Despite the fears of many family and friends, I made it home in one piece without any scars from large animal bites, any strange diseases, or extraordinary mental conditions. After traveling on 4 airplanes, taxis, subways, buses, and cars and spending several days re-entering American culture in New York City (where I visited one of my roommates who is living there for the summer), I am back in Minnesota enjoying warm lakes, bicycle rides, sweet corn, and sunshine with my family and friends. Everything that seems so familiar really has changed in the last 6 months- people have graduated, married, had children, gotten new jobs, or grown 3 inches taller; buildings have been erected, trees have been cut down, roads have been repaved and most of the flowers have already blossomed and died until next year. Neighbors have moved and new neighbors have come and all the birds are getting ready to migrate again. I never assumed that all things would stay the same while I traveled around the world for half of a year, but it is really interesting to return home to discover what actually changes in a period of 6 months to surprise you in a place that is mostly familiar.
I want to say thank you to all of you who have so faithfully read this blog. I hope that it was at times entertaining, at others educational, and that it was never frightening to those who wanted me to return home safely. I feel so lucky to have been able to see such a different part of the world and be welcomed by so many people into cultures that were very different from my own- and I hope that sharing these stories simultaneously satisfied and stimulated all of your wanderlust. I tried to share the best, most ridiculous, most humorous, most tragic, most overwhelming feelings that I had on this trip with you all on the blog, but I have many, many more that I would love to share with anyone who would like to hear more about this trip. On AUGUST 2 from about 6 until whenever I am planning on making a slide show of my favorite pictures and telling stories. Feel free to come join my family and friends to celebrate my brother’s graduation and my return (and birthday on the 3rd!) for a little potluck. Just send me an email anna.santo@oberlin.edu, give my house a call 651-714-8384, or put a comment here and I can send you directions.
For those of you who are in Minnesota this summer, I would absolutely love to see you and catch up on your lives. I will be here until late August, though during the week I will be living and working at a biological research station in Central Minnesota (near Bethel, MN). I plan to be in the twin cities on the weekends and would love to get together.
If this is your first time visiting this site, welcome and I hope you enjoy reading about my adventures. And if this is your last time visiting the site, thanks again and I cannot wait to start a new blog with new adventures!
Last, but definitely not least, I must publicly proclaim my most sincere gratitude towards all of the staff and students of SIT Study Abroad, the Wildlife Conservation Society, all of the wonderful people I met in Zanzibar, Tanzania, Malawi and Kenya, and to my best and at times only companion in East Africa, Mr. Christopher Rice. This experience was unbelievable and would not have been the same without you.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Monday, July 14, 2008
On the road again...
Walking down the streets of Zanzibar again is so amazing. Most of our interactions with people go like this:
1. Make eye contact- we recognize a person.
2. Smile, give them the typical greetings.
3. They recognize us, their eyes get really wide.
4. They start shouting words of welcome and greetings into our faces at incredibly high volumes.
I’m actually really surprised at how many people recognize us. I know we were here for a long time, but we can hardly go anywhere without someone squaling with joy at the sight of us. It is overwhelmingly welcoming.
Our trip to Kenya was incredible. The drive there took two days, after the bus stopped an hour preemptively in a different city than was the original destination. It was about 13 hours in a bus the first day and about 5 or 6 hours the next day. Nairobi is absolutely crazy--- it didn’t feel dangerous at all like the news makes it sound. People were reall friendly and left us alone more than any other place that we have been. Since the violence there calmed down about 6 months ago, it has been peaceful. I definitely had the wrong impression of the city when we arrived. The largest slum in Africa is just outside of the city, so I thought that there would be a lot of poverty and we would want to be really careful about walking around downtown, but it wasn’t like that at all. Some of the neighborhoods have a really Western feel and we did things like go to the mall to eat greasy pizza, perused the largest supermarket I have ever seen, and we even went to our first polo match with about 200 British people in one of the suburban areas (what a ridiculous, ridiculous sport).
After spending a day in Nairobi, we left to go on a 3-day safari in Masai Mara, the park that is the Kenyan side of the Serengeti plains. It was really amazing. We shared a safari VAN with a young French guy and a Japanese guy (who said, “oooooh greeeeaaat!” whenever we saw wildlife). Our driver was a maniac- cruising the Serengeti plains after ostriches and lions and cheetahs. It was really fun- and fun to meet all the other people (they were all really young) who had made it out to the bush for budget safaris.
The highlights of the trip to Kenya for me, though, were our trips to the elephant orphanage and giraffe sanctuary just outside of Nairobi. At the elephant orphanage, there were at least a dozen very young, very uncoordinated orphan elephants rolling around playing that you could watch and touch, and two rhinos hanging out that you could touch. Warthogs just wandered around everywhere and young schoolchildren came to see the animals. It was really cool. And on our walk out the founder of the orphanage picked us up and gave us a ride.
The elephant orphanage was cool, but the giraffe sanctuary was a transformational moment for me. I finally discovered my favorite animal. Giraffes. I think it might have to do with the fact that my long neck and legs make me feel a deep connection with them, but I definitely think that giraffes are the coolest animal I have ever seen. At the sanctuary, they gave you food pellets of grass and you could feed the giraffes. Their long, slimy, spotted, gray tongues would smother your face if you held the food in your mouth, and they would just eat right from your hands or wherever. So cool.
