Tarangire and Mtu Wa Mbo/Lake Manyara

be prepared everyone...this may be my longest blog post yet!!! I'm writing this from Arusha in my fave internet cafe. we got back this morning from our weeklong safari so we're all pretty exhausted but here is the latest happenings from Tanzania!

We left last Sunday morning after a very long Saturday night which involved the local bar, a lot of chocolate, a lot of Konyagi, and clothing that was restricted to just a kanga (a wrap around skirt type thing). Earlier on saturday we had discovered this GREAT bookshop owned by this British woman who had all the newest books...it was like a mini Barnes and Nobles. Needless to say I was very excited and bought a book (the third girl with the dragon tattoo book, Celeste and Moni!). Oh, also this is very random but I found Vegemite at Shop Rite and I have been eating it on my toast every morning. This made me very happy because vegemite doesnt exist in the states and although i know of no one else who likes it, I am obsessed with it! I plan on buying a huge bottle to bring back. ok, sorry, back to the important stuff. We left Sunday morning for Tarangire National Park, which was about 2 hours away. The drive was very cool, because we havent seen a ton of the Tanzanian landscape yet, except for where we've been camping. THere were lots of Maasai bomas (villages) and lots of cows along the way. We got to Tarangire and for the first time since we've been in TZ it was HOT! We drove to our campsite and set up, and sadly had some very rude Italians as our neighbors. The campsite was great it actually had a real toilet and a nice little covered eating area. However, it did have thorns everywhere, so we all got our fair share of them stuck in our feet and other various body parts.

We shared the eating area with the Italians and they actually said during the middle of dinner that "one side was theirs, and the other was ours, and to stay on our side." RUDE. Once we finished setting up we took off in the Land Rovers for some wildlife viewing!!! Tarangire was SO pretty. The first night we saw a ton of impala, wildebeeste, zebra, and lots and lots of tembo (elephants!) The elephants actually came within about 10 feet of our car which was pretty amazing to see. I have some pics I'll hopefully get a chance to upload soon. That night at camp was pretty interesting to say the least....I think I had mentioned in an earlier post that the campsite isnt fenced whatsoever, so any animals can walk through camp if they want to! I woke up probably 7 times in the middle of the night to hear angry baboons, LIONS ROARING, and hyena nearby. Very cool but also a bit frightening considering we're basically only protected by our mesh tents.

The next morning we woke up, had breakfast at 6:30am and set off to collect data! We're split into 4 groups, and I'm in the Non Ruminant group, which is great because it includes the predators! :)The first morning was basically to just take a survey on what we saw 100m on either side of the road. We had a nice time watching a stampeding herd of wildebeest led by an ostrich in the front! We drove down to the river afterwards and got to see 5 cheetah! so cool because its the first wild cat i've ever seen! they were kind of far away but it was awesome. After morning data collection we have free time in the afternoon to just hang out and relax and then our evenings are spent doing more game drives around Tarangire. The first thing we got to see that afternoon was a giraffe, but im not joking, i could have reached out and touched it, it was that close. Giraffe are generally very friendly because they've never been hunted, because they're the national animal of Tanzania.
The next day was essentially the same thing, but our data collection in the morning was sexing and classifying our non-ruminants into age classes. We literally sexed a herd of about 100 zebra, which took a good hour. We also got to watch a troop of baboons around our car which was slightly frightening because male baboons can rip your face off and they probably could have jumped into our land rover if they wanted to. That night we got to go to Solelo Swamp, which was beautiful. Its the dry season here in TZ so everything is very brown and dead, but all of a sudden you drive over a hill and theres this massive green swamp, about 12 sq km right in the middle of all the brown. There were tons of warthog, zebra and elephants drinking and wading in the water. Oh we had also gotten to see a leopard earlier, which was sleeping in a tree! We were pretty lucky to see that because they're very hard to spot, as they usually only hunt at night.
Our third day there I GOT TO SEE LIONS. I literally almost fell out of my Land Rover I was so excited. We got to watch (along with about 14 other cars), 3 female lions stalk a warthog. Coolest thing of my life, no joke. It was crazy to see how well thought out their stalking was. A herd of elephant even walked in the middle of the lion and warthog at one point and the lion just sat there quietly. Sadly, the lion pounced and missed the warthog, but it was still crazy to watch. I still have to constantly remind myself these are all WILD animals, and I was watching a real lion stalk its prey.

