Last Days in Olasiti

These are our last few days here in Olasiti.  It’s hard to believe that we’ve been here for a whole month!  Yesterday I wasn’t feeling too great, and it turns out I have a small fever.  But never fear, it’s nothing that advil can’t fix!  The only time it really bothers me is when I am trying to sleep-sleeping on the ground with just a thin mattress makes the achiness twenty times worse.  So yesterday and today I’ve been lying low. I read a lot yesterday and played some euchre and durak (a Russian card game that Karen and Zach taught me).  Also, we’ve been studying our ecology notes for the final, which is when we return to Dar.  Next up we are headed to Laetoli, Olduvai Gorge, Ngorogoro Crater, and Lake Eyasi.  Supposedly the crater is supposed to be super cold!  Won’t that be a shock after this sweltering heat? 

This morning we had another explosion in camp. Hah.  It woke us all up at 5:00 am.  Supposedly they had to blast open the cement slab over the septic system in order to have it pumped.  It was so loud!  So far though, not much has changed in camp.  The Nairobi flies have fortunately been less obnoxious, and we haven’t been getting too many bites.  But, camp is now infested with beetles.  They love the lights in the evening and we often have to ditch the pavilion because it is literally raining bugs. 

This morning we drove to a couple of really tall hills (mountains?) and took a nice long hike up one of them.  It was quite tiring, especially with me not feeling 100%.  But, I made it to the top and the view was pretty amazing.  The land was completely flat until it hit the mountains in the distance.  You could see the Maasai herding their cattle below as well as the little bomas (Maasai Villages) dotting the countryside.  We hiked down and then headed back to camp.  I’m still not feeling the greatest (still a fever and achy).  Hopefully tomorrow is better!

Erin

Swahili Word of the Day: Mlima [mmm-LEE-mah] = mountain

Cooking in Tanzania

Stories and Nairobi Flies

A view of the road around camp

Maasai women's group where we interviewed

Maasai Jewelry!

Well, it's official. We all look like we got in a fight with a cat and lost.  Ok, so maybe that's an exaggeration.  But, remember when I told you that Zach had a huge red spot on his neck caused by a caterpillar?  Well, it wasn't really a caterpillar.  Chaka informed us last night that it is from an insect called the Nairobi fly, which irritates your skin when it stays on their for extended periods of time.  So far, I think about 5 people have been affected by it.  Zach has a huge spot on his neck and one by his eye, Karen has some under her eyes and in her nose, Chelsea has a small spot on her wrist, Lauren has spots on her back and neck, and Zoe woke up this morning with tons of spots all over her neck and face.  The spots feel like a sunburn or a really bad burn and hurt quite badly.  They take at least a week to go away.  Zach's spot isn't even better yet.  So today many of us shook out our tents in hopes that we would get rid of some of them.  We have determined that they must bite us while we are sleeping.  Anyway, I haven't been affected yet (knock on wood), but I did wake up this morning feeling really achey and tired.  I think I'm coming down with a sinus cold. 
So, back to the exciting stuff-what I did with my day today.  I took a walk to the secondary school to sit on the biology class and learn about Malaria.  I had to leave a little early since I didn't feel too well.  The rest of the morning was spent reading, laying down, and beading.  Lunch was spaghetti with cheese, fried eggplant, and green beans and carrots.  After lunch I continued with the crafts-doing watercolors and making a friendship bracelet.  Then, I accompanied Siri with her to her interview with a Maasai man.  He was so funny!  He was very frail and old, and told us several stories about the origin of the Maasai and about the monsters who live in the forest.  According to the Maasai, anyone who abandons the Maasai tradition to live in the forest becomes a huge monster with long ears and tree branches coming out of him.  It was so great to see this old man who could barely walk, acting out these stories.  We ended up talking to him for an hour and a half.  Siri and I returned to camp and now I'm here writing this blog.  I'm hoping I'll feel better tomorrow.  Trudy and I are going to teach some of the kids who live across from camp just for fun. I invited them into camp before to color and they all wanted me to show them how to write their names.  So, tomorrow, we are going to hold a little school here at camp.  Well, that's all for now. Take care!
Erin
Swahili word of the day: Hadithi [Hah-DEE-thee] = story