The trip back was terrifying. I have traveled the same route on another occasion- and on that occasion it took us 10 hours to go from Dar to Arusha, and it takes about 5 hours to go from Arusha to Nairobi. So when they told us it was only 12 hours on the bus from Nairobi to Dar VIA Arusha, I was skeptical and thought that that was just their way of trying to sell us tickets. Wow, was I wrong. After sitting on the bus, listening to Tracy Chapman’s song “Revolution” as the bus left at 6 in the morning, we arrived in Dar Es Salaam 12 hours later. The driver was a complete maniac. He had anywhere from 0-1 hands on the streering wheel at any time, and the other hand was gesticulating wildly to his frien in the front seat. Rather than waiting in line at the weigh stations, he would zoom past the line, throw the bus in reverse and reverse backwards to the front of the line. If traffic stopped, he would get out of the bus to give the other drivers a piece of his mind. I covered my face for at least the last 2 hours of the drive, when we were averaging at least 130 km/h and never hesitated to pass cars despite oncoming traffic. When the driver left about half the bus along the Tanzania-Kenya border, he slammed the bus into reverse and at full speed, backwards, we recrossed the border to retrieve the passengers. The choices of entertainment were interesting as well- at 6 in the morning, we were listening to the all 80s all-the-time station, by the afternoon we watched two movies called Sweet Love I and Sweet Love II. And at the scariest part of the trip, when the driver really went crazy, we watched one of the most violent movies I have ever seen called “Blood Diamond”, about the diamond trade in Sierra Leone (Good movie, bad time for it). We made it safely to Dar Es Salaam, though, and the next morning took the ferry to Zanzibar and feel like we’re back at home again.
Chris leaves tomorrow and I leave 3 days later. I can’t believe we’re almost on our way home! I can’t wait to see you all.
1. Make eye contact- we recognize a person.
2. Smile, give them the typical greetings.
3. They recognize us, their eyes get really wide.
4. They start shouting words of welcome and greetings into our faces at incredibly high volumes.
I’m actually really surprised at how many people recognize us. I know we were here for a long time, but we can hardly go anywhere without someone squaling with joy at the sight of us. It is overwhelmingly welcoming.
Our trip to Kenya was incredible. The drive there took two days, after the bus stopped an hour preemptively in a different city than was the original destination. It was about 13 hours in a bus the first day and about 5 or 6 hours the next day. Nairobi is absolutely crazy--- it didn’t feel dangerous at all like the news makes it sound. People were reall friendly and left us alone more than any other place that we have been. Since the violence there calmed down about 6 months ago, it has been peaceful. I definitely had the wrong impression of the city when we arrived. The largest slum in Africa is just outside of the city, so I thought that there would be a lot of poverty and we would want to be really careful about walking around downtown, but it wasn’t like that at all. Some of the neighborhoods have a really Western feel and we did things like go to the mall to eat greasy pizza, perused the largest supermarket I have ever seen, and we even went to our first polo match with about 200 British people in one of the suburban areas (what a ridiculous, ridiculous sport).
After spending a day in Nairobi, we left to go on a 3-day safari in Masai Mara, the park that is the Kenyan side of the Serengeti plains. It was really amazing. We shared a safari VAN with a young French guy and a Japanese guy (who said, “oooooh greeeeaaat!” whenever we saw wildlife). Our driver was a maniac- cruising the Serengeti plains after ostriches and lions and cheetahs. It was really fun- and fun to meet all the other people (they were all really young) who had made it out to the bush for budget safaris.
The highlights of the trip to Kenya for me, though, were our trips to the elephant orphanage and giraffe sanctuary just outside of Nairobi. At the elephant orphanage, there were at least a dozen very young, very uncoordinated orphan elephants rolling around playing that you could watch and touch, and two rhinos hanging out that you could touch. Warthogs just wandered around everywhere and young schoolchildren came to see the animals. It was really cool. And on our walk out the founder of the orphanage picked us up and gave us a ride.
The elephant orphanage was cool, but the giraffe sanctuary was a transformational moment for me. I finally discovered my favorite animal. Giraffes. I think it might have to do with the fact that my long neck and legs make me feel a deep connection with them, but I definitely think that giraffes are the coolest animal I have ever seen. At the sanctuary, they gave you food pellets of grass and you could feed the giraffes. Their long, slimy, spotted, gray tongues would smother your face if you held the food in your mouth, and they would just eat right from your hands or wherever. So cool.
The trip back was terrifying. I have traveled the same route on another occasion- and on that occasion it took us 10 hours to go from Dar to Arusha, and it takes about 5 hours to go from Arusha to Nairobi. So when they told us it was only 12 hours on the bus from Nairobi to Dar VIA Arusha, I was skeptical and thought that that was just their way of trying to sell us tickets. Wow, was I wrong. After sitting on the bus, listening to Tracy Chapman’s song “Revolution” as the bus left at 6 in the morning, we arrived in Dar Es Salaam 12 hours later. The driver was a complete maniac. He had anywhere from 0-1 hands on the streering wheel at any time, and the other hand was gesticulating wildly to his frien in the front seat. Rather than waiting in line at the weigh stations, he would zoom past the line, throw the bus in reverse and reverse backwards to the front of the line. If traffic stopped, he would get out of the bus to give the other drivers a piece of his mind. I covered my face for at least the last 2 hours of the drive, when we were averaging at least 130 km/h and never hesitated to pass cars despite oncoming traffic. When the driver left about half the bus along the Tanzania-Kenya border, he slammed the bus into reverse and at full speed, backwards, we recrossed the border to retrieve the passengers. The choices of entertainment were interesting as well- at 6 in the morning, we were listening to the all 80s all-the-time station, by the afternoon we watched two movies called Sweet Love I and Sweet Love II. And at the scariest part of the trip, when the driver really went crazy, we watched one of the most violent movies I have ever seen called “Blood Diamond”, about the diamond trade in Sierra Leone (Good movie, bad time for it). We made it safely to Dar Es Salaam, though, and the next morning took the ferry to Zanzibar and feel like we’re back at home again.
