FINALLY....the infamous blog....

10/6/08

Juice…

I have suddenly stopped drinking the ‘fresh’ squeezed juice and Haika has taken notice. So, this morning while I am eating alone, she asks me, ‘why?’ Ah, well, honestly I didn’t stop drinking it because of the water, but she is mixing fruit in there I don’t like. So without Amanda I sit trying to say.. ninapenda nanasi (I like pineapple), ninapenda chungua (I like oranges) hapana (no) mango, hapana passion. [By the way, I barely know how to speak Swahili let alone spell it, so I am typing it phonetically how it sounds to me!] Yeah, that’s the best I can do, but she understands! She immediately picks up the oranges and wants to go make me some… hapana hapana hapana asante! Oi! A banana, toast, and water will be just fine believe it or not! Hell, that’s more than I eat at home! I am the weird American who never wants to eat and Amanda is the polar opposite American who always eats! Sheesh, keep stuffing the Americans though! Mama Dorica said she wanted to send me home nice and fat…umm Mama Dorica I am already fat and I would rather go home a few pounds lighter, eh?

School….

Ah, so today we were suppose to start classes, right? Ah, alas, it’s October and you think I am going to bring you good news? Well, baba dropped me off at 8:30 and I sat outside the classroom waiting patiently for my very first class to start. As I was sitting there I began to realize, I might actually have to take notes since professors won’t be posting their slides online. Lacey, write notes?! Get serious kids! What shall I do, but that will figure its self out. Anyhow, I mingle my way into the classroom accompanied by the local birds and a slight few other students. Since I already stand out like a sore thumb, I decide I will sit in the third row—close enough to the professor so I can hear since all doors and windows are open for our lovely fresh air! Anyways, to my luck, the professor starts talking in Swahili! You must be joking right?! After a few minutes I discover this is not a psychology class, but rather a law class. Seriously? So, I gather my crap and up pops the white kid in the third row and shimmy my way out. Deep breath. I will find my classes and hopefully next week, everything will be ok!

So, I hike back up to the wireless hotspot to find our other foreign friends. I look around online at the time tables in hopes of finding who the professors are because apparently this is the best way to find out when your class actually is. I have no such luck and decide (after having another minor heart attack about my required foreign language not being offered) to gather my belongings and hike home. It’s much easier going home as it’s all down hill, but I have another class at three so I will end up hiking back. Anyways, after trying to take a short cut and being chased by this enormous bug, I managed to find home…only to not be able to go in! Bug man is here and not the ordinary bug man, but a mosquito man. So, I sit on the porch with Haika and the other maid next door. They start molesting my smooth legs, which I happened to have shaved yesterday. They’re laughing, ranting, and giggling in Swahili. They want me to touch their hairy legs…thanks, but no thanks! Needless to say, my nose nearly falls off with this pesticide inhalation and I am not even in the house. I feel like at any moment it’s going to burst into blood accompanied by all my sneezing. So I am sitting under a tree listening to a mix of music while Haika records it on her phone/tries to take pictures of me? Forgot to mention—she wants to wash my bed sheets! If you haven’t already taken note on my hoarding issues with my soft clothes—I don’t want her to wash my sheets!!!!!! Please not my sheets! Hapana! Hapana! She’s replies, “whyy?” with a funny look. I pull my sheets out of the dirty clothes and set them on the table by the front door. Hapana sheets, sawaw?! I will bring them back to bed when I go inside and my sheets will remain unwashed for three months! I don’t care! So as we are sitting under the tree, to my surprise, the pesticide man walks around the house with his blower and mists the house with his pesticide. Guess what? Yeahh, there sit my sheets as I watch them get torched with the pesticide. ****! ****! ****! WHY?!!!! Why did it have to be my sheets! Ndyo, sawaw, now you can wash my sheets Haika. Argh, there is no way they will even be dry by tonight! I don’t want hard crunchy sheets. I don’t, I don’t!

::crying::pouting::

So after ranting and raving about the bug man ruining my precious sheets, I throw my laptop in my bag, grab my chair, and walk back over to the porch. Ahh, my inner OCD voice says, sniff the sheets, sniff the sheets Lacey, it’s worth a try and if you smell the pesticide then let Haika wash them. Oh, I love talking with my inner voice—it tells me to do a lot of good things such as type this blog for your sheer entertainment my dear reader. Sooo, I reach over to my pile of sheets and take a nice big whiff! Smells good to me! That’s right, you filthy sheets are coming back upstairs with me. You will not be washed and I will sleep in dirty pesticide sheets for two more months! HA! I am a happy kid again!


