Crocs go on Safari

Soooo much to say!!!

First things first.

I moved into my village last Sunday, to meet my family and find out where I will be staying for the first half of the program. My Baba and Mama are super-cool (and pretty well off, it turns out) and they have 6 kids. I'm still having trouble figuring out which 6 kids are theirs because there are a gazillion and one kids everywhere, all fascinated with the new "wazungu" (white people) who have moved to their village. Some of the kids started to call me simba (which means lion) because of my hair...i kinda like the nickname.

There are three of us from SIC who all live together (Chloe, from UCLA, and Farida, from Tanzania) in one room of my house. The house is nice, we have electricity, and we even own a TV. There's no running water however, so we still have to take trips outside to the choo and to the shower. But watching my Mama cook is pretty awesome...they have a "kitchen" in the back, which is essentially a large covered room with a place for wood burning (her stove). She cooks over an open flame, uses no potholders or anything, and cuts the vegetables right into the pot. I tried to help the first couple of meals, but the family pretty much just laughed at our silly american way of doing things. Food's been interesting...anything from ugali to bananas and meat (yes, together in a stew...still not sure how i feel about that) to fish (we're talking, WHOLE fish) to rice and beans. We get a good selection and wide variety but it's still just plain different from what i'm used to eating.

The family owns about 6 cows (ng'ombe...yeah, i still can't say it right) and have a little farm area where they grow most of their own produce. Our Mama milks the cows and immediately heats it up to make us chai each morning and night. There's no refridgeration, so everything is either used immediately or it's got a pretty long shelf-life.

Turns out both my mama and baba speak english pretty well (although they refuse to use it, forcing us to learn our Swahili) and they're wonderful and very happy people. Our Baba is one of the head haunchos of our village, so he's usually pretty busy running around taking care of stuff, while Mama giggles at our lack of ability to speak Kiswahili all day long. I don't think I've ever been so dirty before in my life, with all the vumbi (dust) in our village, so it's always fun to compare dirty feet with my roommates at the end of the day. I think I'm usually the winner.

Because our choo isn't attached to our house, you have to walk out into the yard to get to it. I always end up cracking a smile because there's this little girl who lives across the lawn who will, without fail, call out "Kreeessteeen" (kristin) from accross the way just to say hello. It doesn't matter how many times she's already seen me that day, she just gets such a kick out of having a mzungu neighbor that she will never fail to say hello...I love it.

I'll write more about my village and teaching a little later.

This weekend I got to go on Safari. It was pretty much everything I expected it to be and more. We took a two-day Safari out of Arusha, and went first to Tarangire National Park and then Ngorogoro National Park the next day. It was beautiful, breathtaking and gorgeous. I took a bunch of pictures on the trip and will post them next time I get a chance (I forgot my camera, so I can't post right now) I only hope they do it some justice. The safari was one of the most incredible things I've ever done in my life. We saw zebras, elephants, lions, cheetah, wildebeasts, hyenas, giraffes, water buffalo, tons of birds, baboons, hippos, and my new favorite african animal: warthogs. Warthogs are some of the goofiest-looking things i've ever seen...they're bulky little things with eightites-style rockstar hair and pretty gnarly horns to boot. They're pretty much hilarious.

We saw some cheetah both days (which i found out doesn't happen very often), had an elephant practically jump into our safari truck, and even got to see a pride of lions (simba...teehee) having three zebras for lunch.

Despite the fact that i was in such a beautiful and amazing setting, I couldn't help but compare it to the lion king, and had those disney songs running through my head the entire trip. Luckily though, Meghan, one of the other girls on the trip, got just as big a kick out of Lion King references as I did, which made it even that much more exciting to see Mufasa, simba, pumba, rafiki and the circle of life in action.

The whole trip was amazing, and so fun. Next time I get a chance, I'll post some pictures and update more about life down here.

Kwa heri for now!