Chris leaves tomorrow and I leave 3 days later. I can’t believe we’re almost on our way home! I can’t wait to see you all.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Kenya!
After quite the journey we made it to Kenya AND to the Serengeti plains where we saw, among other things, a Cheetah eating a gazelle and a black rhino (this morning). I don't have time to write now, I just wanted to let everyone know that all is well. No need to send any more worried emails, though I kind of enjoy knowing that people notice if I'm MIA. :)
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
What do you mean they released the prisoners??
At one point while staying in Iringa, Chris and I came to the realization that we didn’t really have any friends. We definitely didn’t really see this as a problem, or even a negative thing, because we thoroughly enjoy each other’s company and we spent four months on Zanzibar unable to escape acquaintances. Over the past several days, however, we have realized that we do know quite a lot of people here in Iringa, and that perhaps we know too many people. It has really been kind of a snowball effect of beginning to know too many people throughout East Africa, starting with too many people in Stone Town, then too many in Zanzibar, then the whole archipelago, then along the coast, all the way to Arusha (near the Kenya border), Iringa, and now even when we travelled to Malawi we inevitably ran into people that we knew. When we are walking down the street, people frequently stop us, ask us if we remember them (95% of the time we don’t), and then quiz us on where we first met them. Chris especially is very unique looking—a black, dreadlocked, but still clearly westerner rather than rastafarian, man. Just two days ago, someone recognized Chris from our stay on Pemba Island about 3 months ago and approached us- he remembered his name, where they met, etc.... Chris had absolutely no memory of ever meeting him. As we were sitting in a bar in Malawi, a group of 3 British people walked in that had been sitting next to us in a restaurant across the street from our office in Iringa ealier that week. Our safari driver from our trip to Saadani National Park in March recognized us on the bus from Dar Es Salaam to Iringa (at least an 8 hour journey and 2 months later).... and as we crossed on foot into Malawi we were greeted, by name, by several men who claimed to be our friends. I get mysterious phone calls and text messages all the time, usually with odd requests such as dating proposals or asking for money, but I have no idea who sent them or how they got my number. It’s true that in a culture that you’re not used to people kind of look the same—people tell me all the time that I look like every other white woman—but I never expected to have absolutely no memory of meeting people who clearly cherished our 5 minute conversation enough to remember it 4 or even 5 months later. Crazy.
Today as we were walking down the street we were recognized by someone I did remember. “Midget” (nickname), a young British girl who helped us close down the Wildlife Conservation Society campsite about 2 weeks ago screamed “Mr. JIGGY!!!!!!” (a nickname that she gave to Chris) from a passing land rover. When we caught up with the car, she told us (among many other things) that some of the friends that we had made a few weeks earlier were robbed in their home. Apparently a crew of men, armed with AK-47s and pistols, came to their house, held their security guards and entire family at gunpoint while they stole all their money, computers and phones. Luckily no one was seriously injured. The father of the household was off on a backpacking trip with our other two housemates (they run a campsite and do trips like that- he’s basically a guide), so these guys who apparently knew the family came and stole all of their valuables. Unbelievable.....
While this was shocking to us, it came in a serious of really scary news stories. A couple nights ago, Chris and I decided to accompany a German girl that Chris met to a birthday party. When we told them we were going to walk home, a bunch of people at the party started freaking out and telling us that we couldn’t leave. Our house was very close (definitely less than ¼ mile), it wasn’t particularly late, and Iringa is usually very safe, so you can imagine how surprised we were by this seemingly irrational reaction of paranoia. That’s when they told us that “they” had “recently released the prisoners”. This statement confused us, mostly because there seemed to be no way a bunch prisoners would just be “released” without any sort of reason. So we started asking questions... What do you mean they released the prisoners? Why did they release the prisoners? Where did they release the prisoners? How many prisoners did they reslease? Logistical questions, like true Americans... As it turns out, the prison just decided that they didn’t want to have so many prisoners, so they decided to release a bunch. ???? There have been several rapes and murders since their decision, and now this robbery.... This place is absolutely ridiculous sometimes. Needless to say, we are being extra careful when going out, now that we know of the dangers of the released prisoners and the large guns that some of them have come to possess.
Other than the news of the released prisoners, the birthday party that we attended was really fun, though not at all what we expected. We left our house, hearing very loud music in the distance. I made a joke about how that was probably the birthday party, but we laughed it off. As we got closer and closer to the party, though, the music got louder and louder. It wasn’t until we were in the driveway that we realized that this bumpin’ dance party was, in fact, the birthday party where we had been told there “wasn’t much going on”. We sat around a bonfire, listened to very hilarious choices of mostly American music, and finally made a lot of young friends in Iringa! As the party was coming to a close before everyone migrated to the nearby disco, someone made a request that we stand in a circle, hold hands, and give speeches. The circle started off with a short rendition of “Oh, Happy Day”, and quickly progressed to speeches about how this party had reminded people of being boyscouts out in the mountains of the Kilimanjaro area, and how people were finishing college and would miss this place so much. As much as the circle and the circumstance made me laugh, it was actually really sweet. I was very impressed that Chris held it together, as I would have expected him to burst into fits of laughter at how awkward we felt.
My favorite moments at the party, however, were interacting with individuals. Other than the girl who had invited us (Sophia- from Germany who is volunteering for a year at an orphanage here), the first person that we met at the party’s name was Miriam, a self-proclaimed Shakira look-alike. Now, I am not an expert on celebrity impersonators, but I am a Shakira fan, and while this woman (who was a black Nigerian woman) did look vaguely hispanic, she looked absolutely nothing like Shakira. We agreed to friend her on facebook, and were told that she would be the one with the Shakira picture instead of her face. We later met a middle-aged Swedish man, who seemed just a bit too old for the whole scene, and wouldn’t stop making suggestive comments directed at every woman. He introduced himself by staring me down, accusing me of stealing his Konyagi (the cheapest liquor in Tanzania that you purchase in packets for like 50 cents), and then saying, “Hi, I don’t think we’ve met, my name is Marcus....” There was a drunken brawl going on outside the entire time we were there, with fists flying and people stumbling through the bonfire. And there was a mute man attempting to communicate his anger at the fact that he had drunkenly misplaced his shoes.
