My New Home in Rubya

And the adventure continues. I arrived in Rubya on Tuesday of this week. It’s a very small town/village. Before I came here I tried to Google Rubya several times with no success, all I found was information on Bukoba which is the closest real town and is about 70km away. Well, just before I left Dar es Salaam to come here I gave it one final Google and guess what? I got a hit! I have a feeling that someone at Google noticed that they were getting a higher than average number of inquiries (all from me) about this place so they decided to have someone look into it. The description that I found was accurate – it is truly beautiful here. It is green and mountainous and at night the stars are just gorgeous (you can see the Milky Way, it’s awesome). Also, I do not think that the aliens know about this place yet cause I have yet to feel any sort of presence from them (for those of you who don’t understand what I mean in saying this, please disregard and continue to be of the impression that I am NOT crazy).

It’s a new local and there is also new animal life that I have to get used to. I was washing my hands in the bathroom the other day and I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. It was a lizard. Now normally I really like lizards, but the thing is, normally, they are not in my bathroom. I was not really sure what to do so I just looked at him and he looked at me. I thought about trying to catch him, but lizards are really quick so I didn’t expect to have a lot of success with that. I then thought, maybe shoo him with a broom? But the problem with that is I would have no idea which direction he would run to. Although a lizard in the bathroom is not the best scenario ever, a lizard in my bed or in my shoe is a far worse scenario. After staring at each other for about 2 minutes I decided to take action (while the lizard did nothing). I called home. My brother answered and to my surprise he was less than helpful. He generally knows stuff about just about everything, but he does not know anything at all about lizards in the bathroom. After hanging up a quick check confirmed that the lizard was still there. Still watching me. I decided to call my neighbour who is also a VSO volunteer and has been here for a few months. She was more familiar with my situation than my brother but she was about equally as helpful as him. She laughed at me. So it seems that this is the sort of thing that I will have to get used to. As an optimist I guess I have to look on the bright side.... lizards do eat other pests. 

I’m sure I will speak more about the actual work I am doing in a future post when I am more settled in my job. One thing that did make an impression on me on my first day of work was something the hospital administrator said to me. He told me that although the government would like employees to work 8 and a half or 9 hour work days, the hospital has opted for a 7 and a half hour work day. He explained that if he had people work anymore than that then they would just be tired and unhappy. It took quite a bit of effort to keep from cracking a smile. REALLY????

Well just a couple of days later and I see that he just might be right. At home when I get home from work I might make a quick dinner, or maybe watch some TV, perhaps have a drink. Not here. After work here I have to start boiling water. Once I boil the water I have to wait for it to cool before running it through my water filter and then boiling some more water. Also, I do not have a washing machine. So if I want to wash my clothes I must do it by hand and if I want to wash them in warm water then I have to boil even more water. Oh yeah, did I mention? I do not have hot water. So in addition to all of that water that I just boiled, if I want to bathe in warm water then I have to boil even more water. It’s a good thing that they do not sell wine in the village because I do not think that I would have any time at all to drink it (this is again the optimist in me..... in reality I REALLY want a nice glass of wine, or maybe even the whole bottle). 

I’ve included a couple of photos for all of you who are curious as to what my house looks like. I’m sure I’ll post a few more at a later date.

Miss you all.

V

Safari in Mikumi!

My training is all complete and I have arrived at my placement safe and sound. I think I still need a bit of time to digest my new surroundings before telling you all about them so I will tell you a bit about last week for now and will fill you all in on my new home, job, etc. in a later blog post. For now though, I will say that Rubya is located in a beautiful region of Tanzania and the people here have been very welcoming.

