A little excitement today

So, in Tanzania, the police are pretty much useless. Which means, if you get caught doing something bad, you basically get mobbed. Likely killed.

Have you heard the Dane Cook routine, where he watches someone get hit by a car? "You're about to be struck by a vehicle!" Yeah. If you haven't, it's a good one.

Today, whilst eating lunch on a patio, my chair was replaced by the hood of a car.
Story:

We went out to lunch at one of the only places that was open today, being the day after Easter. The woman running the place seemed a little distracted; as in, one of us would order and then she would just walk away. That's not totally unusual for Arusha--we've actually nicknamed a place "Space Cadet" because one of the servers is quite spacey. So it was a little bit entertaining but we thought nothing of it.

We were on the patio, under a little awning thing. A car pulled up and parked outside, and then started to honk. We thought it was a taxi waiting for someone. The rice and beans we ordered were delicious. Adam and Alana were hungry, so they each ordered another batch.

"Look out! LOOK OUT!" shouted Adam. I looked into the kitchen, thinking something was going on there. Perhaps there were some flying chipati, or chips mayai had caught on fire. Adam and Alana jumped, Gabby grabbed my shirt and pulled, and I was hit by a car. The table collapsed onto me, glass shattered and I lost my soda. My soda! At the time, looking back, all that was on my mind was my Bitter Lemon baridi. Odd.
The car then backed up and sped away. Which was probably the smart thing for the driver to have done, because people were running out, ready to pull him from the vehicle and bludgeon him to death.

We all assumed that he had meant to be in reverse, and accidentally just drove up, over the curb, and into us. It turns out, however, that this was not the case. You remember how the woman had seemed distracted? Well, apparently she had been fighting with her husband. The man behind the wheel: her husband. He wanted to do some damage.

We put the plastic table back together, and I picked up my broken Bitter Lemon bottle. there was a little liquid in it, and I tried to take a sip but a man grabbed it from me and everyone looked at me like I was an idiot. At the time, I just wanted my soda. Now, of course, I realize there had probably been glass shards contained within the last drops I so desperately wanted. So I ordered another one. We sat down, and a woman brought us our bill (with a few deductions). Adam and Alana's second batch of rice and beans, however, never made it.

A man who spoke English quite well came up to us and offered to help in any way he could. He offered to take us to the police station, but we've heard stories about how useless that would have been, so we declined. He told us he had the license plate number, and why the man had done what he did. Then we went and got some chocolate.


I'm still shaking a little and my mind is slightly befuddled. So, if this doesn't make much sense I'm sorry, I just feel like that was a story I needed to tell. And getting it out in words helped.
I'm okay, everyone is okay. There were no serious injuries. Just some bruising on its way.
Crazy day. TIA.

Love, Brendan

Engaruka is hot.

The last three weeks have been intense (not unlike camping. In fact, we were camping! [Okay, maybe the "intense" thing doesn't work in writing, but I just don't care]).
When we arrived, Kinsey, the Country Director (also the former Tanzania Director of Heifer International. Perhaps you've heard of it?) told us that Engaruka is the furthest out volunteers had ever been. And I believe it. There was no way I could have experienced a place like that if I hadn't been doing this. Sure, some tourists come through there, but they don't really experience the people and the way they live. Going from house-to-house, vaccinating chickens, you get to see how people in this seemingly inhospitable land live. It is amazing, just how durable the Massai are. Engaruka is desert, in the middle of the Great Rift Valley. You can see the mountains around Ngongoro crater, and there is a stream flowing into Engaruka that runs from somewhere up there; the people with land near the water have all the money, and all of the food. If you go maybe a mile away, it's just desert, where the Maasai have their bomas and their cattle graze on what vegetation they can find.

The first week was chicken vaccinations. Week two I did one HIV/AIDS training in the morning, and one class of primary school students in the afternoon. Week three I did a Sustainable Agriculture training in the morning and taught the same students in the afternoon. Teaching the children was definitely a lot of fun. We got to play a lot more games (including teaching them Matamoscas--anybody remember that from Granada Spanish classes!?), and it was two weeks of classes instead of the usual one. We added more puberty and anatomy to the classes, and just had a rockin' time!

