Hi folks! First, a much needed apology for not updating for oh, let’s see… four months now. Clearly I’m not much of a blogger. I’m actually surprised this didn’t happen sooner, so I’m not going to promise any future improvements. On the up side, at least reading this blog isn’t taking up too much of your free time. Ha. Though this entry is certainly long… Anyway, what have I been doing for the past four months, you ask? Short version: going to class, hanging out with people from all over east Africa, floundering through awkward cross-cultural interactions on a daily basis, lots more sweating, and fulfilling childhood dreams like climbing Mt Kilimanjaro and visiting Zanzibar (thanks Billy Harley). I am happy, healthy, and looking forward to the next five (holy cow, that’s it?!) months. Oh yeah, and mango season has come and, sadly, gone. That was a beautiful time. For the long version, brace yourself and read on. I also had some good internet recently so I put photos on facebook from the last 9 months. If you want to see photos and don’t have a facebook account you can see them via these links:
Tanzania: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=284948&id=584073756&l=0d881cc01d
Malawi: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=283621&id=584073756&l=550ee8f61b
Zambia: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=283325&id=584073756&l=46d544b15e
Enjoy!
I suppose I should start with a bit about school. The first semester finished about a month ago and we theoretically started again two weeks ago, meaning things will get going eventually I suppose. The first semester finished up relatively well I guess. I think my favorite class ended up being African Women Writers. Not only was the reading really interesting, but the professor was also quite entertaining. I really admire her for not only exposing her students to ideas like feminism, but for really pushing them to examine their own lives and actions. While there wasn’t much literary analysis in the class (just lots of plot discussion), I felt like I really learned a lot about my classmates and Tanzanian culture. This professor actually made an effort to get to know her students, which showed because anytime she wanted a particular perspective on an issue she simply called on someone to give their opinion. As one of two foreign students in the class this meant I got picked out on a pretty regular basis, so everyone was treated to my perspective on children’s obligations to their parents and my opinion on whether or not a man was justified in brutally beating his daughter because she “provoked” him by questioning his authority. This professor was also entertaining because you never knew what her opinion might be on any given issue, but she sure didn’t hold back from telling the class. She could be incredibly liberal and open minded about certain issues like women’s rights to equal opportunities for education and employment, but she would also say things like “You know the world has problems when men are plaiting their hair and wearing earrings.” And in her opinion, there is no place for homosexuality in Africa. Unfortunately that is not an unpopular opinion around here, though I honestly hoped for a bit more from this professor. Bleagh. I appreciate what progressive ideas she did express at the very least…
Though sometimes frustrating, I generally enjoyed listening to my professors’ and classmates’ opinions in class. I felt like that aspect of going to school here has taught me more than the curriculum itself. There were, however, a couple instances where I felt like some lines were crossed. The most disturbing one actually happened in my soil mechanics course. Now I know what you’re thinking, soil mechanics isn’t exactly the class where you would expect inflammatory statements. Really, for the majority of the semester I was simply bored out of my mind, so I was rather unprepared for what the professor had in store for us in his last lecture. He said that before he let us go he wanted to give us three pieces of advice. First, he told us to “always put the almighty god first” because god is the most important thing in any of our lives. I wasn’t thrilled by this, but as he had been making references to god on a regular basis throughout the semester at least I wasn’t surprised. Second, he advised us (well, the Tanzanian students) to support each other in future engineering projects because the majority of engineering works in the region are contracted out to foreign companies. While this piece of advice wasn’t so welcoming to me personally, I definitely supported it. There are tons of infrastructure projects that are funded as part of development aid, though more often than not the engineers working on these projects are from Europe or China. This means that while one bridge may be getting built, the knowledge of how to build future bridges remains underdeveloped. So well done on the second piece of advice. Alas, if only he had left off there… His third recommendation was that no one have sex before marriage because he/she will get AIDS and die. According to professor Kyulule, even using a condom wouldn’t protect you because AIDS was created by god to punish humans. “I mean, how could a little piece of rubber stop a virus? Even if you had a metal condom…” He continued to say that once you are married you can have sex with your wife (of the 100 students in the class I believe all but four were boys) without any problems, but if you are unfaithful then—you guessed it—AIDS and instant death. Needless to say, I was flabbergasted. I like to think that I’ve become decently good at controlling my surprised or skeptical facial expressions, but in this situation I have no idea how long my jaw was hanging wide open before I realized I should shut my mouth. Seriously?! This is supposedly the best public university in the country, and this was a science class! I have long since realized that Tanzanians and I have different opinions about where it is or is not appropriate to bring religion into a discussion, but to have a university professor telling blatant lies about effective condom use is, I feel, going too far. Say what you will about the morality of having sex or using contraception, but telling a group of young Tanzanians that condoms physically don’t work is completely ludicrous. The conclusion to this story does not, unfortunately, involve me standing up for reason and science by questioning the professor or reporting my concerns to the head of the department. Rather, I just became more angry and frustrated when the following day I asked one of my classmates what he though of Kyulule’s final remarks and he said, “I thought it was nice.” Ugh.
