twiga twiga lovebird

2-25-2009
10:01 am

the past few days have been crazy! i actually seem to have lost track of what day it is. let's see if i can remember back to my last post.

on sunday, we started the day by going to an assemblies of god church service. it was fascinating. there were people hallelujahing and amening in every direction and everyone prayed out loud. the coolest part of the service was the maasai choir. the women wear huge beaded necklaces adn the men are dresssed in brightly colored, patterned fabric.

after church my group walked into town for lunch. walking the streets of arusha is exhausting, exhilirating, heartbreaking and somewhat of a death sentence. there's an outstretched hand everywhere you look. children are begging for money. the streets are filthy, dusty, and SO crowded. the cars seem to be oblivious to pedestrians and there are no stoplights (well, actually, there's one in town, but that's it), so you basically just dart across the street when you see an opening in the flow of traffic. it made me realize just how incredible peace house is. the kids here come from these crazy streets.

7:32 pm
i had to go to lunch. now i'm back. but campus is like a sanctuary. it's quiet, clean, and most importantly, safe.

andrew met up with my group for lunch (which is a tad more difficult here than it is at home, as neither of us have cell phones and the streets do not have names!).

from there, we all went to the maasai curios market. it's basically an outdoor market, where everyone has cramped, cluttered stalls. the vendors stand in front of you, begging you to come into their stall. once you're in, they stand in front of the exit in an attempt to keep you in there until you buy something. apparently you're supposed to bargain for prices, which it turns out i'm quite bad at. luckily andrew drives a hard bargain, so he made a good shopping partner :)

my shopping stamina was poor that day, so andrew and i skipped the rest of the alotted shopping time and walked to his house from the market. (as a sidenote, mileage wise i'm pretty sure we live closer here in africa than we do at home. haha, super crazy!) i got to see his room, meet "mama," and... pet his cow!! true story.

monday and tuesday we were on SAFARI! it was incredible. on monday we were in lake manyara national park. our group was split into two SUVS. our day started when kibo (the company) picked us up at phs. when we arrived at the entrance of the park, our guides had to fill out some paperwork. moses, my guide, told us we could get out of the car and walk around, but to keep the doors and windows shut. apparently the other car missed that memo, because all of a sudden we heard screaming. a huge baboon (at least twice the size of picabo) had jumped into the car to steal a bag of granola. it was hysterical, but i probably wouldn't have laughed so hard if it had hopped into my car. those things are scary! our best sightings monday were a bunch of giraffes (moses would chant "twiga twiga!" everytime we spotted one), baboons, and hippos. at the end of the day, we came across a group of 3 elephants. a herd? a pack? well, whatever. there was an adult, a middle-sized one, and a little baby that moses estimated was only a couple months old. they decided to cross the road directly behind the van-we literally could have reached out to pet them. not going to lie, i was seriously tempted.

both nights we stayed at a gorgeous old farm house. i was in the kasuku room. aka the "lovebird" room. by myself. sad day.

yesterday morning we were up at 5:30 to start day 2 of the safari. we headed to ngorongoro crater, which was formed when a volcano collapsed. we saw THOUSANDS of wildebeast, zebras, and flamingos. we also saw a few cheetahs from afar, a wildebeast giving birth, the highly endangered black rhino, jackals, more elephants, and many other animals. the best part of possibly the whole trip was when we were approached by 8 lions-a male, 3 females, and 4 little cubs.

2-26-2009
6:00 pm
last night i totally conked out before i finished writing. i've been writing all my entries on paper so i can just upload them all at once. after "4 little cubs," i have written, "althoug (no 'h') were different sizes, so they probably have different ages, but differences." and then there's a giant scribble across the page. why yes, i did go to sleep at 8:20 last night. apparently sitting in a car all day takes more stamina than i had previously thought.

i didn't really have that much more to write. i've decided though that if the whole marine biology thing doesn't work out, i'm for sure becoming a safari guide!

for those of you hoping for great pics, you aren't going to see TOO many. there were a couple people on our trip who brought two cameras and spent the entire safari staring at one animal at a time, waiting for it to turn its head to the perfect angle to get the perfect shot. they missed half the experience because they were so focused on their pictures. i decided i don't want to spend my whole trip seeing the world through a view finder. it's way too pretty and exciting-the pictures don't do it justice. plus, how many pictures of zebras can one honestly want???

ps-i would normally save this until a later update, especially because this is getting ridiculously long, but i'll just quickly do my daily update. the superintendent of phs (paul)'s neighbor had some people break into his house the other night in town and was robbed at gunpoint and machete... point? paul, his wife, and his 1 year old child are moving into the guesthouse i've been staying in. today was spent packing up the simba house and moving into tembo. i also got to go to a farmers market type thing and out to lunch with jenaya. more importantly, we finally chose from the bajillion of projects and settled on two of the most important. while at peace house, i, the world's most mathematically challenged human being, will be tutoring math and coaching netball. for those of you who have never heard of netball, don't be alarmed, as i had never heard of it either. this weekend will be spent trying to remember how to do long division and learning the rules of this mysterious sport!




didn't have a camera by my side this time. hoping i would see the world through both my eyes. let me say, you should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes. it brought me back to life. no more 3x5s. today i finally overcame trying to fit the world inside a picture frame. --john mayer