Last Week of home stay

My last week in Bangata with my homestay family was amazing and stressful at the same time. It was Midterm week for SIT students so we had 4 long papers to write, 3 other assignments and a Kiswahili oral exam. Needless to say, it was a hard week, especially since we needed to find time to do all of the outside work while also interacting with our families. In class last week we went into Arusha and used our Swahili bartering skills to buy fruits, vegetables, and spices at the markets. Then we went back to school and made guacamole, fruit salad, and traditional Chai masala, so it was a pretty successful school week. At home I was being bombarded with Tanzanian men and I am pretty sure that my Mama was trying to set me up. There were probably at least 6 different around 20-year-old men that would conveniently come over to talk to my Babu while I was home. Each of them would say hello to my Babu and then sit down with me somewhere and have extremely long conversations in broken English and even more broken Kiswahili. One morning I woke up at 6:30 in the morning and went outside to go to the bathroom and there was a boy waiting in our cooking hut to talk to me.  Luckily only 3 of them mentioned looking for a wife and children so they weren’t too obvious about it. I also got to milk my neighbor’s cow last week, which was very exciting.  My Dada taught me a few very important African skills such as how to tie a baby to my back with a kanga, and how to carry full buckets of water on my head.  I was extremely excited to learn and school children find it very funny to see a white person in her pajamas attempting to balance a too-full bucket of water on her head.

There was a big SIT party on Friday and I finished all of my work just in time to spend the day with my family. The party was a great way to say goodbye to my family, and my Mama even had a beautiful traditional Tanzanian dress made especially for me just for the occasion! My oldest dada, Amani, left for boarding school in Dar Es Saalam this morning, one hour after I left Bangata so today was an extremely sad day for my Mama. I really enjoyed my time in Bangata and saying goodbye to my family was pretty hard but I am very nervous and excited to leave for Engaruka tomorrow to begin my ISP research and learn more about Maasai culture!

Bangata second go!

I have had an interesting week in Bangata with my family. While I am still getting the hang of things, I am getting better acquainted. Everyday I become closer with my homestay family, who are all extremely loving. My Babu (grandpa) hugs me daily and tells me that he loves me and last night my Mama called me her firstborn daughter. I am exhausted by 8:00 after a full day of school, helping my Mama at home, and playing soccer in the yard with the 13 neighbor kids that love to hang out.

The kids here are expected to help with the work around the house and yesterday my Mama told a neighbor kid to go get tree branches to use as a broom, and I watched as the 7 year old climbed 35 feet up a tree with no branches to the top when he reached some and broke them off for my Mama. The kids thought that it was hilarious that I was a little worried and very enthralled. My Kiswahili is coming along, except for an incidence a couple days ago when I was made a fatal mistake trying to tell my Mama that I was hot and later found out that their translation was “I am Hot” or in other words, looking for some action. But at least I know not to make that mistake again!

Homestay Week

We were assigned to our homestay families this past Sunday, so I have had a couple of days to adjust to Bangatan life. Although it has to be said that life here is completely different from life at home, I do like it. My Mama and I were the last to be assigned to each other, but she treats me like part of the family already. She is very kind, and she speaks English, so she is constantly teaching me Swahili.  The first night that I arrived, my Mama and I danced while we made dinner.  I also have a 12-year-old Dada (sister), Amani, who helps me with basically everything, and she loves how soft my hair is. Every night she does my hair up into 3 braids while I work on homework or we play cards. My Babu (grandfather) is a retired teacher, so he loves to teach me grammatically correct kiswahili. And lastly, I have a 1-year-old Dada named Emiliana. She is adorable and shockingly knows even less Swahili than myself! Last night, she said Dada for the first time, while she was playing with me, and it was very exciting. The neighbor kids are great at showing me around the village and a couple days ago they helped me count all the way to 300.  The first night when I arrived, my extended family presented me with a rooster with tinsel on it’s head in celebration of my arrival. We tied it up in the kitchen and for multiple nights it would crow in the middle of the night and wake me up. So far my biggest struggle has been not being able to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. My Mama locks the doors at 8:00pm and the bathroom is outside so I am unable to pee for 12 hours.

But all in all, my days have been very nice. I go to school Monday through Friday and I am learning a lot of Swahili. I am becoming more and more able to communicate with the people here and I have only had 2 kiswahili lessons. Its only my fourth day in Bangata and I already have so many stories, I cant wait to see what will happen in the up coming three weeks. 