I’m not sure why there has been such a culmination of mute men entering our lives here lately, but it has definitely been a recent trend. It completely freaks Chris out, which makes the whole interaction seem just hilariously unfortunate to me.... The man at the birthday party was around our age, unable to communicate with words, but was able to understand us and communicate with other sounds. He would let out very aggressive bellowing sounds, while at the same time thrusting his upper body in your direction. My chosen form of communication with him was the thumbs up, for which we definitely had a mutual understanding. At one point, the man approached me, let out a howl-like sound and pointed at his bare feet. The shoes that he had just been wearing seemed to have vanished in the brawl he had been a part of. I looked at him, gave him the thumbs down, and he returned a thumbs down, and belted out a sound. The foot-pointing and bellowing continued on and off for at least the next half an hour, but I expect he eventually just got on with the evening. This event was preceded by an encounter with a mute man on the Malawi-Tanzania border who made loud, violent, heaving sounds as a way to encourage us to hire him as the driver of a bicycle taxi. We were already surrounded by at least 10 men trying to get us to hire their bicycle taxis or change currency, and then this man approached and started bellowing at us and making angry faces and sounds.... I have never seen Chris so eager to escape a situation. And on my walk to work I met another man who couldn’t really speak. I just had no idea that so many encounters could be possible in the time span of one week...
Well, I am shocked that it is July, that I am coming home in about 2-3 weeks, and that our time here is over in 2 days!!! (We are leaving on Friday for Kenya) It’s strange because I’m so excited to come home and see everyone, eat summer sweet corn, swim in the lake, see the fall colors, go back to OBERLIN!, and to hear all about how everyone has spent the last 6 months, but I am also so sad to have only two more days here... And the trips to Kenya, Zanzibar, and New York City in between those two things are just entirely overwhelming to me. Well, it feels like time is speeding up, so I guess I’ll just wait and see what happens. Maybe it will make the 4 plane rides seem faster, too. I love and miss you all. See you SO soon.
Today as we were walking down the street we were recognized by someone I did remember. “Midget” (nickname), a young British girl who helped us close down the Wildlife Conservation Society campsite about 2 weeks ago screamed “Mr. JIGGY!!!!!!” (a nickname that she gave to Chris) from a passing land rover. When we caught up with the car, she told us (among many other things) that some of the friends that we had made a few weeks earlier were robbed in their home. Apparently a crew of men, armed with AK-47s and pistols, came to their house, held their security guards and entire family at gunpoint while they stole all their money, computers and phones. Luckily no one was seriously injured. The father of the household was off on a backpacking trip with our other two housemates (they run a campsite and do trips like that- he’s basically a guide), so these guys who apparently knew the family came and stole all of their valuables. Unbelievable.....
While this was shocking to us, it came in a serious of really scary news stories. A couple nights ago, Chris and I decided to accompany a German girl that Chris met to a birthday party. When we told them we were going to walk home, a bunch of people at the party started freaking out and telling us that we couldn’t leave. Our house was very close (definitely less than ¼ mile), it wasn’t particularly late, and Iringa is usually very safe, so you can imagine how surprised we were by this seemingly irrational reaction of paranoia. That’s when they told us that “they” had “recently released the prisoners”. This statement confused us, mostly because there seemed to be no way a bunch prisoners would just be “released” without any sort of reason. So we started asking questions... What do you mean they released the prisoners? Why did they release the prisoners? Where did they release the prisoners? How many prisoners did they reslease? Logistical questions, like true Americans... As it turns out, the prison just decided that they didn’t want to have so many prisoners, so they decided to release a bunch. ???? There have been several rapes and murders since their decision, and now this robbery.... This place is absolutely ridiculous sometimes. Needless to say, we are being extra careful when going out, now that we know of the dangers of the released prisoners and the large guns that some of them have come to possess.
Other than the news of the released prisoners, the birthday party that we attended was really fun, though not at all what we expected. We left our house, hearing very loud music in the distance. I made a joke about how that was probably the birthday party, but we laughed it off. As we got closer and closer to the party, though, the music got louder and louder. It wasn’t until we were in the driveway that we realized that this bumpin’ dance party was, in fact, the birthday party where we had been told there “wasn’t much going on”. We sat around a bonfire, listened to very hilarious choices of mostly American music, and finally made a lot of young friends in Iringa! As the party was coming to a close before everyone migrated to the nearby disco, someone made a request that we stand in a circle, hold hands, and give speeches. The circle started off with a short rendition of “Oh, Happy Day”, and quickly progressed to speeches about how this party had reminded people of being boyscouts out in the mountains of the Kilimanjaro area, and how people were finishing college and would miss this place so much. As much as the circle and the circumstance made me laugh, it was actually really sweet. I was very impressed that Chris held it together, as I would have expected him to burst into fits of laughter at how awkward we felt.
