Under the Yellow-barked Acacia

Today we had a unique opportunity.  We did another field exercise for our Environmental Policy, but this time we studied village and community governing bodies and leadership.  We traveled to a nearby village called, Kainam, to meet with the local leaders and village elders. 

In African tradition, particularly in the Iraqw tribe, meetings are held under trees.  Before the meetings would start, the elders would give thanks for the tree, which provided shade and usually fruits for food.  Most tribal stories are connected to a specific tree, and each story must be told under its correlating tree.  For example, if I had a story that was first told under the tree in my backyard that our swing set used to be next to, under that tree is the only place I could tell the story.  I think it is a beautiful tradition, though as we have learned, with deforestation has also come a loss of the traditional stories because they can’t be told if the tree is now gone.  I love trees so I love the idea of holding meetings under trees and giving thanks to Mongu (“God” in Swahili) before beginning the meeting for His sustenance and His creation. 

Though we did not give thanks before our meeting, we did hold our meeting under a yellow-barked Acacia tree, which may be one of the prettiest trees in creation.  The elders brought out a bunch of benches and we sat in a circle under our tree.  There were about 12 village leaders and all thirty of us students as well as two of our professors who acted as translators.  The meeting started with introductions of everyone in the circle, then the village leaders went one-by-one, describing their role in the village governing committees. 

There are several tiers of governing committees in the village.  There are sub-villages, which are committees dedicated to economy and finance, security and safety, and social services.  Within each sub-village there are more divisions.  We only met with the members of the social services sub-village which was divided into the education, health issues, water, and environment committees.  Above the sub-villages is a village council, comprised of selected village members.  There is also a general assembly, which is the entire village and in order for a meeting of the general assembly to not be considered null and void, there must be a member from at least 50% of the households present. 

The village leaders were all the chairman or chairwoman or members of one of the four divisions of the social services sub-village so each division stood and told us their main responsibilities and challenges.  After they briefed us on their responsibilities and challenges, we had the opportunity to ask them how their councils worked and enter into a discussion.  We had four hours for this meeting and it flew by, in fact most of my classmates that I talked to all thought we should have gone longer.  After our discussion, the village members were adamant that we give them suggestions how to be more efficient or how they could do things better.

When we got back to camp we had a time for reflection.  We were all very impressed with how the village councils were run and organized.  I was kinda taken aback by their insistence that we give them suggestions.  I felt like, here we are, thirty college aged students who don’t know anything about running a village, but they still want our suggestions.  The goal of the meeting was to learn from each other, however I got this feeling like our being Americans had something to do with it as well.  I have gotten this feeling a lot in Tanzania, people thinking that because we’re from America that we automatically have the answers to a lot of questions and know the right way to do things.  Honestly, I think that is a unhelpful mindset.  I do feel like America pretends to know the right way to do everything, like the right way to do business, government, school.  I don’t think we do. 

These incredible people in Koiman work under extremely tight budgets and often can’t fulfill their action plans because there isn’t enough money, but they continue to stay motivated and push for improving their village.  Another thing that stood out to me was the communal mission.  The people in Koiman, and from what I’ve seen, most villages in Tanzania are very focused on community.  They aren’t trying to see how they can get the most for themselves, but if their neighbor is lacking something, they share what they have.  Everything is about community here, washing clothes, fetching water, cooking, farming, herding animals.  I especially saw this in the education division of the sub-village.  The main goal is ensuring there is education for every child so that the whole community can prosper from the education the children receive. 

I don’t know if we have as much emphasis on community in America.  I don’t want to demonize America and herald Tanzania, but I think there are tough questions that Americans need to ask themselves.  We as Americans can learn a lot from our global neighbors.  During our reflection time, one of the students mentioned how he really liked this community government, that in his community he never feels like he has much say in the way policies and decisions are made.  I believe that to be true as well.  Our government is supposed to be “for the people and by the people” but I think a lot of people would agree there is a lot of disconnect today.  Goodness, I hope this post isn’t coming across as political because I don’t want that to happen, I just want to share what I’m seeing and learning and hoping to take back. 

Another insight shared during our reflection time: a girl brought up the divisions of “developed” countries and “developing” countries.  Essentially what she was saying was how the language calling America and other westernized countries “developed” and countries like Tanzania “developing” hinders growth.  It makes America sound like we don’t have any more growing to do, and that we have everything settled while it sounds like were waiting for places like Tanzania to get to the place where America is.  I completely agree.  Granted Tanzania has some growing to do in areas, but America isn’t exempt from growth.  America doesn’t have everything figured out and neither does Tanzania.  I see a lot of enthusiasm about learning and striving for the best communities in Tanzania, I just hope America can catch some of that enthusiasm for growing and if need be, adapting and learning from places like Koiman, Tanzania. 

Maybe someday I’ll take my children to Koiman, Tanzania and tell them a story under the Yellow-barked Acacia.  

Joy and Strength

“Though the fig tree does not bud

 and there are no grapes on the vines,

though the olive crop fails

and the fields produce no fruit,

though there are no sheep in the pen

 and no cattle in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the Lord

I will be joyful in God my Savior.

The Sovereign Lord is my strength”

-Habakkuk 3: 17-19

Habakkuk isn’t a very well known book, I had never read any of it before last night, but a book that I’m reading called, Calm My Anxious Heart, mentioned this passage so I checked it out.  Most of my posts in this blog since I’ve come to Africa have been pretty perky and just based on what we’ve been doing, I haven’t said much about how I am actually doing.  I don’t want to discount anything I have been doing because it has all been fabulous and I am enjoying being in Tanzania, I love Tanzania.  However, at the same time, these past weeks have been hard.  It’s hard to be away from my family and friends, people who know me and encourage me.  It’s hard to be in a new place and have to figure out where you fit in the group.  It’s hard to have minimal contact with the people I love back home.  I have had a lot of encouragement from people back home through emails, but its hard not to have that encouragement be in the same time zone.  There isn’t anyone hear who really shares my faith and it’s really hard to be only one who believes something.  Part of me just wants to be connected to my email all the time in order to get strength from people back home, but I know that doing so isn’t feasible or isn’t pushing me to get strength from God.  I have been asking God, “Why”, a lot lately, like “Why do I feel alone?”, “Why did you bring me here?”, “Why why why”.  This is why I put the passage from Habakkuk in the beginning.  Habakkuk was telling God, though all this stuff in my life seems crummy and things aren’t going the way I would like, I will find my strength and joy in you.  Goodness, that is hard to say and even harder to follow through with actions.  So far, I haven’t done so well with following through with actions, but today is a new day. 

