tanzania months

surprise surprise

2006-05-29T16:27:00.000-04:00

hi! my friend ch was leaving so i changed my ticket and left with her the next day! so now i'm home. i surprised my parents and called sebby to pick me up from the pgh airport... they were really surprised. it was a good way to leave and avoid a lot of the sadness and dread of leaving a place and a whole existence. i didn't get to say goodbye to lots of people, for the better i think. i have to call ju from here because i didn't have the heart to tell her that i was skipping town early because she was taking her finals... i was happy to minimize the wanting to puke/leaving feeling to 24 hours instead of a week or two... and it was nice to chat with ch on the plane about other things until amsterdam and not really think about leaving...

now i'm home. nice to see mom and dad and sebby. but everything here is big and fast and i'm a little bit scared. hopefully, it'll go away in a week or so- otherwise maybe i'm going crazy.

i hate transition... but at least i have more time to get over it/spend time with people- instead of rushing etc before starting school at the end of august.

thanks for reading my things... it's helped me a lot and made me feel in touch.

so i hope i see all of you soon... i have to get my cellphone working again- then i'll give you a call... but i've really been moving pretty slowly.

love, ganga

mr. sunshine

2006-05-22T03:59:00.000-04:00

yay! rainy season's finally and officially over... i've been saying it in hopes of it going away for weeks, but it was finally gone when i got back from zanzibar. the road that we live on is dried up in all parts that aren't under a tree.

zanzibar was beautiful and the conference was super busy and a lot of work, but fun- nice to meet different and interesting people. i was getting sick of arusha so it was nice to get out and have conversations with new people. the lawyers at the conference were from different african countries and malaysia and they were all very nice and friendly. the only person i didn't like was the bossy lady from canada... she was really anal and reminded me of most things that i hate about home.. for meals, i used to sit away from the dining area and at a coffee table with a view of the beach and different people would always come and join me. the man from malaysia is president of a human rights place there, and also a poet and was nominated for a nobel prize for literature and he was really nice to me and would come and chat with me and gave me a book of his poetry and a pin that says 'no detainment without trial'... i didn't go to the beach at all because you had to take a security guard because of muggings... it was fun but so busy, i was happy to leave a day early. but i overestimated how much time it would take for me to get to the airport. and then i wasn't allowed into the airport for two hours so i sat outside of it and read... and then this old man who's ancestors are mostly from oman and a little bit from india invited me to sit in his office and chat for an hour. he was really friendly and told me about what he thinks the important things are in life... i met a lot of kindred spirits on the trip and it really made me happy.

then friday was j and sg's wedding. it was fun to spend the day with her and she looked really beautiful in her dress. ch was her maid of honor and had an applegreen dress made. the wedding was a lot of them being on stage and a lot of pictures being taken, and speeches made. her parents had sent a letter which they read out loud in both english and swahili. i'm really happy for them.. now they're in zanzibar on their honeymoon.

the new person from canada that'll be here for three months is supposedly arriving today. i feel bad because none of us know anything about when or how he'll get here. i hope everything works out for him.

my swahili teacher that was sick passed away last week. i had just sent him a text message two weeks before and he wrote that he was doing well. he had a really positive attitude about his sickness. it makes me sad to read my swahili notes and see the stuff that he wrote in my book. i hope his family is doing okay.

ju gets back in a week and a half. i can't wait. i like work and stuff but something's a little stale about arusha for me. i get mad to have too many aquaintences and not enough real friends.

it seems like now i'll stick to july 1st for coming home because time is passing so quickly, but we'll see.

i'm thinking of maybe climbing kilimanjaro with my swedish friend before leaving...

not much else. love, ganga

giraffes

2006-05-15T09:06:00.000-04:00

hi!
in zanzibar, left at 6 this morning and now it's almost evening. the travel here wasn't nearly as dreadful as i had imagined... the ceo's nice and friendly and it was easy...

went to arusha national park on saturday with two guys, one from lebanon and one from ethiopia- that swedish friend ka and i met last week. i also invited ch's boyfriend's sister to come. it was really fun. those guys were really friendly and informational and t's sister knows a lot about animals. the safari was nicer for me than the one with sebby because we got to get out of the car and walk to fun places- a waterfall and then up to about 15 giraffes that were really sweet and pretty. and we saw lots of flamingoes up close too.

was tired after that day...

so i'm here, and the conference isn't until the day after tomorrow. all i had to do was give a disk and some papers for bulk photocopying to the zanzibar law society guy that's putting everything together.. he's really nice. i can't really lay out in a bikini though because there's a sign near the pool that says if you intend to go onto the beach by order you have to take a security guard with you... and i don't want to do that. so i just sat by the pool with my clothes on and read a little bit. i have to say, it's really funny to be at a beach resort by myself. i mean the ceo's here, and he's really friendly and asks me if i've eaten yet and stuff, but i would rather just pretend that i'm by myself. i talked a little to the head lady from canada who works at the bar association that's sponsoring this conference and she invited me to go to town with them, but i said no- so i must not dislike being by myself that much...

it's really peaceful and pretty and hot here. when i went to the national park, the lebanese guy told me that there's an arabic saying that there are three things that can cure stress: greenery, water, and a beautiful face...

i forgot to bring my malaria medicine for this week... oh well. who cares, it was starting to make me crazy anyways...