We also dug a "halfyear" (sp?) which is essentially a giant hole in the ground that is lined with plastic and fills with rainwater for the further-from-water people. That was wonderful (though hot, dusty and tough). It rarely rains there, but, as they say, "when it rains it pours." A day or two of good rain can, apparently, last about three months.

The second weekend, we didn't make the four-hour trek back to Arusha; we went to lake Manyara and saw thousands upon thousands of flamingos! There were some... organizational issues, but it was okay. The first day there, we hiked up to a wonderful waterfall. And by wonderful, I mean it was well over 100 degrees outside and the water was cold. It was truly the most excited any of us had been to jump in water. Day two, I was sick from the heat and my body had sort of stopped digesting... so I threw up lunch from a few days prior. That wasn't all that fun. But as soon as I got it out of my system I felt much better. Everyone else went on a hike while I tried to nap in the shade, but it was just too hot so I ended up reading instead. Not all bad.


Let's see... what else have I been up to? I've pretty much lost track of time and days and dates here. I just realized, my family + Christine + Grace are coming in a month. Which is super exciting! Then, three weeks after that, I'm shipping home. It seems like it's coming way too fast, and I don't know how I feel about it. I want to stay here. I want to go home because I miss my friends. I need to finish my education. But I can study abroad here, right? I don't know. Maybe in Dar Es Salaam or Nairobi. I'm going to look into it when I get home. Then again, when I get home, maybe I'll want to stay. We shall see.

Here I am!

I'm not really sure what goes in this blog. Am I going to tell you what happens, like a narration? Or just small blurbs with thoughts on the big experiences? I suppose that will depend on how often I can get online, and what y'all want to hear about. :) I've been trying to keep a journal, with details and such, but I probably won't put all of that online.

A lot of little things have gone crazy/wrong in the last few days, but I suppose that's just part of the experience. A lot of things have gone right, too.

I arrived in Arusha late Friday night, exhausted, and the people from GSC dropped me off and said they would come pick me up Monday morning. So I was tired
In the morning, I was still a little nervous but I went to breakfast (they serve it at 7 am! Who does that?) and met two people from Denmark, Anke and Niles, who have been here for a while. I talked to strangers! You should be proud of me. They were talking about going into town, and asked me if I wanted to join them. Of course I did, since I didn't know anything about the place. So I went with them into the town, and our first stop was an ATM for me. And... it failed. I still haven't figured that out, either. I have about 40 dollars worth left, so that should last me a few days but it's kind of a problem if I don't get it working. Wiring money is expensive, so I don't want to make my dad do that. My card works as a credit card, but very few places can take it. The ATMs all say they are having problems connecting to my bank, so I have no idea what's going on. It doesn't say my bank is rejecting it or anything, it just isn't connecting. It's a little on the frustrating side.
Anyway, Anke had heard of the Masai Camp Cafe and wanted to go there, and Erna had recommended it too, so we decided to go try to find it. We walked around for about 30 minutes, asking people where it was and they kept pointing in random directions (they want to be polite here, so much that they don't want to tell you they don't know something, so they friendly-ly give you directions). Eventually we found someone who offered to walk us there, in exchange for buying him a beer when we arrived. So that was good. And there was wireless internet!

I really haven't started the GSC part of this, I've mostly just been exploring around town. I started training on Monday, and I've been doing things here-and-there. Mostly Swahili lessons (I must say I do miss Latin-based languages). I will start trainings and working with kids and such in the next week or two, and then I'm sure I will have many more stories to tell!

There have been so many small encounters with the people here, and many ways to experience the culture. Tanzania truly is a wonderful place. A wonderful, stinky, dusty place. While I do get homesick, I also love it here.

Quite a bit more than that has happened, obviously, but that's what I've had time to write about. From now on I'll probably stick to shorter posts (with pictures, I assure you!), but we shall see.
I love you all!

Peace + Love,
Brendan