYav46iLEkgFqGccmxsl0iyfkSLUvvez4d6Prx_OWvGwq13_eu9aJ9nKgSV_vSUhozYNkzcF5IPB94mti6NFMwAQY/s320/DSC06491.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Persian baths in the middle of Zanzibar, built by some Zanzibari nobleman for his Persian wife.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUopqfZNcOfvC7l_alS9HoAS6mxITpKGSbuhmvUAxk-H9WsA3fResu9VIO4lMza-bSo3yKkLCYr89fBGfx-k3tJwv_u54aajoyYUoNoEzBfubWZXLXy9Qr7_FrLvv9tDw7EgQm1ee2Un4/s320/DSC06494.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nutmeg (the brown nut part) and mace (the red part) on the spice tour. These are the only two spices that grow two to a plant, apparently, and it's SUPER expensive in Zanzibar. (Well, expensive relative to the cost of the other spices, but cheaper here than elsewhere in the world.) Really interesting, though. And pretty.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivRf301ppUQ6yVTLJJz9qWX1mzh3EP82uR-GxgQnC_NRuUNvXKB4THfqEJvY0ZMcRNpkjWGafl6FWLWM_s9OFZBUmfzA82hvNyc9iJDodKr5fX5oBdYHqY7zbN60spgcUpjVP8ye9Cl8k/s320/DSC06518.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Laura and Victoria building a sand castle with a very confused local. He kept saying, "What is this again? A sand palace?" Which, for some reason, I thought was hilarious.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiplT6lVEN7gw4pjAUtgxtel3ahV8h6NhuRGJjxgVkmxJ01wuniNRtKFclNmWrok4lUv0mylQrBy2ZQ-GDM-xeY7f3WZ7bZTkt2aIEI-pFVfajoLE0jzhtL_X33CsTN1qJPpuCjLaJMRFs/s320/DSC06527.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A dhow (traditional Swahili sailboat) and another little boat at sunset at Kendwa Beach. (You were probably at work while I was watching this.)</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2fumv7F61PsX6eHCPEdlVgDrmZZ1iHMi2ZI_g6xjKLe0AyCSaHCmqZs_fku673nPgqYG7i0Ru-dZo-scxMnIeyM4z-nR9I43BsLRIQiX5zK26YEoCpga5x1pKvQipeIh-n5RKAch_EzM/s320/DSC06533.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Masaai (or fake Masaai) person selling overpriced touristy things to people who don't know any better. As a general rule, it's advisable to say "Eish! Ni ghali sana!" (Whoa! That's too expensive!) to whatever price these guys give you.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_ns9ZDlLFNjDy-RgYetYKciO1umRYljK-CMAuLiDPUv-njq42h_JO2Fqt-Coc8Zh_dS3zqvN_zNrBIpdh7YSwjIgzNXb15elooaIf259M9sqM43bPXzAlVJrf-t_OIsMWc8l6ItA2XQY/s1600/DSC06440.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWE5g90OqrMWUuuX11jL1upmFV2-2qMybgaznIUSVW-HWD_fDctEytSkMPX7lcgleRpAt-APkQpX5pKUDRBVu7wjL9rDijQN5U2csDBIFq2k4Y50QH3B4S6e7IZbvi_R15R3rSlkWBjAc/s1600/DSC06475.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtZVOcnDCF3biVUQDsVndM43r3Bzz3x2mAlfg_N0LJMTPM6YxjEFpYav46iLEkgFqGccmxsl0iyfkSLUvvez4d6Prx_OWvGwq13_eu9aJ9nKgSV_vSUhozYNkzcF5IPB94mti6NFMwAQY/s1600/DSC06491.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUopqfZNcOfvC7l_alS9HoAS6mxITpKGSbuhmvUAxk-H9WsA3fResu9VIO4lMza-bSo3yKkLCYr89fBGfx-k3tJwv_u54aajoyYUoNoEzBfubWZXLXy9Qr7_FrLvv9tDw7EgQm1ee2Un4/s1600/DSC06494.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivRf301ppUQ6yVTLJJz9qWX1mzh3EP82uR-GxgQnC_NRuUNvXKB4THfqEJvY0ZMcRNpkjWGafl6FWLWM_s9OFZBUmfzA82hvNyc9iJDodKr5fX5oBdYHqY7zbN60spgcUpjVP8ye9Cl8k/s1600/DSC06518.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiplT6lVEN7gw4pjAUtgxtel3ahV8h6NhuRGJjxgVkmxJ01wuniNRtKFclNmWrok4lUv0mylQrBy2ZQ-GDM-xeY7f3WZ7bZTkt2aIEI-pFVfajoLE0jzhtL_X33CsTN1qJPpuCjLaJMRFs/s1600/DSC06527.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2fumv7F61PsX6eHCPEdlVgDrmZZ1iHMi2ZI_g6xjKLe0AyCSaHCmqZs_fku673nPgqYG7i0Ru-dZo-scxMnIeyM4z-nR9I43BsLRIQiX5zK26YEoCpga5x1pKvQipeIh-n5RKAch_EzM/s1600/DSC06533.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>Justinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07323105619171902251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597022098053424805.post-37994471110724928902010-09-11T11:24:00.001+02:002010-09-14T15:05:37.570+02:00"After Ramadan, we will party-party"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>As I sit sweating in the near triple-digit heat of my third floor apartment in Zanzibar’s historic Stone Town, I’m a little overwhelmed by how significantly my life has changed in the last week. I’ve moved from a steadfastly Christian, HIV- and drought-devastated, mostly maize-eating rural homestead in the land-locked, SiSwati-speaking absolute monarchy of Swaziland to the cultural heart of the sun-drenched, 100% Muslim, Kiswahili-speaking, fish- and coconut rice-eating island of Zanzibar...during Ramadan. This place may, in fact, be the opposite of Swaziland. And I’m loving it.<br />
