RPCV Nepal (2012-2014) currently interning in Lusaka, Zambia with the State Department for the summer

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Ngorongoro Crater, Serengeti, and Maasai Homestay!





Just got back into Arusha today! The past 2 weeks have flown by...they were absolutely amazing but its sad to say goodbye to our last safari together. We had lots of goodbyes...to our wonderful Tanzanian colleagues, as well as our amazing camp/cook crew that made sure we all gained a couple pounds from the delicious food they cooked. We also finished our wildlife ecology part of the program, because for the next month we are scattered around Tanzania by ourselves doing our Independent Study Projects.
Ok, so I'll start with Ngorongoro Crater, which was our first stop!!! The crater was absolutely breathtaking. We were at a public campsite right on the edge of the crater and it had stunning views of the lake below. Because it is such a popular tourist spot, cars are limited to a maximum of 6 hours in the crater per day. We dropped in at about 9am and spent the day looking at wildlife, and especially hunting for the black rhino! There are only 24 left in Tanzania right now, and they only exist in the crater. Amazingly, we ended up seeing 5 of the 24 which is pretty cool! That day was also the first time I saw a male lion! All I can say is holy crap, because seeing a male lion for the first time literally took my breath away. We happened to get extremely lucky because the male (and another female) walked right in front of our Land Rover, so we were about 10 feet away! We were told they were courting, so they quickly disappeared over the hill, but I managed to snap a couple good pictures! The crater also has the highest density of predators in the world so we saw about 20 or so lions that day, along with a ton of hyenas, including one cute little guy who was napping in a pipe bed! It was extremely hot during the day down in the crater but absolutely freezing up on top...I barely slept the first night, not because I was freezing my butt off, but there are huge forest hogs that come root around our tents at night! The campsite was not fenced and the forest hogs are 3 feet high at the shoulder so they are huge! We had some zebra visitors at night as well, and I got to brush my teeth next to them while they were grazing :)