Last week I was in Morogoro for language training. I am still not anywhere close to fluent in Swahili and I really think I would have benefited from a remedial class of sorts. On a much more exciting note, I went on a Safari in Mikumi national park on Friday! It was really great and I’m very happy to report this, because it was not without effort! Margaret (my roommate) and I were appointed head of the entertainment committee for the week and as such, it was up to us to arrange the safari. Previous groups of VSO volunteers who were in Morogoro for language training chose the more economical safari option which was to travel by daladala. Even though the daladala would have been a private one for the group we really were not happy with this option for 2 reasons. Firstly, this is the beginning of the short rainy season and if it happens to rain then only cars with 4 wheel drive are allowed into the park. Secondly.... well.... it’s a daladala. Who wants to go on safari in a daladala? If you would like to know more about what the daladala experience is like, please check out Peter and Debra’s blog at http://debra-peter-martyn.blogspot.com/2011/10/theres-no-dilly-dally-when-you-ride.html .

One of our Safari cars

So, Tanzanians and Canadians do business very differently and we learned this very quickly. I’m sure many of you will end up hearing the long version to this story, but in effort to keep this blog post a bit shorter I will just say that it seems like the common business strategy here is to confuse people until they are so frustrated that they just agree. Luckily we were on the ball with our negotiation and we ended up with a great set of guides at a reasonable price and ended up having an excellent time overall.

Now onto the safari.... it was awesome! Before we entered the park I spotted a life sized giraffe statue on the side of the road just ahead and I thought ‘how nice, we must be getting close’..... and then as we got closer to the statue I realized that ‘holy shit – that’s an actual giraffe!’. He was just right on the side of the road munching on leaves! Before entering we also spotted several impalas and a baboon. Once we actually got into the park animals were plentiful. There were loads of impalas and water buffalo, lots of birds, including vultures, zebras, monkeys, more baboons, giraffe, elephants (more on that later), a few warthogs (look just like the guy from the Lion King), some antelope and.... HIPPOS :)

Water Buffalo

Giraffes

Warthog

Let me tell you a bit about the hippos since you all know I was really excited for them. Several of you warned me not to get out of the car when I saw one. This was a good advice as, for those of you who are not aware, hippos kill more people annually than any other animal in Tanzania except for mosquitoes. Seriously. Hippos are tough. Nobody messes with the hippos. So here is what happened as we pulled up to the hippo pool: the driver stopped the car, hopped out and invited us to do the same! I of course was quite eager to follow his instruction to do so as I wanted to get close to my hippo friends.... and if he was doing it then it MUST be safe. Right? It was tremendous; there were about 20 hippos in the pool and at least one crocodile. One of the hippos even had 2 babies! For the most part they were all submerged in the water so you could only see them (and hear them) when they popped up for air. Same with the croc.... and it was a bit unnerving that each time he resurfaced he seemed to be slightly closer to the shore where we were all standing.

From the hippo pool we moved on and spotted more giraffes and several elephants. I’ve got a pretty cool elephant story. There was a group of about 6 of them who had just crossed the road and there was one large male that was lagging behind. Our driver stopped so we could get some photos and we watched him cross the road right behind our car. Once he had crossed he turned and looked at all of us and flapped his ears. I thought ‘oh, how nice! He’s posing for a photo’. Those of you who know more about elephants than I do would know that flapping their ears is a serious sign of aggression and he quickly started to charge the car (picture at right). I was absolutely speechless and images of him flipping our car over and me tumbling out before the elephant stomped on me were flashing through my mind. Luckily our guide was not caught speechless and he shouted for the driver to GO! One of the girls got a great video of all this and I will post the link to youtube once she posts it. It was super cool.

We moved onto lunch afterwards. There is a great restaurant right at the entrance of the park that is situated right next to a watering hole. While we had our lunch we watched about 20 elephants come to have a drink and a splash in the water. There were even a few baby ones. A miniaturized elephant would make a great pet. Once the elephants left a few Zebras popped by for a drink as well. If you’re even in Mikumi then you should have a meal at this restaurant, it was a fabulous experience and the food was decent.