Later that day we got to have the afternoon off to chill at a pool....in the middle of the national park! .none of us had showered in 4 days so we were taken to the Tarangire Safari Lodge for an afternoon of relaxation. it was kind of crazy to be at the pool though. I obviously highly enjoyed my shower and afternoon of reading at a pool but it was weird to think that I was doing this in a National park, in the middle of Tanzania! I could literally sit in my lounge chair and see a girafee or elephant in the background. It was a very surreal kind of experience. But the view from the lodge was gorgeous and it was our last full day in Tarangire...to top it off we had a gorgeous sunset driving back to camp in our Land Rover. :) note about the land rovers: HIGHLY uncomfortable. Most of the time we are standing with the roofs popped up, but the sides are metal so most of us have bruises around our ribcages and hips from trying to hang on for dear life while speeding 50km down a bumpy dirt road!

So on thursday (sep 23) we left Tarangire to head to Lake Manyara National Park, and the town of Mtu Wa Mbo (which means mosquito river). I was sad to leave tarangire, mostly because it was one of the most gorgeous places I've been to, but also the first place I saw a lion and the big cats!!!! Not sad to leave our Italian neighbors though. Before we left we had a lecture by TANAPA (Tanzania National Parks) about Tarangire and its history. Very interesting and I wont go into much detail here but basically I feel that everything I have thought of about conservation and national parks is being challenged so much here, and I honestly don't even know what to think anymore. Which I guess is good, I'm being challenged, but honestly my brain hurts trying to think of solutions to Africa's AID problem or whether the Maasai or the wildlife deserve the land. THe more we delve into a subject here, the more I get confused and the more I realize how helpless we are in a way. But anyways, thats a longer story for another time.
We headed to Mtu Wa Mbo and were staying at a place called Twiga Campsite (which means Giraffe). The campsite was awesome! It had a nice little pool and green grass to camp on, which was great after having camped on thorns and dirt. I would liken it to Tanzania's version of a KOA.  And no joke, I actually had my first semi-warm shower since I've gotten to Tanzania, which was great. Once we set up we went on a Cultural Walking Tour...we got to visit lots of artisans and I bought a couple good christmas presents so i wont go into too much detail :) We also got to try banana beer, which was kind of disgusting in my opinion but very cool to hear how its made. They cant bottle it because it'll keep fermenting so we all drank out of a large cup. It had millet sprinkled on top and was very thick. One of my friends here Chelsea likened the taste to "a mixture of hamster food and dirty socks, " but I didnt think it was quite that bad :)

