Mombasa Raha and Rock City

At the end of May, our first term at MGSS ended. The students all took terminal exams, which once again meant a lot of essay grading. Some highlights?

Facts in an essay about HIV/AIDS:
‘HIV/AIDS was started in Uganda in 1956’
‘People who get HIV/AIDS are the people who love sex.’
‘To avoid getting HIV/AIDS, a person must have one partner, no more and no less.’

Answers to writing the name of the flowing animals’ young:
Tiger: Tiglet
Cow: Nephew
Goat: Cousin
Pig: Cab

My students are very creative.

I worked really hard to get all of marking done quickly so I would have some time to travel in June. At the beginning of June, a guy name Mike who had been volunteering in Kenya, stayed with the Jesuits for a couple nights before and after climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. Once he finished, he was heading to Mombasa on the coast of Kenya, so I decided to go with him. The bus took us through Tsavo National Park, if any of you have seen the movie ‘Ghosts in the Darkness,’ that is where that story took place. Since I was afraid of getting eaten by lions, I made Mike sit by the window. We didn’t see any wildlife though, just a lot of brush and dust.

Once we reached Mombasa, we met up with two of Mike’s friends that lived there, who we would be staying with. I had my first ride in a tuk-tuk, and I loved it. I want one. I really enjoyed Mombasa, the night life was fun and the beaches were beautiful. We traveled a little farther north to a place called Malindi, and spent some more time at the beach there. In Mombasa, we were able to meet up with two MaryKnoll volunteers, a married couple who had recently retired and decided to do some volunteer service. They were great people, and I decided that I absolutely want to do the same when I retire. If I ever stop volunteering in the first place and get an actual job. I also visited a place called Fort Jesus, which was a really beautiful place.

Fort Jesus

It’s amazing how different of a place Kenya is from Tanzania. I mean, there obviously a lot of similarities as East African countries, but there are many cultural differences. In Tanzania, every person that I meet in the street that appears older than me, I greet by saying ‘Shikamoo’ which literally means, I lay myself at your feet. They respond with a ‘Marahaba,’ which means, I accept. Not so much the case in Kenya, the first day that we were there, we were sitting in a restaurant and an older man walked by and was looking at me. I respectfully greeted him with a shikamoo. Willis and Collins, our two friends from Mombasa, laughed at me and told me that in Kenya, you don’t greet everyone you see. They’re just not quite as hospitable and respectful there as in Tanzania. Another example is that in TZ, when you are at the store, you ask politely for whatever you need by saying, ‘Naomba ______’ which literally means, I beg for or I pray for. In Kenya they believe that since they are paying money for something that they don’t need to ask so they just say ‘Nipe!’ which means, Give me! These seem like small things, but I think they are a good representation of one of the main cultural differences. Kenya is definitely more developed and faster paced. I hope I didn’t shed a negative light on Kenyans though, the families I stayed with and visited were definitely very welcoming and generous, it was just very different than TZ.

Mombasa

The bus ride back home was slightly torturous. Tsavo is extremely dusty and the inside of the bus frequently looked like a big dust cloud. We also broke down quite often, so the trip took extra long. The roads are not very good, and I kept thinking that the bus would tip over. I had come pretty close to assuring myself that this could not happen, that the bus driver did this trip almost every day and must be sure of himself, when we came across another big truck flipped sideways in the road. Road safety is a pretty big issue around here. Luckily I could keep myself distracted and entertained by listening to the man who got on the bus halfway through our journey and spoke for over an hour about the medicines he was trying to sell us. The green snake oil for indigestion was intriguing.

After returning to Moshi that evening, I immediately started preparing for my next trip. Mary Beth and I would be traveling to Mwanza the very next day and our bus left at 5:30am. I sorted through my clothing, choosing what looked the cleanest, and prepared for another long dusty ride. You can get from Moshi to Mwanza several different ways, and we were going the longest way. The easiest way is to go through Nairobi, but we didn’t want to pay the transfer visa just for driving through Kenya. There is also a bus that goes through the Serengeti, but it does not run every day and would not get us to Mwanza in time for our retreat. So we had to take the bus that took us around the southern part of the Serengeti and back up to Mwanza. We left at about 5:30 and arrived in Mwanza at about 10:30 at night. The bus stopped once for about 15 minutes. Brutal, but absolutely worth it. I loved Mwanza. It is right on the edge of Lake Victoria, and nicknamed Rock City because of all of the crazy big rock formations all over the place. This was where we would have our third retreat. Mary Beth and I had arrived a day early because it was our only transportation option, and met Christen (from Dar, who had also arrived early) at the New Pentagon Hotel, where we would stay until everyone else arrived. It was like heaven. After two days of fighting dust storms, I had dirt in every crevice conceivable. All I wanted was a shower and a bed, I didn’t care what condition they were in. When we arrived at the hotel, MB was at the front desk checking in, and a manager took me to the room to show it to me. As he is pointing out the hot shower, air conditioning, television with HBO, and two big beautiful clean beds, I am jumping up and down screaming NIMEFURAHI NIMEFURAHI!! (I’M SO HAPPY, I’M SO HAPPY!) because the idea of a hot shower and a little mindless entertainment sounded like bliss to me. It was the cleanest I felt in a very long time.