Secondary School

The primary school

Primary school classrooms

Shaye teaching biology

The Class

Yesterday morning we went to the secondary school to see if we could help with the classes there.  We talked to the headmaster and arranged to help the students with mathematics, biology, and chemistry every day from 8:00 am to 10:00 am.  So today we walked to the secondary school and sat in on some classes.  Trudy and Zoe sat in on a geometry class, Shaye and Colleen sat in on a physics class, and I sat in on a biology class.  Most of us just observed class, but Shaye and Colleen ended up teaching the circulatory system to one of the biology classes.  In my biology class, we learned about endemic diseases.  Today’s disease was typhoid fever and we learned the symptoms, causes, treatment, and prevention for the disease.  Tomorrow they are learning about malaria and I am tempted to come back just to learn about malaria.  Also, they have agriculture classes at the school and I think I will sit in on one of those classes tomorrow also.  We have come to realize that we are not going to be much help at the secondary school.  The teachers just don’t understand that we want to help them teach – either they have us teach the class completely, or we just observe.  Some of the other students who volunteer are frustrated with this, but honestly, it doesn’t bother me that much.  I realize that we are probably not going to help out at the school and that is fine with me.  I am content just observing and watching their classes. 

Yesterday afternoon I went with Brennan to do some interviews in a Maasai boma.  We interviewed 6 ladies and asked them about their level of happiness and their daily tasks in the village.  It was interesting to hear their responses.  Most thought that the hardest tasks were farming and taking care of cattle; and they were the least happy when they were doing these tasks.  We gave the women sugar and tea for their time and then headed back to camp. 

Well, I’m sad to report that the moon is now too bright to see many of the stars.  I have been trying to stargaze but it’s a little tricky since we are smack dab on the equator.  I have to piece together the northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere start charts in order to get a complete picture.  But, I’ll keep working on it! 

Hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween and Happy November!

Erin

Swahili Word of the Day: Usiku [oo-SEE-koo] = night

A Tour of Camp

Our lovely tents

Colleen and my tent

Siri's much-used hammock

The inside of our tent

The pavillion where we ate

So I thought that I would finally give you all a tour of our camp since it’s been about 2 weeks since we’ve gotten here (we are at the halfway point, how crazy!).  Our camp is about a 10 minute walk from the town of Olasiti.  Olasiti is not much of a town, it’s got a few shops and bars, but that’s about it.  The road to camp is gravel and if you take it all the way, it leads to Tarangire National Park.  Our camp is off of this road, and is a public campsite enclosed in a nice little stone wall.  There are two permanent pavilions here; one is ours and the other is for the other campers who come.  We get new campers just about every day here.  Typically, safari companies take their visitors to one camp for a night, they go on a safari, and then they move to another campsite and park the next day.  It’s very unusual for a group to stay as long as we are staying.  Our tents are the nice canvas ones, and we sleep three to a tent.  The bathroom facilities are probably some of the best we have had during our travels here.  We have hot water (sometimes) and there is even a sink!  Of course, we still don’t have flush toilets but that’s quite alright.  I am happy to say that I am both dirtier and cleaner than I have been in a while.  The dirt here is the fine, black, silty stuff that gets everywhere, so when I go into the field or into town, my legs get super dirty.  But, I have taken a shower pretty much every day since I have been here.  What else…well, the other pavilion sells soda, so that is kind of refreshing on a hot day.  Mostly, the landscape here is a dusty desert.  There are some trees, but it’s pretty flat and you can see for miles on all sides of camp.  Sometimes, when it’s clear enough you can even see Kilimanjaro in the distance. 

