The Shortest Semester in HISTORY

10/12/08

Oh, before I forget, let me tell you the best part of the cockroach story! Mama Dorica came home that night and proceeded to tell me that when she went to pay her friend for taking me to the post office he told her he had a very interesting day. I laughed a bit when she told me this and asked why, what does he think of Americans? She proceeded to tell me that he asked if America has roaches and if I had never seen that type of insect before! Unfortunately so, America has roaches! Anyhow, Mama Dorica tells him NOOO! She told the poor man that America doesn’t have roaches! Excellent, job well done!

Amanda and I decided to go for a dala dala ride on Thursday as we had a free afternoon. We jumped on a dala dala and found our way to Mwenge where we searched for an unfamiliar dala dala to hop on and unfamiliar we did find. This particular dala dala seemed to be turned backwards from all the rest with a foreign location neither of us knew. Kunduchi? Something similar to that name, but anyways we start cruising and it’s definitely taking us in a direction I have never been. I was sitting by the window, which I thought was the best seat but in all reality it was probably the worst. My neck doesn’t really bend that way and I wanted to stick my head out the window, but Amanda insisted I should not. With the thought of Judy’s husband in Vegas getting his head decapitated by a CAT bus, I thought it was wise to keep my head inside the van. So anyways, about thirty minutes into the ride a few local school aged students spotted me through the window and shouted our favorite word “mzungu” so I replied while driving pass “mambo.” I got a ‘nice job’ from Amanda because that always gets their attention, and I totally feed off of it. (I am going to miss that in America—being so recognizable) Few minutes later Amanda says, “I see some slides.” “Water slides?” “Yeah, something like that.” Seriously?! Moments later everyone is getting off our dala dala so we follow and what do we find before us? Yeah, some sort of a Wet-n-Wild resort! Our luck, right? Amanda and I venture around and find the beach behind the resort—our second time finding the Indian Ocean and neither time planned! I found some pretty awesome shells and collected them to bring home—felt like Jessica on the beach. Ha ha!

So yesterday our host family wanted to take us to the beach. Finally, we are actually going to go swimming in the Indian Ocean! We pack our stuff and head out the door with Haika, Debby, and Baba. We start driving and they proceed to tell us they are taking us to a place that also has pools and showers because Debby isn’t comfortable with swimming in the Ocean. To our surprise, we find ourselves back at the Wet-N-Wild resort we had found just days earlier! I am not too thrilled as I hate water parks for numerous reasons—number one, I am fat and don’t like wearing a bathing suit. Anyhow, I figure I have nothing to lose and we can find the beach another day—not that I am fond of the beach either, but that’s probably because I live just miles from any beach in Florida. Nonetheless, it turned out to be quite fun once I got over the fact that the water was slightly lime green from all the algae. Amanda and I were probably the oldest kids there, but we made ourselves fit in. Hakia wouldn’t come in the water and we couldn’t figure out why. We tried so hard to get her to come play, but to no avail she sat there guarding our belongings. I can’t even describe what happened on the rides, but I do know my fat abs and neck are a tad sore today—need I say more! Put two overgrown adults in a water park for children and use your imagination. I am certain Amanda got more beat up going down one time than I did, but I still managed to take a small beating. She was also a trouble maker—skipping stairs and bouncing her tube on the ground. Tsk tsk tsk!

10/19/08

Sorry for the delay in blog writing. I have had very little motivation to write. Not too sure why, but let me try to recap some of the past few days. I have still had very little success with any of my classes. The psychology course that was approved by FAU is the only class I have really had any luck with. I have been to two lectures last week and hopefully will get another three in this week. Met a few Tanzanian guys in the class, and they exchanged numbers. They haven’t been trying to stalk me like Emmanuel. Speaking of Emmanuel, he seems to have moved onto Mandi. Mandi is an American from Wisconsin originally, but attending the University of Minnesota. I feel her pain, but if she is smart and puts him on extinction like I did, he might leave her alone! I am just glad he has stopped bothering me and the other Tanzanian guys haven’t sent me crazy texts either. I will keep my fingers crossed.

