ekumpel

Tuesday June 28, 7:54pm

I'm currently watching “friends” dubbed in French on TV. Really, why do they have to dub everything? Can't they just use subtitles? It's remarkable though, how in all these TV shows and movies, they manage to find french speakers who sound exactly like the actors real voices. Maybe Jennifer Anniston speaks french? Huh. The sad part is that I've seen this show enough that I know exaclty what's going on .

But anyway, I had a rather uneventful long weekend, as most places were closed and I was feeling pretty tired after the week in Tamatave. I'm feeling more and more comfortable here each day. I think i am just getting more used to living here and feeling more at home in my surroundings. Today I took the bus for the first time, both to and from work, and that really did it. I love public transportation, I really do. I could afford to take a taxi everywhere if wanted to, considering rides to work are between $1-$1.50, depending on how much I felt like bargaining that day and whether the trip was up or down the hill. But the bus and its $0.10 fare makes me feel so much more independent and at home. I think I also love it because it gives me a little more respect, at least in my impression, in the eyes of the locals. I'm not just a lost and wandering tourist with endless amounts of money, but I'm someone who lives here and just needs to get to work for cheap. Running to the bus and cramming yourself in to stand up in the minibus too, while carrying vegetables in a straw bag, especially gives you legitimacy. you're then hardcore and they say darn, this girl knows what she's doing. Plus, it reminds me so much of my time in Dar, and overall I felt very comfortable and at home riding buses in Dar.

I also found a minimart right near where i work that has a refrigerator case, which is rare to find, with yogurt and cheese - mmm cheese. And a crunch bar and pringles. I decided this time around to indulge in pringles, which was a steep 6,000 Ar ($3). In a city where an expensive dinner is $3, it's quite an indulgence. The mini mart is funny - the size of a very small convenience store in the US, it has a variety of items, but only about 2-3 of each item out on the shelf. So it's these big shelves with just 2-3 of each thing - cans of maybe 6 different kinds of vegetables, 3 cans of pringles, 2 fanta bottles, 4 bags of sugar - lined up, across the front of it, with the whole back of the shelf left empty. My guess it that they try to discourage shoplifting, as it's one of the few street stores i've found that doesn't have its wares behind glass (every other little place, especially those near my house, has all their food and such behind glass. like baltimore). Or it could also be that they don't buy that much at once, which also wouldn't surprise me since at some of the restaurants we ate at in Tamatave, you had to order what you wanted for dinner in the afternoon if you wanted to be sure to have it, so they could have time to buy the supplies they needed from the market (especially for my special order, which was 'vegetables').

I've started to reach the point, now 3 weeks in, where I'm not looking quite so wonderingly at everything anymore. My walks to and from places are just that - walks to get from one place to another - rather than walks where i notice every detail or just want to see the sights. I can also eat most anything bought off the street without getting sick. I may even start taking my 'the au lait', hanging out near the street stalls and gossiping with the vendors like all the old men do in the mornings. Okay, so I'd need to learn Malagasy first, and I'm still working on French. I've even started prefering mafangasy (no idea if i'm spelling that right) some mornings to a pan aux raisin. mafangasy also existed in Tanzania too - it's a spongy, flying-saucer shaped, vaguely sweet piece of dough that i don't much like alone, but tastes good when a hot drink is absorbed into it. If only they had mandazi here (the wonderful spicy cardamon donut from Tanzania).

I just put up a bunch of photos from my trip here:

http://www.geocities.com/fyrflym

I just got back from three days in the field on a visit to the Tamatave diocese, which is on the east coast of Madagascar. It was….quite an experience. I'm sore all over from the windy, bumpy rides. The way CRS does its work is that it is just a managing organization, and all the direct field work is done by partners, usually (and entirely, in Madagascar) diocese partners. So I was sent there to visit villages and see work that was going on, so I could actually see how CRS and its partners work, and get information for my assignments for the next few weeks. Since I don't speak French and the partners at Tamatave don't speak english, they sent an admin assistant from CRS Tana with me who could speak english. It was good just to have companionship too, for the trip.

