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.