The rest of the Dar community was supposed to arrive the next day, but their bus left seven hours late and had to stop and sit for a few hours in the middle of the night because you are not allowed to travel at night in TZ, so they didn’t end up arriving until the afternoon of the next day. That gave MB and I a day to explore Mwanza. We hiked up to Capri Point and saw these unbelievable houses with incredible views of the lake. Some of the houses were actually built with the rock formations as part of the structural base, it was crazy. We stopped at a Chinese restaurant that was on the water’s edge, and we were blown away by the prices. Mwanza was very expensive. To give you an idea…usually when we go somewhere to get a serving of plain chips (French fries) it is less than 1,000 tsh (1300tsh is about 1USD). At this particular place, a plate of chips was 3,000tsh. We said no way. There were things on the menu that were close to 20,000tsh, that is crazy unheard of. So I had a glass of wine that was surprisingly reasonably priced, and we just relaxed and enjoyed the view for awhile. Then we went back to our room and I ordered room service for the first time in my life, which was far less expensive that it would have been the US. I felt so spoiled. And I was pretty excited that I got to watch Kindergarten Cop as I ate.


Sidenote: When MB and I left that morning, we left things everywhere in our room, it looked like my bag exploded because I was trying to get things out and shake the dust out of them. When we returned that evening, we opened the door and the room was spotless. MB gasped, for a split second thinking we had been robbed, but I opened the cupboards and found all of our things folded and put away in them. How nice is that? Seriously, spoiled.

So the next day we reluctantly packed up our things to go find a place for all of us to stay for retreat. We really wanted to continue staying there, because believe it or not it was very reasonably priced, and obviously nice. However, they did not have enough of the kind of rooms we would need. So we went to a different place down the street, with a nice balcony that we could watch the sunsets each night from. African sunsets are beautiful. That is where we spent the next few days on our third retreat, which was a little more intense that the other we have been on, but really fulfilling. It was so good to be with the Dar community again. We splurged one night on pizza from a little restaurant that uses its profits for a center for street kids and a few beers, and it was fabulous to be sitting outside with pizza, a beer and good friends. Happy times. The fish in Mwanza was delicious, the Jesuits were hysterical and the scenery beautiful, I would love to go back someday.

Rock City!

After another exhausting bus ride back home, I was ready for a few days of relaxation before school started again. Our trip to Uganda didn’t work out for a variety of reasons, but I still plan on going at some point during my time here. We’ve started our second term at school and it’s crazy how quickly time is going by. In a few days I will have been here for eight months, that’s a third of my time here! I’m still trying to take advantage of every opportunity, and I’ll share some more exciting stories sometime soon!

Snakes! and Bunnies!

Pole sana marafiki zangu! I have been out gallivanting and have not had a chance to sit down and blog. I’m now back in school, sitting at my desk and looking for any excuse to not start my lesson plans for the term, so it’s prime time to update you all on the past few months. I’ll try to stick to highlights, because a lot has happened.

After I returned from Nairobi, we went on our third retreat to a place on the coast called Tanga. I’ve fallen in love with the Indian Ocean, so I was excited to spend a few more days there. We stayed at a retreat center that was right on the beach, and it was absolutely beautiful. I spent most of my time in my swimsuit, either in the ocean or right next to it studying my Kiswahili, it was a much needed retreat. We had just finished grading mid-term exams at school and it was a lot of work. Grading 400 essays written by students with a broad range of English knowledge was both strenuous and hilarious.

We were on retreat with the community from Dar, and once we finished in Tanga we traveled down with them to their home to spend Easter there. Dar was where we spent our first two weeks in Tanzania, so returning there stirred up a myriad of feelings. I spent a lot of my time there reflecting on how overwhelmed I had felt in my first few days, and how much more comfortable and confident I now felt, just a few months later. It was very affirming. It was also nice to see friends we had made and spend time with the Jesuits there. I was able to go to Loyola and watch both Christen and Caroline teach, which was very fun. In Caroline’s class, they were playing a Bingo game to review some geography that they had learned. Some of the boys in the class whispered my questions, hoping I could help them, and then giggled when I also did not know and had to whisper to someone else. How was I supposed to know the capital of Zambia off the top of my head? The next day I went to Gonzaga, the primary school that Nicholas and Emily teach at. So fun. I loved hanging out with the little ones, and totally instigated chaos. I had discovered a water gun in their staff room, so during Nicholas’ math class, I proceeded to sneakily squirt the boys in the class in the backs of their heads every time they did anything that could remotely resemble misbehaving.

