The most impressive angry noises I have ever heard from a domesticated animal...

I’m pretty sure that today is the four month anniversary of when I left home. It’s crazy to think about this period of four months- in some ways it seems really short, and in others it seems like an eternity... Chris and I have so much planned for our last 7 weeks here, including trips to Malawi, Kenya and the Serengeti!

We have started our work at the Wildlife Conservation Society, and I think it’s accurate to say that our work is in full swing. I really like the experience of working in an office environment in such a different place. Each day is so hit and miss. For example, I don’t think anybody really cares when and where people show up for work. We usually come in at 9 or so, after a leisurely morning of cooking breakfast and walking the half-mile or so to the office, and it’s completely unpredictable what the situation will be when you arrive. Some days there are literally 8 or 9 people packed in the same small room- typing away on laptops, making phone calls, or just sitting staring into the distance. Other days, like today, we came in at about 9:30 or 10, thinking that we were late, and the place was literally deserted. Some days there is internet, some days there isn’t, but regardless nearly everyone’s work depends on it. I listen to peoples’conversations as they crowd around what we were told was the “compulsory” tea, about how what this office really needs is porridge, not tea. Languages go berzerk here, with some people fluent in some languages and others barely coherent with their broken English or Swahili. There is a balance of men and women in the office, though they have kind of taken on stereotypical roles within the organization. Every once in a while, someone bursts into uncontrollable laughter when they get chain mail in their email inboxes from their coworkers... and there are at least 50 large jars filled with various kinds of fish and other aquatice creatures displayed in a glass case that covers the majority of one of the walls.

In a few days we’ll be taking our projects (which include redesigning the Ruaha website, analyzing elephant conflict data, analyzing trends in prices of staple crops and bushmeat over the past several years, reorganizing the photo database, and potentially writing an article for Africa Geographic- a conservation magazing- about water diversion problems from the Great Ruaha River) back to the bush once again where the elephants roam and the hippos bellow all night long. I’m really excited to go back- our tent has been unoccupied for about a week now. The city where we are- Iringa- is really cool, but the bush is much more exhilirating.

One of my favorite things about Iringa so far has just been sitting, walking, and occcasionally running around the city and observing the surroundings. Chris and I have both developed a wild fascination with all other Westerners and our interactions with them. There are an extraordinary number of people who are clearly foreigners here- and they come in all forms. For instance, yesterday we saw a stout, middle-aged white man wearing an oversized cowboy hat standing outside of the artillery store near a large water buffalo statue. Another example, about 3 months ago, I emailed a really well known British ornithologist, he wrote back saying that he would be out of touch because he was going to chase storks for a long period of time. This same man offered us a ride home today in his large, run-down safari vehicle. We often find ourselves pretending not to notice or be particularly interested in the other westerners who we see walking around, but I think our interest is very apparent... because their interest in us is equally apparent.

Another one of my favorite things to observe are the groups of people who congregate together just to sit and have a chat. Even in Zanzibar, I often found myself wondering if groups of people like the one that I found myself with would ever interact if they were in the US. For example, one night in Zanzibar some of us went out to a little bar near where we were staying. I looked around and took note of the people we were sitting with. It was Chris (the girl), our friend Kassim (who every single person I have introduced to him has later made some comment about how intimidatingly large he is), a very introverted, quatrilingual, Zanzibari friend of ours, an old crazy man who is convinced that he is the last sultan of Zanzibar, and this rotund Arab man who was from out of town and reminded me of a Cheech and Chong-type character. Chris and I just watched as these men lit cigarettes, passed them around to one another, until they reached the Sultan man. As soon as he got a hold of the cigarette, he promptly buried it in his small potted plant that he carried with him everywhere. The rest of the men proceeded to get very angry.

My other favorite thing to observe are the animals that roam freely around the city. Every day Chris and I walk home along the one busy street near where we live. Enormous buses and all sorts of decked out safari vehicles constantly zoom past, but this activity strangely doesn’t seem to disturb large herds of cattle, goats, maybe some donkeys, lots of chickens, and many other species that wande the streets. The day before yesterday, I was walking alone and an exceptionally large herd of goats came bleating past at an impressive trot. I took note, but wasn’t that surprised. Maybe 3 more minutes into my walk, however, I came across the very distraught, angry goat who had lost its way. I’m not sure if it was ever reunited with the rest of the herd, but it made some of the most impressive angry noises I have ever heard from a domesticated animal.

