Updates from my Daughter. (Semester in Tanzania)

[alphafemale]

As I posted a couple of weeks ago, my daughter is doing her fall semester of her Jr year in Tanzania.

First Post:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=6902780



Here's another short note she sent.:

Well, no pictures yet, but since we're back in town I wanted to let y'all know that there is a group of vervet monkeys that live on the hotel grounds and this morning we had a close encounter. They were jumping on and around the hut I'm staying in. A hotel worker brought over bananas to feed them. Really good pictures came, but unfortunately I didn't think to bring my camera, what with pickpocketers and all.

We're moving into homestays tomorrow. My family has FORTY chickens! Whoa! I'm not sure how much internet access I'll have in the next two weeks, so don't get used to this! Ha...



And this one:


Hello again,

I've been in homestay in a village called Bangata, of about 3300 people. Our group is dispersed in homes across the socioeconomic spectrum (which is not as wide as it is in the Western world). Some of us have electricity (I don't), some of our families speak very good English (my baba (dad) and one older brother (kaka) do), and all of us use pit latrines and shower with buckets of warm water. We walk to school through the village every morning, and since in Tanzania it is coutesy to exchange greetings with everyone who passes, it can take a while and is certainly good language practice.

The village is incredibly beautiful, up a hill looking towards Mt. Meru. Everything is green and gorgeous, certainly a change from the dry savannah we were in previously.

There were some earthquakes over the weekend. I felt one on Saturday afternoon, and there were apparently two more last night and Sunday night. My homestay brother told me yesterday that one of the volcanoes is erupting--I believe the one we were going to climb on a later safari...so that might not happen now.

I am loving this tropical fruit that is available all year round, even from our yard. We live in what is called the banana culture: no kidding, banana trees are grown like grass up in our village, with corn around the trunks. There's also papaya, avocado (parachichi), and passionfruit. A mainstay of Tanzanian cuisine is chapati, which can best be related to a tortilla, but has a good flavor and can be enjoyed on its own. I looove chapati.

We have another week and a half of homestay and Kiswahili class, then we go on safari in Tarangire National Park and Lake Manyara. There should be hippos! And tons of flamingoes--I think that when you see the Discovery Channel clips of huge numbers of flamingoes, it's Lake Manyara. We then go back into homestay for a week, and more safaris after that. We get into town on Wednesdays, so I can check e-mail again next Wed.

Much love,

J

[Sanity Claws]

1. Fascinating

This is the first time I've heard about jr. year in an African country. Is there a particular focus -- zoology, environment, languages?

[alphafemale]

2. She's majoring in Environmental Studies and Biology nt

[mzteris]

3. amazing!

What a wonderful experience!

What a wonderful daughter!

You must be very proud of her.

Where is she going to school that has such a great program available?

[alphafemale]

4. She's attending the University of Puget Sound

And she loves it.

I'm so happy for her that she's having this experience.

Seems like it is going to alter the way she sees the world.

[alphafemale]

5. Another Update

Shaved my head.

Yep, some of the other students did it yesterday in our little compound with Swiss Army Knife Scissors and one of the guys' beard trimmer. It looks really good and feels great, but I have to be careful to keep it covered, especially since it's the equinox and we're 2 degrees south of the Equator; the sun will probably never be more directly overhead than it is now.

Unfortunately my camera just died before I could even get any pictures on this computer, so no pictures yet. I actually don't think I'll be able to get any sent before January, since I have to pay for internet and computers go so slowly. But then there will be so many pictures you won't know what to do with yourself.

We left our little village of Bangata today, and even though we're coming back in a week, it was sad to say goodbye to everyone. My Kiswahili has been picking up and I even had a dream in Swahili one night! I didn't expect such a cultural immersion in a Wildlife Ecology program, but it's been really interesting to see differences between life here and in the U.S. I complain so much about being a "poor college student" and worry about not making rent or maybe even groceries for the week, but to be poor here means something so much different.

I will miss the passion fruit. And daily chai. Chai is Kiswahili for tea, and Tanzanians have lots of tea. There's the requisite morning chai, one or two chai breaks during the school/work day, and evening chai after dinner. It's a fantastic tradition, and I there would be less stress in the world if everyone did this. Plus I'll be highly addicted to tea by the time I return.

other Kiswahili words I thought people might find interesting/amusing:
Kaka: brother (just hilarious)
hizi ndizi: these bananas (just fun to say)
Jenga: to fall (The name of the game makes sense!)
Simba: lion
Rafiki: friend (I'm working on figuring out other Lion King names)
Rafiki's song in the movie: He sings, if memory serves me correctly, "Asante sana, squash banana, wewe , mimi hapana." Literally translated, it's "Thank you very much, squash banana (already English), you (something, but it's not baboon because that's a different word I also can't recall), me no." So it's not "You're a baboon and I'm not," as his character claims. "Mimi si..." is "I'm not..."

