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