This Thanksgiving Holiday Was a Little Different Than the Others

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As promised, I’m going to start typing up an account of our 5 day safari, though it might end up taking me almost 5 days to finish typing up the thing.  We’ll see.  All in all it was absolutely astonishing.  It didn’t take me long at all to realize that this is one of those things people should add to their bucket list of things to do before they die.  I mean, I’ve seen pictures of a bunch of other young people around my age who go on safari and it seems like they just always end up taking the same photos, seeing the same animals, doing the same things, etc.  I get it, whatever, you took pictures from a car of some animals.  It’s not the same to see the pictures because they’re your memories.  I could go through 60 photos in maybe two minutes.  This was what I would think when I would see other photos from people’s safaris in the past and this is probably what you will think when you see my pictures.  I’m sorry for this because pictures clearly do not do the experience justice.  I was absolutely amazed and it was so awesome, especially the initial excitement of being in such an active national park.  Hopefully I’m able to convey a better reality of what safari actually was like for me better than just showing some pictures that look like anyone could have taken them.  You should be able to tell by now that it wasn’t just like any other trip out of town.

To begin with, let’s do some vocabulary.  “Safari” in Kiswahili just means like a trip or journey, so if you see something like “Safari njema” it’s like saying “have a good trip.”  “Habari za safari?” could basically just mean “how was your trip”, not necessarily that you went on what we traditionally think of as a real African safari.  So we started our safari on Wednesday morning where our cool safari SUVs picked us up outside of the administration building.  It was awkward carrying a suitcase across campus and sitting in an area of heavy foot traffic on Wednesday morning with a bunch of white people and their luggage so I was eager to get moving.  I sat next to Jessy who unfortunately goes to Oregon State but it was a good ride because we got to practice our Swahili and talk about some other things too.  It seemed like we both had some other stuff on our mind and it was hard to be as excited as we should be about doing something so cool or even just getting to go on a five day trip.  I kept trying to think about eating awesome food for free and that was working for a while but when something’s troubling you, no imaginary buffets or animals can keep you distracted for long enough.  The real thing, however, can.  The main road out west towards Zambia and western Tanzania actually runs through Mikumi National Park so even when you’re not in the reserve part that you have to pay to drive through, you can still see a lot of animals along the side of the road during this 20-40 kilometer stretch.  We saw a lot of antelopes around but they weren’t that impressive.  We drove slowly though and pulled over often on the way to check into our hotel which was just outside of the other end of the park.  The roof on the safari vehicles pops up so we could stand and take photographs or get a good 360 degree view.

Nothing will compare with the first giraffes I really saw maybe 50 yards from the road.  I don’t know why and I can’t really explain it, but it was just so cool for me.  I still remember there was one standing and one kind of laying down or something but the one on the ground was still so huge.  I thought it had to be fake because it was just monstrous and I had to laugh because it was just unreal.  With that sight in mind, we continued driving and now I was definitely excited that we would be going out for an evening game drive.  We got to the hotel, checked in just fine, ordered lunch, and relaxed for a little bit.  It was a pretty nice room actually and we were excited to find two separate, decent sized beds in each room as well as an actual shower that wasn’t just a shower head in a wall with the drain hole somewhere else across the bathroom.  The only downside was that the menu wasn’t quite as impressive as we had all hoped and there was no buffet.  Also the power had been out for about a week in this town because something major was busted and they needed to get a replacement or something important like that.  They had a generator to turn on at night for lights and stuff, but if I was wiser, I would have thought twice before ordering prawns masala from a place several hours from the coast without working refrigerators.  It was still alright though and we didn’t have to worry about the buffet because Dylan and I took the role of garbage dumpster, clearing everyone else’s plates at the end of each meal.  Every meal at these hotels was several courses too, a very nice surprise.  Lunch and dinner came with soup before the main course then fruit or a dessert afterwards with tea.  I’m definitely starting to appreciate being spoiled in hotels now which I wasn’t comfortable with before.

Our evening game drive brought us into the actual park where we had a very quick trip through the “museum” while our guides were figuring out our permits or whatever.  Ken rushed us along so we weren’t even able read anything though they had a nice display case, complete with photo evidence and bar graphs, describing road kill incidents in the park.  Fascinating (not really).  Everything was cleared and we were on our way.  They allowed a few of us to climb out and sit on roof of the car with our legs still dangling inside the car.  It was really cool just to take in the scenery and to actually be there.  It was so scenic and just like all of the pictures you’ve ever seen though except you have the liberty to focus on different things and get a full view of every direction, feel the bumps of the road, watch the animals in motion, and feel the heat of the evening sun.  The sky is so big, like when you drive through parts of Montana or the west where it’s almost like there’s more sky than earth.  Everything just looks so awesome that you can’t stop looking in every direction.  There will be more antelope on the left or zebras on the right.  You can see giraffes in the trees and elephants not far from that.  There were many water buffaloes, some wildebeests and even a few warthogs.  Not only that, but the nature, trees and such, just looks so cool and it’s all hitting you at once.  These animals aren’t very shy either and they just walk right across the road in front of you or are hanging out right next to other animals.  It’s so different than seeing them all isolated in a zoo.  They actually are able to take as much room as they want and they aren’t completely separated from all of the other species of animals.  Just really awesome to watch the interaction for real with their environment.

Once again, I was most impressed by far by the giraffes.  Finally I found another gangly, awkward creature that’s tall.  They were everywhere too and they seemed to watch us just as much as we watched them.  Like I said, I don’t know what it is about them but I just really liked them.  I can’t even describe their demeanor but they don’t seem to fuss or worry or be as uptight as the other animals.  Our guide and driver can’t even recall hearing them ever make a sound before.  You just need to be in their presence to feel it.  This one girl in our program has been excited to see giraffes since she got off the plane and everyone knew this.  I won’t mention her name, but she was in the other car taking photos and she got so excited when we first started seeing a bunch of giraffes that she shouted “This is my dream!!!” and we’ve been kind of making fun of her sense but it was just the most pure expression of joy and excitement I’ve heard here and she couldn’t even hold it back, even if she wishes she could now.  They are just awesome.  You have to experience it and then you’ll know.  I actually don’t know if everyone else thought they were as cool as I did, but it was still pretty sweet.

So now I’m at the part of the story that the photo from my last post is from.  We stopped the cars on the road near a tree where three young male lions were just napping and lazing around.  We were about 30 feet from the closest one to the road and they’re telling us to play it cool, just relax, and not make a lot of movements or noises.  I snapped off so many pictures and was just thinking it was crazy to be sitting almost entirely outside of the car this close to three sleeping lions.  They were pretty full, we supposed because they just hung out, rolled around, and yawned the whole time we were there and weren’t too interested in us.  The giraffes were interested in us though and they kept congregating off to the side, a respectable distance from the lions.  At one point there were about 40 of them I’d estimate – no joke – just a little ways away watching us watch the lions.  I swear they were watching us, waiting for us to make a mistake, and they got their chance.  I had already been told not to move around so much because I was pissing off the close lion, but things were cool.  I leaned back on the roof with my sunglasses resting in my hair.  As I got about level with the roof of the car, the sunglasses start to slip.  They slide from my head, slowly down the back of the car.  Everyone can hear this and all eyes turn my way as they take an eternity to fall off the back off the car, hit the spare tire or something on the way down, and finally crash to the ground.  Oh shit.  I’m sure a few eyes bugged and jaws dropped, but I was too busy covering my face in shame.  “Scott,” says Ken, our director with disappointment in his voice, “you need to get back down into the car right now.”  I slide back in and plop down, ashamed, happy to not have been pounced on, but still disappointed that the sunglasses Quinn gave me might be lost forever.  Everyone keeps looking at me, at the lion, down at the sunglasses.  What comes next?  They were free for her, so it shouldn’t be that big of a deal.  There’s probably no cooler way to lose sunglasses either, right?  Also, nobody should have to get mauled over a pair of plastic shades.  I’m too busy dreading the ridicule from Ken that I will surely have to endure forever from this point on to even take photos anymore.  To finish the story, the next five minutes or so were torturous but the driver from the other car decided that he could pull around and reach out his door to grab them.  It got the people in the other car even closer to the lions so they probably got even better photos and it got the sunglasses back, though now I can never lose them or break them because they’ve just been through too much.

The rest of the night wasn’t as eventful.  We were just tired from travel and just wondering what was in store for tomorrow, Thanksgiving.  It most definitely wasn’t my typical gray morning in Oregon.  We were set to just do one long drive through the park today and it is most definitely much hotter with more intense sun when you drive around, hanging out the car during the middle of the day.  Things weren’t as exciting the second time around and to kill time we sort of just stayed in one place with the engine off for a while watching all around us.  It was still alright though.  We went to the hippo pool where you just see all these huge things sitting in water, trying to stay cool.  They just randomly start snorting really loudly sometimes too but they aren’t the most exciting or majestic creatures.  There were some pretty big crocodiles in the pond with them too and I felt like I should probably watch my step around the edge of the pool.  We drove around from there a little more though, saw some more animals.  I like zebras too, by the way.  Their fur is actually pretty cool and a little trippy to stare at it.  Giraffes are still cooler though.

