(Written May 8th before jason got here, but I just haven't had a chance to post til now...)
Last Tuesday, the day after Adrienne flew out, Ibrah and Ryan came to Dar from Moshi because Ryan was flying home on Wednesday afternoon. Tacy and I went to meet them for dinner at Ibrah’s friends house where they were staying the night, which started off a little disastrous. When we left the university by dala at around 6, I told Ibrah that we were on our way and said that that was fine. I know Ibrah pretty well and know hes bad about being on time sometimes… but what I didn’t know was that right then he was still in downtown Dar, which is at least 45 minutes away from where we were headed even when there isn’t traffic… which there was. Anyways, to make a long story short, Tacy and I had to wait at the bus stop at Kimara Mwisho for over an hour waiting for them to get there to pick us up, most of which was night which made it a little sketchy for two little white girls to be hanging around alone. It was a safe area so it wasn’t a big deal, but still not exactly ideal. Nonetheless, when we finally met up with them we had a really great night. Not to mention that Ibrah happened to know a whole group of 5 girls from Tacy’s tiny little 800 person college in Florida because they had volunteered with CCS a few years ago! I feel like this always happens to me… what a small world.
In the past two weeks school has been a bit hectic because our teachers finally realized that we need some sort of work/graded assignments in order to actually give us grades at the end of the semester. Apparently this whole idea didn’t hit them until very recently, because I now officially have a test, presentation, or essay due in just about every class period that I have for the rest of the semester haha. I had heard that classes here were a joke at the beginning and then everything gets stuffed into the last few weeks… but I guess I didn’t really understand how ridiculous it actually is. In some classes we literally have a midterm (only test) one week and then the final exam the next week haha. It’s so bizarre. Although the projects and tests aren’t really that difficult, I’ve still been busy with school stuff fairly consistently recently, which was a big switch from the first ten weeks or so of the semester.
On top of all the work that we all the sudden have, I have been running all over Dar the past week and a half trying to get stuff organized for Jason to come (my research partner) and trying to get this **** research approval letter. I ended up getting the research clearance letter from the Open University of Tanzania (OUT) through the Vice Chancellor, Tolly Mbwette, who is Prof Senkoro’s relative that has been helping me. Although that did make life easier because I didn’t have to stalk down 15 or so people from the University of Dar es Salaam and instead got it directly approved by Prof Mbwette, it meant that I had to make about 5 trips to OUT (which is over a half hour and two daladalas away) and wait for hours while it got passed through all sorts of different departments. Nonetheless, I think it will be extremely helpful in starting my research so I guess it was worth all the waiting.
On last Friday, all of the remaining girls from the Florida program (me, Tacy, Mary, and Mac) went with a few of our Tanzanian friends to Kipepeo Beach. The beach is the same one we went to at the beginning of the semester which is about a 2 hour dala trip away, but it is absolutely worth the traveling. The beach is beautiful and much cleaner than most of the beaches in Dar. It had been raining on and off all week, but we totally lucked out and the weather was gorgeous all day.
On Saturday during the day, Tacy and I made a trip to Posta (downtown Dar) to go to this bookstore that we wanted to find and to visit the botanical gardens. Bookstore: worth the travel, bought some awesome books written by African authors. Botanical gardens: pathetic… basically just a tiny park that covered maybe one square block and had like ten flowers. At least we had 50% success though haha. At night, we were all invited to go to dinner with Professor Mbwette (the Vice Chancellor of the Open University) at the “Blue Gate Club.” Didn’t really know what that meant at the time, but it turns out to be an outdoor restaurant which sells mainly “kiti moto” (fried pork) and is owned by his family. Prof Mbwette’s son, Kennedy, is actually a first year student at UDSM which I hadn’t known before. Kennedy and two of his friends came to dinner as well, which was fun to meet some more students.
On Sunday, I went to the Mwenge woodcarvers market with Tacy (where I teach during the week) to start learning how to carve. Besti and Lyala, two of the woodcarvers who we are friends with, are teaching us how to carve. Tacy started going to learn a while ago with Adrienne so she’s a lot better than I am, but she’s been helping me out too. I’m carving a pipe right now, because that is apparently what they always teach people how to carve first since it is one of the more simple things you can make. Carving is so so so difficult though…. As with most artwork, I have so much more appreciation for any of the things I am buying after seeing how hard it is to actually do the carving. It’s funny because I probably do 90% of the time spent carving my pipe, yet maybe only 50% of the total work. I spend twenty minutes trying to cut out a small area and carve it into the correct shape, and then Lyala or Besti stops me and finishes the same amount in less than 2 minutes. Makes me feel a tad pathetic haha, but I’m really enjoying it nonetheless.
This week almost all of our classes got cancelled for some reason, the teachers didn’t show up, or we had a test to take in class. So our classes are just as much of a joke as ever, but oh well. It was actually nice to have a break this week because I was running around so hectically trying to get things organized for Jason’s arrival. I did finally get the research letter on Thursday afternoon, which was a bit of a close call before we were planning to leave for Dodoma, but oh well. Oh and one more exciting thing, we went to go eat antelope for lunch on Friday! It was a bit tough and a little bit odd flavored, but not bad on the whole… and definitely worth eating just for the sake of being able to say I ate antelope haha.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment