Imagine this....

This may have been the best week of my 20-year long life so far. I can’t possibly tell you everything that happened, but I’ll start with what I think may have been the best day of the best week of my life.  My “Birthday”.

Last Saturday I woke up at around 6 to watch the sunrise atop the roof of our six story tall hotel in Dar Es Salaam (six stories is very high for that area- most buildings are about the size of Minnesotan ice houses). I think the smog makes the sunrise more beautiful, as distressing as that thought is. I read my book (The Poisonwood Bible- highly recommended) for an hour before I went down to meet all of my fellow students to go on SAFARI! We ate breakfast and hopped in our land rover (ridiculous in the city but absolutely necessary in the bush).

On the way out of the city we stopped at a market where one of the three cars was swarmed by about 300 screaming children. I swear that sound is unlike anything I have ever heard… It was unbelievable to see that many kids come out of one street dressed in the same blue bottoms and white tops, screaming in unison and running as fast as their little legs could take them- directly at us. While we were stopped I smiled at a woman in another car and she offered me a MONKEY. She wanted to give us this baby monkey… after much debating, we decided against accepting the monkey, but I still wish we had taken it. Afterwards, we drove and drove out into rural Tanzania- we passed through cities made entirely of bright red dirt- the houses, the roads, the landscape, everything is a firey red color. As you drive through each village you hear the screams of children as they come sprinting toward your car screaming, “Mzungu!” We passed pineapple plantations, where they grow most of the pineapple for the entire country. There are papayas, mangoes, coconuts and cassava growing everywhere- and nearly all of the countryside looks like it has been used for slash and burn agriculture in the past few decades. Baobab trees tower over everything else and you can see them way off in the distance. When we drove to the top of a hill and saw the mountains for the first time I swear we all stopped talking.

After about three hours of driving, one of the cars got a flat tire. This might sound bad, but it was a really good thing. We stopped in a town along the way, where another student and I befriended a young girl named Sofia. She took us around the town, introduced us to her friend’s mother, took us to the market, and showed us around a bit. It was so awesome to be able to communicate in Swahili with someone I never imagined I would meet.

Our safari guides drove like madmen. I don’t think I would have been able to visualize the types of roads that we would be driving on before seeing them. But the drivers drove down them at no less than 100 km/hr (is that like 60-65 mph?). They are narrow, to the point where one car might have to drive partly off the road if you want to pass, and enormous trucks full of pineapples or 40 people hanging out the sides or maybe full of mattresses and bricks would come barreling down the road, head-on, at about the same speed. The rules of the road are as follows: the larger of two vehicles honks continuously at the smaller of two (or more) vehicle(s), until the smaller one moves off the road. There is no slowing down, certainly no stopping, unless absolutely necessary. You go faster on straight road, slightly slowed on curvy/bumpy/washed out road, but you never, ever, waste any time. These rules apply to anything on the road- including women with 5 gallon buckets of water on their heads, or bikes carrying enormous heaps of charcoal ar tree branches. It is unbelievable. The two people in the backseat of my car were holding hands, while one clutched a small stuffed animal like her life depended on it. At the moment, I was having a great time- about 15% terrified and 85% thrilled at the adventure. In retrospect, I probably should have reversed those percentages. 

As we approached our destination, Saadani National Park, warthogs and baboons greeted us from the trees. After about 5 hours of driving, we pitched our tents and went out on safari. Almost immediately we saw monkeys, baboons, lots of different kinds of antelope-like animals (waterbucks, redbacks, and at least 2-3 other kinds). Off in the distance we saw giraffes, and as we got closer I could see their eyeballs through binoculars. We spotted 2 lions ever so briefly, just their faces among the trees. We drove right up next to small herds of zebras, wildebeasts and water buffalo. It was awesome. I think my favorite was probably the warthogs, though- I never realized that they had blonde-ish Mohawk-like hair and big, poofy mutton chops. And they walk so funny…. Cohabitating with the wildebeasts, but so obviously less graceful. We drove into the lion king-like sunset and came back to our campsite/cabin to eat a delicious dinner prepared over a campfire, including my birthday cake, which was delicious.

