Trip to Africa

End of Trip

2010-03-18T23:43:00.000-07:00

Hello all, this will probably be my last blog. For all of those who have followed this, thanks for paying attention during the last six months. When I get home I will add pictures to this blog to make up for the lack of them over the last month.

My work is over. The last activity we did was a leadership summit involving 300 youth (unfortunately not the expected 500) with 2 guest speakers talking about the issues of Kenya's new draft constitution, post-election violence, and hunger/malnutrition. It was a success, and many people came out saying they had learned much. I went immediately home afterwards and crashed for 5 hours, exhausted and relieved that I had no more work to be done.

I'm home on the 21st. It's weird how in such a short time I'll be hugging my family and Amy in the airport. All in all, I'm excited to be coming home. I've been away for too long; I burned out about 2 weeks ago just before my last blog. Since then, all of the energy I've been putting towards the project and just getting through my day has been pure adrenaline, which has now almost run out as well. Still, I'm sorry to be leaving my friends and colleagues who have become like family to me over the last two months.

Taking a year off school and coming to Africa was one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life. I've learned more about myself, how the world works, why there is poverty and the effects that it has on the society, the economy, and politics of every nation worldwide. I also learned to appreciate the things that I have in my life, and just how privileged my life has been compared to the lives of people living in developing countries. I know that if everyone reading this blog stopped what they were doing right now, took a step back and looked at their own lives and all of the opportunities they have, it would amaze them beyond belief.

When I came back from Zanzibar 4 months ago I thought I would go home and tell people about the things I saw, I learned, and how everyone has a part to play in making the world a better place. I now realize that most people don't really want to know, and would much rather live ignorantly and continue to ignore the neglected needs of others. Despite this, when I return I have decided to fund-raise towards a water project in Mwakirunge.

For all those reading this who are still in school, don't be afraid to do what I did and explore the world, to experience things you never thought you would. When you return to your home, you will discover within yourself a different person than before, even though others may not notice the change.

I don't really know what else to say. If, at the end of all this reading, people were expecting a kind of summary to my trip here, I am at a loss to provide one. Too much has happened, and not all of the experiences can be shared, especially not on something as trivial as a blog that takes a few minutes to read. Those who are close to me will probably hear about everything as it slowly comes out over the years, but for now, I'll stick to small 5 minute explanations to the usual "How was Africa?" question.

I will say this though. For all the negativity surrounding the continent, Africa is a beautiful, vibrant continent full of energy and love for its fellow man. I feel privileged to have come here, if only for a short while, and feel welcomed into the African community. I have been accepted into 2 families while I have been here, as well as unofficially been invited into a tribe. I will always feel compassion and love towards the people of this continent, and know I will return one day to walk in the land of Africa once more.

Evan

2 weeks left!

2010-03-08T01:32:00.000-08:00

Hello to all in Canada!

Today I have turned 19 years old, so now the only thing I get to look forward to as far as age goes is getting a senior citizen's discount. Great, 41 years to go. The members of YCI and Kwacha Afrika threw me and Mike Kalu (whose birthday is tomorrow) a surprise birthday party on Saturday where we ate cake and watched ManUnited win its way to the top of the Premier League before going out clubbing. Couldn't have asked for much more on a birthday than that.

Last week was our most successful week to date, we conducted a 3 day workshop centering on leadership, good governance, and hunger alleviation/malnutrition. It was great to hold discussions between the 25 youth on the post-election violence of 2007 and how we can avoid it in the 2012 elections. For myself and Angela, we facilitated the hunger alleviation/malnurtrition section, so to teach people on how to find long-term solutions to this major problem was particularly satisfying for me since I find it's one of the biggest issues worldwide.

Today is International Women's Day so for this YCI and Kwacha is holding an event at the Cinemax, showing 400 men and women a short film about sexual harrasment, as well as bringing in speakers on the topic and gender equity. Rebecca has taken on the responsibility of organizing the event, and she's done an absolutely fantastic job of coordinating everything and taking initiative by herself.

I was in a bit of a depressed state for a few days (though I'm feeling much better now) after returning to Mwakirunge to deliver the supplies, and on my way back I got off the truck and walked around the dump site for 10 minutes only taking pictures. The reason I stayed for such a short time was due to safety reasons, as well as the locals asking me for money as a price for taking the pictures. As it was, I was practically jogging between locations around the site since I didn't want to be in one spot for too long. I've already spoken with a few people on what assistance Mwakirunge needs first, so when I get home I can fundraise to provide help for the area.

Other than that, not much is happening. I only have 2 more weeks until I'm home, looking forward to seeing everyone soon!

Evan

An independant project

2010-03-02T00:09:00.000-08:00

Hi all,

Hope everyone is enjoying their March Break. Yesterday changed me....

If you read the post-script at the bottom of the last blog, you'll see me mention to my mother's Grade 6 class that I would travel to Mwakirunge to talk to the principal there. For everyone who is not part of that class, here is the background on why I traveled so far out of Mombasa.

A few months ago, my mother expressed the desire to send assistance to Africa by having her Grade 6 class fund-raise money for a specific area. She got into contact with Emmy, my project director, who mentioned a secondary school outside of Mombasa in a place called Mwakirunge which was in desperate need of aid. Over the following month or so, this class raised $400 CAN, which is the equivalent of 30000 Ksh, to give to this school. I suggested that she not simply hand over the money to the school, since this is Kenya and who knows what would happen to it, but hand the responsibility of delivering the support myself once I was in country. My plan was to go to the school, talk to the principal about what supplies he needed most, then I would take the money and deliver it to the school personally.

Mwakirunge itself, for your information, is the location of Mombasa's garbage dump, and though the Kenyan government promised a trash-processing plant that would provide the small community with 300 jobs, they didn't come through (surprise surprise) and the garbage is unceremoniously collected, transported, and dumped in a giant pit in the middle of the village. As a result the area has many health issues, experiences high poverty, as well as a growing crime rate.

Yesterday I called Mike Kalu (who I've been calling African Mike on this blog) and asked him to guide me in getting to Mwakirunge. We hopped on some local transportation and away we went through backroads heading outside of the city. It felt great to leave the city once we were past civilization, and the red earth, rolling hills, and palm trees made for a tranquil setting. For 20 minutes we carried on, going up and down the hills on the dirt roads. I was content to sit and watch the scenery past. This, I thought, was true Africa.

Then I smelled it. Not just the typical garbage smell, but a sick acid smell caused by burning chemicals that filled my nostrils and seemed to fill up my insides until I was sick to my stomach. Although I knew what it was, I looked around for the source. There was nothing that had changed, the perfect countryside was still perfect. Then we crested a hill. Let me tell you, I have seen poverty over the last 4 months, but this was on a completely different level.

The first thing I saw was a hut. I don't know if I would even call it that, it was simply 4 thin wooden poles, attached to it them were pieces of cardboard, plastic, and remnants of potato sacks. The roof was a sagging, sopping wet blanket that was heavy and dark from earlier rainfall. Then I looked up the road. There was another hut, and another, and one after that. We turned a corner, and suddenly below me was a pit 100m deep full of garbage. I saw people walking on top of it all, occasionally bending down to pick up an object which they put in a bag, then kept moving. Smoke was pouring out of the pit and filling the air with black clouds from the small fires spread out within. On the slopes were hundreds more huts made of whatever people could scrap from the bottom. I wanted to look away, but could not force myself. Then, in the middle of it all, was a small child, not more than 3 years old, staring at me with large, innocent eyes. He was fascinated with me, probably having never seen a white person before. He has to witness every day the results of bad governace and corruption that results from greedy politicians who change election votes to maintain power.