Today we had the unfortunate event of being caught in a dust storm.  Lis, Hani, Abby, and I started walking to the market when we heard a ton of thunder.  We looked to our right and saw a huge mass of dark clouds and a ton of dust being picked up from the ground.  At first I thought it was rain that was causing the dust to fly up from the ground, but we soon realized that it must be a huge dust storm.  We ducked in a mud hut where they sold souvenirs just in time-the wind picked up and dust started flying everywhere.  It was so windy that the whole hut shook!  I felt like we were in a tornado and it was actually a little scary.  But, after the rain, dust, and thunder, the storm passed and we continued on our way to the market.  At the market we bought beads, bananas, and oranges.  I was so excited that they had bananas!  For some reason, I have been craving bananas here.  We don’t get a ton of them served to us by the cooks. 

When we got back, I read for a while in the hammock and then colored.  We have adopted a new pet at camp (our last pet, the turtle, was let go in the park so he could be free again).  They found a tiny little puppy who was pretty mangy looking and had fleas.  So Zoe and Dave groomed him, picked the fleas off of him, and fed him crackers and peanut butter.  He was much happier once he wasn’t scared.  Later, his mom showed up and we decided to let him go back with her.    

Dinner tonight was ugali, plantain stew, and ground beef.  We are kind of getting sick of ugali, but they did serve us bananas!  Tomorrow we are planning on going to the secondary school to try to volunteer there.  Apparently the primary school has exams all this week and then we are on break, so volunteering at the primary school is no longer an option.  For lack of better things to do, I have begun to write up my research report.  And if I still need things to occupy my time, I can always help out with other people’s projects.  This morning I helped Carla collect ants for her experiment.  She is looking at aggression behavior in ants and wants to fight ants that are on different trees. 

Well, today has been a pretty lazy day.  Everyone is a little tired from last night.  It was an awesome party and we had tons of music and candy.  The costumes were great too!  I was a wizard, due to the fact that my nickname has become “the wizard” here in the field.  Chelsea was a daladala and Shaye was Jen’s research project title: vigilance behavior while zebras drinking.  It was super cute!  Overall, we had an awesome time and we are considering hosting another party next weekend. 

Happy Halloween!

Tigger

Winnie The Pooh

Desert Pirate

Trash Cat

Wizard

So this evening we are celebrating Halloween, and Jen, Zach and I have spent the morning decorating the pavilion for the festivities.  Zach rented speakers in Olasiti and we are planning on having a dance party tonight.  Most everyone else has gone into Arusha to buy candy for our Halloween Bash, leaving just Jen, Zach and I here at camp. 

Trudy and Colleen arrived back mid morning.  Colleen has been sick with a bacterial infection and went to the clinic in Arusha.  She now has meds and is feeling slightly better, but has a lot of what I had and can’t really move without having her stomach cramp up.  Meanwhile, Zach has a huge welt on his neck that we think is a bite of some sort.  He’s had it for several days and we think it’s getting better but it’s hard to tell.  It’s fairly large-probably the size of two silver dollars.  And yesterday Shaye got a rash from holding a goat.  Yep, that’s right, holding a goat.  Apparently there was the cutest baby goat out in the field and she held it for a half an hour and now has a rash.  Oh, and Karen’s eye is completely swollen.  We don’t really know what happened there, but it’s been swollen for a couple of days now and sometimes she can’t really open it too well.  And I have a mysterious scratch running all down my face.  So, as you can tell, we are all extremely healthy here J  I think that this just reiterates the fact that it is so easy to get sick here in Tanzania, and most of the time, you have no idea what the cause is. 

Today has been pretty low key.  With everyone gone in Arusha, there are very few people left here at camp.  We spent the morning making decorations and then I worked on writing some post cards and journal entries.  After lunch, James and I walked into town and now we are all just hanging out in the pavilion.  It decided to be hot and sunny again today so we are all seeking refuge from the sun.  I brought one of our mattresses into the pavilion for Colleen to lay on since it is so hot in the tent. 

