Hellllllllo again. So here I am back in Arusha from our weeklong safari in Tarangire NP and Lake Manyara NP. The trip was amazing and I’ll upload some pictures to share what I’ve seen and been doing while here in Tanzania. To start off last week we packed up and left our home stay in the rural village of Bangata, and prepared for a week in Tanzanian National Parks. Everyone was getting really excited about the trip due to the fact that we have been away from each other while living in our separate homes in the village (everyone is living with their own family, some families are friends or neighbors but one student per house). So after packing up we hopped in the cars around 10 and drove approximately 2 hours south of Arusha to reach Tarangire. Getting there we met our camp crew who had prepared lunch for us and after setting up our tents and eating we jumped back into the cars and became tourists going on our first game drive. From then on every morning was spent in the cars with groups specializing in various animals collecting data and then presenting it when they got back from lunch. These groups consisted of an elephant group, bird group, Ruminant group, and Non ruminant group (my group) (ruminants are animals with different digestive systems like cows who usually have multiple stomachs and chew their own cud, and then non ruminants are primates, carnivores, cats, zebra, etc.) After collecting data all morning and presenting it to our peers we would eat lunch and have a long siesta. The siesta would last from 12-3 and we would spend time relaxing in the shade or playing cards. There is no point in driving through the reserve from 12-3 because the animals were all sleeping in the shade because of the intense heat. Then after tea at 230 we would get back in the cars and be tourists going out looking for animals we wanted to see. I was frantically searching all week for Lions or Cheetahs, but had no luck on any of my safaris this week. Two cars got to see a lion in the distance but could only really see it through binoculars. Then every night we would eat dinner and relax for a few hours but usually got exhausted around 9 or 10 and were up at 630 to do it all again. I got tons of great pictures while on safari, some of which I will try and load up, and I cant wait to do it all again in a week when we got to Mazumbai forest reserve. This reserve is a forest which I think that I will complete my ISP (independent study project) which is a project common among many SIT programs. This project is an allocated 22 days in which you travel to a place of interest and study a topic by collecting data and compiling it into a 25 page paper at the end of the semester. In Mazumbai I will be doing a follow up study on Black and White colobous monkeys. The area which I will be completing my study is bordering the reserve and is interesting because it consists of a troop of monkeys which were split due to fragmentation. This fragmentation consists of a road splitting the forest in half, as well as a bunch of tea fields which provide a less than adequate ecosystem for this primate. I will be living in a chateau with several other people also studying other things in the forest and will be paying $3 a night for all accommodations. We start mid terms week on Monday and will be writing papers, having our Swahili midterm, and conducting focal groups with local Tanzanians in Bangata about Tanzanian culture and issues which we have been studying as a group. I think that’s all for now, Kwaheri!
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
three weeks in africa
So I've been here three weeks in Africa, and we are completing the first two weeks in our rural family home stay in the bangatan village. Living and fully emerging myself in this families practices has been interesting to say the least. Chai (tea) and bread/butter for breakfast every morning, with amazing meals cooked over a three stone fire outside every night. Weekends consist of church and family parties/celebrations. After church last week, which lasted 3.5 hours and consisted of some evangelical preaching in combination with many calls to donate where people would give money to the basket in the front of the church while singing and dancing. At the end of the service they auctioned off goods such as banana trees, spices, beans, wood, stools which people provide because they dont have enough money to directly donate to the church. The money acquired from the auction goes to the church as a donation from the person who brought that good. My host family has been awesome and welcoming, laughing with me while i struggle to pick up swahili words here and there. Ive bonded with my 15yo brother who speaks some english words but no sentence structure whatsoever. we talk about girls and help each other with home work, and the rest of my family has only spoken swahili to me but ive been able to understand a fair amount and get by. I've struggled but enjoyed the homestay experience over the course of the past few weeks, but am excited for our safari starting saturday with a bit more english and getting out into the wild to see some animals. Upon returning we have midterms which consist of three papers (10 pg, 5pg, and 3 pg) and two projects based on the data which we are collecting in our homestay about the structure and way of life. The weekly readings have surrounded globalization, foreign macro/micro aid, and we have written page long concept papers to prepare for discussions within our group with Baba Jack. I still collect a group of 10+ kids ranging from 4-5 following me to school in the mornings, and I try to make conversations with my little swahili. I am trying hard to represent America well to the Tanzanians here who rarely see foreigners, and I think I am doing a fair job. I also don't know if its my whiteness or my hideous face, but I made my cousins 2.5 year old baby cry every time she comes over the house to see me. Everyone else has been very outgoing with me trying to talk to me and open to having conversations in my broken swahili and their minimal english. Swaenglish has become a common tongue to me and ive gotten quite good at it. I think ill be on my way now but when I come back i hope to have some safari stories to share with you all. I encourage you all to comment on the blog or send me fb messages/emails!!! its been nice to hear from everyone and I hope you have enjoyed my posts/pictures.