On Thursday two Massai men came to the house to braid my hair for the bargain price of 20,000 TZS, plus the price of the fake hair which was another 10,000 TZS. All together it was about 30 dollars. It hurt like hell and it didn’t help to sit between the two men. Literally, my head was wedge between their two thighs—one on each side. The smell was not pleasant, I could have probably had a peak show if I wanted to look, and it only lasted 5 hours. Not bad, right? The hair came out nice. It’s red and extremely tiny. I haven’t seen myself with this dark of hair in a long time and unfortunately because our hair is different, it’s not holding for as long as I was hoping. I will try to keep it in for as long as possible, but I am afraid it will be out before long. On the brighter side of things, I washed it on Thursday night and haven’t washed it since! I don’t have to worry about how I want to wear it, because there isn’t much I can really do with it. It’s a little awkward feeling, but nothing horrendous.

Friday after class we ventured off to Bagamoya for an art festival show. Mandi came along and I am glad she did. We lounged on the beach for a while, watched a Massai man undress and go for a swim with some other foreigners, and then went to watch some sort of show. Mandi wanted to head back before dark because she doesn’t like to be out walking after the sun sets. I can’t blame her one bit. She was one of the girls involved with the machete incident her first week here. So Amanda stayed and we ventured home. I am a tad sad after looking at some of Amanda’s pictures that I didn’t stay, but all is good.

Saturday, I did what I do best, and I slept all day. Literally! I don’t know how I can always manage to be tired and sleep some days, while other days I can’t sleep for crap! Anyhow, we had another wedding to attend and I was slightly dreading it because weddings last for hours in Africa. Once again, I don’t know the bride or the groom, but we’re sitting and watching when BAM—out goes the power! Amanda and I have had several candle lit dinners, but now a wedding? Do they prepare for power outages at weddings? This stalled the wedding by a good hour and we ended up not leaving till almost 1am! Amanda was extremely tired, but I on the other hand, wide awake. I guess that’s what happens after sleeping all night and day. I was also getting bit by my favorite little friends, mosquitos. I didn’t know the wedding was going to be outside, as the other wedding was inside, but no worries because as the night cooled down they basically left.

What else is there to say… Well, I have been messing around with Haika. She is afraid of me—go figure. I just tried to give her a massage and she freaked out. It works out well though because I get a massage in return. I am a smart cookie and she has strong hands! I had to tell her to be gentler because she was hurting me. Anyhow, she taught Amanda how to make a chipote tonight. I try them every time, but I am just not a chipote fan. I want to learn how to make some other food though, so tomorrow night she will start teaching us other things. I helped her wash dishes tonight. She stood over my shoulder and watched me like a hawk! It was a little awkward and I asked her if I was doing it ok, but she still didn’t leave. Made for an awkward dish washing, but I figured I could use it as English time and I taught her a few words such as—washing dishes, spatchula, rinse, scrub, glass, coffee mug, etc. After mama and baba left, I played around with her and Debby. Tried to play catch with Debby using an egg and that resulted in me cleaning up a broken egg and Haika laughing. Hopefully they won’t tell Mama Dorica?

Oh, Friday night I finally got to see Hall 3 dorms. They were interestingly shaped, but quite possibly not as bad as Algonquin at FAU. Imagine that!

I chatted this afternoon for quite some time with Mama Dorica’s mother and sister. The four of us sat outside in a shady spot sharing stories of Africa and America. I had some stories they were shocked to hear, such as that teenage girl who lived down the street from our house in Fort Lauderdale who gave birth to her baby in a bathtub and proceeded to wrap it in a plastic bag and toss in the garbage. They were shocked to hear that incidents like that happen in America. They were telling me about men in Africa and another story about women cheating in Nairobi and the price they pay. The gist of the story was they follow these women around like paparazzi and take pictures of them cheating. Afterwards, they go to the women and demand they pay a certain price if they want the pictures or else they will show their family. The women pay for the pictures and think they have received them all, but then another man comes up and has more pictures demanding once again for more money. It’s a vicious cycle apparently. It was a very interesting conversation, probably the most interesting one since I have been here.