At the beginning of the year I was pretty overwhelmed by all the attention I was getting in my classes and the prospect of making actual friends was rather daunting, however as the semester progressed I do feel like I really got to know some of my classmates to the point where hanging out with them was enjoyable rather than exhausting. My best friend turned out to be my chemistry lab partner, Said. Not only did this make the otherwise agonizing chemistry practicals bearable, but we had a lot of fun outside class as well. Said really wants to improve his English (probably the reason he wanted to be my lab partner in the first place) so we spend a lot of time exchanging English and Kiswahili. He keeps lists of words he reads or hears that he doesn’t understand and I do my best to explain them. Half of the words (you can probably guess which ones) in this post’s title are words he has asked about. I think one of my favorite questions of the semester was, “Can I say ‘I have a defiant cow?’” Sure! He also asks for translations of words from Kiswahili, which turns out to be much more difficult because they are often words describing something really specific that requires a full phrase to convey in English. This is actually really fun because these words are rarely in my dictionary which means Said has to come up with examples (which are often very involved) to describe what the word means. Basically it’s all hilarious. And of course, Said is able to answer any question I might have in Kiswahili as well. This is especially helpful when it comes to slang, because there is so much that people (particularly university students) say that is not in any dictionary or has another meaning in addition to the standard translation. For example, you might hear the words “mzuka” or “bomba” used in greeting but you look them up to discover that they literally mean “ghost” and “water pipe,” respectively. Confusion? Yes. Well, both these words can also be used to ask, “what’s up?” and to reply “everything’s cool.” Yeah, I have no idea why… But it’s fun! In addition, Said and I talk a lot about our respective cultures. He has told me I can ask him anything, so I do. This has been really eye opening because he is from a relatively conservative Muslim community so his perspective on women, family, and religion is, to say the least, different than mine. But we respect each other’s differences and get along well so haina shida.
In addition to the Kiswahili, being a racial minority, and constantly having birds flying in and out of all the lecture halls (the open architecture to facilitate as much air flow as possible also provides a welcoming environment for avian friends), there are a few things that really make me realize I’m not at a university in the states. The first of which are student riots. These have actually happened a couple times for different reasons, though when the students were striking for an increase in their daily living allowance (from about $3.30 to $6.60) the university actually shut down for a few days. Students and professors were afraid to hold or attend classes because the students participating in the strikes were breaking up lectures to “encourage” other students to participate in the riot. Some of this “encouragement” took the form of beating each other with tree branches. After everyone had been enticed to join the riot or was hiding in their dorm rooms, the students organized a demonstration with the idea of marching all the way from the university to the state house downtown. However, riot police armed with tear gas and water cannons met them as soon as they left the university gate. This was on a Friday. There were sporadic incidents of chaos throughout the weekend and when students continued protesting on Monday the minister of education agreed to come speak on campus. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he told the students that there was nothing the government could do for them until the 2012 parliamentary budget session. As he left the students showed their displeasure by throwing rocks at police who retaliated with more tear gas. As Said told me via text message, “Friday police bullyed us so 2day we tried 2 reveang.” Great… The university decided that since the minister had addressed the students’ problems they should be content, and then made the announcement that any student who continued to riot would be expelled. Long story short, students in the college of engineering continued rioting for a couple reasons so the whole college was suspended. Students were given less than 24 hours to get off campus. While international students were allowed to stay, please keep in mind that students are from all over Tanzania. Yeah, craziness. Engineering students have now been allowed back on campus, but they have to finish the first semester and take university exams before they can start the second semester. Each student also had to write a letter to the administration explaining why he/she should be allowed to return. Luckily I was able to finish my soil mechanics class and exam with some other geology students taking the course, but because of the mixed up schedule for this semester it doesn’t look like I’ll be taking any more engineering classes at UDSM. And now I might have a semester in which I don’t use my calculator. What???! We’ll see what a couple Kiswahili classes, sociology, philosophy, and geography throw at me.
Another decidedly different thing about going to school here is that since I arrived on campus in November, four lecturers (that I know of) have passed away. Three of them were young and thought to be healthy before they died, but living in a developing country certainly changes the probability of dying from unnatural causes. One was killed in a road accident (the number one killer of young people in the developing world), the second was crushed by a tree that was blown down during a storm, and the third simply collapsed while giving a lecture, probably because of a heart attack but it has yet to be determined. I knew I would encounter a different side of mortality in this part of the world, but I guess I didn’t expect that it would be part of campus life.