Sweat…

Well, I hiked to campus in the dead heat of the day after eating lunch with baba, walked into my second class of the day to find—no French class. Go figure. I turned around and decided time to go face Emmanuel in the links office. Thankfully he wasn’t there, but I do find mama Kaaya and we venture to the department head of the times tables. No luck. The man looks at me and says, “I don’t know, class should be there.” “Should I just try again tomorrow?” “Yeah, try again tomorrow and hopefully by next week everything will be sorted out.” “Ah, thanks, thanks a lot.” So, since three of my classes overlap tomorrow morning at 10 am, I am undecided which class I should give a try in hopes of finding a class. I have already taken calc-it’s just a class for credits. I need French to graduate-but have a strange feeling it won’t be there and the psych class seems to be a toss up. Maybe I will try French again.

I am sitting back at home titling my fingers wondering what I should do while listening to Mercy Me, Homesick. It’s an amazing song, but not exactly helping my crappy mood. It’s making me think of America, Grandma, God, friends, and I have it on REPEAT. Crystal’s favorite button, but it’s totally crushing what little ounce of happiness I can find at this moment in time. Should I walk to Milimani City and stand in line to use an ATM—maybe go to a movie after or find something in the store to entertain myself? I just want some sort of order, a little bit of routine would be nice! Sent Rachel a text—maybe I can meet her at the orphanage. Something, anything!


Amanda…

I am lying in bed when she walks in and turns on the lights…to her surprise she finds new sheets on her bed. I laugh knowing what happened today and am forced to roll over and enlighten her about Haika wanting to wash our sheets. For whatever reason though, Haika didn’t get the chance to do it today and brought Amanda’s sheets back up and put them in the dirty basket—so I point to her sheets. Amanda picks them up and sits on the edge of her bed like a little girl holding her favorite stuffed animal and says, ‘I don’t want her to wash my sheets either.’ So as she is holding her sheets I proceed to tell her how they were also mystified with the pesticide, but I still took my sheets back. She hesitates long and hard before ripping apart her flowery bed sheets Haika had ironed this afternoon and reapplying her dirty sheets.

10/7/08

Maybe today I will have better luck with classes? NOT! I am going to be back in America before classes ever start! I went to two classes this morning and the first was empty and the other was an accounting lecture. I should currently be hiking back to school but I am icing my knee and listening to homesick. Perhaps I should delete the song and stop torturing myself. No, that would only make sense. Anyways, my knee hasn’t hurt like this since my first two days in Dar. I had to sleep with it on a pillow last night after taking some medicine. I am assuming it wasn’t happy with the two hikes to campus yesterday because otherwise I haven’t been doing anything different. My first two days here we toured all of downtown Dar so that was probably a great deal of stress plus an acclimation to the weather. Anyhow, it should be back normal or as normal as it can get by tomorrow I hope.

