Ayayayayay....

So here’s a recap of last week’s events, during which time I probably underwent just about every human emotion you can imagine…

This past weekend I left on Friday at 9am from my house at Dakawa to go to Dar for the weekend. I left my house so early in anticipation of being able to make it to Dar by the early afternoon so that when I arrived it would still be broad daylight. I arrived in Morogoro around 10:30am and went to grab some early lunch at my favorite place to eat: The Blue Room. I was at the bus station ready to take off for Dar by 12:00pm. As soon as I got to the bus station everyone was calling after me, “Unaenda wapi?” (“Where are you going?”). When I replied “Dar” a guy led me by the arm to a bus and before I knew it I’d paid the 5,000 shillings at the door and been pushed onto the bus. A split second after I knew I’d made the wrong decision to get on that bus.

I looked around and there were only four people on the whole bus! It was almost totally empty and with the way the buses work here, with everyone paying for their tickets at the door and buses not leaving until they’re packed with people, I knew it was going to be a long wait. The bus I was on was called, “Islam” on the front. To my right there was a “Hood” bus and beyond that there was an “Abood” bus. All three buses were going to Dar. The bus I was on was pretty old and rickety compared to the Hood and Abood buses which looked more polished and like they functioned better. Alas, I ended up waiting on my bus to leave for more than three hours during which time three Hood buses and five Abood buses had already left for Dar since the time I’d arrived at the bus station. By the time we left I was at the end of my wits already…I was getting really impatient and cranky and felt like I’d been ripped off. In the time it took me to even leave Morogoro, two friends of mine who are also volunteers had gotten on their Abood bus and had already arrived in Dar! Ayayay. Needless to say I was a little pissed, haha. So much for trying to arrive fairly early in Dar. After the time we left Morogoro around 3:00pm it ended up taking a little over four hours to actually get to the bus stop in Dar! It usually takes about two and a half to three hours on a normal bus, eish! My bus was so old and run down that we could barely chug our way up all the big hills on the highway. I saw way too many 18-wheeler trucks and even larger Abood and Hood buses whoosh by us, even up hills, than I was happy with. I finally arrived in Dar at 7pm and it was already dark out. I was awfully sore because I hadn’t even stood up out of my seat or walker around at all since I’d boarded the bus at noon.

As soon as I arrived in Dar a smidgeon of good luck reigned on me. My friend, Pendo, who owns his own car said that he was on his way to pick me up from the bus station and that he was going to bring me to his house where he and his girlfriend were preparing dinner for me already and had set up their bathroom for me to take a refreshing shower. Holy cow I was ecstatic…after a journey like that even a meal off the street and a bucket bath with dirty water would’ve made me feel better, haha. Luckily, I ran into better luck than that though. On our way back to his house we picked up my other friend, Roman, who I’d ended up staying the whole last week with. We all went back to Pendo’s house for dinner and drinks. Apparently one of Pendo’s housemates had seen a small black snake in her bedroom for a split second and had totally freaked out and told the whole house about it. By the time we got to the house everyone had evacuated to the outdoors! We spent about an hour looking for the snake with no success and finally called it quits, even though our eyes were still as alert as hawks when we went back inside. Later on we had a scrumptious homemade dinner and sat outside and chilled and talked. Aside from the snake scare, it was a great start to a much-needed night out after all that traveling!

After dinner we stopped by another friend’s house to pay our respects since his father had passed away 40 days ago. According to Tanzanian culture, once someone you know has been deceased for 40 days you unite with friends and family and have a final celebration and remembrance party in honor of that person’s life. After 40 days passes you culturally expected to lessen your grieving, pick yourself back up again, and move on as you continue living your life. It was a nice celebration and it was great to see my friend, Kiki. I’d met him while I was studying abroad at the University of Cape Town more than two years ago.