i tried zanzibari prawn pilau for lunch which i didn't get a chance to try when i came with seb and it was good but for some bites i felt like i was biting into sticks of raw spices... a cat came and sat next to me while i was eating because it wanted food, but i kind of liked the company.

i'm reading a book called burmese days by george orwell, it's pretty good.

lots of love, ganga

thanks

2006-05-10T08:01:00.000-04:00

first of all, a million thanks thanks thanks to anyone who sent a donation to my mom for the hiv ngo. already, 3 people sent, and it's such a lot of money when converted...i really appreciate it and feel touched and happy. thanks a lot.

so let's see. yesterday we got really worried because we thought my roomate a was missing. her boyfriend had come by very concerned on sunday night saying her phone was off. but we had all gotten a text that said she'd be in moshi for the week... then he went to moshi and looked everywhere for her, checked her work there and her friends' houses and the hospital because that's where any foreigner would go if something serious happened. so after i spoke to him, we sat around being worried and talking. then sg called mama ukio who's kind of our program's head person here and she said that she had told her that she had a family emergency... so we didn't know what to think. anyways, then her boyfriend contacted the u.s. embassy to see if she had left the country, and to check the hospital in arusha... anyways, he called me this morning and told me he got an email saying she's ok and not to worry. apparently, they had just split up for good the day before. i just saw her online and she told me to make people not worried and that the truth is she's out of the country for a family emergency... so either europe or america i guess.

i leave at 6 am on monday morning to go to zanzibar for a conference for most of the week. i'm dreading it because i'm only going with the ceo and i don't know him very well...oh well. oh, and it'll be soooo boring staying in a hotel room by myself and having absolutely no friends. but that's an experience i guess. and the conference should be interesting. it's an east africa access to justice/legal aid conference and there will be people from lots of countries...i don't know if i have nice enough clothes with me. i hope so. i'm happy that mom sent some skirts with sebby. because with the coldish weather/unpredictable rain , i've been dressing like a garbage woman. hopefully it'll be warm in zanzibar...

then i will get back thursday night- and j and sg's wedding is on friday!

st got tested again and found out that he still has malaria- can you believe it? it seems like it's been a month. also, my swedish friend k has an amoeba stomach problem but now she's feeling better...

i'm happy it'll be warm when i come home. am i coming home soon? i can't decide if it's soon or not.

going to a birthday party at s's for his new girlfriend's birthday tomorrow. it should be fun. she's cooking i think. she's half danish and half tanzanian.

ok. it might be a while before i type again because of the weekend, then conference, then wedding.

lots of love, ganga

mambopoasafihabarinzuri

2006-05-08T04:48:00.000-04:00

hi!
i don't even know if you read this anymore because i write less frequently and have been here for a while now... but let's see. there must be something that i can tell you.

i had a good weekend. friends with s again and his friends. spent time with all of them this weekend. a slept at my place this weekend. i think it's because s's cousin ro is staying with him for the month, and i bet she's scared to sleep there when a boy has to sleep in the room with her, since the bad thing happened. ro's really nice though and i'm sure there's nothing for her to worry about, but i understand why she'd be uncomfortable...

went and played pool/mostly watched her and ro play pool on saturday afternoon and then we went out with others after hanging out at s's apt for a little bit. one kind of weird thing happened that ended up being joke. i was talking to ro's twin brother for a little bit, then basically they all started lying and saying that one person had aids, and then that person would say another person has aids. then ro's brother pulled out a piece of paper that was his hiv test results that said negative. that surprised me a little bit. but maybe he had just gotten tested so happened to have it with him. i don't know if what i just wrote sounds confusing, but i don't really feel like explaining- anyways, it all turned out to be joke and they were all lying to see who could be more convincing or something. it wasn't a funny joke- more confusing than anything else.

one thing i realize but don't like about being friends with people from here is this assumption of money and sometimes i feel put in a funny position. with friends, i don't mind and i feel comfortable explaining how i feel...but i don't like it when friends of friends just openly ask for money. one of a's friends texted me yesterday implying that she had to ask me a favor, but we're not friends at all and have spoken almost never. i'll have to learn how to say no i guess, but i know that i'm going to hate it.

it's a totally different attitude about money here..it's common for girls to go out with people etc. all because of the money (having things paid for or actually getting money)...it's kind of sad but people really don't have money so i guess those things seem relatively harmless. ro showed me pictures of him and his twin brother as guides for mt. kilimanjaro with two women. and one of them was his 43 year old girlfriend from finland and she paid for 2 years of his university... he was kind of laughing about it but it was true. and i guess the brother was the boyfriend of the other woman who was 38. ro and his brother are both one year younger than me.

so i think i'll be in cleveland for the next four years... social work and law..should be pretty exciting. i hope i can do it- i'm bad at staying in the same place for long time, and i'm bad at realizing the importance of things that i should...

there's a new person from canada that'll be coming to live in our house next month and he'll be working here too, so we'll overlap one month.

going to zanzibar mid next week for that conference and then will come back thursday night so that i can make it to j and sg's wedding next friday.

housemate a was sick with amoebas last week..now she's better.

hope everyone's doing well! love, ganga

may

2006-05-03T05:26:00.000-04:00

hi.

