It’s been another wonderful week in Tanzania. We hope you enjoy some of the highlights.
Safari
To us, the word “safari” was almost synonymous with “Africa.” The word conjures up glorious visions of wild landscapes and exotic animals. To the locals, however, the word is much more practical. “Safari” in Swahili means “journey” and it’s much more commonly used than you might expect. It’s used to describe every degree of travel from a trip to the market to a weekend holiday. For example, Mama Gladness just returned from being gone for 4 days. When we welcomed her home, we asked “Habari za safari?!” (How was your journey?). She was full of extra gladness to see us, and punched each of us in the shoulder and followed it up with the usual excessive cheek-kissing. She even bear-hugged Emily and lifted her off the ground! We were surprised when she explained that her “safari” took her to a high-level convention of the Tanzanian Department of Energy and Biofuels in Tanga, where she spoke and was apparently even on television. It was a shock to us because this is the same Mama Gladness that cooks all the meals for the Green Foundation volunteers. We are both very interested in learning more about Mama Gladness’s other life. It’s amazing that she’s a member of the energy board, and doesn’t own a vehicle and still cooks over hot coals.
In the Swahili sense of the word, our “safari” to Africa has been amazing thus far. After much discussion with the other volunteers, Jodi convinced us all that we should take a day to venture off on a touristier “safari.” We did some research on the various game reserves nearby and decided that Tarangire National Park would be a great place to see those wild landscapes and exotic animals. We went into Arusha and booked a one-day trip to the park.
Unlike the rest of us, Jodi doesn’t have the time or money to do a proper safari, which usually takes three to four days of traveling and camping in the African bush. Fortunately, none of us had Tarangire on our proper itineraries, so it was the ideal destination for the group. Furthermore, one of Jodi’s main reasons to come to Africa was to see an elephant. According to the guide books, Tarangire is one of the best places to do just that.
We were all excited as we set out on our safari last Sunday. Our driver picked up the five of us (Jodi, Kerri, Kathleen and the two of us) at 8am and we began the 2 hour drive to the park. Once we entered the park we all stood up to look out of the pop-up top of our range rover. Our cameras were ready and our eyes were peeled to see the first wild animal. We hadn’t gone a quarter-mile into the park when Kerri spotted a herd of zebra beyond some trees to the left. Then we saw an antelope under a tree, then a giraffe, and then some wildebeest. After just 30 minutes of safari-ing, we even saw a leopard sleeping in a Baobab tree, which is apparently a pretty rare sight in Tarangire. Not five minutes after that, Jodi’s trip to Africa was complete when we came across a solitary bull elephant having breakfast. All of us were so excited, we each snapped about 58 pictures of the giant beast. At that point we didn’t realize just how many elephants there were in the park. Before long we came up on a whole family of elephants, tending to the babies and looking for food. We all turned to Jodi to see how excited she would be, but she was lying down in the back of the land rover. “Do you all actually like this?” she said with her eyes closed. “The first part was fun, but now I’m getting bored. Wake me up if we see something new.” She slept for the rest of the safari.
For the rest of us, the safari was really fantastic. We saw big things and small things and everything in between. Rob might’ve gotten the most out of the day. In addition to all the zebra, giraffe, antelope, elephant, impala, wildebeest, hyrax, dik-dik, and big cats we saw, Rob logged an unprecedented 33 new species of birds in one afternoon!
Mavinuni Primary School
After our Sunday safari, we settled right back into our daily routine of teaching school in the mornings and working with Siza at the tree-nursery in the afternoons. We have really enjoyed our role as teachers and especially enjoy the opportunity to teach together. Although the two of us realize that we will not be able to make a dramatic impact in just 4 short weeks, we are determined to show the children that learning English, or any subject for that matter, can be exciting, entertaining, and fun. In doing so, we’ve created our first “one-hit wonder” in the Food Song. Children still sing it on the playground and have requested it by name in class. Even the 5th grade class (who we don’t even teach!) invited us to come in and play it for them! It was such a thrill to have 90 students singing the song at the tops of their lungs and dancing around the classroom. Technically, we agree, it was our first sold-out concert.
After the first week of writing a new song for each lesson, none of which were nearly as popular as the Food Song, we recognized that there are limits to our lyricalosityness. To diversify our teaching, we made posters, created short skits, and invited the students to get involved. One of the best lessons was on Friday morning. We were teaching the food pyramid to illustrate the importance of balanced nutrition. While Emily held the students’ attention, Rob snuck out to get into costume. He stuffed his shirt and pants with some extra clothes and when Emily finished explaining the proper food pyramid, Rob came thundering in. “Good Morning Class! I’m your new teacher!” Rob said, “Teacher Emily is all wrong – you need to eat only sugars and fats!” and he drew a revised “candy” pyramid on the board. The students were literally falling out of their desks laughing.
Fortunately for us, the students are easy to please, fun to entertain, and happy to learn. This has made the last week of teaching truly fun for everybody.
As we walked home after class on Friday, we realized that we’ve already made it through two weeks in Africa. The first weekend for us was uncomfortable as we were still settling in and Rob had a little of the “welcome-to-Africa” bug. The second weekend, including the safari to Tarangire, seemed novel and touristy. This weekend, however, we’ve reached a point where we feel entrenched enough into a routine that it seems like an actual weekend. We plan to stay around the volunteer house, play more soccer with the kids, maybe go on a hike, and get ready for the next week of classes.
Pictures:
The volunteers on safari (Rob, Em, Kerri, Kathleen, and Jodi)
Rob on his way to school...carrying his guitar Tanzanian-style.
Rob and Em teaching the students about water.
A serious and wenge "crazy" picture of Rob and Em's 6th grade class (yes we teach them all at once!).
Em and Rob walking home from school.
The front of our volunteer house.
Em with Mt. Kilimanjaro in the background. It has been cloudy all last week...so we were both so excited to finally see Kilimanjaro for the first time!
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