August 15, 2008: I'm still here
Yes, I'm still here. I haven't had anything epic to write about, but I'll fill you all in with some short stories.
So my college was supposed to start on July 15th. On July 12th I was sitting around the internet cafe shooting the shit with a few co-workers. It happened to come up in conversation that the school would not be opening. Apparently what happened is this: Parliment did not approve the budget on time, and without the budget the Ministry of Education didn't know how many students it could select for the upcoming term, without that information no students were selected or told they could go to any Teacher's College in the country. So in short we have no students. They'll come someday.
So with that information in mind, a few days later I threw on a backpack, hoped on a dala-dala and headed for Longido. I knew very little about the place, except for the half-paragraph mention in the guide books, and some word of mouth that there is a cool mountain there. And maybe boulders.
I arrived in the scruffy little town of Longido at about 11:00AM. I had enough provisions to last me two days in the bush, if need be and 40,000/= stuffed away in my shoes. I got out of the dala and looked up at the mountain in the distance. The mountain juts out a thousand or so meters from the savanna floor, and pulls rain clouds from the otherwise clear skies. At this point in the year it is about the only thing green for 100 kilometers.
Then a young man asked me if I would like to climb the mountain. I figured it would make the trip much easier to get some information before walking off into the hills. So I followed this nice young man to the Cultural Tourism Center, where they were ever so friendly. That is, until we go to the price tag. $75 to spend one night on the mountain. So I more adamantly went at the standard Peace Corps things which is to speak only in Swahili and make it very apparent that I live here and I'm a teacher and all that good stuff. I was told I should go talk to the people in charge to get a free permit to go.
So I walked over to talk to those guys, who pulled out a piece of paper with the city ordinance or some such thing about entering the forest. The non-resident prices added up to around $50 for what I wanted to do and the Tanzanian price was like 10,000/= ($8). So I told the guy I would happily pay the resident price, seeing as I'm a resident and all, but he said that I am not a Tanzanian. I of course had been talking in Swahili, explaining that I'm a teacher, etc. He recommended that I apply for citizenship and come back then. But maybe the guys at the Cultural Tourism Center could give me a discount.
So I walked back there again and told them what happened. They said they couldn't do anything about it. All this time I had been saying I didn't want a guide I just wanted to pay the forest entry fee and wander around by myself. That was unacceptable. They told me it was very important for them to collect fees for the forest, fees for the guides, fees for the schools, fees for the Little Timmy fund, etc. They said that the money was very important to pay for their schools, teachers, and doctors. I took a look around, saw kids running around not in school on a Thursday afternoon, wearing ripped up shirts and then I took a look at the guides sporting new Nikes.
So I asked then what I could do in town. A guy said I was not allowed to do anything without a guide. Just to clarify, I confirmed that I could not do a single thing by myself in Longido. Not even go for a walk through the village. He was visibly angry with me for asking this question. Apparently white people are not allowed to take a shit without a guide in Longido.
Now, there are a couple of stereotypes that Tanzanians believe about white people. One is that we're all weak and can do nothing by ourselves. When confronted with this I get pretty annoyed. Another stereotype is that all white people have tons of money and it means nothing to them. This results in everyone asking for money (In all fairness this is not a problem for volunteers in small villages, but guess where I don't live?). This angers me quite a bit. So much so that I regularly yell at small children.
I asked what I could do and the guy said I could go home. So as I walked away from the center I thought about my options. I could go home, spending 10,000/= on dala-dalas to get insulted, then maybe go camp out in my own, friendly and free mountains. I could give them all the finger and go climb the mountain anyway. Or I could find a place outside of the sacred forest of ripping off white people and camp out and go home in the morning.
So it is up to you, dear readers, to decide where this next picture is taken.
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It was pretty at least
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So back at my college, I had a problem with my computers. I spent a week or so in my computer box, installing OpenSolaris on my servers. We're not allowed to use anything but Solaris and the old install was crashing about twice a day. It made for really annoying classes. I really have no idea what's in store for the support of these things in the future. Nobody really knows are far as I'm aware. I could go into a rant about NGOs and sustainability issues, but I won't.
I found rocks! A little while back I was going for a walk into the forest and found the place I've been looking for for a long time. There is a little waterfall with steep, vertical, and over-hung rocks all around. I finally have a place to climb!
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The Canyon
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The Cave of Death
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Why is the caption of the second picture The Cave of Death. That's because that cave smells like dead things. Like old, rotten mostly to the bone sort of death. I figure there are a few options for what that could be. a) the last occupant of the cave, b) the remnants of the last meal of the current occupant of the cave, or c) the remains of something or someone that a person stashed up in there(would support the creation of the giant snake legend of February's story. Or it's true and the answer is b) Anyway, I have yet to go spelunking.
