Well, I've safely made it back to the United States. It was an exhausting, stressful and long journey to get here, including a 24 hour unplanned layover in Nairobi and a 20 hour layover in London - all because our first flight from Zanzibar to Nairobi was delayed four hours because the air conditioner in the cabin wasn't working in our plane. The 24 hour layover in Nairobi felt like it lasted for days, mainly because we spent the whole of it in front of the Transfer Services desk or in the Transfer restaurant trying to rearrange our flights and our missed connecting flights. The feeling when we finally landed in London and then LA was euphoric.
Being back. There are so many different emotions that being home evokes.
Of course, happiness. Three months is the longest I've been away from home, and the challenges we faced in Marurani made the second half of the program feel even longer. Being able to walk around outside and blend into the crowd without people yelling mzungu! or byeeee! at me every five seconds, not having to worry about ordering salads in restaurants, no more starch in my diet!, the freedom to sleep without the constriction of a mosquito net and not having to battle the frogs and cockroaches for my showers and bathroom runs is a wonderful feeling. The comforts and conveniences of home are something I'll never ever take for granted. Plus, it's nice to slide into the warm comfortable relationships of my family and friends again.
Disbelief that the time has gone by so quickly. My "adventures in Africa" are over and now I get to return to my life, return to vet school interviews and Winter Quarter at UC Davis and a real job. Living in another culture and seeing a completely different way of life was an experience. Walking around a supermarket or a shopping mall stands in sharp contrast to walking down a long dirt road in the village, or even walking through the streets in Arusha. I wouldn't say I am a completely different person, three months wasn't enough time to do that, I'm still myself overall... but I would say that I learned a lot in that time - the country, the people I met, the communities we worked in - definitely left an indelible mark on me. Without an iPod, endless hours on a computer or even magazines to entertain me, I spent a lot of time thinking about the bigger pictures in life.
The last two points, I could say no better than Devon, another SIC volunteer who worked in my second village Marurani with me, has said himself below.
REGRET is wishing that I could have done more, knowing that I could have, knowing that I didn't.
PRIDE is knowing that we did make a difference, testing over 700 people, teaching almost 8,000. 700 people who know their status, 8,000 who can protect themselves from the world's deadliest virus.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Everyone.
I wish you the best in everything you do :)
Love,
Stefanie
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Paradise on Earth
Zanzibar is gorgeous. White sands and ethereal out-of-this-world turquoise waters right at the equator. It truly doesn't get any better than this. I spent three sun-soaked days on the beach, split between the North and East Coasts.
Each coast has a different personality. The East is quiet and serene. You can look all the way down the beach to the right, and to the left, and see not a single person. The waters come and go with the tide, but when it's high tide, it's breathtakingly beautiful, as the ocean fades from bright green to turquoise in the horizon. It's so deserted that when we ordered from the hostel, we would have to order two hours ahead of time from the daftari (notebook) menu. After we placed our order, if for example we ordered fish, they would go out and get the fish from the ocean or the pasta from the local duka. Everything was so fresh and delicious. The North, on the other hand, is marked as the prime tourist destination on the island. It's the more popular choice because you can swim at all times of the day (for some reason, it's not affected by tides), there are more options for excursions (we went fishing on a dhow boat - a shortlived trip that was unsuccessful but nonetheless very fun) and by the fact that it's more crowded, it's a round the clock party. The beach front bar, Cholo's, has theme nights where they blast music into the wee hours of the night - while we were there, they had Rock night, followed by Funk night (complete with jazz flute!). The hammocks and dugout canoes provide ample seating to watch the stars, lean back and listen to the music. I don't think I've ever seen so many Europeans in the same place, save for, maybe, Europe.
But now it's time to go home. We are currently in Stonetown, a town that is completely made of stone buildings (go figure). It has its own charm, and reminds me a lot of the south of Spain, with its narrow alleyways that seem to go on for forever. Tonight we are eating at the Forodhani Gardens - an open air market that has different stands that serve up specialities such as Zanzibar pizza, tuna, shark, red snapper, lobster and sugar cane juice with ginger and lemon. Can't wait! Then tomorrow at 4am we head to the airport and fly out to Nairobi, and catch our connecting flight to London. Then home!! Can't wait!! :)
Each coast has a different personality. The East is quiet and serene. You can look all the way down the beach to the right, and to the left, and see not a single person. The waters come and go with the tide, but when it's high tide, it's breathtakingly beautiful, as the ocean fades from bright green to turquoise in the horizon. It's so deserted that when we ordered from the hostel, we would have to order two hours ahead of time from the daftari (notebook) menu. After we placed our order, if for example we ordered fish, they would go out and get the fish from the ocean or the pasta from the local duka. Everything was so fresh and delicious. The North, on the other hand, is marked as the prime tourist destination on the island. It's the more popular choice because you can swim at all times of the day (for some reason, it's not affected by tides), there are more options for excursions (we went fishing on a dhow boat - a shortlived trip that was unsuccessful but nonetheless very fun) and by the fact that it's more crowded, it's a round the clock party. The beach front bar, Cholo's, has theme nights where they blast music into the wee hours of the night - while we were there, they had Rock night, followed by Funk night (complete with jazz flute!). The hammocks and dugout canoes provide ample seating to watch the stars, lean back and listen to the music. I don't think I've ever seen so many Europeans in the same place, save for, maybe, Europe.
