Sunday, September 28, 2008

"V" is for Kilimanjaro Victory


I just finished doing one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. Nathan and I reached Uhuru Peak - 5895 meters above sea level at 5:56am on September 27, 2008. The trip up was amazingly grueling and something that, just like others before me have said, "I'm glad I did it, but I'll never do that again!"

We climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro in style - well, as much style as the Machame route would allow, whose accommodations are tents every night in camps with only squat toilets. The climb was seven days long, but we had a team of two guides, one cook, and six porters waiting on us the entire time. Everyone treated us like VIPs, which was weird, but it wasn't hard to get used to someone waking you up every morning with a hot cup of tea or coffee in your sleeping bag.

We did nothing that makes camping time consuming or hard. We never had to set-up our tent, cook, get water, or carry our heavy bags. The team did everything for us. Porters could carry up to 20 kgs of stuff and they did it quickly - beating us to camp every single day and having popcorn, cookies, and warm wash water ready for an after-hike snack within minutes.

The food the entire time was amazing and they always tried to feed us too much. We always had a hot breakfast of things like eggs, toast, "sausages" (which is Africa is really a hot dog), and fruit. We usually had a packed lunch for the hike that consisted of mango juice, chicken, a sandwich, a tiny African banana, an orange, a hard-boiled egg (too many eggs!!), and a cornbread muffin. Dinner was always fantastic too: hot soup, a starch (noodles, rice, or potatoes), meat, and veggies spiced to perfection. The best part was the presentation. We had a waiter/porter named Timo who would come into our tent for every meal and set-up a tablecloth picnic complete with an array of barely-used condiments (tomato sauce, chili sauce, tea, coffee, Nido (powdered milk), Milo (Nestle Quick-like chocolate stuff), butter, peanut butter, jam, etc). You wouldn't believe me if I went on with the details, so I'll just leave you with this.



Ok....now...hike details:

Day 1: Machame Camp (~10,000 feet)

After arriving in Kilimanjaro National Park and waiting for about an hour for our permit and porters to arrive, we started the hike through pure rainforest. The forest was very different from what we have at home - lots of lichen-draped trees and neat flowers like the Impatian Kilimanjari:


The hike itself was not very difficult and it was made even easier by Kilimanjaro's famous motto: "pole pole" - walk slowly. We walked at a snail's pace up and still made it to camp by 5pm after starting at noon. We saw a few Blue Monkeys right at the gate, but beyond that, the tree cover was too thick to see anything else the rest of the way up. At the camp we were treated to our first in-tent candle-lit dinner (yes, we thought it was dangerous too). Tanzania gets dark at 6pm every day, and when we walked outside at 8pm, we were treated to the best stars I've ever seen - better even than in Glacier National Park.

Day 2: Machame Camp to Shira Camp (~12,000 ft)

This hike was five hours up a very steep trail. The best part was suddenly turning around to see a blanket of clouds about 1,000 feet below us and seeing Mt. Meru (around 1000 meters shorter than Kilimanjaro) sticking out of them! A weird plant called the Senecio showed up today, which only exists on Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Kenya (picture under Day 3). There was also the best sunset of my life, I'll let the picture do the talking.



Day 3: Shira Camp to Barranco Camp (12,900 ft)

You know its going to be a tough day, when your guides pick up your packs in the morning and tell you they're too heavy. Today was our acclimatization day - walk high, sleep low. We hiked up to 15,100 feet to view the "Lava Tower", then back down to 12,900 ft to spend the night.



The air at 15,000 feet was definitely thinner and you almost had to start concentrating on breathing steadily. It was also quite cold and began to hail at one point, but in the end, it was a very good day because both of us felt fine after the hike, which gave us confidence that we could reach the summit without being hauled away on a stretcher. Barranco Camp was one of the coolest ones we had as we were surrounded by Senecio and Lobelia plants - both of which made the mountain start to seem like a strange fairytale jungle.



Day 4: Barranco Camp to Karanga Camp (13,900 ft)

Day four was an easy hike of just three hours. Although it began with a scramble straight up the side of one of one of the mountain's "barrancos" (ridges). The trail is called "Breakfast Trail" not because you do it right after breakfast, but because you get to see what everyone else had for breakfast. Ha! It wasn't that bad.