Our lunches were packed by the hotel, I think, and there was a little gazebo place for us to eat lunch, use the bathroom and wash our hands.  My Thanksgiving lunch consisted of a banana, a hard boiled egg, a butter sandwich (I think they just buttered bread, put it together, and cut it like a sandwich – not that good) and some old fried chicken that was in saran wrap.  We did go around the group and say what we are thankful though and talk about a few other topics.  The second thing they asked was what everyone missed most and when it got to me, I just said “I think just about everyone here already knows my answer for this one.”  “Oh, Quinn,” they say.  Yeah, they know her name here and everyone’s had to listen to me and all my troubles in the last month.  I’m sorry to embarrass you, Quinn, but I’m still madly in love with her and I miss her like crazy.  Just about every time you read that I’ve got other things from home on my mind in this blog, it’s her I’m thinking about.  It’s not easy to not have available internet to communicate with or a near end in sight to this trip and that’s been by far the hardest thing I’ve had to deal with and am still dealing with everyday.  You learn what you really appreciate though when you no longer have it and I’ve realized that I can live without almost all of my possessions but nothing’s been harder than being without her.

We came back in the early afternoon from our daylong drive around Mikumi National Reserve or Game Park, I’m not sure which.  I had taken more photos in the last two days with my camera than in the entire two years that I have had it, so awesome.  The rest of our day would be spent relaxing and eating dinner eventually.  I took a nap which may have been what kept me from sleeping well later that night (that and the mosquitoes buzzing right by my face and the heat without power to run the fan).  There was also a “snake park” in the same parking lot as our hotel which was fun to check out.  It wasn’t that cool except they had a black mamba that could easily destroy me.  If you walk along the snake pens long enough though, you end up at the place where they have little bunnies and stuff for them to eat and it gets really depressing really fast.  The next time we came back, there were just dead little birds scattered around all of the snake cages.  They also had some uninteresting turtles and tortoises and some very obese crocodiles.  I almost touched this huge one the second time I came around and I feel like I could have gotten away with it, though that’s probably what the croc wants you to think.  I got out of there before I did it, though I still wonder if this was the right decision.  Speaking of decisions, I thought it would be good to order the most Thanksgiving-like dinner I could so my original order was fried chicken and mashed potatoes.  I didn’t feel like fried chicken though after lunch because it was just too greasy and I’d already tried the potatoes so I decided to get the most original dinner I could think of: Spaghetti Bolognese and Samosas.  Unfortunately, the spaghetti noodles arrived without any sauce, I guess “Bolognese” doesn’t mean meat sauce like I was told.  Overall, it was… interesting.  I’ve definitely had better Thanksgiving dinners though… as in every other Thanksgiving dinner.

People were getting calls all day and same with the next day from their families.  I caved and called Quinn even though I don’t have a calling card and left her a message.  She called back in a couple minutes, doing the same crazy thing and we got in a rushed two minute conversation.  I love that woman.  My parents did eventually call later and my aunt Janice did call the next day too so I was feeling a little loved.  Our days in Mikumi were over though and we had a 60 kilometer ride out to the Udzungwa Mountains in Mang’ula ahead of us where we were going to do some hiking.  We loaded up the cars and set off towards our new home for the next two days…

End of Part I

Coming Soon...

I just got back from our safari maybe 20 minutes ago and after 5 days and almost 900 photos, I can definitely state that it was absolutely amazing. I thought I would get online quickly while there is still a little bit of daylight left and post something now. I've got a lot of catching up to do on homework and stuff because I missed three days of class last week for this trip so I'll post a photo now if I can to hold you over until then.

The thing at the top of the photo is a lion hanging out.  The little orange things you can see at the bottom are Quinn's sunglasses that she let me borrow for this trip and fell off of my head at an inopportune moment.  More details to follow once I get some free time.

Stay tuned, folks.

The Night I Almost Met Busta Rhymes

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Sunday 22 November 2009 10:53 AM

First and foremost, let’s get this much straight: I wanted the title of this post to be “How I Met Busta Rhymes” and not what it is.  I’m sorry if the title ruins the good part but I’ve got to tell the story straight.

Oh boy.  Where to start?  The story of one night always seems to start at least three weeks ago.  My roommate invites me to this thing they call “Fiesta” that is some big concert in Dar es Salaam that they have every year.  It’s a lot of local popular hip-hop and Bongo Flava music but also it sounds like they wrangle in one big American name every year to headline the thing.  It was 50 Cent two years ago, Jay-Z and Beyonce last year and as you have hopefully deduced, Busta Rhymes this year.  I was just as confused as the rest of you ought to be because I think Busta’s popularity peaked when I was midway through elementary school, but I don’t really follow the whole hip-hop music scene so it’s possible that I don’t know what’s up.  One of the concert organizers died a few days before or had a death in the family I think so they postponed the show from a few weeks ago until this weekend and I went and saw Inglourious Basterds instead.  I was never really planning on going anyway but I just heard about Busta Rhymes going to be in Tanzania so I was sort of interested in hearing more about it or seeing pictures or something.  I did think it was cool that he was good enough to not bail because they moved the date of the concert, too.

Fast forward now to yesterday in the cafeteria early on a Saturday afternoon.  I see my friends Laura and Ashley are also getting arriving there at the same time I am with Dylan and I heard that they went out the night before to hit up some clubs with this random guy named Omar so I wanted to hear what their story was.  Laura met Omar the weekend before at this party organized by some students at a bar in town and apparently he’s got the hots for her.  I don’t know why a lot of girls do this where they talk about how creepy some guy is for a week but still end up going out with him next weekend.  Maybe it’s because he has a car (which changes everything in Dar) and he offers to pay for you and two of your friends to go out clubbing with him.  He’s apparently some pretty big high roller guy who is a DJ and hotel manager on Zanzibar and when they went out, he knew all of these important people and even got them into the first club for free.  He also bought them all dinner and paid for their drinks during the night and Laura still was able to fend him off by the end of that night.  What I also find out from them is that they’re going out again the next night to the after party for fiesta and Omar’s on the guest list as Omar +3.  She says she’s taking my friends Kelly and Emily who are (were) currently spending the day on the beach and weren’t eating with us then and there.  I was kind of curious how it got be that those two got be Laura’s wingwomen and I can’t honestly remember the thought process I had at the time but I wound up talking about how awesome of a facebook status that would be.  “Scott Berry MET BUSTA RHYMES IN TANZANIA LAST NIGHT.  THIS IS NOT A JOKE.”  I was saying how the people whose friends would appreciate seeing that status the most and would get the most positive feedback would probably be me, Dylan, and Ashley.  I mean, Emily goes to NYU and Kelly’s East Coast so all their friends are old money, ya know, and they would probably just sort of scoff because they’re hanging out with bigger celebrities all the time.  I love my friends though and I like that they appreciate such random happenstances.  Seriously, you all are awesome.  I wouldn’t trade you if I could.

I didn’t really expect anything to come about from that conversation and I really was just talking for the sake of making conversation over lunch.  I mean, if some Dar es Salaam high roller is trying to show some people a good time, he wants a car full of ladies, not some goofy lanky white dude.  The men here are especially that way generally so I never expected to find myself in a potentially awesome situation.  In fact, I solidified plans at that very lunch to go to 6 PM mass so my expectations were for a relatively tame night.  However, Laura texts me in the late afternoon saying that the girls on the beach weren’t responsive to her texts or calls – I guess it’s hard to keep your phone nearby on the beach – so she says that if they don’t get back to her soon, me and Ashley get to take their places.  I said that would be cool, but do you really think the guy would let me tag along?  She assures me that it would be kosher or at least that she’d help pay my way.  The only catch was that he wants to pick us up at 6 so I had to give my friend Kasia the unfortunate news as I saw her on the way to church that I can go to church every week but this is the first and only time I will ever be in a position to meet Busta Rhymes.  She took the news alright and when she went to the church there was a wedding going on anyway so it looks like I was meant to go live it up.