We left on Monday evening and went by plane. So we got to the airport and when we went to check in they weighed us and our carryon luggage. That's right, they just had me stand on the little stand next to the check-in counter, where they weight your checked luggage, and weighed me. So I thought that was odd. Then we leave the terminal to walk to where the plane is and I stop. It is the smallest commercial plane I've ever seen. I get inside and had to duck, much like I were getting on a minibus. The seats, in fact, were benches, like a school bus but with not as nice a cushion. And the passengers filled about 11 of the 15 seats on the plane - yes, 15 seats on the little tiny prop plane. I was sitting four rows back and was still within 15 feet of the pilots. Needless to say no safety information and awareness of emergency exit announcements were made at the beginning of this flight. I sat there, closed my eyes, and held onto my seat for the 45 minutes of the flight. Of course, it turned out to be one of the smoothest rides I've ever had.

We arrived in Tamatave that night, and after searching all around town for a place still open for dinner (apparently there, everything closes at 7pm on Mondays), we went to our hotel which was bare and basic but clean. Tamatave reminds me a bit of a busier Bagamoyo (in Tanzania), with its colonial concrete mansions and its port city feeling. It was warm and fairly empty, besides the rows of market streets. The rickshaws and bicycles far outnumbered cars on the streets. A rickshaw ride is 3000 FMg (about $0.30) no matter how far you want to go. We started out Tuesday morning at 7am, stopping for tea au lait and croissants at a local stand, and then to introduce myself to the CRS Tamatave office (see the photo of the stacks of grain in the warehouse). We then went to the partner organization office, where we began the trip. Our first stop was a village called Tsarahonenana which had a handpump. Anyway, I won't detail all of the village visits, as you can see many in the photographs. But we say villages with handpumps, open wells, latrines, or the holes for wells being dug and pit latrines being built. The place that will be most in my memory is Mahatsara, a village area of a few thousand people which did not yet have a clean water source. They drew water from the seven watering holes around the village. You can see in the photograph, what the water - or should i say “water” - looks like: black or brown. You just know its a breeding ground of typhoid and giardea and cholera. A boy who looked maybe 10 years old (though children here are so malnourished, many of them are older than they look) was the one showing us the place.

One of my more startling realizations - simply because it was the most obvious sign of poverty that I could see, was that what these people needed was a dentist. Or at least oral hygiene of some kind. It seemed like every person over 20 was missing between one to half of their teeth, with many more black with decay.

It's still frustrating not to speak French. I would have liked to exchange words with some of the people in the villages - the children, even - and asked them questions. But all i could do was look. and sit there with my paper and write. It's an odd thing, to come to a village for maybe twenty minutes, see the well or pump, write some things so objectively on my slips of paper, and leave again in the 4WD. What do they think of me? The young blond-haired girl who gapes at them and needs a translator and writes things down and takes a few photos with a camera thats worth more than a family makes in a year. If I were in their place, i'd probably yell at me to get out, or maybe take my hand and say come, this is my home, this is where i live.

I had my first true Malagasy eating experience at a roadside stop on the way to Vatomandry. It served basic meals of Malagasy rice (the rice here is pinkish/reddish in color) and a meat accompaniment. Luckily, they had beans, although they apparently had meat in them, but I ate them anyway. The place was, as to be expected, incrediblie unhygenic - as soon as the man at the table next to us got up and left, several cats jumped on the table and started eating off the plates. And no one really noticed or cared. Then there were the rabbits - yes, long eared white rabbits - just hanging out with the stray cats picking food off the kitchen. And the traditional malagasy drink served at the hotelys with anymeal is this rice water, served warm. I thought originally that rice water would be like rice milk, which i don't mind. But its not - its brown in color and warm, not hot. It doesn't taste so bad going down, but a moment after you swallow it gives you this overwhelming taste of …barley, maybe? in your mouth. I managed three sips and then gave up on learning to like it. All the while, the back of the restaurant was decorated with floral wallpaper, an embossed photograph of New York and a TV playing a Backstreet Boys (or whoever sings “i knew i loved you before i met you”) kareoke DVD with a bloated christmas caroler doll standing on top of it. Ahh, Afrika.

My second Malagasy eating experience was finding out that I was eating a goose egg omlet last night for dinner. I treated myself to a Fanta citrus, instead of the rice-milk, to wash it down. Apparently they ran out of chicken eggs. I swallowed it down, thinking all the while of the 8 year old girl in the market earlier that day who was holding bunches of live geese, four in each hand, by their feet. If I were staying in a place like Vatomandry for the summer, i think i'd buy myself a goose. Or at least a chicken.

