On Friday I was riding into Stone Town with my Mahonda English students when they asked me my age. I told them I was 18. Everyone gave me a look of disbelief and started laughing hysterically, and then speaking to me in Swahili. Carlos translated for me, "they thought you were 30!" They also thought Tyler, who is 20, was 40 years old. Even though the class and I have been getting along extremely well, it made them realize that I was the same age, if not a year younger, as many of the participants. I consider them my friends, not people I teach, and I never go by the name of "teacher." When I'm referred to as "Mr. Evan," I respond "Mr. Evan is my father. Just call me Evan." This really helped break the ice at the beginning of these classes, and now that we're at the end the students are extremely comfortable around us. In contrast, when we first appeared there were many who were very shy being around white people and did not want to speak or in some cases look us directly in the eyes.
As for the safari, we left home after classes ended on Friday at 7:00. We ate dinner fast in Stone Town and then headed towards the night ferry. Even though the ferry ride only takes 4 hours on this slow boat, we were on the ocean for 8 hours. The is because Tanzanian laws state that no ships are allowed to leave the harbour past a certain time (I believe it's 10), so the ferry must leave before this in order to comply with the law. However, ships also cannot dock in any harbour (Dar es Salaam) until 6:00 in the morning, so essentially the ferry moves a small distance away from Stone Town and bob around on the water for a few hours before leaving for Dar. People sleep wherever they can find room, so the floors of the ferry were covered with motionless bodies. It felt like I was walking through a minefield when I was trying to go outside, only to find more people sleeping there too.
We stepped on land in Dar at 6:00 in the morning. We had slept on matresses on the ground, and weer very tired when we got off. Immediately we were swarmed by people asking us if we needed a taxi. We did, so we bargained with a few until we found the cheapest price to take us to the bus station, where we departed for Morogoro Town (the place where the safari is, as well as the location of the other Tanzanian YCI volunteers). 4 hours later we arrived. The town itself was surrounded by huge mountains that I was very tempted to climb. However, we met 2 of the volunteers (Melissa and Nicole) at the bus station and went immediately to lunch, and then jumped in the back of a safari jeep for the drive to the park. On the way there we had a few worries since at a police checkpoint the driver, Henry, had misplaced some important papers, and also shortly after that smoke started coming out of the air conditioning vents. Henry got his forms cleared and also fixed the jeep, but when we were nearing the park it started to pour rain and lightning. I thought, "great, Melissa and Nicole said they hadn't had rain in 2 weeks and now the moment we're here it arrives." It only lasted for half an hour and soon it was sunny again. On the side of the highway we drove past babboons, giraffes and antelope, and each time we stopped the car and stared. Once we actually reached the park, these didn't seem to matter. Minutes after entering we opened up the top of the jeep and began seeing everything. Herds of antelope, wilderbeest, buffaloes, zebras, as well as groups of elephants and giraffes. I thought they would be hard to find, but they seemed to be everywhere. We were on a flat savannah so we could see many things in the distance, but also there were some cases where the animals were extremely close to the vehicle. There was one instance where 2 full grown male elephants were right next to the road, maybe 6 or 7 metres from our jeep. Then each one walked towards our vehicle, and then in the middle of the road stopped, looked at us, stomped its feet (there was one moment I thought it was going to charge) and continued on its way. Also we went to a hippo pool, where we saw, you guessed it, hippoes and crocodiles.
After this 4 hour safari we were exhausted and went to check into our hotel, which was a short distance away. For some reason it had a Swiss theme, so many of the walls were painted with sights from Switzerland. It was a strange combo.... After eating dinner we went to bed so that we could be awake for safari tomorrow at 8.
At 8:30 the next morning we left for the park again. It was raining, and I asked Henry, "do you think there is any chance of us seeing lions today?" He replied, "I think probably not because of the weather." Our spirits dampened a bit, but within 5 minutes of him saying this on the side of the road were 3 lions. We couldn't believe it, and we stopped the car and took a million pictures of 2 males and a female. We were so captivated by the animals that we stayed there for 40 minutes just staring at them. No one wanted to leave, but eventually we had to continue our safari. That morning was much the same as the day before except we saw a hundred babboons and 5 elephants, one a baby, who got even closer to the jeep than the 2 from the other day did. After this much shorter safari we went to the main office for lunch, and we sat down with a view of the savannah in front of us, as well as 2 water holes. Not long after we arrived, an entire herd of buffaloes came to the water holes and began to cool themselves down. 10 minutes later 5 or 6 elephants joined in too and took a mud bath. It was a great way to end the trip.
We returned to Morogoro Town and checked into our hotel there, then went to the YCI volunteer's homes. Their homes are much poorer than ours and in a worse neighbourhood, I felt very spoiled when I saw where they lived and compared it to our own home. We picked up Michael, the other volunteer (he had decided to climb the mountain instead of coming on safari) and we went on a walk around the town. There I noticed that many of the kids like to come up and bump your hand in greeting, and we weren't heckled as much by taxi drivers or people trying to sell us stuff. Also there were far less people honking their horns. In Zanzibar, it seems like everyone uses their steering wheel as a punching bag because all I can hear is noise from the car horns. There were also far less women walking around with hajibs on covering their heads since the vast majority of the town is Christian, not Muslim like Zanzibar. We ate out for dinner at a place owned by a Canadian, and she had 4 dogs that I swear were the cutest things I have seen in 2 months. Made my day. We went back the hotel to play some pool and say goodbye to the volunteers for another 2 weeks until we all meet again in Dar es Salaam before departure.