Day 5: Karanga Camp to Barafu Camp (15,000 ft)

Another easy hike of three hours to "base camp". At 11pm tonight we were awoken by Timo to get ready for the ascent that started at midnight.

Day 6: Barafu Camp - Summit (19,340 ft) - Mweka Camp

I use the word awoken loosely above. I got no sleep before our ascent because the camp was so cold. Once we started the ascent, I didn't feel sleepy at all. The stars were unbelievably beautiful and the lights from Moshi town below were stunning. Behind us and above us was a trail of headlamps. For the first 2.5 hours, the weather was great - I actually considered taking off one of the three pairs of pants I was wearing. However, very suddenly things took a turn for the worse. At about 2:30am, the trail became very steep and the wind picked up. It was so cold that the water inside my pack started to freeze. I had a very warm jacket on, but the wind against my face for the next four hours was frigid. It was so cold and long that you ended up only being able to worry about your next step. One more step, one more step, rest, one more step, whoops, don't forget to breathe, one more step. That's all we did for the next three and a half hours. It was dark, so you really had no way of knowing how much farther you had to go. At around 5:30am we reached what is known at Stella's Point. The top, but not the highest point, which is Uhuru Peak. That, was another 30 minutes walk away.

You think I'd be excited to almost be at the top of the mountain, but at this point all I could think about was how much my whole body hurt and how incredibly cold it was. It was so cold that once we reached Uhuru Peak your hands would freeze after taking them out of your gloves for one picture. I had no feeling of elation at the time whatsoever and even though the crater, glacier, and sunrise were awe-inspiring, I wasn't in the correct frame of mind to really appreciate them. All I could think about was get me the heck out of here!





We started down pretty quickly, but the hike down was also a grueling three hours back to camp. There, we bought a victory Coke (yes, they sold Coke, T-Shirts, and Kilimanjaro beer at every camp site), rested for an hour, ate lunch, and then, after already 9 hours of hiking that day, we hiked another 2.5 down to Mweka Camp, which was just above the rain forest.

Day 7: Mweka to Arusha

All I can say is thank goodness we're off that mountain! Actually, it was an incredible experience that I'm glad, in retrospect, we finished successfully. It was a test of wills and we overcame extreme physical challenge to get to the top and I'm very glad I was able to do it. The hikes every other day besides summit day were amazingly beautiful and worth it. My recommendation to future hikers? Unless you really need to check "Climb Kilimanjaro" off your life list, forget the top, it's anti-climactic and horribly difficult. Do a couple of day hikes, camp, take in the view. Your feet, lungs, and head will thank you later!

Saturday, September 20, 2008

It's Kili Time

At 10:20pm tonight Nathan arrives, and on Monday morning we're going to tackle Africa's highest mountain - Kilimanjaro.

Kili is 19,340 ft to the summit and we've decided to take the second most popular route: Machame. There are several routes to the top and this one is suppose to be the most scenic - that's why we picked it. Its nickname is the "Whiskey Route". The easiest route, Marangu, which most people take to the top, is known as the Coca-Cola route because people sell water, coke, etc all along the route. By contrast, they do not sell Whiskey all the way up Machame, instead I've heard it's nick-named that because Whiskey helps to dull the pain.

It's a serious hike. Not really because the route is physically difficult, but because of the altitude. You can't go too far too fast or you may end up with a serious case of Acute Altitude Sickness.

That being said, thousands of people get up the mountain safe and sound every year and we're going to be two of them. :) We've added an extra day for acclimatization and are both experienced hikers and mountain climbers.

How we're getting up the mountain is actually really funny. We have an entourage! You have to have a guide by law to climb the mountain and the vast majority of tour groups throw in a lot more people to help make the trip easier. We are not an exception. For just the two of us to get up, we have the following support team:

1 Guide
1 Assistant Guide
1 Cook
7 Porters

That's right, for just the two of us, we have a team of 10 people helping us get up! On any other hike I'd feel like we're cheating, but for this one, where it will be hard enough just to breath without a 40 lb pack on top of it, I'm pretty happy about the arrangement. Accommodations will be in tents the whole way up.