We spent the second half of Wednesday as free time around Vatomandry, the small town? or village? not sure what you'd call it, that we stayed in for our second two nights. We stayed in these little Bungalows right one the water. Vatomandry is apparently 'touristy', but only so far as other Malagasy come here on vacation. I saw six French backpackers, but that's it in terms of foreigners. In the late afternoon, we drove around a bit. Half of the houses or buildings near the water were simply concrete frames. You'd think they were old buildings, left from colonial times, but instead they are fairly new but have been bowled over by cyclones time and time again. Vatomandry gets hit pretty hard. Close to the beach you see rows of wooden stick houses, with their banana leaf rooves, with an occasional conrete house thrown in. Apparently if your house gets knocked over by a cyclone, you get entered in a government lottery for a nice new concrete one. So manybe one person on every block has that, while the rest rebuild their homes every year or so. A school we passed half two buildings looking completely knew, and other two of exactly the same structure but with no roof. They looked like they had been bombed. I would not want to be there during cyclone season.

At the airport on the way home, there was a group of Comorians with the same shirt with a picture of what appeared to be a pop star, 'Chila'. Then Chila herself was there, dressed in a wonderful diva-dress and indian-looking jewelry, and handing out tickets and running her tour herself. I'll have to see if I can find a CD of her music.

June 12, 2005 4:00pm

Now I'm remembering again why it is that I like travelling so much. I just took an hour and a half walk (it should've taken about 20 minutes less but I got a little lost), and in that time I saw more interesting things in that walk than I think I'd see in a full month in Boston or Baltimore. I decided that since it was Sunday and the city is pretty much dead compared to the rest of the days of the week, I'd practice the walk to work so that when I started doing so myself next week I'd be ok and that if i got lost, I would still have hours of daylight left instead of one short hour or so. It was a good thing too, since I did get a little lost - I bore right when I had never notice the road divided in that spot before. But I found a Catholic church, which is good since, I'm working with CRS and all, they are supposed to be our places of sanctuary. But after I while I noticed very little was familiar, and the rice patties were on the wrong side of the road, and there were only yellow and blue buses when I knew only red and blue ones went up my street. The key to get by around here is to be observant of details as possible without looking interested in anything.

But as for what I saw that surprised me - many ten year old boys smoking. That was something I didn't expect. I few older men cmoking too, but mostly it's the younger boys. People were coming back from church all dressed up, young couples holding hands and saying 'bonjour' to me. The price of gas at the Shells over here is the equivalent of about $0.60/liter. So cheaper, I think, than the US? Though my units are always off. I should also have no problems buying any kind of vegetables I want, and some fruits, as well as french bread. There's huge amounts of it on the market I'll be walking through on my way to and from work every day, as well as the more extensive vegetable stand right around the corner. I do just need to figure how much this stuff should cost so I won't get too ripped off. And to figure out the moeny - I really am having so many problems with that. I've been so intimidated I haven't even really bought anything yet. The currency used to be the Malagasy Franc, but recently they've switched to the Ariary, where 5000 Francs = 1 ariary. But some prices are in francs, some in ariary…and i have a hard enough time as it is trying to say 'how much' and understand the numbers.

Other sights: six year old girls pushing babies up the hill, on the side of the road with the cars careening 30 miles down the hill, in carriages that I swear are American toy carriages. 8 year olds with babies on their backs, so bundled you can't even see them, and carrying two buckes of water at a time that evne I would have trouble lifting. Wide-eye stares from 5 year olds, some just staring at me, some running by while yelling 'bonjour-bonsoir-hello-goodbye” all running into one world. There were two 13 year old or so girls walking up the same stret i was to go home who, with their arms around each others' waists, kept looking back and me and giggling to each other, until i passed them and greeted them with a 'bonsoir' and they greeted me back and laughed even harder. I don't think I actually look that funny.

Oh and the other thing - the raw meat for sale in the stands here is the most disgusting thing I've ever seen. So much so that I'm fascinated by it and can look at it with no problem, because it's often to the extent that it doesn't even look like meat. I can't even tell what animal it came from. So i'll gladly stick to the bread and peanut butter, thank you.