Easter Day was very fun. Mary Beth and I were sleeping in our typical spot, a tent outside the house in Dar. I woke up early and as a stuck my head outside of it; I noticed two big white fluffy footprints outside of the tent. Next to them was a note, the Easter Bunny had made an appearance the night before! The note contained a clue leading to the next spot he had visited. Unfortunately, we needed to prepare for church. And it was going to take me awhile because my hair had been in braided for over a week and needed a good washing. We all dressed up in our Easter kitenge best and headed to church. All of the women looked beautiful, and it was nice to be back at the church in Dar. After a three hour mass, we headed back home to follow the path of the Easter Bunny! It was a strenuous hunt, filled with many mind-boggling clues and tricks, but we finally discovered the little bags of candy the Easter Bunny (aka Christen Reardon, one of the Dar volunteers) had left us. What a happy morning. At this point it was around 11AM, and we proceeded to feast on candy, cassava (a fried root that is extra yummy) and some beer that Nicholas’ family had brought from Canada since he and Emily both gave up alcohol for Lent. Delicious. Soon thereafter we headed to a friend’s family home for lunch. On the walk over, something magical occurred. While at Gonzaga, we had a discussion about the lack of rabbits in Tanzania. We had yet to see any in our five months here. That afternoon, we saw the Easter Bunny. There was a little white rabbit hopping along the path with us! What timing to see our first lil’ African bunny! Once there, I struggled to eat much of the huge portions put onto my plate; I ended up stealthily scraping my food onto Nicholas’ plate. Tanzanian hospitality can be brutal, you need to eat ‘eat, eat, eat until you are eaten!’ The rest of the day was spent preparing for a slightly more nutritious Easter feast at the Jesuits. I grated my first coconuts and made coconut rice pudding. Once there, we discovered that they had prepared nyama choma for us, roasted beef, goat and chicken. What a treat. We feasted and laughed all evening, it was a happy Easter.

My Braids

When we returned from Dar, the next week I was Teacher On Duty at school. Each week there are two teachers that pretty much run the joint. They make sure all of the student’s duties are done, make sure all school rules are followed, run morning assembly, basically make sure that everything runs smoothly and then administer discipline if it does not. Typically the Teacher On Duty walks around carrying a stick so that if any student is misbehaving they can give them a quick whack. The students knew that I would not be doing this, so they were slightly more difficult to manage the week I was Teacher On Duty. Luckily my time at Mercy taught me a lot about setting limits and natural consequences, so I didn’t have that much trouble. I was definitely center stage for the week, all of the other teachers were watching to make sure the school didn’t burn down under my watch. It didn’t, it was fine. The most eventful part of the week was when I was supervising lunch in the dining hall and all of the girls in one corner started screaming and running away with yells of NYOKA! NYOKA! There was a green snake slithering along the wall and promptly causing chaos in the entire dining hall (filled with about 400 students). I was laughing so hard at the situation that I was crying, but I managed to help Mr. Tom and Pascal (who is nicknamed the Arnold Schwarzenegger of Tanzania) to track it down and kill it. Rumours flew that it was a green mamba, but it was never confirmed. On the Saturday of my week on duty it was Labor Day in Tanzania and all of the staff were sent to Arusha for a celebration. I was worried I would have to stay and watch the school, but Sister Njau wanted all of the teachers and staff to be able to go so she stayed to watch the 900 students all by herself. So fun, and so kind of her to do. It was like a wedding reception, set up in beautiful gardens with lots of food, drinks and dancing. We had a great time.

A co-worker Tom and I on Labor Day

Lots of Dancing!

Speaking of snakes…we also traveled to Arusha to the snake park! Christopher (one of the Jesuit Scholastics), Tom (a co-worker and friend) and Mary Beth and I decided to take a day trip. On the way there we were pulled over at a police check-point. They asked us for our papers, and unfortunately the registration papers for the car had been left at home. The police, being corrupt and looking for every opportunity to profit, spent the next half hour trying to solicit a bribe. At one point a man came out with a big machine gun around his neck to try to intimidate us. It worked. Not for Tom and Christopher, because they had grown up in a war-torn Uganda with plenty of guns around, but for me. But not necessarily because of how big the gun was, I was more worried about the fact that he was wearing a Baltimore Ravens hat and scared that he would discover my loyalty to the Pittsburgh Steelers and we would be finished. Luckily he was content to check my passport and sneer at me. After giving them some money, they let us go on our way. The snake park was lots of fun and all sorts of scary. Good trip. Okay that’s it for now, I don’t want to overload. More later! Hope all is well wherever you are!