I've always wanted to climb Kilimanjaro, so I feel very lucky that my CSC assignment was just 60km from the base of the mountain! Stay tuned to see if we actually make it or not! :)

Friday, September 19, 2008

Expect the Unexpected: Part 2

Since it’s all about to end, it’s time to re-visit some of the expectations I had before leaving and confirm them as true or shatter them as false.

I had expected…

1. To be overwhelmed the first week with new faces, sites, sounds, smells, but I think most of it will be very positive.

Verdict: True

From seeing tropical plants and the number of people on the streets every day, to the smell of the sea, interesting culinary concoctions, and diesel fuel, almost everything was new. The hardest thing to get used to was being woken up every morning at 6am to the sound of roosters and the strange forest birds. However, the “new faces” part wasn’t so true. After three months of talking to the team via teleconference, we already felt like old friends, so the only thing that was overwhelming about that was actually getting to see everyone in person!

2. Dar to look much like Mexico did when I arrived there for vacation in the sort of way that it is inherently beautiful, but also sprinkled with signs that the community is struggling to catch up with the developed world.

Verdict: True

There is a lot of beauty in Dar along the coast and in Arusha, but it’s always juxtaposed with things like kids working with an ancient fishing net in the sea, run-down buildings, and poverty.





3. The food to be cheap and delicious.

Verdict: True…especially if you’re a local

Local Tanzanian food, mostly made of rice, ugali (cornmeal mush), chicken, bananas, and various sauces is very delicious (as long as you don’t eat it every day for both meals)! You can find places like Pizza Point, located right next to the African Wildlife Foundation where you can get a buffet lunch and drink for under $5 USD. However, most places in Arusha will charge you the ‘mzungu’ price (foreigner price), so you could end up spending a lot more on meals if you’re not careful.



4. The air to be very dry, the days very hot, and the sun to be relentless.

Verdict: False

Here in Arusha it is much cooler than in other parts of Africa due to its altitude. Each morning starts off cold (ok, for us Minnesotans, it feels tropical, but by cold I mean jacket weather – maybe 55-60 degrees Fahrenheit). It stays that way until all of a sudden around early afternoon it gets really hot for about two hours. After that and especially when the sun sets around 6:30pm, it gets a little chilly again. It’s only rained a couple times while we’ve been here and for the most part, I consider Arusha weather to be perfect. Not too hot, and very pleasant every day. It’s too cold for mosquitoes most of the day, which is another huge plus!

5. Grocery stores to be small and most people will shop in outdoor markets.

Verdict: True

Most grocery stores are very small and only offer a few snacks and toiletries. However, there is a Shoprite on the West side of town that is what I would consider “normal-sized”.

There is a big market in the middle of town where locals can buy just about everything and there are also a lot of little specialty shops lining almost every street downtown where people can buy electronics, cell phone cards, clothes, DVDs, books, just about everything. This and the market is where I think the majority of Tanzanians shop.

Below is a typical Tanzanian grocery store. This is where we bought 5-liter bottles of water for 2000 Tanzanian shillings or the equivalent of about $1.71 cents.



6. The hotels won't have air conditioning and I may have "friends" (perhaps a lizard or two) living with me.

Air Conditioning Verdict: False

The hotels are mixed. Our Arusha hotel does not have air conditioning or a fan, but it does have open screens and even some holes in the wall that lets in the cool air at night (so it doesn’t need air conditioning). Our hotel in Dar had air conditioning, but most of the lower cost hotels just use fans. The air conditioner really depends on how much you want to pay for a hotel room. If you’ve got $100 USD to burn every night, you should be able to get one.

Lizard Verdict: True

Just in the past week I've had a gecko and weird brown praying mantis thing in my room. One of my teammates also had a giant spider in his room the first night. The housekeepers leave the door and windows wide open while they're cleaning, so I'm actually surprised that more strange things haven't ended up in there!



7. Electricity will go out a lot, since we'll be there during the dry season and much of Tanzania is powered by hydrolics.

Verdict: True

If you would have asked me about this a week ago, I would have said false since up until now, the electricity has been pretty good save one night in Dar where we had dinner in the dark. However, in the last week, the power's been out almost every night. Our hotel doesn't have a generator for the rooms, so we have to venture out with flashlights to find places for dinner that have light.

