Something to write home about

Poleni sana (“very sorry”) for the silence…I’ve been settling in and just haven’t quite been sure where to start here. But I may as well get the basics of where I’m staying/what I’m doing out of the way today with the promise that stories will get more interesting from on out.

It’s been a familiar several days speaking Swahili again, running errands in town and checking out the market and trying local foods. Katrina (another F/H student) and I have moved in with the family of one of the professors at the school where we study (the head Swahili instructor in fact, so our language lessons continue during breakfast/dinner/our rides to and from school/general downtime) – the new accommodations have been wonderful but didn’t seem out of the ordinary enough to write home about, as right away it felt like home here. Mama Magdalena and Baba Steven have three boys, all close in age and either working already or finishing university (at Tanzania’s land use/urban planning institute, no less). Magdalena is a professional chef and Steven is a teacher/community development/child rights expert. Something about this picture feels not at all out of the ordinary J We live on the slopes of Arusha’s Mount Meru in a house surrounded by banana and coffee farms (the family grows and harvests their own coffee here at home which is welcome news to me because despite the fact that coffee is grown all over this country, a good homebrewed cup is near impossible to come by since most watanzania seem to prefer Africafe which is instant coffee mix). The one and only thing I’d change is the weather…we’re freezing our butts off here!! It’s the cool & drizzly season now, and the elevation in Arusha is really high. So we’re talking a long skirt with leggings underneath and 2+ layers, plus a light jacket, plus a kanga wrapped around our shoulders to fight off the cold…and that still doesn’t do the trick! It’s been cloudy the past several days so we haven’t been able to see Mount Meru, let alone Kilimanjaro which we’ve heard rumors can be seen from school. But the sun finally came out today so on the way home Katrina and I asked what direction we would look to see Kili, thinking it would be so far off we could barely see it. Steven and Magdalena pulled over to the side of the road to let us out, pointed in the direction we’d been coming from, and there it was, big as day – snow and all. 

Now I’d be lying if I said I ever plan to climb it: seven days of altitude sickness and freezing my butt off in nasty conditions is not my cup of tea (or coffee)…but I can most definitely get used to this being my view for the next seven weeks.

The school where we’re studying is incredible. It’s an institute that was established as a partnership between the Danish and Tanzanian governments and which focuses on building capacity for development. It offers classes for all sorts of development workers, so you find employees of non-profit organizations from all over East Africa. Today we had lunch with several Tanzanians and Ugandans from the World Wildlife Foundation who do all sorts of conservation work. The center has a staff of about 8 Swahili teachers, and we have two assigned to our group of 11.

We went over our schedule for the seven weeks we’re here and it includes a couple things I knew we were doing and was excited about already, like a couple days in Dar es Salaam and a week in Zanzibar, but it turns out we also have a surprise mini-safari to Ngorongoro Crater (a national park which is on the floor of a hopefully extinct but who knows, maybe dormant, volcano) and to Machame (known as the “gateway” to Kilimanjaro since it’s the beginning of the route that most climbers take). We actually leave for the two day safari tomorrow – no sense wasting time I guess J

No surprise, but I’m battling with the idea of regular blogging. I’m not sure how often I’ll have day-to-day updates for you, as I think they’re a little boring, but I’ll post pictures when I have them (look for some good ones after this weekend!) and am also thinking I’ll post Swahili sayings which tend to be pretty short, but packed full of insight that’s up to you to interpret…though this assumes, of course, that I can actually figure out how to translate them. But here’s one for starters (just know that the English translation is a bit butchered and sounds only half as good in Swahili words): “Tembea uone, usingoje kuambiwa” - Walk/wander so that you see, you shouldn’t wait to be told

*Oh and maybe just one cross cultural anecdote for today*: this morning at breakfast, our shangazi (sister of Baba Steven who was visiting from Dar es Salaam) told us straight away that she was surprised Obama was reelected since he had supported gay marriage. The “surprised” word choice, I think, was just a form of linguistic diplomacy. Well good morning to you, too! She then proceeded to ask what whether we supported marriage between two men or two women. To which I thought: yikes…how do you say “I don’t have a horse in this race, but that I’m generally supportive of live and let live policies” in Swahili? Lol that was a pretty quick convo that ended in raised eyebrows and probably a million more questions which she was wise enough not to ask.

Hope all is well in your worlds. I’m really excited to hear that a bunch of you are working on This I Believes of your own – can’t wait!