Thank you for letting me share where I am at and thank you for your numerous prayers.  I really appreciate them. 

Now I actually have something interesting about what we have been doing to share.  In Environmental Policy, we have been learning a lot about organizations called PRAs or Participatory Rural Appraisals.  Essentially PRAs are a different way to look at outreach and community programs than the traditional outsider donor programs.  They are a response to the disillusion in most developed countries that have given millions of dollars to developing countries but haven’t seen much change.  For instance, Americans have given billions of dollars to programs to halt poverty in Africa, however the poverty rate hasn’t budged and donors stop giving money because it doesn’t do anything.  Most of these programs haven’t accomplished much because they have outside technical experts come into communities and introduce a program to the community, but once the experts leave the projects fall apart because the local people don’t know how to continue or fix projects.  Therefore, PRAs come alongside local communities and use local participation as it main focus to empower communities.  There is a lot more effort that goes into PRAs because teams need to make relationships with communities, gather lots of data, and give up control to the local people, which means even if a PRA knows a better way to solve a problem, if that isn’t feasible for the local community, the local community needs to do what they want.   I think I’m probably rambling about something not very interesting to the majority, but I have really enjoyed learning about PRAs and really agree with their methods. 

Anyways, today we were able to test out some of the methods of PRAs in our own village of Rhotia.  We were split into groups, assigned a local guide who would act as our translator, and a specific problem we were to ask people about.  My group had to go around to farmers and ask about their crop preferences in terms of profitability, inputs such as water and fertilizer, capital inputs and arduousness. First of all, our guide, Harry was fantastic!  He is from Rhotia and has lived here his entire life.  He wants to go to college somewhere and study wildlife management.  Once we were done with our assignment, we were just talking and he was asking us if colleges or organizations in America ever sponsor international students because he doesn’t have enough money to go to school in Tanzania, but his dream is to get a degree in wildlife management.  The three other girls in my group and I are going to research that and get back to him, it is the least we can do and can be our way of saying thank you to him for being our translator and guide.  He would be a great candidate; he is trilingual and very competent and bright.  I hope something can be done for Harry. 

It was also really interesting talking to him about the differences between Tanzania and America.  He was telling us how everyone in the world wants to live in America, that it symbolizes hope and a better life.  He told us, “Ask anyone anywhere in the world if they would want to live in America, and they would all say yes”.  He was asking us if we had any tribes in America like they do in Africa and what the people are like.  I tried explaining about Native American tribes and how they aren’t really able to practice their culture and traditional practices like the tribes in Tanzania can.  We had some good conversations. 

For our actual field exercise, we interviewed seven families who are farmers. Wow.  Being farmers in Tanzania is so different than in America.  First of all, they plant corn they can actually eat off the stalk.  The vast majority of farming is subsistence farming, you can’t sell corn in the markets so unless farmers grow beans or wheat, they don’t sell any of their crops.  The four main crops are maize, pigeon peas, beans, and wheat; though we saw lots of tomato plants by homes and one family farmed sunflowers for the seeds and oil.  It’s really hard for crops here, especially in the dry season.  All the farmers we talked to told us how droughts have been getting worse each year and how the climate is making it hard to have good yields.  A few years ago they could produce a yield of 15 bags of pigeon peas from two acres but now they can only get about 7 bags.  The only irrigation the farmers around Rhotia use is rainfall, so during the dry season they can’t plant crops that need a lot of water, like fruit or bananas.  When we went to Mtu wa Mbu last week, we saw huge banana plantations, but they have many streams in and around Mtu wa Mbu that allow for bananas to grow. 

All the people we met were very friendly and helpful.  Most of them tried to teach us more Swahili so we could converse more.  I really like this aspect of environmental work, finding where the environment and people meet.  I’ve been hoping this semester would offer some more insight into what I want to do in the future because I don’t really know what I want to do, and I think I’m finding I want to work with the environment and with people.  I think I am finding I don’t want to work in wildlife management either.  I love animals, but I don’t think I love them in the way that I want to dedicate my life’s work to animals.  I really like the idea of being apart of a PRA. So we shall see what the future holds.  Until next time!

Tarangire National Park

My mind has no Swahili greetings so a hearty Hello must suffice. 

I need to start off just stating how blessed I am.  I am in Africa! How many people get that opportunity?  I’m blessed with this experience, with what I have seen, the people I have met, and the beautiful creation I have witnessed.  I’m blessed to live in a base camp with running water, hot showers, electricity, Internet, and a great staff.  My boyfriend, Joel, pointed out to me that while my living standards may be fairly close to the poverty level in America, that in Tanzania I live like a king.  I’m blessed with enough financial means to come here and to buy souvenirs and all that jazz.  I’m blessed to have friends and family back home who are praying for me, who support me, who love me, and who email me encouragements.  I have a God who loves and who created a stunning world.  I have a God who never leaves nor forsakes me or anybody else.  Really, what more could I want?  There may be days that are frustrating and I often times long for my home and people back home, but I am blessed. 

Today we embarked on our second safari! We set off early this morning to go to Tarangire National Park which is about 1.5 hours from our camp.  I can’t tell you much about the ride because I slept both there and on the way back (land rovers just rock me to sleep now), all I know is I fell asleep when we were in the mountains and woke up to wide expansive plains.  Our home in the mountains is gorgeous, but it was not what I was expecting Africa to look like.  Where we were today was the picture of Africa I more expected.  Flat, open grasslands with a few Acacia trees sprouting here and there, it was definitely beautiful but in an obviously different way than the mountains.  In the same way, Lake Manyara National Park is in the mountains so its more woodlands while Tarangire is grassland and open brushland.

