Insert Witty Title Here

For Chrissakes, Clare, I can't post pictures that easily. I will try in a bit, but they might be on Facebook instead of here. But I have over 400 and don't really have time to pick out which ones to post. Did you see the one on Facebook of me in a buibui looking ridiculous?

Anyway.

I’ll see if I can do a chronology from the last time I updated:

A week ago Friday we had a free day in Zanzibar. We went up to the north, to a city I don’t remember and a resort I don’t remember. It was nice though, spent the entire day on the beach. We swam a lot—first time in the Indian Ocean. It was so salty and SO easy to float. Everyone played a lot of soccer and volleyball; we got very sandy and quite a few bruises, but it was a great time. Some other guys on the beach played with us—I’m not sure if they were actually cute or if I was just excited to interact with guys outside of the program. That was also the beginning of the group playing cards, which we have done pretty much ever since. There’s been a lot of hearts, since we can play with anywhere from three to five people, but there has also been cribbage and I’ve taught some people continental rummy and euchre. That night, I got a little homesick, but Miles makes everything better.

Saturday we headed to Pembe Abwe on the mainland Tanzania coast. It was a four-hour boat ride in two wooden boats, and I could have stayed on them forever. Then the place we stayed! It was four people to a banda (basically an A-frame cabin), and some of the bandas were, at high tide, literally thirty feet from the ocean. Our classroom/dining room/meeting area was an open air building built around a baobab tree. We got rather American meals that were delicious.

We woke for breakfast at 7 everyday, left between 8 and 9 depending on the tide, and took the boats for forty minutes to a reef, where we snorkeled until around 1. Back to the baobab tree for lunch, then we generally had free time, wherein I napped and wrote constantly. If we had class (mostly just the bio kids had lectures, general culture kids got more free time) it was around 4 or 5. Dinner at 7. Lots of card playing, star gazing and a little streaking (which I neither took part in or saw. I’d be less of a prude with friends at home, but 23 people you have to be with for another 2 months? Thanks anyway).

The people who own the compound on the coast are the Peterson brothers. We met two of them there: Mike and Thad. Both are quite sweet and very interesting, knowing pretty much anything you’d need to know about the area. They are wazungu, born and raised in Tanzania, except for boarding school in Kenya. But their parents were Swedish and from Minnesota, so they have basically the best accents ever.

I taught myself to dive while snorkeling too, which I had never done before. It was really cool, though if you go to low you’ll pop your eardrums, so you have to do the pop your ears thing. Except every time I did that, I felt like I needed to breathe again and had to come up. But some people went literally 45 ft down!

We started our bio class at the coast, which meant gathering data while snorkeling. I was in a group with Lila (we basically have done everything together since we were cousins/neighbors in Riruta) and Rachel Rogers working on echinoderms: sea stars, sea cucumbers and sea urchins. When Ken had first talked about them, before we went snorkeling, I thought nothing could be more boring. Then as soon as I got in the water they were my favorite things to see (besides moorfish, who are so pretty!). To get the data we would lay a 50-meter transect tape down in the water, then swim along it and count the number of urchins, stars and cucumbers within one meter on either side. Sounds pretty boring, but it was fun.

The boats also were amazing. I never once got seasick, so I loaned out my wristbands to people who did. I did my best to get on the boat that, though it did occasionally break down, had what amounted to a sun deck on it. Four or so people could climb up and just lay above everyone else in the sun. I really think I could have lived there my entire life: good company, warmth, water and sun—what more do you need? Also, on the way back on the last day, the wind picked up and the water got quite choppy. Using the motor we would rock back and forth to the point of some people being terrified we were going to sink (though honestly, we had just spent an entire week snorkeling for hours without wearing life jackets, I’m not sure what they were worried about). We put up the sail instead! It was not your usual sail, but a huge log only connected by ropes, that they had to swing out with the sail on it, and all the men on the boat yanked the ropes to get it into place. Sam put all his weight on it and nothing happened, which was pretty funny to watch; he was just hanging about a foot in the air until the other men started pulling too. Once the sail finally got up and in place (after almost killing those of us on the sun deck a couple of times) it was much smoother, though slower too.

Other things about the coast:
We stopped at islands for our breaks sometimes, and they were COMPLETELY SAND. Nothing else on them. It blows my mind.
Got homesick a bit, but got to talk to Mom and Dad and Eli, and Miles also took me for a walk, which makes things better. I love this place and the days are usually good, great even, but oftentimes after dark, I miss my people. Lila and Claire and Sam and Miles are generally helpful in that regard.
Mara, the professor’s 15-year-old daughter, cut my hair. Not super short or anything—about to my chin. It was just getting too long for me. I like it much better now, though I have to cut my bangs too.
Kweli means really in Swahili. So all I have to say is, Kweli, Tigers? Kweli?!
Got stung about a thousand times by jellies. Not the big types, but the teeny tiny ones, stings that don’t last, but hurt like a bitch when you get them (especially when it’s on your freaking lip!). So I wore my underarmor, aka a ninja suit, for most of the snorkeling. I had on black, full body underarmor and a gray beanie to prevent my scalp from burning. I looked pretty ridiculous.
Fought with coral a couple of times—lost every time. Fire coral burns even through the ninja suit.
Read “Darkly Dreaming Dexter.” Not good writing, but a great story. Will probably have to watch the show when I get home.