After Ngorongoro we headed to Oldupai Gorge for a stop and then off to the Serengeti!!! We had a lecture at Oldupai (commonly misspelled as OlduVai) Gorge and got to see where the first hominid fossils were found..they also had the first footprints ever found of Homo erectus. They had a cool little museum to look around as well. After Oldupai, we stopped at the Shifting Sands for a quick visit. The sands were weird....we were driving through Maasai land, where its sandy and dry and flat, and all of a sudden we come upon this enormous pile of jet black sand, just sitting in the middle of nowhere. The Maasai believe it has magic in it because over the past 20 years or so, the pile has moved in a straight line about 400 m. Even scientists can't really explain it; the winds obviously blow in all directions, yet the pile only moves in one. It was weird.
We got to Serengeti that evening and set up camp (no fences!) and set off to do reconnaissance for our study groups. My group (the non-ruminants) were going to study predator-prey dynamics of predators, mostly lions. Sure enough, within about 15 minutes, we found 6 lionesses snoozing in the grass. AND, lucky us, there happened to be a crocodile chowing down on a zebra in the river right across from the lions! Pretty damn cool to see within our first hour at Serengeti! The next 3 days we spent there collecting data. From 6am until 11am our group went lion hunting. THe first day of actual data collection we found 8 baby lions in a tree! I didn't know that much cuteness could exist...2 of the cubs were pretty tiny! The moms were nowhere in sight, because they were probably off hunting.
The afternoons we spent having student presentations and then the evenings were reserved for pure wildlife viewing! We saw tons of cheetah, leopards (which are super sneaky and like to hide in trees), lots of Thompson's gazelle, and hyenas. We were also lucky enough to see 6 lionesses that we found the first day eating a freshly killed zebra! THey had just killed it and it was so cool to be able to watch them eat. You could hear the flesh being ripped off and bones being cracked.
It was really sad to leave Serengeti after only 4 days but we were all getting excited for Maasai homestay.
We left Serengeti and stopped at the hippo pool on our way out which was awesome, but really smelly. There were about 50 hippos in a pool, basically lying in their own poop. There were also a couple crocs as well! The hippos are MASSIVE. You wouldnt think it looking at them, but they can run faster than humans on land, and they weigh as much as a Land Rover. Don't mess with the hippos.
We drove through Northern Serengeti and were lucky enough to see the tip of the wildebeest migration coming down from the north and moving into the southern plains. The drive was only 100km or so but it took a while because it was pouring rain and all of the Land Rovers got completely stuck in the mud and we all had to get out and push a couple times. We spent the night at a town called Wasso that night at a guesthouse and relaxed for the evening (took my second of what would be three showers the entire 2 weeks). The next morning we headed to Lake Natron and went to the COOLEST waterfall I've ever been to. The water was really warm and out entire group ended up going skinny dipping in the falls for 2 hours.
THe next morning was the start of homestay and the begining of one of probably the hardest yet most rewarding experiences I've had thus far in TZ. We met our mamas and were taken back to the boma where we'd be living. I was fortunate enough to be randomly placed with another SIT student who was in the same boma as me, which I was INSANELY grateful for over the next couple days. We walked about 2 miles to our boma and were quickly dressed up in traditional Maasai wear. Neither of our mamas spoke any Kiswahili, only Kimaasai, so we relied a lot on other Maasai to translate for us. My Swahili actually got a lot better during homestay because I only spoke Swahili, although Sam and I spoke English to each other. I put pictures up on Facebook, but I was wearing about 3 layers of clothing and about 14 necklackes, 8 or so bracelets, a little hat thing, and some earrings. I can't even BEGIN to tell you what I smelled like after 4 days in those clothes. I never took them off...I slept in them, walked in them, and most of all, sweated in them. No joke, it was probably 100 F every day and we living in mud huts called enkaji that are made of cow dung and sticks. They are really solid though and don't have any sort of ventilation. To add to that, they always have a fire going inside to cook with, and they would feed Sam and I mugs of chai the size of my head. I'm actually surprised I didn't pass out. They also fed Sam and I the biggest bowl of rice I have ever seen. It was literally the amount you would make for a 6 person family...and they were actually shocked when I didn't finish it. The houses are really small, and they basicallly consist of 2 beds (which are sticks covered in a cowhide), some small shelves, and a fire pit. I slept inside the boma the first night and well, didn't really sleep. It was sooooo hot and I was sleeping with 4 other people on a cowhide and there was some little kid snoring up a storm, so I mostly just lied there waiting until 6am. THe next 2 nights I ended up sleeping outside with 4 other people on a cowhide on the ground. We would literally get back from the esoto and just crash. The esoto was realllyyyy cool to watch. At 10pm our sisters would take Sam and I about a mile away to a big cow pen and we would watch the warriors dance. I wish I could have taken a video but they all do this grunting sound like a lion that sounds SO COOL. THey compete to see who can jump the highest. We were watching practice esotos, but in the real deal the girls watching pick the warriors that can jump the highest, and they become lovers (I guess that is what you'd call it?). All of the girls (including me) had these MASSIVE necklaces on. It looked like I had a giant dog collar on. We were supposed to dance so they made all of your other necklaces jingle up and down but I completely failed to get mine to do that because I could barely hold my head up with all the jewelry on! Anyways, it was really fun to watch and be a part of; the singing was amazing to hear.
Physically, the work I did at homestay wasn't too hard, except for collecting firewood. Each day Sam and I went to fetch water which wasn't that far away, but it definitely took a while to get used to carrying the water...they strap it to your forehead! I probably had 20 lbs of water on my back strapped on with a giant cloth that was then tied around my forehead...quite interesting. Firewood was another story...we hiked for about 45 minutes across the river and up the escarpment (Rift Valley Wall) and chopped down wood and then again strapped it on my forehead. I was pretty proud of myself though because I had this massive bundle on my back and we had to hike down the escarpement, which was pretty steep. Except then while crossing the river I tripped on my robe and fell over into the river with my firewood still all strapped on. Giant fail.
Although Maasai homestay was one of the coolest things I've done, all of us were VERY ready to get back to camp. It doesn't seem like much, but when you havent showered in a week and its 100F out every day and you never take your clothes off it gets a bit irritating. Also Sam and were probably asked Umechoka? literally 90 times a day, which means are you tired? A nice gesture but a lot of little things added up after 4 days. Also, I woke up every morning next to the morani (the warriors) petting my hair. No joke, they liked to pet my hair all the time. A little creepy after a while...
We all had these dazed looks on our faces after we got back to camp, and everyone was so exhausted. Actually pretty entertaining looking back on it, but a lot of us were pretty cranky at the time. It was cool to see everyone else dressed up though. That evening we slaughtered a goat as a celebration. I didn't know if I would be able to watch but it wasn't actually that bad. They strangle the goat so that all the blood stays in. And then (and I still can't believe I did this), once the goat was skinned and cut open, we all drank some of the blood straight out of the body cavity. It really wasn't as bad as you would think. Then we also all ate part of its kidney raw, right after they cut it out. This sounds absolutely disgusting as I'm writing this now but it was super cool and I was proud of myself that I did it!
We had a free day in Lake Natron the day after homestay to hike to more waterfalls or just hang out at camp by the river. There were seven of us however, that decided to try a "Maasai cleansing tea," which pretty much cleanses your body of everything. The entire camp crew and our academic directors had done it when we were at homestay, and you basically rid your body of everything in it. It sounded kind of cool so we gave it a try. The tea tasted absolutely horrible and we had to chug it. Within 15 minutes though all of us were basically doubled over in pain...and i won't go into too much detail here, but lets just say i've never thrown up that much in my entire life. It takes about 6 hours to pass so by that afternoon I was good to go and ate a nice lunch and took a nap.
So that basically sums up my past 2 weeks here in Tanzania...sorry for the novel I just wrote, but a lot has happened! We're all back in Arusha now for a week, having finals week. We have our final ISP proposals due, and set off for ISP this friday! I'm going with one other student to Ndarakwai, but its going to be weird to not be with the group for a month. The 24 of us have all gotten so close.
And for all you valley people who know Sula Willson, we're meeting up at the end of November as well! She's going to be in Arusha for 3 weeks. She's actually currently in Serengeti and is on her way to Lake Natron for her Maasai homestay! We just missed each other by a couple days.
Alright, time to stop procrastinating and start my papers....