My favorite moments at the party, however, were interacting with individuals. Other than the girl who had invited us (Sophia- from Germany who is volunteering for a year at an orphanage here), the first person that we met at the party’s name was Miriam, a self-proclaimed Shakira look-alike. Now, I am not an expert on celebrity impersonators, but I am a Shakira fan, and while this woman (who was a black Nigerian woman) did look vaguely hispanic, she looked absolutely nothing like Shakira. We agreed to friend her on facebook, and were told that she would be the one with the Shakira picture instead of her face. We later met a middle-aged Swedish man, who seemed just a bit too old for the whole scene, and wouldn’t stop making suggestive comments directed at every woman. He introduced himself by staring me down, accusing me of stealing his Konyagi (the cheapest liquor in Tanzania that you purchase in packets for like 50 cents), and then saying, “Hi, I don’t think we’ve met, my name is Marcus....” There was a drunken brawl going on outside the entire time we were there, with fists flying and people stumbling through the bonfire. And there was a mute man attempting to communicate his anger at the fact that he had drunkenly misplaced his shoes.
I’m not sure why there has been such a culmination of mute men entering our lives here lately, but it has definitely been a recent trend. It completely freaks Chris out, which makes the whole interaction seem just hilariously unfortunate to me.... The man at the birthday party was around our age, unable to communicate with words, but was able to understand us and communicate with other sounds. He would let out very aggressive bellowing sounds, while at the same time thrusting his upper body in your direction. My chosen form of communication with him was the thumbs up, for which we definitely had a mutual understanding. At one point, the man approached me, let out a howl-like sound and pointed at his bare feet. The shoes that he had just been wearing seemed to have vanished in the brawl he had been a part of. I looked at him, gave him the thumbs down, and he returned a thumbs down, and belted out a sound. The foot-pointing and bellowing continued on and off for at least the next half an hour, but I expect he eventually just got on with the evening. This event was preceded by an encounter with a mute man on the Malawi-Tanzania border who made loud, violent, heaving sounds as a way to encourage us to hire him as the driver of a bicycle taxi. We were already surrounded by at least 10 men trying to get us to hire their bicycle taxis or change currency, and then this man approached and started bellowing at us and making angry faces and sounds.... I have never seen Chris so eager to escape a situation. And on my walk to work I met another man who couldn’t really speak. I just had no idea that so many encounters could be possible in the time span of one week...
Well, I am shocked that it is July, that I am coming home in about 2-3 weeks, and that our time here is over in 2 days!!! (We are leaving on Friday for Kenya) It’s strange because I’m so excited to come home and see everyone, eat summer sweet corn, swim in the lake, see the fall colors, go back to OBERLIN!, and to hear all about how everyone has spent the last 6 months, but I am also so sad to have only two more days here... And the trips to Kenya, Zanzibar, and New York City in between those two things are just entirely overwhelming to me. Well, it feels like time is speeding up, so I guess I’ll just wait and see what happens. Maybe it will make the 4 plane rides seem faster, too. I love and miss you all. See you SO soon.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Did you say your name was Ricky Martin?
As we approached the Tanzania-Malawi border at dusk about a week ago, I kept hearing the person sitting next to us on the minibus insist that we needed a bike to cross the border. I’ve been to both the Mexican and the Canadian borders, and while I never expected the border between two of the least developed countries in the world to have anywhere near the security precautions that the US does, I could not imagine why we so desperately needed a bike to cross. It turned out that the bus didn’t actually go to the border, but stopped about a mile away. Immediately upon exiting the bus, we were swarmed by at least 20 men with bicycle taxis and fat wads of cash of all currencies grabbing our bags and our limbs and shouting things in our faces. It was probably one of the most overwhelming moments of the past 5 months. We decided to cross the border on foot, though I have since then developed a facination with the bicycle taxi....
When we woke up the next morning at about 5 AM (the time when it is officially too loud to sleep anymore), Chris and I were both instantly in love with Malawi. Chris described it as not having the same kind of desperation as Tanzania sometimes does, which I think is a really good description. People were equally, if not more, fascinated with us, and just smiling at someone often caused them to burst out in bashful giggles.
We walked past a nursery school and heard every single child inside scream “How are youuu?” with sounds that could only come from a tiny person. There are beautiful, forested mountains that drop straight into Lake Malawi, easily mistaken for an ocean. You can see the silouette of Mozambique across the lake, and if you hike up into the mountains there are waterfalls, caves, cold springs and forests with baboons and wildflowers blossoming everywhere. It really did look different from any other place I have ever seen, and it is so strikingly beautiful I would just be content to ride around in buses, looking out the windows.
Definitely one of my favorite things about Malawi, though, was talking to people. English is one of the official languages of Malawi (it is in Tanzania too, but few people speak it very well) so we could talk to almost anyone. Peoples’ names are hilarious- we met people named simple, Jealous, Jester, Tiger, King David, Ricky Martin, 2pac, and we met three people named Gift. Everyone is really friendly and interested in chatting with you for no less than 2 hours at a time....
One thing that we were introduced to in Malawi was the phenomenon of “The Backpackers” (translated= cheap places to stay that cater to a certain crowd—not quite hostels, but similar). Most “backpackers” have things like guitars and board games to borrow, both of which you could play from your barstool. They have composting toilets, big gardens, and some sort of livestock that they would slaughter for you if you wanted to eat it so that you could “live off the land”. We stayed at several of these places, each one being very unique. For example, our second night in Malawi we stayed at a place called “The Mushroom Farm”, where we slept in a tiny tent flush against the edge of an enormous cliff. It was about 11 km straight up a mountain, so we hiked up with our packs and three small boys who were wearing no shoes. It took us a couple hours to arrive, and when we did we were both sweaty and unable to believe the breathtaking views from our campsite. We stayed at another place called the Butterfly Lodge, where we had our own personal chalet and there were rabbits along the path to the bathroom. When we arrived in the town where this lodge was, we were picked up in a boat, carted across the bay, and dropped off at our doorstep by our own personal boat escort... But none of these places cost more than $5-10 a night, even for the most expensive rooms... we spent the equivalent of about $5-7 to stay there.