We were kept waiting for about four and a half hours and I didn’t get the free barbecue party dinner or drinks that I was promised but he finally showed up around 10:30.  This would have been alright if we were told this originally because Dar night life doesn’t really start until well after midnight but I was yawning and damn near out of excitement by the time he actually showed up.  The girls actually made it back from the beach and had been for several hours by the time he showed up and Kelly actually tried to usurp my spot.  I was actually sweatin’ there for quite a while because she could probably have done it really easily even though it would have been really really mean.  I don’t think she understood how potentially legendary the night could have been for me when all she wanted was to just go out and she already has friends at home who sleep with rockstars and stuff like that so to her it wasn’t a big deal.  She conceded eventually though and I was in the car with Omar who has to be about 33 years old and also there was this Norwegian girl I know who goes to school here and I never would have expected to see sitting in the passenger seat when I got in the car.  We swung by the place where the party was going to be held and no one was there really around 11 but it was the nicest place I’ve seen in all of Tanzania so far.  It was this hotel/restaurant (you can bet that just about every hotel will have a restaurant here) that was right above this nice beach with a view of the city to the South along the peninsula.  As soon as you walk in, you see this nice, clean, new-looking tile pool with the cool color-changing lights going.  Then there is the big DJ table and, dance floor right next to it.  I wish I had my camera.  It looked like a place for some celebrity cocaine party or something in L.A. where everyone’s just so rich that it hurts.  They had this area to sit down on these swanky white couches right by the dance floor and the first little booth area has a sheet of paper that says “RESERVED   DJ. OMAR” (I swiped this before I left and now have it posted on my bulletin board right across from where I’m sitting/typing right now.)  There was nobody there yet so we took off to go get a drink and then come back.

By the way, I apologize to my parents, aunts, uncles, family friends, church members, whoever else is reading this.  I’m not totally sure of the entire extent of my readership but the content of this post is mostly catered to my friends and I’m even more sorry that it’s going to get a little worse in a few paragraphs.  This is real life though…

We killed some time at this little shed-bar not far from the university before Omar got a call from his friend who said it was happening back at the hotel.  Remember this guy who called though because he comes up again.  His name is Seif or something that sounds like the word “safe” in English.  I also set a reminder on my phone to remember the name of this place and it went off about an hour ago saying “Mediterraneo hotel/bullshit”.  I’ll make the second part of that more clear soon.  We returned to the place after we all finished our bottles, got the car stuck in some sand trying to park, but freed it and headed back in.  Much different scene than before and once again I was completely caught off guard in Tanzania.  The make-up of the people there was at least 75% white people and a lot of them were pretty young looking but we were the only UDSM students there, so what the hell do all these other people our age do in Dar?  I think most of the crowd was European or South African and it’s usually pretty easy to tell this just by looking at people.  Let it be known to all those reading that I hate clubs/clubbing/club life/club culture.  This may break Karly’s heart but she most definitely knows it.  If you read this blog from back in my first year at UBC, I think the theme was my despise of clubs.  It actually could use a good sociological analysis and maybe one day I’ll write a masters thesis on it or something like that but that’s supposing I can tolerate being in the place for that long.  I mean, everyone has their obvious club outfit (might as well be a uniform) on and they’ve generally done obvious grooming.  Then there’s just the way men and women interact at these things.  Not for me in the least.

We slide into our special VIP seats because we’re so special and get some drinks going.  I’m trying my hardest to look as cool and deserving of such a seat but I’m too busy being in shock at how strange of a place I’ve wound up in again.  I was definitely surprised to see the young people there because I hadn’t seen them around campus but don’t let me fool you into thinking it was a young crowd because there definitely were also a lot of white people that had left their youth years earlier.  Laura and Ashley draw my attention to this guy at the bar who’s maybe a little over 40 and just actively petting and stroking this girl’s ass who’s with him.  The thing is that she’s like 22 and black which makes me think either she’s a prostitute or she’s with him because he’s rich (which is also essentially prostitution).  Even though it was nowhere near me, it kind of freaked me out as to whose company I was amongst.  Did I swim into shark infested waters on accident?  Are these people my enemies?  I would have liked to believe that everyone else around was just nice expats who work for NGOs and were out having fun but this was a really ritzy place where everything’s as close to Western standards as I’ve seen anywhere.  “How much sin and morally reprehensible things have these people committed?” I wonder.  I’m a man of the people and I prefer the company of the blue collared, redneck, downtrodden folk that are the real spine of society but here I am amongst all of these high-class, just-here-to-dance-and-be-amongst-other-classy-people people.  I think of that scene in Pulp Fiction where Bruce Willis gets the sword in the pawn shop and just goes medieval on those sick bastards.

See this is the part of the blog where you’re getting the not pretty side of my mind and I think a lot of my friends can understand better where I’m coming from than my parents or family friends can.  I assure you there’s nothing to worry about.  Whatever impression you had of me before is still right… don’t make me regret sharing my life stories with you.  Consider this education.  And once again, I’m sorry for this next part.

I was a little distracted from the hooker molester because Seif (Remember him?  Well I had just been introduced to him a few minutes earlier as well) had a request of me.  “Have you ever rolled a cigarette or weed before?”  “I’ve seen my friends do it…”  This usually isn’t adequate experience but he just hands me a rolling paper and then pulls this weird little thing out of his pocket.  I look at this little weird lumpy thing and then back at him.  Was I supposed to crush this thing up?  What is it even?  He sees my confused look and says “you open it up”.  Okay… What have I gotten myself into?  I’ve never done this before (see, you should be proud here for at least a second) but I’ve seen other people do it and I’ve watched TV/movies so it can’t be that hard… Actually that’s not even totally what I was thinking but more I was panicking and just moving because he was just standing right there above me and there’s no way I’m getting out of this one alive and well unless I just do what I gotta do.  Think fast.  Okay well it has to be kind of crushed and loose.  Okay it has to be on the paper and then you kind of roll it a little bit.  Wow the pressure’s on.  This would be easier if we weren’t 10 meters from the ocean and the wind wasn’t blowing everything around.  This would be easier if I hadn’t had anything to drink before that though my nerves would be a little more high.  This would be easier if there wasn’t music playing and lights flashing.  Okay, think… You need to tear off some paper and put it in here, right?  Then they always lick it.  Why isn’t it sticking?  Oh there’s actually glue on here.  Oh I have the paper backwards.  Is this even weed?  It doesn’t matter, just keep moving.  “Scott, what are you doing?”  “I DON’T KNOW!  He just handed me this stuff and now I gotta do this” I hiss to Laura and Ashley.  They look confused.  I’m confused.  Ashley, hold this, I gotta flip this over and start over kind of.  Ok you put this here, kind of pack it in and then fold and lick.  This still isn’t really sticking… I spilled this stuff everywhere.    …umm okay it’s holding kind of still… “Guys, as soon as I hand him this we need to get out on the dance floor.”  I give him it and he says thanks or something and I walk off before he can even get a good look at it.  He asks if I want to smoke it with him.  It seems like you’re supposed to smoke the first joint you ever roll but I didn’t even know what I did or know what’s in it so I think I’ll pass.  Keep moving and just get out there and dance.

I still felt like I was in the lion’s den a bit because I hate clubbing anywhere and I don’t know how I feel about any of these people here.  Hey though.  Don’t forget what this is all about.  Busta Rhymes is supposed to be coming.  I want to tell my friends that I met Busta Rhymes, not that I almost met him or was supposed to meet him.  They say the concert ended at midnight and it’s past 2 at this point and it doesn’t seem like more people are coming in.  They said there’s one other after party going on at this other club but some people were pretty confident that he’d come to this one.  Whatever, just keep dancing, enjoy the night.  I ordered a Safari from the bar because I needed to drink a little more in order to loosen up and dance when these people make me so uneasy.  Safari is the cheap, strong beer and it was my way of showing my affiliations to all of the other people around me.  A small protest, but one none the less.  Screw these people anyway, I’m here to meet Busta Rhymes…

The night wears on and still no sign of him.  Is he such a big star that he doesn’t even show up places until like 3:30 in the morning?  No.  He’s not.  I’m pretty sure the dude’s like 40 years ago.  There’s a chance that he has grandchildren.  Maybe he just likes making music and then he goes to bed afterwards or something, I don’t know.  The night was winding down and people were starting to leave.  The DJs only have about 30 songs that I’ve heard two times already so we were on the third rotation.  We sat down, hoping to say we should get a move on and we talked about how nice it would be to get some food though I don’t think it’s early enough for places to be open and it’s definitely too late.  It’s after 4 AM and “I’ve Gotta Feelin’” comes on.  This song must be so old at home and even past the point of people being sick of it, just simply moved on.  I expected to hear it a lot when I first got here but I’d only heard it one time at the grocery store in my first week or so here but I’ve heard “We Are The World” play at that same grocery store (and in my dorm) than the Black Eyed Peas.  You have to admit though that it is really catchy and I’ve got good memories attached to it so I had one last good dance to it before I resigned to lay low until it was time to leave.

