Hello from Moyo Hill! I’ve only been here for two and a half
days, but it feels like it’s been forever. I think that's because I'm already feeling quite comfortable around the camp. All of my fellow students are wonderful, the staff are friendly, and the accommodations are more comfortable than I expected. Or maybe everything we do during the day tires us our so much each day that it doesn't really matter.
When I last posted, I was sitting in the Amsterdam airport.
Getting from there to Moyo Hill was quite the adventure, complete with the
scariest aircraft landing I’ve yet to experience (everything ended up fine, it
was just very rough and jarring), an hour drive through nighttime Tanzania, a
flat tire, a hotel stay in the city of Arusha, a fun and interesting
conversation with the driver of one of the SFS vehicles, a car ride down dirt
roads, and my first giraffe sighting. To be clear, the stay in Arusha was
intended, we got into Kilimanjaro around 8:50pm local time, so making the three
and a half hour drive to Moyo Hill wasn’t ideal.
While driving from Arusha to Rhotia, the village where the
Moyo Hill camp is located, the driver of the Land Rover I was in asked lots of
questions about life in America. My fellow SFS students and I, in turn, asked
him a lot about life in Tanzania. It was quite fun and educational. He asked
about the new healthcare policy (That was the first thing he asked about. The
people here love Obama), public education, water and electricity costs,
indigenous people (the Native Americans), and national park policies. He told
us a bit about these things in Tanzania, especially about the many tribes throughout the country (the Maasai are the most powerful of these) and also about the Tanzanian government's structure (they have a president, a vice president, and a cabinet appointed by
the president). During this time we also saw three giraffes near Lake Manyara
National Park. My first African animal sighting! We only caught a quick
glimpse, but it made me even more excited for our game drives, data collection,
and lectures out in the field.
Arriving at Moyo Hill was incredible. Rhotia itself is a
very small, rural village in Northern Tanzania which I will soon be learning more about as I continue exploring and meeting local people. After pulling into the gates and climbing out of
the Land Rovers (SFS has a fleet of about 5 or 6), we were immediately greeted
by all of the local staff. All of us stumbled through trying to pronounce each
other’s names and we students learned that if someone greets you by saying Mambo you respond with Poa. After that, we grabbed our checked
bags and went to our assigned Bandas (essentially our dorms).
That day was filled with a tour of the camp and a walk
around the village roads surrounding the camp. We also got to see the local
primary school, where SFS students help teach English and the soccer field
where we were told many a soccer tournament would take place.
Our first full day at Moyo Hill was orientation day, so we
sat through four hours of student life orientation and then three hours of
academic orientation. Despite being jetlagged, I thought the orientation
lectures were fairly entertaining. We learned about some of the local hazards,
including hyenas. Apparently, you usually don't see the hyenas, but you can hear them at night. I am still waiting for this to happen.
The academic orientation was less intense, but still
interesting. It was great to officially meet our professors and learn a little
about them and the subjects they teach. Three of the professors are Tanzanian and
the fourth is German. All of them have had amazing opportunities to teach and
learn all over the world.
Classes started on our second full day at Moyo Hill. We had
an hour of wildlife management, an hour of Swahili, and two and half hours of
Policy and Socioeconomics. I think the latter is going to be my favorite class.
Tanzania’s history— from pre-colonial times to German rule to British rule to
independence to a socialist government to the transition into a democratic
government—makes for fascinating changes and challenges in policy.
The classes
are pretty different from what I’ve gotten used to at Sweet Briar. There are
thirty-three students in this program and we all take our classes together, so
this is one of the largest classes I’ve been in. Also, everyone raises their
hands to answer questions, which rarely happens in my Sweet Briar classes. It’s
been difficult to stop myself from blurting out responses. Most of the students
here come from large universities, so it’s been interesting exchanging stories
on our colleges experiences. I have to say, it’s made me even happier that I
chose to go to a small school, especially when they all commiserate about how
hard it is to stay awake/pay attention in huge lectures.
I’m impatient to learn more Swahili. It’s getting pretty old
pretty quick just being able to say the handful of greetings I know. The common
greetings, other than Mambo all use
the word habari. You
can say habari gani (something like
how are you) or habari za asabuhi (good
morning) or habari za mchana (good
afternoon) or habari za jioni (good
evening). The response to any of the habari
greetings is nzuri or nzuri
sana (good or very good). There are also the basics like yes (ndio), no (hapana), thank you (asante),
you’re welcome (karibu), and OK (sawa). The Swahili class is flying along
nicely, but it’s one thing to understand everything on the board and it’s
another to internalize it enough to use it while speaking. That’s a problem
I’ve never really had to deal with learning Latin!
The best time to learn Swahili outside the classroom is
definitely working with the local staff. Sometimes they’ll pass you, say
something, then explain what they said and how to respond. There is also a student cook
crew which rotates throughout the week. The cook crew helps the kitchen staff make
breakfast in the morning and clean the day’s dishes after dinner. It’s a good time to pick up
a bit more Swahili, and also learn names. I had my cook crew duties on Wednesday.
In the morning, I was in charge of making the pancakes, which were more like
crepes than American pancakes and, in my opinion, much better. I learned what
eggs and pancakes are called in Swahili, but then promptly forgot. It’s so hard
to remember things on the fly! The evening duties were a little less fun,
cleaning everything that had been used for preparing the food (everyone washes
their own eating utensils and dishes after every meal), but it wasn’t too bad.
The food itself has been great! Lots of veggies, especially
green beans, potatoes, fresh watermelon and pineapple, rice, noodles, lentils, vegetable
and meat sauces, pork, beef, fish, and ugali, which is a traditional Tanzanian
dish made of cornmeal and water. They do use a whole heck of a lot more oil here
in their cooking; when I was making pancakes the rule of thumb was, when in
doubt, add more oil. I’m also excited to try new foods on our days off, when we
can explore nearby cities.
We’re having our first non-program day (NPD, we get one day
off from classes each week) on Saturday where we’ll take a hike near the
Ngorongoro conservation area and then go to a local market. I don’t know how
effective going to this market will be, saying we all know very little Swahili,
but it will still be interesting to see. And next week, we get to go on our
first trip to Lake Manyara National Park!
One last quick thing about the Internet here: It works, but
it’s very slow. I
can usually get on to my Facebook and email about once a day, but it takes a
while, so I haven’t had much chance to respond to emails and messages. I’m
sorry if I haven’t responded to some of your messages yet, but I appreciate all of them!
Until next time,
Savanna
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