October 26, 2008: Shattered Glass Sparkles on the Pavement
I'm a hundred and fifty pages into the second book for the day. I'm riding in the nicest bus I've been in for nearly a year. I got a discount for sitting in the jump-seat for the first half of the ride. This ride is too long. Someone gasps. Tires start squealing as the driver slams his foot down on the break pedal. I finish the sentence I'm on, place my finger at the period to remember my place, and look up in time to see the rear-end of a Land Rover break the windshield into a million pieces. To my right I see the same Land Rover spinning off into a ditch, with no apparent regard for the rules of the road.
When the world comes to rest I poke my head out the window to see the Land Rover twenty paces behind the bus, at the beginning of a streak of water. I hear a wail, and look down to see a woman sitting up from underneath the bus. I can see she's bleeding. I pull out my wallet, grab my latex examination gloves and head for the door.
By the time I get out of the bus there is a crowd of people, moving. Yelling. I'm about the seventh person to get to the woman under the bus. They're already moving her. A passing dala-dala nearly hits them. A man is already holding her head steady. He tells her not to move. Within thirty seconds a car is stopped and they move the woman inside and she is gone, to the hospital. In my left fist is a wad of latex gloves, still in the bag.
I cross the street and follow the widening path of water from the radiator to the front of the bus. Shattered glass sparkles gold on wet pavement, reflecting the sunlight of yet another beautiful African sunset. I sigh and start walking.
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October 20, 2008: Home?
The other day I had this conversation with one of my students I saw in town:
S: "Good evening, sir."
M: "Good evening. How are you?"
S: "I'm fine. Where are you going?"
M: "I'm just going home now."
S: "But I thought you would stay here and teach us for another year? Why are you going home?"
M: "I'm going home... to the Teacher's College... "
S: "Oh..."
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October 16, 2008: Nyerere Day
Tuesday was Nyerere Day. A day to celebrate Nyerere, the first president of Tanzania. It was a day off work.
So I do like I often do with free time and head up into the mountains. I am still searching for a route up the largest mountain which is either called Chem-Chem or Monduli, depending on who you ask. It is also the source of our water at the Teacher's College. Occasionally elephants come and rip up our pipes and drink our water.
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Who would have guessed there would be water in here?
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So I walked past that spot and up into the hills. An hour later I found some stinging nettles. About three minutes later I found a million stinging nettles. About 3o seconds after that I pulled out my machete and took out my anger on some stinging nettles and then on plants that blocked my view of stinging nettles. I hate stinging nettles.
So I was again, walking along through the forest and I got a whiff of buffalo, or elephants or something that smelled like a big dirty herbivore. I climbed a nearby tree to see if I could see them and I couldn't, so I went on a slightly different trail to get around them. More smells. Cautiously move forward. Smell getting stronger. Well, I didn't feel like getting gored by a buffalo in the middle of nowhere all by myself, so I walked home. I will be back there sometime. I really want to get to the top of the mountain and I was only a few km away.
I had some more extra free time so I went back to the Canyon of Death, where the buffalo heads were quite rotten, but mostly dry so the smell wasn't terrible. I did some rock climbing and after a while a couple of guys showed up with machetes. Someday I may live in a place where you don't worry if guys show up carrying AK-47s. The deathy-ness of the canyon made me slightly nervous, so I stood next to my bag, where I could pull out my machete if need be. They only wanted something to drink, so they went for some nice bug-infested water while I relaxed and carried on with my climbing. They thought it was kind of weird, but interesting. Good exercise, they said.
Then on my way out I found this strange fruit thing. It looked like an orange lychee. Inside it looked like gooey-red junk. I really wanted to know what it tasted like, so I decided to eat some random thing I found in the forest. It wasn't tasty, but it wasn't disgusting. Mildly sweet and with a green plant flavor.
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Would you eat it?
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September 20, 2008: Pemba
Pemba, the land of beautiful beaches, endless swiming, Islaam, and voodoo. Again, since I was traveling with my parents I got to fly there. A note for other volunteers: if you want your parents to fly you places, take them traveling on a day that includes three hours of dala-dalas and 10 hours of busses (Sorry Mom and Dad).
PCV Mike lives on a beautiful island and knows the best dive shop and resort:
Swahili Divers. Mike was nice enough to tell me all the information I needed to know to get there, reserve us rooms, pick us up at the airport and join us for several days on the beach.
The first day we were there there wasn't enough room on the boat to go diving and snorkeling, so we went for a walk to a very nice beach and a lighthouse.
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The lighthouse
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View from the lighthouse
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Then, due to circumstances surrounding plane flights and boats my parents had to leave before getting to go diving or snorkeling, which was very unfortunate. Mike and I got a dive in where we saw an eel, scorpion fish, some nudibranches, and a lot of other reef fish. I'd certainly like to go back someday, and if I get the chance I will.
Then on Saturday I started my longer journey back home. It involved two dala-dalas, a boat, a bus, then another dala-dala. Before going I got a quick look at Mike's site, where they were doing a Quaran reading competition. They are graded on correctness and intonation. It all has to be done from memory. They're increadibly good at it.
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One contestant
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Kids horsing around
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As another note, I made the mistake of waking up after the sun came up. Since I was on Pemba, and it was Ramadhan I couldn't eat. I met up with some PCVs in Dar and we went out for Indian food, which arrived at our table at about 10:30PM. So besides the orange that Neil and Sara gave me right after sundown and the sip of water I snuck at about noon at Mike's house I didn't eat or drink all day. I was quite dizzy by the time our food came. It gave me a lot of respect for the Muslims that are still working very hard while fasting.
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September 15, 2008: Ngorongoro
I finally made it to Ngorongoro Crater! How could I afford such a magnificant trip? My parents came to visit!
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Waterbuffalo on their way to drink
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Hippopotamus and bird friend
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A lion smacked around this Hyena
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There are black rhinos in there somewhere
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So we went with a local driver. His name was Vicent. Vicent is an awesome guy. When we came upon the lions, he pulled his safari car in front of the others to give us a better view. He didn't care about the big tour companies. Vicent owned, operated and maintained his own car. He didn't maintain it all that well, the following are pictures of the wheel of the car. Note how it's not attached.
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Yeah that's bad.
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So Vicent was working on re-attaching the wheel of our car, and another independent driver stopped to help. A third car came by to point out the three lions watching them. They didn't worry. They didn't even worry when we pointed out that one of them had disappeared. Turns out it just laid down, instead of going hunting, but it's not like they knew that. He stole some lug nuts off of other wheels, put it back on, and continued with the safari.
Travel Tips:
- Traveling to Ngorongoro Crater is expensive. Park entrance fees are $50 per person per day, $200 per day to bring in a car. The park rangers do not care if you're a resident. They also don't care if you're a teacher on a school trip. White people are not allowed in for cheaper than this.
- Local drivers are readily availible at Karatu. They are cheaper (if only marginally) and most importantly the money goes to the driver instead of some big tourist company. Reliability is not as good (see above story about the wheel), but honestly who wants to give money to foreign investors?
- Vicent's number is +255784761278, though he can barely speak English.
- You can see most things in a day. If you have that much money to burn, go to other parks. The scenery will be different, and so will the animals.
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