The next morning we got to do our final data collection in Lake Manyara national park, which is known for having a large population of flamingos and hippos. i was an idiot and brought my camera but forgot to put my battery back in my camera after charging it....sooo no pics from the park. But i'll hopefully steal some from friends once they are loaded. My group decided to study hippos as our last species.......probably not the best choice in retrospect. The hippos themselves were awesome to see, because i didnt realize they were that HUGE. But, not exaggerating here, i watched my female hippo for a full TWO HOURS and the most she did was twitch her ear. She didn't move once. Nor did the other 2 hippos we chose to focus on. But of course the other 30 hippos in the group decided to swim around and be aggressive and get out and lay down near some zebra. Not our hippos though! So our data mostly consisted of 7:30am: ear twitch seen, 7:35am: bird lands on hippo, 7:36: bird leaves hippo. No joke. But it was cool because we got to see an African Cape Buffalo in the background, and which ended up coming within 15m of where we were posted. There were also tons of pelicans, hornbills, and zebra, wildebeest, and impala in the background. It was basically a real life Lion King! :) That afternoon we had the choice to explore town a bit or go on an ethnobotany tour, or drive the ecological walk, which I went on. Last spring 4 students walk about 80km through the Rift valley doing an "ecological walk" for their ISP (ind. study project) which we do at the end of the semester. Some other students and I want to do the same thing this semester, comparing our data with theirs because we are in the dry season while they were in the wet season. However, our goal would be to walk 110km from Mtu Wa Mbo to Lake Natron in 20 days, which would be about 8 miles every other day, using the days inbetween for data collection. I dont know if its even going to happen yet but I'm hoping it will! We have lots of logistics to figure out, so I'll report more on that later.

That night once we all got back to camp we were taken to a disco after dinner! It was so fun! It was this cute little bar tucked away behind some buildings and they had a DJ and played some really great Tanzanian music mixed in with some random American songs. They played Shakira's Waka Waka song about 5 times. It was really fun to just chill with the group and relax.  The next morning (today!) we packed up our tents (i stepped on a bee in the process) and peaced out to go back to Arusha. We all pretty much slept the entire way back. We had all of today in town and all of tomorow to do whatever and then we're back up to Bangata tomorrow night for the last week of homestay!!! We have 3 papers to write by next weekend (16 pages total) and our Kiswahili midterm.

I think that about sums up what has happened so far! I will try and upload pictures tomorrow!!!!!

off to Tarangire and Lake Manyara!

so this is rare but I have internet for the second time this week! we were in Arusha last Wednesday, and again we had to find our way home by nightfall. Somehow our group of 24 managed to randomly hire an entire tour bus (still not quite sure how that happened...) that took us all the way up to Bangata! its hard to find transportation up there because the roads are so bad. so lets see...we had Kiswahili the next day again, and when i got home my mama told me she had malaria! I felt so bad for her! luckily it isnt transmitted from person to person (plus im on malaria meds anyways). I've been trying to help around the house more but its hard because Im a bit limited in what I can do. I mostly wash a lot of dishes because I can't exactly cook ugali (stiff porridge) or carry 50 lbs of firewood on my head, although I do want to try before I leave. We've had a family friend Lulu over a lot though, so she's been helping quite a bit.
Hm...not much else is new, its actually warm in town today! its been raining almost every morning up in Bangata. We're staying at Klub Afriko (the little bungalow pictures for those of you facebook people) for the night and heading to Tarangire tomorrow morning. Tarangire is a national park, and our campsite isnt fenced!!!! So the advice our academic director (Baba Jack) gave us was to "not drink any liquids after dinner. if you absolutely have to pee then get out of your tent and shine your light in a complete circle. If you see red eyes, you're ok because those are herbivores. If you see green eyes, you're not ok because those are predators....and if you hear a lion roar you probably won't have to pee anymore!" haha I'm so excited to go though! It'll be the first time we get to see big predators. We spend 3 nights in the park, and then move to a campsite near Lake Manyara for another 3 nights. I'll be back in Arusha next Saturday where I will report back on how the safari went!!!! :)