Since coming here, we have heard several times that the average income for a Tanzanian person is less than a dollar a day. Chris and I have been talking about how this initally sounded absurd to us- that even in this country you would starve with that amount of money. More and more, though, we are starting to think that it might be possible. Many people here grow a lot of their food- every inch of many peoples’ yards are turned into gardens or fields. The ditches along roads are full of corn and nearly every tree around here grows edible fruits. You can buy a large cabbage in the market for about 10 cents. Yesterday we bought a large plastic bag full of tomatoes and onions and it was only about 40 cents. I think we are going to start keeping track of how much money we spend per day, to see whether we could live on a similar amount of money.

Okay. We have big plans to go to the post office and purchase a pineapple. Hope all is well in America , that summertime has finally arrived in full force, and that hail hasn’t been too big of a problem in the recent past (those pictures of the hail in MN were unbelievable!). Love.

New address...

I've gotten a few requests for a new address. If you want to send letters, etc. you can send them here:

Anna Santo
c/o Wildlife Conservation Society
Box 1654
Iringa, Tanzania
East Africa

Just keep in mind that I'll probably be leaving here the first week of July and it takes about 2 weeks for mail to get here. You can also send letters to:

Box 3040 Vuga St.
Zanzibar, Tanzania
East Africa

And I'll get them up until I leav (July 18). Okay... I have loved all of the letters and postcards so far. Thanks :)

I have some stories brewing but no time to write them now. More later.

PICTURES!

As promised, here are some links to pictures from the past few months. I haven't had time to write in everyones' names or where everything is yet, but if you look again in a week or so maybe I will have done that. Maybe.

Enjoy.

An album of mostly people....
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032237&l=c885d&id=4303159

Safaris and wildlife, etc...
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032298&l=e8f90&id=4303159

Mostly from the ocean...
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032239&l=90273&id=4303159

Random assortment...
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032380&l=04fe4&id=4303159

Zanzibar and Dar Es Salaam
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032241&l=3d6d6&id=4303159

Pictures from our Independent Study Project on (mostly) Pemba Island
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032240&l=a1412&id=4303159

Just to let you know, there are elephants in camp...

Each morning, when we wake up, Chris and I have developed this routine. It isn't intentional, it just sort of happens this way... Here's how it goes.

1) One of us wakes up, opens their eyes a little and then closes them. Immediately afterward, they realize where we are, and their eyes shoot open much wider than believed to be humanly possible.
2) Awake person takes a deep breath, gets up and walks around the tent. Listens to the river and any sort of large predators off in the distance. Starts to get ready for the day.
3) Rustling of person #1 and sounds of elephants and lions cause person #2 to awake. They slightly open their eyes, close them, then they shoot open like person #1.
4) Person #2 gets up, scùttles to the window, peers out.
5) Person #1 says, "Yep. Still here..."
6) Person #2 repeats "Still here..."

It's kind of a nice reality check every morning. I can probably speak for the both of us when I say that we have come to enjoy the routine, which made yesterday's wake up call even stranger than one might already think it was. Here's what happened...

Yesterday we woke up to someone coming into the tent, saying, "Just to warn you, there are elephants in the camp." This seemed like a funny observation to me because OF COURSE we had noticed that there were elephants outside of our tent. As the largest terrestrial animal, they are pretty bad at being discreet about their arrival and morning feast on the surrounding trees. And, its not like they were a ways away where we might have questioned the noises that we were hearing, they literally left grapefruit-sized poops just a few paces from our tent... So, needless to say, our usual wake up routine was disturbed by our visitors, though I thoroughly enjoyed their appearance.