The rest of my day was spent going through french lessons, washing some clothes in the buckets in my bathroom, and cooking lunch, which consisted of a can of spagetti and sauce of some kind, imported from south africa and truly, truly disgusting. Luckily I had some good chooclate cookies to finish it off.

I finally started to understand the air pollution too. The streets are all very hilly, and the walk up from work is rather tough, since all the while I'm breathing in fumes from the cars. And the driving is simply horrendous. The roads are good which gives everyone, apparently, license to drive fast, even considering the roads are exactly two cars wide with an occasional sidewalk at the side fit for two people wide, while there are crowds five deep on either side, fruit stalls, and rickshaws carrying entire dining room sets, filling the road from either side. I just don't get how it works. I haven't seen an accident yet though I'm sure it's only a matter of time. Boston drivers have nothing on the ones here.

Also, I don't know what's going on with the - firecrackers, maybe? I don't know, it sounds like cars backfiring or firecrackers, but it happens way too often to be the former. It really is like once every 20 minutes, and I don't understand what or why. But everytime it happens, the dogs start their chorus again. Maybe the weekends are cause for celebration.

So much has happened in the past week or so that I don't know where to start.

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend a meeting and technical symposium for the African Materials Research Society - and I had an amazing experience. I got to listen to research done all over East Africa, and got to speak to engineers and scientists from Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Egypt, Ethiopia, South Africa, and more. Just to be with a group of distinguished Africans like taht was amazing. They were all so friendly, and I have invitations to study next year in many of those countries! The conference was sponsored by the National Science Foundation (as in, the American organization).

The most amazing part was simply the conversations I had with people. And I think I finally got some amazing career advice. I've been so torn over doing aerospace or focusing on public health/appropriate technology. When I explained my thinking to a Kenyan professor, he told me that the most important thing to do was to explore the limits of my mind first, while I was young, and that was public service - that if I got too tied up in trying to distribute justice now, while I was so young, I would end up never truly understanding justice and just get too caught up in so many problems taht I would not be able to be of help to anyone. His point was that I needed to explore my mind in whatever direction my curiosity sent me, first - whether it was aerospace or water engineering or what not - in order to gain wisdom, because it takes wisdom to truly change things and to truly understand justice…that I could help deliver food aid to countries now, or I could work on gaining the wisdom in order to solve the problem of food distribution later.

It's an interesting way to put things, but it's the advice that has made the most sense to me so far.

I also had the chance to visit Bagamoyo with the group on Friday - it is an entirely different experience to travel with a group of distinguished Africans than with the typical mzungu Americans. The Africans comandeer much more respect here, and much less bothersome vendors. I did not hear a single 'mzungu!' on my trip. Bagamoyo used to be the largest city in Tanzania, because it was the point that slaves from all over southern Africa were herded too before being sent to Zanzibar, and then to Arab countries. The name Bagamoyo means 'throw down my heart'.

On Saturday morning, we held an event at the state-run orphanage. In the morning, we had a 'paint party' for the children, where a storyteller came in and told them a story in swahili with a value as a theme (it was 'courtesy'), and then the children painted pictures about the theme and ate cake. In the afternoon, we were supposed to have an organization come in and do a presentation that worked in HIV/AIDS education and playing soccer - - but they were on the way to the orphanage and got into a car accident. So we had an impromtu talk on AIDS by the storyteller (who apparently told them you can get AIDS by sharing a toothbrush, and by having a bad heard…I guess we should've just cancelled the talk), and then went out quickly to buy some soccer balls and just played with the children for a while. It was just a fun time and gave the children something special to do for the way. We were also able to talk tot he orphanage to find out their other needs, and I'm going to use some grant money trhough FSD to buy a bunch of things that they don't have: sports equiptment (they didn't have soccer balls before we bought them that day), books, learning materials, art supplies, and toys. So, shopping trip this weekend!