Omar gets us back to the girls’ dorm at 4:30 AM after the guards extort some money from us because they helped push the car out of the sand when we arrived (bull crap) and we were still really hungry when he pulled away.  I ask if they have anything to snack on, they say yes, and we start heading up to their rooms.  Visitors around allowed after midnight though and I get up maybe one and a half flights of stairs before this guard starts chasing after me, telling me in Swahili that I can’t come in, and carrying a big club in his hand.  I didn’t even know what he was saying but I would have gotten the message even if it was in Cantonese so I was already heading back down the stairs.  We snacked on some bread, shortbread cookies, and this thing that Ashley’s roommate’s sister made that she calls a “bajaji” and is like a samosa with a fried dough outside.  Insanely delicious.  We converse a little bit longer and I lament at having to be extra careful to not wake up my roommate when I get back but still unlock the door, get my teeth brushed, yadda yadda yadda.  I walk towards my dorm as I see the horizon changing color.  I return to my room to be reminded that I hadn’t put the coversheet back on the mattress after I washed it earlier in the day.  It was late, I was tired, so I just laid down my normal blanket and used the mosquito net as kind of a blanket (it’s past their feeding hours anyway I think).  It was 5:15 in the morning and I think the latest I’d ever been out.  I didn’t get to meet Busta Rhymes but I still lived.

This whole thing was still crazy though and for one night I lived in a world that I don’t need to be reminded isn’t for me.  I’m still not sure what I learned from this night in the end but I can’t lie and pretend like I’m not glad it happened.  That’s essentially the story of my life right there.  I may not have been comfortable with my surroundings, I might have done some things that seem out of character, but I’m still the same person in the end and I have one more story to tell.  It would have been easier to just slap hands with Busta and tell people about that but the point I’m trying to make to all of the journalism majors out there is that you don’t always get the story you’re expecting to find.  You just gotta follow where the news leads.

(Edit: second lesson to journalists found in this post is journalistic integrity and honesty.  Notice how you have to tell the true story even if it doesn’t make you look good.)

God Bless.

Some Days...

So if you read the post below this you’ll know that I’ll be spending Thanksgiving in the bush on safari. Pretty sweet, huh? This is only the second time in my life that I’ve had to miss Thanksgiving but at least this time I’ll be doing something more interesting. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday though, no joke, no joke so this still sucks without a doubt. It’s really hard to be here eating plain rice and beans everyday and to be constantly dreaming of all of these delicious foods that I’ll never get again (like a club sandwich…) and then I’m fully aware of this incredibly delicious holiday going on at home and the turkey, pies, green bean bake, the list goes on and on. At least I’ll be out on safari and eating in a hotel instead of stuck in the cafeteria with my lowly rice and beans.

This week has been another tough week in terms of issues at home that are going on and not really anything too eventful here. My mind has been on the other end of the world all week and it still is. It’s kind of bad because it actually has impacted my ability to pay attention in class or when studying but sure enough it’s Saturday and I’m still alive so I must have done something right. When I have tough days or tough weeks it’s really easy to think the wrong thoughts about what this is all about. I get caught up thinking how long I’m going to be here, all of the things I’m missing out on and other things that are out of my control at this point. What I forget is that I signed up for this because of the challenge and so that I could do something that wasn’t going to be easy. The reality is that for the most part it is really easy so long as you have the right attitude. I’m constantly forgetting that not only can I do this, I am doing it and I have been doing it already for almost two months. For example, every time I think I will never see a more disgusting bathroom or I think of how if I saw pictures of the bathroom in our dorm, I would think that I could never exist in such a place but sure enough I’m doing it without even thinking. We make these things out to be a lot more tough than they actually are but it’s all mental. I don’t know exactly when the worst tough times are for people in study abroad but it’s probably pretty likely that the worst is over barring some unforeseen events that always could potentially occur in the future.

The first four or five weeks really flew by and I was so surprised that I had already been here that long and made it that long because I hadn’t even realized it had happened so fast. The last couple weeks I keep doing the math and it’s only been one more week or something like that so it feels like time and pace have slowed down here. I would classify myself as still being in a settling phase here as I figure out my course schedule a little better and my friends and my affiliations and such. I was really questioning staying here for the second term a few weeks ago because everything was so hectic but now I’m kind of looking forward to it because I’ll know so much better what goes on here and where I fit in. There will also be some new people coming into the program and probably other international students joining us so it will be nice to be the seasoned veteran amongst new people.

I don’t really know what else to say here so I’ll end this with a little anecdote. I went to the mall nearby yesterday and if I haven’t yet described the mall here yet someone should leave a comment and tell me because it deserves a description. For example, the two main stores in it have had Christmas decorations up since November 1st and have been playing Christmas music for just as long – except yesterday they were playing some sad songs which wasn’t fun to shop to when I had all these other thoughts on my mind. That’s all besides the point though because the short story starts long before that when I was walking over to the girls’ dorm so that we could leave for the mall together. I was walking on one of my normal paths, not even really out of the dorm complex area yet and I see these two guys throwing rocks at something in the direction where I’m walking. I kept on approaching though and they didn’t notice because their backs were turned but I don’t think they would have cared anyway. I know that this little area is a pretty popular monkey travel route and I’ve walked right through the middle of their group several times when taking this path so I assumed they were just throwing pebbles or something at the monkeys. I was right… kind of. It wasn’t just a monkey they were throwing rocks at but THE monkey. The big daddy that’s not even the same species as the other one that just walks around kicking ass or something. The guys stopped throwing rocks at the boss right before I walked past them and on my way but the big monkey was walking towards the path at a pace that suggested we could collide. I couldn’t tell if he was pissed off or not because the dudes were throwing rocks at him but I just knew I had to keep walking. I think the closest I got was within 10 feet of the thing which isn’t the closest I’ve ever been to the monkeys here but it was too damn close for me and I had no plan of escape if things started getting real. The thing seemed laid back enough though maybe it could smell fear on me, I’m not sure. All I know is that I was a little late in getting over to the girls’ dorm but I still had both of my arms so I guess I got off light. Who knows? Maybe one day me and that thing will be friends and we can sit down and have a beer together and I can tell him this story.

Someday. Someday…

Alesy Travel & Tours Ltd.

5 Day Safari (Mikumi National Park & Udzungwa Park)

Duration 5 days 4 nights

25th Nov 09: After breakfast, drive from Hotel in Dar es Salaam or Airport to Mikumi National Park, have lunch at Genesis Hotel and later do evening game drive, and later Dinner and overnight Genesis Hotel Full board

26th Nov 09: Full day in Mikumi game drives at the Mikumi national Park, with packed lunch and later dinner and overnight at the Genesis Hotel Full board

27th Nov 09: After breakfast, Drive to the Udzungwa Mountains, do two treks of the Prince Bernard falls and Sonjo falls in the evening and later overnight at the Udzungwa View Hotel Full board

28th Nov 09: After breakfast carry packed lunch and do the long Sanje falls tour and later dinner and overnight at the Udzungwa View Hotel Full board

29th Nov 09: After breakfast drive slowly as you explore the areas on your way back to Dar es Salaam, lunch stop over at the Genesis hotel,

Price Usd 600

Lodge Safari Usd 600 per student x 11 students = 6,600

Usd 400 leader

Total Usd 7,000

Price Includes:

• All park Fees
• Accommodation while on safari Full Board
• Transportation with driver/guide during safari on 4x4 vehicles with roof tops
• Mikumi National park entrance fee
• Udzungwa Mountain park fee

Price Excludes:

• The first night on your arrival (book with us)
• Hot and cold drinks
• Tips
• And all not mentioned on the plan

This is the exact text of the sheet of paper we were given today explaining our safari next week (I swear the spelling/grammar errors aren't mine!)  Sounds pretty awesome doesn't it?

FYI: All of the costs of this were included in our program fees so it's an all expenses paid trip unless I buy beer or souvenirs or whatever.  CIEE is still probably making money off of us from this, but I'm still glad to be going.

The Greatest Night of My Life… well not really but it was still pretty good

Originally started writing Sunday 15 November 2009 9:49 PM

I mentioned last time that we were going to take a trip to Tanga for the weekend and I just got back from that a couple of hours ago so my memories are still pretty fresh. As you have probably deduced from the title, I had an enjoyable time. I want to start by saying that I had a nice Friday evening meeting up with some friends for dinner at a restaurant/popular expatriate hangout called Thai Village which was incredibly delicious after a spending a week eating rice and beans almost exclusively because there was actual flavor in all of the food we ordered. I feel like I write about food on here a lot but if it doesn’t seem that way to you then maybe it’s just because I think constantly of good foods that we will never have while here (tonight I thought about zucchini bread.) Anyways, the cuisine was fine but what was more enjoyable for me was the bajaji ride home from the restaurant. I don’t think I’ve explained yet on here what bajaji’s are and they are most definitely worthy of a detailed description. I’ll try to get a photo on here of these little three-wheeled wonders that serve as a cheaper alternative to taxis. Seeing them is cool enough, but packing six people into one and riding down the shoulder of the wrong side of the road is an exhilarating experience. We always smile when we ride in them but this ride was cool because we didn’t take the main roads to get back to campus and instead were going through less commercial areas after dark and seeing more what goes on away from the big roads at night. I enjoy having these educational experiences much more than any other activity here because it shows a whole other side of life here that we never get to see but happens daily.

