Don't tell me what to do.

So Saturday was my first Oh. My. GOD. day of frustration. I have found one thing that I hate about being here, and it is not Tanzania’s fault in the slightest. I HATE being told what to do. No, I don’t want to follow your rigidly structured program and sit in the back of some ridiculous bus for twelve hours without food while the bus driver LITERALLY plays chicken with oncoming traffic. Yes, thank you, I had fun taking 1000 pictures of the first twenty nine zebras, but I’m quite fulfilled now, no need to stop the bus so everyone can lean over me and pull my hair and elbow me in the head. And no, no I don’t want to pay ten dollars for your outrageously expensive rice pilaf when the usual going rate for dinner here is less than a dollar.
We went on safari to Mikumi national park this weekend, all nine of us plus our chaperones, as always, and it was be here for this get ready for that dinner at this hour pay for this thing that you don’t want but have no say about blah blah blah. NO. I do what I want. Not to sound like an ungrateful brat, because I don’t mind structured routines, but I just like to pick my own. I don’t like being forced to do anything, and I hate traveling around in our stupid pack of stupid white people all day everyday. At the age of 20 I fancy myself to have mastered most basic motor skills, and no longer need to be spoon fed. I was cranky.

That was Saturday, and Saturday was bad, but yesterday I had an AMAZING day. We hiked up this mountain for two hours, and I immediately befriended our tour guide, this fifteen-year-old kid who was really nice and wore pink flip flops. We were hopping over streams and sliding down mud hills and I was really enjoying myself, although half of our group decided to lag behind and we kept getting screamed at and had to halt our momentum and wait for stragglers and BIG GROUPS CRAMP MY STYLE, a fact which I have adequately conveyed and need to stop whining about. Because the mountain was gorgeous and the bus ride was so nice and because I am home now, and we were fortunate enough to miss the 4-day power outtage. So things are not terrible, and in fact they are quite nice. We’re about to have a girl day and sunbathe on the roof while sipping girl drinks and reading girl trash. Plus I just caved and paid 10 USD for a box of cereal. And some lowfat milk that came in a bag. In a bag. Seriously? I love it.

How’s home?

Piga picha?

Piga picha is "to take a picture" in Swahili, but it sounds more like something a Pokemon would say.

Coincidentally, I'm uploading a bunch of pictures right now, soon to be under picha on the right.

I'm updating to tell you this because it takes about 50 minutes to put 50 pictures up (oh how I wish I were exaggerating) and I can't think of anything else to do while I wait. Haya!

Last week we started teaching English at Mwenge, the local everything market where there’s no such thing as a set price. It’s my favorite part about being here so far, because everyone is loud and fun, and so heartbreakingly devoted to learning English in order to reach a larger, richer market. There are about forty grown men, mostly wood carvers, who pool what little money they have to pay for the electricity to keep the lights on. They bring pens and whatever scrap paper they can round up and take the most detailed notes on every little thing we say. They’re split into beginner, intermediate, and advanced groups and I’ve been going with the intermediate group. Fridays are fun days, so we had them in teams, competing to see who could say and write English words and phrases fastest (interest, customer, loan, etc.). We had to referee a lot because it got really heated and probably would have come to blows, although it was also tempered by the fact that the men in the beginner group were doing the Hokey Pokey next to us in order to learn body parts. A girl named Julia kind of runs things, and she happens to embody everything I want to be. She came with the Brown program last fall, had to go back to school in the spring, but returned to TZ for the summer because she loved it so much. She speaks fluent Swahili and the men adore her because she’s an amazing teacher, but she can also level with them and joke in Swahili. They’re incredibly appreciative of all of us, actually, and they tell us so every chance they get. When we’re shopping for odds and ends in the market during the day they watch out for us. They yell, “Teacher, mwalimu!” and make sure that the shopkeepers don’t try to swindle us with Wazungu prices, which is unbelievably helpful since I’m only just beginning to feel comfortable bargaining. It’s really awkward, but in any case it helps my Swahili a ton, and I think I’ve about mastered the extended greetings (all greetings here are extended). You can’t walk by and just say hi, you stop and it’s hi, how is your day? And your kids? And your work?, and that’s just for people you know well. With introductions it’s delightfully personal right off the bat - hi, how many kids do you have? are you married? why aren’t you married? what religion are you? What does your father do? (to which I reply he’s a farmer, because it’s easier than explaining hospital finance). I’m pretty solid on responses to all these things, except in describing my family I’ve been saying I live with my mother, my father, my two siblings, and two dogs. Which would be fine, except I recently learned that the word for dog is also slang for prostitute, and people don’t really understand the concept of keeping a dog dog as part of the family. So I’m Jessica, and I live with my mother, my father, my brother and sister, and two prostitutes! So proud!