In order for the safari to be educational, we spent the morning practicing a method of counting wildlife, which we have been learning about in our Wildlife Management Techniques class.  Every land rover had their own route and would count every animal within 500 meters from the car for a 2 kilometer transect then go 500 meters and start a new transect. 

We saw wildebeest, zebras, impalas, giraffes, and elephants, which we had seen in Lake Manyara ( they were still very cool), but today I saw my first Ostrich! I have decided Ostriches are very ugly creatures though, but they are much larger than I expected.  We also saw warthogs! They were kinda cute, when they run their tails stick straight up and they have this lush, floppy hair starting at their head and running along their back which makes them look like they have mullets!  I also have animal #2 for my Big Five list.  The Big Five animals include, elephants, cape buffalo, lions, leopards, and rhinos.  We saw several herds of cape buffalo, which are huge! I had no clue.  I actually think they look pretty neat, I wish I had gotten better pictures but they were off hiding behind trees. 

Before we left for Tarangire, we were promised by several of our professors that we would “definitely see lions”.  In fact, our site director, Kissui, who I talked about in the last post about being a top lion researcher lived/worked in Tarangire NP for eight years tracking all the lion prides.  Hopes were definitely high.  Needless to say…. My land rover did not see a lion… We did see a cheetah though! Cheetahs, in my opinion, are almost better anyways, they are sleek and have a beautiful coat.  We saw two cheetahs sitting up in the distance and pulled over, then they decided to lay down so we sat for 15 minutes hoping they would sit up again.  Once again my camera failed to get any good pictures, but I saw them through my binoculars! Our professor, Kioko, told us that there is a 100% chance of seeing lions in Ngorongoro Crater NP and in the Serengeti, so we have time to see Simba! “Simba” actually means “lion” in Swahili, Disney was not very original with that name!

After lunch, we headed back out in search of lions, which you know by now was an unsuccessful search.  Instead of finding lions, we found a whole herd of elephants playing in the river and decided to watch them instead.  They were great!  There were two babies, who our professor Kioko (the elephant expert) told us couldn’t be more than two years old.  The babies would take off, running and splashing through the river, chasing birds! It was perhaps one of the most precious things I have witnessed from animals.  Our car was parked right on the embankment of the river and a mature female walked over to the mud maybe 15 meters from us and just collapsed in the mud.  She rolled around in the mud and spread her legs out.  We also heard some bubbling and figured out she was sticking her trunk in the mud and blowing bubbles! It was great!  (This paragraph was dedicated to my Bethel roommate, Kelsey, who loves elephants.)

People always talk about the mammals in Africa, but I think the birds should get more credit.  The birds here are stunning.  They have the most gorgeous feathers of iridescent blues, purples, pinks, and greens.  I wish I could take pictures of all the of birds.  I see the birds sitting in trees and think “Oh, that bird is pretty” then they fly away and open their wings and I just gasp.  I wish I could describe them better. 

Well, I’m pretty tired after spending the day in the sun and I have a cold.  If you could pray for fast healing, that would be great! My roommate, Elaine, is just getting over a cold and now my other roommate, Kiley, and I are coming down with colds!  Its nothing bad, but prayer would be appreciated nonetheless.  Side story about the sun, my Bethel roommates and I were joking around about how dark I will be when I come back from Africa; today I noticed the intense farmers tan I am getting and my professor, Kioko, came up to me and put his arm next to mine and said “You’re getting pretty close, just a few more days and you’ll match me”.  Don’t worry Mom, I am putting on sunscreen, Africa’s sun is just intense.  Good night all!

A Few Explanations and My Day Off

Hello! Hopefully you are all enjoying a nice Autumn day, I could go for some cooler temperatures right about now.  Though, mornings and evenings cool down quite, especially in the mountains where we are, during the afternoon however it gets hot!

Last night I was able to talk to my family on Skype (woohoo!) ,which was great other than apparently my voice sounded like Mickey Mouse’s.  I was telling my mom about some of the professors and our classes and she thought I should put some of that information up on the blog, just so everyone knows a little more about the program. 

One of my classes is Wildlife Ecology and is taught by our professor (mlimu is the Swahili word for teacher) who we call, Kioko.  Kioko is from Kenya and is one of the world’s top elephant researchers.  I don’t know the full extent of his research, but I know he has done a lot on elephant behavior.  Our Wildlife Management Techniques class is taught by Christian, who is from Germany. I’m not totally sure what he got his PhD in, however he got his undergrad in Forestry and his masters in Wildlife Management.  Our Environmental Policy class, which is really interesting as it deals with the ethics and policies East Africa has on environmental and wildlife issues, is taught by a Tanzanian professor named Mwamhanga (his name is my favorite to say).  Our Swahili class is taught by Cecilia, who is from the Kilimanjaro region of Tanzania and has her masters.  Finally, our site coordinator who is also from Tanzania is named Kissui, and is one of the top lion researchers in the world.  He gave a lecture yesterday about lions and it was fascinating!

I also thought it would be interesting to tell you about the Swahili language since it is so different from English.  First of all, learning Swahili is really hard.  I definitely went into learning Swahili overconfident, thinking it would be like Spanish for some reason and that I would pick it quickly.  That has not been the case.  Swahili uses a completely different mindset when it comes to sentence structure, verbs, nouns, tenses, and really everything.  Even time in Swahili is different, their clock begins at 6 am instead of 12 am so at 8 am, they will say “Saa mbili kumili” (Its two o clock).   English is a bad language to compare Swahili to because English is weird as well, so I’m going to relate it to Spanish more. 

In Spanish, you conjugate verbs based on who is doing the action.  In Swahili, there are verb stems so “–kaa” means “to live, to stay”.  In order for the verb to mean anything, you have to attach a subject prefix and a tense.  If I wanted to say “I stay in Rhotia” I would attach “Ni” which essentially means “I” and “na” which is the present tense therefore “Nanikaa Rhotia” would mean “I stay in Rhotia”.  It gets really tricky when you want to add nouns because there are like 13 noun classes and in each noun class, the way you say “those” or “that” changes, the way you say “the” or “of/for” changes, and possessive agreements, like the way you you say “Mine” or “My” changes.  So essentially you don’t know how to form a sentence unless you know what noun class the nouns are in.  I don’t even want to think about if you ever have to use two nouns!  An example on the sentence structure, I was showing one of our drivers the present I bought for my younger brother and I said “yangu kaka midogo” which I thought meant “for my younger brother”, but he corrected me, telling me it is “ya kaka yangu midogo” which literally translates as “for brother my younger”.  Swahili is nuts! Like I said earlier, Swahili is a lot harder than it seems! I definitely wont be fluent in a semester!