I have been having some interesting dreams or maybe I am just remembering dreams. I had one dream that I came to Africa for 4 days and then I went back to America, but our shelf in our room was in America and I was upset that I didn’t get the pictures from Amanda’s camera. I had another dream about my knee and elbows. I went to the doctor to have an MRI and my right knee and my right elbow had this fracture/splinter looking thing? I can’t really explain it and I am drawing a huge blank with medical words, but I can still vividly see the pictures in my head as if it were real. I have had a few other dreams, but I can’t remember them off the top of my head. Amanda happens to be in a few and I am beginning to wonder if it’s the new pills. I am not complaining about the pills. They aren’t bad dreams and I am certainly much happier with these pills, but I never remember dreams like this. I should keep a dream journal. That would be interesting. I mean, I have started to collect notes on Amanda’s sleep talking and before I leave I will definitely write a blog about all that.

I got Laura’s message about Isaac! I am so excited and Tracy has sent me a voice recording of it. She has also sent me a voice recording of Lucas. I am going to take an African drumming class with Amanda and a few other foreigners—the best part, we get to keep the drum! Maybe when I get back I can show Isaac the basics and he’ll out do me in a matter of months? Anyone want to make any predictions or wagers?

I also went to church and met up with that family we ran into at the Embassy. It was an okay experience. Nothing to great, but met some really cool people and I plan to go back next Sunday. I told the family if they ever wanted to go out for any reason that I would be more than happy to hang out with the kids. They actually have two kids. One new born infant and another adoptive son, whom I am assuming is a Tanzanian native.

My thoughts are everywhere. Sorry! Just remembered, I don’t think I mentioned since my last blog anything about the ‘roof party.’ Yeah, when I say roof party, that’s exactly what it was. You walk all the way up 5 or so levels of spiral stairs and tada, you’re on the roof! No balcony, no ledge, and no lights except a few candles they brought up. I sat along the edge for a few minutes before I realized I didn’t trust myself and decided to move. I mean, one simple push or even an accidental fall from someone else could have sent me tumbling 5 floors down. Pretty crazy, but it turned out to be a decent night. It’s really interesting how all the foreigners basically flock together—American, Canada, Germany, Japan, Sweden, etc! All walks of life, sitting on the roof of a dorm in Tanzania with candles illuminating your faces, and accents flowing with crazy intoxicated foreigners—conversations were ranging from being chased by lions to a lecture on Canadian politics and the night ended with a ten second bajahjee ride home followed by the Swedish comment, “we’ll have a talk about this later,” in reference to our ten second ride home. (There is a story behind that, but I don’t feel like typing it!)

10/21/08

Being in Africa was supposed to be an escape from the world. I wanted time to relax and simply be nothing more than a college bum. Well, I am in Africa and it is definitely an escape from what I am used too. I might not be waking up to an alarm clock at 5:45 to leave my house by 6:15 so I can race through traffic to make it to Adam’s by 7, but instead I toss and turn with my hot sweaty sheet’s while listening to Haika sweep outside our window and the birds chirp—although, somehow, I think a bird chirping sounds much better than these crows. Nonetheless, the sweeping, the birds, and the roosters (they remind me of Vegas summer’s) crowing along with the bright sun and scorching heat could possibly drive anyone crazy.

Last night was interesting to say the least and finally I had done something halfway productive since I have been here—went to Mwenge to teach some local Tanzanians a little bit of English. I was teaching the advanced group because my Swahili is more than just terrible, but anyhow I have never felt quite so illiterate in all my life (except when around Amanda). I know I am not the brightest crayon in the box, but some of the words these Tanzanians had found from who knows what they were reading, left me almost speechless. I could use the words in a sentence, but not sure how to explain them and god forbid I give them false information! I am sure I did somewhere along the lines, but it was a really neat experience overall. Anyhow, I am trying to figure out what to do with all my time. I haven’t had this much time since…hell, not even high school! Like I mentioned, part of the reason I ventured to Africa was to be a college bum and just attend classes, but I only have one class to attend and its past mid-October! I have worked non-stop for the past four years and all this down time is starting to get the best of me. The European Film Festival is great, but I HATE movies and the last movie we saw was far too depressing. The movies are a great time killer with AC, but my legs can’t sit still. I don’t even notice my ADD legs until someone points them out. Apparently my vigorous shaking got the best of Amanda because she reached over and slapped them still! I spent the rest of that movie focusing on keeping my legs still which took a lot of brain power, but was doable for the most part. Anyhow, after the German movie a few nights ago, I decided I didn’t want to see anymore movies, even if they are free! Souhail might just be in heaven if he were here with all these movies and I would hate to see his follow up blog critiques afterwards. (Where the hell did Souhail’s name just come from?!) Anyhow, I think I have watched more movies in the past month than I have in ALL my life!