But now it's time to go home. We are currently in Stonetown, a town that is completely made of stone buildings (go figure). It has its own charm, and reminds me a lot of the south of Spain, with its narrow alleyways that seem to go on for forever. Tonight we are eating at the Forodhani Gardens - an open air market that has different stands that serve up specialities such as Zanzibar pizza, tuna, shark, red snapper, lobster and sugar cane juice with ginger and lemon. Can't wait! Then tomorrow at 4am we head to the airport and fly out to Nairobi, and catch our connecting flight to London. Then home!! Can't wait!! :)
Friday, December 14, 2007
It's Over? Already?
Yesterday we moved out of our homestay and loaded into the trucks. Closing dinner happened last night (in which I won the paper plate award of Dirtiest Feet - it's not my fault! I promise I washed them every day! It was the bug spray that I applied - it just seemed to make the dirt stick and make it look worse than it actually was. The complete worst part was when people in the village would actually stop me on the road to gawk at how much dirt my feet had accumulated that day)... But anyway, today, I leave Arusha for Zanzibar.
Saying goodbyes have been harder this time around. Saying goodbye to my homestay family was hard - I was a lot closer to them than I was to my past homestay fam, mostly because since we didn't have 10 hour work days in this village, I spent a lot more time at home - even enough time to introduce them to the wonderfulness that is embodied in guacamole and spaghetti sauce. The spaghetti sauce was an adventure, mostly because I've never made it from scratch before (Yeah Prego). In honor of me cooking, mama killed a chicken (meat in the village tends to be limited to goat and beef, chicken is saved only for special occasions) and helped mama de-feather it and cut it into pieces, then cooked it with onion and tomatoes and surprisingly, it tasted really good. The chicken here is so different from the chicken you pick up in the supermarket. It's completely free range. It's not that they spend every single minute of every single day running - they actually don't move a whole lot at all, but it still seems super tough because the chickens are actually muscular. It makes you realize that the chicken in the supermarket must have a highly inactive lifestyle to be so tender. The last few days in my homestay were wonderful. Baba, in addition to having a TV, has a VCR, so we spent our nights watching classics such as The Bodyguard and Enough. All of the extended family crowded in to the living room to watch - TV and VCRs are definitely luxury items in the village. Luckily, my Baba is very well off, so he can afford all these things, in addition to a Tsh 500,000 phone ($500) and Tsh 7 million tractor ($7,000) - the next item on the list is a laptop. The more cows, goats and chickens you own, the wealthier you are. Baba traded two of his cows for the tractor, and a goat can command up to Tsh 40,000. Additionally, he sells beans and maize, which is also very lucrative - so much so that they are building a new, bigger house (with an INDOOR choo!!) next month.
The saddest goodbyes are to the people who live here. Homestay families, friends I've made in the village, and teaching partners. People who will probably never come to visit the United States. And I probably won't be finding myself in Tanzania again anytime soon, if at all.
It's so difficult to face the possibility that in spite of the fact that I find these people to be amazing individuals, I'll most likely never see them again. You would think in a program that lasts 3 months, you would have ample time to get to know every single person on the program and spend more than enough time with each of them. But it has been quite the opposite. I feel myself scrambling at the last minute to express how much they mean to me, and how wonderful I think they are. All those things that I have thought, but never said. Because really, who knows when I may see them next, if ever? In spite of the fact that I have spent so many weekends in Arusha, doing the same old things to the extent that I am bored out of my mind if I spend more than one day here, I find myself wanting to postpone Zanzibar - by a day or two, just to spend just a little more time with them. You would think with white sand palm tree lined beaches awaiting me, I would be itching to get the heck out of here, but I find myself sad. Sad that I didn't take more time to get to know them and sad that my time is up.