Also last weekend I went to greet the new Health and Environment volunteers who were shadowing at Leiha's. We went on a hike that took us to a waterfall with a chunk of rock next to it over deep water. Guess what I did? Korie has the pictures, but I have no idea where she is or when I will see her again. I did take a picture of the waterfall without me clinging to the rocks.
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Great flake system on the right.
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So that's what I have been up to. The college is supposed to open in ten days, then I'll have normal work to do again. As they say, haraka haraka haina baraka. I'm pretty sure someone will waste the time to look that up.
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July 09, 2008: Gombe
How does one get to and from Gombe National Park? Most people get on an airplane, but not us. Getting to Gombe started with a 13 hour bus ride from Arusha to Dodoma where I met up with PCVs Hilary, Ethan, Katie, and Leiha. After dinner and a good nights sleep we got onto a train. We rode second class, which we thought was pretty nice. By pretty nice I mean that it smelled of urine and the floor was covered with dirty water. By nice I mean the train had to stop for three hours because it couldn't get up a hill. By nice I mean the window wouldn't close and the cold wind blew all night. By nice I mean we were there for 30 hours. What would not nice mean? Well that would be third class, where people chose to sleep in the toilet because that was apparently better than the alternatives. Living in Africa means your standards go down a bit. We actually did consider it nice.
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Ethan staring out the window of the train
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After that long haul we arrived in Kigoma, on the edge of Lake Tanganyika. That's on the western border of Tanzania, for those of you who failed your Tanzanian geography class. We met up with the other Kigoma group, four other PCVs who left several days before us, so we got all the good tips about where to stay, what to do, etc. Word on the street was Jane Goodall was in town. The other group met her at the Jane Goodall Institute, and as the story goes, Cynthia saw Jane Goodall, told everyone to "Be cool" and then ran and hugged her.
So the next day we dropped by the institute to ask for a lift (So joining the Peace Corps means you ask people for rides, sleep 4 to a bed, haggle ever price to be lower, and only spend money on things like pizza and beer). We were in luck. We also got to see the house being built for Jane Goodall, though the guy said he didn't understand why because Jane sleeps out in the forest every time she comes.
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Our ride
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After finally arriving at Gombe National Park, we settled into our rooms, went for a swim and prepared for the next day.
So baboons and chimps will steal any food you have, so the standard method of self protection in Gombe is to build a cage. It's like a zoo where the animals are humans and the baboons watch. And watch they do. We woke up and had a large group of baboons checking us out. Then they started doing this:
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They're in love
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That was special.
So after downing the most expensive chapatis that we've every eaten, we hopped on a boat and went back to the park entrance. We met up with our guide and headed out into the forest. After some time we came up behind an older woman watching a few chimps. I turned around and whispered to the rest, "Holy shit, it's Jane Goodall!" She continued off into the forest and while I had the urge to chase her down, I didn't. We followed the chimps instead.
There was a group of about 8, sitting around, picking bugs off each other. The little guy was climbing all over everyone, playing. A big guy named Titan charged Katie. Apparently he does that, and maybe that's why he got his name.
Then we headed off for some more hiking, and then met Jane Goodall in a place where she was willing to talk to us.
I was really tempted to hug her too, but she had been "attacked" by a rock and her right arm was bruised all to hell. She was very nice, and had to plug her Root and Shoots program. We were all pretty spell-bound. She's one of those few, awesome, famous scientists, and every education volunteer is a scientist.
Then we relaxed for the night on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, getting ready for another day.
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Hilary reading
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Skipping stones
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Then for another day in the forest.
We managed to work it so that we were only in the forest over a 24 hours period, so we could keep it to a one day pass. It was pretty interesting to spend a good amount of time watching our closest species in their natural habitat. They don't actually do a lot, but they do make many facial expressions and dote over their young.
We also saw some red-crowned monkeys, and our guide said the chimps like their babies. I asked what they liked to do with the monkey babies, and he said "To eat." Ah, right, omnivores.
Then we hopped on another free boat back to Kigoma, missed our train and got on a bus. After two very long dusty, dirty bus rides across half a country on bad roads, I arrived back at home.
As a side note: If you, with a clear conscience, shop at Wal-Mart, vote for Republicans, think that the World Trade Organization is helpful, or if you just want to get a greater understanding of the developing world and your country's effect on it, then you should find, buy and read a copy of Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins. I read it in three days on this past trip. It is very depressing, but it's a true story everyone should know.
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