8. There to be a couple of the most prevalent examples of U.S. cultural outsourcing (i.e. McDonald's & Starbucks) - after all, they've been everywhere else I've traveled in the world!

Verdict: False

I have not seen one chain restaurant in all of the African cities I’ve been in, which really surprised me! The only place that is remotely familiar is the Shoprite grocery store, which I don’t have at home, but some of my teammates do. I'm actually really confused as to why these restaurants aren't here? Are they overlooking a giant market or is there a good reason they've steered clear of Africa (like, maybe not enough disposable income)?

Usually I have a rule that while I’m away from home, I don’t eat anything that I can get at home, but after a month here, I have to admit, I could really go for a Whopper or a nice, juicy Culver’s Butterburger. Not to mention that I’m curious how they would say Big Mac in Swahili. The closest thing I’ve seen to a restaurant from home is the “Chicken Hut” we went to in Dar.



9. To see people playing vibrant music in public, and perhaps dancing to it.

Verdict: True & False

I don’t see as much of this as I thought. However, we do occasionally see a pick-up truck driving down the street with a marching band playing in the back of it. I found out yesterday that normally happens on a Thursday when parties get started for a Saturday wedding. There’s also a strange bookstore down Old Moshi Road by the Impala Hotel that is little more than tarps with stacks of books underneath it by day, but at night, it turns into a bumping hangout for the owners and their friends. They always had something playing at night, until one day the entire thing vanished into thin air!

10. Arusha will not have a movie theater (but I bet I'm wrong about this one)!

Verdict: True

At least, I haven’t seen one yet and when we asked the locals what there is to do on weekends, they told us that there was nothing to do besides go on safari…seeing a movie didn’t come up!

11. To be able to see the Southern Cross constellation.

Verdict: False

This one I’m pretty sad about. Because we are so close to the equator, the Southern Cross would be very close to the horizon. However, there is usually a nice blanket of clouds obscuring the view, so I haven’t seen the constellation yet. My husband, Nathan, thinks our best chance to spot it might be during our Kilimanjaro climb next week.

12. The people to be extremely friendly.

Verdict: Extremely True

You can’t walk down the street without people saying “Jambo” “Mambo” “Habari” and “Hi” to you. If you look lost, most locals will offer to take you wherever you need to go and some walk with you for blocks chatting about where you’re from, etc. It was a little overwhelming at first, but I’ve come to realize that most of them mean well. The ones that want to sell you something are not the majority (though it might seem that way some days).

13. The working climate to be a little more relaxed than here at home.

Verdict: True

This is most definitely true. Although most Tanzanians work Saturday mornings, they take long lunches, leave before it gets dark at 6pm, and generally are not to be hassled by deadlines. That’s not to say they don’t get anything done, but there is such a thing as “Tanzania Time”. It’s refreshing and I noticed the other day that since I’ve been here, I haven’t had one stress headache. It’s probably adding months to my life.

14. The people in large cities to have a decent standard of living, but to meet and understand the plight of those living on less than $2 a day.

Verdict: True & False

Many people in the cities have a decent standard of living, but many do not. Note that a decent standard of living is very different from the luxury we have at home in the US. Most don’t have a car, they live in small apartments or homes, they buy used clothing, they don’t eat out, but they are happy. I did meet people in the villages I visited with AWF who are living on less than $2 a day. Their lives are getting better, but there is still a long way to go and non-profits like AWF are doing a good job to make that happen.

There are still people like the guy in the picture below who fish on nothing more than a large wooden stick, using a basket to hold the fish.



15. To have the time of my life!

Verdict: Yes, I am having a great time here. The team has been amazing and we've had many adventures together with include visiting two National Parks, surviving the Pamoja (our hotel), eating exotic foods, and working "Africa Style". I wouldn't give up this experience for the world!!

Last Day

Today is my last day of work with the African Wildlife Foundation. I was very lucky to have an incredible project that will make a big difference for 100s of villagers who live just West of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

I wasn’t sure what to expect and how much they would be able to use my work at first, but I found out yesterday that the next step is to submit the Business Plan I created to USAID to try to get funding for the project! What could be better than that? Nothing! I would love to come back in a few years and see the lodge in action. Amazing!

