Dr. Seuss

I am sure that Dr. Seuss drew inspiration for his plants and even animals from African vegetation. It first struck me how suess-like the trees are on Saturday morning, with the trees silhouetted against the sunrise. He not only stole the typical African planes trees that are big and flat but also these weird trees that have lots of little tufts of leaves on long, thin and sometimes squigly branches. Then there are papaya trees and these little puff balls on sticks that seem to be everywhere in Seuss books. I have decided that Seuss formed his world one day while in Africa, probably on a safari. Like I did today (Saturday).

Lakuba

We pack frantically the morning of departure, Wednesday. Well we'll only be gone one day, but somehow my mom tries to make the mood in the house frantic anyhow. I sit on the bed reading Dry until one minutes before we are supposed to be leaving. I then go about and throw everything into my backpack. We leave only nine minutes late, and arrive at Tembo beach, where we are to get picked up, the boat is there but the people arrive shortly after the appointed time of 10. The water is calm as we start out, but more and more waves appear as we leave the shore behind us.
We pass close by some small rocky islands, one full of white birds another with black ones covering it, then we arrive at the island, Lakuba. When we get off the boat on the beach we are met by a white woman and a black man holding a tray with three glasses of deliciously tart orange juice. The beach is pristinely beautiful. Five small cabins with thatched rooves hide beneath the trees on the edge of the beach, and a hammock is strung between two of the trees, and three chairs are set up in the shade of another. The sand is coarse but comfortable to lie in, and birds of every kind fly around the trees and beach. We have it all to ourselves - we are the only guests. Then the monkeys come. little white monkeys with black faces and hands. The first one wanders down the beach toward us while we relax on the chairs and hammock. It pays us no attention and then slowly wanders off. Later there are at least eight on the beach, in the shade of the trees. Most of them keep their distance from us, but one fearlessly approaches me as I crouch to seem less intimidating. He comes within a metre of me. I have no food and am not very exciting to him, and he heads back to join his fellow monkeys.
The white woman that came to meet us when we arrived at the beach turned out to work there and she is a very funny person. A guide born in Zimbabwe, grew up in South Africa and has never lived in a city. She enjoys the word "freak" and I think she doesn't like people so much, though we got along with her well. She doesn't try to be funny usually, but she succeeds nonetheless. I can't really explain it.
On the island is also the first time we swim in the lake. That isn't because we haven't wanted to go swimming but because there is a parasite that is common on the shore of Lake Victoria here in Musoma. We have heard conflicting things about the parasite (it isn't a danger this time of year, it is dangerous to go swimming now; there is no danger of the parasite on Lakuba because of the currents, it is also dangerous on the island) but we know for sure that it is painful and potentially deadly, but completely treatable. Either way, I hope I didn't get it and if I did I hope there is a way to treat it in Chile.
The water was warm but not super warm like the ocean around Hawaii. There are many tall rocks right next to the water, and Evan was excited about the possibility of cliff jumping. Too bad it seems impossible to get on top of the good rocks. We went swimming from the beach and just sat on some warm, but low rocks while on a canoe trip to find good cliff jumping. Oh well.