So now that I have probably bored you all with a brief language lesson, Ill tell you what we did on our day off today!

This morning about fifteen of us students went into a town near Lake Manyara National Park called Mtu wa Mbu (this is probably one of my favorite words in Swahii to say) and went on a bike ride tour.  The tour took us through this grassland where herds of wildebeest and gazelles were grazing to Lake Manyara where there were probably thousands of flamingoes!  We watched the wildlife for a while then went back into town to this wood carving studio where we were treated to a song and dance and a history of the tribe that does these beautiful wood carvings.  I bought my mom a present here that I’m pretty excited about; I think she’ll like it! After the wood carving studio we went to a painting studio where the artists showed us how they knife paint. 

All the sights on the tour were great, the bike riding….not so much! Only the main roads in Tanzania are paved.  Riding on the other roads in our land rover/jeep vehicles are somewhat bumpy so imagine going on these roads on bikes.  It was essentially mountain biking the whole way.  And for some reason my seat kept falling down so my knees were hitting the handlebars and it made for a uncomfortable ride.  Needless to say, that’s the last time I choose a bike based solely on the color ( though it was a very nice seafoam green color). 

After the bike ride we walked around Mtu wa Mbu.  Once again, being a nzungu in a market place is hard.  All the merchants chase after you and today they were fighting over us with different merchants, trying to get us into their shops.  I did a lot better job at bargining, our student affairs manager even overheard one of my purchases and complimented me on my bargining skills!  Though they weren’t good enough for one store. 

I wanted to buy a Maasai blanket and everyone has told me to not spend more than 12,000 shillings on one. I went to a duka and found this really nice green “shuka” (that’s what the Maasai blankets are called) and asked the price. The man said 15,000 and I said “No way, 10,000”.  But he would not relent on 15,000.  I even tried saying “My friends bought the same blanket in Karatu last week for 10,000, I want it for 10,000”.  But he still didn’t budge.  Another girl with me jumped in offering to buy one as well so we could have two for the price of 20,000 (they lower prices when you buy more things).  But he said 15,000 for each.  Finally we told him we didn’t like that price and maybe we should go find another store to give us a better price, thinking for sure that this would be the way to change his mind.  Nope.  He let us leave.  I did end up finding another store to sell me a shuka for 12,000 finally. 

We learned later that because Mtu wa Mbu is more of a “touristy” town, they hike up the prices.  I also learned you can’t show interest in any item, touch them, or compliment items out loud unless you want to buy them because the merchants will take that as you’re interested in buying the item. This is difficult for me because I like to touch things, as my boyfriend can attest I have even gotten in trouble for almost touching artwork in art museums (I think I might have sat on some artwork as well, it was a chair but we’re not sure if it was part of the exhibit or not…)  It’s hard being in markets because you almost have to be rude to the merchants if you don’t want to look in their store or buy their goods.  A nice “hapana” (no) doesn’t do it a lot of the times.  This is hard for me because I don’t want to be rude or come off as arrogant, but the only way to get away from the merchants is if you are a firm. 

For lunch we went to a place that served pizza! My first American food in 15 days! It was delicious.  The food here is good, mostly rice, potatoes, lentils, beans, and veggies; but I definitely miss American food, especially junk food.  I could really go for some ice cream right about now. 

Well that’s pretty much it for today.  We are going to Tarangire National Park tomorrow for another field exercise disguised as a safari! But hey, I wont complain, Ill take a field exercise in a national park any day! 

Thank you for all your continued prayers and support.  I’ve settled in more, but that definitely doesn’t mean I don’t miss home.  I think by the time three months rolls around, I’ll be very ready to be home.  This week is hectic as far as schoolwork goes.  We have one scientific research paper due on Tuesday, another due on Wednesday, and a Swahili essay due on Thursday.  Fortunately, I started far enough in advance that I am pretty much done with all three assignments, but I can’t say the same for the other students.  Also, the power has been out for about twelve hours today, which means no charging computers or getting the Internet for research; which puts a damper on homework.  Well, I should probably finish my scientific paper on the diet and behaviors of baboons! Baadaye! (Later!)

Dung Day

I’m finding out that the days we go “off campus” are the best parts of this program.  Before I explain our off campus activity, I have to give some background of our Wildlife Ecology class period this morning, as it was a class I will probably not forget.  The topic was “Identifying Wildlife through Trails and Dung”.  Now for even more background knowledge I have to go back two days to our safari, our Wildlife Ecology professor was driving the jeep I was riding in and at one point he stopped the jeep, got out and picked up a large sample of elephant dung and just plopped it on the dashboard.  Fast forward to today when he plops down this large cardboard box and begins taking plastic bags of dung out.  He had almost any imaginable sample of African mammal dung.  He had us pass around the samples of dried dung to better familiarize ourselves with the nuances and differences between the dung of different species; and surprisingly there are a lot of differences.  Apparently he even wrote his Masters thesis in part about dung. 

One of Eastern Africa’s major problems regarding conservation is the competition between the goats, sheep, and cows the locals raise and the wildlife that need to migrate and graze on the same grasslands.  There is far more to this problem than just that, but that’s all the pertinent information needed at this time.  Today we went to a huge expanse of grassland where Maasai people graze their animals but is also part of a wildlife corridor, which is an expanse of land between home ranges of migrating animals, like wildebeest, zebra, gazelle, take to go back and forth.  This grassland then is grazing territory for wildlife and domestic animals.  We went to this grassland to do an analysis on the dung to estimate how many species actually use the grassland and hypothesize if there is competition between the wildlife and domestic animals. 

