Stanzania - The Village

After staying in Njombe for a night, Christine and I finally continued on to see my school. It is a 2 hour trip from Njombe to a village called Lilondo, and then a "bumpy" (to say the least) 8 km ride up into the hills to Wilima Secondary School. Apparently our travelling must have been going too easily for Tanzanian standards because we had a particularly annoying time getting a bus to Lilondo. But after plenty of arguing and fighting, we finally were able to get seats on one of the medium-sized coaster buses Monday afternoon.

More than anything else, I think it was just nice to have time to ourselves and relax at my house. After being on the move every day up to then, we were both happy to just relax and not do anything. We did a walking tour of the school campus and were able to meet with most of the teachers, which was nice. Half of the students were home on break, and the other half were taking tests all week, so unfortunately we could not spend too much time with them.

For Christine's birthday, we celebrated pretty much the only way that I know how to celebrate at my house - cooking and eating a ton of food. Pancakes and fruit salad for breakfast (and lunch), and then burritos (chipatis, rice, beans), chips and guac, and mango salsa for dinner. I had been able to find a Funfetti cake mix in town, so we tried to make it using the charcoal stove oven method, which basically involves putting a pot on top of a few thin rocks inside a bigger pot, and then baking over the charcoal jiko. I have had success doing this in the past, but this time I just didn't have the touch I suppose, and the cake turned out a little, well, let's just say it was obvious that it was baked in a Tanzanian make-shift oven. But luckily you can't screw up the taste of a Funfetti cake, so it was still good. We went and shared it with the mama who usually cooks for me, Mama Edu, and my counterpart and his family.

After leaving my school on the 5th, we went to Songea to stay for the night, and stayed with my friend Veronica who lives right in town. From there, it was easy to catch the early 6am bus the next day to Morogoro, as we began our return trip up north. It worked out very well staying in Morogoro for a night, because it turned out a lot of other Peace Corps volunteers were there for a training, so we were all able to hang out, and Christine was able to meet some of my best friends from my training class.

The next morning we walked to my host family's house to visit and have breakfast. They were so incredibly happy to meet Christine and to see us both. I hadn't even seen any of them since early December, so I also enjoyed being able to see them all. Baba was travelling to Moshi, but everyone else was there, including my host sister Eunice, who Christine actually was writing a couple penpal letters with last year. So I know it meant alot for her to finally meet Christine in person.

Finally, we capped off our epic travelling adventure with a little good luck, getting good seats on the bus to Dar, and getting in with just enough time to get to the airport a couple hours before Christine's 5pm flight. All in all, I think the trip was a very good introduction to the many different faces of Tanzania - from the big-city atmosphere and relentless "Mzungu!"-yelling cab drivers of Dar es Salaam, to the touristy yet entertaining attractions of Zanzibar amidst the beutiful tropical scenery and interesting historical background, to the classic African Land Rover safari adventures and unbeatable wildlife viewing of Ruaha National Park, to the quiet, simple, and albeit bug-infested life of the village among welcoming Tanzanian neighbors, all the while feeling the difficulty and frustrations of seemingly simple tasks such as getting a bus to travel, buying and transporting food items, cooking, and doing laundry in a third world country, and also getting a more in-depth peek into the community and lifestyles of Peace Corps volunteers in this country. I am so incredibly grateful that Christine was able to come visit me here, and I hope that her trip has helped her, and anyone who reads this blog, to get a better idea of what Tanzania is like.

Stanzania - Ruaha Safari

[From Saturday, June 30]

Friday Christine and I did a safari in Ruaha National Park, just outside of the town Iringa in central Tanzania. Ruaha is a great park to visit because they have a large variety of animals to see and it is much less touristy and crowded (and cheaper) than Serengeti and Ngorongoro since it is farther from the big cities up north. It is also the second largest game park in Tanzania and has the large Ruaha River running through it which made for some amazing scenery. We used a private guide to drive us around, which was really awesome because we got to ride in a classic Land Rover car with a lifted roof to take pictures.

We saw many of the typical safari animals right away - impalas / antelopes, zebras, giraffes, elephants, hippos, crocs, and even two lions who were just by themselves outside of the pack. Soon afterward, we saw a huge pride of at least 15 lions together under a tree, resting after what appeared to be a recent successful hunt. Next to them was a mostly-devoured buffalo carcass that foxes and vultures were starting to call dibs on. It was pretty amazing to see, and a little scary too, as we drove up to within 10 feet or so of where the lions were laying. Luckily we could see they were no longer hungry... and neither were we after getting a good whiff of the buffalo.

Other animals inside the park that we saw included the waterbuck, which looks similar to a deer but with white stripes across its back and huge ears, babboons, a smaller breed of monkey called a tumbili, a couple hyeenas, warthogs, though not nearly Pumba-sized, and many colorful birds.

We stayed at the government bandas (small huts) inside the park as a cheaper and easier alternative to the many resorts and camps both inside and outside. They were nice enough, though it did get very cold at night since they weren't really insulated. It was cool staying there because the animals would literally walk right up to where people stay throughout the day and even more of them come around at night. We woke up to the sounds of elephants and hippos in the near distance.

We were taking our stuffed white-ish panda around with us and taking pictures of him with the other animals, and then we stopped near another car of people and saw that they were doing the same thing with a stuffed elephant of their own. Good to know we weren't the only crazy people in the park.

The only major animals we missed out on seeing were leopards and cheetahs, which are both apparently very rare in Ruaha and usually can't be found. But we still got to see much more than I did on my first safari in Mikumi last year during our training. My camera died towards the end of the day, so you'll have to check out Christine's pictures when she gets back as well.

After getting back to Iringa this morning, we did some shopping and exploring around a more typical and less overwhelming Tanzanian town. There are many Maasai natives that live not very far from here, and a large Maasai market where they sell their hand-made crafts, wood carvings and paintings. Tomorrow we are getting on an early bus to Njombe, finally my neck of the woods. We will spend the night at the Chani Hotel, my favorite guest house in all of Tanzania, and then make the (now) short, 2-hour trip to my school on Monday. I can't wait for Christine to get to meet my students, and to celebrate her first Tanzanian birthday!