stunning

I can’t fully describe the stunning scene Saturday night at Mikume National Park, but I’ll try my best…

Imagine a savannah. Imagine knee to waist-high green and golden grasses with acacia and baobab trees dotting the landscape. Add giraffe, zebra, impala, eland, buffalo, wildebeest, elephants, baboons and more birds than I can name. Imagine the savannah stretching flat for miles with mountains in the distance. Now imagine dusk.

As the sun sets, the rays of light turn the greens in the landscape into vibrant greens and the golden grass a light pink hue. The colors of the animals also come alive- the stripes of the zebra become bolder and the three tones of the impala become more distinct.

Then the light starts to dim and the colors fade to black. The clouds start to roll in- high level clouds that don’t obscure the landscape or the mountains.

In the distance, suddenly there is a flash of light and a cloud lights up. Just for a second, the silhouettes of the trees and animals on the savannah reappear. A lightening storm is rolling in. No thunder, no rain, just flashes of light.

The lightening storm starts slowly. There are sporadic flashes of light in the distance that light up the clouds. Then it starts to gain momentum. The flashes light whole sections of the sky and there are moments when it is as bright as full daylight and you can see the eyes of the animals as you drive out of the park. Then as fast as it becomes light everything returns to pitch black. The lightening storm draws nearer. Suddenly in the distance there is a streak of lightening that reaches the earth. And then another. The streaks of light crackle and light up the savannah, revealing the mountains in the distance.

And then without a sound, the rain starts. Not a light rain, but large drops that race to the earth, saturating everything in seconds. But still no thunder. Suddenly with the rain the distance is obscured so the streaks of lightening return to being flashes of light that light up the clouds.

And then you arrive at the hotel/motel for the night and watch the Ireland-England rugby match on TV. There is no power, but somehow they decide that the TV is important enough to warrant the use of the generator.

And why were we in the park after dark? Because the other car- full of brilliant people- decided to drive around the logs across the road (you know, the universal sign for road closed), got stuck in the mud (the reason for the closed road), and we had to find them, get them a park ranger and help get them out of the mud. So we were in the park long after everyone else had to leave.

Yes, seeing the animals was amazing. There is something about giraffe that will never bore me. They are so graceful and watching them run feels like you are watching them in slow motion. Watching a mother elephant shield and protect her baby while crossing the road is heartwarming. But the lightening show- better than every fireworks display I’ve ever seen combined- was really the highlight of the weekend.

best excuse for missing a meeting

I learned how to tell time this morning in my Kiswahili lesson, which nearly had me laughing hysterically for a few minutes. Here’s how my teacher explained it to me:

In Kiswahili time, 4 o’clock is 10 o’clock.
2 o’clock is 8 o’clock.
10 o’clock is 4 o’clock.
11:30 is 5:30.

Getting the picture? If the time is between 12:01 (0:01 in 24-hour clock) and 6, you add 6 hours and if it’s between 6:01 and 12, you subtract 6 hours. The convention is that if you’re speaking in English, you use western time and if you’re speaking in Kiswahili you use Kiswahili time. But if you didn’t know this convention, this would be how a (literally translated) conversation would sound…

Me: The meeting is at 10 o’clock?
Njiro: Ndiyo, saakumi. [Yes, 4 o’clock.]
Me: Okay, see you at 10.
Njiro: Sawa, nitakuona saakumi. [Yep, see you at 4.]

So yep, time is six hours off.

Granted, there is a very logical reason for this odd and confusing methodology for time. The beginning of the day here starts when the sun rises, as opposed to western time where the beginning of the day is the middle of the night (midnight). So sunrise is 0 and an hour after sunrise is 1. Since the sun rises at 6, that produces the weird result of adding and subtracting 6 hours from the time. (So an hour after sunrise is 1 o’clock here, which is 7 in western time.)

However, this morning my teacher didn’t actually explain the logic behind this weird time system, she just kept quizzing me on how to say half-past five and quarter of nine and seeing if I could add and subtract in Kiswahili. I didn’t find out the reason for the adding and subtracting until I got to work and asked one of my coworkers.