Saturday, October 16, 2010

SERENGETI TIME!

I've realized this is the most I've blogged the entire time I've been in this beautiful country, but its ok because for the next 2 weeks I'll be off the grid completely! No internet or cell service for 2 weeks! I'm so freaking excited I could pee my pants though...this safari is what I basically came to Tanzania for. Its definitely going to be bittersweet though; it's our last safari as a group and with all the wonderful Tanzanian teachers we have gotten to know.
Over the next 15 days we will be in 3 different places. The first stop is Ngorongoro Crater, which is one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. I highly recommend googling it. It also has the highest density of predators in the entire world! We are camping right on the rim of the crater, which I'm sure will have spectacular views. Ngorongoro also contains the only rhinos that Tanzania has, and there are only 24 of them....we only spend 1.5 days in the crater so our goal is to find a rhino!
From the crater we travel to the SERENGETI!!!!!!!!!!!! We'll be there for 4 days and we pick back up with out study groups from Tarangire (I'm in the non-ruminant group, which includes lions). We formulated study questions and will carry out our mini-research projects here in the morning, and spend the afternoons being tourists and taking pictures of the lions. OH, they also have crocodiles there, which i'm super stoked about because I'm obsessed with them.
Most people think of Serengeti as mostly grassland, but our AD told us today that in reality only 20% of the total area is grassland; the rest is a woodland. So once we leave Serengeti we drive up north through Serengeti (basically coming up on the border of Kenya at one point) , stay one night at a guesthouse in a town called Wasso, and through the woodland down into Maasai land!
The final part of our safari is a 4-day homestay with the Maasai! I dont even know what to expect for this...it's going to be crazy. Our AD basically told us to see and explore as much as we can! He pretty much told us, if a goat is being slaughtered, go watch it. If theres a circumcision ceremony happening, celebrate with everyone (circumcision, both male and female, is a HUGE part of life in the Maasai and is the reason for many celebrations).
I'm a little jealous of the boys in our group though...they get to spend the time with the warriors and herd goats all day!
We are only allowed to bring a toothbrush and headlamp because apparently we dont really wear clothes either...our mamas will dress us in full maasai clothing that we'll wear for the entirety of our stay.
Oh, I definitely think the most interesting part of our homestay will be WHERE we stay. The Maasai live in bomas (which we've been in before) that are about the size of an average bedroom, but they're completely circular. And there is ONE bed. So yup, we'll all be sleeping with our mamas and siblings in one cowhide bed in a boma. I'm just honestly praying that I dont get crapped on by a baby in the middle of the night because apparently that has been known to happen... :)
They also slaughter a goat for us at the end of homestay, and then we are all apparently supposed to drink some weird goat soup with some herbs and then they pass around the liver and kidneys and then they drink the blood......I could have some issues with this part....