Last night I started venting to Baba since the poor man asked me if something was wrong—I broke down and told him everything! Somehow during our little talk about the money and classes my frustration turned to anger. It’s so tempting sometimes to call it quits and find the next flight home, but realistically that won’t solve any of the current problems. Why did my frustration turn to anger? Well, our host family (who is extremely awesome, I’d like to add) was told they would be given $130 to $150 American dollars per student per week. Since there are two of us living here, the host family was expecting a total of $260 to $300 dollars a week for hosting us Americans and not to mention, it’s not easy to host Americans. When I first started looking at the program I thought about staying in a dorm because it was over $2,000 dollars cheaper, but instead I went with paying more for a homestay. So while I am chatting about money with Baba, I learn that AFTER Amanda and I were ALREADY here, KEI decided to tell them that they were only going to get $100 dollars per student per week. That makes for a total of $200 dollars vs. the original $260 to $300 they were informed of getting and once we were here they couldn’t say no, so Baba said they had no choice but to continue to host us. Simply put, out of the ten grand I am paying, my host family who feeds us three meals a day and much more is only getting $1600 dollars for my entire stay. Whoa, why am I paying over $2000 more for a homestay if this family isn’t getting all their money they were promised! I feel that KEI took complete advantage of the situation because had this been any other European country, a host family would not accept what happened here. KEI will be receiving an email soon, that’s all I have to say!

Today I was on a mission of locating the professor of my missing classes. First stop, history department and what do I find out…the professor is in Denmark until October 31st! This means I don’t have class till he returns which literally means I will be in my history class for about 1 month and 1 week. Crazy, eh! I was also instructed that the class probably doesn’t meet at the time shown on the time table and it will be really hard to actually find out when it does meet, but I guess I will worry about that on Oct 31st!


10/22/08

I was lying in bed last night scratching all my mosquito bites when it dawned on me that I had forgotten to take my malaria pills. I carefully removed myself from squeaky bed and swallow my handful of pills while untying my mosquito net. I have not been sleeping with it lately because there really aren’t any mosquito’s, but I figured for the next few days I will suffocate myself and revert back to my princess like bed till I heal. Amanda was probably a little surprised to see my net down as I was half asleep when she turned out the lights, but my net was tied up. Anyways, I had another bizarre dream last night, but nothing serious. The characters: Crystal, Juliette, a safari guide, and me. The short version story line: Crystal wanted to commit suicide so we pushed out our safari guide and stole his land rover. Crystal drove (why, I don’t know! I should have been the driver since it was manual) and dropped me off at a camp site. Her and Juliette left. Few hours later Juliette appeared in a Bajahjee paying the man 100 TZS. I asked her where Crystal was and she said she didn’t know. I am a great sister letting her go kill herself. I run inside the house (where did the house come from, I am supposed to be at a camp site!) and grab my phone to make a call. Walk back outside and there is Crystal! She is upset and crying and I am livid at what almost happened and started beating her. Eh, she didn’t die! Damn! I had another interesting dream the other day while I was napping, but words can’t explain it! It is something that could only happen in a dream and it was wicked fun! It reminded me of the movie (Blank Check?) and a Ferris wheel. Good combination, eh?!

This morning I hiked to campus to talk to Christopher. He would be the French professor. Such a sweet man, but not to my surprise, I can’t take French. Their beginner’s level in college is probably equivalent to an advanced level in America. Their students have take French for 6 years in secondary school so by the time they get to college they are probably almost fluent. America’s foreign language system is crap and we get teased being American’s and not knowing a second language. Most of the other foreigners here speak their home language, English, and are also learning Swahili. Some even speak more than that! I know how to greet people in French, tell you my colors in Hebrew, count to ten in Spanish, and barely communicate essential needs in Swahili. That will get me far, not!

