Orientation, Wiki Moja

First of all, thank you so much for all of the facebook, blog and e-mail love. It means so much to me that you're all thinking about me while I'm gone (and it's also great, because it means you're thinking about the cause, too).

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It's been a long week, to say the least. We started Orientation (you'd think I'd be done with Orientation after doing it all summer...guess not - shoutout to O-staff!) on Saturday with a trip to the SIC office, which is a beautiful two-story house, with indoor waterfalls, and a dog named Chong, in a neighborhood inside town. It's down a road called Fire Rd. because there's a Fire Station there, but there's no phone number for the police or fire dept in Tanzania...and I have yet to see a firefighter or a fire truck. So by Fire Station I mean a building with space for potential emergency-like vehicles and a pole to slide down from the lookout point upstairs.

We had our first Swahili lesson on Saturday also, which now, at 2 hours a day Saturday through Friday has now totaled more hours than the entire quarter of class at UCLA. It's definitely structured differently though, and our teacher often makes comments about "the other Swahili" (referring to the inferiority of Kenyan Swahili - all of our teachers were Kenyan, both for UCLA and Stanford). I haven't really been able to study very much because my Kiswahili materials are all in my other bag. But hopefully that should be fixed soon. Supposedly, my bag is in Arusha as I type and I should have it with me on the truck ride back to the Orientation site today.

That night we had our SIC opening dinner at Masai Camp, the bar and restaurant part of of it, buffet style, great food (I'm getting so fat here...the serving size is SO MUCH, and it's half starches and carbs), and we got to meet the entire SIC staff. The Tanzanian teaching partners, six men and six women, range in age from 21-30, and are either recent college graduates or current college students. We also have several Tanzanian full time staff members, most importantly a field officer who lives in and operates out of each Ward (which is a collection of villages) and is responsible for keeping SIC sustainable. The field officer continues the programs that we initiate during our stays in the villages, each of which I'm sure I'll write tons about once they are under way. To be honest, the Tanzanians are slightly intimidating. They don't speak perfect English, but they know our language, while we are still struggling with theirs. Their culture is just so different, but they have all made a sensational effort over the past week to make us feel at home and I become more and more comfortable with them every day.

On Sunday we went on a hike that is SIC tradition, called "The Waterfall Hike," through a small national park in the backhills of Arusha town to this gigantic beautiful waterfall. Everyone goes, volunteers and Tanzanians, and it's certainly not an easy hike, but some great staff bonding. The water is freezing, but you can climb near the top and feel the backsplash of the falls (more like a downpour), and it's a freeing experience because you just stop caring about everything else around you. The surrounding cove is a jungle oasis, as green and high as the eye can see. And then the hike back is long and hard, but we stopped for to each lunch on the top of a hill overlooking rural Tanzania, green mountains of cornfields and hornbills, and small hand-made houses of dirt and wood. On the walk back, several children followed us, but they mostly just smiled and laughed, retreating behind trees or goats and cows as we walked by saying "Mambo" and taking in the African farmland with our last breaths of fresh, mountain air before returning to the city below.

That night, we ate dinner at Kahn's, a mechanic by day, Indian food restaurant by night. We rode home standing in the back of a pickup truck. We have special permission (a hand-written note) from the police allowing SIC to use the back of the truck for human transport. We stand up, the wind blowing our face, and it helps sometimes just to see Arusha from an elevated angle, instead of the dirt and sweat of the sidewalks below.

Next morning: back in bed of the truck, standing up, cold wind blowing, volunteers singing songs inspired by words and phrases printed on the Daladalas (sort of like their metro system, except smaller, more crowded, and a lot more sketchy). We moved from Centerhouse hostel to a university of agriculture and forestry to officially start our Orientation. The site is beautiful, and for the past 5 days we have followed a strict 8am-5pm training schedule. Lots of bio. Lots of sex. LOTS of sex. Lots of HIV/ADS public policy. Lots of swahili. Lots of information about the villages, the program, the people...and lots more to come.

The Orientation site is beautiful, which seems to be a theme of Africa thus far, doesn't it? We have a picture perfect view of Mt. Meru, the 5th highest mountain in Africa, the 2nd in Tanzania. We are actually hoping to climb it in two weeks. We'll see.