The grassland is next to Lake Manyara, which is very low right now since it is the dry season but is also a very salty lake so salt flats surround the entire lake.  When we first got there, our professor told us we could walk to the lake for 15 minutes before starting our educational activity.  As we were attempting to walk to the lake, the salt flats made it look like we had just been dropped off in the middle of a desert.  In addition to the salty ground, the sun was blazing hot and we could see mirages of the lake in the distance, adding to the effect.  Several people commented on our walk, saying it was walking to our death.  Though no one is sure what hell is like, I feel like this area could have been fairly accurate depiction.  It was blazing hot and no matter how long we walked, it seemed like we weren’t getting any closer to our destination, it was endless.  In addition to the heat and endless walk, the further we walked in, the more our shoes sunk into this dank, tar-like substance, several times it splashed on me and it was very hot.  Needless to say, it was an interesting experience but not one I’d like to repeat.

After our near-death adventure across the salt flats we actually had to do some work.  Splitting into groups, our groups were each assigned a Maasai guide who didn’t speak any Swahili or English, but we were told the words for all the animals whose dung we would find so we could understand what they would say when we pointed to certain piles of dung.  Armed with GPS and Maasai guides we headed out into the grassland surrounded by lots of cows and goats and lots of dung.  We had to make 4-by-4 meter plots and count all the dung inside the plot and identify from which species it came.  After about 2.5 hours of this, I had the Maasai words for cow, sheep, goat, zebra, wildebeest, and gazelle down pat and could identify the dung by sight! Though goat and sheep dung look similar, they have quite a few differences if you ever wanted to know.  Along with our assigned guide, two other younger Maasai boys joined our group.  One of the boys and I hit off a friendship and he gave me two vulture feathers, a flamingo bone, and a goat bone!  I also found a Maasai “arrowhead” on the ground, which he showed me was once used to whittle sticks.  After I joked around about spearing an Impala in the distance, he took it upon himself to teach me how to throw a Maasai spear, which I completely failed.  He laughed at me quite a bit. 

Even though neither of us could speak a common language, it was great interacting with him and essentially playing charades to communicate!  I never even learned his name or anything about him, but he will stay in my memories forever.  As we finished the dung counting and were leaving, he made it pretty obvious that he wanted my watch.  I tried telling him I needed it and couldn’t give it to him, but ended up giving him my hat instead.  He was definitely one of the people in Tanzania who have captured my heart and just increased my love for the Tanzanians. 

On the way back to base camp our driver, Johana, was telling me all about the Maasai traditions and cultures because he himself is Maasai and was the translator for the guides and ourselves today.  It was fascinating to hear about the people.  When we switch to Kenya we will do a home-stay with a Maasai tribe for a day, of which I’m very excited.  We also do a home-stay with a tribe in Tanzania.  The tribe in Tanzania is the Iraqw tribe, they are far more abundant in Tanzania while the Maasai are more abundant in Kenya.  The locals in Rhotia, where our base camp is, are all part of the Iraqw tribe and so are most of the local staff who work at our camp.  It will be interesting to see how the tribes differ and are similar.  I know I came here to study animals, but I think I may be finding that the people are more interesting.  Until next time!  

Soil, Elephants, and Markets

Well hello! Today is our first non-program day, which means we have a day free of classes and instead get to do fun activities! Not that classes aren’t fun, but it’s nice to have a break.  Usually on non-program days we have some form of community service for half the day, then a more social activity for part of the day.  Today, we didn’t have the opportunity to do community service as our student affairs manager who sets up the non-program days is still making connections.  Instead we went on a hike in the rainforest and spent a few hours in Karatu at a market.  Its about 5:00 pm and we’re back at our camp and I was trying to work on my scientific papers but the Internet isn’t allowing me to find journal articles so I’m taking this opportunity to update my blog. 

Our hike was to a place called Elephant Cave, more on the actual place later, but it was fantastic! My group was led by an older man named Mao (who reassured us several times that he wasn’t Chinese but Tanzanian), who was a naturalist in Ngorongoro National Park for thirty some years.  Along the way, he pointed out so many species of plants and what the tribes have used them for; every plant he pointed out had some medicinal quality and had cured people of headaches, asthma, stomach cancer, you name it!  He also pointed out wild mint and an odiferous plant commonly called “Elephant Perfume” which the Maasai people apparently use as perfume.  He also made great care to show us which leaves to use if we ran out of toilet paper, and which not to use.  One of the exciting parts for me was when he pointed out a tree which from some past research projects I have done, I recognized to be a tree that farmers in some parts of Africa use in agroforestry tree fallow systems!

When we got to Elephant Cave, which isn’t actually a cave but numerous hollows in softer sedimentary rock, Mao explained why the place got its name.  Apparently, the bush elephants that live in the area (and there are a lot as we were constantly trying to avoid elephant droppings on the hiking trail, but we didn’t see them) come to this area and eat the soil in order to obtain specific nutrients.  The soil there contains large amounts of iron, calcium, and phosphorus so not only elephants, but pregnant women in the area will eat the soil to obtain the nutrients they need.  As we explored the hollows, we saw all these ruts in the walls, which we learned are made by the elephant tusks!  It was so neat!  Also, elephants are afraid of steep inclines, and this special soil and rock is on a fairly steep incline so we learned they sit on their behinds and slide down so they won’t break their legs!  It was such a neat place and experience, and for the soil science nerd in me, I want to learn more about the area!  The hike with all the interesting information about the plants, trees, and soil may have been one of my favorite activities thus far in Tanzania. 

Also, goodness, the views were spectacular.  I stood there amazed at God’s creation.  It’s very hard not to see the Creators fingerprints in the natural beauty in Tanzania.  And I was thinking, how great is God that he would not only create beautiful plants but give them such function like being used for medicinal purposes and what not. 