dala-dalas, waterfalls, Arusha, and daily life

ok, another week has passed here in Tanzania and i have so much to update on as usual!!!!! I guess I'll start from last Wednesday, when I had Internet last. we were responsible for finding our own way home to Bangata, so we all decided to take a "dala-dala" back. The dala-dalas are 16-seater mini vans, however we managed to fit all 24 of us in one! it was insane and probably the most uncomfortable experience of my life, but still hilarious nonetheless. I had brought my homestay brothers a soccer ball that I bought in town so when i got home I played with them in the yard for a while, with them in their shorts and me in my pink skirt! :) We can't wear pants in bangata, so i've gotten quite used to wearing skirts every day. Sadly, the ball i bought them is completely dead now, but atleast they got a couple of days of use out of it! The neighbor kids Maureen and Vincent also came over to play and they are super cute! They're only 3 and 4 but I practice my Swahili with them!
The end of Ramadan was last Friday (sep 10) so some of my Muslim relatives came over to celebrate and visit the fam. I was basically led into a dark room where a bunch of people spoke some rapid Kiswahili to me...a LITTLE intimidating but I managed to answer all their questions in Swahili so that was good! Then my aunt who i didnt even know led me into another room and randomly starting feeding me donuts and juice, and I didnt wanna be rude so I just kept eating what she fed me, except I couldnt really tell what I was drinking, and they told us not to drink juice here but whatever. I didn't die.
Speaking of sickness, our group has done pretty well in terms of health! we've only had one person in the hospital so far for a bacterial infection, which are basically inevitable here. Its impossible to find out where the infection came from too, because it can come from food, water etc. But they gave her antibiotics and she was back in Bangata after 2 days. Also, the kids on Doxy (for malaria) usually end up getting less bacterial issues because we're basically on antibiotics for 3 months straight...good thing im on doxy! The rest of us have been relatively fine, mostly just minor intestinal issues from the food that we are often fed. Don't get me wrong, the food here is super good but some people have definitely eaten intestines or some other type of mystery meat. Luckily I havent had any meat in my family because i told them I dont eat cow (ng'ombe) or goat (mbuzi). A typical meal I have is usually rice and beans, oranges, bananas, and avocado. Pretty simple but very filling.
That weekend we had our last free weekend with our family....I "slept in" until 8am on Saturday and woke up to find it was pouring rain, so I poured myself some chai (tea) and attempted to get some reading done for class the following week.Also, whoever thinks Africa is hot is VERY WRONG. Orientation at Ndarawkwai was freezing, literally freezing, we had hats and coats and pants on, and here in Bangata I've worn my raincoat or fleece almost every day to class! It ended up clearing up so I went walking with some friends and visited a bunch of people's houses. It was cool to meet everyone's families and see where everyone lived, because we are pretty spread out all over the mountainside. 