Haika laughs at how much I sleep, but I like to take afternoon naps! It’s so hot and I have nothing else to do, why not? Although, a part of me feels slightly guilty for sleeping while she slaves away washing our clothes or cooking lunch. I followed her around the kitchen tonight learning how to make their beans. I would type it in Swahili, but I would butcher the words to hell. She finds it humorous how I cut certain things or peel a potato. I have never peeled a potato with just a knife so I am super slow! She is very patient though and if there are four potato’s, she makes me peel two and she will peel two—even if she is just standing there watching which sometimes is a tad stressful!

The highlight of my day—AFRICAN DRUMMING! We received our drums today (which are currently making our room stink like vomit) and our drum sticks (2 branches from a tree) are a nice added feature. The drums are a combination of wood, cow, and goat—they stand about 2 ½ feet tall and are rather difficult to play. We found ourselves sitting under a tree swarming with bee’s in the far back of campus pounding away on our drums. There were three Tanzanians and six mzungu’s in the class, which should make for a nice combination. At some point during our drumming lesson, I scratched my head (I have been complaining about it itching lately) and noticed a lot of white crap falling out. I haven’t washed my hair since they braided it and even then I didn’t get a chance to wash it. I had put gel in it that day and they said no, it was fine. When I got home tonight I washed it, but I am still not sure if I have dandruff or if it’s literally just dirt!

So the semi-bad news is…I doubt I will be able to graduate on time. This adventure, which as far as schooling is concerned, hasn’t been very productive. I think I have finally accepted the idea that I won’t graduate this semester and I am OK with that for a few different reasons. First, I can work all summer and get out of debt and second if I graduate next fall it postpones all my student school loans by about 6 more months than originally planned. Than I can work all spring semester and start saving before I have to start paying off my school loans. I think that is the best solution I have come up with thus far. As Amanda says, ‘it also postpones the real world.’ Eh, to an extent she may be right, but I do live in the real world now. My job will be the same whether I graduate this spring or next fall. It’s just a difference of 25-30 hours or 40-50 hours a week and maybe a slight increase in pay. Another solution is I work less this semester and try to cram in all my classes. Choices…decisions…any suggestions??? If I can pull it off and graduate this semester, start working full time in June, pay off debt this summer, and save till November (that’ll be the 6 month grace period)…hmmm, that’s definitely a possibility too.

(I think these are the final classes I have left to take unless I am missing one)

Research Methods in Psych
French 11
DIS
Psych Elective
Anatomy/Biology

Deep breath. It’s doable, but is it doable working 18 hours with Adam, 6 with Lucas, and as many as I can find with Isaac? Crap, that’s probably more than 35 hours! ::screaming:: I guess after a semester of doing nothing, I can suck it up? Maybe I can rotate Saturday’s with Crystal when working with Adam, but Saturdays I never accomplish anything anyway. Although, that could possibly mean every other Saturday I could do a short session with Isaac if Crystal were to work with Adam. BIG SIGH. I am a naughty student. Ok, scratch my plan of graduating in the fall and I am going to graduate this semester!


10/23/08

This blog is all out of order and probably makes very little sense, but it all makes sense to me! Anyhoo, we have another drumming class today, plan on going to Mwenge to teach again, and then we are off to Zanzibar for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday! The beaches and snorkeling are supposed to be AMAZING! Oh, and we finally got our residency! Whoo hoo! I actually just find that a tad ironic for me since I am leaving about 6 weeks, but it’s good until June! Anyone want to come back to Tanzania with me?!

On a quick side note while I am thinking of it—this morning’s dream. I was at the summer Olympics in Egypt! I was being taught how to swim fast like an Olympian and then the water dried up so we had to make a damn and ride this silly cart that launched up a hill. Very funny now that I think of it, but it was fun!

Just finished my Psychology lecture and at the beginning of class the professor came up to me and started talking to me in Swahili! She threw me for a quick loop when she asked me what my name was. I hesitated and then realized what she was asking. Phew. It was a nice chat in front of the entire class. I am the only azungu in the class, but she also informed me in our chat that I could take my exam in December! Whoo hoo!