After the hike, we went into Karatu. Tanzania and spent a few hours browsing the markets.  Goodness, I was so out of my element! Before we even got out of our jeeps, children and people trying to sell us things surrounded us; it was very overwhelming.  Three or four men selling things appointed themselves our tour guides and would ask us what we wanted to buy then bring us to the stalls themselves.  Now nothing has a set price so you’re supposed to barter with the merchants, which is something I have never done and is quite unnerving.  My first purchase, I forgot to barter so I just paid the first price the woman said, but as the day went along I got better.  My last purchase was originally priced at 45,000 Tanzanian shillings (the exchange rate is about 10,000 shillings to $7.50) but I told him 20,000, which he thought was incredibly too low and almost walked away, but we haggled it to 40,000 shillings and he gave me three necklaces as well.  But my, the merchants are persistent!  Even if you keep saying “hapana, hapana” (no, no), they try to lower the price to entice you and they follow you around so it’s hard to get away from the merchants.  It was definitely a cool experience though.  We were so out of place though, thirty “Nzungus” (foreigners) got every ones attention and we were probably the talk of the day. 

Well, my plan is to spend the rest of the day working on my three scientific research papers.  It seems weird to have to do homework in Africa.  Thank you so much for all your continual prayers and support! I feel them all the way over here! I hope everyone is doing well!

Safari!

Haburi za jioni!  Good evening! Athough, with the crazy time change, as I’m writing this, its only early Saturday morning in the states.  Nothing really exciting happened today except I went on my FIRST SAFARI!!! Ok, I was lying, the day was incredible!  We spent the afternoon in Lake Manyara National Park in Tanzania and will be spending tomorrow morning in the park as well.  Goodness, I don’t even know where to begin in telling about the day. 

For starters, the field trip wasn’t all fun and games; we actually had to do assignments while in the field.  For our Wildlife Management class we had to identify ten mammals and look for various facts such as gender differences and feeding habits.  For our Wildlife Ecology class prior to going to the park we had to come up with two hypotheses we wanted to make observations on and later write a scientific research paper.  For one of my papers, I did a survey on the ungulates in the park and made observations about the variety of vegetation they were eating.  My other observation/hypothesis is about how the baboon population in the park is affected by climate change. 

Our mode of transportation was safari jeeps with pop up roofs so if you stood on the seats you could stand the entire ride, which I did!  I used to think I didn’t like off-roading, but pretty much every road in Tanzania would be considered off-roading in the states so I think I’m developing a taste for jostling around a jeep on an unmaintained road.  So there we were, seven students and a professor, driving off into the wilderness of Africa in a safari jeep; my jeepmates dubbed our jeep the Mothership as it was the first of the SFS vehicles into Lake Manyara. 

Not to give the impression that these national parks have animals everywhere, because most of the time is spent driving and looking, but within the first half-mile into the park we saw our first animal, several Sykes Monkeys (I encourage everyone to look up the animals as you can get a better picture of what I’m talking about, I would upload photos but our internet doesn’t have the capacity for all thirty students to upload a lot of photos).  A bit further down the road we saw some ungulates, Water Bucks grazing.  The next animal, I must preface made my heart drop.  I have seen this animal in zoos and what not, but there is something so powerful and beautiful about seeing it in its own habitat.  It was an elephant! Our group was trying hard to be quiet and respectful of the animals, but I definitely shrieked for joy.  It never ceases to amaze me of the size of elephants, they are huge, but as this elephant crept back into the forest, it was so silent, which further amazed me. 

As we continued our safari, we encountered many a Olive Baboon and Vervet Monkeys.  Before heading out on safari, we had a Wildlife Ecology lecture about the behavior and social structure of baboons so it was neat to transfer what we had just learned into what we were seeing in the field.  Baboons and Vervet Monkeys are so active, they were climbing all over the place and grooming each other, some were pretty curious about our jeep.  Next, we saw a Dik Dik hiding among some trees, definitely look up Dik Diks, they are tiny, it was one of those animals that we weren’t expecting to see but was definitely a treat.  After some driving we came across six giraffes! Honestly, the first thought that came to my head when I saw the giraffes was “Dinosaur”.  For some reason, the long necks and heads sticking out from trees reminded me of those long-necked, herbaceous dinosaurs.  Again, when I saw them in their natural habitat, it brought a whole new dimension to giraffes.  I actually told one of the girls in the jeep with me that I could die happy now that I saw a giraffe in the wild.  It was exhilarating!

We kept driving and saw numerous birds with beautiful plumage!  Wow, there really aren’t birds quite like the ones we saw in the states, or South Dakota/Minnesota at least.  Next, we saw the first carnivore of the trip!  It was the ferocious Stripped Mongoose!  Actually, it was the only carnivore we have seen thus far, we failed to see any famous tree climbing Lake Manyara lions.  As we drove from the wooded forest part of the park into open grassland, we saw herds of zebras and wildebeest! We got very close to the zebra and, I keep saying this, but it was incredible.  They are beautiful creatures. Next, we drove to a hippo pond and I was able to see a few hippos through my binoculars, but was unable to take any pictures of them, our professor said there is a hippo pond in the Serengeti that has a great view, so heres hoping for some good hippo pictures later!

At this point, our safari was winding down and we saw more Olive Baboons and Vervet Monkeys along with Impalas and Thomson Gazelles.  At one point we were stopped watching a troop of Baboons and an elephant came out of nowhere and walked across the road in front of us!  Apparently Baboons are not too fond of elephants as they scattered quickly after the elephant came. 

One thing that makes me wish I could transport you all over here to experience is the smell.  The smell of the forests is heavenly, and no it does not smell like animals.  It smells of some type of flower and oh my, I want to bottle up that smell.  I wish I had the words to convey even a fraction of the beauty here.  The acacia and baobab trees, the open plains, the mountains surrounding; its all indescribable.  As we were driving, I clearly got the sense that God walked through this forest.  That He walks along side his “tembo”, “simba”, and “kirafu” calling them by name.  God created all the beauty in Tanzania and lives among it. 

I hope you readers got some sort of what this safari entailed today.  I feel like it was mainly me gushing about animals and using a lot of the same adjectives but I am still at a loss for many words.  Safari!    

My First Story

I’m told everyone who travels abroad has at least one diarrhea story; I officially have my first foreign diarrhea story.  That may have been a crude way to start out this post but I wanted to thank everyone who has kept me in their prayers and reassure everyone I am still alive and on the up and up as far as mending goes. 

