National Museum

Yesterday we went to the National Museum in downtown Dar es Salaam.  We went right after Swahili (which is now only two hours long!) and had our human evolution professor guide us.  It was exciting to actually be in downtown Dar.  None of us have really spent a lot of time there, and it was cool to see the bustling city and tall buildings.  The National Museum is supposedly one of the better museums in Tanzania.  It chronicles the history of Tanzania as well as the fossils and artifacts from ancient civilizations that have been found in the country.  Dr. Bushozi (our human evolution professor) actually works with a lot of the archaeologists there and he showed us some of the human teeth he found while excavating a site in Tanzania.  We also got to see endocasts and replicas of the skulls that were found in Olduvai Gorge and other places around Tanzania.  The museum took about 2 hours, and by the time we got everyone together it was about 2:00 p.m.  We headed to lunch at a Lebanese restaurant downtown called Al Basha.  It was crazy nice!  They had beautiful bathrooms with flush toilets, running water, soap, and a hand dryer.  It was heavenly J  I ordered a hummus platter with pita bread for lunch and many others got the same.  We were thrilled at the fact that there were salads on the menu too!  And I even got to have a little of Abby’s tabbouleh, which is my favorite salad ever!  The food was beyond good.  Many of us ordered milkshakes, freshly made juice, or banana-honey smoothies.  And for dessert, there were fruit salads with ice cream on top or banana splits.  The food was definitely a much needed change from rice.  We headed back to the university and by the time we got back it was almost 5:30.  We studied for our tests (we have three this week) and then hit the hay.  We are all a little frustrated since the water has been out for 4 days and we have not showered since then.  Plus, we are all still sandy and gross from the beach and have no way to wash our hair.  Normally, we would be able to take bucket showers, but all of the water is used up, and there isn’t even any reserved water in the big black canisters at the bottom of the dorm!  Plus, the internet has been out for 3 days now, which is also somewhat frustrating.  Luckily I can go to the Godde’s house and use their internet. 

On a side note, I have to share a funny story with you.  Carla and Karen, who live two rooms down from us, apparently couldn’t sleep last night because there was a rat in their room.  Now they tried to just go to sleep, but then realized it had chewed through 7 pairs of Carla’s underwear along with a cardboard box.  When Carla went back into her bed, the rat scurried into her bed and bit her finger (don’t worry, no blood was drawn).  So Carla and Karen brought their mattresses to the 5^th floor and had a sleepover on Siri and Zoe’s floor.  It will be interesting to see where they sleep tonight.  They talked to Mama Jane (the hall warden) about it, so hopefully it will be resolved soon. 

And, as for more news, we have our first confirmed case of malaria.  Lauren has been sick for 3 weeks now and has been just drugging herself and trying to make it through the day.  She has had 2 different malaria tests done and both came back negative, but she finally went to the hospital today to talk with a doctor and the test they gave her there came back positive.  So, hopefully now she will be able to recover with all of the meds they gave her!  Anyway, I’m off to read.  Talk to you later!

So I'm back (I wrote that blog yesterday and am now finishing it today).   Good news! I finally took a shower!!!!! The Goddes graciously let me use their shower (I haven't showered in 5 days!).  Apparently, the water pump on campus is broken so none of the dorms have had water for the past 5 days.  It's getting pretty disgusting.  Ten girls using one toilet without water to flush with gets pretty nasty pretty quickly.  But on the bright side, our "rat" problem is now fixed.  I found the two rats (they were really mice) in the trash can this morning scavenging for food and threw them off the fourth floor fire escape.  Needless to say, I don't think that they are alive anymore. 

Today we had our first ecology exam.  It was...er...interesting.  We all studied our brains out, but nothing we studied or went over was actually on the test.  For example, the first question asked us to name the authors of the 3 optional textbooks that were assigned for the class.  Other questions were based off of items that were talked about in passing, or asked about in class (but these things were never actually covered in the powerpoint or notes).  But, oh well.  We all did quite horribly, but at least we only have to get 50% to get a B!  We have a human evolution test tomorrow so we will have to see how that goes.  I'm off to study!

Erin