Most of my teammates are leaving today. Some are headed to Nairobi for a couple of days. One went to South Africa, and another is going to Ethiopia. As of tonight, only three of us will be left. I didn't think I would be this sad to see everyone go, but I am incredibly. The team has been a constant part of my life for the past month and they are all such wonderful, brilliant people. I really hope we can all find time for a reunion at some point (leading location: New Zealand). It's going to be really weird not seeing everyone everyday.

The AWF office where I've worked for the last three weeks:


The team - one of our earliest photos with some kids from a small village on the way to Arusha:

Saturday, September 13, 2008

SCRUM!

No, for those of you back home, I’m not talking about agile development, I’m talking Rugby!

In addition to learning a lot about Tanzania & Africa, I’m finding myself learning a ton about the home countries of my teammates. Today, I saw my first full Rugby match, courtesy of my teammate from New Zealand, Mike. He’d been talking about the All Blacks, Rugby, and their rivalry with Australia ever since – well, before we even got here. Today, the Tri-Nation Rugby championship (the tri-nations being South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand) took place between the Wallabies (Australia) and the All Blacks (New Zealand). Mike had worked hard to make contact with some of the local Tanzania National Rugby players in town and found out that the game would be on at a swank little expat hangout called The Players Club.

Before arriving, we rolled up to a gated community – the nicest I’ve seen yet in Africa and our cab driver had to sign-in before being let through the gate. We found out later that this area, whose houses range from $1300-$2000/month, is where the United Nations people live.

The club itself was a nice little hang-out, which, in addition to having a bar/restaurant, had a gym, pool, tennis courts, and giant playground for kids. Almost everyone there was from another country. I saw a few people we’d met earlier in the month, like Peter Lindstrom, the head of Hoopoe Safaris who I interviewed for my work with AWF and the Australian owner of a nice restaurant in town called Stiggy’s.

Rugby, I have to admit is a pretty exciting sport compared to American Football. I was confused at first when they didn’t stop playing after the first tackle – I expected a commercial break, but instead I got 40 minutes of almost uninterrupted, hard core, all-out men attacking other men. It’s fascinating. They wear no padding like our guys in the NFL and I’m sorry, but Richie McCaw (All Blacks captain) makes Brett Farve look like a fairy.

For those of you that, like me until today, have never seen a game, here’s the scoop. It’s very similar to American Football. A guy kicks the ball, there is tackling, and the scoring is similar in that by reaching the end zone you can score a total of 7 points if your kicker makes the free kick. Differences as I saw them:

1. You can’t pass forward, you can only kick and run forward.
2. When a tackle is made, the game continues until one of the teams wrestles up the ball and continues down the field.
3. The clock is not stopped for penalties – only injuries, which I’m told are often faked to slow the game down the bit.
4. There are two 40-minute halves.
5. In the end zone, you have to get the ball on the ground before the score counts.

All-in-all, I had a great time watching the game AND the All Black won after a very close game – you can’t beat that! I think the only thing I didn’t like about Rugby is that I’m not going to have easy access to games when I get back home!

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Road Trip - Africa Style

I already blogged about our Road Trip from Dar to Arusha, but I also made a video so that everyone could see for themselves what the journey was like. Caution: If you get car sick, you may not want to watch some parts of this as I've captured Africa flying by, in all of its bumpy glory.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Manyara Ranch Video

Finally, after trying to upload this for two weeks, I got it to work over lunch today. Here's a video I made after two of my teammates and I visited AWF's Manyara Ranch during our first week here. It's also out on You Tube.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Associated Press Article

Our communications department has been busy issueing press releases all over the place. There have been articles in The Guardian, Business Day (a paper in South Africa), and a few local places. This one came out in the Associated Press today and is kind of nice. Apparently the president knows about the program now...


IBM pledges $250M for volunteer program
7 hours ago
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — IBM Corp. pledged Monday to contribute $250 million in services to charities and nonprofit groups, expanding a program that sends rising stars within the company to developing countries to polish their leadership skills in diverse environments.

The Armonk, N.Y.-based company announced the three-year commitment in conjunction with a speech by President Bush at the White House on volunteerism in which he praised the innovation of IBM's Corporate Services Corps program.