Though all this is essentially a mute point since time isn’t exactly followed to the letter here- punctuality is definitely not a trait on this continent. (I can only imagine the heart failure that Swiss nationals must have everyday here.) If the meeting starts at 4 (saakumi), it’s perfectly acceptable to show up at 4:45 (saakumi na moja kasorobo), and then act surprised that the meeting has already started.

So next time you want to skip that 9 o’clock meeting, try explaining that you thought the meeting was 3 o’clock because you thought the office had switched to Tanzanian time for the day, and that may get you out of having missed it. (Or it may get you fired, in which case you can come visit me, and if you bring me chocolate chips I’ll let you stay with me and you can meet all the bugs in my house.)

Cruel, cruel joke

There are evil people in the world. Evil, cruel, heartless people.

I went to a new grocery store and while walking down one of the aisles, I saw a bag of Chips Ahoy. Yes, Chips Ahoy. I stopped in my tracks and couldn’t believe it- here in front of me was a bag of chocolate chip cookies (many bags actually). I glanced to my left and right and wondered why the other shoppers in the store weren’t running for this aisle and fighting over the cookies. I felt like I had found the holy grail.

I very calmly took a bag from the shelf, put it in my basket, paid for my purchases, went to my waiting taxi and rode home. (And yes, I left the store as soon as I had the cookies, because really, what else do you need to eat other than chocolate chip cookies?) Like a kid waiting for Christmas morning, the taxi ride took an eternity. (I thought the taxi driver may find it a little offensive if I ripped opened the bag and proceeded to stuff my face with cookies while in his car.)

Upon walking into the house, I took my first bite of a chocolate chip cookie in 6 weeks. It was heavenly. It was glorious. It was wonderful.

So I had another bite, only to realize that it really tasted nothing like a chocolate chip cookie should. The rest of the cookie and two subsequent cookies confirmed the fact that it really wasn’t a chocolate chip cookie.

But how could this be? The bag says Chips Ahoy and they really are made my Nabisco. But upon closer inspection, I discovered that they’re made in South Africa. And the bag says “chocolate flavoured chip cookies”.

Chocolate flavoured chip cookies?????

Somewhere, someone very, very evil is laughing hysterically knowing that he/she played a very cruel joke on a poor, cookie-loving girl. (Johnnnnnny…?) Discovering that there are in fact no chocolate chip cookies in Dar was like discovering that there really is no jolly guy in red that delivers packages.

Heartbreaking

Absolutely heartbreaking

Tennis in Dar

Yesterday some of my roommates and I went to play tennis. Finally, something completely “normal” for me to do, or so I thought. (Even though seeing camels on beautiful beaches, wandering through exotic bazaars and watching stunning sunsets is really starting to seem normal.)

There are in fact tennis courts in Dar, and our guess is that they’re basically the only courts in Tanzania. Sure, some of the nice hotels probably have courts somewhere, but these are the only ones where we can play. Football, not tennis, is the dominant sport here. The complex (which is clearly visible on google earth and not far from where we live) has 15 courts in various states of repair. (You’ll notice on the Google Earth image that the courts are different colors- and that’s not due to them being different surfaces.) It costs about $4 entrance to the courts (I’m told there’s also a gym there), 80 cents per hour to rent a court, and about 80 cents per hour to hire a ball-boy. So it’s a pretty good deal. And yes, you read that correctly, you also get a (non-optional) ball-boy.

Playing in beautiful San Francisco involved fog rolling in over the courts, cool breezes, and pretty courts. Playing in Dar involves not stepping on the crickets that hop onto the court, grass growing out of the cracks on the court and sun/heat. So basically, exactly the same. The great part about playing in Dar is that 1- you can blame things on the cracks in the court, and 2- lessons only cost about $5 per hour. (So maybe I’ll finally learn how to serve well!) Plus in Dar, you get a wicked tan (or heat stroke, depending on how you look at it) and you never have to run after a ball.