yeah, so my boss said i can leave early at the end of the conference to make it back for my housemate's wedding. and they're not doing a reception at the house anymore. now it'll be an actual wedding, she's having a dress made and everything... i'm so excited!

i said bye to drew this morning. he was here for a few days. it was a lot of fun. i had never really spent time with him before, so it's funny to think that he's had a longish glimpse into my life here. he's really nice and sweet and cooked a big indian dinner for all of us the other night. and he's actually a great cook, almost as good as jen! it was nice to see someone from home.

the weather's killing me lately. i can't stand the rain. and i'm so cold. i started wearing my fleece this week for the first time. and it's only going to get colder i think. i wish i brought more warm clothes. i feel like i dress in layers of garbage. just kidding.

not much news. might try and go to moshi this weekend. a little bit sick of arusha. we'll see. there are no more holidays this month and next. only 2 months left. time passes so quickly.

been hanging out with k, the swedish girl that's going through a divorce. she's really nice and we can laugh really easily together.

going to meet her for lunch now.

hope everyone's doing well

wedding bells

2006-04-27T03:00:00.000-04:00

hi! sorry it's been long.

so my housemate j is going to marry her boyfriend sg (our orientation coordinator when we first got here) next month. it's really exciting! and we're going to have the reception at our house with all of sg's family. he's their oldest and only son, so his parents definitely wanted to celebrate in some way, even though j and sg asked if they could just go on a long honeymoon to zanzibar instead of celebrating...it'll be fun. i just hope that i can make it. i have to go to zanzibar for work because there's a conference that ends on their wedding date, so i'll see if i can leave early or something. i'll feel bad if i miss their wedding...

st found out that he still has malaria.. he said that he felt ok though. he's going to get checked again tomorrow.

i think my malaria medicine is making me really anxious all of a sudden. the other day it was terrible and last night i had so much trouble falling asleep. it's anxiety for no reason, i'm wondering if i should stop taking it- i hate feeling anxious for no reason.

last week a big tree fell down in front of our gate from the rains. our poor nightwatchman had to chop away the whole thing in the morning after having stayed up all night.

oh, s isn't my friend anymore. it's bad because it also prevents me from being friends with all of his friends because we have no way of seeing each other because we always used to meet up at his apt. st told r everything- that s has a new girlfriend etc... so i think he'll be cold to all of us because of it. it's good that she knows because she had been planning on coming back to africa for him, but i think that she's mad at me because i wasn't brave enough to tell her. oh well. that's life. at least she knows now.

met up with a friend of a friend that i had never met before on monday after work. she was living in ny before she started travelling and she's interesting- she realized on her trip that she thinks that she wants to become a midwife...

drew from college is going to be in town this friday, it'll be nice to see him.

not much other news. have been entertaining the idea of maybe going home a little early to spend more time with family and friends because i don't know where i'll be in the fall. but it's kind of just a joke with myself. i don't know if i'm seriously considering it. i can't believe that there's basically only two months left..

yesterday was a holiday-union day-when tanganyika and zanzibar became tanzania. and supposedly monday's a holiday too..lots of holidays this month.

ok, lots of love, ganga

easter goatness

2006-04-18T04:57:00.000-04:00

hi. happy easter.
on easter morning s picked me up with 3 masai guys to buy a goat for them as a gift. he knew one of them from somewhere near his church or something. in the car, one of them started singing making a lot of gutteral noises, it sounded really interesting and s said that he said that he can't sing too much because he could get into a trance...he might've been joking, i don't know. anyways, we went somewhere a little out of town and they bought the goat and s and i waited furthur away so that the price wouldn't increase... then they tied the goat up by it's neck and feet and put it in the back of the car. it seemed a little like the goat knew what was going to happen. it whined/whimpered once or twice and that made me feel a little sad... then we drove to the woods behind an apartment building where a lot of masais hang out/maybe live (?) and they suffocated the goat to death in order to keep all of the blood inside. then they cut it open and a couple of other men came over and they ate all of the fat and a lot of the innerds raw... they ate so voraciously that it actually made it look delicious- plus i was really hungry. s and i didn't eat any. he didn't seem like he would ever consider it, and i wasn't up for testing my stomach/taste buds etc.. they switched into speaking kimasai a lot of the time so s didn't understand what was being said then either. one guy was saying something to me in kimasai and seemed like he wanted an answer but i had no idea how or what to answer so i felt bad that he looked confused by my unfriendliness/inability to understand. also, there's something that a lot of masais use in their nose. they kind of rub it in. it's a brown powder. s said he tried it once and it made him see pink and red... i didn't really know what he meant by that but i thought that since they use it so casually/regularly, it must be pretty mild. one of them brought it over and i said i'd try it and s asked them to show me how to. but the second they started, i changed my mind and said no. one guy started sneezing, spitting, and snotting everywhere and within seconds of rubbing it into his nose the second guy's eyes started to bulge and look very affected and he started putting his fist into the air above his head- must have been powerful? anyways, then we waited around while they finished eating the raw parts and then we drove to s's dad's office to try and get something but the dad wasn't there. so we drove back and then decided not to wait for the meat to cook. s took some pics that he said he'll email to me and i can email them to you if you want to see.
after i got home, mama and baba vivien who live in the house attached to us invited me and my housemates over for their easter lunch. they had a lot of guests visiting from kenya. it was fun and the food was delicious. we watched cheetahs hunting and stuff like that on tv the whole time. it was fun. also, they have a big ugly red-eyed rabbit behind their house that just had bunnies which are really soft and cute.
then yesterday was another holiday and the whole day was really boring and i just stayed in the house. my housemate j had a high fever last night. also, the volunteer in moshi that i tried to visit that was sick with the same type of malaria that her sister died from suddenly went home to canada this week. she was getting more sick and she felt like she owed it to her family to go home, especially because she couldn't tell them that she was so sick...