Anyway, that’s all for now.  I’ll let you know how the Halloween bash goes!

Erin

Swahili word of the Day: pipi [pee-pee] = candy

Thunderstorms!

Termite Mound

The Primary School

Shaye Teaching English

So yesterday morning we woke up and it was strangely overcast.  So far, the weather here has been sunny every day, and the sun is super hot!  And then, around 11:00 a.m., we started to hear thunder and it actually rained!  It poured for about 15 minutes and was thundering. It was fabulous. We haven’t had many storms here in Tanzania, and it was very comforting. 

For breakfast yesterday we had beans, eggs, and bread for breakfast.  Trudy, Colleen, and I walked to the school where we taught Standard 3 the numbers in English.  We also taught them the difference between short and shorter, tall and taller, etc.  After that, we had craft time and I graded some of the math notebooks while the other kids did art projects with us.  We walked back to camp and I started doing my laundry.  However, it decided to rain in the middle of my laundry session so my laundry is now sitting in a bucket half-done. 

Lunch was ugali, vegetables, and potatoes.  Ugali is not my favorite meal, but it was still pretty good, especially with the veggies.  After lunch I read for a while and then walked into town.  Rumor had it that there was a post office in town, but alas, there is not so I will just have to wait until Arusha to mail my letters.  From what I understand, the post office is in the next town over.  I bought a few postcards while in town and then returned to camp.  As usual, I was escorted by a host of kids who walked along side of me, holding my hand, and asking if I would teach them at school.  Camp was pretty empty in the afternoon.  Many were gone doing interviews in town, and others decided to walk to the store to buy candy bars.  I killed some time coloring and reading. 

It’s really funny how much free time we have here.  I don’t think we are used to having so little to do.  Our mantra here at camp is “Pick the activity that takes the most time”.  We have designated one wall in our pavilion as the “art wall” and have begun to fill it with watercolor pictures, coloring pages, and drawings.  I think that some of the best items we brought with us to the field have been coloring books, craons, watercolors, and friendship bracelet string.  We are also convinced that we are all going crazy.  4 weeks is a long time to spend with 20 other people and many of us are going insane.  Fortunately, we aren’t getting too snappy with each other yet.  We are more just going insane from boredom and lack of structured activity.  We frequently burst out in song or yell absurd things.  Yesterday, we started singing Christmas songs, and this morning, it was the backstreet boys. 

The highlight of our day yesterday was adopting a pet turtle.  Lauren met some children on the street who had a turtle and were going to kill it.  She convinced them to give it to her for 500 Tsh and now we have a pet turtle that lives in our pavilion.  We even made him a cardboard box house!

One of our fantasies here has been ice water.  We crave it like crazy!  The water here doesn’t quite taste ike the water in Dar or at home.  In fact, we have come to determine that it just doesn’t quench your thirst.  It has a really strange taste and some people haven’t even been able to drink a lot of it because it tastes so gross.  Anyway, we often go into town where they have coolers full of drinks and we buy semi-cold water, which is a HUGE treat.  But, it still isn’t super cold and we still wish we had ice!  During the day, it’s so ht our that our waterbottles heat up and we have to drink warm water.  It’s really tasty! (NOT).  The other day, Daveo came up with the idea of digging a root cellar to keep all of our waterbottles cold.  And yesterday, Zoe actually started digging one.  It was pretty hilarious to watch.  We put a waterbottle full of water in it and today we are going to test it out to see if it actually keeps anything cooler. 

Today Dave, Jen, Lauren and I went into the park.  Dave and I measured 22 termite mounds and now have enough data to begin analyzing.  It was really pleasant in the park this morning, it was overcast once again, and it even sprinkled a little.  Things are so much cooler here when the sun isn’t out!  I even had goosebumps this morning!  And last night I got to sleep with a blanket on me!  Anyway, I’m headed back for lunch now.  Adios!

Erin

Swahili word of the day: Kobe [KOH-bay] = turtle