First Few Days

I AM HERE!

The last two days have been orientation and seriously packed full of overwhelming culture-shock. In other words, there have been lots of up and downs!

The flights went smoothly, although they took forevvvveeeeeerrrr. I had a 3 hour layover in Addis Ababa and it sucked. On my way back I have a 6 hour layover…from 8pm til 2am! That is a ridiculously long time to spend in an airport in any case, and much more ridiculous when that airport is in Ethiopia. I’m nervous to be there at night that long by myself, but whats done is done I suppose. Hakuna Matata as they say in Tanzania (yes, they really say that!!)

The first night here we went out to a bar…wow, wasn’t expecting that at all. I knew there was a large Muslim population here so I assumed that I would be on a 9 week cleanse…as it turns out, that will not be the case. Moshi even has their own brew of beer called “Kilimanjaro” and banana wine as well!

The first place we went was called Glacier Bar. It was an outdoor bar covered by a roof of palm leaves (or at least that’s what it looked like) with a dance floor surging with at least 100 or so people. Age doesn’t seem to be much of a factor in the night life of Tanzania. I saw a 1 year old sitting at a bar stool and every other age group on up from there. What was interesting was that not many people were drinking. They were all just there to dance. Tanzanian’s love to dance and they’re good too! They call dancing “shakie shakie”! I was surprised at the mix of music. That night I heard everything from local Tanzanian music to Lady Gaga’s “poker face”. They even played Eminem! Proving that even white rappers can make it in Africa! How is it possible that American pop culture has managed to percolate its way through rural Africa and yet most houses don’t have electricity?

While at Glacier Bar I met a girl from the UK. She was easy to pick out seeing as she was the only other “muzungo” (or white person) in the bar. She had just finished climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro and was staying in a hostel in Moshi. I couldn’t believe she was doing all this traveling by herself! She was from Edinburgh, Scotland, which I’ve actually visited a handful of times. Between that and our combined travels we had plenty to talk about! By the end of the night we knew quite a lot about each other and made sure she added me to her iPhone telling her that anytime she travels to the states she has a place to stay in Minnesota!

We went to tour a village called Rau on Monday. We got to see the inside of some women’s homes and stopped at a few other places in the village. At one destination we were offered homemade beer out of a giant plastic cup. Being the good sport I am I did take a sip. My mouth was immediately invaded by a bitter, pungent, yeasty substance that looked like pond water and left something to be desired in the way of texture. As I picked grit out of my teeth I began to wonder where exactly it was brewed… It’s been 24 hours and I haven’t gotten sick yet so I’m considering the experience a victory!

Swahili is the national language of Tanzania. As it turns out my limited vocabulary all stems from the classic Disney film, “The Lion King”. Here is a short lesson of words that you already probably know in Swahili, but probably didn’t know what they meant:
Simba – Lion
Pumbaa – Pig
Rafiki – Friend
Asante Sana (from the nonsense song Rifiki sings) – thank you very much
I was sad to find out that Mufasa, Zazu, and Nala don’t actually mean anything.

Speaking of simbas and pumbaas, I’m going on a Safari this weekend! I along with 16 other volunteers are signed up for this weekend excursion with a company called Prestige (which continually reminds me of the movie Stepbrothers)! We leave on Friday after our placements and head for Ngorongoro Crater. Since the large majority of the group are college students with limited funds we are signed up for budget camping! This means I will be staying on a cot in a screened in hut/tent thing on the edge of a crater just outside the boarder of the Serengeti full of lions, elephants, hyenas, rhinos, leopards, and probably other things that I don’t want to know about. For the past few days volunteers have been sharing stories they’ve heard about people being eating by wild animals because they left food in their tents, or went outside after nightfall. I don’t think I’ll be getting much sleep on Safari, but hakuna matata!

I'll post more soon! Hopefully with pictures!