not much other news. i'm pretty bored lately...

tz friends

2006-04-12T04:33:00.000-04:00

hi. sorry for not writing for a little bit. it's confusing. this month has so many holidays so the work weeks are all choppy. yesterday was a muslim holiday but i don't know how to spell it so i don't want to attempt to write it. some man came in to "fix" my computer last week and i don't think it was broken- i think he came to install something, but now nothing works and the woman that deals with those types of things is out of the country, but back soon i'm thinking...

anyways, remember how i consciously decided to be more reserved when making male friends from here because of the whole bad/yuzzo/thing that happened? well, now i think i've found some nice friends that i can hang out with and i'm not misunderstood or anything like that... my housemate r that left a few weeks ago's boyfriend from when she was here- s, is really nice and actually a lot more open and friendly about inviting me to hang out than when she was here. he already has another girlfriend kind of- who i really like a lot. i don't think it's my place to mention anything to r because she's probably having a hard enough time already adjusting back to life at home and she was really obsessed with him-it would only hurt her feelings...

yesterday i went with him and two other boys to the house of his housegirl's relative because his housegirls's father passed away the day before yesterday. we just gave condolences and a small gift but didn't stay for food. then we drove to moshi for the rest of the day. we met up with some of his friends that i've met before and then i asked a friend that came with us, ro, to drive me to the visions volunteer house in moshi because i wanted to go say hello to the woman volunteer that was there when i stayed there for a week because i heard that she's really sick. she has the same kind of malaria that her sister died from a few years ago. also, the other two volunteers there have malaria. but when i stopped by, no one was home. oh well.

anyways, i had fun with them and feel comfortable and safe being the only girl. and i'm happy i found that because it seemed like it was going to be hard/not an option.

also, some people tell me that they hate indians but that they like me. s has been telling me that since i first got here about how much he hates indians. i keep telling them that indians are friendly, maybe just african indians aren't..it's true that they don't mix at all..when i see african indians places, they don't stare at me when i'm with expats, but they do if i'm with africans

being in the house here in arusha is so boring these days. st is over his malaria i think, but now he has something else, cold/flu type thing- so he's always sleeping or not talking...and j spends a lot of time in her room, although she's been more friendly lately.

not much other news.

i feel bad that i meet people that want to study but don't have the resources etc. and i think they want me to help them in some way...but i don't know too much about those things. anyways, it makes me feel lazy.

i'm pretty happy here now, i hope that the time doesn't start to pass too quickly

***

2006-04-06T04:04:00.000-04:00

hi

saw the president yesterday outside of our office. we're on the second floor and were standing on the balcony and he was posing for a picture with the presidents of uganda and kenya and other people. it was easy to recognize him right away because every business has a huge picture of him hanging up. i've noticed that from going around to businesses trying to fundraise for chawakua... it must be a law.

my housemate st has malaria. he felt nauseous yesterday morning and a woman from his work made him go to a clinic... so he's home today.

i've been kind of stressed and sleeping badly. seb has some family stuff going on so he calls me and gives me updates so i sleep lightly to hear the phone ring. and also, it's been raining really heavily throughout the night and that wakes me up... there was a lot of water on the floor of our sitting room this morning. i'm surprised my room doesn't get wet because i'm pretty sure my windows are open.

i had a nightmare last night that i was in egypt and i was recklessly driving a car by myself (yeah, most definitely a dream) and there were lots of people and animals (buffalos/cows etc.) in the road and i hit one that belonged to one of the men and it died. then the people around me started pouring oil on me and i got scared that they were going to light me on fire and kept asking why they were splashing oil onto me- but they wouldn't answer or would do it when my back was turned... then two people that i knew pulled up in a truck and i tried to communicate to them that i was scared and they pulled me into their car in between the two of them and we drove off. they explained to me that the people were going to burn me because that's the punishment for killing someone's animal. it was an awful awful dream... i think i dreamt it because the man in my book the white masai is starting to act a little crazy, and i was reading it just before bed.

i've noticed that people are so nice to me when i ride the dala dala alone. i think they must think that i'm going to fall out or fall over or something- because if i'm standing, they force a space and say 'let the mzungu sit down' or someone else that's standing makes me sit as soon as there's an empty seat. at first i'd say no no, but realized it's pointless and now i just say thanks....

going to hang out with a girl today who's recently been texting about meeting up. we've never hung out independently... she came here a year ago as a volunteer and married someone from here and only stayed married for a short short time and has now been going through a messy divorce. and she lives with her current boyfriend. and she also secretly dates other people. but none of it seems like it sounds once you meet her. she's very sweet and free spirited. i hope it's fun. i need more friends.