Saturday night, however, was an interesting experience…I got mugged. A few of my friends and I were walking from our taxi to a concert (not very far at all), but apparently Tanzanians came to this concert solely to sit outside and mug people - who knew? But we werenot hurt, and all they got was my cell phone, pocketknife, and about $10-15 - not a big deal at all. The police came running and handcuffed a 'suspect', but of course I had no idea who had done it. From people I've talked to and reports I've heard, robbers here simply take your stuff, they don't hurt you, which is fine by me. Even after this happened, I don't feel any more unsafe - I'll be more careful, certainly, and still do things like I've doing the whole time - not carrying my wallet when I don't have to, using my money belt when I have a lot of money on me. But we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time and in a bad crowd - any other circumstance in Dar and it would've been ok. Apparently, statistics for Dar say that 2 out of 3 cell phones in the city are stolen…and I'm not surprised at all.

Work is going fine, it's hard to believe theres less than 2 weeks left before I go on safari, and then I go home so soon! I'm looking forward to home, certainly - its been such a long time in such a wildly unfamiliar place. But I'll be sad to leave the wonderful people I've gotten to know here.

7/12 still

10 weeks is a long time

I thought I'd always wanted to come to Africa and so I'd love every minute of it and that it would be easy. But it's definately nothing like I expected. And most days it's not easy.

Usually I'm good about laughing off all the stares that I get - I walk down every street knowing at least 10 pairs of eyes, if not up to 50 or 100, are on me at all times. And someone tries to talk to me every 20 seconds - “Sista, sista”, “jambo, jambo”, “taxi? taxi?”, “hakuna mata t-shirt sista, good price”, “please give me money, friend”, “my friend my friend” - it never ends. The worst are those who go to grab your arm to get your attention, so I've learned the swahili phrase for “don't touch me” and “i'm married”. I'm usually a pretty easy-going person about things like that, but some day, the harassment just gets to me. I think it got to me for a whole week recently - just feeling like I want to lay in a corner and hide, or wear a burka like some of the women here (now I understand why so many women don't mind wearing headscarves and so many clothes in the hot weather, when they recieve the same amount of attention).

But I think I've past the frustration now. And am excited for the last 4 weeks (though only really 3, since the last week is a safari).

But in the same sense, 10 weeks is a long time and I'm anxious to get home and start the new school year, with a familiar shower with running water, a stove that's not run on charcoal, toilets that you sit down on and flush, trash that is simply thrown away and out of sight, high-speed internet with working keyboards, books that were published within the last 30 years, mosquitos that carry only itches and no malaria, coffee that is not instant powder, roads made of pavement with rules that are punished when broken, and water that runs clean from the tap. I am a spoiled American, and the separation is hard but, at least for me, I think a very necessary lesson. And though I want to come home now, I'm sure I will be back sometime soon.

July 12th

my dates are all over the place because internet cafe computers are always set wrong…so from now on I'll try to date things appropriately.

So much has happened in the past week or so I forget where I left off and where to start.

Two weekends ago, half of the group decided to go to Lushoto and the Usambara Mountains, but I, along with the other half of the group, decided to push it off until this past weekend, because we had been travelling for about 2-3 weekends in a row and just wanted to stay in the city. So instead I spent the day watching a Bollywood movie (India's filmmaking) about Kashmir called Lakshya. I had never seen a Bollywood movie and was quite surprised when the soldiers, after seeing a burned out truck of their comrades, burst into a musical number… It was a full 180 minutes long, full of song, dance, romance, war, familial relations - everything possible. We then went to a friends' host family's house for dinner. Sunday I made a quick trip to Kippepeo beach with one other person. It's a bit of a hassle to get to because you need a daladala to the ferry, take a ferry across, catch another dala dala, and walk a ways. But it was worth it, if only for 2 hours.

Last Wednesday was Saba Saba (meaning 7 7 - standing for July 7th), a national holiday here. Technically, I think it was the date of the founding of the revolution party here…but now since its technically a 'mutli-party system' (in quotations for a reason), they've changed it to Industrial Day or something like that. But a Wednesday holiday really is a good idea, I do'nt know what the US is thinking by making everything on a Monday. Saba Saba is also the name of the huge trade fair held int he city. Luckily, we went very early in the morning - about 8:30. It was not quite what I expected - a mixture of American and Asian junky toys and plastic things, with some traditional sales from Kenya, Syria, and other places, and a crazy amount of people. Someone tried to pickpocket me for the first time here - they didn't get anything because they weren't very good, as I heard the zipper open on my purse. Not that I had more than $5 on me anyway.

