November 4th, 2011
Do you remember that headline in The Onion from a few years ago titled "Owls are Assh*les"? Not an article, just a headline and picture on the front page.
Anyway, they had it wrong. It is not owls, but in fact, roosters who are the assh*les.
I had slept most of the flight from Amsterdam to the Kilimanjaro airport, and so while I was rested, my body was of course super confused when it was time to go to bed upon arriving at at my house. I tossed and turned a little bit before probably nodding off at about midnight (4:00 PM for you) and awoke at 3:45 am to what I initially assessed as bloodcurdling wolf howls. I looked out the window--wolf-free. Then a few minutes later there got to be more calls, and before too long there were about 5-6 separate calls going on at once. Roosters! I put the pillow over my head, I even tried John's noise-canceling headphones, but it didn't seem to help. So I sat in bed and listened to the lovely chorus of roosters for a while until it was time to finally get up at 6 or so.
Welcome to Tanzania, where your little staff lodge happens to be directly next to a rooster farm. I slept much better last night-more on that later.
I'll start by saying that this is going to be a long update, because I have some free time today, but I am going to get significantly busier in the next couple of weeks, so I'll probably be saying less and updating a little less often (probably on weekends).
To backtrack:
The Kilimanjaro airport is tiny, and to be quite honest, was probably smaller than the plane I came in on. That said, I foolishly thought that I would be able to use a check card to pay for my tourist visa. Cash only. I had $53 and it cost $100. It just so happened that the group of people in line ahead of me were from the Twin Cities doing medical work for a couple of weeks. They pooled some cash together and helped me hit $100, and we exchanged contact info so that I can pay the remaining $47 upon my return to Minnesota. It was very fortunate, and definitely a wake-up call to learn from.
Once I got through customs, I got picked up in a jeep by Richard, a local Tanzanian who is a hired driver for the school. The drive took about a half an hour from the airport, and was very rural. Along the side of the road were little houses and bar/restaurants lit by these fluorescent lamps that look a lot like bug zappers. Maybe they are. I saw a group of people playing a game of pool outdoors under this little tin roof. There aren't really sidewalks here, so people just tend to walk along the side of the highway, and there were a fair amount of people out. Richard had to stop at one point because there was a jackal in the middle of the road.
We got in at probably 10:00/10:15 and drove down to my little house. It's kind of on the bottom of campus and it is called Kisanduku, which is Swahili for "box". I met my roommate Steven who goes by "Stee". He's British, young(21), tall (6'4) and affable. He's here through April, student teaching for the P.E. program. The house is simple--kitchen, shower, bathroom, two bedrooms and a little office. I've got bunk beds in my room and sleep on the bottom bunk, but maybe I'll change things up and go topside after a while.
The first morning, after the rooster warfare, I walked with Stee to the athletic fields where he said I'd be able to see Kilimanjaro. Sure enough, there it was. There are decent views from it down there and probably the best view is from behind the dining hall. The campus itself is pretty gorgeous. There are a lot of Acacia trees of course and things are blooming everywhere because it's their Spring/Summer. The school is set up sort of like a series of barracks--there's no second floor anywhere. In between the buildings are walkways and foliage. There are a couple of sitting areas and a pretty nice playground. The trim of the buildings, as well a lot of the playground equipment and outdoor seating, is painted red, yellow and blue. And there's an outdoor pool, which the teachers have access to most of the time. Score.
I thought that I would be able to get by without knowing any Swahili. Though there are only a couple of native tongue teachers, there are probably close to 50 school employees who are Tanzanian citizens. This includes cooks, cleaners, security guards (there are about 8 posted on the borders of campus at all times), the librarian, groundskeepers, etc. And it's considered rude to walk by without greeting in this country. I got a book out of the school library and started learning:
"Hello, sir" is "Hujambo Bwana"(pronouced Jah-mbo Bwah-na)
"Hello, ma'am" is "Hujambo Mama"
"How are you" is "Habari", add ''a leo'' for ''How are you today?"
"I am well" is "Nzuri"
''Thank you'' is ''Asante''
'' You're welcome is ''Karibu''.
So I've been able to get about that far in conversations with staff and others, which is pretty decent for my first 24 hours.
The teachers here come from all over. I would say the majority are British, but there a few local Tanzanians, a few Americans and a couple from Holland. By in large, most of the teachers have been teaching internationally all over the world. My host teacher, Totty Aris (clearly British), had taught in Malaysia and Afghanistan before coming here. All 3 of the full-time American teachers are from the Seattle area, and the other American student teacher is from Kansas City. The kids are from all over too--Tanzania, Britain, Cameroon, South Africa, Netherlands, Germany, you name it. The main language spoken here is of course English, but students are required to take Swahili as part of their curriculum. The class sizes are pretty small. I think the biggest class I observed thus far was about 15 children. There are 225 kids here and about half of them are boarders.
In the afternoon, I caught a ride with a husband and wife (Paul and Magda, Brits) who do I.T. for campus and their children into Moshi so I could get out some cash and get some supplies. The town is very busy and crazy. There are lots of people just kind of wandering in the streets, hanging outside of businesses, hanging out in bars and coffee shops. There's a couple of bustling markets, but Paul tells me that unless you go with someone who knows Swahili, you can get hustled and spend more than you need. The city is probably about 100,000 people, so it's by no means tiny. I plan to go in this weekend and explore. Driving around Moshi is a little bit of a concern because people can literally buy their licenses without taking a driving test. The roads are ok, but a 4 wheel-drive vehicle is literally a necessity. Oh, and the cash I got out? 400,000 Tanzanian shillings (about $225). It's fun to have that much $, even if it is kind of worthless.
Last night, Stee and I went over to our colleague Alastair's house before going out for dinner. He lives about 4 houses off campus and has a security guard on the premises from 6 pm to 6 am. That was totally fascinating to me because it's not like he had a huge house. But yeah, the whole song and dance--big lockable gate, etc. I asked what he was equipped with and he said ''A club, and at one point a while back, a bow and arrow''. I guess the reality is that most of the time, nothing happens, but it's not the kind of country where you want to be alone after dark. Alastair has lived in that house for 15 years, and his kids grew up there and went to our school. He's got a bunch of animals including a puppy named Fupi, which is Swahili for ''shorty''. Then we went to an Indian restaurant just down the road from campus called ''El Rancho''. Mexican restaurant, right? No. Definitely an Indian restaurant. It was good and pretty affordable-like $30 for all 3 of us to eat and get drinks. I got home and fell asleep immediately and basically slept through most of the roosters, so I feel a lot better today.
-The website for the school, if you want to take a look, is www.ismoshi.org
-My skype name is ben_mulhern, so let me know if you are interested and we can try and figure out times that will work. Early early morning and after 9PM are best for me.
-Pictures will be posted sometime soon!
-Ben.
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