___

2006-04-05T03:10:00.000-04:00

hi-

there's a big meeting here, at the building complex that our office is in. the presidents from tanzania, kenya, and uganda are here for the EAC's summit meeting. it's funny, there are always guards standing at the entrance, but they never ever say anything as you come and go- but today two people feverishly asked me for id, which i don't have. . . i don't ever carry any sort of id with me anywhere.

i'm reading a book called the white masai and i'm almost finished with it. it's about a european woman who goes to kenya on vacation with her boyfriend and then falls in love with a masai man and leaves her life in switzerland to come back and marry the masai. it's poorly written, i think because it's translated, but a good story at its core. the woman is obviously crazy though, i feel like she has such skewed perceptions of what goes on around her. she seems to think that people look at her in awe of her beauty in situations where people are obviously freaked out by her. i'm exaggerating, but it's kind of like that...

yesterday i heard that my italian friend g is really sick. that he had to go to the hospital in the middle of the night and that he might fly home. i texted him and didn't hear back so i'll call him today. i bumped into his roomate on the way home from work and he said that he thinks he's making it up... weird that he would think that.
oh- g just called me. he said he's in the hospital "lying in bed like an idiot"... and that the fever's gone and he's better. that's good to hear.

getting used to r being gone...saw her boyfriend briefly when he came by to pick up his stereo and said we'll hang out sometime.

it's been really quiet in our house after work most nights. i'm really sick of pasta. but i have to say i'm soooooo appreciative of the parmesan cheese and the poptarts that sebby brought me when he came. i have a lot and i eat them a lot.

i know the kids that play outside of the house more these days. they're cute and as you get to know them cuter.

met our nightwatchmen's wife and kids this past weekend. his baby girl is one and a half and just like a doll. she has big eyes and sucks her thumb.

maybe going to uganda at some point to visit ju before she comes back... but i'm tired and want to wait for my residence permit to go through so that i don't have to keep buying visas back into tanzania...

ok. bye.

april

2006-04-03T04:05:00.000-04:00

hi!

weekend was good. happy april fool's day.

on friday, i went with st and this man that's in charge of food relief to two villages nearby that suffer most from the famine problems. we went there standing up in the back of a pick up truck. i don't think i've ever gone anywhere in a vehicle standing for so long. there was a guardrail to hold onto. it was a sunny and beautiful trip. apparently conditions have been improving since the rain and they don't think anyone will die from hunger until food comes from abroad in may, but they have had some people become unconscious from hunger... since there's been some rain, there are local vegetables available until food comes. it's silly that they send food from abroad because it only gets here after the worst of the drought is over because of all of the "assessment" that needs to take place before it can be sent... we met the chairmen of both villages and talked to them/asked questions and gave a donation... i hope that i have a good amount of money left to give before i go home... three hundred dollars can buy enough maiz flour to feed eighty families for one week...they showed us their record books of which families the last bags of maiz flour went to. it was interesting/weird to see the reality of a problem that i've heard about... a lot of cattle have died from the drought/hunger also. the ones that we saw were sooo skinny, but apparently getting better. we also passed a dump on the way there. everyone around our house burns their garbage so i wonder where the dump stuff comes from, businesses i guess?

went to a shaggy concert on saturday. it was a fun experience but shaggy seems like a funny character. he did a lot of random hip thrusts on stage...

r left to go home to canada. she was crying a lot before she left. sad that she's gone...

started becoming more friends with ch, the old volunteer that came back to be with her boyfriend here/see how it goes... she's nice and funloving...

not much news... a little homesick again today. it's funny how it just sneaks up on me. i miss kavi. i haven't talked to her in awhile.

ok. love, Ganga

chawakua

2006-03-30T07:50:00.000-05:00

hi.

you know how i said that i'm going to start volunteering part time with a local hiv/aids ngo? well, i started yesterday... it was good. but very frustrating. it's a completely capable organization that is severely underfunded. they used to do a lot when they used to receive funding from things like usaid, family health international, and the b and m gates foundation...the african organization that was funded by the others and providing chawakua with money was the one that was cut off. but now there really is no money... grants have been written but none granted so far. there are pictures of the clintons at one of their events when they used to be more active/when they had funding... maybe i should write to them for money? the staff is a hundred percent volunteer and very dedicated. it's really great to be around people who really believe in/care about what they do and don't care that their efforts are not rewarded and they're all personally running out of money... but they're willing to work and be there and care about improving things in their community.

but anyways, i think i'm going to try and fundraise in the us... i'll come up with a letter and send it to sebby and mom and have them give it to everyone i know and ask for at least 10 dollars... they only need around 50,000 dollars to create a sustainable vocational center...

i mean, people want to donate when it will make a difference- and this is essentially reviving a completely organized and capable organization. so much better than tacking on another million to a super rich organization that exaggerates about the necessity of what they do (reference to a previous bad work experience)...

more of that later. i spent all day yesterday walking around in the hot to local businesses asking for money or to see if they have an interest in giving money for transport so that their employees can be educated about hiv/aids by peer educators... i think something like one in ten people are infected in tanzania...

anyway, it seemed kind of pointless. because people either can't afford or don't want to say yes, but they also won't say no- they just say come back another day... even if they did give, it would probably amount to so little. each dollar would be a lot more money... so please keep in mind that i'm going to ask you for a donation...

onto other things.

egypt was really fun. cairo an amazing city, i hope to go back one day... i say that about a lot of places but this time i mean it a little more.