We did not stop there. Instead Mike and I continued down the dusty African road away from the dump site, where the scenery changed again to one of beauty and rolling hills. Five minutes later we turned off this and we dismounted at the Mwakirunge Secondary School. It consisted of 2 one-story buildings facing each other, In one building was the administrative offices, and the other held the classrooms. Both of us walked in to the office building, and Mike introduced me to the principal of this small school (Kwacha Afrika had worked with this school in the past, so they knew each other). I shook his hand, introduced himself as Mr. Yaa, and we sat down to talk. I told him that I had $400CAN, or 30000Ksh donated by the Grade 6 class of Vincent Massey Elementary School to supply his students with supplies of any type, whether it be desks, chairs, paper, notebooks, lockers, anything. He replied that desks and chairs would be best, since a few students had to stand in certain classes or carry their chairs between subjects (which I later witnessed when the bell rang). I agreed that this would be done, and that I already had transportation arranged. I think he was in shock, since for a while he did not say anything, then got up and enthusiastically shook my hand, said I was a blessing from God, and began to take me on a tour of the school. As soon as we stepped outside it began to rain, which reinforced his belief that I was a blessing (in Africa, when a gesture of goodwill occurs and is immediately followed by rainfall, it means that it was God's will). I said I was just the messenger, thank the people back home.

The school itself was established in 2007, and had been receiving assistance from a Kenyan NGO called Actionaid. It is the only Secondary School in the area, and many kids have to walk for an hour to reach there. It has 200 students from the ages of 14-18 (most of whom were male), around 5 or 6 teachers, and a secretary. The principal himself looked deeply committed to his school and providing opportunities for his fledgling school, and I thought Mwakirunge is lucky to have him in charge. As I was visiting, they were installing the electric wiring and digging a pit for new latrines.

Mr. Yaa explained to me that most youth from Mwakirunge do not attend school past the primary level, and instead join others to scavenge in the garbage pit of Mwakirunge. He described the clouds of black smoke that sometimes cover the entire countryside for miles around, today was a good day because of the rain, he said. I then realized it was imperative that this school continue being funded or assisted by any means possible if there was going to be any future for the youth of this small community. I then went around and met each of the Grades, or Forms as they are called here, introduced myself, took their picture, and continued to the next room.

Unfortunately, Mike had a meeting in town in the afternoon, so we had to leave. After taking the school's email and phone, I shook hands with Mr. Yaa and left. On our way back we passed a garbage truck struggling up a hill loaded to the brim with more trash destined for Mwakirunge.

When I next visit Mwakirunge I am getting out with Mike and taking pictures of the scene so that everyone can see the damage that the Kenyan government has done to this peaceful village on the outskirts of Mombasa. The trip left me outraged, but also with a strong desire to help these people living in desperate poverty.

Today before writing this I received an email from Mr. Yaa. It reads:

"On behalf of all the teachers, students and the entire school community thanks so much for your vising our school and offering to donate some lockers and chairs to our school. You are surely God sent. May my God bless you so much mupaka ushangae. We are praying for you to be successful in all that you put your hand on to do. Regards to all. WELCOME."

With love, from me, to you

2010-02-27T05:02:00.000-08:00

Congrats to Women's Hockey for Gold!

Happy March Break for everyone at home. I am still working, as usual. Some more casual things about my life right now before I jump into what I've been doing with work. Currently Mzungu Mike and I have a verbal contract to not shave until we return home (or the day before). Since my facial hair is blond, Charles has begun to call me Jesus. Also I went overload on a meal last night and combined pizza with a burger to make a pizza-burger, it was one of the most delicious things I've had to date. My friend at this Internet Cafe has pink eye, and we're placing bets on who he is going to spread it to next. I was told about how one can go and buy a genie here in Mombasa, and although they are invisible, they will bring you wealth if you feed them and pay them tribute. I'm considering buying one so I can actually have an invisible friend for real. I hope he comes with either a bottle or an Aladdin lamp included.

Yesterday was the Career Fair, or Youth Education Forum. It consisted of over 450 youth, 8 speakers, and 5 or 6 businesses. Overall it was a success, though there were many faults, challenges we had to overcome, and lessons learned for everyone. Here is how the day went. I'll start with the challenges.

Kwacha Afrika and YCI arrived at 8 AM to set up chairs for the Forum which would start at 9. However, people did not actually show up until 8:50, with the majority walking in at 9:30-9:45. This meant we started an hour late, which screwed up our entire agenda, of which there were 2; one that was handed out to everyone that I was told to print by Emmy my boss, and a lone agenda that only the MC used that was completely different from the one that everyone else had. A few times, no one knew what was going on or what was next, so some things were thrown in like dances performed by youth and cutting out skits that had been scheduled.

The big failure came when lunchtime arrived. Mike and I had set up the tables for lunch in a very spacious area so that people could move around while lunch was served. However, others took the tables and placed them outside where there was a narrow catwalk where people could lin-up. Imagine a crowded, grumpy, and complaining 450 people demanding food. It took 2 hours to distribute, not to mention the food itself was late. As well, there was no water provided, so when eating spiced rice, or pilau, everyone was extremely parched. I had to deny so many people water, I felt terrible. Eventually it arrived, thank God. I also had a shouting match with a big man who was making a fuss over having to wait in line with everyone else. I told him to get in line with everyone else or go buy his own food. I wasn't about to let him go ahead of two mothers who had children (who they had brought to the forum) to feed.

The successes, on the other hand, were many. YCI and Kwacha Afrika achieved something they had never done before: a convention bringing together 8 speakers (including a fantastic official and orator from the Ministry of Labour) and 6 businesses from completely different sectors, half a thousand youth scattered throughout Mombasa with different backgrounds, levels of education, and areas of interest in one place to discuss the issues of youth unemployment. Through this, topics brought up were what employers wanted, what youth wanted, the concept of trade work over office jobs, and what youth could do to stay positive and build a better resume. As Emmy put it, "we achieved the impossible."

I know that many of you already know this, but for some it may be news. I am returning home early and cutting my trip by 5 weeks. I will not be going to Uganda, but returning to Canada once the Kenya project is over. There are a number of reasons for this, I will outline them to you here.

1) I feel that I've been ignoring my family over the last few years. After realizing from my time here that family is the most important thing to anyone, I believe I should come home early to spend more time with them and reconnect before I go away to university.

2)The people in Uganda do not need an unexperienced teenager trying to help when he has no idea how to teach English (I feel that I did not do an effiecient job of it in Zanzibar). Also, I will be making a hassle by having them put me up for a month.

3)By experiencing Uganda I would not be seeing anything unfamiliar to me. Tanzania, Zanzibar, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi have an extremely similar culture, language, and the same African mindset.

4)It's becoming very hard for me to operate normally here. The stress of living in a new and completely different culture from the one I am used to, as well as living with people who I have just met makes things harder on me. I get tired and frustrated faster, and less energetic with each passing day. Right now I strongly wish to return home, I can only imagine how much that feeling will be 8 weeks from now.
5)Amy and I are celebrated our one-year anniversary on February 22nd. In the space of that one year, I have only been with her for a total of 4 months. Amy and I have an incredible relationship, and I know I want nothing more than to spend the remaining months before university with her instead of another month in Africa now that I've sorted out the priorities in my life.

So you can all look forward to seeing me earlier than you thought you would. I know that even though I've enjoyed my time here in Kenya far more than I did in Zanzibar, it is time for me to go home to the land of ice and snow (which I'm not looking forward to after acclimatizing to 33 degrees). I'm counting the days to when I can see you all again.

Best wishes,

Evan

PS- To Mom's Grade 6 Class on Monday March 1st I'm going to Mwakirunge with the funds and asking the headmaster what materials he wants for the school there, I'll include the details of the visit in the next blog. Thank you so much for fund-raising for that school, all of YCI and Kwacha Afrika are very proud of and extremely happy that you would do that for others!

Late February

2010-02-20T02:58:00.000-08:00

BLOGTIME!

The gender workshops went well. We kept men and women separate for the first 2 days of gender, and on the third day brought them together for a leadership session where the facilitators made them do teamwork games. All of the men were acquainted, and so were the women, so when talking about the sensitive issues surrounding gender people were very outspoken and were willing to contribute ideas. However, when the classes were joined, it was hard to break the ice between the men and women, since the latter did not feel comfortable participating with members of the opposite sex. As time went on and the games were played, the tension relaxed and everyone had a good time. One thing I did not foresee on Friday was the extended break-time for Call to Prayer. At 11:45 most people got up and left for the nearest mosque and did not return until 1 or1:15 after they were finished and had eaten lunch. I'll have to keep this in mind for future workshops in predominantly Muslim areas.