IBM describes the program as a corporate version of the Peace Corps. Interested employees apply for a limited number of slots. If selected — IBM says its acceptance rates are sometimes lower than Harvard University's — they are sent off to work with groups in emerging countries on a variety of business and technology problems, such as building out information technology infrastructure or starting microfinancing programs.

The $250 million refers to pro bono services and employees' time that IBM plans to donate over the next three years as part of the program.

Monday, September 8, 2008

The Pulse

At about 5am this morning I woke up to a happy Arabic tune playing in the night. For a country where at least 1/3 of the population is Muslim, that was really the first time I’ve heard Arabic music since I’ve been here. On the streets you mostly hear African rap and at nights sometimes a pick-up truck with a full marching band in the back will go by playing band music – I haven’t figured that one out yet.

Anyway, I realized that we’re in the middle of Ramadan and that music was probably keeping one of our neighbors company while they quickly ate a feast in preparation for the day of fasting ahead. I was worried that Ramadan would mean many of the restaurants around here wouldn’t open for lunch, but I was wrong. Ramadan in Arusha doesn’t bring about many changes. In fact, Arusha has very few Muslims compared to the coast and Zanzibar. I hardly ever see women walking around in burkas or head scarfs – but they’re there.

In our hotel room we have both CNN and Al Jazeera. I watched Al Jazeera for a while, trying to figure out if there really was something wrong with the network, or if that’s just the West’s perception. From what I can tell, it’s just a normal news network, covering stories from around the world, but most of them from the US.

The news is very interesting over here, regardless of which channel I’m watching. CNN’s weather forecast, which is based in London, covers every continent and there is a disproportionate amount of air time allotted to the Democratic and Republican National Conventions back home, the election, the recent takeover of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and hurricanes in our region. It makes me wonder if the rest of the world isn’t sick of hearing about us, actually. The channels definitely cover the world more broadly than our news networks do, however.

People here are very interested in the election, but it’s very one-sided. If East Africa got to vote, Obama would win unanimously. There are bumper stickers and signs everywhere. When anyone finds out you’re from the US they immediately ask you what you think about Obama. I don’t mind it, any little thing that comes up that reminds me of home makes me feel a little bit more comfortable here in a land of so many differences.

One more note on media: since this is a tourist town, on the streets you can get papers in almost every language for most major countries. Of course, street vendors hound you at every corner to buy one but my friend, Mike, from New Zealand discovered that they don’t have one from there. So, the secret to getting by the paper guys is to ask for the Dominion Post.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Enduimet WMA

Over the last few days, I found out what my project with the African Wildlife Foundation would officially be. I am in charge of creating the business plan for a Wildlife Management Area (WMA) called Enduimet, which is located just West of Mt. Kilimanjaro. The WMA is a community-chartered and organized association where about 8 villiages came together to figure out how they can conserve the area, while developing it just enough to start making enough money to lift themselves out of poverty.

Thursday, I got a chance to visit the WMA. It is located 2 hours from Arusha and has a beautiful countryside. The inhabitants are mostly part of the Kisongo Masaai tribe, so they are traditionally pastoralists. They are some of the most welcoming, wonderful people I have met anywhere in the world. While I was there, I traveled around much of the WMA, checking out existing campsites and interviewing their managers to get a better idea of how the tourism industry in the immediate area works.

In the middle of the day, we ended up driving around in the Kitenden Wildlife Corridor. This corridor facilitates the migration of many animals between Amboseli National Park in Kenya and Kilimanjaro and Arusha National Parks in Tanzania. The landscape was incredibly beautiful - typical of what you picture Africa looking like based on the Discovery Channel - lush green islands of trees and scrubs in a sea of roadless brown dust. We saw a plethora of animals including gazettes, baboons, zebra, giraffes, elephants, and wildebeests. We even crossed the Kenyan border and since there were no roads or signs, we were free to criss-cross the land as we pleased (not the best thing to do if you’re interested in conserving it, but that is something the community knows they need to look at).