So thats basically what I'll be up to for the next 2 weeks...stalking some rhino, collecting data on lions, pretending I'm Maasai, and eating goat soup (maybe)!
I spent the majority of yesterday and today planning out my new ISP...the ecological walk actually completely fell apart because of budget issues and logistics, so we all had to come up with new ideas. I am now going back to Ndarakwai Ranch (where I was for orientation) to study the social behavior of a group of resident zebra. I'm really excited for this, and I definitely feel like I made the right choice switching my study.

Will report back in 2 weeks about the safari!

woops...editing this post about an hour later...also forgot..we're going to Olduvai Gorge as well! Its in the east Serengeti plains. I dont really know that much about it but apparently some really old humans were found there by the Leakys....i think. it apparently established the african origin of humankind. idk im sure I'll know more in 2 weeks!

Friday, October 15, 2010

just a minor ISP crisis....

ok short post here but basically i have completely decided to change my ISP...even after all my posts about the great ecological walk I was going to do (Molly if you are reading this I;m so sorry Im not doing it anymore! :( but I've been doing a lot of thinking and realized that I had jumped into the 60km walk because it seemed "easy" in a way, it was already pretty planned out and seemed like a good idea. In theory, the walk seemed amazing. however, after ISP prep days I wasnt so sure anymore. I obviously had a blast in engaruka hanging out with my fellow students and chatting it up with Elvis and Onesmo, but I wasnt really being honest with myself in what I wanted out of my study project here in Tanzania. I know myself well enough that when I struggle with a decision back and forth for a while, deep down I already know the answer. The heat was a big factor too....I knew that being miserable and most likely getting sunstroke would not make me a very happy camper in collecting my data...it was already over 100 in engaruka over prep days and it would just get hotter until we start actual data collection. And the student who did the same study last spring saw a lot more mammals than I would see, because they collected data in the wet season, where we would be collecting it in the dry. I just couldnt justify collecting data on spores and tracks when I knew that physically I would be run down every day. I really struggled this morning after meeting with my AD..I had to go take a little walk to calm down, mostly because I felt like I was going to let my group down. I also had to completely restart and develop a brand new ISP. luckily I have some ideas that I'm trying to develop with my Academic Director tomorrow, but its stressful. Anyways, just wanted to do a short blog about that. I feel better now that I've made a decision that I've been struggling with the past couple weeks. Definitely feel like a weight is lifted off of me. I'm currently looking into some zebra projects back at Ndarakwai Ranch (where we first went when we got to TZ for orientation) which makes me pretty excited. I came to TZ to do some sort of mammal study in the first place, and I feel like I'm more on track doing a behavioral ecology study. Anyways, gotta run, internet time is almost up. Our group is going to go blow off some steam tonight at a club :) Serengeti on Sunday!

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Goats on a bus and goats in the hotelini!