I don't know if any of you have ever heard of Larium, the malaria prevention drug that causes crazy dreams and sometimes makes people a little psychotic, but Chris and I are both taking it. The dreams that I have had for the past 4 months have been strange to say the least, but I am usually pretty amused by them. FOr instance, I recently dreamt that a man we met on a boat brought us to his mansion where there were warthogs swimming in their large pool... But yesterday my dreams took a turn for the worst. I had a dream that my friend was eaten by a crocodile (for those of you who were in Zanzibar- I'm talking about Devon) and it scared me so much... The strangest part was to wake up to the sounds of what I think were crocodiles in the river below us. In retrospect, it was ridiculous to freak myself out like that, but in the African bush it is hard to slow down your heart beat in the middle of the night.

So for those of you who have loyally stuck out this entire blog process sans pictures, I have very good news. Pictures are one their way. I managed to get a total of 3 pictures on photobucket in one hour, but then realized that I can upload them through facebook really easily. I've already put about 300 pictures up, and as soon as I straighten them out and label them, etc., I'll put a link to all of them up here. I hope you like them... Give me a few days and then check back.

The family that we are living with here are so amazing. It's really funny to see what has been normalized for the two kids, ages 7 and 9. When we sit around the bonfire eating dinner each night and talk about anything and everything, the kids often have to ask what some of the things that we are talking about are. For example, questions like, "Who are Beavis and Butthead?", änd then we talk about our worst jobs ever, and they ask, "What's K-Mart", "What's Wendy's?" and even questions like, "What's carpet?"... And while they don't know what these things are, they can spot bat-eared foxes in the dead of night on one glance, and could tell you anything about the ecology of any animal in the bush.

I know I last told some people that their son had a pet falcon, though I must correct myself. It's actually an African Hawk Eagle and it escaped last night. The retrieval process this morning was incredible. It involved ladders and ropes and climbing a huge tree and carrying the eagle down in one arm while the other one hung on to branches. I am surprised that nobody died or broke any limbs.

Okay, today we are going back in to town, so I will have more tales of dental vests and down jackets soon. Baadaye.

Anna living out her elephantasies.

Hi loyal blog readers. This is Anna's dad. She's having trouble posting to the blog from her new spot in beautiful downtown nowhere, so she emailed the following to me to post on her behalf. Enjoy.

-------------------------------------------

Okey dokey, here goes....

I'm not sure if it's intended to be a fashion statement, or if it is to keep warm, or purely to ensure safety in the event of a horrible crash, but for some unknown reason, people living in Iringa, Tanzania wear dental vests when riding motorbikes. The first sighting we had this morning, I was convinced it was a bullet-proof vest, which made me a little nervous, but upon closer inspection and confirmation from a weathered Tanzania resident, it was clear that those thick, gray, outfits were, in fact, the dental vests that you wear when getting an x ray or just plaque scraped off of your teeth.

Chris and I made it to our final destination in the middle of nowhere african wild bush after 3 ridiculous days of rest and relaxation in Kendwa, Zanzibar (aka vacation paradise), the waviest ferry ride that I can imagine, a night in a hostel in Dar es Salaam, and an 8 hour bus ride across the african plains and into the mountains. When we got on the bus it was about 90 degrees and we were right along the coast, and when we got off it couldn't have been much more than 70 and we were surrounded by people wearing large, puffy down jackets. We climbed about 3000 feet in elevation and were looking at mountains in every direction.

This place is unbelievable. Yesterday night we spent at the Wildlife Conservation Society's house in Iringa (which is a pretty big city). Tonight we are staying at the bush camp, about 130 km outside of the city, which is unbelievably posh, as ironic as it might seem. For example, while we are technically off the power grid, there is a solar-powered satellite TV and (obviously) internet where I can type on my blog... We ate delicious Mexican food for dinner, and were only interrupted 2 times. First, when two elephants came splashing through the river whose banks we were sitting next to and second, when a lion roared off in the distance. There is one family who lives here all the time- and their two kids are awesome. They gave us a tour around the camp, introduced us to their pet falcon who they are nursing back to health after being hit by a car, took us to see the monitor lizard and the hippo tracks, and showe d us their trampoline (?). To get here we had to drive into the Great Rift Valley, the place where humans evolved!!!!! This trip just gets crazier and crazier.