That Sunday I woke up and went to church with my mama, which is kind of boring because I understand nothing but I really like the singing! Later that afternoon a bunch of our SIT group went on an amazing hike to this waterfall! It wasnt that hard of a hike or anything, but we're at 8,000 feet so you can definitely feel the altitude while trying to climb a hill! The waterfall was so pretty and we all ended up going swimming! it was freezing but felt really refreshing considering none of us exactly know exactly when our next shower will be. We took a different path home that took us through coffee plantations and banana trees....so beautiful! On our way home we stopped at a local "bar," which basically was a tin roof over some seats but we all got beer and soda and chatted for a while which was fun. My soda cost 400 shillings, which I think is about 30 cents US! :) Oh, I also had my first laundry experience when I got home that evening.....I have never really hand-washed my clothes before and it is hard!!! You really have to scrub, and I think I was terrible at it because Lulu (friend of the fam) kind of took pity on me and helped me. But once they all dried they looked fairly clean so I guess that is as good as its going to get! Washing machines really dont exist here...even in Arusha! Also, sorry mom, I know you advised me to bring white shirts but hand-washing white shirts is definitely not that easy! So...my advice is dont ever bring anything white to africa, because I can guarantee you will it be brown after one wear.
So thats pretty much that has happened in the last week here in Eastern Africa.....I'm definitely getting used to my daily routine in Bangata though!  I've even gotten used to my bucket shower every other day, and my Turkish toilet (squat toilet). I normally wake up at 7am, have some chai (the first cup of about 7 that day) and some peanut butter on bread and head to school. After class is out at 1 we have free time to do homework ( I feel like ive already mentioned this....). Anyways, our group has gotten so much closer just hanging out this past week during the afternoons. We made a huge pyramid the other day and yesterday we had a great talk about what books we liked etc, and I found some fellow friends who are obsessed with fantasy books like me!  
Right now it is Wednesday and we are in Arusha for the day! We started off at the soconi (market) and bartered for some fresh fruits and veggies. I ended up with some avocadoes, oranges, carrot, and tomatoes all for about $1.25! Then we found this amazing store called Shop-Rite which is basically like Mini america! Its a big supermarket that has a lot of american brands, which is nice when you are trying to buy shampoo etc. We all kind of wandered around in awe for a while, also noting that it was pretty much all wazungu (white people) in the store.
Saturday we head back to Arusha and stay the night at Klub Afriko, where we all plan to buy cheese and bread and wine and watch the Lion King! oh yeah...cheese basically doesnt exist in this country so we are all craving it hardcore....luckily shop-rite has it! Saturday morning we head off to Tarangire National Park for a weeklong safari...apparently there are no fences around our campsite there so we aren't allowed to leave our tents after dark because they have literally had elephants just standing in camp before! I'm so excited though! My friend Hannah and I also present our PEC (Political Ecology Concept) during Tarangire. Our topic is "National Park Management," so we read part of a book on it and have to prepare an hour long presentation now! Who ever said going abroad was no work is wrong... luckily the articles we have read were super interesting.
Hm...on another random note, my legs still look fairly diseased from the million tick bites I STILL have from Ndarakwai. I do believe they are living in my sleeping bag (they are miniscule) but I can't really solve that problem as of now...handwashing a sleeping bag doesnt sound too fun. Good thing the rest of the group has them as well though!
Also, I am typing on my own computer right now!! which means I have wireless...which means I AM CURRENTLY UPLOADING PICTURES! so, all of you people who have Facebook, 200 pictures under the album name "Tanzania" are currently uploading. Can't promise when that will be finished but hopefully in the next half hour or so. Otherwise, for you facebook-less people, I am putting up some photos on here for a little taste.