Today I’m tired (it shows), but still extremely satisfied - I didn‘t ever really catch up on sleep after Zanzibar and this week has worn me out. Lots of class, and market trips for whatever tiny essential thing we forgot, plus we’ve had special dinners almost every night to meet this or that professor. Our on-site coordinator here is Professor Senkoro Senkoro, and he is…the most stereotypically ridiculous African man. I was a little bit uneasy around him even though he was extremely (overly) hospitable, not least because his house was huge and lavishly decorated, which is almost unheard of here unless you’re white and/or corrupt That’s probably an unfair judgment, but he was loud and showy and I was a little put off. However, after dinner he stuck us in front of the tv to watch some subtitled Ugandan music videos, and they were hilariously offensive, with one brazenly titled, “Send that b**** back to the village”.

It was a little rainy yesterday and cooled things off, but we spent all day trouncing through muddy market streets and then went to my friend Kilima’s house and he took us to the beach and then we went to dinner and then out for drinks - everyone else went out dancing after that, but I crashed too hard and pulled my trademark sleep-through-everything-exciting. Apparently it was really fun, though, and by virtue of Nick (the only boy in our program) traveling everywhere with 7 or 8 ladies by his side, everyone assumed that he was a pimp and kept asking him to name some prices. I think the trick to Tanzania is to embrace all the absurdities and just laugh all the time.

Zanzibar is paradise. It is literally the most beautiful place I have ever been, and pictures don’t do it justice.


The journey started out a little rough, what with the 5 a.m. scramble to pack and clown car all 10 of us + Dr. Leedy + 4 others (I still don’t really know why they were there) into the dala dala to take us to the ferry. Then they packed 4000 people onto what felt like a 12-person ferry, and everyone spent the next two hours concentrating really hard on not hurling. Fortunately I immediately befriended Sisso, a native Zanzibari who ran a spice tour and provided enough distraction to keep my breakfast down. He told me that he liked going to the disco too much to start a family, and patiently explained that if I had a lover I would like to turn into a husband all I had to do was tattoo his name on my inner thigh, but to make sure I had the right name or else it wouldn’t turn out well. He also said that Zanzibari are much better people than mainlanders, because if one of them tries to pickpocket you then you can tell everyone and they’ll have him killed. This was good to know.

We landed in Stonetown, famous for birthing Freddie Mercury among other things, and dropped our stuff off at a cute little hotel whose main advantage was HOT WATER. Then we took a spice tour, in which I kept shrilly screaming out incorrect answers to the which-spice-is-in-my-mouth game, and a historical one, which killed my whole day because it was mostly about slavery and I predictably flipped out and cried a lot. This is why:

Here is where the Arabs kept the women and children for 48+ hours before taking them to the market to be sold. It was stuffy and hot and claustrophobic and you felt it. I accidentally got Mariah crying in this picture, but it captures the sentiment well.

The next morning we drove across the island to Jambiyani, which was straight out of a travel magazine. I cleverly wore my Halo shirt since we were on ZANZIBAR, but since I’m with a bunch of mountain men and hippies, my genius (which was actually Alex Good’s genius) was lost on them. I was a little pouty about that for a while, but it turns out I was just cranky from not being fed. As soon as I realized that we basically had a gorgeous beach all to ourselves, I cheered up and we splashed around and laid out and ate and drank and some of us even had our “lovers’ names” henna-ed onto our inner thighs.