The Peninsula

I'm a bit nervous. It's Monday and we'll be meeting Daniel at 5 when he gets off. Evan and I were at Tembo beach, or right next to it earlier in the day when we got his text. He wants to know if we'll be there at five to go and take pictures of stuff like rocks and monkeys. He had already called once, on Saturday, to verify that we would indeed be there. That is when I began to get slightly worried. Yeah it was probably nothing. He probably just wants to make a couple new friends and show us the cool local places. Like that rocky peninsula with no signs of human habitation. The reason I'm worried is that he seemed very interested in both the price of Evan's camera and about my GPS. And I also had my phone out at some point. That is all in addition to the fact that we're wazungu. Adds up to a prime target for mugging if you ask me. Even Evan thought the insistence a bit suspicious, especially the monkey detail.
We arrive late. Evan wasn't ready to leave Juasun, our Internet access point, until we were supposed to be there at the fish industry. We bike home and I leave all of my stuff, the only thing we bring is Evan's camera. I send Daniel a text to tell him we'll be late then drop my phone on the bed. It turns out that I really needn't have worried, Daniel was obviously just being friendly, and while we saw no monkeys that day, the peninsula was still worth the trip.
We walk down the long dirt road, Evan and I walking our bikes next to Daniel, who is no longer wearing the orange rubber suit, stopping to
take an absurd amount of pictures, though the boys carrying sticks didn't want us to. Too late. On reaching what is pretty much the end of the peninsula, we find what Daniel tells us is a hotel. We lock our bikes together and head toward some large, interesting looking rocks and a tree. The large rock says "house of goat" in Swahili. We climb around to the edge of the lake and look out, next to us on the rocks are a couple of boats made with styrofoam-filled reeds. Fishermen actually live here. We take pictures of each other and of some weird mongoose type thing and head back to the hotel, order three sodas (Evan says he has money though I've left mine at home). After finishing our sodas and paying (almost 600 Tsh each) we go out onto some different rocks at the very end of the point and watch the sun set over Lake Victoria, an endless expanse of water.
We walk back to a small group of huts and Daniel offers us porridge. We duck under a short reed roof with reed walls part way up to it and take a seat at a short table with benches. Everyone crowds around the wazungu as we eat our porridge (I think it tastes like spaghetti Os only good, Evan disagrees). We then walk a short way until we part ways with Daniel, only then do we get on the bikes, even though my mom will be frantic. It is getting dark and I warn Evan to be careful; people drive crazily here, though most people walk or ride bikes. Any collision would be bad, but we make it home fine and sure enough my mom was just calling us on our neighbor's phone (hers was out of minutes) Why do I include such random details? Who knows. Daniel told us about a disco with Swahili hiphop that would be on Saturday, too bad we'll be on a safari. Ok no, I'm pretty sure it'll be worth it.

Friends

People here in Musoma seem really nice. At least some of them, the
ones that aren't trying to get money from us "mzungu" ("white person"
that's the singular, wazungu is the plural but it doesnt seem as
common. Yeah we started taking Swahili lessons). But it seems that
some Tanzanians
like making friends with us when they see us, like a good way to
practice their English, or maybe we just look lost all the time.
Hassan was the first such person we met. On our second day in Musoma,
we needed some stuff, a water boiler for tea, cups, plates and
utensils. Upon entering the market, we see a row of small, open-
fronted shops with who knows what inside. We wander down what appears
to be the road of furniture makers. In the middle of the street there
is a pile of rock we must walk around; it is still a dirt road and it
looks like it will be paved soon. The next street has more variety of
wares as well as more people, on bikes as is most common here. We
approach a promising shop and are greeted by a man who speaks English
well (though I hadn't been here long enough yet to realize how
uncommon that is). He translates for the shopkeeper, who doesn't speak
English at all. We buy a thing to boil water and look at a set of
plates, cups etc. before deciding they're too expensive. The English
speaking man, Hassan(as I found out later. I think that is how it is
spelled), leads us to a place with plastic stuff and we buy a few
trash bins. He again translates for the shopkeeper and my mom is
getting angry, deciding that as a middle man, Hassan was getting a cut
and her dislike if him begins. Later that day as we shop he approaches
us with lower offers for that dish set we had decided was more than it
should be, but my mom was definitely done with him. In the following
weeks my brother and I would run into him while shopping, and though I
at first had agreed with my mom that he should be avoided, Evan
trusted him more, so I gave him a chance. He helped us find bike locks
and it really does seem like he's doing us a favor and not profitting
from the transactions.
Emmanuel S. Mkeba was the next friendly Tanzanian we met, though
closer to our age. After riding (we had purchased bikes by that point:
red, white and blue ones as I noticed later, it really annoyed me
because I don't want to be seen as an obnoxious American so it is
better when just two of us go out, although I doubt anyone would
notice anyhow) through the white gate to our house, I turn to close
the gate and there is a boy standing there. Evan is already walking
toward the house but I call him back. Emmanuel (though he introduced
himself as Mkeba; they often use last names here) had apparently
seen us in town and biked like crazy to catch up to us. He wants to
make friends with us, and he already has friends from Sweden and some
other places. Over the next week he emailed us once and visited our
house twice. As it turns out he needs a sponsor to keep going to
school. He has a four page history on himself that is rather tragic,
and taken along with his appearance, (with one bad eye that goes the
wrong direction, except I can't decide which one goes the right
direction and therefore which to focus on) he seems like a very
compelling charity case. It seems that he doesn't expect us togive him
the money but rather for us to take the story to others in the US. I
find it kind of painful to talk to him, simply because his English
isn't very good, apparently Evan is better because they were talking
for a long time on the porch.
Daniel is my favorite so far. Evan and I were biking down some street
we didn't know, looking for the lake. It seems like it wouldn't be
hard to find since it is the second largest lake in the world, after
the Caspian Sea. The street was dirt, and looked like it had to lead
to the lakeside at some point. We stop to take a picture of the absurd
pelicans with the lake in the background (or a bay of it because we
could see across it). At that point a guy in an orange full-body
rubber suit and boots walks up to us and greets us. In English. He
works at the "fish industry", which is where we are, apparently. He
should be at work because he gets out at 5:00 and it is just after 3,
but he says to us that his boss won't do anything to him of he's with
us. So we ask him how to get to the beach. He leads us past some huts,
with us walking our bikes, and we arrive at an extremely small beach
with a good view. We exchange phone numbers (I've put an african
vodacom sim card that Robbie, my mom's friend, gave me in my phone)
and make plans to go to the rocky peninsula we saw off to the right.
He heads back to work, and we have plans to see him Monday (yeah that
already happened, I'm a bit behind – that story next post) Sorry about the formatting – i dont know why my email does that. I am now too lazy to fix it. Photos coming soon.