Friday I left the gender workshop early in order to attend an inter-school gender debate in the city. One school was for boys and the other was for girls, and both teams were pretty passionate about the motion being debated, "What men can do girls can do even better." There were many funny things being said by both sides. My favourites were "Behind every successful man in history there has been a woman," to which one boy retorted "why behind the success and not in front?" Also another boy said, "Men are allowed to have 4500 wives in some places. Why are women not allowed? Because a man is responsible to handle them all." The girls, on the other hand, said "That's because men are weak and can be easily seduced." My thought was "why would anyone want 4500 women, dealing with one is hard enough..." Then, the cherry on top was a girl saying "men leave the environment in a dirty condition and never clean it up." "If women can do things better than men, then what you're saying is that women are more dirty than men."

On Sunday white Mike and I went to Charles's mom's house, which is pretty rural and is half an hour outside the city. Charles is a local Kwacha Afrika volunteer, and is also the person who told me about "Thailand." It was a perfect day. We went for a 3 hour hike to a forested mountain, and I was expecting to climb it until Charles told us that we could go no further sincethere was quicksand and wild dogs that attacked you. We met his older brother, brother-in-law, mother, and his sister (who we already knew through Kwacha) Shiko turned up as well. At night we found a flat-topped 5 string guitar so we tuned that and wrote a song for Charles. Also Mike and I each got to chop off a chicken's head which we later ate for dinner. To get water for the morning bath we had to fill up buckets from a nearby puddle that accumulated water from a broken fresh water tap that is higher on the hill where the house is located. It was a great day, and we stayed overnigt and returned to town early the next morning.

This week is supposed to be very busy, since the career fair we have been planning for the last month is happening this Friday, so we have to finalize everything before then. I'll continue to keep everyone updated.

Also I was wondering how many people actually read this blog, I know the number is somewhere around 35 or 40 with my mom's elementary school class. After reading this could you just notify me that you're following it by making a quick comment below this. Thanks.

Happy Valentines Day!

2010-02-16T05:53:00.000-08:00

Happy belated Valentines Day! I hope that everyone did something cool for someone else!

Lately things have been pretty slack here in Mombasa. The matatu training was conducted by the Kwacha Afrika peer educators, who have been facilitating workshops about these subjects for years, and have much experience to draw from. Their teaching method was so effective, in fact, that we had hardly anything to do during Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. On Saturday I encountered something that I never thought I would see in East Africa. Melissa, Angela, and Rebecca had gone off for the day to see some ruins outside of Mombasa, while Joelle was spending the day with African Mike (the one who comes over for dinner each night). Mzungu Mike and I instead decided to check out a store we had kept hearing about called Nackomatt. Not knowing what to expect, we decided to walk the three kilometres in the midafternoon sun. Bad idea, we were pretty dehydrated by the time we arrived.

On the outside, Nackomatt looks like a well-to-do collection of various stores, nothing jumped out at us as being out of the ordinairy. Upon entering the building, however, we immediately saw the contrast from the typical Africa shop. Nackomatt was essentially a mini-North American mall, with tiled marble floors, high celing, air conditioning, and a coffee shop. The main attraction was just around the corner. If anyone knows what a Co-op is in Quebec, this is the perfect description. It was a grocery store selling every food product you could want, a frozen drinks section, a large pharmacy section, as well as a furniture section upstairs. It was huge! Mike and I stumbled through the corriders in awe of the shiny products that lay stacked on the shelves. We looked at each other with stunned looks, "can this really be happening? Are we in paradise?"

As it was, the prices were expensive (regular prices you'd find in Canada) so we did not buy much, only a Fanta, a milk packet, and I treated myself to peanut butter to make our breakfasts a little more interesting.

On Sunday 8 of us got into a car we had rented for the day and drove 2 hours south to a snorkeling area. We got on a rather large boat with a few other people, rented some gear, and drove out an hour into the ocean to a small sandbar where we jumped out. The water was great, and the coral was healthy on the outskirts, but the only way to get onto the sandbar once you were done snorkeling was to walk on top of the coral, whcih was beginning to die from previous tourists who had done so. I did not think this was good idea for a few reasons, one is that it damages an already threatened fragile environment, and two coral is sharp and occasionaly poisonous. As it was there was no other option so we carefully walked with our flippers (or for those of us who had them) over the coral towards the sand. Melissa cut herself twice, but she seems to be ok. On the way back we spotted a sea turtle, which was the best part of the day.

Before heading in to port we went to a small island that was inhabited by only 1200 people. Immediately I noticed the ratio of adults to children, it seemed that there were 6 or 7 kids for every one adult. The captain explained to us "there is no electricity on the island, so night comes early and there is nothing to do for 12 hours at a time. As a result, there are many children living here compared to the few adults." It would be interesing to see the population growth in 20 years from now....

So far we have had 3 meetings covering the gender training starting tomorrow, the career fair next week, as well as the Women's Guest Speakers Panel which is sometime soon....The career fair planning seems to be coming along extremely well, the youth are being mobilized across Mombasa (as a result of meeting with the youth leaders last Friday, where a monkey decided to poo on Kasena's head) and everyone is eager to be a part of the training. More on that when it happens.

Missing Canada and everyone over there!

Evan

Getting into February

2010-02-10T04:03:00.000-08:00

Rebecca and I with the morning computer class
Kwacha Afrika's drama on HIV/AIDS stima
The Chief's Office
Mike getting a lift from Melissa to Kwacha Afrika

We finished the computer classes on Saturday with great improvement on everyone's part. It was interesting to teach the Internet session, since the computer we had for our theory class did not have access. In order to educate our students on what web pages and search bars were, we had to take them to the nearest Internet Cafe and crowd 18 people around 1 computer in a small and stuffy room while Melissa explained how to make an email account.

We only had one day off, so we went to the beach and relaxed with Charles, a member of Kwacha Afrika. He explained to me that beautiful women's thighs are called Thailand, which I found hysterical. The best part was he was dead serious. Also we attended a Swahili drama put on by Kwacha Afrika about HIV/AIDS stigma. Although we could not understand what was being said, the acting was terrific, much better than most performances (even professional performances) I've seen in recent years. Good job Kwacha!

This week we have been holding many meetings in preparation for the Career Fair, gender equity and leadership workshop next week, as well as the matatu workshop we began conducting today. The topics covered, as mentioned in the previous blog, are gender issues, HIV/AIDS stigma, and drug use. Matatu drivers are a marginalized group in society and are at high risk of contracting HIV/AIDS and using drugs, which is why we are conducting this 3 day workshop with them. Also yesterday Melissa, Rebecca, and I met the tribal chief of the area in a meeting aimed to mobilize 300 youth for the career fair, one could tell he had a lot of power and responsibilty by the large amount of paperwork and the confidence he carried himself with. All he did was make 2 phone calls and afterwards said it would be done. Wow.

Some people have been asking me to describe my living conditions. I live in a medium standard neighbourhood known as Mtopanga along with Rebecca, Melissa, and Mike (who had to join us since his last house had bedbugs). The Somalian family living next to mine has a goat that gets very annoying, but is also very cute so we deal with it. The family we live with, the Kalu's, are extremely nice and accomodating, Mr. Kalu and I have already had many deep conversations comparing Canada and Kenya. Mrs. Kalu is obsessed with a CD of a Swahili artist that she listens to 1 or 2 times each night. The tempo in all the songs is the same, so it sounds like 40 minutes of the same song. Josephat (their nephew) joins us after his electrician college each evening, he is quiet but very funny whenever speaks. Michael, the son of the family and also a peer educator at Kwacha, joins us each evening for dinner; he invites us over to his house every so often to watch movies like Superbad, Pineapple Express, and the Hangover, he has a great sense of humour. I look forward each night to being in their company.