It was amazing, and a welcome break from Friday’s hectic schedule, when I kept getting yelled at the whole trip for falling behind and creepily trying to take pictures of Swahili children:


Leaving Jambiyani was hard, but not really, since I was sleeping the whole way back to Stonetown. Everyone chilled, and bought scarves, and I ran around taking more pictures of Swahili children, but paid zero attention to my surroundings, eventually realizing I was late for the dinghy that was to take us to some tiny private resort island. I found a compass on my backpack and naturally overestimated my ability to master such a basic skill set as navigation. Sure that I was on the right track, I expected to have my A-ha! moment as I turned this one corner, but found myself in the middle of a really vile-smelling fish market, where everyone was at least really nice and pointed me in the right direction. I met up with everyone at the dinghy, but immediately switched from apologetic to skeptical because I had seen enough of those boats in National Geographic, normally packed to the hilt with Vietnamese refugees. By the grace of god I made it to Chungaa safely, and the island was a dream. They had this giant tortoise exhibit which I adamantly refused to enter because I wanted to go float in the pool, but our guides made me and thank God, because it was a heaven like I‘ve never known before or since. I was up to my waist in tortoises, and having so much fun that I didn‘t notice when one charged and put all of its 100 kilos squarely on my foot. Perhaps I was too focused on maintaining consciousness, but it was then that my English grammar first started slipping (“Look at small turtle, it wiggles like human baby!”), so please be on the lookout for my slow decline.

That night we ate at this hopping waterfront seafood bazaar. Unbeknownst to me I’ve developed some kind of food allergy, so after inhaling a tuna kabob I immediately felt my skin starting to tingle and swell until I ended up with cucumber lips and about 7 extra eyelids on both sides. Without a mirror to get me down, I took my new face out and spoke to a lot of startled vendors, met some cool guys from the Peace Corps who were willing to overlook my physical deformity, and finally found ice cream. It was a really good note to leave on, but after another nauseating ferry ride this morning I could not wait to crawl back home and Dear Diary a little bit and then nap. Which I would be doing, were it not for an incredibly loud killer bee hovering over my head. Very lame, Africa!

Catch up.

I am five days in and already slowly getting the hang of things. There is absolutely no even ground anywhere on this campus, so I’ve already mastered converting awkward falls into graceful Indian sits. Yesterday Dr, Leedy helped us take dala dalas, the mini buses that comprise the Tanzanian public transit system, and we got cell phones, which was a sad day for me since I hate them even in America. Still, it was a ton of fun because it was our first time downtown and I met my first fiance, who thought it was appropriate to start taking awkward cell phone pictures of me only moments after we got through introductions. I also met a nice man who volunteered to teach me better Swahili if I would meet him at his street corner every day.

As hilarious as some of the cultural differences may be, I have never met a friendlier, more inviting group of people. If you’re lost or need help translating or just want to ask questions, there are ten people jumping at the chance to talk to you and assist you however they can. They want to sell you things, but they also just want to talk to you and learn about America. I pretty much love everything about this country, although it’s necessary to constantly remind myself that this is real - abject poverty in the flesh, not some ride at Epcot.

A Kwanza Celebration. Kwanza means first.

If ever again I have a panic attack about having to be in transit for 32 hours, remind me that the past two days were some of the best of my life. My flight from Boston to Amsterdam was incredible, in large part because even coach was equipped with personal screens. I watched Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves with Kevin Costner in his most unforgettable role to date, and then played some Dutch-style (don’t ask me what this means) tetris. A pretty cool Dutch boy sat beside me and laughed while I failed level one time and again, but then I noticed he opted for Shrek 3, so, whatever. The two hour layover in Amsterdam was nothing, and then I slept for all but forty-five minutes of the seven-hour flight to Dar (and missed raspberry ice cream L!).