The highlight of the trip was actually the ride home when we picked up a Masaai hitchhiker who was trying to get back to Arusha for school. His name was Metwiy and after I figured out that he spoke English, we had a great chat about the Masaai culture. Masaai are able to marry multiple wives, so his dad had a wife in Olmoti (one of the villages in the Enduimet WMA) and Ngorongoro. He had 7 siblings and 6 half-siblings. Since the Masaai are traditionally pastoralists, half of the kids in a typical family are chosen to go to school, while half of them stay home to tend the cattle. Unfortunately, I got him to admit that most of the time the women get the shaft. The males' families pay a dowry of cattle as a brideprice and many times marriages are still arranged – sometimes when the girls are still in secondary school. However, times are changing because you are free to marry whoever you want, and Metwiy had a cell phone and email address. I’ve got video of him explaining his incredible life that I’ll post later. It was fun to get such an up-close look at one of the last remaining traditional world cultures.



This little guy was tending a herd of goats out in the middle of nowhere with his brother. In Africa, it seems there are zero child labor laws. I see children as young as six tending livestock, driving carts, and hauling huge bundles of sticks and water. In fact, I see far more children working than adults. I guess those are the unlucky ones that don't get to go to school. :(

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Africaitice

I had a little bit of what I'm calling Africaitice yesterday. Every morning at 6:15am I try to call Nathan using Skype, which requires me to be online. Yesterday, there was a downpour around that time, so I got out my poncho, shoved the computer under it and ran to the hotel's computer lab. It was closed. Not only that, but our team had installed a wireless access point for the hotel, but they turn off the power in the computer lab every night, so the wireless wasn't even working.

Darn, I thought, but the hotel down the street has an unsecured wireless network, so I decided to walk down there to try to connect. However, not only was the gate to our complex closed and locked, but theirs was too. I got our guard to open our gate and, standing on the driveway, was able to connect to their wireless connection - 48%. I found it really interesting that, here I was, in the middle of Africa, standing in the rain on a driveway, connected to the world - albeit a very slow connection. I never did get a chance to talk to Nathan yesterday after all that shenanigans, but I guess it is pretty amazing that I was able to connect at all. Looking on the bright side, I think it symbolizes that Africa is coming along. From what I've seen, I don't think they will be able to catch up to the rest of the world very quickly, but they are catching up.

Monday, September 1, 2008

Tarangire & Lake Manyara

This weekend the team went on a safari. My half of the team visited Tarangire & Lake Manyara National Parks. Unlike the trip from Dar, the cars were nice, had seatbelts, and the driver was respectful of pedestrians. Also, most of the roads to the parks were paved, which I now see as a luxury.

Tarangire was amazing! Animals were everywhere! I almost felt like someone was behind the scenes scaring them up so we could see them, but this was not the case. :) We saw plenty of zebra, elephants (including babies playing in a pond), dikdiks, vetter monkeys, blue monkeys, a mongoose, lots of giraffes, an eagle, storks, Egyptian geese, gnu, a giant lizard-thing and two lions. The lions were the highlight for two reasons. 1) They were only about 20 feet from the car. 2) It’s mating season. Yes, after waiting around for maybe 30-40 minutes and watching the male lion get closer and closer to the female, we got to see nature in action. In Tarangire, the sun is hot and you need to apply sunscreen every couple of hours if you don’t want to walk away looking like a giant beet. There are also tse-tse flies, which are attracted to the color navy blue and hurt when they bite you. Luckily, I only got one bite.




Saturday night we drove to Ngorongoro Forest Tented Camp. Our buddies at TATO had hooked us up with really nice accommodations for cheap (and when I say really nice, I mean spectacular). I stayed in a tent big enough to fit a family of 10. We were perched right on the top of a forested hill, with hot water (two showers – one indoors and one outdoors), an amazingly comfortable bed, and we also got a full three course meal of probably the best food I’ve had since arriving. Yes, it seems that the tourists in Africa are treated pretty well. It’s only when you try to live here for a while that you notice a conglomerate of very small inconveniences that add up quickly.



The next day, we headed to Lake Manyara National Park. There were less animals here than in Tarangire, but more birds and monkeys. In addition to the two kinds we saw in Tarangire, there were baboons everywhere. We also were treated to thousands of pelicans & flamingos on the lake AND hippos! Lake Manyara was a little cooler, since you were in a forest practically the whole time. I really enjoyed both parks and can’t wait to get back after my work with AWF is complete!