I'm pleased to say our week in Saitabau wrapped up pretty well. It was nice to be able to return to Arusha every day, because afternoons in the village kind of drag sometimes. On Thursday Leah and I went to lunch with Morgan, and loved the fact that we introduced him to one of our common lunch spots that he had never been to. He then showed us a public park in an area called Uzunguni (within Arusha), where the houses are beautiful, the trees are tall, and the streets are clean. Uzunguni was formerly populated with mostly wazungu (I hear many have since moved away, but the area remains relatively posh in contrast to the rest of the city), which is where it got its name... although when we asked that day, Morgan told us that Uzunguni means "Cool Place." We joked that we were introducing him to another of our spots, since he was the outsider to Uzunguni. It was nice to relax in an outdoor public area without being harassed, something I'm sure we can thank Morgan's presence for... unless of course you count stares as harassment. He tells us we make him famous.
The discovery of Uzunguni was actually quite nice, because there are some really nice "mzungu restaurants" there, as well as a really pretty (and quiet) walk I can take from my house to the center of town. I'm interested to see what the Chinese restaurant here is like! We had dinner in the area on Friday night, and the girls and I spent Saturday afternoon in the park again with some of our GSC interns. Leah and I spent that morning at a giant used clothing market where I picked up a few extra long skirts for village trainings-- it's always fun to make those transactions in Swahili. Since the interns like to treat us to nyama choma and Konyagi (grilled meat and local gin), we decided to treat them to a mzungu dinner at Njiro that night. There are several menus there you can order off of, so we decided to try Mexican food. I wish I had a picture of the guys' faces when they tried burritos for the first time... granted, they weren't the best burritos I've ever had, but those boys looked like they bit into a dirty diaper. It's so interesting how significantly a person's palate is molded by the foods they grow up eating! Poor guys. They were good sports.
This last week we camped at the furthest, most remote village GSC works with in Tanzania, called Tingatinga (as Jenaya puts it-- it's out in the Wop Wops). We stayed at a local mama's house, but slept in a tent outside because there were so many of us. The house was actually really beautiful, my guess is that they were the most well-to-do family in town. Our tent was next to their small shamba of beans and corn (HOORAY, intercropping!) and the rest of the house was surrounded by beautiful trees, including pomegranate, orange, avocado, and mango trees. As lovely as the house was (and as comparatively well-off we guessed the family to be), it was startling to witness how sick one of the kids was, while little attention seemed to be paid to his condition. The water we were given to shower with was always brown and there was a serious fly infestation around town... I think these factors might have contributed to the boy's illness. Pardon the graphic nature of this story, but the boy must have been about 3 years old and he would periodically (and seemingly uncontrollably) drop his pants wherever he was and suffered from completely white diarrhea. Quite startling. Coincidentally, I left Tingatinga with some scratched-open bug bites that were badly infected, swollen with pus. Oy.
But on a lighter note, there was another boy who lived there named Lukman who was about 10 and loooved hanging out with us during down time (of which there was plenty). Tanzanians love a card game called Last Card (last kardi) and Lukman begged us to play with him every single day. The girls helped me attempt to teach some of the guys how to play Thirteen with marginal success. The trees around the house made for an excellent outdoor meeting area, where the different programs would get together to have our nightly meeting, and it was a nice hang-out spot for socializing. One night the boys were preparing for a football game by having a few beers (I guess there was a bar with a TV not far from the house) and, perhaps encouraged by the drinks, Soningo and Ben demonstrated some Maasai singing and dancing for us. So awesome!
The actual training in Tingatinga was just okay. We didn't have a very good turn-out for SA, so we struggled with attendence quite a bit. It was my first week with CFGB though, got to teach with Ediltruda, the woman who trained me during orientation, which was really great. She's so nice and encouraging, not only with learning the methods but also with learning Swahili. One of the participants, Monika, was closer to my age and really enjoyed avoiding doing work on practical days by teaching me Swahili as well. I must admit, I selfishly loved it, but I'm not sure everyone else appreciated double digging a person short. This was also my first week doing chicken vaccinating in the mornings. We woke up at 5:30am and trained community members on how to vaccinate chickens against New Castle Disease, which is a big problem among chickens around the world. All you have to do is put one drop of the liquid in their eye every three months. GSC does the first round for free as they train the community members, then they allow the community vaccinators to set their own price to do the next administrations themselves. Tingatinga has many Maasai villages, so there weren't too many chickens to vaccinate (they mostly keep cattle) but it was a good introduction. And roosters are scary.
On Friday, we were told of a "short cut" back to Arusha, which consisted of our Jeep following tire tracks through the bush in a completely unmarked area. We left at around 4pm, and Soningo bet me that we would return by 5:30... I was sure that we wouldn't. The wager was one drink. By shortly after 5pm our path led us through Arusha National Park, where we saw a few groups of giraffe. We were nearly home! When we reached the gate to exit the park, the guards spotted the wazungu in the truck and refused to let us pass. After several minutes of negotiation and a very angry Musa (our driver), we turned around and found an alternate route through rural shambas and small villages. We arrived in Arusha around 7:45 that night. After that long in a cramped Jeep I was really ready for that drink!! The girls and I had our traditional Friday night pizza though, and called it a night after that. We were exhausted. Saturday we went to Arusha Coffee Lodge, a very mzungu (read: "fancy") resort next to a coffee shamba. We had a nice lunch there and lounged by the pool during the day. We spent that night once again with the interns, where I finally got my drink!, begining at a bar called Babylon (ironically, not a mzungu place, if you are a reggae fan) where we watched a Manchester United game. We ended the night at Maasai Camp for pool and dancing, which was a blast.
Sunday was nice and relaxing, begining with a home-cooked breakfast at Jenaya's house, and ending with a 3 hour nap at my homestay. I've come to really enjoy quiet Sundays, where I tend to wash my clothes outside in the late afternoon with my radio on a local station. There's something about the afternoon sun combined with the breeze that makes hand-washing clothes outside so completely enjoyable. Quite meditative, actually.
Until next weekend!
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