We were told that our privately chartered daladala for this trip would be leaving right at 5:00 AM so we were to be in front of the girls’ dorm 15 minutes before that which made the sleeping night very short. The church next to our dorm was apparently doing some dusk-to-dawn event though that made it hard to fall asleep or stay asleep, as did the buses returning from some giant party event thing that would honk when they were dropping students off around two or three in the morning. Actually some of our friends were just arriving back to the dorm after 4:30 AM when we were holding our backpacks for the weekend and preparing to leave. The biggest shame though was that our driver was late so we all could have slept for at least another half hour. We hired a driver who usually takes our big group around to places locally (like to the soccer game or restaurant on my birthday) to drive the 14 of us for the six hour trip there, back, and also chauffeur us around everywhere while in Tanga. We got a fairly reasonable price I think though it’s important to note that daladalas are not meant for distance travel and even as I lay in bed typing this now my backside is still smarting after leaving the daladala over two hours ago. I’m pretty sure I exhausted the cushioning capacity of my chair and was essentially sitting uncomfortably on the metal chair frame for hours on end. The actual drive was actually kind of nice and very scenic which resulted in my camera running out of battery less than three hours into the journey (I screwed up and forgot to bring new batteries, too.) We did get stopped by the police and our driver was fined for having a recently expired license and speeding but we actually expected that we would have to bribe policemen the entire ride so this wasn’t that bad.

We pulled into the city of Tanga about an hour behind schedule at noon or so and checked into our hotel before heading off to see the Amboni Caves. Daladalas don’t really have suspension so we were constantly slowing down all the way too and from Tanga because there are speed bumps all over the road, but it was still able to handle some pretty intense dirt and rock roads on the way to the cave. I was impressed that we made it there and even more impressed to make it out at the end. The caves were pretty cool I thought and I enjoyed trying to scare people or creep them out. There were some difficulties at points due to my height and the massive bat population did there best to make me feel unwelcome/uncomfortable throughout the tour but it was still awesome to check out this place. The little gift hut outside of the caves had the single greatest t-shirt I have ever seen though and I am still regretting not buying it. I don’t know if I’ve written about this before either, but all of the t-shirts that aren’t good enough for GoodWill make it here and it’s hilarious to see some of the clothing people are wearing here because they’re generally completely oblivious to the meaning and cultural attachments to some articles of clothing. On the drive to Tanga I saw a man wearing a basketball jersey-like shirt that said “COWGIRL” right across the chest and shortly later we passed a guy in a “VOTE FOR PEDRO” shirt and talked to a man in a Garth Brooks photo-printed shirt that was also gold. Back to the shirt that was for sale outside of the caves though. First of all, it was the only shirt that they had there and it was just on a hanger above all of these other little trinkets they were trying to pawn off on us. It was just a plain white shirt that was looking dirty like it had fallen onto the ground and gotten the soil from the dirt road all over it. Most tourist t-shirts you buy will have just the name of the place you visited and some image to remind you of it or something but this shirt just said explicitly what all of those other shirts are trying to convey. With no design whatsoever, just plain text across the chest, it read “I HAVE VISITED THE AMBONI CAVES”. ….and?... What do you say to a shirt like that though? …okay, cool. So what? How were they? Where are they?... Seriously.

After checking out the caves though we went to some natural sulfur springs nearby that we also had read about in a guide book. I was once again incredibly impressed by the daladala which navigated down a footpath to get there that at times wasn’t more than six inches wider than the entire van but we still made it. They were also in a much more rural area and you could tell that the locals who populated the area were mostly farmers as there were little crops growing nearby and the many coconut trees had steps cut into them to make them easier to climb. One of the local men that we came into contact with along the way was wearing a “World’s Greatest Grandpa” shirt which was inappropriate given his age but totally appropriate given the theme of inappropriate t-shirts for the day. We were able to stand on this board down the creek from the spring a little more than ankle-deep and feel the warm water and such (apparently it is supposed to be therapeutic or something) and it was cool except a plywood board under water is more slippery than I anticipated and I may have almost gone all the way in on accident.

That was about that though when it comes to our tourism of the area and we were incredibly hungry because we had skipped lunch due to our late arrival. The dinner place we wound up thought it would be alright to make us wait two hours for food too though which was awful but it’s nothing that three beers and some pizza can’t solve. We chose to take advantage of having a personal driver for the trip and go out to a club where we had a guaranteed ride home already paid for. This is the part of the trip that gives this post its title. The actual club wasn’t outstanding at all – we weren’t allowed to bring drinks onto the dance floor and I was seriously suspecting every woman in the place that wasn’t one we came with to be a prostitute (I’m almost positive that far beyond half of the women dancing at this place by the end of the night was a prostitute; no joke.) There were also some Peace Corps people who were there celebrating the end of their training thing before they all ship out to various parts of the country or area to work on their projects. I wish I would have gotten to talk to them too and maybe my night still would have been great if I had, but these still aren’t the reasons why last night was outstanding. I ordered my beer, danced a little bit, and took a seat on one of the nearby couches to let more people show up because we got there a little early. Some soccer was on T.V. and they had a crappy projector showing it on a screen there but the game ended soon so the manager or somebody just started channel-surfing. That’s when I saw it. It didn’t even last a minute at first before it disappeared again but I couldn’t believe my eyes. The channels started changing again and it didn’t come back on within a minute so it was time to take necessary measures. Even if I had been mistaken, it was something I needed to know for sure: The Blazers/Hornets game was on television in Tanga, Tanzania after 12 AM.

I took action to find out who was in charge of channel selection and found the culprit pushing the buttons on a T.V. in the main room. I explained to him that this was my team playing from my home town in America and that we would really like to watch the game. He complied without hassle and I returned to my seat to continue living this dream. Regardless of what song came on or who told me I was being lame for spending the night staring at a horribly projected and horribly played game, I did not move from my seat. It really was a horrible game though and it looked to me like Chris Paul got injured again like he did last year when we played the Hornets. It was the first Blazers action I’ve really seen though since last April or whenever we got knocked out of the playoffs. The first time I got to see Andre Miller in a Blazers uniform. It was probably one of the worst games they will play this season, especially against a team whose head coach just got fired a day or two before this game, but it was the most phenomenal thing I had ever seen. It was even the Portland broadcast though we didn’t have audio so I couldn’t hear the commentary of Mike and Mike. It was also a condensed version of the game so there were no commercials in the broadcast which was awesome though it did skip a few minutes of playing here and there. We were able to get a win though and that’s what really matters. Even writing about it now, I am reliving the magic and I can’t explain how good it felt even though anyone who watched at home probably was really disappointed to see such a bad game. At least someone out there watching appreciated it.

I was able to rejoin the group and dance for a little while before we called it a night. I had fun dancing and it reminded me of a lot of time spent in Vancouver back in the day in terms of the loudness, drunkenness, and experience that happens when the two combine. It was a pretty fun night but it doesn’t really even get close to comparing with the miracle that happened with that Blazer game. Seriously. We made it back to the hotel just fine and I finally got to make the phone call I had wanted to make all day. Quinn and I were able to talk for about an hour until I knew I should really get some sleep so I finally crawled into my bed with real sheets in a room with a ceiling fan. Does it get any better than that? (The correct answer is “yes, but not here.”)

Although I snoozed on my alarm a few times the next morning, I was lucky enough to have a moment of clarity where I realized that the hotel would only have breakfast for about another half hour and we had to check out an hour after that so I got myself in motion with just enough time to take care of both. We swam and ate lunch (delicious Indian food) at this place next door for a few hours after we officially checked out of our hotel. It was only 500 shillings for entrance and then we got to swim in the bay area that our hotel and this place are located at. It was alright though the water was dirty and I could feel little jellyfish stinging me towards the end though I only saw one the entire time because they were mostly clear or at least clearer than the water. We finally left Tanga though after lunch and the drive seemed to be much more cramped and uncomfortable than the first time. It was nice that our driver actually stopped to renew his license or something first, but when he stopped to buy a chicken for dinner along the way (a live chicken, which he closely inspected amongst other live chickens before buying and having it stowed in a woven cage in the back of the car) and also stopping in another town to buy some goat meat which he tied to the front left mirror of the car, probably so that flies couldn’t land on it. Did I mention that when you pullover in some little town areas, people will just walk up to you with these things to sell you? It was a pretty hefty chunk of goat meat too but it’s important to note that I’m almost positive most butcher shops and such don’t use refrigeration here so I don’t know what the whole procedure is here to go from slaughter to sales but it looked like it was dry, not still dripping blood or anything. Anyways, we made it back later than we expected because we were stuck in traffic for the last bit as we got back into Dar es Salaam and also because our driver had to buy his chicken and other stuff. Everyone was pretty exhausted but it was a good trip even if it was pretty short.