The water at the house has not been running for the last 2 years due to the 2-year drought the northern part of Kenya has been experiencing (Africa, although it contributes the least to pollution on a global scale (2%), feels the worst effects of climate change). Although it has been inconvenient here, I can't imagine how bad it must be where the drought is actually occuring. Daily, I believe I use approximately 30-40L of water for bathing, drinking, brushing my teeth, and flushing the toilet. In contrast, the average Canadian uses approximately 540-560L of water every day for the same tasks. In order to get water in the bathroom one has to carry water from the trickling tap in the front of the house to buckets kept inside. To flush the toilet we have to lift the top of the toilet where the water is usually held, and pour water in there until it is the certain height required to flush it. I'll take a picture and put it on the next blog to show everyone more accurately what the washroom looks like, it's hard to describe. My house is surrounded by a wall/fence, I'm using this description because the fence has pieces of tin attached to it to create some sort of privacy barrier between us and the neighbours. My living room and dining room is the same room, most of the chairs have cushions but one couch does not. The TV has 3 or 4 channels, but only one is in English. My bedroom, which I share with Michael, only has one place to hang clothes and no shelves, so any belongings we have are stored at the bottom of the "wardrobe," tucked underneath the bed or scattered/piled on the floor or in corners. Much like my room at home really. We have one fan for the night but it makes a cracking noise when it revolves so Mike and I take turns having the fan for the night. The girls room is next to ours and I believe they have a bit more storage space than us. There actually is no glass in the windows, to have limited access to air would be suicidal in this heat (literally, I mean you would die from the heat).

My meals at home are fairly simple and routine. For breakfast it is always 2 pieces of white bread with margarine and plum jam, one egg (which was a recent installment), tea, multivitamin pills and malaria pills. For dinner we have either rice or noodles with beef stew (stay away from the beef), or beans and chapati. Always there is fresh mango and bananas. For lunch I buy spiced rice and passionfruit juice. Simple simple simple.

Take care everyone!

Work has begun

2010-02-02T02:56:00.000-08:00

Since my last blog we've been planning our computer classes, the Career Fair in a month's time, as well as getting information on HIV/AIDS stigma, gender stereotypes, and drug use for the matatu drivers, which begins next week. Right now we're working on the computer classes, and as I am typing this Angela is briefing her class on Microsoft Word. The class is catching on to the materiel much faster than the students in Zanzibar did, in fact yesterday we managed to get through all of the lesson plan for that day as well as half of today's. Michael and I are focusing on teaching Microsoft Excel, which is what I have experience in from teaching during the fall.

Here, as well as in Tanzania, the kids never stop yelling "Mzungu!" whenever we walk down the street. It's fun to walk through the areas where white people usually don't visit and see the surprised faces people give us. I had heard stories before coming here that Kenyans were rude, dangerous, and easy to piss off. Now I know from the little time I've spent here that the people are extremely welcoming and happy to have us in the neighbourhood. I too am happy to be here with them, but the mosque only 3 houses away from ours always wakes me up at 5 in the morning. I usually love the Call to Prayer, but you'd think they'd at least find someone who can actually sing well haha.

There are a few interesting things I've discovered since I've been here that I didn't notice as prevalent in Zanzibar. One is the sex tourism. On Saturday all of the volunteers and a few members of Kwacha went to a local club, the place was not packed, but a large portion of the people there were older people looking for sex among the local prostitutes. Mike and I turned down a lot of offers from women who were watching us play pool or dance with the youth from Kwacha Afrika and the other volunteers. I was glad to note the club had free condom dispensers in the washroom for those people, most of the time they're not refilled.

Another thing is the chewing of the local drug miraa, or khat. It's a plant legalized here, the major effects are attentiveness and not feeling the urge to eat or sleep. The effects are only mild, however, and are pretty much the same as drinking coffee. Trying to get people to stop chewing is an impossible task in my opinion. It would be the same as asking North Americans to stop drinking coffee or caffeine products; they are simply part of our culture, much like khat is. When I was at the beach on Sunday I noticed that about 60% of people were chewing it. It's also very cheap, only 600 shillings a kilo (about 7 bucks).

I also found out that the pirated copies of DVD's here can fit about 20 movies on them, and each one is only 100 shillings. Time for a movie marathon to the max!

Safari Pics

2010-01-28T04:01:00.000-08:00

New Country, New Plans

2010-01-25T01:08:00.000-08:00

Hello guys! Everything here is going great, I've just arrived in Mombasa 3 nights ago and am settling in here for the next 2 months.

The 6-day hike up Mount Kilimanjaro was incredible and extremely difficult, we took the more isolated route and stayed in tents instead of in log cabins. Each day it got harder and harder to breathe as we climbed higher into the sky, and we kept having to add more layers of clothing each day to keep ourselves warm. The first day we walked through a rainforest populated by monkeys that looked like giant skunks in trees, and hat only lasted about 3 hours. The next day we hiked for 8.5 hours up a steep slope, then sideways across the mountain through what our guide called "moonland." Basically there were no trees, only fragile looking bushes on a rocky landscape. The third day was a short but very steep climb to a neighbouring volcano called Mawenzi, and we slept at the base of that for a night, then on day 4 we travelled across a desert towards the Kilimanjaro summit. By now there were no shrubs at all, only scraps of grass trying to grow from the dirt. At that point we were about 4,500m above sea level. At the final base camp before the final ascent up the crater rim, we met up with many other people trying to climb the mountain. That night was the hardest part, and we woke up at midnight to reach the top by sunset. After a grueling 6 hours climbing/hobbling up an 80 degree slope (no joke, it was almost vertical) we finally reached the top. By that point I was almost about to pass out from exhaustion and lack of oxygen. Not only that, but in the past 52 hours I had only gotten 2 hours of sleep. It was 5,895m from sea level, or about 19,500 feet. The only thing marking the highest point in Africa was a sign congratulating your success. I thought, "Awesome, I made it, now how do I get back down without killing myself in the process?" Imagine the biggest gravel pit ever, so huge that it takes 2 hours to run down it, all the while the ground underneath you is slipping away from your feet. That only got us back to base camp 4. From there we had to walk another 3 hours the same day to a camp below us, and the next day we descended to the bottom, where we got a ride to our hotel and collapsed.

After this 6-day journey up Africa's highest mountain, we set out on a 2 day safari, where we saw a many elephants, monkeys, zebras, wilderbeest, rhinoes, giraffes, flaminogoes, the works. I could go into a whole lot of detail or I could simply post the pictures the next time I write a blog so that you can all see them.

The following day Dad and I set out for Mombasa, and we reached there at nightfall on Friday. We stayed in a hotel that night and met up with YCI at breakfast the next morning. The members on the team are Joelle, Michael, Melissa, Angela, Rebecca, and I. The project leader is Emmy, and the partner organization we are working with is called Kwacha Afrika, which has about 50 youth. It is one of the most well-oiled machines of an organization I have ever seen. Everyone is incredibly enthusiastic about the work they are doing, and schedules and timelines are always met. I am very excited to begin working alongside them next week.

The volunteers are very friendly, and we all get along really well. Our group is very diverse and, according to the types of work we will be doing, collectively we have a person whose skill set is in at least one of those areas. We just got oriented yesterday about our project information, and it was a lot to take in at once, but this is what I remember, I hope I got all of it:
- 4-day computer workshop
- Youth Employability
- Career Fair
- Contacting local employers to hire local youth
- HIV/AIDS Education
- Addiction Counselling (particularly with the matatu drivers, or what is known in Zanzibar as a daladala, the big overcrowded buses)
- Active Citizenship among youth
- Gender Education, Boys and Girls

If anything else pops up I'll add it to the list. Right now it is the final phase of a 3 year funding program donated by CIDA, so there are many deadlines to complete at this point, making this phase very difficult and stressful. However I'm sure that the 6 of us Canadian volunteers, along with the high-spirited Kwacha Afrika, we can get everything accomplished in these next 2 months.

My time is running out, but I PROMISE that next time I will upload some pics of what's been happening.

Evan

Round 2

2010-01-11T23:03:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone! So I'm back here for the second time, only now I'm going to be here twice as long. That means twice the amount of blogs (maybe). Yay!!!!