Enough of this depressing talk. This week in the village, we experienced what Tanzanians call the "light rains." The rain against the sheet metal roof was deafening. In order to communicate with one another, we had to shout. When it first begins to rain, it's beautiful. The dust shoots up into the air as the rain drops hit it and you have little puffs of brown shooting upward all around you. The smell is amazing as well. I love the smell of rain. It rained for 3 hours. After 3 hours, our main dirt road had turned into a rushing muddy brown river with rapids. The water was up to thigh level and it moved fast. It was impossible for the next few days to navigate the roads without accidentally stepping into a seemingly firm patch of ground, only to find two seconds later that your foot and sandal were completely submerged in the wet mud. One time, three children took pity on Gaby and I as we were thoroughly coated up to our ankles in mud and helped us to clean off the sandals - after they stopped laughing at us, that is. The heavy rains occur around March. Supposedly it rains for weeks straight during that time. I can't even imagine how that would be - everything would be either puddles or rivers and the roads would be completely unnavigatable. I'm glad we will be missing the rainy season, not just because it makes travel difficult, but also because we would never get any teaching done. In the village, community teaching attendance hinges heavily on leadership. If you have supportive village leaders who advertise the teaching and tell the villagers to go, then you will have a successful teaching with high attendance. But with the rains, the village leaders refuse to go out in the rain. Therefore, teachings will have few to no people coming - even if you make posters, tell people verbally and announce it yourself (this happened the past week - luckily, the teaching was rescheduled for the next day, and with no rain, the community teaching was successfully advertised, as 90 people came).
So in an hour, I leave for Zanzibar!! Internet only exists in Stonetown, but we will be staying (hopefully! provided the high tourism season hasn't booked every single place) in Ningwi, on the North shore for the majority of our stay, so possibly the next time you hear from me I will be back in California!!
Saying goodbyes have been harder this time around. Saying goodbye to my homestay family was hard - I was a lot closer to them than I was to my past homestay fam, mostly because since we didn't have 10 hour work days in this village, I spent a lot more time at home - even enough time to introduce them to the wonderfulness that is embodied in guacamole and spaghetti sauce. The spaghetti sauce was an adventure, mostly because I've never made it from scratch before (Yeah Prego). In honor of me cooking, mama killed a chicken (meat in the village tends to be limited to goat and beef, chicken is saved only for special occasions) and helped mama de-feather it and cut it into pieces, then cooked it with onion and tomatoes and surprisingly, it tasted really good. The chicken here is so different from the chicken you pick up in the supermarket. It's completely free range. It's not that they spend every single minute of every single day running - they actually don't move a whole lot at all, but it still seems super tough because the chickens are actually muscular. It makes you realize that the chicken in the supermarket must have a highly inactive lifestyle to be so tender. The last few days in my homestay were wonderful. Baba, in addition to having a TV, has a VCR, so we spent our nights watching classics such as The Bodyguard and Enough. All of the extended family crowded in to the living room to watch - TV and VCRs are definitely luxury items in the village. Luckily, my Baba is very well off, so he can afford all these things, in addition to a Tsh 500,000 phone ($500) and Tsh 7 million tractor ($7,000) - the next item on the list is a laptop. The more cows, goats and chickens you own, the wealthier you are. Baba traded two of his cows for the tractor, and a goat can command up to Tsh 40,000. Additionally, he sells beans and maize, which is also very lucrative - so much so that they are building a new, bigger house (with an INDOOR choo!!) next month.
The saddest goodbyes are to the people who live here. Homestay families, friends I've made in the village, and teaching partners. People who will probably never come to visit the United States. And I probably won't be finding myself in Tanzania again anytime soon, if at all.
It's so difficult to face the possibility that in spite of the fact that I find these people to be amazing individuals, I'll most likely never see them again. You would think in a program that lasts 3 months, you would have ample time to get to know every single person on the program and spend more than enough time with each of them. But it has been quite the opposite. I feel myself scrambling at the last minute to express how much they mean to me, and how wonderful I think they are. All those things that I have thought, but never said. Because really, who knows when I may see them next, if ever? In spite of the fact that I have spent so many weekends in Arusha, doing the same old things to the extent that I am bored out of my mind if I spend more than one day here, I find myself wanting to postpone Zanzibar - by a day or two, just to spend just a little more time with them. You would think with white sand palm tree lined beaches awaiting me, I would be itching to get the heck out of here, but I find myself sad. Sad that I didn't take more time to get to know them and sad that my time is up.