My roomate is Shujaa, the youngest of the teaching partners. He just graduated secondary school at 21. Which means we're the same age for a few more days. He hopes to go to college to study economics, and was apparently the "Head Boy" at his school, which I think equates to Valedictorian in some way. He, along the other guys, really really like playing Football...which is Soccer. So we've played soccer a few times. I haven't really played in 5 years, but I remembered enough to get along. Although I am clearly out of shape. Especially when our days our spent sitting in a classroom all day, eating A TON for every single meal (learning this stuff is quite emotionally and mentally exhausting), getting up with the sun, and going to bed with the sun. We're usually tired by 8pm and ready for bed.

* * * * * Interesting Side Note * * * * *

So a few days ago, we (and by we, I mean a few of the Tanzanian guys) discovered that there was a TV hooked hidden in the cabinet of our dining room. So now, every meal, especially dinner, the TV is blaring and there are several Tanzanians glued to the screen. We watch a lot of news. For example, the other night, we watched a half an hour news break about the construction of buildings in surroundings areas. We would see a few minutes of a political figure talking about the building, then a flash of the building being built, maybe some footage of construction workers sitting around eating lunch, then back to the public official speaking about the building. So funny. There as another program about a barbershop during which we watched a three men get their hair cut. Yep, that's all. A continuous shot (with infrequent zooms in and out), of three men getting hair cuts.

We also watch the Indian channels sometimes, featuring all of your favorite Bollywood music videos, and some soap operas, particularly one called "Generations," an Africa-wide drama featuring both African and white actors, all dreadfully awful actors, speaking in Swahili and English.

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And now we're back in Arusha. I'm a pretty good mood, because I've recently had my first shower that was both hot and had pressure since arriving to Africa. Everything here smells like burning trash (there is no garbage disposal system in Tanzania). We are being pestered once again at every corner. We see the T-shirts of every American sports team you can think of, every other person greets us with an open hand. And it is no longer safe to walk around at night (last night we took a taxi to go half a block down the street from a bar to our hostel).

This is my last blog post before we move into our villages, which are in the wards of Mikiba and Mataroni, and thus from now on my internet access will become quite few and far between (or at least unpredictable...I'm going to try for once every other week, but we'll see).

On Thursday our actual HIV/AIDS work in the communities begins. It's what we've been waiting for, it's why we're here. I can't wait to meet my homestay family, find out my teaching group, talk to my village leaders, and start teaching in the classroom...and tell you guys all about it as soon as I can.

Love you and miss you all,
Poa kabisa,
Devon

The African Life

Yesterday we visited the Rwanda Tribunals which are taking place in the Arusha United Nations office for about two weeks. There are people from all over the world here to participate in and observe the tribunals, and it was interesting to see a trial in the works. The room does not look like a court room, but rather a large conference room with people set up with computers, hedaphones and cameras seated in different directions. Rather boring, actually. I guess evil isn't glamourized like it is in the movies. After a while, the physical process of the trial is quite long and boring. Through the numerous translations, a lot gets lost, often to the point where 5 or 10 minutes is spent going over what is said in various languages just to make sure that every word is correctly understood. These misunderstandings are actually the most entertaining aspects to the outside observer. We dwelled on the difference between "exclude" and "excommunicate" for a good 10 minutes.

After spending a day out on the town, 16 of the volunteers went out to Via Via, a night club and bar. There was a live music - the band was awesome, steel dreams, electric guitars, three main male singers with simple choreographed dances that we proudly copied - and we danced and drank (well I just danced, but yea...), for a good 3 hours. We met a lot of Tanzanians from Arusha and surrounding areas who are always curious why we are there. It is always interesting to hear the Tanzanian perspective on Americans, especially after we note that we aren't here for tourism (at least not solely). The main industry of this country is tourism, and if we aren't giving them business, why are we here? They are also always quick to point out how hard it is to succeed in Tanzania without connections and money. It's a self-perpetuating cycle... for most, it is impossible to move up in social class, because even if you're smart, you can't go to college unless you know the right person at the right time.

We made a few friends at Via Via both through chatting and through dancing. People just walk up to you and go crazy. Probably because they are drunk, but mostly because we are in Africa! It was the most fun I've had since the trip began. The safari was awesome, but the energy in this outdoor bar was just unbelievable.

I felt a lot closer to a lot of volunteers after last night. Though many of them probably don't remember it (these people are CRAZY), it was good to just hang out in that type of environment with the people I am going to be working with for the next 3 months.

Tomorrow the program officially begins, and our 2 weeks of training commence. I'll update when I can.