For the most part, the people that arrive at these backapackers’ places seem to be absolutely ridiculous. Take, for example, the regular, Sunday night crowd that we encountered at the Mayoka Village Bar, one of the “most legendary wicked backpackers’” along Lake Malawi, as described by a young, flamboyantly counter-culture British guy that we met at “The Mushroom Farm”. We first met a man who we would later refer to as the Man-who-wouldn’t-stop-talking. I don’t know his name, because there was never really a moment where he wasn’t speaking when we could have asked, but he seemed really angry the majority of the time and his eyes bulged out of his face when he got really heated. Chris and I tried not to make too much eye contact with him, hoping that the conversation would end. While it definitely didn’t end, it was interrupted by Sage, a clearly bipolar man who we later learned came to Malawi to escape the South African Police after being convicted of a hit-and-run. Sage was giving us advice too crude to repeat while Chris, myself, a boy named Thaeus from New Zealand (with flowing blonde hair, gray, skin-tight jeans, and the I’m-so-shocked-that-I’m-hearing-these-words-come-out-of-someone’s-mouth face), and a 22 year-old guy from New York (who seemed to have acquired some sort of strange Australian-English hybrid accent from travelling) sat and listened. One of the local guys, King David, came over to listen, and all the while, there was a narcoleptic old man in the corner attempting to sell candy bars. We were later told that the sleeping man was actually the first black man to catch a fish in Lake Malawi, the first black man to work in a white bar in Malawi, and the first black man to own a boat in Malawi. While I’m not saying that these were lies, I am saying that I am highly skeptical of this series of claims.
I know I have spent many-a-blog-post dsecribing East African transportation to you, but I definitely think that public transportation reached new levels of terror for me in Malawi. I cannot get over how people drive like absolute maniacs in this region of the world... We found ourselves on quite a number of interesting vehicles over the course of the week. We started off in a big charter bus called the Sumry High-Class that had unbelievably psychadelic apolstery—with neon-colored bush animals in a mosaic-like pattern. After realizing that we were too late to catch a bus one day, we hitchhiked on the back of a flatbed truck that had 6-8 pigs, a gazillion tomatoes, and at least 20-30 people on the back.
Two pigs in particular coveted the sack of beans that Chris was sitting on and muscled him off the bag in order to steal his seat. On our trip back home we rode in a dalla dalla that was literally taped together—as in the steering wheel was partially attached with packing tape, dashboard was attached with tape, and I wish there had been tape for the door handle so that maybe it would work. You could see through the floor to the ground below you, and there was no glass on the windows. I was impressed, however, that the spedometer worked, but that was the most terrifying part. I looked over at one point and saw that we were going about 120 km/hour with at least 30 people packed in. After one of the tires exploded into tiny slivers of rubber and we arrived to town with the spare, I swear I started believing in some sort of higher power. We transferred onto a new bus, where Chris and I both shared seats with many, many boxes of chickens (102 baby chickens in each box, total of 12 boxes) and drove off into the sunset. We hopped a bus the next day, only to stop for an extended period of time where we were told that the radiator had burst (?) and it might be 3 hours before we left again... so we flagged down a giant truck and hopped into the cabin, where we were stuffed into two very cushioned, though dark and confined corners where we wouldn’t be spotted as passengers at the police stops.
Well, I could go on and on about the adventures that we had in Malawi. Needless to say, the trip was unbelievable. I will post some pictures and creat a link to them which you can find below with the other links to photo albums. Enjoy! Chris and I will be in Iringa, Tanzania again working for about a week and then we’re off to Nairobi, Kenya for another little trip. Hopefully we’ll be going to the northern extension of the Serengetti (where the wildebeast migration is), a giraffe sanctuary, and an elephant orphanage... Okay, more later. Love.
When we woke up the next morning at about 5 AM (the time when it is officially too loud to sleep anymore), Chris and I were both instantly in love with Malawi. Chris described it as not having the same kind of desperation as Tanzania sometimes does, which I think is a really good description. People were equally, if not more, fascinated with us, and just smiling at someone often caused them to burst out in bashful giggles.
We walked past a nursery school and heard every single child inside scream “How are youuu?” with sounds that could only come from a tiny person. There are beautiful, forested mountains that drop straight into Lake Malawi, easily mistaken for an ocean. You can see the silouette of Mozambique across the lake, and if you hike up into the mountains there are waterfalls, caves, cold springs and forests with baboons and wildflowers blossoming everywhere. It really did look different from any other place I have ever seen, and it is so strikingly beautiful I would just be content to ride around in buses, looking out the windows.Definitely one of my favorite things about Malawi, though, was talking to people. English is one of the official languages of Malawi (it is in Tanzania too, but few people speak it very well) so we could talk to almost anyone. Peoples’ names are hilarious- we met people named simple, Jealous, Jester, Tiger, King David, Ricky Martin, 2pac, and we met three people named Gift. Everyone is really friendly and interested in chatting with you for no less than 2 hours at a time....
One thing that we were introduced to in Malawi was the phenomenon of “The Backpackers” (translated= cheap places to stay that cater to a certain crowd—not quite hostels, but similar). Most “backpackers” have things like guitars and board games to borrow, both of which you could play from your barstool. They have composting toilets, big gardens, and some sort of livestock that they would slaughter for you if you wanted to eat it so that you could “live off the land”. We stayed at several of these places, each one being very unique. For example, our second night in Malawi we stayed at a place called “The Mushroom Farm”, where we slept in a tiny tent flush against the edge of an enormous cliff. It was about 11 km straight up a mountain, so we hiked up with our packs and three small boys who were wearing no shoes. It took us a couple hours to arrive, and when we did we were both sweaty and unable to believe the breathtaking views from our campsite. We stayed at another place called the Butterfly Lodge, where we had our own personal chalet and there were rabbits along the path to the bathroom. When we arrived in the town where this lodge was, we were picked up in a boat, carted across the bay, and dropped off at our doorstep by our own personal boat escort... But none of these places cost more than $5-10 a night, even for the most expensive rooms... we spent the equivalent of about $5-7 to stay there.