Our student affairs manager at our base camp took me to a local clinic in Karatu, Tanzania which is about ten minutes from our base camp and is run by an American doctor.  I walked into the doctors office and the doctor, Dr. Frank, said “So you’ve been here five days.  Let me guess, do you have diarrhea, vomiting, stomach cramps, nausea, and a slight headache?” And what do you know, I was diagnosed!  Obviously Dr Frank sees a lot of this especially with tourists.  I was given some medicine and some oral rehydration salts to put in my water to help with dehydration. 

Once I got back to camp, I slept for seven hours.  I missed all of my classes, but it felt so great to get some sleep and I’m ready for bed again.  After waking up and taking a walk with one of my roommates, Kiley, and hanging out with some locals I felt better.  And at supper I ate for the first time in 24+ hours and so far its stayed in my body.  Other than being weak and tired, which I assume is from a little dehydration and lack of a lot of food, I feel a lot better.  I definitely attribute my recovery to all your prayers! Thank you so much!

A lot of small blessings and fun stories have arisen from this whole experience.  First of all, I was able to see the landscape around Karatu, which is absolutely beautiful.  Its near the Ngorongoro crater and has some phenomenal views.  Second, I got to experience using a hole in the ground for a bathroom, Ive never done that so weirdly enough it was kinda thrilling.  Thirdly, I was haggled by what they call a “Maasai Mama”, which is an elderly Maasai woman trying to sell goods.  I made the mistake of calling her beaded jewelry “nzuri sana” or beautiful and I think that made her think I wanted to buy some so she followed me around putting her beaded jewelry in my face.  If any of you know me, you know that I have a hard time saying “no” to jewelry, but I just had to keep repeating “hapana asante” which means “no thank you” and finally she walked off.  It was a neat experience and now I know how to better handle the Maasai Mamas.  Also, the students here have been really considerate, asking how Im doing and the sorts.  My roommates have been very nice as well, always making sure Im doing alright.  So there is my diarrhea story, not health-wise fun, but it definitely includes little blessings and funny stories.

Thanks again for all of your prayers! I really appreciate them!

P.S. Tomorrow we are taking our first field trip to Lake Manyara National Park in Tanzania! Exciting! Look it up, but Ill share more about it after we come back.  

Prayer Request

Mumbo! So I really need some prayer and figured this was a good way to send out a specific prayer request.  Im not feeling so great, I havent been able to keep a lot of food in my body the past 24 hours and to be safe the Student Affairs Manager wants to take me to a local clinic to makes sure I don't have anything other than adjustment issues.  Im pretty sure Im just having a harder time adjusting to the food, but please pray.  Its not a lot of fun being sick when you're not at home.  Asante sana, thank you!

Jumbo from Tanzania

Jumbo from Tanzania!  After two horrendously long days of travel, we finally made it to Tanzania around 9:45 am local time (we are 8 hours ahead of Central time).  I definitely am not as excited about flying as I was beforehand… Looking out of the airplane and seeing the ground and clouds was amazing, but the eight hour flights from the US to London than from London to Nairobi.  In the two days of travel, I got maybe 3.5 hours of sleep.  Awful.  I also never really want to see the inside of Heathrow again, we had a ten hour layover.  We were going to go out into London, but Customs wouldn’t let us go out, so we sat around and talked and walked around the Terminal several times. 

Anyways, to the fun stuff! Like I said we landed in Tanzania around 9:45 then drove into a town called Arusha, which was about 45 minutes away from the airport.  In Arusha  we exchanged our money and had lunch.  From Arusha we drove 2 more hours to get to our base camp, Moyo Hills.  In Tanzania, the administrative districts are separated into regions which are like states, districts which are like counties, and wards and villages which are towns.  We are in Arusha region, Karatu district, Rhotia village.  Last night we had orientation where we met all the staff and faculty than were given our housing assignments.  I am in a four person room with girls from Wisconsin, California, and Massachusetts.  The room is fairly small but it has a bathroom with a shower in it so that is handy.  Our cabin is called, “Kifaru”, which is Swahili for “rhino”.

All we have done for the past two days at Moyo Hills is orientation.  We had academic, student affairs, and medical orientation; not to mention we had a tour around our base camp as well as the village roads surrounding Moyo Hills.  Moyo Hills is maybe five minutes from the village, Rhotia, and there are a lot of surrounding homes around Moyo Hills so we met lots of people on the way and had a chance to practice our Swahili.  Our tour guides, two natives to the area and also staff at Moyo Hills, were telling us all a bunch of phrases that I was trying to review in my head but now at the end of the day all I have down is “Jumbo” (Hello) “Shikamoo” (Hello to a person who is older than you), "Kwa heri" (goodbye), “Asante” (Thank you), “Hapana” (No), “Ndiyo” (Yes), and “Habari” (How are you?).  Several times when I greeted people they would try to speak further, asking me questions and I just stood there trying to convey I didn’t understand anything.  Language barriers are frustrating.  Fortunately, the Tanzanians are quite friendly and forgiving of my lack of language knowledge. 

Tanzania is beautiful.  It has a beauty that is completely different from anything I have ever experienced.  We had about three hours of driving through the country side yesterday and I wanted to just take it all in, unfortunately due to jet lag I kept falling asleep… The land would be fairly barren in some parts but transition into dense forests than into agricultural lands very quickly.  There are so many different trees and types of vegetation that is not endemic to the States, we even saw a lemon tree, papaya tree, banana tree, and avocado tree within fifteen feet distance.  There are mountains in the distance. 

What I love the most however, is how people really make up the landscape.  Its completely different from the states, there are people everywhere! As we would drive, we would pass through villages that would have all these little “dukas” (stores) on the side of the road selling pop, clothes, fruit, vegetables, car parts and really anything you can imagine.  The buildings are all pretty much made of cement or brick walls with tin or cardboard roofs.  They are all very small, especially compared to American standards.  When we went into Arusha, a fairly substantial town, it was crazy!  Traffic was nuts, no stoplights or signs or even traffic lines! Cars were swerving in and out with no warning and motorbikes (“piku pikus”) and bicycles were just going anywhere and everywhere.  It was actually fun to watch! And the markets that we passed look so cool, just people with little stands of goods.  I really like how people congregate and are always outside here!