-sam
-sam
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Hujambo America.
hellllllllo all, so this is my first update from an Internet cafe in Tanzania and I've got a bunch to share. I figured since I have been here for almost two weeks I would break this post up into the multiple days/sections of my adventures. Enjoy.
So after my arrival to tz on the night of January 27th we packed our things into a range rover and drove for about 2 hours to Ndarakwai park where we got settled in by setting up our tents and having some light food before we went to sleep for a few hours. The next morning we woke up to see the sun rise over Kilimanjaro, and I have many pictures which I will provide at a later time when I can find a wireless Internet cafe to load them onto my computer. The next few days of orientation we went on hikes and talked about the program. Also some of baba jacks' (our academic director who runs the program) friends joined us including babu liki, mike, onesmoo, and alex. Each of these guys have some awesome stories to share and orientation was a way for us to be introduced to Tanzanian culture and all of the other kids on the program. While camping in this park we were lead on hikes daily with each of the Tanzanians learning about Maasai culture: native tanzanian bushmen, with crazy rituals/way of life. We have taken wildlife hikes where we have seen animals including vervet monkeys, baboons, giraffes, zebra, elephants, wildebeest, impala, warthogs, etc. We also took a bird watching walk and an ethnobotony walk to learn about the Maasai use of plants and their surroundings. On Feb. 3rd we traveled to Arusha which is a city in Northern Tanzania where we stayed for a few days having swahili class in the morning and having the ability to explore the town in the afternoon. Not much happened in these days, just exploring the city and logistical things sualch s cell phones (if anyone wants to get a phone card and give me a call here is the calling code and my number. 011225-764011526). On Saturday (2-5) we traveled 45 minutes to a small town outside Arusha called bangata where we will be moving in with the families which we will be living with for the next two weeks. The first day with my mama we traveled through our back yard into the jungle where we journeyed for thirty minutes up and down valleys over rivers and down residential dirt roads until we hit a road where we picked up a dala dala ride (local public transportation) for twenty more minutes till we got to the market. At this market they had all the fresh vegetables, beans, rice, fruits you could ever imagine. There must have been around one thousand Tanzanians, and me. While walking through the market I would hear yells of MUZUNGU from everywhere. Muzungu is what all Tanzanians call white people. Whether they be european or american, we all fall into the same category. it is not a derogatory term, rather a cry of amazement because they rarely see muzungus walking through their markets and towns. This trip was even more difficult when we were on our way back with our bags filled with groceries. As you could imagine while we walked through the woods on the way back, my mama and her two friends who we met on the dala dala back carried their goods on their heads. Very impressive women and they also carry their huge jugs of water on their head on the way back from the river. Even the younger girls who are only 6 or 7 years old will have a water bottle filled on their heads, everyone does their part around here. In Bangatta we have been taking Swahili classes the past few days and the language is coming along very slowly. After school as a group we either play soccer, Frisbee, or just lay out in the yard reading the material for our classes. there are also a bunch of duka dukas where you can get a soda or beer and play pool with locals. The kids in our town are awesome and on my 30 min walk to school every morning I get a pack of them following me around asking me questions in Tanzanian and their broken English. Although it sounds like all fun and games we have been briefed about the amount of work we will be doing and it is quite substantial. The way the program works is that we have a few weeks of data collection (home stay, national parks, etc) and then a week or so of compiling papers projects and presentations. I think that is about all I have to say for now, but feel free to comment, email or call me if you would like to know how its going. (glickman.samuel@gmail.com)
sorry if there are any typos in here this has just been a free flow of thought from the top of my head.