I think it was destiny that it would be such a good day, because people were planning to make it special for about a week in advance. My birthday falls on August third (8-3-87) and it just so happens that the date 8-3-87 means MARCH 8 in most of the rest of the world… so a couple nights before March 8, people started asking me when my birthday was. To make a long story short, all of the students figured out it was not going to be my birthday for another 5 months, but we decided to keep it a secret so we could get a cake… and the card that they made was pretty funny (with inscriptions such as: “Happy fake birthday” and “I can’t believe you lied and told me your birthday was in August”) so we decided to have a grand celebration anyways.  I told our academic director that it was not my birthday, and even she said to pretend so that we could have a birthday cake. So ridiculous. So we celebrated my birthday, ate cake, and walked about 20 yards out to the Indian Ocean to go swimming.

The night was incredibly clear- the Milky Way has NEVER looked so bright to me, not even in the boundary waters. You can see some of the same constellations as the northern hemisphere, but so many other ones as well. I think there are more stars in the southern hemisphere, personally, or maybe there are just fewer lights. I haven’t figured that one out yet. So the sky was full of sparkles, but the WATER was full of more. If any of you have ever been swimming in the ocean at night you know that there are tiny plankton that light up when you splash- so we swam at night, with the water full of lights and the sky full of lights and a light up Frisbee being thrown on the beach and shooting stars everywhere. It rained that night, and we got drenched our tent, but it was good because we woke up at about 4:50 AM (before our 5:30 wake up call), but enough time to swim in the ocean before our sunrise safari.

So that was one day of our trip- I can’t imagine telling you about every day because each one has crazy adventures like that. We saw hippos and crocodiles on our boat safari the next day, and just the day before that we went sailing to a remote island in a traditional dhow sailing boat, where I saw sting rays and cuddlefish, and squids. We did this thing called a “Manta tow,” where you cling to a wooden plank and get dragged behind a motor boat with a snorkel and mask to see everything in the water quickly. If you tilt the board downwards, you speed under water and can dive way down to get a closer look at sea turtles or coral formations or whatever you want. It was so fun. And we did it with the man who wrote our textbook about the Indian Ocean… It was really cool.

Well, obviously there is more to tell you, but I will leave it at that for now. I miss and love you all. I want to send birthday love to some of you- there are a lot of birthdays in March- especially Megan (my sister- for those of you who haven’t met her), Kayla, and Lauren O. Thanks for the letters James and Jean- I got them this morning and will write back soon! And I know that I’ve had a few people still have trouble calling, so let me reiterate phone numbers. Dial 011 (to get out of the country) 255 (To get to Zanzibar) and then 0777641798 (my phone number). If that doesn’t work- double check the country code for Tanzania/Zanzibar on google.

I also want to ask all of your advice/help on summer plans. I’m pretty sure I want to stay after the program for at least two weeks to travel to the Serengetti, Ngorongoro crater, and Mt. Kilimanjaro, and I might even want to stay after to volunteer somewhere in Tanzania for the summer. I know a lot of you told me you had connections in Tanzania- if you do and think they might like a volunteer for a month or so, please let me know and I will get in contact with them (my email is anna.santo@oberlin.edu). I’m getting nervous about not having a summer job- I applied for a few but have a feeling that I may not get any of them, so I’m trying to figure something out… OR, if any of you know anyone looking for someone to work this summer- PLEASE let me know. It’s definitely harder to find a job in Africa . I would love to work anywhere around the country, so even if it is far away, that is a good thing… I obviously love to travel. THANKS!

Here comes the downpour- the rainy season has begun!!!! Maybe I’ll go splash in the puddles once it calms down.