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(Sidenote: “Swahili” is the culture of the coastal people from Kenya to Northern Mozambique, including the islands of Lamu, Pemba, Zanzibar and a few others. “Kiswahili” is the language of the Swahili people. Saying that Swahili people speak Swahili is kind of like saying that Americans speak American.)<br />
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After several hours of wandering aimlessly through the winding streets of Stone Town last Friday, I finally met up with Victoria and Jenn (PCVs from Swaziland) and Laura (our Finnish friend) so that we could get lost together. Stone Town, where I live, is the centuries old historic district of Zanzibar Town, and it’s BEAUTIFUL, but basically impossible to navigate. Hundreds of narrow cobblestone alleys wind and weave through ten square blocks of three- and four-story white-washed buildings boasting elaborate Arab-influenced archways, European-style latticed balconies and facades, and ornate Swahili hardwood and brass Zanzibar doors. Small shops selling homemade yogurt, glass bottles of orange Fanta, and a random assortment of everyday necessities line the alleyways at the street level, and brightly colored kanga wraps sporting Kiswahili idioms hang from the balconies above. There’s a constant flow of foot, bike, and Vespa traffic through the alleyways, and every couple of blocks the narrow streets open up to courtyards full of chai masala (spiced tea) vendors, fruit sellers, and kofia-clad men passing the heat of the day in the shade of the stoop outside their Mosques. It’s easy to lose a couple of hours strolling through Stone Town, snacking on street food and practicing my Kiswahili with curious little Zanzibari kids, and I LOVE it. <br />
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The only problem is that during the day every street looks the same to me, so I have a hard time getting places when I DON’T have a couple hours to spare. I’ve managed to find a few landmarks to help me navigate—things like “the old man I bought bananas from that one time” and “the place with the G Unit graffiti”—but most of my landmarks are completely transformed after dark. Chips mayai (potato omelet) vendors and chai carts replace the old ladies doing henna and the fruit stands, and suddenly I find myself completely disoriented. Some nights, it’s taken me as long as 2 hours to find my house; I just keep wandering around thinking, ‘wait a minute, I’ve been here before,’ but without the slightest idea of where I am in relation to my house. The last two days I’ve made a conscious effort to practice a few direct routes between my house and various places of interest (the market, my classroom, the local yogurt vendor, my favorite chai place, etc.), and I’ve done pretty well not getting lost. But if ever I stray from those paths, all bets are off.<br />
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Being here during Ramadan has also been a pretty unique experience. Ramadan is a sort of holy month for Muslims, and it is VERY much observed here in Zanzibar. The vast majority of the over-five population is fasting between sun-up and sundown, and things like smoking and drinking are extra haram (prohibited) in public. This means that 99% of the restaurants are closed, street food is only available from 6:30 to 11:00pm, and I’m not allowed to eat or drink in public places, while walking through the alleys, or in my classroom. (That includes water. Need I remind you that it’s like a million degrees here?) If you don’t count water, I’ve managed for the most part not to eat during the day in observance of Ramadan, but sometimes I still cheat a little in my house when nobody is around to be offended by my munching, and every day I eagerly await the sundown call to prayer that signals the opening of the markets. Fortunately I’ve only got about one more day of Ramadan to survive because Eid (which they call “Sikuku” here) is coming either Friday or Saturday, depending on the visibility of the moon and the whim of the Imam. (Apparently the end of Ramadan is different in Africa than elsewhere, and especially in Zanzibar, so when Ramadan ends elsewhere it doesn’t affect Zanzibari Ramadan.) I’m not sure exactly what to expect from the Eid/Sikuku celebration other than a wide variety of delicious foods that I currently smell cooking in houses throughout Stone Town (including the chickens that are currently hanging out on my landing awaiting their deaths…it’s funny that I still have to walk through chicken poop to get to my house), but the promise of fresh pastry alone is enough to keep me from going to the beach this weekend. <br />