From there we shifted gears and headed to my favorite club in Dar which I hadn’t yet been to since I got to Tanzania more than two months ago! The club is called Bilicanas, but it’s called “Billz” for short. I went with Pendo, Roman, and two other of their guy friends. It always seems like I’m the only lady that goes out with a ton of guys, haha. At least I always have an abundance of dance partners to choose from. We got to the club around 2am and danced the night away until about 4:30am. The place was emptier than usual because a lot of people who would have been at the club are staying home for this month while they celebrate Ramadan. Even so I had a ton of fun and it was such great stress relief to dance after having been cooped up in a bus all day! We called it and night and Roman and I headed home and went straight to bed.

On Saturday morning I was extremely happy to wake up at Roman’s house. It’s a really cozy two-bedroom apartment right in the center of Dar es Salaam. When I woke up Roman’s mom, whom I refer to as Mama Lemi (because Roman’s older brother’s name is Lemi), had already made us stacks of fresh Tanzanian style pancakes with fresh berry jam. I can’t even explain how good they were. After having standard oatmeal, cereal, and fruit for breakfast for the past month, I was more than delighted to feast on pancakes. We ate pancakes as we watched television and got up to date on all the news that was circulating around the globe. I hadn’t been able to watch television in such a long time since I arrived at Dakawa, so it was truly a luxury! We mainly watched Aljazeera, CNN, and the BBC. It’s really interesting watching Aljazeera in particular because it’s a very Eastern perspective of what’s going on in the world. Most of the time at home all of the news stations are so Western focused, so it’s been really nice to see a change in perspective. There was certainly a lot of news this past week, most of which was really horrible: terrible floods have destroyed thousands of people’s lives in Pakistan and China; a bus hostage crisis in the Philippines ended up killing 8 tourists from Hong Kong before police could gun down the Philippino ex-police officer holding them hostage who was demanding to get his job back; two plane crashes killed dozens in China and Nepal; bombings and fighting in Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan killed a ton of people, ayayay I could go on and on. Although I certainly felt informed after watching the news, it was really depressing watching it. Since I haven’t seen the news in such a long time I’d forgotten how saliently the saying “All news is bad news” applies to the news today. I was disgusted and appalled and totally shocked. After watching the news I just thanked my lucky stars that I’ve been safe and mostly happy in Tanzania since I arrived and that everyone I love and care about is doing well in the world. I know that’s super mushy to say, but you should just eat it up and thank your lucky stars too, haha.

In addition to vegging to television this past week, Roman and I also went to the beach with Pendo and met a few of the other volunteers in the program at the beach off the coast of Dar this last Saturday. It was such a lovely day outside and it was really great to relax on the beach, swim in the ocean, and catch up with good friends of mine. The last time I’d been at the beach I had a wicked case of pink eye, or Nairobi Lady Eyes, so I can’t even tell you how happy I was that I could see clearly this time and fully enjoy the beach in good health. We stayed there all afternoon and came back home that night. We had dinner at Roman’s house and then got ready to go out with some more friends on Saturday evening. We met up at this nice place by the ocean to have a couple of drinks and then we all piled in our cars to go to a new club that just opened up in Dar called “Sun Cirro.” The club was ok…it sort of looked like an oversized basement warehouse in which the space for the balconies could have been majorly expanded to accommodate even more people on the top floor, but the main dance floor on the first floor was pretty cool. At certain points bubbles showered onto the dance floor from above. I got so excited about dancing in bubbles, haha. The music was pretty good, too. It was a mix of American pop and hip hop for a while, then some native Tanzanian Bongo Flava, then some South African tunes. For some peculiar reason, whenever any South African music comes on at the clubs here in Dar nearly everyone in the whole club gets up to do the electric slide dance over and over and over again. I swear everyone did it for even longer than half an hour straight. Now, I would totally enjoy this event if I could actually do the electric slide correctly, haha. However, I somehow seem to be electric slide-challenged. One of my small goals this year is to become a pro at the electric slide to the point where I’m not fumbling around the dance floor when I’m doing it with everyone else, haha. I’ll keep you posted on that progress…