Well, I ventured to the American embassy today…ALONE! Yeah, Amanda and I couldn’t go together because our schedules conflict and today was the last day we could go and send in our votes for presidency! Whoo hoo! It was so exciting to vote and totally worth the venture. When I say venture, let me explain. I have been out of shillings for quite some time and all I have is about 7 American dollars so I waited in a line for about thirty minutes to get some shillings. After, I collect my money and I hike to the road in hopes of finding a Bahjahjee. Of course when you need one, there isn’t any! My reasoning for taking one of these versus a daladala—I don’t know where to get off on the daladala. I can get to mwenge and from mwenge I can catch a daladala towards Posta or KKoo, but I don’t know when to scream and tell them I want off! So, a Bahjahjee will take me right where I need to go. Anyhow, I finally find me a Bahjahjee and tell him I want to go to the Embassy and I ask him how much it will cost. He says 10. I pause for a moment and say 1,000 or 10,000 and he says, one zero zero zero. So a thousand—wow, that’s a deal and I hop on board! He starts heading in the right direction before stopping to ask someone who speaks English where exactly I want to go. Then he turns around and starts heading towards Umbungo. Oh no, what did those two Tanzanians just say and where is he really taking me. That, my friends, was my initial thought. I don’t understand the language and I don’t know my way around well enough, should I go home? No, no I have to vote. So, I tell him to STOP and turn back around towards Mwenge. I say to him, Mwenge to Posta. Just take me to Posta and I will walk the rest of the way. Well, he keeps trying to talk to me and I keep saying sijui repetitively which translates to ‘I don’t know.’ How vulnerable do I look and hell, at this point, feel. I have over a 130,000 shillings on me because I just went to the bank, I can’t speak a lick of Swahili, and all I can tell him is Posta. So he seems to be heading in the right direction, but I am not entirely sure as he is taking back routes. I feel safer on main roads where I can see the daladala’s passing by, but I sit and enjoy my ride. We approach a familiar looking intersection and I motion him with my hands to turn right. He hesitates, but I keep insisting I know where I am at and I want to go right. So right he turns and wrong I was! I thought the embassy was on the next corner, but nope. So he stops and I start laughing while saying, posta, posta, posta. So he starts driving again and I sit back for the adventure. We pass by the ocean, Steers, the little Vegas building, but no Embassy. He pulls into this fairly nice looking hotel and says, posta! Well, Mr. this isn’t the Posta I have come to know in the past 3 weeks so I am not getting out of your bahjahjee yet. This is a completely foreign place! So, he finds him some taxi friends and tells them what’s happening. They ask me where I want to go and I reply, US Embassy! They start laughing and talking in Swahili and give the poor man directions. We take off and not to my surprise, pass the ocean again and many other places we had cruised by previously before he turns down this awkward street and drives for a few more minutes before pulling over and shutting off his moped. My thought—oh shit, I should have had him take me home! He says, here! Um, no, this isn’t the Embassy either and I am not getting off here because I don’t know where I am at. At this point, I am wondering if I should tell him to just take me back to the University and I’ll try a daladala or should I keep going with this man. Again, no I must vote so as he is pointing up towards these houses, I tell him no and he starts his moped back up and heads straight. Just moments later I am yelling, stop! I see the guards and the Embassy! Alas! I go to pay him and I hand him 5000 and he says 10. Are you serious? 10,000? I thought you said 1000, but I didn’t try and bargain anything as I had been driving this poor man all over Dar for nearly 45 minutes trying to find the Embassy. So anyways, I finally get to vote and leave the embassy against my will. I love the Embassy—the toilets are so Americanized that you don’t even flush them. Anyhow, I am walking out and heading towards the daladala station (I can get myself home on a daladala, just not to places) when there comes my previous bahjahjee driver! He stops and I tell him I want to go to back to the school, but for 5000. He agrees and brings me home safely. So despite being totally ripped off from the bahjahjee, I like to think of it as a whole. I spent 15,000 shillings for a ride to and from the embassy which breaks down to approximately 7,500 shillings per way. Baba said it should cost about 3,000 so I paid double, but that’s what I get for being an American and not knowing their language. I spent roughly 15 American dollars to get my vote in and it better make a difference! Oh, and when I got home, I went to get a coke from the house Haika always buys them from. I give the lady a 5000 and she gives me back 3500 and a coke. I thought she gave me back 4,500 which was still technically wrong, but not a significant amount off. I walk home and look at my money again when I notice she totally was off in giving me back change! These Tanzanians are taking full advantage of me! So I tell Haika and she walks back to the house with me, says something in Swahili and gets me my 1000 shillings back! Go Haika! The coke was supposed to cost 400 and I paid 1500! Whoa! They still owe me a hundred and Haika said they would give it back to me later. From now on, I will let Haika get me drinks—I was just trying to make her life a tad easier.


10/8/08

Posta…

Another big story: Warning!

After telling Mama Dorica yesterday about my troubles of getting to the US Embassy, she insisted on me taking a taxi driver that was a friend of theirs. So, after battling this out through the evening with her saying I can take a dala dala, let me pay, etc I decided to just go with it.

I wake up this morning to Haika asking me if I am going to school. It’s not even 7 am, but I had tossed and turned since the sun came around at 6 am! Yeah, way too early for me and I don’t have my black out shades. So anyways, I tell Haika yes, school and eventually get up to go and try to find this class. Well, it’s Wednesday and again, I have yet to discover a class, but instead of worrying about my classes today, I am ecstatic to pick up my box from Posta! I rush home and text Mama Dorica who then calls for the driver to come and pick me up. Whoa, front door service with air conditioning. Could I ask for more…other than my package at the post office!?! Ah, totally stoked as Amanda might say.

I arrive at Posta and head inside to collect my goods and can hardly keep a smile off my face. For a slight minute I thought they weren’t going to give me the box because it was for ‘Mabel Kaaya.’ I would not have been a graceful, looking American had I not gotten my box, but with a phone call to Mama Dorica they released the box. If my smile wasn’t big enough before they brought out the box, it was definitely visible after they brought it out. I was expecting the malaria pills and not too much more, especially since this wasn’t the box from Crystal. They make me pay for it and then walk me over to customs and make me pay another fee. Who knew, but my thought, are you serious? Totally wiped me empty of all my shillings and thank goodness I wasn’t paying for the taxi because otherwise I would have been in trouble and standing in line at the bank takes forever. The box was already smashed and bent out of shape, but what do they do to it at customs—hack it open and start shuffling through the items. Ah, thanks, appreciate that. I don’t notice much, but can’t wait to get into the car and take a better look.