For the most part, the people that arrive at these backapackers’ places seem to be absolutely ridiculous. Take, for example, the regular, Sunday night crowd that we encountered at the Mayoka Village Bar, one of the “most legendary wicked backpackers’” along Lake Malawi, as described by a young, flamboyantly counter-culture British guy that we met at “The Mushroom Farm”. We first met a man who we would later refer to as the Man-who-wouldn’t-stop-talking. I don’t know his name, because there was never really a moment where he wasn’t speaking when we could have asked, but he seemed really angry the majority of the time and his eyes bulged out of his face when he got really heated. Chris and I tried not to make too much eye contact with him, hoping that the conversation would end. While it definitely didn’t end, it was interrupted by Sage, a clearly bipolar man who we later learned came to Malawi to escape the South African Police after being convicted of a hit-and-run. Sage was giving us advice too crude to repeat while Chris, myself, a boy named Thaeus from New Zealand (with flowing blonde hair, gray, skin-tight jeans, and the I’m-so-shocked-that-I’m-hearing-these-words-come-out-of-someone’s-mouth face), and a 22 year-old guy from New York (who seemed to have acquired some sort of strange Australian-English hybrid accent from travelling) sat and listened. One of the local guys, King David, came over to listen, and all the while, there was a narcoleptic old man in the corner attempting to sell candy bars. We were later told that the sleeping man was actually the first black man to catch a fish in Lake Malawi, the first black man to work in a white bar in Malawi, and the first black man to own a boat in Malawi. While I’m not saying that these were lies, I am saying that I am highly skeptical of this series of claims.
I know I have spent many-a-blog-post dsecribing East African transportation to you, but I definitely think that public transportation reached new levels of terror for me in Malawi. I cannot get over how people drive like absolute maniacs in this region of the world... We found ourselves on quite a number of interesting vehicles over the course of the week. We started off in a big charter bus called the Sumry High-Class that had unbelievably psychadelic apolstery—with neon-colored bush animals in a mosaic-like pattern. After realizing that we were too late to catch a bus one day, we hitchhiked on the back of a flatbed truck that had 6-8 pigs, a gazillion tomatoes, and at least 20-30 people on the back.
Two pigs in particular coveted the sack of beans that Chris was sitting on and muscled him off the bag in order to steal his seat. On our trip back home we rode in a dalla dalla that was literally taped together—as in the steering wheel was partially attached with packing tape, dashboard was attached with tape, and I wish there had been tape for the door handle so that maybe it would work. You could see through the floor to the ground below you, and there was no glass on the windows. I was impressed, however, that the spedometer worked, but that was the most terrifying part. I looked over at one point and saw that we were going about 120 km/hour with at least 30 people packed in. After one of the tires exploded into tiny slivers of rubber and we arrived to town with the spare, I swear I started believing in some sort of higher power. We transferred onto a new bus, where Chris and I both shared seats with many, many boxes of chickens (102 baby chickens in each box, total of 12 boxes) and drove off into the sunset. We hopped a bus the next day, only to stop for an extended period of time where we were told that the radiator had burst (?) and it might be 3 hours before we left again... so we flagged down a giant truck and hopped into the cabin, where we were stuffed into two very cushioned, though dark and confined corners where we wouldn’t be spotted as passengers at the police stops. Well, I could go on and on about the adventures that we had in Malawi. Needless to say, the trip was unbelievable. I will post some pictures and creat a link to them which you can find below with the other links to photo albums. Enjoy! Chris and I will be in Iringa, Tanzania again working for about a week and then we’re off to Nairobi, Kenya for another little trip. Hopefully we’ll be going to the northern extension of the Serengetti (where the wildebeast migration is), a giraffe sanctuary, and an elephant orphanage... Okay, more later. Love.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Adventures!!!
We're going to Malawi tomorrow!!! I just wanted to give everyone a heads up that I might be a little out of touch for the next week or so. But it's for a good reason, like kayaking in a tropical lake, or absailing down a waterfall, or mountain biking through a herd of zebras... definitely something along those lines.
Also, I put up a more pictures a while ago. They're in the album labelled something about working with the Wildlife Conservation Society (on the right if you scroll down). Enjoy! Later.
Also, I put up a more pictures a while ago. They're in the album labelled something about working with the Wildlife Conservation Society (on the right if you scroll down). Enjoy! Later.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Midget, Fidget and Squidget
Some very unexpected things have happened since I last wrote... First, we were evicted from the camp where we were living. Second, our boss quit. Third, about 100,000 Shillings ($85) disappeared from Chris’ stuff. But despite all of these terrible things happening, we are still in good spirits.
We have all spent the past three days packing up and moving everything that was in camp, including the entire solar-powered electrical system and the pet eagle, to town. Legally, everything should be fine- the Wildlife Conservation Society didn’t do anything wrong to be evicted- there is just a big corruption scandal and a few powerful people are getting paid off to let some really shady behaviors slide. I heard that a $15,000 bribe was paid by a hunting company (that currently hunts in the nearby game reserve) to the district commissioner to issue an eviction notice to the WCS. This all makes sense in light of the fact that they are hoping to set up a “photographic” tourism sight near to where WCS had its camp... The whole “shida” (swahili: problem) has been escalating since before we got here, but I never would have guessed that the WCS would be kicked out of the Wildlife Management Area by someone who didn’t have the authority to do that.... The whole situation has turned into a really huge mess, and it seems like had it been handled a little differently by the rest of the WCS management it could have been easily resolved. Therefore, our boss resigned. He’ll be here for another 6 months and then may be transferred to another WCS program.