Dar is…oh god, I LOVE it. I think I was still disoriented from so much sleep when I stepped off the plane because the man who approached me about my visa application asked me, in English, if I spoke Swahili and for reasons that escape me now I told him yes, in a duh sort of way, which is actually a complete lie. So I watched his lips move as he fluttered through some instructions and then, with no backtracking recourse, started very politely reciting my small army of Swahili phrases. It turns out that no, he didn’t care that my name is Jessica, or that I’m nineteen years old, hail from Memphis, Tennessee (jimbo la Tennessee, mji wa Memphis!), and have two small animals (I forgot the word for dog). He gave up on me very quickly after that, but in an effort to escape my life story (what, who doesn’t want to know about my favorite foods?!) he moved me up to the front of the line.
I emerged from the airport, visa in hand, and was met by Elizabeth XXX (whom I already knew through Leigh), Sarah XXX (who was actually on my flight), and Dr Leedy (our program coordinator from UF who’s hanging around for the next ten days to make sure we can hack it). My flight actually got in around 9:30 pm (we’re currently seven hours ahead of EST), but we waited at the airport for another two hours for a girl named Mariah XXX (I have to stop telling her she’s on fire) to get in. Every ten seconds on the way home I’d look up and squeal really stupidly, a. because I was excited, and b. because I kept forgetting that you’re SUPPOSED to drive on the left side of the road here.
We pulled up to the dorm and then huffed and puffed up SIX flights of stairs with all our luggage. We’re rooming with fellow program participants these first four or so weeks because classes don’t actually start until September 17th, and our Tanzanian roommates won’t move in until a week or so before that. Sarah and I hit it off immediately, so we made the easy decision to live together in XXX this room, which has this XXX view as the sun comes up around 7 am in the morning (and yes that is the Indian Ocean in the distance).
On Sunday everyone woke up pretty early, so after grabbing a quick breakfast at the cafeteria we decided to walk the mile to the incongruous Shoprite, a South African Wal-Mart-esque chain, and pick up some necessities. On our way we passed a lot of street vendors, whose general reactions to herds of white people seem to be split between pumping their fists in the air and yelling, “Wazungu, wazungu!” (Basically just “White people, white people,” but literally, “Pale-faced ghosts who run around in circles!”), or staring. Awkwardly. Some of the more outgoing men will walk alongside you for a bit, and then the standard pick up line seems to be, “It is my dream to come to America! How may I contact you?”
Shoprite was nuts, because it’s just like a Wal-Mart - huge, and surprisingly well-maintained (for a country so incredibly lacking in basic infrastructure) - but some of the pricing was ridiculous. Roughly US$.20 for 1.5 liters of bottled water, but $10 for Frosted Flakes? And it’s about 12,000 Tanzanian schillings to 1 USD, so that reads as Tsch 120,000 for the Frosted Flakes, which when combined with several other products amounts to a level of math that is simply beyond me. Generally when I pay for things here I just stare at the cashier and slowly place bills on the counter one at a time until she takes my money. I mean, I could communicate my confusion, but every time I buck up and go for the Swahili, it always ends the same way. I start speaking, and the Tanzanian facial expression evolves from a quizzical, “What is this pale-faced white girl trying to say?” to him or her doubled over in laughter. I actually love it, because everyone is so good-natured and I know what I must sound like (“Hey, man of the shop, where are the big round orange balls for eating?“) that it really is just comical. As Elizabeth succinctly put it, “Jessica, your experience with Africans will be like that of the duck that thinks it’s a dog.” Anyways, I am safe, and loving it, and writing this from under my Out of Africa mosquito net before I read some and go to bed. Kwaherini!

In Transit

I’m really on the fence here, deciding between whether I love or hate traveling. The flight from Memphis to Boston wasn’t bad, excepting the fact that the plane was as big as a fanny pack (that was a little awkward, but I found some literary inspiration on the European to my left), and there were NO SNACKS. I mean, that was a three hour flight - not chump change. I almost starved to death, but after sweating through the seatbelts-fastened takeoff, I sprinted to the back of the plane to retrieve my monstrous backpack from the only place it even sort-of fit and dug out my Mom-made sandwich. After correcting my dangerously low blood sugar levels, I settled in for the remaining 2.5 hours. I read half of Blink (pretty good, appeals to my bleeding secular-progressive heart), only to be continuously interrupted by this nutso baby that kept wailing like a banshee and banging its head on the windows. Dude, chill out. But it fell asleep or was tranquilized or whatever, and upon entering the greater Boston area, I mentally confirmed that I could live here happily (all you naysayers may point out that basing such a huge life decision on a Tonka-trunk sized observation is ridiculous, but…hm, no, there’s not a whole lot I can say here, haha).

ANYWAYS, I’m writing this from the international center at Boston-Logan, and I’m hearing Italian and Arabic and I think Lingala and probably some Simmish , if I had to guess. I’m Ed-Bundy-sprawled out on this sweet recliner, stealing wi-fi and looking at some nice body of water that until about 6 months ago I would have called the Chesapeake (similar to my freshman-year discovery that artichokes are not small sea animals). And actually now that I look hard, I think that might just be a nice apartment complex lake. But it’s a nice life for now, although you might want to check back with me in nine hours when I’m foaming at the mouth and pulling out my fingernails (or more likely just sleeping, because that’s what I do).