oh my. ISP prep days to Engaruka was QUITE the adventure! Last time I blogged I was sitting in Mto Wa Mbu, which was our halfway point to Engaruka from Arusha. We were supposed to be waiting for one of our guides Elvis, who we thought was right behind us, but he called and there was a mixup and he was still in Arusha. We had a couple hours to kill so we went back to the campsite we were at a couple weeks earlier (the one with the pool) and took a nap for a bit. We finally met up with Elvis and then found out the bus we had reserved seats for to Engaruka wasnt actually going to Engaruka. We did find the right bus eventually...it was bright blue and covered in dolphins...and about 20 people over capacity. We managed to get seats somehow and then set off for Engaruka. I was squished in next to one of the girls on my trip, and some random dude was sitting on my headrest with his legs completely over me...he also was eating a banana that kept dropping on my neck. So my head was essentially in his crotch for the good 3 hours it took to get to Engaruka..not too fun. And I have realized after being squished on dala-dalas and buses here that nothing pushes my buttons more than being hot and crowded. There was a small moment where i almost had a panic attack because I wanted nothing more than to get off the damn dolphin bus! There were some pretty rank smells too, not gunna lie. We made it though. However, we were told that there were guest houses in Engaruka....no such things exist. Engaruka is in the middle of Maasai land, so it only consists of bomas (maasai houses) and some small dukas (shops). There was one campsite however, which is where we ended up staying. None of us had anything for camping with us though (I only had my small daypack for the week) so we rented some wall tent (a bit smelly) and they put some random sleeping pads in there and we all crashed. I used my kangas (large pieces of cloth we use as skirts) as a pillow and blanket and then fell asleep :)
The next morning I woke up to the death scream of a cow, and sure enough when we went for breakfast (fresh chapati and chai with milk!) there was a cow being hacked apart with an ax. After brekky, we went for a 4 hour walk and our guides Elvis and Onesmo gave us the history of Engaruka etc. Onesmo is Maasai and lives in Engaruka and Elvis is Chagga (one of the many ethnic groups in TZ). Both of them we know really well because they've come on safari with us. By 11am it was probably 100 degrees out so we had a little siesta in our tent and then spent the afternoon planning the logistics for our 20 day walk in November. We also got to visit Onesmo's boma which was cool because he had like 40 goats so of course I was super happy and was playing with all the little babies...they were super small, about the size of a cat! I have pictures that I can put up later.
Honestly, I'm a little worried that physically I wont be able to handle the heat. It only got hotter as the day went on, and during ISP we'd be walking atleast 5 miles a day in that sort of heat doing transects, plus we'd be camping so theres not really a way to escape it either. So i'm having second thoughts about my choice but I'm going to talk to my academic director and just see what he thinks.
Anyways, on Wednesday we took the same dolphin bus (not as crowded this time) to Solela, which was about 30km away. Along the way we picked up a lot of Maasai and their goats, which were then loaded into the metal luggage compartment beneath us :) Solela is another stopping point on our walk so we decided to check out the landscape there as well. We had breakfast there in a little hotelini (restaurant) that served chai and chapati and while we were eating a little baby goat about 1 week old just wanders in the hotelini and starts eating off the floor. Cutest thing ever. We took a walk after breakfast for a couple hours, walking through the shambas (farms) and down to the forest where the water supply was. Some Maasai women were loading up their donkeys with water and lots of kids were herding sheep and goats and cattle. Surprisingly, there were a fair amount of Maasai walking around with brightly colored umbrellas which was quite entertaining.
We left Solela that afternoon and caught a dala dala back to Mto Wa Mbu where we met up with some of our SIT grop. Team Engaruka (there are 4 of us including me) all basically had heatstroke (so nauseous) and were exhausted so I watched some Lord of the Rings on my friends computer and crashed at 9pm.
Right now I'm back in Arusha. We woke up and caught a dala-dala back this morning. There was a nice Maasai man in our dala-dala who offered to give Elvis 10 cows if he could marry me..I politely declined. It was awkward. I did wave goodbye to my husband once we were dropped off though :)
So we have 2 days here in Arusha until we leave for SERENGETI!!!!!!!!!! Its our final 15 day safari. We go to Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Olduvai Gorge, and a 4 day homestay with the Maasai! I'm so excited. Will report back in about 2 weeks!!!!! Baadaye!

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Mazumbai!