This Saturday we took what we were told would be an 8- to 9- hour bus ride to Arusha. It was actually 12 hours. And I was sitting on the wheel well the whole time. Those last two hours—not so much fun. But I took some ibuprofen as soon as I got off the bus, so I was pretty much okay. The trip would have been fine if we knew it was going to be 12 hours; it was those last two hours where we always thought we were almost there that was the bad part.

But eventually we arrived at the (other) Peterson compound in Olasiti. Had a night in tents (which I shared with Lila of course) and the next day headed into Arusha for two free days. Most of the group is staying at a cheap hotel, but Miles and Sam wanted to get a fancier one, so I was just going to sleep on the floor. Unfortunately we couldn’t really sneak that past them, and had to pay for a triple. But it’s really nice, with GREAT beds and a hot shower and free breakfast and a pool. So life’s pretty good.

Also in Olasiti before we left, the general culture group got their independent study partner and topic. I’m doing family planning, which was my first choice. Lila is my partner (seriously, we do everything together), and Devon also switched into our group because it’s what she’s focusing on for her thesis. We don’t actually do any work on it until after the three-week safari, but we’re supposed to be formulating possible questions and such. Basically the leadership of this program is horribly unorganized and we’re guinea pigs for this independent project so it’s pretty tough for some of them. In family planning, we can come up with some basic things to study. But for people with topics like “water” or “village governance”, it’s a little harder to try to think about what you’re going to study without any knowledge or information. (/rant)

Yesterday was great. We slept in, showered, ate pretty good breakfast (with great juice), I wrote most of this blog post, played some solitaire. Slept some more. Woke up to Alex and Devon and Miles and Sam playing Monopoly, so I joined. Miles murdered us. It was quite fun. We swam in the freezing cold pool for a bit, lay in the sun, ate lunch. Alex and I shared nachos, which of course were not really American nachos, but were still pretty damn good. Some journaling and card playing and then we headed out to meet up with the rest of the group for the circus.

The only problem was that it turned out that the circus did not have a show last night. It was kind of sad, but Lila and Alex came back to the hotel with Sam and Miles and me, and we had a lot of fun. Sam told us all a bedtime story that was about an hour and a half and included (per Alex’s request) a turtle, a UFO (bonus: the cast of Spaceballs), a king, and Alex herself. I drowned when our pirate ship sank, but it was worth it.

Other than that, I’m doing some stuff online, figuring out my schedule for next semester (probably Neurobiology, Presidential Politics, Political Parties and Interest Groups, and U.S. Foreign Policy. I told myself I wasn’t going to load up on poli sci courses, but they’re what I want to take!). I’ll probably sleep a lot and write a lot too. Life is good. I miss you guys though.

And I miss cold, surprisingly. It’s nice here, where mornings and nights are pretty chilly. I like wearing layers and curling up under blankets and cuddling. Can’t wait to get home at Christmas, hopefully to all of that, plus snow and family and friends.

This is actually going to be my last update for a long time. We’re headed for safari on Thursday, and we’ll have no internet access that I know of for three weeks. And I’m actually not sure how much access I have once the general culture and bio kids split up. General culture is staying in the Olasiti compound, but I assume we’ll probably occasionally come into Arusha, so hopefully I’ll be able to update. If you’re dying to know things, I talk to my parents and my boyfriend about once a week. Though, somehow I don’t feel like my life is riveting enough for you to not be able to handle a three-week hiatus.

Rabbit, rabbit

I was going to title this post--"The worst kind of loser--an infidel loser" because Lila and I are hilarious, but I think the truth might just be that we are ridiculous and no one else would think it was funny. Plus side: we are good friends.

Have gotten close with a lot of different people on the trip, which is nice. I would always come back to the hotel at night thinking I would write, then would end up talking to people until midnight instead. Worth the trade off though, and I have still been writing a lot. I also read The Giver yesterday in about an hour and a half. Very good book, even the second time around, and it was nice to have time just to myself and a book.

I’m rather bored with Zanzibar, at least with Stone Town. It’s incredibly touristy and doesn’t seem to have beaches without what we think are sewage pipes going into the ocean. So it’s too gross to swim, but too hot to do much of anything else available. There’s a lot of shopping, mostly for souvenirs, but I’m not a window shopper or a browser. I’m not really into shopping unless it’s for something I definitely want or need. And since I am being the Dutchest person alive here, sometimes even food doesn’t fall into that category.