It's going to be vastly different to walk down the street and not hear (literally 'European' but here used as 'white person') from so many mouths. It's not rude here to call out a person's ethnicity for the world the hear; it's just a practical way to quickly get said mzungu's attention. I'm also wearing pants in town; I went without the kanga and feel scandalous...

5 minutes left, better start sending this...

J

[lligrd]

6. Wonderful Emails

Thanks for sharing. How did you take the head shaving?

[alphafemale]

7. It's strange to think of her even with very short hair, let alone bald.

She's worn her hair long most of her life, she's only had it cut above shoulder length a couple of times.

She was nearly two before her hair started to grow much at all though, so it's not like I have NEVER seen her that way.

It's just been a helluva long time. :D

I told her to be sure to take pictures of it at it's shortest.

It think it will probably look great.

[lligrd]

8. I'm Sure It Will

I just know that my first reaction would have been, "you what???". Sounds like you raised one terrific kid. Congratulations!

[alphafemale]

9. UPDATE - Crazy Ostrich

We just finished up our Tarangire-Lake Manyara National Parks safari, and it's definitely been my favorite part of the trip thus far. We got closer than ever to the wildlife, which is kind of a mixed blessing because it means they have little fear of humans. Some of our Land Rovers were nearly charged by elephants a few times, and let me tell you, that is something intimidating. Especially the matriarch, the female elephant in charge of the family herds. She is always an enormous beast, noticeably bigger than the other elephants, and when she gets pissed and faces you, shaking her head and growling in warning (yes, elephants GROWL), you will feel very small.

We saw baboons mating, which knocks off my goal of seeing something mate...

At one point in Tarangire, we got out at a picnic site to find a crazy ostrich and spent the next half hour as its hostages, running around to keep any large object between it and us. If you don't know much about ostriches, you probably have no concept of how scary and exhilirating this actually was. Picture a chickens foot, but bigger than your head and attached to a powerful leg as tall as you are. Ostriches can crush a person's skull with one kick, and they do kick. At one point I was separated from the rest of our group, with the ostrich eying me. I kept behind a flimsy metal picnic table and moved verrrryy slowly. We were finally able to make a break for it back to the vehicles, and after the lunatic bird actually charged one of our drivers as he was separated, we were on our way. The ostrich left, or so we thought. We made a curve and passed the ostrich going the opposite way. It then made a beeline for the cars and proceeded to follow us for 4 kilometers; not really chase us but just keep pace. It sped up and stopped when we did. None of our wildlife experts could give any explanation for this erratic behavior, nor had any ever seen it.

Since shaving my head, I've gotten Mama Yeyo from the locals. Mama is Kiswahili and means mother, just like it sounds. Yeyo is the Maasai word for mother, and in the Maasai culture, women have shaved heads. So I finally have a cool local nickname that I hoped for, sort of.
And some more Kiswahili:
Hakuna matata does mean "no worries," but nobody says it except for in the tourist areas *and Kenya, but Kenyans supposedly don't speak very good Swahili, at least according to Tanzanians...). However, people here say hamna shida all the time, which means "no problem." So the intent is the same.
For UPS friends and fans of the band Kusikia, their name is actually the Kiswahili infinitive "to hear." Cool, eh?
A zebra is punda milia, which literally means "striped donkey." Punda is donkey.
Something interesting here is that there aren't separate words for "like" and "love." Penda is the word for both concepts, and the difference is understood through context.
And some things that could potentially be quite embarassing if you\re not sure of your vocabulary:
kunywa-to drink
kunwa-to shit

chuo-college
choo-toilet

kumi-ten
kuma-I've heard both clitoris and vagina

Alrighty, that's all for this round. I can't really respond to individual e-mails, but I love reading them, so please, let me know what's what in your little corner of the world. It makes mine a little brighter to know.

J

(note-by UPS she is referring to the Univ of Puget Sound)

[ceile]

10. Thanks for the update.

I love reading about her adventures. And yes, I have been chased/followed by an ostrich-evil creatures!