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But, to be honest, I’m kind of beached-out already after only a week here. I’m the kind of person who gets bored and whiny after lying on the beach for more than an afternoon, and there’s only so much snorkeling, sunbathing (and sunburning), overpriced beer, and sandy-floored beach bungalow I’m willing to pay for. That combined with my (completely justifiable) fear of the brutally fierce sun is enough to keep me in Stone Town for the majority of the week. Seriously, who wants to sit through a 4 hour Kiswahili class with a painful, itchy sunburn? Not me.<br />
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The girls (Jenn, Victoria, Laura) and I DID take a pretty fantastic trip up to Kendwa Beach on the northern tip of the island last weekend. After spending the afternoon sunburning and building sand castles with very curious locals, we hired a dhow (traditional Swahili sailboat) to take us to Mnemba Atoll Marine Reserve for snorkeling, which was absolutely INCREDIBLE. There was at least 40 to 50 meters of visibility in the water (which is unreal) and a wide variety of colorful tropical fish to swim with (sometimes into…they don’t move), tons of starfish, a school (?) of squid, and lots of little tiny jellyfish that left welts all over my bare stomach. Plus the guys sailing the boat caught a big tuna on the way out to Mnemba and cooked it up with coconut rice and vegetables for lunch after snorkeling, all of which was incredibly delicious. (Even the fish eye they made me eat in exchange for a second slice of watermelon. Totally worth it.) We also went on a spice tour through the spice farms in the central part of the island, which was both educational and tasty. I learned that black, white, and red pepper all come from the same plant, and got to taste raw cloves, curry leaves, cocoa, nutmeg, and a whole bunch of other delicious things that I’m now trying to learn how to cook with. Zanzibar is a foodie’s paradise!<br />
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I also took a non-food related trip out to Changuu Island (aka Prison Island) with Tim, Jamie, Jason, Erica (all PCVs from Swaziland) and Laura on Wednesday afternoon to see (and touch!) a colony of giant tortoises (kobe in Kiswahili). Changuu is a privately owned island originally used as a quarantine station for ship passengers suspected of having cholera or bubonic plague, but now it’s home to a big resort (“Changuu Private Island Paradise”) and about 100 giant land tortoises. Aldabra Giant Tortoises are, quite logically, endemic to the Aldabra Atoll in the Seychelles and were brought to Zanzibar as a gift from the Seychelles Government to some British military officer in 1919. After 90 years of breeding, there are just over 100 tortoises on the island, including three of the original four shipped over from the Seychelles (they’re each 125 to 150 years old). On average they live to around 100 years, but most of them on Changuu are between 25 and 40 because it took a while to get the colony well established enough to get them to breed (and secure enough to keep people from stealing them to sell their shells). It was kind of surreal being there and getting to walk with them and touch them and feed them spinach, and thinking about all the things that have happened in the world in their lifetime…150 years is a really long time! Also, their skin feels like I imagine a dinosaur’s would, which is really cool. (I guess that’s what 150 years of Zanzibar skin does to unprotected skin. Let this be a lesson on the importance of sunscreen…) <br />