I can't wait to get started on some sort of research project. There is a lot going on here- I wish that I could summarize it all for you, but I think that will have to happen another day.... because we are about to have a lot of days with very little communication with the outside world. I can't wait. :) More later.

Tarehe Kumi Na Sita

Today is “Tarehe kumi na sita Mei” (translated May 16), the day that has been rolling off of my tongue literally since the day we arrived. I feel like I told at least 75 people that I was leaving the country “Tarehe kumi na sita Mei”, and now that day is today, and like the true crazy that I think I’m becoming, the plane left, carrying the majority of my friends in this country, without me… And I am so excited!

The entire event of changing our tickets was an absolute nightmare. The flight left at 4 AM this morning, and we literally did not receive final confirmation from the airlines that the changes to our tickets were made until about 7 PM yesterday. I love that everything in this country is laid back, that people don’t strictly adhere to daily, or even weekly, schedules, but it would definitely be an understatement to say that yesterday morning Chris and I were in a panic. We were convinced that we were going to have to buy new tickets back to the US. I don’t know how we kept our cool through the situation, but with the help of my dear mother and Chris’ wonderful Stepfather, the SIT coordinator, the travel agency, the airlines, and some random American man named Dan who is apparently our ‘group leader’, our tickets were finally changed. I will be arriving in NYC on July 19th and in Minneapolis on July 21. W are traveling on three different airlines for four different flights, and it only ended up costing about $400 to change all of them... Holy buckets of relief. Anybody going to be in NYC July 19th???

After figuring all of that out, it finally hit me that all of these people who I have been living with in VERY close quarters were leaving in just a few hours… We all went out snorkeling, out to the sandbank that we visited on our first day, out to a really fancy dinner (compliments of SIT), stayed up all night, went to the disco with all of our favorite Zanzibaris, and danced the night away… literally. I didn’t sleep until the sun was up… and even then only for about 2 hours. It was so funny to hear all of the final confessions that came from everyone, like that our academic director actually has absolutely no interest in coral or coral reefs, and that all the boys had a ridiculous crush on our teacher’s daughter…

Chris and I are headed up to the North of the island today for about 3 days… There are 3 Oberlin students who were on the School for Field Studies Program in Kenya who are sprawled out on the beach in Zanzibar for about a week (Joanna, Mark and Val)… and we’re going to go sprawl out with them before we head off on our next adventure.

It’s exciting to feel like I’m starting over here. We have already been here 3 and a half months, and now we’re starting over with another two. The only difference is that this time we kind of know the language… and that there will be a lot of elephants.... and not a lot of dolphins.

Well, we have quite the to do list, so I should probably go start with that. I’ll let you all know soon what this country is like without supervision….

One last thing...

The other day I saw an oxcart, carrying an enormous metal drum, pull in to a gas station, fill up with gasoline, and then trot away with it's newly-filled fuel tank...

Weddings and Safaris and Giant, Empty Pools...

It’s a very strange feeling to be in Africa surrounded by people who are leaving in just a few days, but knowing that you will be staying for another 2 months. I put in a request to change my flight home to the 18th of July. While the airline said that there is a possibility that the request will not go through and I will have to hang my head in shame as I hop on a May 16th flight, I’m keeping my fingers crossed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (makes typing difficult) that they are just saying that for liability reasons. Who knows, though… either way it is bizarre to not know which continent you will be on next week.

We have finished all of the academic and logistical parts of the study abroad program, and now we are mostly just hanging out during the day and boogying the nights away. Yesterday we went to Prison Island, about a 20-minute boat ride away, where they have a tortoise sanctuary. There were dozens of tortoises meandering around, chomping on spinach that we offered them, and making strange hissing noises at us when we ran out of edible vegetable matter for them to feast on. I couldn’t believe how big they were- some at least 3 feet tall. Their giant legs look prehistoric and their shells are so thick that they appear to be invincible. Along with the peacocks and miniature deer-like duikers that were running around the island, I was definitely confused about where we were and what time period it might have been. 