this is going to be a very short blog post (i wish it could be longer) but I'm currently enroute to Engaruka, where I'll be for the next week on our Independent Study Project preparation days. We got back from mazumbai yesterday after spending a week there in the forest. it was BEAUTIFUL there...its a tropical rain forest and is on the list of the top 25 biodiversity hotspots in the world! We camped for the week, but our tents were right outside this swiss chalet where we ate all of our meals and they also had a fireplace/common area to hang out. The first day there we were given 4 hours to just explore the forest on our own. It was a really cool experience. we were told not to bring our watches or anything to keep track of time and we were given free reign to explore anywhere we wanted. A lot of people decided to experience the forest with no clothes on, but I decided to just hike around in my shorts and sports bra :) That afternoon we hiked up to the top of the reserve, and it was INTENSE. Literally straight up for a good 45 minutes, and we were at a fairly high altitude again (8000 ft) so we were all breathing pretty hard. The view was awesome at the top though. We were in the middle of the Usambara mountains and you could see really far.
Our mornings at Mazumbai were spent doing field study teams in the forest and presenting our data later in the evenings. The afternoons we were given free to explore the forest or just hang out. We also had "Baba Jack's boot camp" every afternoon which was awesome, because we havent done too much physical activity since we've gotten here....a lot of our time has been spent in Land rovers. We did a lot of pushups (my scrawny little arms did 80 in a row one time!) and a lot of randori, which is this open handed wrestling. We also ended our boot camp with yoga each evening. Baba Jack's son (Jack) came with us to Mazumbai which was really fun. He's 10 years old but speaks perfect Kiswahili because he's lived here his entire life so we used him as our translator a lot :)
Oh, somehow I also got bitten by a spider, most likely in my sleep (which is frightening because that means it was trapped in my tent), but I woke up with my right hand about 3 times its normal size. So that was fun for a few days...I looked a bit deformed, but atleast it didnt hurt that bad, mostly just itched like crazy!!
We left Mazumbai yesterday morning and dropped some kids off along the way who were traveling to Tanga (the coast!) for ISP prep days, and then the rest of us headed back to Arusha. From here on out we're responsible for finding our own lodging so we all checked into a guest house for $5 per person! It was great. It was just a basic double room with a common bathroom but probably the best shower I've had since I've been in TZ, because it was HOT! I've gotten used to just taking cold showers a lot so it was great!
This morning Team Engaruka (as we are calling ourselves) got to the bus station at 6am and crammed into a dala-dala for our 1.5 hr ride to Mto Wa Mbu, where I am now. This is the same place we were at 2 weeks ago after our safari at Tarangire. We're leaving soon to take another dala dala to Engaruka where we will meet up with our advisors, Onesmo and Elvis, and plan for our month out in the bush! Five us are officially doing the ecological walk I mentioned earlier in my blog...so there is a TON to figure out logistically, mostly how we are getting water out in the middle of Maasai land :) Should be fun! I'll be back in Arusha this Thursday where hopefully I can update more!

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Maasai Camp, last days in Bangata, ISP prep, off to Mazumbai!