On a lighter note, another daily reminder that I am not at Seattle U is Tanzanian cell phone etiquette. I feel like cell phones are even more widely used around here than in the US because almost no students use email as a form of daily communication. However, people also don’t use voicemail so people tend to leave their phones on all the time, and when it rings they answer it regardless of where they are or what they are doing. There is absolutely no problem for a professor to answer his/her phone in the middle of class (I believe my soil mechanics professor averaged four calls per two-hour lecture) and occasionally some students even had short, hushed conversations mid-lecture. Student calls were really distracting so thankfully when a student’s phone rang in class he/she usually just shut if off, though without any of the rush or shame that accompanies the same situation in the US. And as you might imagine, there are some pretty stellar ring tones.
Another part of life that I have been enjoying here is running in the late afternoons/evenings. It’s great to get some exercise (the endorphins do wonders on a rough day), though it’s always an adventure. On one hand it’s rather painful because it is so humid that I sweat a hilarious amount, but really, if I’m going to sweat through my shirt it’s nice to do so because of some real physical activity rather than just sitting in class. The university is actually a pretty good place to run because the campus has quite a bit of green space and lots of incredibly beautiful trees (though unfortunately with the advent of the rainy season my favorite trails have become shallow muddy ponds inhabited by frogs and who knows what else), and there is less traffic than most other parts of Dar. Really, as much attention as get in this relatively mellow setting, I can’t imagine trying to run elsewhere in the city. Basically women don’t go jogging here (in the last five months I may have seen three) so I suppose I understand the reason for all of the looks. I mean, I still gawk at things like the monkeys on campus that seem strange to me, so I guess I can’t blame the Tanzanians for staring at me while I run. And stare they do. There have actually been several instances when I was worried about drivers taking their eyes off the road for far too long in order to watch me (sometimes even by sticking their heads out the window) for as long as possible. In addition to staring, fellow pedestrians (usually male) like to make comments like “safi safi” which literally means “clean clean” though can be used to describe anything good or amusing, “pole” (I’m sorry), or, my personal favorite, “hongera!” (congratulations!). I don’t love these comments (especially the occasional evangelization attempt or when “pole” is followed by “mrembo” meaning “beautiful”) but in general I feel like they are less lecherous than the comments I received in Guatemala so it’s manageable. There are also lots of purely friendly greetings from children and young women that negate, or at least balance out, the unwanted male attention. And then there are those who decide to run with me for a bit. Again, these are usually children (one day I was chased by at least ten laughing and screaming girls still in their school uniforms), but once one of my literature classmates joined me in her flat plastic flip flops with the greeting, “I like how you are exercising yourself!” And just a few days ago an old woman wearing a muumuu, a fedora, and with what I believe was a glass eye was lying in wait for me in her driveway (I run past her house multiple times per week) so that she could trot up the hill after me for a few meters. Her cackling and the shrieks of laughter from others on her porch were evidence that they were pretty pleased with their well-executed plan of having a bit of fun with the mzungu.
As soon as I finished my exams at the end of the semester I left Dar for the best holiday ever. EVER, I tell you! Be prepared for lots of exclamation points in the next couple paragraphs. First I went to northern Tanzania where I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. It was SO wonderful. Beyond spectacular. I had wanted to hike Kili since I saw an IMAX film about the mountain when I was around 11 years old, but it was far better than I had even been hoping for. After spending the previous four months in Dar, it was phenomenal to be out hiking in some cool, crisp mountain air. It felt so nice to be cold for a change. And to wear layers! The views were spectacular, the vegetation was both beautiful and bizarre (high altitude palm tree-like things!), and though it got cold enough that sleeping was difficult, it was fun to be camping. Though we were hiking for many hours each day, almost the entirety of the trip was simply pleasant rather than exhausting because the guides pace everyone so slowly. On the trails where we didn’t have to watch our feet so much this meant it was easy to chat and take in the views. I got lucky and didn’t have any acclimatization or other problems, so I was basically on cloud nine for the six days we were on the mountain. Summit day was rather challenging, but, again, amazing. We left the last camp at midnight and started following the line of headlamps up the mountain through fresh snow. Yeah! Snow on the equator! It was super steep so we took it really slowly, but eight hours later I was at the highest point on the continent. It was actually strangely anticlimactic because it was totally socked in so there was absolutely no view (unfortunately I did not experience one of the fabled Kilimanjaro sunrises) and the last 45 minutes of the climb is not steep at all so Uhuru Peak itself seemed more like a random point on a gently sloping plateau than some glorious summit. It was kind of like, “Alright. Lets take some pictures and now I guess it’s time to go down…” However, the trip as a whole was so amazing that I kind of like that my memories aren’t solely focused on the few hours around the summit. Another thing that made the climb so wonderful was interacting with our crew in Kiswahili. It was initially strange to think that for just my friend Megan and I to climb this mountain we needed a crew of nine, but they turned out to be great guys and we had a lot of fun chatting and joking with them. And with the guides and crews of other climbers as well. Ha. The vast majority of climbers speak maybe five words of Kiswahili so some of the porters and cooks who speak no English were pretty excited to chat with us a bit. Also, the food was great. Before the mountain, it had been at least eight months since my last grilled cheese…