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Fishes and tortoises aside, the bulk of my time in Zanzibar has been spent learning or practicing Kiswahili. That is, after all, why I’m here. Zanzibar is such a cool place to study Kiswahili because the language basically originated from the archipelago and, due to the isolated nature of island culture, it still remains more pure (less adulterated by English or tribal languages) here than elsewhere in East Africa. My class, which I’m taking through a language institute called Kiswahili Utamaduni (KIU), is four hours every morning and consists of three students (all American) and two teachers, which means that it’s really intensely interactive (and perfect for attention span-challenged people like me). In my first four days of class I honestly think I’ve learned as much as I did in four months of Kiswahili class in Nairobi, and being in Zanzibar gives me ample opportunity to practice everything I learn in class with everyone I meet on the street or in the market or wherever. As soon as I start TRYING to speak Kiswahili everyone is really excited and helpful and patient with my slow and labored sentences, but practice is definitely doing me good and I find myself much more comfortable using Kiswahili than I was just a week ago. There’s a Dutch girl in the advanced class who has been here for 6 weeks and speaks Kiswahili convincingly enough that I thought she’d been here for YEARS, so I’m pretty excited for the future of my Kiswahili language proficiency. <br />
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I’m also LOVING the class and the language. Obviously, I came here because I liked Kiswahili and wanted to learn it, but now I’m remembering exactly why: it makes perfect sense. There are 7 noun classes, 4 completely logical tenses, a total of 4 irregular verbs, and grammar rules that explain the structure of the language perfectly to my rule-oriented mind. It’s not like it’s a SIMPLE language to learn, but it seems to work the same way my brain does so, compared to when I was learning SiSwati, I feel like a genius.<br />
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In learning Kiswahili, though, I’ve come to realize just how much SiSwati I actually have in my head. I find myself THINKING in SiSwati and spelling words in slightly complicated SiSwati-esque ways (like adding H’s where they don’t belong) and, occasionally, slipping a SiSwati word into my sentences. It’s kind of annoying (and very confusing for the teacher), but it makes me feel confident that I won’t lose my SiSwati even after being here for a few months. And that’s comforting.<br />
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Anyway, I’m supposed to have two more full weeks of Kiswahili here and then move onto the town of Iringa in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania to do an intensive Kiswahili course there, but I’m thinking maybe I’ll see if I can extend my stay here for another month or something so I can stay for longer. I mean, I already have a cheap and convenient place to stay, I like my teachers and the format of the class, and I’m getting increasingly competent at navigating the streets of Stone Town. I’m comfortable and happy here and, increasingly, I’m thinking maybe I should trust that. (Plus when will I ever have another chance to spend a random extra month in Zanzibar??) But maybe I’m just trying to rationalize staying in the land of fresh chapattis and cheap seafood…<br />
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Nimemaliza. Baadaye. <br />
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(I’m finished. Later.)<br />
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<br />
Justine<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMmean-cfnL2C2X-p2Juv0E6DWotHEnbWhuTQpfdd95s8OuHfuk6w3TFmkDchCfjWryjmcvfI7OGV_fmEVkDN5wEl7CngnVCNwbaVL9cypoA_OjXzEgWkPsbDu_eBhBnHVbtELnuc_Z8Y/s1600/DSC06427.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMmean-cfnL2C2X-p2Juv0E6DWotHEnbWhuTQpfdd95s8OuHfuk6w3TFmkDchCfjWryjmcvfI7OGV_fmEVkDN5wEl7CngnVCNwbaVL9cypoA_OjXzEgWkPsbDu_eBhBnHVbtELnuc_Z8Y/s320/DSC06427.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The night market at Forodhani (the water front). It's very touristy but still super delicious. I had a wide assortment of grilled fishes, lobster, calamari, and some Zanzibari soup. All for about $10, which, by Zanzibar standards, is super expensive. We've since found the same places way cheaper elsewhere, and I've learned how to argue with the sellers for "bei mkaazi" (the resident price).</td></tr>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Justinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07323105619171902251noreply@blogger.com2