Our afternoon was not quite as eventful, but there was one more highlight that I would like to share with all of you. We made a stop at a huge tree and were invited to get out of the car and climb it. Against my better judgement I climbed up the tree with a few others. I knew I’d get up with little problem, but was nervous about the getting down. As I slowly made my way down someone pointed up... there was a monkey on the tree with us! He was quite high up, but still, he was on the same tree as a monkey? I have. That’s not the whole story though. As I was climbing down the tree I heard a chorus of ‘ewwwwwwww’..... yup..... the monkey pooped. It mostly got on the guide, but if you look closely at the below photo you will see that the monkey also pooped on me a tiny bit. I guess it’s not nice to get pooped on, but still, it’s a story I guess. 

That’s all for now. Miss you all.

V

Learning Swahili in Morogoro

The view from my room at the convent in Morogoro

It is week two in Tanzania and things are going well. I am in Morogoro with the same group that I was with for my first week of training (for the most part, a few of the volunteers went directly to their placements). We are staying at a convent and attending language training classes daily. You will all be happy to know that I did not spontaneously catch on fire upon entering the convent.

Morogoro is a beautiful place and the convent is a huge improvement over the Econolodge. Apart from the lively market, Morogoro is very green and we have a great view of the mountains form our room. It is much more laid back and peaceful here – I would have thought that these would be ideal conditions for learning, but I’m afraid I’m struggling quite a bit. Kiswahili is not easy to learn, for me anyway. 

The market in Morogoro

One of the challenges that I’ve encountered is that there are a lot of words that sound almost exactly like other words. As it turns out, many of my mispronunciations seem to mean things that I would most likely not want to say on a trip to, for example, the market. Allow me to illustrate this with a couple of examples:

• If I were to say “Ninataka toka” it would translate to “I want to go”. If I were to just mix up a couple of letters though and happened to say “Ninataka tako” it would now translate to “I want bum”.
• You all know that I enjoy a drink now and again. So it might be common for me to say something like “Nilikunuwa” or “I had a drink”. Once again, a slight mispronunciation can make a big difference. If I instead said “Nilikunya” it would roughly translate to “I had a poop”.

It seems odd, but when other people in my class mispronounce things, they just end up saying nothing. But when I mispronounce things..... Well you’ve heard how that turns out. Through my struggles I have also managed to come upon words for both male and female body parts. I’ll remind you all that I am only at day 3 of my language training....

Although I have continued to spot African wildlife (see photos), I am happy to report that I will be going on my first safari (or game drive) on Friday. We will be taking a car and heading to Mikumi for the morning/day. Especially exciting to me is the fact that the star of the show in Mikumis is.......... wait for it....... the HIPPO! It’s gonna be great! We should also see some elephants, giraffes and zebras among other animals. I will be sure to let you know how it goes and also post some photos!

This is roughly $100 Canadian dollars

And speaking of safaris – do you want to know who seems to be on permanent safari in this country? Mr. Credit. “Mr. Credit is on safari” is a common phrase to be seen on signs in hotels and shops, followed by “Mr. Cash is King”. You know how VISA is everywhere you want to be? Well apparently VISA does not think that you would want to be in Tanzania so you better bring some cash if you want to come here. And it better be a big wad of cash (please see photo inset). 

I hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving! 

V

Training in Dar es Salaam

I know that some of you have been waiting for my first post (I hope) and here it is! I’ve been in Tanzania for about a week now and we have been kept busy in the days and rather than blogging in the evenings I generally elected to go out and drink beers and have some laughs instead.

My cubby bed at the Yotel

I arrived here on Friday after 2 long flights and a very long stopover in London. I used to think that jet lag was only for old people, but I guess maybe I’m old enough to be one of those people now because it took me several days to properly adjust to the time change. I took a room at the Yotel in Heathrow airport which is basically a little cubby with a shower and a bed (bed pictured at right). It was kind of neat actually and it allowed me to arrive in Tanzania smelling fresher than some. There were quite a few VSO volunteers arriving on the same flight from London and we were met at the airport by our excellent in country training leaders, Robert and Claire. Robert and Claire are both volunteers with VSO who have been in Tanzania for about 3 months and they did an excellent job at sharing their experiences and hopefully preparing me for mine!