Sunday I slept in late and met two of my volunteer friends at one of the more ritzy places in Dar es Salaam that’s usually where a lot of wealthy tourists stay. It’s called SlipWay and it’s right on the harbor in Dar. My friends grabbed lunch there and we went to the bookshop and a few stores to browse around. Most of the things at SlipWay are outrageously overpriced. I’ve gotten so good at bargaining these days that I’m barely willing to go into a closed off shop where the prices are already marked…especially at SlipWay. Luckily there was an outdoor market with Tanzanian crafts where you could bargain for different things so I went there for a bit. I ended up getting a few gifts for my friend Roman and his mother as thank yous for hosting me this past weekend. I got Roman a wooden pic since he’s got a big afro now and I got his mom a carved and painted fish to decorate her bathroom. I also got a few other items and was happy that I got some good deals because I was able to bargain solely in Swahili with the vendors. Once they knew I spoke Swahili they were more inclined to give me fairer prices, which I am definitely a fan of. After SlipWay my friends headed to the bus station to go back to Dar and I headed to the giant mall on the way. We took a bajaji, which is pretty much like a motorized tricycle that can get up to about 30 mph, haha. They come in handy when you’re looking for cheap and quick transportation. The guy was going to charge us 9,000 Tsh but I talked him down to 6,000 for the three of us. Another prideful bargaining moment, haha. I departed from my friends and headed into the mall to purchase a few things for back home. I met up with a Tanzanian friend of mine at the mall and then headed home to Roman’s place. All of a sudden I had gotten a wicked stomach ache and had to go home right away to lay down. Roman was out having dinner with his dad so it was just me and his mom at home for a while.

Although I was set to go back to Dakawa on Monday, I felt way too sick to even think about going back as I had planned. I went to sleep Sunday night and by Monday morning I felt like there was a war going on inside my stomach. I’m not sure what caused my horrible stomach pains (it could have been dirty water, spoiled food, etc.), but I hope I don’t have to go through that again. Luckily I was in the right place at the right time when I got sick because Mama Lemi is a pharmacist. Pharmacists here are pretty much like doctors who you go see, tell your symptoms to, and they give you medicine. It’s much easier to go see a pharmacist and cut out the doctor as the middle person if you can. Mama Lemi is very loving and motherly and also a very wise pharmacist…she’s seen it all. At fight she thought I had malaria and then she thought it was worms (eww), but finally she decided that I had a bad bacterial stomach infection. By the time we figured out what I was actually sick with I’d taken drugs for malaria and worms without starting to feel better. However, once I started taking an antibiotic for the bacterial infection I slowly began feeling better. The first part of this past week was pretty lame because I could do little more than just lay down for hours straight at Roman’s house on his living room couch. Fortunately I got to watch a few movies and all the news I could stomach (no pun intended) during the hours I was awake so I wasn’t too bored. By Wednesday my stomach began feeling ok but I was still totally drained and wiped out from being so sick during the first couple days of the week. By Wednesday evening I had already missed my Tuesday and Wednesday classes at Dakawa and I was going to miss my Thursday morning class as well the next day. At that point I’d decided it would be in my best interest to just wait out my sickness and lay low in Dar through the weekend until I was feeling all better. That was until Thursday morning, however.

On Thursday the program director from the U.S. was visiting our site at Dakawa with our field director and they wanted to see me there with my other two housemates. In addition, my two housemates claimed if I wasn’t back by Friday for the computer class that would take place late Friday afternoon then one of them would have to teach it and that would ruin their joint plan to leave Dakawa early Friday to go to Dar for the whole weekend. Under pressure I made the spur of the moment decision Thursday morning to go back to Dakawa, even though I wasn’t feeling 100%. By the time I reached home on Thursday I was utterly exhausted and only spent a few minutes with our guests. I laid down the rest of the evening and got up to write the bulk of this post.

On Friday I went to Morogoro on a whim in the morning and picked up my package that my mom sent me...finally! I don't think I've ever been so happy to open one piece of mail in my entire life as when I opened that package!! I got oodles of awesome things from the States and I'm so grateful! :) On Friday night I decided to stay overnight in Morogoro and then Saturday afternoon I returned home. Now it's Sunday and I'm back in town again...I had to come back to pick up more groceries and things from the market here that I can't get at Dakawa. Now I'm about to head home again and teach for another week. It will be nice teaching again after being gone all last week. I've really missed my students!