Enjoy,
sam
So after my arrival to tz on the night of January 27th we packed our things into a range rover and drove for about 2 hours to Ndarakwai park where we got settled in by setting up our tents and having some light food before we went to sleep for a few hours. The next morning we woke up to see the sun rise over Kilimanjaro, and I have many pictures which I will provide at a later time when I can find a wireless Internet cafe to load them onto my computer. The next few days of orientation we went on hikes and talked about the program. Also some of baba jacks' (our academic director who runs the program) friends joined us including babu liki, mike, onesmoo, and alex. Each of these guys have some awesome stories to share and orientation was a way for us to be introduced to Tanzanian culture and all of the other kids on the program. While camping in this park we were lead on hikes daily with each of the Tanzanians learning about Maasai culture: native tanzanian bushmen, with crazy rituals/way of life. We have taken wildlife hikes where we have seen animals including vervet monkeys, baboons, giraffes, zebra, elephants, wildebeest, impala, warthogs, etc. We also took a bird watching walk and an ethnobotony walk to learn about the Maasai use of plants and their surroundings. On Feb. 3rd we traveled to Arusha which is a city in Northern Tanzania where we stayed for a few days having swahili class in the morning and having the ability to explore the town in the afternoon. Not much happened in these days, just exploring the city and logistical things sualch s cell phones (if anyone wants to get a phone card and give me a call here is the calling code and my number. 011225-764011526). On Saturday (2-5) we traveled 45 minutes to a small town outside Arusha called bangata where we will be moving in with the families which we will be living with for the next two weeks. The first day with my mama we traveled through our back yard into the jungle where we journeyed for thirty minutes up and down valleys over rivers and down residential dirt roads until we hit a road where we picked up a dala dala ride (local public transportation) for twenty more minutes till we got to the market. At this market they had all the fresh vegetables, beans, rice, fruits you could ever imagine. There must have been around one thousand Tanzanians, and me. While walking through the market I would hear yells of MUZUNGU from everywhere. Muzungu is what all Tanzanians call white people. Whether they be european or american, we all fall into the same category. it is not a derogatory term, rather a cry of amazement because they rarely see muzungus walking through their markets and towns. This trip was even more difficult when we were on our way back with our bags filled with groceries. As you could imagine while we walked through the woods on the way back, my mama and her two friends who we met on the dala dala back carried their goods on their heads. Very impressive women and they also carry their huge jugs of water on their head on the way back from the river. Even the younger girls who are only 6 or 7 years old will have a water bottle filled on their heads, everyone does their part around here. In Bangatta we have been taking Swahili classes the past few days and the language is coming along very slowly. After school as a group we either play soccer, Frisbee, or just lay out in the yard reading the material for our classes. there are also a bunch of duka dukas where you can get a soda or beer and play pool with locals. The kids in our town are awesome and on my 30 min walk to school every morning I get a pack of them following me around asking me questions in Tanzanian and their broken English. Although it sounds like all fun and games we have been briefed about the amount of work we will be doing and it is quite substantial. The way the program works is that we have a few weeks of data collection (home stay, national parks, etc) and then a week or so of compiling papers projects and presentations. I think that is about all I have to say for now, but feel free to comment, email or call me if you would like to know how its going. (glickman.samuel@gmail.com)
sorry if there are any typos in here this has just been a free flow of thought from the top of my head.
Enjoy,
sam
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