Coming to Tanzania I was very excited to see my first animal – many of you know that I am particularly interested in the hippos. I am pleased to report that it did not take long for me to spot my first animal. It really wasn’t what I expected though. On the first morning, pulling into the VSO office for training I saw a crow sitting in the tree right outside of our bus. He had something hanging from his little crow beak and I looked a bit closer, curious as to what it was. “Oh my” really seemed the only appropriate response..... it was a giant dead rat. Welcome to Tanzania!

ewwwww

And now a few words on our hotel now.  For the first week of training I stayed in Dar es Salaam at the Econolodge. For any of you reading this who have ever considered coming to Tazania as a volunteer, I highly recommend that you stay at this hotel to begin your time in the country. I think that your overall experience there will do an excellent job at preparing you for some of the things that you may encounter in the rest of your time in Tanzania. When we arrived at the hotel my room mate for the training, Margaret, and I took our bags up to our room and found that the maid was not quite finished cleaning it. The room looked as though someone had rolled around in a mud pit and then dried off in the sun before coming back to the room and shaking out their clothes all over the floor. When we got back to the room the dirt was all cleaned up by our lovely maid, but the room still left a lot to be desired. I suppose the room was a nice reminder that this is not a vacation and I have included a photo of our bathroom for your viewing pleasure. On a positive note, however, it did not seem to be a problem that I could not find my alarm clock. There was a rooster that lives directly outside of the room that I stayed in who did an excellent job of making sure that I was up in the morning. He was so helpful that he actually checked in with us several times throughout the night as well.

In effort to keep this on the shorter side here are a few random thoughts about some of the things that have made an impression on me since I have been here.

• It is hot in Tanzania. Hot and humid. In Ontario we complain a lot about the weather. It is not nearly as hot or as humid in Ontario as it is here. Make-up really seems to serve little purpose seeing as you sweat it off within the first 20 minutes of the day and I’m sure that if I had been able to fit my flat iron into my suitcase I would be cursing myself for lugging it across the globe 
•  People from Mississauga are often not cut out for riding the bus. This is even more true of the daladala (this is what the public bus is called here). Not only are they not air-conditioned (nothing is.....), but they are also crowded and don’t always seem safe. You basically wait at a random point on the street for the thing to stop and then you push, shove and fight your way on while the locals chuckle at you... and push you. 
•  Cockroaches...... I think I have to get used to them. I spotted my first one on my second night here. It was later in the evening after having a few beers. It was big. It was really big. I screamed like a little girl when the thing just about ran across my foot. When we got back to the hotel and I was getting my key from the reception desk (you turn it in each time you leave the hotel) a little tickle on my ankle. I not only screamed this time, but I leapt into the arms of my roommate. Turns out it was just one of the girls in the group playing a trick on me and everyone had a good laugh, including all the hotel staff. Now I know that this sounds like a mean trick, but the good news is that I think I’m going to be able to handle the next cockroach I see. I think I’ll do okay here. 
•  Flexibility and adaptability. These are 2 of the traits that VSO looks for when selecting volunteers. I found out very quickly how important these things are. Our group was invited to the Canadian High Commission for cocktails one night and just before arriving there, my linen pants caught on the seatbelt of the bus and ripped. It was not a little rip. I had a moment of freaking out..... you would too.... but I recovered quickly and my roommate (who really is great, did I mention that?) tossed me a scarf to wrap around me. Some may think that I looked a bit like a gypsy, but I think it was more of an understated and almost fashion forward kind of look. 

I hope that this hasn’t sounded negative because I do not feel negatively about my time here so far at all! I am having a great time here and am really looking forward to what will come next.  The group left Dar es Salaam today and we have arrived in Morogoro. We will be staying at a convent here for the next week for language training. It is a beautiful place and apparently the nuns serve beer..... I’ll find more out on that this evening.

Miss you all,

Venessa