Enough of this depressing talk. This week in the village, we experienced what Tanzanians call the "light rains." The rain against the sheet metal roof was deafening. In order to communicate with one another, we had to shout. When it first begins to rain, it's beautiful. The dust shoots up into the air as the rain drops hit it and you have little puffs of brown shooting upward all around you. The smell is amazing as well. I love the smell of rain. It rained for 3 hours. After 3 hours, our main dirt road had turned into a rushing muddy brown river with rapids. The water was up to thigh level and it moved fast. It was impossible for the next few days to navigate the roads without accidentally stepping into a seemingly firm patch of ground, only to find two seconds later that your foot and sandal were completely submerged in the wet mud. One time, three children took pity on Gaby and I as we were thoroughly coated up to our ankles in mud and helped us to clean off the sandals - after they stopped laughing at us, that is. The heavy rains occur around March. Supposedly it rains for weeks straight during that time. I can't even imagine how that would be - everything would be either puddles or rivers and the roads would be completely unnavigatable. I'm glad we will be missing the rainy season, not just because it makes travel difficult, but also because we would never get any teaching done. In the village, community teaching attendance hinges heavily on leadership. If you have supportive village leaders who advertise the teaching and tell the villagers to go, then you will have a successful teaching with high attendance. But with the rains, the village leaders refuse to go out in the rain. Therefore, teachings will have few to no people coming - even if you make posters, tell people verbally and announce it yourself (this happened the past week - luckily, the teaching was rescheduled for the next day, and with no rain, the community teaching was successfully advertised, as 90 people came).
So in an hour, I leave for Zanzibar!! Internet only exists in Stonetown, but we will be staying (hopefully! provided the high tourism season hasn't booked every single place) in Ningwi, on the North shore for the majority of our stay, so possibly the next time you hear from me I will be back in California!!
Saturday, December 8, 2007
News from Home
I got accepted into my first vet school!! Michigan State. It's a relief to finally know that I will definitely be going to veterinary school in the fall.
Last week of living in the village coming up. Then off to Zanzibar!
Last week of living in the village coming up. Then off to Zanzibar!
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Two Weeks Notice
It's hard to believe, but I am now less than two weeks away from completing the Fall program! And three weeks away from home!! Life in the homestay is beyond good. Since my family here is more wealthy (aka they own a generator for electricity, a television, a VCR (so as to watch Titanic of course!), and a Tsh 500,000 ($500) phone that can connect to the internet from anywhere - my baba is a businessman - he sells corn, beans and peas that are grown on his shamba (farm) in town), I have been eating mangos and pineapple for lunch and dinner and I LOVE it!
Our days are way less busy in Marurani. In Maroroni, we would be gone from our homestay from 7 in the morning till 6 at night - mostly because we had a full teaching sched (three schools) and extra projects on the side. In Marurani, we have a seminar with our primary school (either Marurani Kati or Umoja) from 9-10am everyday and then during the week, we have one subvillage community teaching and one subvillage community testing. So, our days are much more open. We are working to fill them with more community teachings (possibly the 5 churches, or another community group). We also have soccer practice everyday! From 4:30-6:30. Dustin, one of the American volunteers, has decided to coach the local soccer team, which is composed of 20 or so men. They have been improving by leaps and bounds, and are starting to actually play like a team - they actually pass to one another! Last week Wednesday it was evident that the practice had paid off when they whipped a rival village team 10-0. Our team is actually very young (we have several Std. 5 boys on the team - approx 12 yrs old) and very small. The uproar that went up from everyone in the village watching was crazy, and when the game finished, the crowd rushed the field to surround Dustin and shake his hand. All the men love him - they think he's the coolest thing since sliced bread - because now they actually have a formidable soccer team. Gaby and I attended practice last week. I have never felt more self-conscious in my life, because #1 I was a girl, #2 I haven't played soccer since I was in elementary school and #3 I was wearing workout pants, rather than the socially accepted kanga skirt. Luckily, Gaby was there with me. We touched the ball a whopping three times (woo!). But, at least, we got to fully participate in the conditioning. Since we were wazungu (foreigners), for some reason, the Tanzanians assumed that we were leading them in the sprints and so we raced across the field, and Gaby and I finished first! Although we realized later that it was because they were following us, it was an ego boost at the time.
