Baby Monkey

2-11-10

The past week has been a whirlwind of field trips and activities. I’m officially in love with Africa now. Before whenever I heard about those do-gooders who visit Africa and then spend the rest of their lives here I judged and was like that’ll never be me. Well it all makes sense now. But never fear I will be coming home, and after college I’ll come back; if anything at least to practice my ever-growing skills at Swahili. I can now count to twenty and tell the time, which by the way is very confusing. 7am is the number one in Swahili, so hard!! (saa moja asubuhi = 7:00am) At the moment I had planned on doing my laundry, handwashing and hanging to dry on a clothes line! Yes I’ll be doing that for three months… But instead it’s raining (wet season you know) so that is going to be postponed. More time for blogging. Last night I was in the classroom, around 9pm, and throughout the night we had seen lightening off in the distance but paid no mind. Then all of a sudden torrential downpour, monsoon, raining so hard like I’ve never seen before, it was beautiful. Emily and I ran outside and got soaking wet, then our internet went out for a while (probably someone uploading photos to Facebook). The lightening lit up the whole sky and the rain poured so hard for 45 minutes. We were all really happy to see the rain, for being the wet season it has been very dry. It was so much fun and of course meant none of us got work done and we were stuck in the classroom. We have a lot of observational reports and essays to write but it is nowhere near as stressful as it would be if I was in DC. Hakuna Matata. Lol, cracks me up every time someone says that.

So I should probably describe my adventures this past week. Another thing I love about Africa is that it never gets boring. On Wednesday we had our first safari, and the teachers announced it at dinner the night before like it was no big deal. All of our teachers are not official teachers; they are researchers who just happen to be teaching us. John Kioko works for the African Wildlife Foundation, Frankie has worked all over Tanzania and Mwamhanga is so obviously a genius it’s insane (except no one can understand his English which makes his lectures really confusing and long). Our Swahili teacher, Johana, is a Maasai warrior who attended University and skinned the goat for our goat roast. Oh did I mention we bought a goat, killed it, skinned it, roasted it and ate it? I’ve gone wild! The staff had mentioned the first night how delicious a goat roast is and our fine dining committee (we have committees for everything, I’m on the social, garden, bannanograms and reading committees) decided they wanted us to enjoy a goat roast. So they gathered money from everyone and sent Moses, the program assistant from Kenya who is basically our go-to-guy, to buy a goat. He bought it for 79,000 shillings, which for a healthy goat is a steal. Anyways they bought the goat and then the staff killed it and skinned it, with all of us watching in utter fascination. I realized how nerdy my fellow students were when during the skinning they were analyzing the ruminant stomach and talking about the dissections they have done for biology classes. Everyone who is here is pretty much a major in Environmental studies or biology, with some anthropology or psych thrown in. The two vegetarians (Kira is actually a vegan but that can’t be accommodated here so she is a temporary vegetarian) disappeared during the whole process, but everyone else watched in fascination. I was freaking out during the slaughtering because I don’t like things being killed, especially not in front of me, but I figured if I was going to eat this goat I better watch, for the cultural and educational experience. I have to say, not that I am really that experienced, the entire process was quiet humane, probably more so than slaughtering houses in America. And we ate every part of that goat, which was delicious, and what we didn’t we are going to use for other things. We are going to use the goat skin to make a drum, and then the staff took misc. other parts for their own purposes. I believe my Swahili teacher got the horns for a job well done. I actually was proud of myself for watching every part of it, the killing part was terrible but once the goat was officially dead (and the nerves cut so it stopped moving) I was totally fine. I can imagine the looks on some of my friends faces when they read this. Well whatever because when in Africa… I even ate the liver which is very popular delicacy here. I really liked it!

 I actually felt better for being part of the process and not removed. It’s embarrassing to explain to my teachers the concept of supermarkets like Safeway or Costco, especially when you can see the poverty and the lack of water and food resources everywhere. Another reason to be happy it rained is because we collect rain water and we just filled up our tanks from 40 minutes of torrential rain so we are no longer taking from the grid. I am really worried how I am going to feel when I return home. I love the amenities, but I hate the materialism and waste. That isn’t to say those things don’t exist here, but on a different level then at home. It’s also weird to talk to my teachers about environmental policy. In America all our laws are for the benefit of the people and we fight for animal rights, here all the laws (that I’ve learned so far) are for protection of animals and national parks and none for the benefit of the people. Except here, the people are struggling to survive. I won’t get into it, especially since I’ve only been learning about these issues for a week now, even with classes on Saturday. Our first non-program day is on Valentine’s Day. We all voted and we are going to go on the Elephant Cave Waterfall hike in Ngorongoro Crater, then see an Iraqw boma (a traditional hut and village designed for tourists, but very educational), then go into Karatu and get cheeseburgers at the Happy Days pub or go to the market.

I have to run off to class, Environmental Policy with Mwamhanga, I’m going to fight falling asleep which is hard after lunch, in this heat, when you can barely understand him. I will give all the details of my two safaris and visit to a Maasai Manyatta another day, don’t worry I won’t forget; one of the best experiences of my life, with hundreds of photos!!! I also visited the secondary school down the road yesterday, they taught me how to count to twenty and we played games with them for two hours. SO cute!! My title is in honor of my banda mate Erica who keeps singing Baby monkey, I suggest youtubing it! Running late now…

-Julie