At about 1pm we had to push our way quite forcefully out of the throngs of Tanzanians waiting to get into the fair - so so many people! It was definately a good thing we went there early.

On Thursday evening, when I got home after work, it turns out that my family got a kitten! They've been talking about getting a cat for a while, to get rid of the insane amount of mice in the house, but they finally got the smallest kitten I have ever seen before from one of their friends. It is barely old enough to leave its mother, and can sit in the palm of my hand and it bites me with tiny tiny teeth. Anyway, that made me rather happy, and now I have something to play with all the time . It drinks milk and pretty much just eats anything the little girl spilled on the floor - usually rice and beans. My father said that I'm going to turn it into a vegetarian cat.

This weekend, though, was the most exciting. We decided to go where the otherhalf of the group had gone the weekend before - Lushoto, a town that takes anwhere from 4-8 hours to get to (depending on type of bus, sanity level of the driver, condition of the road, etc). We left Saturday morning and spent 7 1/2 hours sitting on a big crowded bus. It was really nice to drive through the countryside and see what rural Tanzania is like - the mixture of old cement houses, dirt, clay, and branch houses, thatched rooves, etc.

The last leg of the trip, between the towns of Mombo and Lushoto, was a bit harrowing, as you journey up the side of a mountain with no guard rails…but luckily our driver was carefuly, especially compared to most drivers in Dar, and we had no problems.

But to think: a 7 1/2 drive was worth it. Lushoto and the surrounding mountains are absolutely gorgeous. One of our friend's host families had a friend or relation of some sort who runs a main tour guide business in town, so they were waiting for us when we got off the bus. They were extremely nice and took us to our hotel and then guided us on hikes for the next day. Saturday evening we took a 2 hour hike to the viewpoint. 'Viewpoint' is just not a fitting name - this was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen, with sheer green cliffs on one side and a nearly 360 degree view of Tanzania the rest of the way. I had just finished reading the Fellowship of the Ring, and this definately reminded me of something out of the lord of the rings - the Hobbiton Shire right below, with green, green hills growing sisal and other plants, and tiny dirt homes, with beautiful mountains off at several poitns in the distance, rising as if out of no where and shrouded in mist. We sat there at dusk, watching the sun go down, before taking out the flashlights and hiking back along the road.

Dinner was at Mr Man's restaurant, the Action Safari Cafeteria (all names here are strange). He made up a plate of local food and showed us his guest books - an odd collection of notebooks, with some dating back to 1995, from all the tourists that have eaten there - the majority of the visitors being Dutch, English, or Sweish.

Sunday morning we got up early to go to the waterfall. It would have been a 2-3 hour hike, and we didn't have th etime, so we took a car to the top of a higher peak. After getting dropped off at a little bridge on the edge of a swamp that really was like Hobbitton, we hike a bit of a ways past a stream where local women and children were doing their laundry, to a small but gorgeous waterfall in the middle of the forest. In the US, all of these wild places are simply for tourists and visitors - its a strange thing to see the local residents actually using the environment for a purpose. We simply sat at the pool at the bottom for a long time - we would've gone swimming if it hadn't been so cold.

After a bit longer hike back and walk to the town (with the surreal sound of drums and the church choir in the background), we drove back down to our hotel. It was sad that we had less than 24 hours in Lushoto, but we had to make sure we left early on Sunday so we would get back in time. After a little arguement with the truck driver about a misunderstanding about the price - which was mediated by Mr. Man rather than the police - we got on a dala dala down the mountain to Mombo. We were lucky in Mombo, because the tour guide who was the friend was heading back to Dar with his wife and managed to arrange for us to go with one of his friends on a small bus, and, after a long long ride back to the city, he even dropped us off near our houses rather than just at the bus station.

That's the short story, though I really can't describe how beautiful Lushoto was. We all find ourselves wishing the program was out there, in the rural area - I think in the future it will be. It is so much cleaner and happier - albeit poorer, than the city, but there is something about being in such a beautiful place that you just can't get too unhappy.