r is leaving tomorrow. supposed to throw her a going away something or other but i feel like no one wants to help me. i bought four big bottles of konyagi and put them on the kitchen table- it's a "local brew"- some kind of hard alcohol that they make here that tastes a little like rubbing alcohol... after work i'll go to look into getting a crate or two of bottles of soda... i asked ch, an old volunteer that came back to live with her boyfriend and she said she'll help me transport the crate(s)... i don't know. i guess people aren't interested in making an effort to send r off because maybe she didn't make many friends here besides her boyfriend... i feel like she was sooo nice and welcoming to me when i first came that i want to send her off well but i don't know why no one else wants to.

so someone at the rwandan tribunal died last week. i've heard different rumors- one was that it was from a minor stomach problem, another was suicide, and another was that there's a weird disease going around arusha that makes you die pretty much immediately... and a danish girl volunteer died last week also and that death is linked to the "weird disease" rumor too...

also, a friend of sg's that worked in the same building died from being stabbed by his neighbor during an argument... he says that he's sure that i've met him and described him but i couldn't recall- and am secretly hoping that i don't because it's easier not to.

anyway, doesn't it seem like a lot of death stuff happens here? maybe they're normal things that end in death only because the resources that may prevent them at home aren't as accessible to everyone here? i don't know.

tomorrow i'm going to the closest village that is most affected by the famine problem to donate some money with st and r. st knows a man from the church who tries to raise money for it that's going to take us there. i think sometimes the money that's allotted to famine or donated doesn't actually get to the problem so it's best to go give to the village directly... i wish i was personally rich and had a lot of money to my name. i'll give a little now and then whatever i have left over when i'm leaving...

all in all, i'm happy to be here. in a good mood. happy i'll be working with this ngo and another...

i really miss ju. she doesn't come back for another two months. but i really can't wait to hang out with her again.

talked to seb last night and laughed a lot, and then mom and deeter who i miss so much this morning. so that's made me in a super good mood.

lots of love, Ganga

egypt

2006-03-25T11:55:00.000-05:00

hi everyone

egypt has been an amaazing trip so far. left arusha a few days ago and took a shuttle to nairobi. our driver ran over a sheep on the way there because he didn't feel like slowing down i guess.. and then we had a problem with our tire so all in all it took us 8 hours to get to the airport. a took a different shuttle there, so she was there 2 or 3 hours before us. we flew at midnight to dubai and got there around 6 in the morning. we took a bus into town and walked around/shoppped for 6 hours. they both bought some electronics and i bought a scarf... for the first 3 hours of walking around the city there were absolutely no women in sight... it was kind of funny/noticeable. also, the men kept a lot of space and didn't really make eye contact or say anything which was very nice... only a couple twenty somethings said stuff like, 'hi girls!'...
the city was very clean and there were absolutely no beggars/streetkids on the road...

got to cairo and took a falouka on the nile at night with s, a girl that lives here that used to be in arusha who we're visiting, her friend l who i like a lot, and then r, a, and i... the next day we went to the pyramids and the bazaar which is a pretty fun place (kind of like greece-ish).. while we were there we met a family that works there that knows s and they were soooo sweet and brought chairs for all of us to sit with them even though we were pretty much blocking the street- and they gave us tea and bracelets that i said were pretty as presents.. they've invited us to their house for dinner tomorrow night. but r is missing her boyfriend and desperately wants us to fly back a day early, so we might miss it... went to dahab yesterday- beach at the red sea and then at 2 am a and i hiked mount sinai- where moses received the ten commandments... it was soooooooo beautiful and one of my favorite things so far. get along pretty well with a and took this trip to realize it. she left tonight to go back to arusha...

so things are good. i'm having a great time. i really like cairo but can't fight the compulsion to try and eat as much fast food as i can while i'm here. i know that's bad but that's how i feel... but i don't. s has a list of egyptian food that she wants us to definitely eat before leaving so we've eaten most of them- and a little mcdonald's in between...

lots of love to everyone- Ganga

sebby's gone

2006-03-20T03:23:00.000-05:00

hi everyone

seb left yesterday. we had sooooooooooo much fun. we were both really happy for every second that he was here. we hung out in arusha for the first night, then went on a short safari to ngorongoro crater, then to matemwe beach in zanzibar for a few days and spent the last night and day in stone town... then one more night and day in arusha- and he left yesterday.

and i think carlos and evelyn had their baby!!! not sure a hundred percent because we got a lot of missed calls and never actually got in touch- but i'm under that impression. i can't wait for pictures.

-(not true... baby's not here yet. at least seb didn't miss the birth!)

sebby brought electricity with him. it's been back since the day he arrived. rumor is that it's on because the president's in town but will either stay or be gone again when he leaves... we'll see

i'm happy and feel lucky that he was able to come and visit me. but now i'm sad that he's gone. it was really fun and much more fun than the fun that i thought i was having here before. and now it's hard to adjust/be happy here. and hard to like anyone around me. i know that it'll pass, it's just how i feel now. also, i leave for egypt tomorrow evening for a week and feel bratty because i don't feel like going at all. i have a bad stomach and feel very tired to go on another trip for a week... after we get back, i'm going to try and stay put for the rest of the time because i want to stay in one place.