When I get home I am having pounds and pounds of cheese. Also hamburgers, anything with real ketchup, and Mexican food. And I’m already looking forward to crepes in France—I suppose that’s where the cheese eating will start. And hard bread...mmmmmmm.

Have officially finished the first part of the semester: turned in my final reflection to D Sperling today, and took my Swahili test yesterday. After I had finished Rose told me I spoke very well as usual and she was very happy, so obviously I was happy too. I’ve been getting progressively worse grades on D Sperling’s reflections, but he told me not to worry about the last one (only a B, but not my style) because “I know you’re up here” (hand motion above his head) “This is just a blip.” He’s ridiculous. Lila described him as like a tortoise, which is very true and I can no longer look at him without thinking about it. He’s very smart but I did not much like him as a professor, and will not really miss him now that he’s left. I’ll miss Rose a lot though; she’s a favorite.

On Sunday a woman who works with Millennium Villages Project came to talk to us. They take villages and try to help them reach the Millennium Goals, which are what the UN decided were necessary to eradicate poverty: access to water, universal primary education, treatment for infectious diseases, women’s rights. She was incredibly interesting. I liked her work, but thought she was more interesting because she majored in music and political science, went on to get her Master’s in creative writing and music, and then did something awesome with her life. She is basically what I want to be when I grow up (minus the music part). She was also beautiful and funny, which helps. She told a story of how one of the elders told her she should marry a man from his village and she said, “Yeah...Baadaye!” meaning “later.” All the girls having been proposed to a million times now, we appreciated the story.

Every night there is a big hooplah at a park on the water—food everywhere, all these guys trying to entice you over, too many white people. Not really my scene, but it had some delicious cheap food. A Zanzibar pizza, which is meat, tomatoes, onions, an egg and a dollop of mayonnaise (aka a heart attack) fried (another heart attack) on some crust. I shared one with Alex, and we also shared a banana-nutella pizza that was just as delicious. And there’s cane juice everywhere, which is fantastic. All of the juice here is fantastic actually—we’ve been getting passion fruit juice every morning with breakfast (and I’ve been having 4 glasses), and in Pemba we had juice of something called a tree tomato, which tasted like watermelon with lime and was really really really good.

I’ve had gelato twice this week and am thinking about getting it in lieu of lunch today. It’s just so good: mango and passion fruit and mandarin orange. Even the banana tastes like real banana.

Tuesday we went to a Kenyan national park. Walked through a forest and saw a snake and a monkey and a fair amount of lizards. They also have spiders that basically look like they have horns. Some of the spiders here are actually gargantuan, and I am not a fan. But they stay in their webs, so it’s okay. (Geckos on the other hand, just live in our hotel rooms all the time.) We also saw MONKEYS!!!!!!!!!!! They were so acclimated to humans that we were literally two feet from them taking pictures. I have some amazing pictures of this baby monkey showing off with its mother. Later we walked through a mangrove forest, and the guide let us actually walk on the mangrove roots over a whole bunch of mud, which was pretty fun.

Afterward we went to a spice farm. Thinking farm I pictured rows of plants or something. If I wasn’t shown around, I would have just thought I was walking through some trees. In reality, we saw cinnamon and coffee and vanilla and cardamom and nutmeg and curry and ginger and pepper and coconuts and starfruit and breadfruit and giant passion fruit and caocao and cloves. It was basically amazing. They let us smell and sometimes taste everything. Cardamom is amazing, both in smell and taste, even though I have no idea what you do with it. And cinnamon is actually the bark of a tree! Who knew? Sam and I both ate a tiny red chili though, which was a very bad decision. It tasted good but then I couldn’t stop crying.

Yesterday we went to a madrasa, which was interesting but kind of superficial. We only stayed in the classrooms long enough to say hi and maybe answer a couple of questions. Zach had ladies after him again—we think it’s because of his hair. Afterward we walked in smaller groups to the non-touristy area of town, but it was still just shops and things. I did manage to get lunch for 200 shillings (of our 8000 shilling allowance), so that was nice.

Had a horrible dream last night that my parents had sold the house and we had to move to Connecticut within the week. I don’t know why they sold it, but I just sat in it and cried and refused to leave. Moral of the story: Mom and Dad, don’t sell the house.

That is it I think. There is a potential plan for skinny dipping tonight (sewage pipes be damned) but I don’t know if it will happen. Must watch the sunset. It hasn’t been a priority because, well, I’m sort of spoiled in that regard, but I’d like to see it at least once.

Somebody best get a hold of me if the Tigers clinch the Division today (or within the next couple of days). It's killing me that I won't have internet to know. Also, what the heck happened to our starting rotation--Figaro and Bonine and Robertson? What the what? Maybe I spend too much time thinking about baseball. When Rose asked on my test for me to tell a bit about myself, I talked about watching baseball games with my dad. It's the first thing I check when I get online too. My fantasy team made the playoffs but lost in the first round. In conclusion: I think about baseball too much.