We woke up at quarter to 5 the next morning to catch our bus to Dar so that we could possibly get the early ferry to Zanzibar. We ended up missing that so we didn't reach home until 4:00 in the afternoon, when we had a shower (we all looked and felt like crap) and then came to the cafe. As I am writing this the whole time I've been helping the man next to me fill out a university application to America.
Final Activity Reports are due in a week and each one should take a few hours, so there is no time to blog until after this. This is my last week of classes, and the following week is graduation. Have a good week everyone!
As for the safari, we left home after classes ended on Friday at 7:00. We ate dinner fast in Stone Town and then headed towards the night ferry. Even though the ferry ride only takes 4 hours on this slow boat, we were on the ocean for 8 hours. The is because Tanzanian laws state that no ships are allowed to leave the harbour past a certain time (I believe it's 10), so the ferry must leave before this in order to comply with the law. However, ships also cannot dock in any harbour (Dar es Salaam) until 6:00 in the morning, so essentially the ferry moves a small distance away from Stone Town and bob around on the water for a few hours before leaving for Dar. People sleep wherever they can find room, so the floors of the ferry were covered with motionless bodies. It felt like I was walking through a minefield when I was trying to go outside, only to find more people sleeping there too.
We stepped on land in Dar at 6:00 in the morning. We had slept on matresses on the ground, and weer very tired when we got off. Immediately we were swarmed by people asking us if we needed a taxi. We did, so we bargained with a few until we found the cheapest price to take us to the bus station, where we departed for Morogoro Town (the place where the safari is, as well as the location of the other Tanzanian YCI volunteers). 4 hours later we arrived. The town itself was surrounded by huge mountains that I was very tempted to climb. However, we met 2 of the volunteers (Melissa and Nicole) at the bus station and went immediately to lunch, and then jumped in the back of a safari jeep for the drive to the park. On the way there we had a few worries since at a police checkpoint the driver, Henry, had misplaced some important papers, and also shortly after that smoke started coming out of the air conditioning vents. Henry got his forms cleared and also fixed the jeep, but when we were nearing the park it started to pour rain and lightning. I thought, "great, Melissa and Nicole said they hadn't had rain in 2 weeks and now the moment we're here it arrives." It only lasted for half an hour and soon it was sunny again. On the side of the highway we drove past babboons, giraffes and antelope, and each time we stopped the car and stared. Once we actually reached the park, these didn't seem to matter. Minutes after entering we opened up the top of the jeep and began seeing everything. Herds of antelope, wilderbeest, buffaloes, zebras, as well as groups of elephants and giraffes. I thought they would be hard to find, but they seemed to be everywhere. We were on a flat savannah so we could see many things in the distance, but also there were some cases where the animals were extremely close to the vehicle. There was one instance where 2 full grown male elephants were right next to the road, maybe 6 or 7 metres from our jeep. Then each one walked towards our vehicle, and then in the middle of the road stopped, looked at us, stomped its feet (there was one moment I thought it was going to charge) and continued on its way. Also we went to a hippo pool, where we saw, you guessed it, hippoes and crocodiles.
After this 4 hour safari we were exhausted and went to check into our hotel, which was a short distance away. For some reason it had a Swiss theme, so many of the walls were painted with sights from Switzerland. It was a strange combo.... After eating dinner we went to bed so that we could be awake for safari tomorrow at 8.
At 8:30 the next morning we left for the park again. It was raining, and I asked Henry, "do you think there is any chance of us seeing lions today?" He replied, "I think probably not because of the weather." Our spirits dampened a bit, but within 5 minutes of him saying this on the side of the road were 3 lions. We couldn't believe it, and we stopped the car and took a million pictures of 2 males and a female. We were so captivated by the animals that we stayed there for 40 minutes just staring at them. No one wanted to leave, but eventually we had to continue our safari. That morning was much the same as the day before except we saw a hundred babboons and 5 elephants, one a baby, who got even closer to the jeep than the 2 from the other day did. After this much shorter safari we went to the main office for lunch, and we sat down with a view of the savannah in front of us, as well as 2 water holes. Not long after we arrived, an entire herd of buffaloes came to the water holes and began to cool themselves down. 10 minutes later 5 or 6 elephants joined in too and took a mud bath. It was a great way to end the trip.
We returned to Morogoro Town and checked into our hotel there, then went to the YCI volunteer's homes. Their homes are much poorer than ours and in a worse neighbourhood, I felt very spoiled when I saw where they lived and compared it to our own home. We picked up Michael, the other volunteer (he had decided to climb the mountain instead of coming on safari) and we went on a walk around the town. There I noticed that many of the kids like to come up and bump your hand in greeting, and we weren't heckled as much by taxi drivers or people trying to sell us stuff. Also there were far less people honking their horns. In Zanzibar, it seems like everyone uses their steering wheel as a punching bag because all I can hear is noise from the car horns. There were also far less women walking around with hajibs on covering their heads since the vast majority of the town is Christian, not Muslim like Zanzibar. We ate out for dinner at a place owned by a Canadian, and she had 4 dogs that I swear were the cutest things I have seen in 2 months. Made my day. We went back the hotel to play some pool and say goodbye to the volunteers for another 2 weeks until we all meet again in Dar es Salaam before departure.
We woke up at quarter to 5 the next morning to catch our bus to Dar so that we could possibly get the early ferry to Zanzibar. We ended up missing that so we didn't reach home until 4:00 in the afternoon, when we had a shower (we all looked and felt like crap) and then came to the cafe. As I am writing this the whole time I've been helping the man next to me fill out a university application to America.
Final Activity Reports are due in a week and each one should take a few hours, so there is no time to blog until after this. This is my last week of classes, and the following week is graduation. Have a good week everyone!
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