Baadaye (later!),
Devon

Viva Africa!

I've wanted to go on a safari since before I can remember. I think when I saw the IMAX movie on the Serengeti at the Ruben H. Fleet Science Center in San Diego, I pretty much decided that I would be going there at some point in my life. A lot of people want to travel to Italy or France, but I always wanted to go to Africa. Funny how things turn out.

The town of Arusha, Tanzania (our home base for the program) is the size of Westwood. There are uncountable surrounding villages, in varying states of rural and urban construction, but Arusha town itself is walkable from one end to the other. As long as you walk during the day, and not alone. At night we take taxis, which cost between 2,000 and 5,000tsh (roughly $2-5), but we constantly have to bargain. For everything. Walking around Arusha we stick out like sore thumbs, but at the same time a lot of people know that the group of college-aged kids is SIC. People know we're here. I haven't been to the office yet, but apparently it's one of the bigger buildings in the city.

The roads are paved, and there are as many people walking and riding bikes as there are driving around. If this were LA, it might be the size of Westwood, but it has the look of the poorest of the poor parts of town. Everything is dirty. Security men with large guns hang around the entrances to all of the banks. Street vendors set up anywhere you can think of, either walking around selling random American T-shirts, or with small tables, all consantly asking you to buy their wares. "Hapana, Asante" (No, thanks) has become our best friend. It's a way of being polite. But many times you can't even afford to be polite. People in general are extremely friendly here. I have been greeted and waved to more times in the past week than I have in the past year of my life. But you can't help but think that everyone is also a bit sketchy. They know we're "tourists" to some degree. They call us "mazumgu" which means "white person" or "other person." In so many ways, just walking around the town, we want to help everyone we can. There aren't beggars on the streets like you would see in America. Instead, everyone is attempting to make some sort of honest living. They are still just utterly poor compared to us. And it makes us want to shet our clothes and cash and give it to the people around us. But giving gifts also perpetuates the notion that Americans are so rich that we can afford to give away as much as we want to the people around us at any given moment. We are here to give and share our knowledge as HIV educators. We are not here to throw our cash at everyone we see.

We are staying in a hostel called Centerhouse, which is also a secondary school. It's in a quieter part of town, and the hostel is decent. If you call a cold shower, disgusting floors, a small bed with a mosquito net, and bananas, toast and tea for breakfast decent. It's actually one of the nicer places in town.

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After being in Arusha a day and a half, we left for safari. Despite the cost of about $630, six of us decided to go on a 4 day safari. It sounds expensive, but as SIC volunteers we get discounts on almost everything in town, so it was a pretty good price. For example, my 3 hours of internet this beautiful morning cost me about 1,200tsh (Tanzanian Shillingi), which equals about $1. So it's about 30 cents an hour. Food in Arusha, for a more expensive end is about 6-7,000tsh, which is $6-7. It's kind of ridiculous, but great for a college student on a budget. Plus, the program starts this weekend, so all of our expenses (except for outside trips) are covered for the next few months.

We left early Sunday morning. Sarah H, Sarah M, Marielle, Stefanie, Carrie and I left in two safari trucks for the Serengeti. The drive there was beautiful, and it took about 8 hours including rest stop and viewing stops along the way. We traveled with three men from the Good Earth Safari company - Alex, our cook, and James and Yona, our drivers. All of them are about 25 years old, and hoping that this is only a temporary job to get them to a better place in the future.

The first day was phenomenal. About an hour after entering the Serengeti, which means "endless plain" in Swahili, we saw a pride of lions (simba) on a large rock. Pride rock for sure. We had a male lion, who was sleeping as a his baby played with his mane, several female lions, and a several other cubs. Most of them were sleeping, but throughout the next few days, lions became commonplace. We saw simba sleeping in the long grasses, we saw simba eating, we saw simba hunting. The closest we got to a lion was about 2 meters...it walked in front of our truck as a group of 20 safari trucks practically stalked a pride of lions on the hunt. We watched them as they chased away a herd of wildebeast, zebras, and then a few small groups of wart hogs.