Last week, we had a long weekend (4 days), so we went to Uganda and whitewater rafted the Nile. The bus ride was 18 hours, and super bumpy (especially if you were in the back of the bus, you got some air as we went over the bumps). We hit a giraffe! - the highlight of the bus ride for sure (the giraffe survived) - an attestment to how crazy the drivers here are - our driver kept going, completely unphased. But the bus ride was worth it. It was a two day rafting trip. Complete with the best food I've had since arriving in Africa, the most hardcore guides (several of the Ugandan kayakers that accompanied us - they would save us whenever our raft flipped over and then would kayak us back to the raft - were actually competing in an international kayaking competition a few days after we left), and Class V rapids, we definitely had several moments of extreme exhilaration and near-death but luckily, everyone survived (although some people got pretty intense bacterial infections - we found that screaming while charging into a rapid usually results in a mouthful of Nile water). The actual power of the water is amazing and HUGE, mostly due to the sheer volume of it. I pride myself on being a strong swimmer, but whenever our boat would flip, I would find myself being pushed around by the currents, whirlpools and force of the water. It was a surreal experience, but also made it the best ever, because your heart was pounding as you counted the seconds until you would surface at the top of the water. We had a raft full of girls, but we were determined to be as hardcore as the other boat. Therefore, before every single rapid we would do our "man cheer," which consisted of paddle pumps, chest jumps, head slams and of course, shouting in deep voices, followed by DO OR DIE! as our battle cry. I think all of our voices went hoarse from it all. Definitely, one of the best experiences here.
Here's to another week in the village. Woohoo! :)
Our days are way less busy in Marurani. In Maroroni, we would be gone from our homestay from 7 in the morning till 6 at night - mostly because we had a full teaching sched (three schools) and extra projects on the side. In Marurani, we have a seminar with our primary school (either Marurani Kati or Umoja) from 9-10am everyday and then during the week, we have one subvillage community teaching and one subvillage community testing. So, our days are much more open. We are working to fill them with more community teachings (possibly the 5 churches, or another community group). We also have soccer practice everyday! From 4:30-6:30. Dustin, one of the American volunteers, has decided to coach the local soccer team, which is composed of 20 or so men. They have been improving by leaps and bounds, and are starting to actually play like a team - they actually pass to one another! Last week Wednesday it was evident that the practice had paid off when they whipped a rival village team 10-0. Our team is actually very young (we have several Std. 5 boys on the team - approx 12 yrs old) and very small. The uproar that went up from everyone in the village watching was crazy, and when the game finished, the crowd rushed the field to surround Dustin and shake his hand. All the men love him - they think he's the coolest thing since sliced bread - because now they actually have a formidable soccer team. Gaby and I attended practice last week. I have never felt more self-conscious in my life, because #1 I was a girl, #2 I haven't played soccer since I was in elementary school and #3 I was wearing workout pants, rather than the socially accepted kanga skirt. Luckily, Gaby was there with me. We touched the ball a whopping three times (woo!). But, at least, we got to fully participate in the conditioning. Since we were wazungu (foreigners), for some reason, the Tanzanians assumed that we were leading them in the sprints and so we raced across the field, and Gaby and I finished first! Although we realized later that it was because they were following us, it was an ego boost at the time.
Last week, we had a long weekend (4 days), so we went to Uganda and whitewater rafted the Nile. The bus ride was 18 hours, and super bumpy (especially if you were in the back of the bus, you got some air as we went over the bumps). We hit a giraffe! - the highlight of the bus ride for sure (the giraffe survived) - an attestment to how crazy the drivers here are - our driver kept going, completely unphased. But the bus ride was worth it. It was a two day rafting trip. Complete with the best food I've had since arriving in Africa, the most hardcore guides (several of the Ugandan kayakers that accompanied us - they would save us whenever our raft flipped over and then would kayak us back to the raft - were actually competing in an international kayaking competition a few days after we left), and Class V rapids, we definitely had several moments of extreme exhilaration and near-death but luckily, everyone survived (although some people got pretty intense bacterial infections - we found that screaming while charging into a rapid usually results in a mouthful of Nile water). The actual power of the water is amazing and HUGE, mostly due to the sheer volume of it. I pride myself on being a strong swimmer, but whenever our boat would flip, I would find myself being pushed around by the currents, whirlpools and force of the water. It was a surreal experience, but also made it the best ever, because your heart was pounding as you counted the seconds until you would surface at the top of the water. We had a raft full of girls, but we were determined to be as hardcore as the other boat. Therefore, before every single rapid we would do our "man cheer," which consisted of paddle pumps, chest jumps, head slams and of course, shouting in deep voices, followed by DO OR DIE! as our battle cry. I think all of our voices went hoarse from it all. Definitely, one of the best experiences here.
Here's to another week in the village. Woohoo! :)
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