I just flew over the pond and am currently waiting in Heathrow airport for my next flight to Nairobi to leave in a few hours. I'll break down my schedule for everyone. The first week and a half I will be climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro with my father, who is accompanying me for this period of time. Scaling this has been a childhood dream of mine, and it's a bit strange to finally be undertaking this journey. From there we will be heading to Mombasa, Kenya where the following 2 months will be spent working with YCI, the same organization I was working with previously in Tanzania. I will not be working with the same volunteers as last time, for those who are wondering, though I think that this is a good thing since it will allow me to meet more Canadians who have similar interests. My father will be returning to Canada once the project begins. Following Mombasa, I will be moving to rural Uganda (the Bushenyi district) for a month to work with the Bishop McAllister School. This last bit is my own initiative, and has no ties to any organization other than the school itself. It will be late April when I fly home to Canada.

I've been told that the rainy season here begins in March and ends in May, which means that approximately half of my time will be spent in a constant downpour. Although this sounds bad, I'm eager to see how the landscape changes after a couple billion litres of water falls on it. Maybe I won't be so excited the 3rd week in...

This blog is only to give everyone an idea of what's happening. Nothing much has actually happened so far, but I'll be sure to let you guys know how the climb went after I complete it. Hopefully I won't be lugging Dad on my back to the top, he is 52 after all. A big thanks to Ky for giving me a heads up on what to expect when I get there.

Last blog of Zanzibar

2009-11-20T08:08:00.000-08:00

Just next to one of the beaches we went to.
Walking through an emptry street in Stone Town

These kids constantly asked us to take pictures of them, so for the final picture we joined in too.

Tyler and I with our beach boy hats

Shaib and his son Acarum. This was the first time he had ever seen a boat.

It's Saturday, and everything is done. Graduation was on Thursday, and our 40-some graduates received their certificates. I'm proud of each and every one of them, to attend so many classes and put the effort forward to get the certificates was a lot of work. I'm sad that this is the end of the project for me, but for the graudates it is only the beginning of new opportunities if they choose to use the certificates to their full potential.

Yesterday we spent the whole day with the staff in the YCI office doing our final weekly meeting, then we went to the same Italian restaurant we went to what seems like forever ago on Thanksgiving. Shaib brought his adorable 2 and a half year old son to the meal, and the amazed look in his eyes when he saw the ferries go by on the water was hilarious. "He has never seen boats before," explained Shaib. "He must think they are giant cars on water." There we discussed what we had learned during our time in Zanzibar, and suggestions for future volunteers.

Here are some things I will miss about my time here:

Stephanie and Tyler
my family
the students
Shaib, Kaiza, and Micah, the YCI staff
chai
the weather
the cheap prices
Sunshine Internet Cafe
sugar cane juice
zanzibar pizzas
fresh seafood
the people i meet by walking down the street
island atmosphere
no sense of time
Amore Mio's Restaurant
Tyler's ADD attacks
snowpo the cat
Forodhani
Stone Town
the beach
friendly greetings
saying hello to someone 3 different ways in swahili each time you see them
teaching
roaming animals
leaves on the trees
fresh tropical fruit
sugar cane juice
mosques
call to prayer
Tyler and Stephanie beating each other
buying 3 pops and getting one free
the market

Things I won't miss:

beach boys
getting jacked up prices due to skin colour
getting confused in different languages
daladalas
hip hop and R&B music
ugali
slow internet
having to pay for internet service
Indian or Swahili TV/advertisements
the garbage
people honking their horns
people being everywhere (i grew up in a small town)
swarms of flies wherever food is present
cold showers
my toilet being a hole in the ground
mosquitoes
mosquitoe nets
roosters
ugly cats

Things I'm looking forward to in Canada (nothing too crazy, just the simple stuff):

seeing my family and friends
speaking English to anyone
driving a car
listening to my music
hot showers
my bed
toilets
toasters
skiing and skating
soda being called pop

This will be my last blog before coming home to Canada for Christmas. See you all soon!

Last week of classes

2009-11-15T06:51:00.000-08:00

Tyler teaching his computer class in Mahonda about the Internet. This is what the inside of the building looks like.

Tyler's awesome drawings.

Once again, Stephanie and I were locked out of the building in Mahonda so we were forced to
hold our class outside. Here we were teaching them how to give directions in English.

Tyler, Stephanie, and Mwinyi acting out our HIV/AIDS Outreach through Arts drama

Finished the last week of classes on Friday. Practically all of our spare time was consumed with working on the Final Activity Reports for Monday morning. It seems like I have 3 homes in my life right now. 1) My home in Canada 2) My home in Zanzibar 3) Sunshine Secretarial Internet Cafe, where I am right now. I know the owner by name, and we joke around and laugh whenever we see each other, which is every day.

The fact that classes are over is sad, but at least now my schedule is going to be more free. The only things I have left is a volunteer/staff meeting and an English Club on Monday, an English post test Tuesday and Wednesday, graduation Thursday afternoon, and a final meeting with staff on Friday. We then have all next weekend off (I think we're going to the beach) and then we leave Zanzibar early Monday morning, have debriefing with the Morogoro volunteers in Dar, then everyone except Dave and I leave for Canada. The next day Dave goes to Zanzibar and I explore Dar es Salaam by myself. That night I hop on the airplane and fly home to Canada.

Today I took part in a movie that is being filmed by UMATI, a partner organization of YCI. The aim of the film is to increase HIV/AIDS awareness in High Schools across Zanzibar. My scene was walking into the doctor's office, handing him a report, improvising the lines, "Here are the test results from this week, and the next page is last week." The doctor then asks me, "Here, (points to a random spot on the page) how is this patient's hemoglobin?" I responded, "It's very low, but it needs to go up." I then walk out of the room. OSCARS HERE I COME!

Also in today's news I bought a HUGE painting. It'll be interesting where they go since I bought another 2 paintings a month ago and our wall space is limited. I'm also thinking of ideas of how to get everything home, since I bought so many things here. If anyone has any clever ideas of getting everything home that does not include me carrying everything in 10 bags, please feel free to post it in the comment box.

One of our family members, Naila, had malaria all last week, but now she is fully recovered and is getting into pillow fights with Tyler again. However, as soon as she got better, Yehyea the second youngest brother got pneumonia. I'm very concerned for him since he is only 10 years old and I'm not sure how well he will be able to cope with it, although apparently this is not the first time he's had it...

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone as soon as I get home!

2009-11-10T06:20:00.000-08:00

All these pics are pretty self-explanatory except for this one. Michael was trying to take a short cut in Morogoro Town to a restaurant he knew and we ended up walking on these tracks somewhere, it was pretty fun.

Safari

2009-11-09T08:15:00.000-08:00

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!

What I've been up to

2009-11-01T05:36:00.000-08:00

Stephanie beating up Tyler. This happens at least once a day.

Me with a 185 eyar-old tortoise.

Our Mahonda Class. For some reason they didn't seem to smile in this picture, but when you talk to them they are really nice and cool people.

There are 6 monkeys in this picture. Can you find them all?

The dolphins, there were about 20 or so, even though you can only see 3 or 4.

Our time here is winding down; my plane for Canada leaves in 3 weeks. Here's what has happened since I last blogged.

After Ushujaa we met Nicole and Melissa from the Morogoro volunteers who decided to visit Zanzibar for the weekend. It was great to see them again, and interesting to hear what their programs were like and the differences between where they live and here. With them we woke up early on Sunday morning to travel to the south of the island to swim with wild dolphins. After the short drive there we chose our snorkeling gear from a rack and stepped onto a small boat. There were 7 of us: the 5 volunteers and 2 guides. For 2 hours we searched the ocean with other boats carrying tourists doing the same thing as us, and at last we found them. We all jumped into the water and were immediately surrounded by these huge creatures. It was very hard to keep up with them. While they were leisurely swimming along I was sprinting with all of my energy just to stay with them. Once they got too far ahead we got into the boat and caught up with them again. The dolphins themselves did not seem afraid of us, and a few even came up to me and swam around me before heading back to the bottom. After half an hour of this we were all exhausted so we were brought back to land.