Last time I wrote I told you that I was on my way to a wedding- it was outrageous. First of all, I didn’t realize that we were invited to only one of the 3-4 days of celebration. The actual ceremony is only the husband and wife in the mosque and a whole series of different celebrations take place after the actual ceremony. We went the second night, when mostly women come to dance and listen to Tarab music. We were told to arrive at 8 o’clock at Bwawani Hotel (side note: this is the night club that we sometimes go to. I have only been there once, but it was insane. It’s on the roof of a building and there is a GIANT, empty swimming pool with some small posts around it to protect people from drunkenly plummeting to their deaths. The night we were there, there were lots of psychedelic lights spinning in all directions and hundreds of enormous grasshoppers that I thought were bats until I spotted one on my shoulder under one of the neon green lights….). So, knowing that things never start on time here, we decided to arrive fashionably late at around 8:30. Sure enough, when we arrived, about ¼ of the guests were there…. And they were dressed to kill.

Before going to the wedding, I was asked on several occasions what I was going to wear to the wedding. I had a nice dress that I assumed was appropriate, but got some funny looks from Zanzibari women when I told them I was going to wear it. Maybe an hour or so before the wedding, we were told to, “look like peacocks.” I thought that sounded nice but didn’t realize that all of the women took that statement absolutely literally. I have never seen so many shiny, sequenced, brightly colored full-length dresses in my entire life. The outfits that people wore to this celebration were way beyond what would be appropriate for an occasion like prom or any other celebration in the US where people get dressed up. It was really fun to see them all in their Saturday-night bests… but really strange to see all the women with their heads uncovered! They were all done up with fancy hairdos and busting moves on the dance floor. It was almost too much to process.

The most fascinating part of the whole event to me was what was happening on the dance floor. There was a live band, and they played exclusively Tarab music (the loud, kind of whiny music that is traditional to Zanzibar. I really like when men sing, but when the women sing their voices are often so whiny it is really grating to listen to). The music was so loud we had to leave the room on several occasions because we had headaches… but everyone else was enjoying it SO much! As soon as each song began, a crowd of women would gather on the dance floor, waving money around in each other’s faces and at the band. The strangest part, though was that as soon as a song was about to end, the dance floor suddenly cleared out entirely. Within 10 seconds, a crowd of 40-50 women would suddenly bolt for their seats so that by the time the music stopped and a new song began, nearly everyone was back in their seat.

The bride didn’t show up until at least 11, and when she did, she was escorted in by her younger brother directly towards this large, sequenced fish, plush-toy like sculpture that somebody had made for the occasion. The groom came in later and joined her on a bench near the fish, and the two of them had their picture taken with an assortment of different people for no less than an hour. She looked so nervous to me- I cannot imagine an arranged marriage like that- and after the wedding she was moving to Hong Kong where her husband worked….After the pictures ended, we all ate dinner (around midnight). We had definitely had enough excitement at that point, so we dipped out.

Enough about the wedding…. On to new topic. Wild African Safaris!!

We finished our Independent Study Project early so that we could go on vacation! We decided that our time in Tanzania would not be complete until we took a trip up towards the Northern Circuit (ie Serengeti region). We took 5 days at the end of our time to take a ferry to Dar es Salaam, a bus to Arusha (10 hours), go on safari one day, take the bus back and then the ferry back. The trip was insane- we spent so much time staring out of windows and being escorted around the country in different forms of transportation, but I am so happy we did it. We saw Mount Kilimanjaro from the bus, met tons of people, and got to visit Ngorongoro crater (AMAZING). We saw a cheetah, 4 lions, rhinos, ostriches, flamingos, zebras, water buffaloes, hippos, elephants, warthogs, and just about everything else you might expect to see on an African safari. It was so fun!

Okay, I am proud of anyone who has read all of this. I know I can get a little wordy.

I think I’ll be leaving Zanzibar on the 18th of May to go to the mainland. I have absolutely loved all of the letters and postcards that everyone has sent, but for now if you are going to send anything, wait a few days until I get my new address. If you send stuff here I will still get it, but not until the middle of July.

I hope everyone is doing well. I miss and love you, but am SO excited to cohabitate with elephants!