My wildlife count so far is goats, chickens, and cows! Not very exotic, but people herd their animals by walking them around, there are no fences or huge farm operations; just men or boys with a stick following their animals as they graze.  Apparently though, a few weeks ago a man got attacked by a hyena in this region, don’t worry though Ill be safe.  Another part I love is the sounds, or the lack of sounds.  I was on a walk with my roommate today and we noticed how it was so peaceful but it wasn’t quiet.  Instead of obnoxious freeway and car noises, here you can only hear birds and people.  There are so many birds and birdcalls, as for the people you can hear children playing and laughing! I keep saying this, but its beautiful.  Tanzania.  Even though I’ve been super tired and slightly emotional the past few days, I’m already enjoying Tanzania and its people.  I cant wait to learn more about the place, wildlife, and people. 

Kwa heri!

The Last Day!

The day has come.  Today is my last full day in the United States, tomorrow around 6:00 pm, I leave for my adventure.  As those closest to me or even those who read my last post can attest, I have had major mood changes about this trip.  One day I am excited, the next day terrified; however this week I have come to a point where I am so ready to be in Africa, to get on that plane and experience all Africa can offer.

I know two things for certain.  I know I am covered in prayer and I know this is where God wants me this semester.  Everything else in my life seems uncertain but I have come to the point where those two things that I know for certain can give me enough strength to get on that plane.  I'm a bit of a control freak so when things don't go my way or as I planned, it is hard for me to accept.  I definitely think this semester will be a time when that control freak nature of mine will be slowly stripped away.  Hopefully this semester will be a time where I hand the control over to God.

I was struggling with nerves earlier this week and a friend told me when those nerves come to think about what I'm excited about so here is a short list I have come up with so far:

1.  I'm secretly excited about going on a plane by myself, I've never done so the newness intrigues me (I'm sure though by next Monday after being on a plane for two days, I'll be over the newness)
2.  I am excited to see Africa, to be able to sit and just take in an entirely new landscape and dwell in what the Creator fashioned
3.  I am excited for community service days (We have six day school weeks and Sunday is usually a day where we go into communities and do service projects or play with kids)
4.  I am excited to play with kids (I guarantee I'll be tempted to take them all home with me)
5.  I am excited for the tribal home-stays ( I get to spend a night with a Maasai tribe at some point in the semester)
6.  I am so excited to see animals (The title of my blog includes my three favorite African mammals, I hope I can see all of them, though Okapi are notroiously elusive and live in forests, not the savannah where we will mostly be)
7.  I am excited for my classes, Wildlife Ecology, Management Techniques, Intro to Swahili...etc., they all sound great!
8.  I am excited to meet new people
9.  I am excited to be on my own, part of me needs this adventure to prove to myself I can be on my own and I want to spend the semester figuring out what I want out of life
10.  Nerd alert: I'm excited for the soil.... An email from the Student Affairs Manager in Tanzania said the soil and dust is all red and from what I have researched on my own I have a feeling it is classified as "ferralsol" soil.  I also want a chance to look and examine how Africa manages their soil and agriculture.

What I am not excited for:
1.  Spiders.  I hear there are big, hairy, bird-eating tarantulas and that terrifies me.  I hate spiders.  I just have a feeling at some point one will be sitting next to me so PLEASE pray that doesn't happen!

Once again, thank you for all of your prayers.  I really feel covered in prayer and I appreciate it so much!  Please enjoy Autumn for my sake, it's my favorite season and I'm going to miss it so eat those mellowcreme pumpkins and jump in a leaf pile in my honor! I hope all of your semesters are fantastic as well!  FAREWELL! The next time you hear from me, I'll be in AFRICA!!!

The Jumble Before Africa

Six days between today and the day I leave for Africa.  Oh my goodness.  The past few weeks I have been asked the same question so many times, "Are you excited about Africa?".  I always pause before answering to try to figure out the right way to respond; because usually I am not as excited for this trip as the people who are asking me the question.  Another statement I have heard frequently is "I am so excited for you," to which I always want to respond "Well that makes one of us."

Before you get the wrong impression, I am excited.  I have always wanted to go to Africa, I am so unbelievably grateful to be able to go on this trip.  I am excited to see the animals I love in their natural habitat, to see the African land, to be able to meet the African people.  This excitement, however, is tempered by a great amount of trepidation.  I am sure that once my feet hit the African land, I will feel excitement and joy, but for the waiting period beforehand, I feel a whole lot of nerves and apprehension.

I visited Bethel last week to say good-bye to my friends and it hit me numerous times sitting at various places around the campus, that I would not sit here or see people at Bethel until January.  Bethel has become my second home so it was hard to leave, hard to come back home with the knowledge Bethel wont be my home for this semester.  It is going to be hard to leave my family and friends.  I've never done anything like this, I've never been out of contact for more than a few days.  Now I'll be thousands of miles away with only email and letters as contact for three months.  I'm nervous about meeting the 29 other students I'll be living and learning with; all thirty of us come from very different colleges and hometowns and being somewhat of an introvert, it makes me a little nervous to think of the process of starting new friendships.

Bear with me family and friends, I will get to the excitement phase, but for now I'm just in the jumbled phase where my feelings about Africa can range from slightly unsure to terrified.  I know God has me in His hands and I trust that He will provide, yet it is still scary when God leads you into the unknown. I think the unknown is the scariest place one can find themselves.

On the less emotional side of this trip, there is a lot to do in six days.  I haven't started packing yet.  I have a big tub in my room of things I intend on packing, nothing has made its way into bags though.  I thought I would get an itinerary before I left, but it sounds like I won't know logistics until our orientation in Africa.  I leave Saturday (the 8th) around 6ish from the Minneapolis airport. From there I fly into Chicago then fly to London where I meet the rest of my group, who will fly out from New York together.  From London we fly to Nairobi, Kenya then to Tanzania.  We don't land in Tanzania until the 10th of September so for everyone keeping track at home, thats two days of flying.  The longest flight I have ever been on was from Sioux Falls to Orlando, so even the flights will be an adventure for me!

Thank you so much for all of your prayers and support.  I know I am being covered in prayer.  Please don't stop the prayers though!