Before I wrap this up, I just want to note a few things. One is that I didn’t finish this before I was too tired and went to bed last night so I typed up the last bit in the morning. Today is now Monday which also marks the six week anniversary of my arrival. I also officially have residency in Tanzania as of Thursday so I am not a legitimate resident of Tanzania for the next year. This actually comes in really handy as it saves me a lot of money for travel and other activities. I hear taking the ferry to Zanzibar is usually $20 US but because I have residence now it is only like four or less though I probably also get to pay it in shillings instead of USD. Also, getting into the caves on Saturday only cost me 500 shillings because I had a photocopy of my residence permit instead of the 3600 that it cost those who forgot. I hear the internet is out on campus again so I don’t know when I’ll be able to post this but hopefully it’s sometime soon. Thanks everybody for reading though and one last tidbit of information to hold you over until next time is that I went to a class today where I had to stand outside and listen in through the window because it was so full. There were almost more students without desks standing or sitting on the floor than those with and that’s with people sharing the desks. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be like this every week which sucks and is actually affecting my education but it’s good because I’m realizing more as I’m here how invaluable a good, quiet classroom really is and how that can impact education.

Not Much to Say

Friday, November 13, 2009 12:26 PM

First off, I just want to say thank you to everyone for their feedback. As you all know, my access to internet is incredibly limited here so I have not really spent time directly responding to people’s comments, emails, and messages but I am reading them and I do appreciate them. Also, I feel I need to clarify something from my last post as a lot of people have contacted me about that specifically. I appreciate the concern and empathy, but what I was trying to convey through that post was that the week was over and things were getting better. This week has been at least 1000 times better than last week and all of those worries have dissolved. I wrote that I don’t really have anyone here to talk to and vent these frustrations (also I don’t want to bring anyone down by dumping all my worries on them) so that’s kind of what this blog is for. That was a bit of a release for me to write it all out and it’s sort of weird to have a therapeutic event be so public but I guess that’s just the nature of this blog.

I really have felt much better this week than last week. Instead of having my mind occupied with bad thoughts from back home, concern about life here and serious questions about the way they do business here, I have actually had lectures and homework that I need to focus on. One class in particular has been very good and challenging which I really appreciate though if it is challenging for me to do the readings and I am maybe one of two people with English as our mother tongue, I can’t imagine how difficult it is for even the German students in the class who speak English well, let alone the Tanzanians. I’ve been kept pretty busy with the assignments for that class but so far I am managing though I did miss the discussion this week on accident. Other classes are looking more promising too and I think I’m going to be taking a graduate level course here about gender and socio-economic development. I’m hearing less now about teachers who speak in Swahili for half of the class time but that may be because the people I know who were complaining have dropped those courses. It is ironic that the one teacher I had who assigned a textbook in Kiswahili is this white guy that I’m pretty sure is American. I think I’m dropping that class though.

There really isn’t much else to report on because I’ve spent most of this week busy doing homework. My body is kind of not being my friend right now though. I finally found some people to play basketball with so I have been doing that a bit lately though I rolled my ankle yesterday playing. The courts are pretty hood, no nets on the baskets and littered with little potholes so I wasn’t paying attention right when we got out there yesterday and I rolled it stepping into one of the potholes on accident. I was able to play through it and we played for like 45 minutes but last night and this morning have had some swelling and discomfort. I don’t think, and I’m serious here, that I have seen ice in this country yet so I can’t really get a bag of ice or an ice pack to put on it either. In all reality, it’s not that serious though and I definitely rolled it worse multiple times in senior year alone. This is one of those things that people like to email me advice on and I appreciate it though I’m probably just going to take it easy on it until the swelling is done so unless you know about some secret remedy, I am probably just going to do my own thing. I’ve also been getting kind of irritated skin on my chest, armpit area and elsewhere probably because I’ve had the luxury of soft clothes my entire life until now so there is some adjustment to my now stiff clothes. Also it’s kind of itchy and rash-like though and that’s probably because I sweat all of the time here when I’m outside and that can’t be washed off immediately. Now this would be something good to contact me about if you have advice because it would be nice to get through this as soon as possible and before it gets worse. Should I get some baby powder or something?

Sorry for sharing my medical history on here because you were probably hoping for something exciting. I just thought I would write something on here to give people an update even if it’s not exciting because it’s been a little while. This is reality though and it can’t always be exciting. I’m leaving here at 5 AM tomorrow to go to Tanga though so hopefully I will have a good experience there that will give me plenty to write about when I get back. Unfortunately I will also have a lot of homework to do after I return so I may not be able to sit down and write about this trip. I’ll do my best though and hope to get back on here soon to share some good news.

A Rough Week

Sunday 8 November 2009 10:27 AM

I’ve officially been in Tanzania for a month as of November 5th and generally I would write up some reflective post about all that has happened since I first left my home in Portland what seems like forever ago but I have been really distracted by so many other things that have going on around here recently. Like I last wrote, classes didn’t actually start on Monday of Week 1 like they were supposed to and even Week 2 got off to a bit of a slow start, but once it got going it started going fast. I have had to juggle my schedule so much in the last few days and struggled with a lot of confusion and disappointment. I’m coping with the realization that my initial hopes were incredibly ambitious regarding the course schedule. When I first saw the course catalog, I had well over 30 classes that I thought would be so cool to take and I thought it would be so hard to have to pick and choose because they all sounded so cool. It’s really hard and a bit idiotic to make assumptions about a course based on only the course title which only about two to seven words long, but I may have neglected this fact early on. When I went to see which courses of those 30 were actually being offered this term, I found out it was probably not even nine of them. Among those nine, there were way too many overlaps and conflicts with lecture times so it wouldn’t even be possible to have some configurations with them. Additionally, we are only released from lectures at five ‘til (or so the official policy says but I’ve had a lot of classes go until five after so far) and this campus is much more difficult to navigate in a short amount of time than UBC or UO. It’s also good practice to arrive to class early to get a seat up front because most of the instructors speak with an accent that can be hard to understand and they also talk really quietly so you’re essentially screwed if you end up in the back. This combination made my “perfect” schedule collapse even further and things were looking much bleaker.

I still actually don’t know which classes I will be taking for the rest of the term and this is a bit bothersome because I can’t even write about all of these schedule woes in past tense. I have until Friday to decide which seems to be approaching at rocket speed because I only got more confused about all of this as the week went on. I know for sure that I have to take Kiswahili and also our special CIEE 1.5 credit class so that has helped narrow things down but my problem now is that my pool of courses to select from is getting too narrow. It’s really hard to write about this and I’m kind of all over the place but there are just so many flaws and difficulties with their system here that I can’t even write about one bad thing at a time because so many problems come to mind at once. For example, the course schedule was still changing on Monday of last week and it only takes one change to create a conflict and destroy your whole schedule. I know I’m going to forget about a lot of things because it’s giving me a headache just thinking about them all and I didn’t just write them down in a list. Things are so easy in the US when they create their master timetable six months in advance and classes are lined up so that they occur at the same time and in the same classroom every other day. Here my classes are held with no specific pattern what so ever in terms of time or location.

One reason for all of this stress is that I’m trying to take a diverse course load with classes from Political Science, Sociology, Kiswahili, History, and Development Studies instead of all in one major. A department can make it so that all of their third year classes are offered at times that don’t conflict but because lectures for classes are just held at random times throughout the week, there are so many conflicting times or impossible distances to walk in five minutes so I can only really get a schedule that works with about three classes. This is so far off from my original list of about 30 classes obviously and I’ve kept searching for more classes throughout the week, probably about another 30 that could be interesting and it’s hard to even get one class of that list of 30 that is actually being offered and doesn’t conflict with the other ones. On top of that, Ken failed to remind us until midway through last week that under the terms of our CIEE contract, we have to take one class explicitly about East Africa or Tanzania which we all thought was going to be much easier than it actually is. Every time we think we have things figured out, some new information comes to the table and then it’s right back to the drawing board. So frustrating. Ken also failed to remind us until Friday that we need to have full-time student status which he says is at least 17.5 credits here. That means at least six classes and we still have his 1.5 credit class once a week too. At UBC which is also on semesters we could only take a maximum of 18 credits in my first year so I find it hard to believe that the full-time student here has to take at least half a credit less than the maximum. I’m going crazy.

That’s actually something I’ve been saying all week. It was a very untouchable week where I just kept saying “don’t test me,” “I’m going crazy,” and so on. It’s been very tense and every time I think I have a new plan worked out, it falls to pieces. I only have until Friday to figure it out too because that’s the official end of the add/drop period for CIEE before they mail our course listing back to our advisors at home. I planned to just take classes that I heard from other students were really good and that has helped me find one awesome class to take – a sociology class that’s better than any sociology class I’ve taken at University of Oregon. However, what I’ve found is that there are very few classes people have gone to and enjoyed or had a good feeling about or they conflict with other classes I have to take. Also, I’m already behind in readings and assignments for this Sociology class which is only causing me more stress because if I go to other classes this late in the game, I’ll have to catch up so I’ve just been wasting time and stressing out this last week. I really hate this and it has caused me immense stress, confusion, and every other negative emotion.