Usambara Mountains

Photos from the trip so far

Treehouse that we watched the sunset from 

Maasai Herbal Tea 

Elephants super close to our tents!

Safari Advetures

Baobab Tree at Sunset

Sleeping leopard

Elephants at the Swamp

Lion Pride

Pool day!

Maasai Medicine Man

People carry everything on their heads here

Last Sunday we made our way to the Usambara Mountains and after arriving at the bottom, it took us over 2.5 hours to drive the 1.5 miles to the top. The Usambaras are not common travel sites, so Mamas, Babas, Grandparents, and children all were extremely excited to see us. On Monday we were set loose into the mountains for our “say hello to the forest” activity. We all split up and left behind our watches, cameras and electronics and walked into the woods.  I spent time splashing around and following streams, climbing trees and looking around, swinging from vines, getting ripped apart by thorns and sitting on the rocks of a waterfall. It was unbelievable being alone in such raw nature and exploring places that very few people have ever even been. After a few hours I trekked in the direction that I hoped was home, found myself on the edge of the forest and leapt out of the woods, over a stream and 6 feet down to the other bank, when I noticed an elderly farmer frozen staring at me. I spoke a little Swahili and didn’t understand why he wouldn’t respond. Later that day Baba Jack informed us that the locals strongly believe that all whites are vampires, so jumping out of the woods was probably pretty horrifying!

The Usambaras were amazing and because we were so close to the equator, the temperatures were very drastic.  During the day it would get extremely hot and at night it was so cold that you could see your breathe in the air. But the moon was extremely bright. I could get ready for bed without my headlamp because the moon was so bright that I could see everything clearly in my tent.

Our multiple hikes directly up and down the mountain helped me perfect a graceful butt slide. They also amazed me as I learned more about the plants and animals in the tropical forest. It was a pretty relaxed week overall, so we had a lot of time to spend chameleon hunting, working out at Baba Jack’s boot camp, and coming up with ISP (independent study project) ideas for the end of the semester. I narrowed mine down to researching and observing orphans within a Maasai tribe and how that affects their daily lives, schooling, and right of passage as a Maasai. Although we have a month until our ISP prep week, I am very excited to meet the kids and to start my study!

National Park week!

Heres a little more detailed recap about 2 weeks ago since I only had 15 minutes to write my last post. Our drive to Tarangire National park was so bumpy tgat one of the cars side mirrors literally just fell off! When we got there we chose our field study groups for animals to research while in the national parks and I got put in the elephant group. We spent each morning at Tarangire and Manyara National parks watching and deciphering elephant behaviors and recording data and I learned a lot! Fun fact, an elephant knocks over an average of 4.2 trees per day. But Tarangire is beautiful! It is known for its big animals and big trees because it has tons of baobab trees and over 3,000 elephants. The animals are everywhere and I saw cheetahs, lions, and a leopard all in the same day! Sleeping in tents in the national parks is definitely an experience because you can laydown and listen to the animals all night long. The elephants especially loved our campsite and they frequently hung out less than 50 yards from our tents.

Tarangire was great but I was glad to leave behind the hundreds of tsetse flies and bees when we headed for Mto wa Mbo. Sadly, the mosquitos took the tsetse flies place and at my count, I have well over 50 bites. Our campsite was right inside of the village so we went on daily walks and met people from 7 tribes, although the village is made up of 120 different tribes all together.  We were able to walk through rice fields (thankfully I didn’t fall in the water) and banana plantations. We tasted banana wine and beer. On Friday we had the opportunity to go meet a Maasai healer and he gave me local herbs that I can put in my tea to cure me of any sicknesses that I may get. And from the stories that I have heard, these healers and their magic is extremely effective. This particular Maasai is so popular that he has 25 wives, and over 80 children. That night we went to the local disco and got to dance to Tanzanian music and hang out with the locals. Saturday we got back to Arusha and although we had less than a half hour at the SIT office, we had most of the day free to do whatever in the city. Most of us decided to split up because the experience is much less touristy when you are alone. Being alone in arusha was one of my favorite experiences so far. I learned so much Swahili, got to have long conversations with people, and got to just walk around. The food market is amazing, with one square block of ripe fresh fruits and veggies, fish, and meats. Its always fun to see how excited to locals get when I speak Swahili. Most tourists don’t bother to learn any so they are amazed and very patient with me.