Ok so Im actually writing this blog from the center (where we take Kiswahili class) in Bangata! (And I've also updated it today and during the past week, so sorry for any tense confusion, etc. ) I’m currently procrastinating from the 3 papers I have to write, but atleast there is no internet so that’s good. This week is I guess what we could call midterm week, aka hell week in our opinions. We have a 10 page paper, a 5 page paper, and another 3 page paper to write, plus a flow chart and map of Bangata to produce by Monday, when we leave for our second safari in Mazumbai forest. Needless to say, we are quite busy. Its also hard because not that many of us have electricity in our homestay, so our working hours are restricted from 1pm  (when we are done with Kiswahili) until 6pm ish when we go home.  Its really nice having our computers though….I stupidly forgot to bring physical pictures for my family to see but I got to show them a ton from my computer. I also played Shakira’s “Waka Waka” song for my brothers and we all danced together. Basically all my mama kept saying was how tall Taylor was in comparison to me when looking through the pictures  :) And then later I watched Shrek in my room.
Oooh I forgot to blog about our last day in Arusha, this past Saturday night/Sunday. Saturday night was SO fun. A group of about 12 of us went out to a club called Maasai Camp, which is a pretty popular club in Arusha. There was a ton of white expatriates there, Europeans, and a lot of Tanzanians. They played awesome music, which mostly consisted of Tanzanian hiphop (or something like that) with some random Bob Marley and Shakira sprinkled in. It was pretty cheap too, only a 5000 Tsh cover charge, which is about 3 US dollars. We stayed out until 1:30 or so and I slept in until 9:30, which is the latest I’ve slept here! We spent the rest of the day on the internet and just hanging out at Klub Afriko, where we are staying. I did some laundry (I’m getting a lot better at handwashing! Our bathtub water was brown though after our safari in Tarangire) and read my book. Most of the things in Arusha were closed because it was Sunday so there wasn’t too much to do.
I had probably one of the most nauseating car rides of my life back to Bangata that Sunday evening. First of all we all looked like homeless people because all of us students had our huge backpacks on and we were hiking along the highway for a while until we found a van to pick us up.  I had my huge backpack on my back, with my small one on the front.The dala-dala that picked us up had a big flat screen tv in it, which was about 3 inches from my face. Combined with a bass that was SO loud, plus being crammed in with 16 other  people led to an interesting experience. I was VERY ready to get out by the end! I got back to my homestay and sadly found out my mama was still pretty sick with malaria….she actually seemed worse than when I saw her a week ago….and then later I found out she had typhoid too. L Again, I feel so helpless because I can’t really do much around the house, but I helped clean up after dinner and do some dishes. I was really happy to see my brothers again though; I absolutely love them.  Its going to be really weird to leave them this Saturday; I’ll probably feel like I’m just going on safari for a week again. But hopefully I will get a chance to visit them again before I leave for good.
Otherwise, this semester is flying by, and its seriously starting to scare me. I remember being in Ndarakwai and thinking that homestays were so far away, and here we are, in the final 2 days of homestay. Tomorrow we have our homestay party….all of our mama’s made us dresses to wear and we made a skit for them. I’m so excited to see my dress…all of us have gotten measured by seamstresses but none of us know what the fabric looks like.
Today we also finished Kiswahili class! We had our midterm today, where we had 10 minutes of speaking alone with 2 of our teachers. It was a bit nerve-wracking but I think I did fine. We had to tell about our families in America, what they did, how old they were etc. We also role-played buying and bargaining things at the market, and buying things at the post office. I was happy though because last night my brother remarked that my Swahili was getting good! I feel like even after only been here 1.5 months, my Swahili is probably just as good as my 3 years of Spanish was.
Yesterday (Friday) we had our homestay party! All of our mamas made us dresses/skirts to wear! We had lunch with everyone and then us students put on a skit and sang some songs for everyone. My brothers and mom and I watched part of the Lion King last night, until my computer died. My brothers loved it and i felt really bad that we couldnt finish it. Today we had a tearful goodbye....I really didn't think I would get attached to my family that much in a 3-week period but I did. I definitely felt that Junior and Erick were my little brothers by the end. I told them that I'd hopefully be able to visit them in December before I leave TZ for good. We were picked up by the Land Rovers again and dropped at Klub Afriko for an entirely free weekend! We're going back to Maasai Camp tonight and otherwise just going to hang out in Arusha and explore some more. Ellen and I got a bit lost today....we were in an entirely different part of the city that we didnt even know existed!
I should also probably mentioned my internet will be basically nonexistent for the next 2 months….we leave Monday for a week of safari in Mazumbai forest, then we’re on ISP prep days, then off to the Serengeti, Ngorongore crater, Maasai homestay (all on one 15 day safari), and then 28 solo days for ISP!!!!! For ISP prep days, I’m going with 4 other students to a place called Engaruka to plan out our Independent Study Projects. We have decided to do a 110km walk (80 miles approx.) through the Great Rift Valley from Mto Wa Mbu to Lake Natron. The place we are walking through is a wildlife corridor. Although we are all traveling together, we are still doing our own Independent projects. My study will be to analyze the mammals that utilize the corridor during the dry season, which we are currently in. There was the same study done last spring, so we will be able to compare our data to theirs, although our data will probably be pretty minimal to theirs, because during the wet season more mammals utilize the corridor to reach Lake natron. Some of the other students will be doing sociology projects, water usage, bird studies, and land use. The group in the spring didn’t walk all the way to Lake Natron though which we will be doing. It’ll be a lot….we’ll be traveling every other day, with one day of data collection at each campsite. The days we are traveling we are walking 8 miles minimum, when it’ll probably be 100 degrees out (it’ll be November and middle of summer here)….so it’ll most likely be a bit brutal but I’m getting SO excited to start planning it. Our ISP prep days are basically to figure out the logistics of where we’ll be camping, collecting data etc. It’s also for figuring out where we are getting water drops. From Mtu Wa Mbo to Engaruka water shouldn’t be a problem because there are little villages/towns along the way. However, from Engaruke to Lake Natron, there is absolutely nothing for 60 miles….no villages or anything. So we have to carefully plan where we’ll get a Land Rover to drop us water and supplies. I think we’re renting donkeys as well for the first part of our journey so they can carry our first 10 days of water and supplies. Our guide is a Maasai man named Onesmo whose been with us a lot throughout this semester. He speaks Kimaa (language of the Maasai) and Kiswahili so he will probably be doing a lot of translating for us. He knows the area like the back of his hand though, which will be very needed once we pass Engaruka. Other students in my SIT group are staying in Mazumbai to study monkeys, going to Tanga to study coastal ecology, or going to Lake Natron to study how the Maasai build bomas, etc.
When we get back from Mazumbai in a week I think I’ll have one day in Arusha to update this and then I’ll be out on ISP prep, so expect a long entry next week.
Kwa herini!