our little cluster of tents at Ndarawkwai Ranch during Orientation

group of us during Orientation at the bar after church

some zebra at the watering hole!

homestay in Bangata!

 stole this pic from my friend Peter, but this is from Ndarakwai ranch during orientation.

oh my god. so much has happened since i last blogged, which was exactly a week ago . im sitting in an internet cafe in Arusha right now, in a place called "hot bread shop." weird. anyways i guess i'll start from last wednesday....so we had 2 full days in Arusha before we headed up to our homestays in Bangata saturday morning .our mornings were filled with Swahili class and going into town and our evenings were spent at the hotel bar sampling local beer and probably a little too much Konyagi, which is african gin. it was really great to bond with my group though! on Saturday morning we all loaded up in land rovers and drove 8km up a bumpy dirt road (if you can call it that! ) to Bangata, where our homestays would be! we're at an altitude of about 8,000 feet on the slopes of Mt. meru. it is GORGEOUS up there. its practically a tropical jungle with waterfalls and streams all over. I have 2 homestay brothers, Erick (8) and Emmanuel (6), who we call Junior. I also have one Mama, but no dad because he died last year :( I have my own room which is great, but no electricity so much of my homework and meals are by torchlight! I do have running water though which is nice. It was superrrr awkward at first, because i obviously dont speak swahili that well but my 2 brothers speak a fair amount of english so they are helping me. their favorite english saying seems to be "oh shit" which is hilarious. we also have one baby ng'ombe (cow) that i like to pet, and which my brothers like to hit on the head with a stick. my bibi (grandmother) lives right next door. oh, i am also a 2 minute walk from the centre where we take swahili class every morning which is great because some people have 45 minute long walks to school every day!. we have swahili every morning from 8 until 1, and then we normally hang out at the center for a couple more hours, playing frisbee and lounging around doing homework. the centre is great, we have a big grass lawn and flush toilets too. all of us have gotten addicted to tea though..we literally have tea time about 5 times a day. I normally have 2 cups when i wake up, 1 cup at 10:30, 1 cup at 3:30, and 2 cups before bed. im defnitely bringing tea home with me when this is over because its SO good.
ok lets see...my first 2 days in bangata i had my brothers show me around everywhere, we hiked down to a stream and played there and also visited my aunt/uncles house, who are fairly well off as they have a car and tv. I had a great hour long chat with my aunt on the porch over tea about education and the economy in Tanzania. very interesting. then i had some erm...."intestinal problems" probably from the 4 cups of tea with fresh cows milk my aunt kept giving me. you cant really refuse tea here... :)
Right now it is Wednesday at noon and Im in Arusha. every wed we have Kiswahili class in town. today we practiced conversation at a Maasai market where all of us girls bought really cute shoulder bags. mine has little zebra all over it. we then went to a post office to mail letters etc and practiced conversational skills there. we have the rest of the afternoon free to do whatever, but have to be back in Bangata before dark. its going to be rather interesting getting home because we have to take a "dala-dala" to bangata, which are 16 seater mini vans but usually hold numbers in the upper 20's....there is a saying that goes "there is always room for one more in a dala-dala!" however, they cost about 200 shillings which is about 20 cents so that is nice. i probably mentioned this before but things are ridiculously cheap here! we all got soda and donuts earlier which cost 900 shillings, which isn't even a dollar.! later im going to try and find a soccer ball to buy my homestay brothers.
ok internet time is about to run out, but in one week we leave on our first safari, to Tarangire National Park for about 5 days to do mini-research projects in groups. Im in the non-ruminants group and i think we get to study hippos! our workload so far is actually quite a lot. we have Kiswahili homework every night and i have about 80 pages of reading i still need to finish by friday, plus a paper to write, which is hard when you dont have electricity.
also im sorry i cant post pictures but wireless practically doesnt exist here so its hard to upload things.
I miss everyone so much! i really wish i could write more....i have so much to say! I will ttry to post again next week!

A-town!

so we've made it to Arusha! curently sitting in an internet cafe on an 80s style dell which is super slow. we said goodbye to Ndarakwai at 9am this morning and hopped into Land Rovers which took us about 100 km to arusha. last night at Ndarakwai was amazing, we got to watch the sun set from a treehouse, and watched as zebras and giraffe and elephant came to the watering hole to drink.
once in arusha, we checked into Klub Afriko and we are all staying in little bungalows with full showers and bathrooms! we're all so excited to have our first real shower since we left the states. SIT rented out the entire hotel for us so we have it all  to ourselves. Doreen, our assistant director, is setting us all up with cell phones as we speak. its insane how cheap things are. The half an hour of internet i am currently pay ing for cost me about 50 cents, and our phones only cost 12 dollars. we have a health lecture tonight but then have the rest of the night free. theres a local bar at the hotel that we are all going to hang out at tonight. Thursday and friday we have free in Arusha and then Saturday morning we get to go to our homestays in Bangata, which is about 3km outside of Arusha on the slopes of Mt. Meru, which is the second highest mtn in Tanzania. Arusha is a pretty busy little city, the drivers are INSANE and dont really stop for you. we have also gotten a lot of shouts of "mzungu" which means "white person" from many drivers.
oh i also havent talked about our academic director Reese, or as we call him "Baba Jack". hes an American who has lived in Tanzania for over 20 years now. he is probably one of the coolest people i have ever met...his outlook on life is really laid back and he has planned this program in Tanzania perfectly, giving us plenty of time to get immersed in the culture while also balancing academics. Doreen is our assistant: shes a native tanzanian who was formally educated in kenya and comes with us on safari and helps run the SIT office.
gotta run, internet time is running low.
for all you methow people who know Ellen Whalen, she is alive too and currently sitting next to me!!! :)