It was really sad to drive through the villages today on our way to town and think about the repercussions that closing Lunda Camp will have on the nearby community. But at the same time, it was really great to think about all the ways it has helped these villages. Our boss (Pete) seems to be really admired and respected. Whenever I mention that I’m working for WCS, people always respond with kind words about “Coppolillo” (his last name). There are about 10 people employed at the camp—they’re all really wonderful and work really hard. They will all lose their jobs. In the villages, making a couple dollars a day is a really good income that can easily support a family. While I have no idea how much the Lunda staff were paid, I’m sure it supported an intricate web of family members and friends. People seem to love the WCS—you see people wearing WCS paraphernalia, and people are always so happy to see the WCS truck pull through the villages. I’ve been reading interviews that a PhD student here has been doing on human-elephant conflict, and everyone is aware of the connection between WCS and benefits they have started to receive from the nearby wildlife management area.
The program here will still continue- there will just be a new program director and possibly some program changes. The older generation here is so passive about everything, but the younger generation of WCS employees and villagers are really fired up at the government, the WCS country director, and the association of villages that actually has the jurisdiction to issue permits for the Wildlife Management Area. There has been talk of protesting... but it’s amazing to me how fearful people here are of their government. I have been brought up with the value that if something that was happening was wrong, you should speak out against it. It seems like the younger generation here embraces that same idea, but the older generation (who recently lived through a period of socialism) has such a different approach to dealing with political problems. I don’t want to say which attitude is better, because I really have no idea what people are up against fighting this incredibly complex and corrupt institution. Either way, it will be really interesting to see what happens...
While all this bad stuff is going on, there have been some lighter moments. To break down camp, a group of about 10 of Pete’s friends came down (the majority of them under the age of 15). It was fun to have kids around—they called themselves fidget, midget, and squidget, names that were even funnier when they pronounced them with their British accents. We got to hear some British opinions on the election, roast marshmallows over a fire, and inch our way out on a sandbank where a crocodile was sunbathing. Side note: it’s amazing how closely the rest of the world watches our politics—I’ve met people who never went to school, who can’t read, who are following our election closely...
Okay, I think that’s about all for now. We’re back in town now, and will be for a while, so I’m sure that I’ll have entertaining stories about civilization soon. After a while, crocodile.
We have all spent the past three days packing up and moving everything that was in camp, including the entire solar-powered electrical system and the pet eagle, to town. Legally, everything should be fine- the Wildlife Conservation Society didn’t do anything wrong to be evicted- there is just a big corruption scandal and a few powerful people are getting paid off to let some really shady behaviors slide. I heard that a $15,000 bribe was paid by a hunting company (that currently hunts in the nearby game reserve) to the district commissioner to issue an eviction notice to the WCS. This all makes sense in light of the fact that they are hoping to set up a “photographic” tourism sight near to where WCS had its camp... The whole “shida” (swahili: problem) has been escalating since before we got here, but I never would have guessed that the WCS would be kicked out of the Wildlife Management Area by someone who didn’t have the authority to do that.... The whole situation has turned into a really huge mess, and it seems like had it been handled a little differently by the rest of the WCS management it could have been easily resolved. Therefore, our boss resigned. He’ll be here for another 6 months and then may be transferred to another WCS program.
It was really sad to drive through the villages today on our way to town and think about the repercussions that closing Lunda Camp will have on the nearby community. But at the same time, it was really great to think about all the ways it has helped these villages. Our boss (Pete) seems to be really admired and respected. Whenever I mention that I’m working for WCS, people always respond with kind words about “Coppolillo” (his last name). There are about 10 people employed at the camp—they’re all really wonderful and work really hard. They will all lose their jobs. In the villages, making a couple dollars a day is a really good income that can easily support a family. While I have no idea how much the Lunda staff were paid, I’m sure it supported an intricate web of family members and friends. People seem to love the WCS—you see people wearing WCS paraphernalia, and people are always so happy to see the WCS truck pull through the villages. I’ve been reading interviews that a PhD student here has been doing on human-elephant conflict, and everyone is aware of the connection between WCS and benefits they have started to receive from the nearby wildlife management area.
The program here will still continue- there will just be a new program director and possibly some program changes. The older generation here is so passive about everything, but the younger generation of WCS employees and villagers are really fired up at the government, the WCS country director, and the association of villages that actually has the jurisdiction to issue permits for the Wildlife Management Area. There has been talk of protesting... but it’s amazing to me how fearful people here are of their government. I have been brought up with the value that if something that was happening was wrong, you should speak out against it. It seems like the younger generation here embraces that same idea, but the older generation (who recently lived through a period of socialism) has such a different approach to dealing with political problems. I don’t want to say which attitude is better, because I really have no idea what people are up against fighting this incredibly complex and corrupt institution. Either way, it will be really interesting to see what happens...
While all this bad stuff is going on, there have been some lighter moments. To break down camp, a group of about 10 of Pete’s friends came down (the majority of them under the age of 15). It was fun to have kids around—they called themselves fidget, midget, and squidget, names that were even funnier when they pronounced them with their British accents. We got to hear some British opinions on the election, roast marshmallows over a fire, and inch our way out on a sandbank where a crocodile was sunbathing. Side note: it’s amazing how closely the rest of the world watches our politics—I’ve met people who never went to school, who can’t read, who are following our election closely...
Okay, I think that’s about all for now. We’re back in town now, and will be for a while, so I’m sure that I’ll have entertaining stories about civilization soon. After a while, crocodile.
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