After sadly leaving the mountain (though a shower felt great) I basically spent a couple days just hanging out in some phenomenal coffee shops (something I’ve been missing recently) in Moshi and Arusha before coming back to Dar where I did a massive amount of laundry and then got on a ferry to spend the next ten days in Zanzibar. This was actually my third trip to Zanzibar since I’ve arrived, and it’s definitely somewhere I’ll keep going back to. Interestingly enough, Zanzibar is another place I heard about in elementary school via a public radio program and have kept thinking about it—or, rather, singing about it, sorry sis—ever since. Apparently my entire life has been pointing me towards Tanzania… Anyway, the previous two times I went to Zanzibar were just for a couple weekends: first with my study abroad program to see the touristy things and then again two weeks later for an amazing music festival called Sauti za Busara. It featured musicians from all over the continent, so I think I can generalize with certainty when I say that Africans really know how to put on a show. Boy can they shake it! Until my most recent trip, I had spent almost all of my time in Stone Town, which is the main city on Unguja, the largest island (Zanzibar is an archipelago). The historic part of Stone Town (the stone town itself) is a confusing maze of narrow streets full of shops, markets, historical sites, schools, mosques, and beautifully carved wooden doors. You definitely need to be on your guard to dodge bicycles and the occasional scooter or motorcycle, but relative to Dar it is a wonderfully relaxed place to walk around. I met up with my friend Jack who I met in Malawi and so for the first four days of my trip we basically wandered around, drank tons of fresh juice, and met up with other travelers for dinner in the evenings. Stone Town has this great plaza along the waterfront where there is a nightly seafood market and it is the place to hang out for both locals and foreigners. It is a phenomenal spot to take in a relaxing sea breeze and people watch while drinking a glass of fresh sugarcane juice. That is, until you’re spotted by one of the local tourism students who has been told to go there to practice his English with the wazungu… Ha. I think one of my favorite things about visiting Stone Town is that it is so nice to sit outside at night and feel safe. Even though there are tons of tourists, with the exception of beach boys trying to con travelers with cheap snorkeling trips Stone Town has essentially no crime. And the locals are incredibly welcoming, especially if you speak even a small amount of Kiswahili. Tanzanian friendliness never ceases to amaze me…
Then I got on a night ferry up north to Pemba, the second largest island and home to Said who had excitedly invited me to visit his island and meet his family. It was amazing. And a very different Zanzibar experience. While Unguja is one of the top tourist draws in Tanzania, there are very few visitors to Pemba who spend anytime outside the big beach hotels. This means there is much less English, but people are even more friendly when you can communicate with them. People on Pemba are also much more conservative Muslims than those on Unguja, and so there were definitely a few times where I felt a bit awkward about being the only woman without her head covered. But I’m pretty sure that was just me worrying needlessly because I certainly didn’t feel like people were shying away from me. I spent my first day catching up on a bit of sleep (the night ferry wasn’t particularly restful…) and then just wandering around Wete, the major town on the northern end of the island. The town has a huge population of fruit bats that completely filled the sky when they left their tree roosts in the evening. It was incredible. Then the next day I met up with Said who showed me around the beaches and a forest on the northern tip of the island. It is really unfortunate that my camera broke because (though I’m about to try) I don’t know how to convey in writing how beautiful the island is. The whitest sand, the bluest water, and the biggest mango trees I have ever seen. AND, I got to view it all while riding around on a vespa. Amazing. Besides the massive sunburn and having to explain to Said why I didn’t want to accept the marriage proposal from his friend I had met just that morning and whose name I didn’t know, it was one of those days that I wished would never end. We also went back to his house in the village where I met his siblings, parents, neighbors, and anyone else who came by to sneak a peak at the guest in the Khamis house. I felt both awkward with all of the attention and overwhelmed by how welcoming everyone was. In addition, I was given a nickname that is a joke I still don’t really get. Any of the older women I met called me Biafia, which was the name of Said’s grandmother because apparently in Pemba’s culture your grandmother is like your wife. Yeah… I was definitely expecting a few jokes about Said and I getting married, but despite a couple explanations I still don’t understand the grandmother reference.