The next event on our list for the day was seeing monkeys in the Jozani Forest. I thought "It took us 2 hours to find the dolphins, it'll probably take us just as long to find the monkeys." A 30 second walk across a road and the first tree on the right proved otherwise. There were a dozen or so of them, each climbing all around the tree and eating leaves from the branches. We could get really close to them, they seemed used to humans after tourists coming to visit them so often. After taking a million pictures of these guys we went for a short stroll through a mango tree grove and a mahogany forest.

The week then started, and we continued our classes as usual. Every week seems to keep getting better and better, the students are much more eager to participate each session, and even with the language barrier they seem to understand the materiel we teach them. There are a few participants who we have become friends with, and after each class they come up to us and ask us questions about the class, or just to talk about anything. My favourite part of my week was when the Mahonda Computer Class climbed into the back of a rented daladala with us and made the trip to Stone Town for a practical. All the way they were asking us questions about ourselves, singing songs, and all in all having a great time. It was like a field trip for them, and I can't wait until next week's session so we can do it again.

This weekend started, and we went to Forodhani (the seafood night market) as usual on Friday night to end our week of classes. On Saturday we woke up early to go to Prison Island, which was half an hour away by boat. The prison itself had long ago been converted into a quarantine station for an outbreak of bubonic plague that occured a hundred years ago. Now it is used only for tourism. The most exciting part of this island however is not the prison, but the giant tortoises that inhabit it. When I say giant I mean gigantic. There were a few who came to my knees, and mid-thigh if they stretched their necks. There were dozens of them, all in one area, and you could feed them spinach by hand and pet their necks, which apparently they love. Just seeing one was incredible, to actually be interacting with many was an experience of a lifetime. There was one that was 185 years old, and still looked like he had another hundred years to go.

Coincidentally enough, one of Stephanie's friends from Newfoundland is volunteering in Arusha, Tanzania the same time that we are here in Zanzibar. She and 5 of her colleagues came and we met them in Stone Town. Each one of them were great people and really fun to be around, I'm glad we got to share a day together here.

I'm now getting ready for next week's classes. There are only 2 more weeks of actual classes to go before graduation week occurs, and I'm trying to squeeze in as much information as possible into such a short time period. I hope that everyone had a great Halloween, and that everyone actually wore a costume instead of going as themselves (not that I've done that in the past or anything...). We bought Masai robes here and a bit of their jewelry so tonight we will celebrate Halloween with our family a day late. Hope everyone is having a good school year!

rte

Ushujaa

2009-10-23T10:41:00.001-07:00

Tyler jumping over a puddle and me about to follow. Rain, whenever it happens, is intense here.

RAIN

A drama perfomed by a class at the village

Tug of war

Bottle racing

Today we helped facilitate an HIV/AIDS awareness event called Ushujaa with our local partner organization ZANGOC. The event consisted of 2 dramas and a poem about HIV/AIDS, music, and many games such as bottle racing (where women balanced bottles full of water on their heads and raced across a short distance), lime and spoon racing, sack racing, potatoe racing, doughnut eating competition, and tug of war. It was fun and rewarding for everyone involved.

We were responsible for estimating the crowd size, keeping track of the number of participants in each event, along with their age and sex. We also helped distribute flyers about HIV/AIDS to people in the crowd; we managed to get rid of most of them. The crowd size itself was about 400, however 50% of them were under the age of 15 and did not understand our message. 40% were between the ages of 15 and 30, which is our intended audience for the inofrmation to reach because this is the age where people are most sexually active. Approximately 10% were above the age of 30. Of everyone, 60% of the crowd was female and the remaining 40% male. As well as keeping track of the number of people involved, we also had to conduct small 5 question interviews with as many people as we could about their knowledge of the disease, as well as if they believed Ushujaa actually helped spread the message.

The event took place in a small village far outside of Stone Town, and we hired a bus to take the YCI staff and volunteers, as well as the members of ZANGOC to this place. The bus followed a paved road for a while, then turned off onto a dirt road. After going over tons of bumps and being jolted out of our seats, the driver finally decided he was not going to risk damaging his bus. Kaiza and Shaib, 2 of our staff members, argued with the man for half an hour. Kaiza always means business, and I felt sorry for the bus driver who had to face her. Finally everyone got off the bus and walked the remaining distance on foot. The heat was intense and I was out of water by the time we reached the isolated little village in the middle of nowhere 30 minutes later. I thought to myself "How is a little place like this going to hold a big event like Ushujaa?" I guess people must have been hiding in the ground or something because seemingly out of nowhere we had a crowd of 300 within 20 minutes, and in another 40 minutes it had grown to 400.

Also on a side note we are in the "small rain season" here, so every once and a while it will downpour for an hour to half a day and soak everything that dares to go outside. It's a nice cool-down after being sweltered each day in the sun (30 degrees here normally). I heard that it snowed in St Andrews a few days ago. That sounds outrageous. I'll probably get frostbite the second I step off the plane in November...

Zanzibar

2009-10-22T00:35:00.000-07:00

This is a family I took a picture of in Mahonda.

Burning garbage is the most common method of getting rid of it here. The hill is not actually a hill, simply trash.

Livestock feeding on what we throw out.

A field of garbage you'd see anywhere on the island. The houses in the background are residential buildings considered good quality here. They were built by the Chinese years ago, hence the area's name Mchina.

Normal living conditions in Stone Town

Some people have asked me to describe the real Zanzibar, the one that I see all around me, every day, all the time. Here it is.

I live in a nice house. The family I live with owns 3 houses in real estate, a daladala, and the father has a job working with the Tanzanian government. The family is pretty much set for life unless some sort of natural disaster occurs. The house beside mine, however, is a crumbling mess of rocks and sticks. The wall that is supposed to offer some sort of privacy or protection has a gaping hole in it that is open for everyone to walk through.

Everywhere I go there is trash. There is no escaping it. In Canada, I walk around pieces of stray garbage. Here I walk through it. The trash itself is flattened and compacted, pressed into the ground so firmly from all the feet that step on it that it is sometimes hard to tell exactly what it originally was. Last week I didn't notice that I had stepped on a smushed rat until it stuck to the bottom of my sandal. There is hardly anywhere to put trash here, and those places must be completely full. Here the only way I see people getting rid of garbage is burning it in the streets. There are many football fields in Zanzibar. The edges of these are lined with heaps of garbage, and picking through it all are cows, cats, chickens, and dogs. It really makes me wonder what exactly I'm eating whenever I'm served meat here. A month ago I would have thought that this much garbage is violating human rights, now I just accept it.

Speaking of human rights, on Monday Tyler and I were teaching our English Club some human rights. In front of the students was the UN Declaration of Human Rights. We said "These are rights that everyone in the world has. We are all equal, we all have a right to an opinion and a free press." A girl stood up, and in broken English stated "Here in Tanzania we do not have Article 2."

Zanzibar has a 60% unemployment rate. Most people have created small businesses for themselves for sustenance living. Stalls and makeshift markets line the road as people try to sell their wares that we would find anywhere in Canada. Everyone sells the same thing it seems. Bananas, sunglasses, skirts, chickens, miscellaneous items, whatever they can get their hands on.

Yesterday in Mahonda was interesting. After teaching my class Stephanie and I went to find some food. While we were eating we saw a drunk father beat his son with a stick in public. I was so furious, I had to force myself to stay seated and watch as the kid was beaten to the ground. As his father dragged him home, the red lines of blood running down the sobbing boy's face were clearly visible.

My friend Carlos also took me to his house that day. He led me down a dirt path a short distance from the school to a door that didn't fit its frame. His little brother answered the door, and we entered his house. There was not much, a small dirt patch without a roof, and an open air kitchen on the side with 2 rooms seperated by curtains were the only things there. His mother and father were there sitting on the ground eating their food. They greeted me warmly and asked how life was in Canada. I replied, "I Canada life is good. Very good." The father shook his head and said, "Here life is bad. Zanzibar is poor. See?" he pointed around him at the surroundings. "Zanzibar is poor. We have no money. It is good that Carlos knows English, because now he can go to Canada and get a good job. You will take him with you to Canada." I said "If Carlos has enough money to come to Canada, I promise you he can live with me for as long as he likes." The man thanked me, his gratitude was overwhelming. Carlos led me away from his house. "When I come to Canada, I make enough to bring the rest of my family there too." "Why Canada? Why not Europe or America? They are good too." "Because you are in Canada" was his only answer.