Let me set the scene—a white foreigner locked in the back of a taxi with a box. Driver, driving and dodging other cars.

I notice my favorite sweater has been packed in this box—the one I forgot and only noticed after arriving at the airport and boarding my palne! I reach in to remove it and notice it is wet and smelly. A little bummed, but I yank it out.

Big deep breath for what is about to occur. I have a minor phobia and some might argue it’s more than just minor, but I like to think of it as minor. So out comes my wet, stinky sweater with a GINORMOUS ROACH! I freak and maybe freak is an understatement. My heart jumps out of my chess, I scream loud enough that every pedestrian could probably hear me through the windows, and I leap onto the middle consul with my left foot while my right foot lands on his back seat and my ass hits the roof. Get me out of this locked car before I break down into tears over a cockroach. Ridiculous, I know and I probably created a minor heart attack for the driver as he swerves off the road, unlocks the door, and out leaps the white person. I am looking at the box, holding back my tears, calming my heart, and refusing to get in the car until he gets that nasty ass creature out!

Big sigh, it’s okay, it’s gone, I take a deep breath, remind myself it is just a bug, and I get back in the car. I smash myself as far away from the box as possible (where ever there is a mama roach, there shall be lots of babies somewhere, usually) and I begin to chuckle at how foolish I just looked. Moments later as I am apologizing to the driver in English, he asks ‘what country are you from?’ Ughhh, America I reply… Yeah, sorry about that reputation folks, but Lacey and roaches are not a good combination.

I arrive home and very cautiously yank the box out of the car and drop it on the front porch. I try to wipe off the seat and middle consul where you could clearly see I jumped too, and then apologized again and said fair well to the poor gentleman. I yell for Haika and decide it’s best she helps me scope out the box for anymore roaches. Coast is clear, don’t know why the inside of my package was wet as there was nothing inside to cause the damage, and the outside of the box had not been wet. It’s a mystery, but nonetheless the damaged seemed to be minimal. I am more than nervous to pick up Crystal’s box of food because heaven knows how many roaches will be in a box of just food goodies!

For those of you who know me, these are the two incidents that kept reoccurring during my drive home after I had the minor scare with the roach—first incident was sophomore year. I was in the back of Golda’s Tiburon? It’s a two door car, and that’s all the really matters. It’s dark and Crystal is driving while Golda is lighting fireworks and tossing them out the window. Is this what normal high school kids do? Eh! Well, she lit one and didn’t quite have time to throw it out the window so she tosses it back to me because that’s what her gut instinct told her to do? Once again I am stuck in the back of a moving car while a firework show is happening at my feet. Miss those carefree days. Second incident was about two years ago, if that. Took the dogs to the beach and Crystal’s dog drank too much salt water. First he had a liquid waterfall come out of his ass which conveniently was sitting on my shoulder as he enjoyed the fresh air out of the window. I thought Crystal was being a smartass and pouring warm water on my shoulders, but no it was coming straight from her dog’s butt. After I gag momentarily and shove the dog around we finally find a gas station where a bunch of females jump out and start gagging—I vomit. We get back in the car and I make her hold the dog in the back. He decides to stick his head over the middle consul…moments later he starts barfing chunks of potatoes, meat, carrots, etc all over Lauren and I. Yeah, Crystal fed him some left over roast before the beach. Fabulous!

Now if the taxi driver new this is why I was laughing so much today after I nearly broke down in tears over a roach, he might not think American’s were all crazy like me…or would he?

10/10/08

So yesterday was another holiday, therefore I had no luck with classes followed up my today’s luck. I am totally lost with why ALL my classes don’t exist, but never fails. I am slowly losing motivation to hike to campus in hopes of finding a lecture. Amanda seems to be having all the luck. Finally have internet today, which is why I am able to post this blog. Yeah, it was a long blog and be thankful I stopped typing! Amanda and I had a little adventure yesterday, but I will let her write about it. My blog is already too long. I had the pleasure of running into Emmanuel today on my way to class. Well, there was not class, but nonetheless that’s what I was attempting to do. Anyways, he says to me, “I SMS’ed you. What happened? I thought maybe I gave the wrong impression?” Sigh, I had to lie and respond with, “no, I just need to get a voucher. I have no minutes.” That turned into a ten minute long lecture of where I can get a voucher and what I have been doing. I had to finally say, I am going to be late if I don’t start walking

10/11/08

The internet stopped working yesterday before I could post the blog. Sorry. I get a little frustrated with it at times, but I am learning to accept it. Last night was interesting…that’s all I will type about that and today we are headed to the beach! Whoo hoo!