sebby had a lot of fun on the safari, i felt a little bored being in a car for so long and the animals weren't as close as i expected- but a good experience i guess. a guy came along with us that's visiting one of my housemates- he was also really loving the safari. we both loved the beach in zanzibar- beautiful and not too touristified.. i was a little overwhelmed by the hustle bustle of stone town once we arrived there... but architecturally it's pretty etc. anyways, he took lots of pictures so i'll email them to you once they're uploaded.

we missed a big rain/a little bit of a flood when we were gone. i heard that a few people died, but mostly people living near the riverbank...

sorry not to be more bubbly, i should have written about the trip while i was on it and happy. now i feel a little sick and sad that sebby's gone and that i have to pack tonight and go again tomorrow. we're taking a shuttle to nairobi tomorrow afternoon and then flying out at midnight... i hope it's fun. it probably will be because i feel so reluctant about going/my expectations are low right now.

lots of love, Ganga

almost the beginning of fun

2006-03-10T01:31:00.000-05:00

on the way to work today, st elbowed me in the face when we were getting off of the dala dala and my lip started bleeding. he felt really bad about it, but it's a funny/kind of different start to the day.

he made me listen to a song this morning that basically said "people call me lazy, but they're crazy"... i think because i always wake up and get dressed for work and then get back in bed and rest for half and hour to 45 minutes...

r went to rwanda today. she's gone until monday. went to dinner with her last night and it was really fun. she borrowed her boyfriend's car and drove us... she and a are really brave about driving here. they borrow cars and drive when they get the chance. i don't think you could pay me a million dollars to drive here. i honestly think i'd say no. i hate driving at home, but this is a different story...we had one little confusion and had to pull over... but other than that i'd say her confidence takes her far...

last night was boring after dinner...went to listen to music...

i've noticed that yuzzo is barely around anymore. it must be weird for him to lose a whole group of friends and acquaintences...

inquired with s's housegirl about finding a housegirl for the aunty... but i need to email her and ask about the salary...

it's sweet. one of ju's suitors that used to stop by the office to see her still comes by to chat even though she's gone back to uganda. he must really like her. yesterday he told me a lot about the chagga(sp?) tribe and that both of his parents are chagga. he said that since he's the youngest born, it sounds like he has to live with/take care of his parents forever... he's very sweet. he was talking about the bad chagga stereotypes of being crooked when it comes to money and said that he believes them. he said that up until now he hasn't recognized it in himself, but it might come if he has it inside of him...

another one of her suitors gave me his business card the other day when i bumped into him.

i've talked to her a couple of times and emailed since she's been gone... i miss her but don't notice as much as i thought i would. which is a good thing. i think i prepared myself, so nothing's as bad as you imagine it's going to be...

it's friday and now time has decided to pass slowly with the knowledge that seb gets here tomorrow.

i might be less frequent with this typing while he's here because we'll be out and about... but i'll type again when i get a chance

have a great weekend

mganga

2006-03-08T03:39:00.000-05:00

hi!

according to people, mganga means witch doctor (or just doctor according to the dictionary) in swahili and i say "kama mganga" when i say my name so that people pronounce it correctly

i'm super duper sore from the kickboxing. more sore today than yesterday. lesson learned for not exercising for three months...

booked a short safari for when seb comes. we leave at 6 in the morning the day after he gets here. then get back and fly to zanzibar the next morning. then get back, and he goes home the next day...it's really going to be a whirlwind busy trip. i'm sure he's up for it though. i can't wait.

went to the indian aunty's house last night. made the mistake of eating before i went. i thought that she wouldn't have electricity so i didn't want to assume that she'd cook... but then she had made a lot of pani poori (sp?) and i had to eat again and she served me a lot... her son's my age and they spoke a lot of gujarati and kept insisting that i understood even though i told them that i don't... and i told them some stories and realized that people rip me off a lot...the safari guy and an indian man that owns a jewelry shop here- she said if i want to buy anything there again she'll take me and he'll charge her differently. oh, i asked her what it was that she had wanted to talk to me about before, and it was that she wanted me to work in their internet cafe... i practiced my swahili with her and she was encouraging and said that i know too much swahili... it was fun to go there... but after dinner we watched tv in hindi which i didn't understand so i got bored and really sleepy. i feel bad for her. her housegirl quit 2 months ago and she's been doing so much work on her own and she's older and needs help but says that she's embarassed to ask anyone to link her up with a new housegirl... she seems really tired..i'll keep an eye out for anyone that is looking or knows of someone looking for employment as a housegirl..oh, and she told me that i've gotten dark from roaming roaming all the time... and that i have dark circles from tiredness like her.. and she gave me lots of guavas from her tree to take home.

st said that his coworker zebby invited me to go with him to his house for lunch on sunday for a traditional chagga (sp?) meal (his wife's chagga)... but seb and i will be on safari. ju's mom is chagga and she told me that a stereotype of the chagga tribe is that they're known for making money/stealing money/businesses, and they're from the kilimanjaro region...

there's a women's day thing put on in this conference center where our office is... it's sponsored by the un i think. there are going to be a few speakers and i think the president of the country, kikwete, might be one of them. it's this evening. the whole event is only supposed to be an hour or an hour and a half... but i'm sure it'll end up being longer

supposedly the electricity problem will get better after the 10th of this month...but who knows...they say it's the worst drought in ten years

monday funday

2006-03-06T02:57:00.000-05:00

had a wonderful day yesterday. woke up early to catch a bus to moshi.