I finally have a new internship! It's taken a long time since I left City Water to find a new position, which I guess shouldn't be that surprising considering this place is on African time. But I went to the University of Dar es Salaam and met with some materials engineering professors, and will be working with an awesome assistant professor on biocomposite materials. Basically I'll be making samples of different types of materials (mostly ones to replace wood or polyurethane) using local agricultural waste materials, such as cashew nut shell liquid and rapseed oil. Who knew? But it took a while to find a professor who was around - this is the school's vacation, and they don't really have a summer session like American universities, so most professors take the time to travel and are not around with research. But the materials science sounds interesting, especially since it realy is closely tied to sustainable development (since you're using plant-based materials with little processing, so there is little environmental impact and in fact you're using waste materials).

It's been raining so much recently, the roads get worse and worse - and now I see why they are so bad. I nearly got knocked into the mud today when I was walking along the side of one of the roads by a dala dala who was racing on the dirt embankment on the side of the road, trying to beat the dala dala in front of it to the next stop to pick up the passengers waiting there. The dala dala I took home decided to take a 'short cut' to try to beat the traffic, so we bumped down some dirt roads with horrible puddles - until we got to the very end, with a massive puddle, where the driver got out to ask someone nearby if anyone had been stuck that day (Well, with my limited knowledge of swahili, I think that's what he was asking), and apparently so, because we turned back on that horribly bumpy road to face the afternoon traffic.

This past weekend's trip was great, even though it rained all day saturday - we just went swimming in the rain anyway! We stayed in little 'beach bungalows', as I think they are called', that were around 30 feet to the water. The beach was gorgeous, with camels herded back and forth, and the occasionally group of goats or cattle herded from their pens to who-knows-where. We're already planning a trip for next weekend for a jungle hike not to far from here.

Its time to go home to a dinner (though dinner here isn't until 8 or 9 or sometimes even 10 o'clock) of wali (rice) or viazi (potatoes), marahage (beans), and mboga (green vegetables)…or maybe peas (don't know the word for that yet) . I'm looking forward to it, as I haven't had it in a while - last night my host father brought me a pizza, which tasted closer to American pizza than anything else I've had here so far.

its raining here in Dar now. i rather like the rain, because it settles the dust some - the city is so dusty, every night i go home and go to wash my face or wipe my arm and its quite literally brown with dust. but then of course the roads turn to mud, sticky mud, and the car rides get even bumpier along all the dirt roads.

It looks like I'll be starting work at the Dar Institute of Technology on Monday, which would be awesome. They have a pretty good engineering program, and a fairly new school…though its amazing that a premier university still doesn't have enough computers, apparently. I'll find out exactly what i'll be doing on Monday, but it looks like either researching with a mechanical engineering professor, or working with a team on waste management in rural areas. The campus, which is right next to the city center and all of an 8 minute dala dala ride from my house, is very beautiful, quiet little oasis in this dusty noisy city.

There are so many things here that, after 4 weeks, have become so normal to me, but that I know if I ever saw them in the United States would just be weird or unacceptable. Like the tea house we went to this morning, with rolls or toilet paper on the tables instead of napkins.

It seems like its a prosperous - if dirty, pollluted, and crowded - city, and it makes it seem like Tanzania is a developing, economically stable country. And in many ways it is. But Dar is the richest area in the country, and its crazy when one thinks that the average Tanzanian makes 270 dollars a year, or to see that it rates I think 156 on a development index out of 175 countries (or right around there). I can't tell if I don't see it because I'm here in the city, with crowded little restaurants, bustling internet cafes, spotless cars, and so many friendly people. Or if it's just because, on a personal level, it is so hard to deal with and adjust to life here myself that I end up without the time or effort to think about how much poverty is really around me. I do not know that all the children on my street have enough to eat or clean water - some of them probably don't, and it seems like I should just go there and do what I can to help? But I don't. But then I guess that's the same in any country - in the US too, which has less (though sometimes as severe) poverty as exists here, we are instead blinded by the business of our own lives that we cannot see or do not find out what surrounds us every day. Here, the street children come up to the taxis stopped at a stop light to beg for food and water money, and still here I sit paying for internet in a cafe and, as happens to me in the US as well, I can't help but think, what am I doing, what am i doing?