I think I’ve exhausted myself writing about that topic even though there is so much more frustration that I could talk about with it. The reality of my bad week though was that I was already dealing with a lot of other tough things at the same time and it was just too much to handle. I could tell I was entering into the homesick phase of my journey before last week even started and I have been thinking about some other things that I don’t feel like writing about publicly here but were definitely heavily on my mind all last week. They still kind of are but it’s not nearly as bad now as it was. As if that wasn’t enough to throw me though, trying to figure out courses here (even just the format and expectations of classes – I forgot to write about that but I actually did end up in some classes) completely took me far away from the comfort of being here that I was starting to feel. It was different dealing with all of this new stress when I was just starting to get adjusted and so my expectations I had formed were falling apart. There was just too much stuff to deal with all at once. I also have a roommate now and even though I really like him, I no longer feel like I have any personal space anywhere on campus or in this country to just be alone and try and process things. Everything just sort of got bottled up and on Friday I finally just sort of couldn’t take it anymore and I broke down. I was well aware that I wasn’t enjoying my time here and I needed a new attitude fast because this is something I’ve been waiting to do for a long time and I’m going to enjoy it, dammit. So it was nice to just let loose and get everything out which I thought was completely necessary. I’m feeling significantly better ever since I bottomed out and my attitude is once again positive. It’s even more so positive towards some things, like living in a big city, than it was before so it feels like I’ve been reborn in a way.

There’s been so much thought and pressure put into this study abroad year because I feel like I’ve been planning on it for me whole life. Looking back now, I can tell that leading up to my departure, I had so many thoughts about how this was going to be, from wanting to be super prepared and well planned to just winging everything when I got there but being here is really not any different except that I’m here now. I really want to make this count and do this right but I have no idea what that entails or how to make the most out of this journey. Every step is another fork in the road. How am I supposed to act in this situation? How am I supposed to associate with? How do I maximize this trip and make it the most worthwhile and mind-altering event in my life? Is it unfair to even put that much pressure on my everyday life here? I’ve been doing what I usually do when I’m in this situation and just ignoring these questions to just live my life the way that I find myself doing. I prefer to go with the flow for the most part instead of trying to create something significant out of nothing but I can’t help but wondering if I’m just going to spend a year here and not actually feel any differently by the time I’m done. Like I said, I’ve waited for this for a long time and I don’t want to let a second go to waste. When I have bad weeks like I just did, I can’t help but question if I’m squandering my time here because I should be enjoying every second. This is what I wanted right?

I hope all of this sort of makes you understand what it’s like to be in my head right now because there is never a second here where there is a shortage of thoughts in my mind or things to be considered.

Now is a pretty confusing and trying time for us here at the University of Dar es Salaam. I’m about to go to the mall to use internet again and post these because we still don’t have campus internet (last time we did was two weeks ago yesterday) and it doesn’t look like we will have any in the foreseeable future either. I only have been online for half an hour total in the last two weeks and I kept holding out because they made it sound like they would have it back sometime soon. Yesterday we checked though and they finally admitted that they had no clue when it would be back and can no longer deny this fact so they were a little embarrassed about this.

Some of the other people here still don’t have roommates either and I’ve been told it is because the government still hasn’t given a lot of people their loans yet. School even started two months later this year so that the government and university would have time to get their act together on the whole loan issue. However, that hasn’t been accomplished and we also are getting running water less frequently while the internet hasn’t worked at all on campus for over two weeks now. This puts a lot of stress on students who many people are predicting will go on strike again sometime in the next couple weeks. I’ll have to talk to my roommate more about this soon before I make any more assumptions but a strike has the potential to completely change our circumstances here. In the event of a strike and protest, international visiting students previously have had small tutoring sessions set up for them so that they are still able to complete their studies here. That doesn’t sound that bad but I’ve heard that they were a complete joke last year so they could be a big waste of time. I also fear that a strike will push the starting dates for the next term of study here back even further which could potentially eliminate any chance of having a summer back home for even a month. This is obviously something I want to avoid so while I’m posting these today, I’ll also be sending emails trying to set up an internship or something that I can start after my first term here.

Classes are somewhat in limbo here too. I didn’t have any real courses start last week asides from the one run by our CIEE Director here. I started my Kiswahili one yesterday too but that probably was only because of pressure from our director. I’ve tried to go to classes and they’ve been full of students, but no professors have shown up yet. It’s been really confusing and tough in that respect and I think we’ve lost sight of what we’re supposed to be doing here but this might just be part of the process. I have to go now because I want to hurry up and get these posted. I started writing something up about my birthday here but I don’t know if I’ll ever get that finished unfortunately. We’ll see though but in the mean time, wish me luck.

Simba SC vs. Yanga SC

Yesterday, I finally made it to the stadium in the image at the top of this blog. I’ve wanted to change that photo for quite some time now because I am nowhere near that part of town when I am at UDSM and also the sky view of a part of Dar es Salaam really makes it look so much more peaceful than it feels. I wrote in my first post about how Dar es Salaam means “Haven of Peace” but our experiences yesterday were quite distant from anything peaceful. It all goes back to our lectures a couple weeks ago on safety and security.

As I’ve written previously, messages on security on campus and around town have been pounded into our head early on in this program and made a lot of us paranoid. This made trying to arrange a trip to Taifa Stadium to watch a soccer match between two local teams much more difficult as we had to make sure we took appropriate transportation and went with informed and trustworthy people. We didn’t even end up going to the game with the local people who originally invited us because not everyone thought they could trust this guy and they sullied his image with our program director who hadn’t even met him but is already suspicious of everyone. We still wound up with a very large group though with all 11 people from CIEE going as well as about 12 or so mostly European people who are students here and two people who work in the links office at UDSM. The Links Office is a service set up for exchange students and I wrote about how Batista, one of their employees, went with us to Morogoro the weekend before this.

It was an incredible hassle to organize this whole trip as we weren’t able to get tickets until just a day or two before the match and at a price double what we were originally told (still only about $8 USD though). I have to thank Jacob, my Danish floormate, for doing most of the hard work necessary to actually get the tickets, though because he knows me best of all the people in CIEE, I became responsible for coordinating everything amongst our own scattered group. (Special note here though is that poor Jacob couldn’t even make it to the game because he has malaria and the other girl who went through all of the trouble to get the tickets also missed the game because she was taking him to the hospital.) I also said I would find us group transportation because I thought that would be a little easier than it ended up being. After burning through the same number of minutes in about 24 hours that previously took me three weeks, most of us were on our way to the game in a hired daladala with almost enough seats. It took a lot of stress but it was relieving to finally be on the way using a driver we’d used before and have a ticket in my pocket. As for the others who took their own transportation, they were no longer my problem.

About 18 of us were dropped off less than a kilometer from the entrance to the stadium and the walk there wasn’t very difficult but more just incredibly busy and a little exciting. The lines to get in were a bit interesting though as it seemed like it was some sort of attempt to break the Guinness record for largest mass spooning session, but I guess that’s what you do when you don’t want to get cut in line. Actually that’s probably why so many people got in front of me and throughout our group in line because we didn’t quite play ball. It was a crazy scene though as a police officer (all of the police in this story look like soldiers, by the way, with that same pea green uniform, berets, red shoulder things and other indications that seem more militaristic than normal civilian police) on a horse just rode into the waiting crowd and started swinging his stick-whip wildly. I hadn’t quite figured out why or at who at this point and even this morning as I write this, I still am not completely sure. It seemed like that guy had just rode out when another cop, this time on the other side of the crowd, starts swinging his baton at people and making them all back away. It’s discouraging to not only worry about getting beaten by other soccer fans but also the police.

As if that weren’t enough excitement though, our super nice guy, friend and guide, Batista, whom I’ve only ever seen smiling, has got a guy by the wrist who tried to reach into his pocket. Seeing the fire in his eyes as he was about to kick this guy’s ass was actually pretty frightening to me and the crowd tried to calm him down and get him back in line. Still pretty spooky though but I guess that’s what Halloween is about, right? It was good to finally just make it through the gates into the area outside the stadium though with all of my stuff in my pockets still. It wasn’t that I did notice a hand on my hip near my left pocket but probably that I had my hands pressed to my sides at pocket level while stretching my t-shirt down below my pockets so as to cover them well might have kept me theft-free for the time being. At least a quarter of the 25 or so people who went to the game yesterday had someone else’s hand in their pockets at one point.