So in sum:
-An hour of tennis… $5.60 per person
-Getting racket restrung after a string broke… $8
-Not having to run after miss-hit balls… priceless
-Watching one of your roommates swing and miss, then spin around in a circle from the force of her swing… priceless
-Watching the ball-boy try to contain his laughter while watching you and acrobatic roommate play … completely priceless

(Though in my roommate’s defense, which was NOT me, the ball completely changed direction after hitting a crack in the court.)

Password-22

Here’s the “I clearly live in Africa” story for the day.

I need to call one of our other offices, which I do frequently. The way the phone systems are set up here (pretty much for all Tanzanian offices) is a little different than in the states due to the lack of physical phone lines from the phone company. So the idea of a “direct line” into or out of someone’s office is non-existent. So in order to make calls here you have to dial the receptionist, who in turns dials out and then your phone rings a short time later and your call has been connected. At least, that’s how it worked yesterday.

But today is a different story. Today you need a password to dial out. Now this isn’t an individual password (it isn’t that we each have a code so they can track individual calls), this is a password for the entire building. And no one knows what the password is. Therefore no one can dial out.

How on earth could we have a password that no one knows? Very good question.

Truth be told, there is someone who knows the password. But in classic Catch-22 style, they aren’t in this building. So in order to get the password we need to dial out and in order to dial out we need the password.

As many of you know, I have the world’s greatest cell phone here in Tanzania. So I could just take initiative and call this person on the phone and get the password. You would think! But alas, no one seems to have the number...

Zanzibar heat

I don't have time to write a proper story about my trip to Zanzibar this past weekend, but suffice it to say that it was: 1-amazing, 2-hot, 3-gorgeous, 4-wonderful, 5-hot and 6-incredible. I've posted a few pictures- the link is on the right.

The one advantage to the extreme heat is that Dar now feels almost cool. Almost.

And in response to the questions, the pb cookies tasted surprisingly like they're meant to. And rumor has it that there is a store that sells brown sugar in Dar, so there's hope yet for the chocolate chip cookies. (Though the key ingredient, the choc chips, is still questionable.)

4 weeks... and the hottest day yet

Tonight is my four week anniversary here. Though honestly, it feels like I've been here a lot longer than that. I don't mean that in a good or bad way, it's just odd to think that I've only been here 4 weeks.

In honor of the anniversary, I'm going to try to bake peanut butter cookies. (I would have tried for chocolate chip, but alas, there are no chocolate chips for baking to be found in Dar.) And even the peanut butter cookies may be (very) questionable since I don't have any brown sugar, nor do I have a mixer. So I imagine that it's really going to be the thought that counts.

Also in honor of my four week annivesary, the weather gods decided to make today the hottest day here. Oh, it was pretty bad. Thankfully it's now back to being bearable (aka, hot but i don't want to kill anyone). But it's still pretty warm.

Two corrections on previous posts: the spelling of Kipapeo is really Kipepeo, which means butterfly in Kiswahili. And the corn-meal food eaten here is called ugali, not upagi.

the brilliant architect/engineer

A funny thing happened when I got to work today. I rained early this morning, which I will write about in another post. By the time I got to the office it had stopped raining and the large potholes were mini lakes, which conveniently double as malaria-breeding pools. When I got to the office today I noticed that there was a heavy stream of water coming from the upper floors and landing right in front of the front door. Needless to say, I was a little confused as to why it was still raining only in front of the door. Any thoughts why?

Well, there was a really brilliant architect/engineer for the building. He was smart enough to put in drain pipes to drain water from the decks on the upper floors (there are tons of decks in this building). Unfortunately for him, he was not quite bright enough to place them somewhere where they didn’t let out on someone’s head. Seriously, the drain pipes all empty out above the front door. So when it rains, all the water gets channeled to come down in front of the front door. And for some reason the downpour continues for a few hours after the rain stops. How hysterical is that?

I did actually entertain the thought that the engineer had a really evil sense of humor and that his error wasn’t really an error. But working in this building and seeing the rest of his work… let’s just say it’s pretty obvious his sense of humor was not the reason for the strategically placed drain spouts.

I think he got his degree from Hopkins.