Here though, I feel like I've finally woken up in the real world, the type of life that most of the world lives, not the glittery land that is the US. We watch TV that depicts people that look like us, talk like us, and have homes like us a lot of times. Here they watch the same TV and listen to the same music but it is as though us americans live in one big imaginary dream that people here can only wish exists. Yesterday I had to make a photocopy of my passport for my new job. I took out the American passport and just got stares from everyone in the room. It felt weird - here, the passport, is something I'm entitled to by pure chance of being born in a different land, but it something that many people here have dreamed of having for themselves. It is strange to come from a country that is so idolized, so built up in everyone's imagination - in America, there is no poverty. In America everyone has everything they need. In American everyone is happy.

I had an interesting conversation with a Tanzanian the other day, who, when he asked if I liked Dar, I said yes, I was having a good time here. He told me he couldn't understand why I would comeh ere and why I would like it - there is so much poverty, so much dust, so much pollution you can barely breathe, so much trash, so many problems - why here, when you have America back home? How could you say it's nice here, when there are so many problems? I was left speechless for a minute, as usually my reply that I like Dar makes people happy. But he was right, why do I like Africa so much, why have I always wanted to come, when there is so so much that is easier and cleaner and better right back home? When I could live a comfortable life in America with a good job and raise a happy family? Why am I here, and why do I like it here?

It is now time for a beach trip with the group for a midterm evaluation. So much, I feel, to evaluate, when all I've done is live 4 weeks of my life in a different city.

So the second part of the Zanzibar update got cut off because the power in the internet cafe went out…

I think I was at the deprsesing tortoises (really, I think I should call PETA about them, it was just so sad). After, some of the others went snorkling, and we simply returned to Stone Town. We spent the rest of the day eating and sleeping - we were just tired and wanted to catch up on rest. We ate at a lunch place on the roof of the hotel where I had the spiciest food I have ever eaten in my life - I was proud of myself for having finished 3/4 of it, even though the sweat was pouring down my face (SEriously, it was hooot!). then for dinner we had a great american/italian meal (which we haven't had since coming here), also on a roof… And went to slepe early

The next morning, one of the others on the trip and I went to the Jozani forest - we were the only two who were up for waking up at 6:15am to go. And I'm so glad we did, it was beautiful! I just wanted to get out of dusty cities and into plants where I could breathe.

The Jozani Forest is where the Red Colobus Monkeys live - apparently these forests are the only place in the world that they live, and there's only 4000 of them left. There were 2 other kinds of monkeys as well, and they all lived and played together. A troupe of them lived right near the forest gate and were extremely friendly - our guide took us to them and they came down right next to us - it was amazing! A baby one kept coming up to me and shaking the branches, trying to scare me and play with me, before running off and hiding, only to scare me from somewhere else. the big ones would jump from tree to tree, crashing through the forest, and walk right next to us.

We went to the Mangrove forest too, which was gorgeous. A boardwalk had recently been built to promote tourism, and so you felt like you were walking into the mists on nothing… It was completely silent, except for the salt water moving slowly below and the crabs scurrying in and out of their holes.

We had taken a dala dala to get to the forest, since it is a $30 ride by taxi but a $.50 ride by dala dala - which isn't that much less comfortable considering the roads aren't great no matter what (and which I enjoy more because you're with other people). On the way back, we had trouble catching a dala dala - we'd wave them down and they'd drive right by us, flashing their lights. We tried to hail some private cabs too, hoping some tourists might take pity on us and let us come along. All we got were strange looks by a bunch of italians. We thought they wouldn't think to pick us up because we were mzungu, so we walked down the road until we came to a small settlement of people and asked them what was going on (apparently flashing lights means they're full). The Zanzibari man we were talking to found it hysterical when we told him we didn't have enough money for our own car - he looked back to his family to tell them our story and they laughed too. He helped us, though, and told us to go to the other side of the road while he hailed the dala dala so we could get on. On the ride back to town though, he was talking trash about us to the other dala dala riders - that we were lost wazungu with no money. Apparently they found it funny too.

But we got home without a problem, just in tmie to catch the ferry on the way back.

In other news, it appears I am switching internships. My other one, while sounding cool, is not working out because the project is not really going to start for a while. So I'm heading with the internship coordinator to the university of Dar today, and apparently will be getting a placement in the engineering department there, which wouldbe really cool - - I just wish I had known earlier that I was going to switch.