Wherever Tyler, Steph and I walk there are always groups of men sitting down with their backs against the wall, staring at the traffic go past them. These are the men who are unemployed, who are not able to provide for their families. It seems there is no end to them.

The overpopulation is outstanding here. So far I have not seen a speck of land that has not been turned into use for humans. Nothing is wasted. When cows graze in the soccer fields it is because there is nowhere else for them to go. They are moved to the side when matches occur. Even in the rural areas I have not seen a clump of trees that are not used for growing spices or coconuts. It is impossible to escape the prescence of humans, and it seems to me that the situation is only going to get worse. Every day when school gets out there is an ocean of pale yellow and dark blue uniforms clustering around candy stalls, riding on daladalas or simply walking down the street for those who cannot afford a ride.

The food is interesting here. Everything is fried, grilled or is a fruit. Yesterday my diet was fried bread, an orange, 2 servings of french fries, 4 samosas, and fried shrimp (small portions of each). Today will be similar, and on the way back to my class soon I will be eating more fried food that Mama has prepared me. The other day we went to a restaurant, the same one I went to on my first day here. I ordered the same meal and was unable to finish it. This tells me that my stomach has shrunken considerably within the last 3 and a half weeks. I wonder what it will be like in another 5 weeks.

Don't get me wrong, I still love every day I'm here. Volunteering here is one of the best things that has ever happened to me; I've been waiting years to come here. Now that I've arrived, the reality is far more shocking than I thought it would be...

More pics

2009-10-18T08:15:00.001-07:00

The pic of the field and road is in Mahonda where we teach English This was moments before we saw a huge foot long lizard run across the road. The other pictures are of a resort we went to on the weekend for a night. Had a great time, did some snorkeling, went to a party or a disco as they call it here. Will add more later.

What's happened since yesterday

2009-10-14T08:34:00.000-07:00

Today a woman from an unknown number and who only spoke swahili called our house 6 times at 8:00 in the morning and woke Tyler and I up. Each time we answered she hung up. Sketchy....

Also in today's news we went gift shopping for people back home. I won't say what I bought though because it will ruin the surprise for Mom and Anna. We got everything dirt cheap because a man took us around to the cheapest places simply because he's a nice guy. People are so awesome here, it seems like everyone is willing to do something like this for us.

We went to Mahonda to teach English and computers, but Tyler and Mcha were the only ones teaching computer class for an hour and a half so Steph and I decided to walk around the rural landscape. Needless to say, we felt like there was nothing out there and that we were in the middle of nowhere. We also saw a lizard scurry across the road that was about a foot long (no joke) but it was moving fast so there was no time to get a picture of it. It was a strange sight, the two of us white people in the middle of a rural farming area in Africa. Whoever saw us stared for a second or two, and the confusion on their faces was pretty obvious.

Last night we celebrated Thanksgiving a day late. We went to an Italian restaurant because it was the closest thing to Western food we could find, and we ate some really delicious pizza. It was a good way to forget about work and enjoy the island atmosphere.

I would publish pictures but for some reason the sky is red in a lot of them; it's definetely a problem with this computer so I'll try to post some next time.

Today I ate a burger!!!! WOOT!

2009-10-12T04:13:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

My first week of classes is over and done, and I've just started my second. It's hard to believe that 6 weeks from today I will be on my way home to Canada.

I'm making better friends with the locals and am starting to know my family better. I spend a lot of time with Ali, Yeyea, and Naila, the 3 youngest, and am starting to become friends with Mohammed, the oldest. I only ever see them in the afternoon because during the week they have school Monday-Friday from 7-1, which means they must be up for 6 (which is brutal).

My classes are going well. I teach a computer class twice a week, an English Club once a week where we discuss present political issues (both local and international), and 2 sets of English classes twice a week, one in a rural area and one near my home in an urban area. Surprisingly the rural students have been much more outspoken and eager to participate in class. The staff of YCI says this is unusual since they have less access to education resources and rarely see white people; in the staff's experience it is usually the urban kids who are talkative. Participation rates are decent, considering that all classes have at least 20 people signed up for each, and 14-15 show up for each session (except for urban english where only 6 people show up each class). So far we've been trying to get everyone comfortable in speaking English and are working on nouns. The kids are catching on fast. This upcoming week is verbs.

On Friday we went to eat freshly caught seafood at Furadani Night Market. We have decided to eat here each Friday for as long as we are here. The prices are expensive compared to everywhere else, but so far I've been trying everything I can. My favourite is still octopus, and I've also tried calamari, barracuda, curried lobster and shark which turned out to be my least favourite (it was actually really gross). However, on the plus side for food, today on our way here Tyler and I passes a stall selling burgers, and we immediately ran to the store to devour them. It was the most disgusting and worst-made burger I've ever had, but at that moment they tasted sooo good. I just hope we don't get indigestion or diarrhea from eating them...

On Saturday after classes YCI took us on a tour of a few spice plantations on the northern end of the island. There we saw every kind of spice imaginable, and how each was grown. We were shown so many that I can hardly remember the specifics of each one, but the walk through the jungle and rural roads felt great and took a lot of the stress off of us. Afterwards we were sat down and fed many types of tropical fruit. There was papaya, mango, jackfruit, grapefruit, oranges, pineapple, and about 10 others that I didn't recognize. After this we were taken to a coconut tree where there was a man called Mr. Butterfly waiting for us. What he does for a living is climb palm trees and cut off the coconuts from the top. Simple, except the palm trees are 100 feet high and offer no kind of handhold. Also, Mr. Butterfly is hardcore and a man, and he decided to sing at the top of his lungs, pull stunts, and climb without a lifeline. After all this was done and he had gotten the coconuts from the tree, he shimmied down the tree to the bottom and cut them open so we could drink the milk and eat the fruit inside. Definetely the highlight of my day.

I now have the rest of the day off, and I plan on hanging out with Ali and celebrating Thanksgiving at an Italian restaurant with Tyler and Stephanie. This is about the closest way we can celebrate the holiday in a Western style here in Zanzibar. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

2009-10-07T07:36:00.000-07:00

Tyler, Stephanie (her hands on the right) and I taking a ride home on the daladala from Mahonda

A rural area where we went for the first time today to teach English and computers known as Mahonda.

Stephanie holding our Aunt's baby

Mama cooking chapate

This is one of the roads leading to our house from the beach.

"Will you take my sister?"........"No."

2009-10-05T09:12:00.001-07:00

Hey guys!
Today was my first set of classes. The first was a class at the UMATI Yuoth Centre teaching an Internediate Computer Class. By Intermediate, I mean that so far all that they know how to do with a computer is use Microsoft Word.

When asking the eleven 20-25 year-olds what they wanted to learn about next on the computer, they replied "Microsoft Excel." I said, "does anyone know what the function of Microsoft Excel is?" they replied "no." For the next hour I taught them them what excel was, what it was used for, terms of microsoft excel, and how to navigate around the page all without having a computer. I admit, with the language barrier and this fact put together, I'm not sure how much got across to them, but at elast one person understood; at the end he stood up and re-explained what I had just taught in about 5 minutes. Thursday it happens again.

Tyler and I then headed to a Post Secondary School English Club. The day before Tyler had typed out part of the UN Declaration of Human Rights and made 30 copies of it, or in total 300 pages. When we began teaching (the materiel was supposed to be about good governance, human rights, and the upcoming Zanzibar elections) we realized that many people could not understand us, so there went our lesson plan. However, at the end of this class where we spoke of the elections and what they hoped to learn in the class, there was a lot of positive response from the students since they requested that we double the amount of english sessions to twice a week.

Today a man came up to me at our office and said "take and marry my sister." After a long pause, and me asking him again if he meant what he really meant, I said no. He laughed and walked away. These things happen every day now, I am getting used to happy spontaneous people.