The two teams playing were called Simba SC and Yanga SC which are two of a few teams local to Dar es Salaam. Yes, Simba means “lion” in Kiswahili for those Lion King fans out there. I think SC either stands for soccer club or sports club but I’m pretty sure that Yanga is for “Young Africans”. Prior to the game, Simba’s record was 9-0-0 which is pretty unbelievable and they’d already defeated Yanga once this season. This game was significant though not only because both clubs are good, but they have the two largest fan bases in the league and they are also both local so there is a rivalry. This is probably why the game was played at this stadium instead of the smaller ones they usually play at. I also learned long after the game that they only just recently let them play their games in Dar es Salaam again because the rivalry was so intense. This rivalry became much more apparent once we got to the game though.

Simba has been having an incredibly successful season and were probably already popular before now, but I have seen red and white (their team colors) all over town on flags and such for weeks now. I was originally planning on going to the game dressed in Simba colors but I was swayed the other way right before we left for the game, here’s why: I usually prefer to root for the underdog instead of just joining the bandwagon, I was not at all emotionally invested in either team so I didn’t think it would really matter, Yanga’s colors are green and yellow. Now there is another game that should be finished by now between a green and yellow team and a team that wears red and white so what would any good Duck fan do? I am still eagerly awaiting the results to see if my Ducks were able to fall the Trojans in Autzen by the way. Please don’t break my heart. Returning to the story though, I went to the game in my “Live Green, Yell O” 2008-2009 University of Oregon spirit tee which for those of you who don’t know is yellow with a green superman-like emblem in the center. Dylan, from Beaverton, also came in a green U of O shirt to the game. A few of the other people had on some red and white but for the most part the others wore neutral colors; a wise decision.

We walked up to one of the top levels of the stadium and just going in to find some seats. I hear an uproar right as we walk out towards the seats and I look down at the field to see if perhaps the teams took to the field or something, but there was nothing there. It only took a couple seconds to realize that they were booing me because I had entered the Simba section wearing Yanga colors. I saw all of these wide-eyed people standing and pointing at me, probably shouting some horrible obscenities that I haven’t learned to translate yet and I sort of thought that it was just friendly coaxing so I played along and pretended to cover up my shirt. They wouldn’t actually kick me out would they? As the rest of the group is searching for seats, I’m being pushed away and told by a soldier that I’m in the wrong section and need to leave. I grabbed Dylan and the soldier said he would show us where we were supposed to be. The rest of the group didn’t even notice we were being escorted out to rapturous applause but the police officer just pawned us off on some other guy wearing green and sent us on our way. It was at this point that we’d given up on ever seeing the rest of our group again or even making it home.

“That was intense,” I thought as I told Dylan that we probably wouldn’t survive the walk to our daladala after the game and perhaps it would be best to just get into a cab quickly after the game and escape alive. I guess at least we’d be sitting with people who would be really into the game and not likely to murder us for our “allegiance”. It proved incredibly difficult though just to find the correct entrance for our tickets, but when we got outside the stadium again, we saw some other white people from our group walking up towards we had to go. After unsuccessfully trying to flag them down or getting a glimpse of where they were headed, we resigned once again just to take our seats and figure it out from there. Only by pure fate did we see them again taking their seats right in the section where we were supposed to sit though and thank God we were in Yanga territory. The people I mentioned earlier in Simba colors had to buy yellow jerseys and received applause from the fans as a result. I don’t know if you can actually buy Yanga jerseys though as most of the people we saw were wearing South Africa soccer jerseys, or Brazilian ones, and there were a few people in Packers gear. One guy was even wearing a Sean Kemp jersey. I think we got some slack because we are white but the local fans who found themselves in the wrong section were not only booed and ostracized but had their shirts literally torn off of their torsos before being ripped to shreds and tossed down to the field. Dylan and I discovered that we probably got off pretty light. We also were all well aware that this wouldn’t be the innocent soccer game that we thought it would be.

The actual stadium was in unbelievable shape and has been the only (and I honestly mean only) building I’ve seen in the entire country that has been maintained. They said it just opened up two years ago but even other buildings still being built already look weathered. It seemed out of place but just being there in such a different seen really transports you to a place that doesn’t feel quite like the rest of the Tanzanian experience so far. It was kind of nice to forget just where I was for a while but it didn’t last forever. The actual game was pretty uneventful and not really worth writing about other than the fact that the refs most definitely are not whistle-happy but during the game, one guy in Simba colors came into a section near ours and provoked some Yanga fans. For a while most everyone that could watch this drama unfold was watching this instead of the actual game. As I saw this guy getting punched in the face and pushed over the railing into the little dugout thing separating the bleachers from the field, I turned my head in time to see Yanga get scored on due to just poor defense. It wouldn’t surprise me if they players were watching this scuffle too. It’s important to note here that there are about two to five soldier/policemen at each entrance to the stands and they all have batons and/or a gun for launching teargas. I’m sure they were aware that this guy was in serious danger but none of them really did anything to put an end to it. The guy climbed out of the sunken area, wielding some mangled metal thing that might have been a frame for a chair but had probably been hurled at him a couple minutes before. With a menacing look in his eye he made his path directly back to where he had been assaulted earlier with one goal only: retribution. He walked through at least four sections during which not a single policeman walked down and put a stop to it. It was like a car crash that you can’t help but stare at as he got closer and closer with this lethal object in his hand and clear intent. I was frightened that I was going to witness a murder instead of just a soccer game. Thank God it was broken up before it could come to fruition but it was still a clear reminder that we had to be careful now more than ever.

We opted to leave a few minutes early at the advice of Batista so that we would miss the chaos and maybe stand a chance of making it to our daladala who agreed to pick us up. We were a little more numerous now because some people came from different places to get to the game but we were also a little slow at getting moving and this may have been our downfall. Although we could see a lot of people trickling out of the stadium at the same time as ourselves, it seemed to be only rowdy Simba fans in every direction after we got out of entrance gates. The game still technically wasn’t over yet, but it was clear that Simba would get the victory and our color choice made us an even easier target for ridicule from those wearing red and white. We didn’t have excellent cohesion as a total group and some of the slower walkers and stragglers soon found themselves in danger. A group of men surrounded some of the people who were the furthest back and they were only able to get free almost unscathed thanks to a couple quick shoves from our buddy from Wisconsin. Other people further up realized that they couldn’t see some of our group any more that were in the situation I just described so they tried to call them. One guy had the fun smacked out of his hand and was only able to recover the battery and battery cover. Another girl from our group had an attempted snatch at her phone but she flailed her arm loose before the guy just punched her in the face and ran away. At what had to be almost the exact same time, at least one of the girls from our group had her purse snatched. I don’t think she let go easy though and might have been yoked by the purse strap around her neck a little bit. We heard her scream and turned around to see this chaos unfold. One person pointed out the guy who was clearly holding something under his shirt and walking away quickly but he was amongst maybe 15 other people who all seemed aware of just what was going on but had obviously chosen the side of the thief over that of the foreigners. We paused to regroup and it took what seemed like a tense eternity to get everyone together and moving again.

At this point, the game was officially over and the Simba fans had come jogging out of the stadium in a solid mass and cheering down the streets. They caught up with us pretty fast, especially because we were stopped and waiting. Someone snagged the purse of local girl though and she shouted “Mwizi!” (“Thief!”) and looked so estranged and helpless. We needed to leave and soon. We formed a tighter formation to move down the street and eyed everyone with immense suspicion. There was a lot of distress amongst our people and even being in the daladala with the windows shut didn’t make anyone feel much safer. We easily had more than 25 people in this one little minibus for more than an hour on the ride back and everyone was still just trying to process the madness that just happened. I’m the worst in these situations because I make too many jokes and it’s almost never me who these bad things happen to so I’m usually the last voice people want to hear. Still, I can’t help myself but try to lighten the mood sometimes.

It had been a stressful, dangerous, frightening, you name it day but we pulled up to our residence hall finally. All anyone really wanted was to call someone they love, eat some dinner and have a beer to relax. I returned to my room about two seconds after the door shut and I found I had a new roommate. I knew he would be moving in this weekend and I kind of expected him to be there when we got back, but it still could have come at a better time. I’m still meeting him and getting acquainted so I’ll write more about what he’s about when I figure out how that is. Even after we had a couple drinks and dinner though, I walked back with my friend Elise to her dorm and we saw someone lurking in the bushes outside of her residence hall. This could have come at a much better time too.

This is the experience I signed up for though and it’s most definitely a rude awakening but there are several risks that exist everywhere we go. I was trying to be proactive and didn’t have anything happen to me really so I’m pretty fortunate in that sense though it’s still tough to witness. I just got a text message from Dylan who went to the mall to get internet and check the scores to the Ducks/Trojans game. I guess Yanga’s loss last night wasn’t a bad omen after all but I can’t help but imagine now how my life would be much different were I at home now instead of here. I would have loved to see the Ducks stomp USC but my life has been a series of poor timing. I’m generally in the wrong place at the wrong time it seems but I can’t imagine it any other way. Everyone has different experiences and all I can do is have my own.