TZ 2: settling in

The house is livable, it just lacks some things, like a functional refridgerator and a mirror. The first few days were devoted to fixing the house up and getting to know Musoma. Though the fridge is still not working, someone is working on finding a replacement part and we have a freezer that doesn't freeze for the meantime. We do at least now have lights in the living room and both showers work. But that's the boring stuff. The town of musuma is close to our house and before we purchased bikes, we could walk there easily, right past the airport (4 flights per week, dirt runway). In town there are streets of little shops and a market with the food, and some of the vendors see us and immediately try to charge us 7 times what they'd charge any African, but for the most part it's relatively cheap, about 1000 Tsh (Tanzanian shillings) per dollar. I'm not even caught up yet, sorry my island vacation got me off schedule... I'll try to get pictures up at some point, but i can't do that from my iPod at this point. Let me know if there was anything interesting described that there should be a picture of.

TZ number one: flight & arrival

Flying to Dar Es Salaam, the biggest city in Tanzania that used to be the capital and is now losing it to some city in the geographical center of the country, was the longest amount of time I have ever spent in an airplane over any 2 day period. After spending the morning (1:45 to 11am) in JFK international airport in NY and sleeping on the floor, we departed on the longest flight, around 11 hours. It was long, but on the best plane I've ever been in. Each normal seat (not just the first class ones) had a touch screen monitor on which we could watch movies and TV shows on demand and play their library of music and games. I did take advantage of the movies and tv shows but I had my own music and didn't like the game controller or the games. My brother did not want that flight to end, but I was ready to be at our hotel in Dar, where we were after another 5 hour plane ride. We were in Dar for 1 day, which was enough time to get almost lost and to find the Indian ocean. The next day we arrived in Musoma. My mom has a friend here who is in the internet business - that is to say that he is the sole Internet provider around and does internet for Musoma as well as other villiages that have very little other contact with the outside world. He had Rhode (pronounced road-y because he's the driver) come get us in the truck to take us to the house we're renting. We got there and took our stuff inside, it was lacking some things but it was still quite luxurious by standards here.

Intro

So I guess we got to Tanzania last Tuesday but just today (Sunday) decided to start a blog. First, as an explanation of the name of the blog, at the moment there are no plans to go to Zanzibar, an island off the east coast of TZ, but I needed someplace starting with a z in order to have an A-Z blog name, and Zanzibar is pretty close to Dar Es Salaam. More on that later.