Last night we made some local friends at the nearby Mombassa Supermarket, and we have so far bumped into each other three times in one day. The final time we met, he asked us "Is there anywhere around here to get tested for HIV/AIDS? I have not been tested for a very long time, and it is important that everyone get tested every few months." We told him our partner organization conducted tests, so we went with him and his friend to the center to get tested; the results for both, thankfully, were negative. It goes to show that the message here is spreading, and that people are not only aware of HIV/AIDS, but that people know that there is somewhere for them to go for help.

The three of us have a lecture tomorrow about HIV/AIDS, so we are now looking up additional information to what we already know about the virus on the internet. Along with our partner organization ZANGOC, we are covering stigma, violence, long term effects and prevention.
Tyler is craving a burger for dinner, so we are heading to an American restaurant next.

Kwaheri! Evan

2009-10-04T01:42:00.001-07:00

These are some of the kids we are staying with. Yesterday we went to the beach which is right near their house. The family is extremely nice and teaches is lots of new Kiswahili words.

This is our house. As you can see, it's a lot nicer than what we all expected to live in. There are 13 of us living here.

This is a typical busy street in Stone Town, which is the main town of Zanzibar. The streets are very narrow and crowded, and it's easy to get lost.

This is a picture of Stone Town from the water. There were lots of kids playing soccer on the beach when we arrived by ferry.

This is the image I was trying to show yesterday. It's the view from the top of the Safari Inn where we were staying in Dar es Salaam.

Again, sorry for the crappy picture I sent yesterday. Today I'm on a different computer and it seems to work fine.

This is the image I was trying to show yesterday. It's the view from the top of the Safari Inn where we were staying in Dar es Salaam.

First week

2009-10-03T00:45:00.000-07:00

Made it to Zanzibar! Stephanie, Tyler and I said goodbye to Michael, Nicole and Melissa as they headed off to Morogoro and we went to Zanzibar. The ferry ride was 2 hours, and the coastline was gorgeous to look at under the setting sun. I fell asleep on the ferry, and woke up just as we entered Stone Town harbour. There were many kids on the beach playing football and doing flips off a pile of sand. Kaiza, Micah, and Shaib, the YCI staff who facilitates and assists us helped us get through immigration, gave us a ride to our new home. The house itself is very big and upscale for Africa, it's actually quite the opposite of what I expected to be living in. The staff said that originally we were scheduled to live in a smaller and less furnished house, but they cancelled at the last minute due to a family matters, so now all three of us are here. The family is absolutely wonderful, they are the nicest people I've ever met. There are 10 of them in this house, and Mama looks after us as if we were her own children. Each day she makes us breakfast and teaches us ne words in Kiswahili. Her youngest son, Ali, is obsessed with us mzungus, or whities, and he trails us wherever we go when we are in the house. Ali is also teaching us Kiswahili, and so far I've learned more of the language in 3 days than I ever learned of French in the last 8 years at school. Each night we go upstairs with him and as he teaches us Kiswahili or play UNO with him (which he and his brother Yehea absolutely live) we watch a movie on their TV, last night was Mortal Kombat.

The YCI staff is making us acquainted with our new surroundings, and we have so far been to their head office, 2 youth centers we will be working with, and Stone Town. So far we have been given orientations about what our projects will be, and tips and scheduling advice. I teach a computer course, and HIV/AIDS Awareness through Arts class, 2 english classes, take part in a secondary school english club, and help organize shows for spreading HIV/AIDS awareness. Yesterday we had a meeting at the UMATI Youth Centre with Kaiza and a few other locals on the Arts program, and there is much to do to get prepared for this event on Tuesday. It is very important that when we teach, our information on HIV/AIDS is clearly understood, since there is only 2 hours to give a ton of materiel to youth who know nothing about the disease. Many believe you can get it simply by eating a meal that an infected person has cooked, others have no idea what the disease is, or believe that it doesn't exist. Also, the topic of condom use is very iffy here since the society is Muslim, and they do not believe that protection should be used. Apparently a political figure brought up the issue a few months ago in a public speech and was later assaulted in his home because of doing so.

The island of Zanzibar is much poorer than the mainland of Tanzania, and many people get by on subsistence living. Buildings are in terrible condition on the outside, and on the inside it is usually not much better. Of course, there are some districts that are richer than others, such as Stone Town, but everywhere there is garbage littering the streets, sidewalks, and fields. Even so, the island is extremely beautiful and I am loving every second of my stay here.

In order to get around the island, the main method of transportation is daladala, which is like a 12 seater van that you pile in as many people as can fit. The cost to go anywhere on the island on one of these is only 250 shilingi, which is basically 25 cents. Tyler, Stephanie and I take these everywhere we go since they are numerous and follow the same routes every day.

Yesterday we went to Stone Town for the first time. Kaiza led us through the maze of narrow streets that have 3, 4 and sometimes 5 story buildings towering above us. The whole time the 3 of us had no idea where we were, but she seemed to know every twist and turn. Apparently Kaiza is an artist, and she showed us her art gallery. All of the paintings were very good, and we we intent on each purchasing one until we found out the price was $250 USD. Hopefully there will be more art.

The food here is delicious, and by going to lunch and seafood markets at night I have so far had ugali (which is a paste that simply fills your stomach, but is not very nutritious), rice with coconut milk, mussels, shrimp, octopus (my favourite) and sugar cane juice. Each morning at ur house we get papaya and fresh oranges, as well as bread and starches. Their daughter, Naila, makes some of the best tea I have ever tasted and we are all searching for the herbs she uses so we can recreate it when we return home.

Today is the first day that the three of us have to ourselves. We plan on getting lost in Stone Town, finding our way out, eating lunch at a local restaurant, then taking Ali and Yehea to the beach. Tomorrow we also have off, but I think it will be spent more working on our projects then on enjoying ourselves.

Miss everyone at home and thinking about you guys! Also sorry about the terrible picture above I tried to upload it but it didn't work for some reason...I'll post them on facebook instead.

Also if you wish to call me, my number is 255787074691, however it is quite expensive plus I'm busy a lot of the time so only call me once a week if you decide to.

Arrival

2009-09-29T04:06:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!

After spending a day and a half on a plane, I have finally made it to Tanzania. All of my fellow volunteers are here as well, and we are getting to know each other as we spend time here in Dar es Salaam. It is extremely hot and humid here, and I feel sorry for the girls since they must wear clothes to their ankles and a scarf. I did not get to see much of the city last night since it was dark, but after waking up to the sound of morning prayer at 5, a few of us decided to look around the neighbourhood. The streets are very crowded, and everywhere there are stalls and markets selling food or soft drinks. We got a lot of attention since we were the only white people in the street, especially with me being so tall. The hotel we are staying at is called the Safari Inn, and it is a 5 story building cramped between housing. In order to get to the front entrance we had to drive down a narrow alleyway with an armed guard at the front of it. The interior is small, and so are the rooms, however I've enjoyed my stay in the Inn more so than I have in most other hotels in North America simply because I've never experienced anything like it.

We are starting orientations now so I must go, blog again in a week or so.

Getting ready to go

2009-09-16T14:40:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, this is my first time writing a blog, so we'll see if this works or not. It's 11 days before I leave, and I'm getting everything ready for my departure. Since I'm packing my life into a hiking backpack, I'm starting to practice packing it all, to see how much I can fit and how much space there is left. I've been talking to other volunteers as well, and they are all just as excited as I am. We only half know what to expect when we arrive, so we are all stepping into the unknown when we get of the plane in Dar es Salaam.

I'm beginning to wonder how much the culture shock will affect me, but since I've traveled before, I think it shouldn't be too bad. I plan on integrating myself into their culture (as much as a white foreigner can), learning the language, and learning what it is to be African.

The only thing I am nervous about is my performance when I teach english or computer courses. I'm not very experienced, and I think it will take a while for me to fall into the rhythm of everyday life, as well as adopting a teaching style that is efficient and fun for everyone.

I'll blog again right before I leave, and if not then then after I arrive on the continent. Thanks for everyone's support towards getting me here, it wouldn't have been possible without you guys!

Evan