Throughout the next few days we saw every African animal you can think of. Cheetahs, leopards (one eating a gazelle in a tree), gazella, elephants, impala, buffalo, hippos, giraffes, zebra, and every type of bird in the African sun. We spent the first few days (two nights) in the Serengeti and stayed at a small camp site in the middle of no where. You don't know real danger until you're in a camp site where a lion could literally wander in during the middle of the night and it wouldn't be an uncommon occurence. The closest we saw by our campsite was a buffalo, which is still one of the BIG 5, so named because these are the 5 animals that will fight back if you attempt to hunt them and miss. They are 1) Lion 2) Leopard 3) Elephant 4) Buffalo 5) Rhino. Technically, we saw all 5. But the Rhino was a speck in the distance. They are pretty rare to see.

We saw our first real African sunset on the first night of Safari. Think "Lion King" and every Africa photo you've ever seen. It was more beautiful than that. And then even more beautiful the next day. The sunrises were equally as beautiful. Our campsite had a perfect view of both.

We spent our days on safari getting to know each other, riding standing up in the top of safari trucks with the wind blowing in our faces, and seeing thousands of animals every where we turned. It was a paradise. And the long rides were not only picture perfect, but a great opportunity to take everything in and think about home and how I'm going to be away for such a long time.

Even though we are tourists also, our first priority is HIV education. Even on our safari, we were able to have talks around the camp fires with cooks and drivers interested in learning more about HIV/AIDS. We did a condom demo on a bottle of hot sauce, and answered questions that we take so much for granted as educated people in the US. Can you get HIV from kissing someone? Can you get HIV by sharing shoes or clothes? If I am HIV positive, will my baby be HIV positive? How can I get tested? What if I want to have a baby with someone who refuses to get tested? Answering the questions of these men who were clearly educated to some degree (actually many of them were high school graduates, which is pretty rare in Tanzania), was enlightening and refreshing and reminded us all why we were there. One of the good things about sticking out like sore thumbs is that people constantly ask us why we are here. And when one of the cooks asked why we came here to teach but weren't teaching them, we had to ask ourselves the same question. We are here as educators, and we should be educators all the time. So we were. And it felt good.

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We have a few more days until the SIC program officially starts, but most of the volunteers are here now. There are 4 from Stanford, 4 from Claremont, 2 from Arizona, 2 from the UK, and 9 from UCLA (go Bruins!). Of that group, if you count the two coordinators also (which would make 23), we have 5 guys and 18 girls. Meeting people and instantly being put in a stressful environment, like traveling through Africa toegether, spending 24 hours of every day together (we're never allowed to be alone. ever.) is definitely taxing on patience and tolerance. So the little things have started to get on my nerves. But overall, I still really enjoy everyone's company. It's going to be a great next few months.


There is so much more I want to write, but I don't have time. I'm trying to get pictures up online, but we'll see how that goes.

I hope you are all doing well. I'll probably be updating and revising this entry along with my next entry some time in the days to come.

Much love and peace from Africa,
Devon


p.s. In case you're wondering, I still don't have my bag. The saga continues. Hopefully I'll get it eventually.

I'm here!

So the internet is extremely slow right now (like it took me 5 minutes just to load the page for "post new blog"), so I'm just letting you all know that I'm here and I'm safe. I'm not sure when my next post will be (either tomorrow morning before i leave for safari, or in 4 days after i get back), but i made it, all in one piece. well mostly. apparently this random lady took my bag in nairobi and just e-mailed me right now to let me knopw she's somewhere in kenya and would love for me to arrange a time to pick it up from her. um... we'll see how that goes.

But the culture and people are beautiful. Arusha is much different than you think any african village would be. Let's just say, cars have the right of way. And there is not speed limit or traffic signals. The food so far is delicious, and my co-volunteers are all wonderful. If I could just get my bag, everything would be spiffy. Ha ha.

Ok. I'll post again soon. I miss you all a ton. Try not to have TOO much fun without me.

Poa,
Devon

p.s. piki piki!
p.p.s. crazy crazy

Karibu!

Karibu rafiki sana!
(Welcome good friend)

Thank you for coming reading my blog!

This year, I had a pleasure of being chosen as one of 20 volunteers from the U.S. and UK to head over to Tanzania to do HIV/AIDS activist work with a program called Support for International Change. SIC (www.sichange.org) is a young and growing non-profit organization with so much potential and I couldn't be more excited to embark on this journey with the coordinators and other amazing volunteers. On Wednesday, September 12, 2007 I head out to Africa and here you can read up on all my adventures (when I get the infrequent chance of getting to an Internet cafe.)

Enjoy and please feel free to leave comments! Asante!

Kwaheri ya kuonana.
- Devon