st and i went to moshi to visit our swahili teacher in the hospital. he has lung cancer and is paralyzed from the waist down. he's in the icu with other patients so we could only shout to him from the doorway of the room that they're in. we were standing in the doorway with some of his grandchildren, his daughter, a co-worker of his, and i think maybe his brother (an older man that looked like him).. he was really energetic and friendly and shouting a lot. he looked a lot younger too. maybe he had lost weight or got a haircut or something.. i don't know why. when i asked him if he has energy/strength, he said that he pretends that he does because once you stop pretending, you are conquered. he's going to the capital today for a possible operation.. there was one moment when he had a little bit of trouble and i got nervous. we were exchanging cell phone numbers and he was looking at his phone about to give me his number, and then he closed his eyes and started breathing deeply for a long time... then he opened his eyes, and did it again. but then whatever it was passed and then he asked me to say my number...
it really made me feel good to see him. he's great. it puts things in perspective/no one has problems if he can be so sick and be so happy/optimistic.

after the hospital visit, we stopped by the visions house in moshi to meet the two volunteers that were away during the week that we stayed there. it was nice to meet them. e and n, they're a couple that came here together. they were very warm and friendly and seemed happy that we stopped by and said that they'll come and see us in arusha some time. also, there are two dogs that live in the yard of that house, one with a really damaged looking face. they had just gotten there and were really scared and standoffish when we stayed there that week in january, but this time when we went there the dogs seemed so friendly and happy. it's amazing how those volunteers transformed the dogs just from petting and being nice to them for two months...

we have five or six dogs that "live" outside of our house, but none of us pet them really. only j, she loves them and pets them but they kind of won't leave her alone because of it.

oh, and our fridge is broken and stinking. a couple of days back, we weren't getting electricity at night either... because when it would come, there would be a "power surge" and we'd have to shut everything off etc.. so there was smoke and our fridge broke, and my cellphone charger doesn't work anymore.

so much for ever getting groceries...

st and i made dinner using the kerosene stove last night. i came up with the dish- rice with shredded carrots and oil, salt, and eggs mixed into it.

so ju left yesterday. not as sad as i thought i'd be, but this is only the first day.

i have a new friend, g, who's italian and reminds me a little of damon- looks like him a little and blinks similarly. he's really negative in a funny way. everytime you say "how are you doing?" he answers, "terrible, terrible".. yesterday he called me and the first sentence he said even before saying hello was,"ganga, my head is exploding, i am terrible". i'm supposed to meet him after work and go do kickboxing with him at some place that he's heard of. i'm a little bit sick so don't really feel like it, but it's a fun/new friendship thing to do so i'll go if he still wants to. i brought clothes with me to work.

the wesleyan kid, c, was supposed to leave for america this weekend, but he went to the airport yesterday and found out that his flight was actually on saturday... so he had to re-book for today.

that indian aunty called me yesterday and kept saying "where have you gotten lost?" and we made plans to do something tuesday. she said she'll pick me up after work.

so i'm trying to busy up this week so that it passes quickly- and then sebby will be here!

jennifer lopez

2006-03-03T02:25:00.000-05:00

hi

i've kind of lost most of any natural enthusiasm for "blogging" but i want to keep doing it for the rest of the time because i haven't been keeping a journal

so, how's everyone? i hope that you're all doing well. mom, you should call me- i have a question for you.

we made dinner last night for 11 people using that kerosene stove again. i've started to dread the thursday dinners a little bit just because i'm not excited about the long preparation part of it anymore- but it always ends up being really fun. this week, st's coworker zebby and his wife came. oh yeah, and i'm going to start working with chawakua (their hiv awareness org) a little bit in april. april because march is interrupted with travel plans (zanzibar, then egypt). and work here is picking up as well, so that's good. i feel more useful.

my swahili's getting better. i feel the best that i've felt about it so far. i feel like i can try and explain what i want to say in a very roundabout way if i need to/don't know a word. people's friendliness goes from 5 to a million once they realize that you're really trying.

this is unrelated. but i want to tell you about this cute little girl named jennifer lopez. she's ju's cousin. actually her name's jane, but pronounced in a way that it sounds like jenny- so ju calls her jennifer lopez. she's 4 but looks like she's 2 ish. and she's really messy and has a really calm and sweet face. she's ju's uncle's kid but they have a very hard life so she really likes to visit ju's mom and stay for a few days. she can eat as much ugali as a grown man, and she eats so fast. i'd like to have a kid like her because she seems like you could hug and kiss her a lot a lot and never hold back and she'd never get spoiled or bratty. there's something so nice about her.

the wesleyan kid, c, is leaving to the us this weekend for almost a month. we went to his house earlier this week and played a really fun game that i've never played before. it's fun to have things to do in the night because otherwise if we just sit around everyone gets sleepy around 8:30 without light.

we went out after the dinner last night and yuzzo sang where we were. we don't talk or look at each other. i passed him in the daytime the other day too. he knows that we all know the bad thing. part of me wants to think that it's something he doesn't know that he did/had no control over and that i can still be friends with him... i feel sad to not be friends anymore a little bit...but i know

oh, koplo, the taxi driver that i always call who's really nice and doesn't ever say a price anymore because friendship has been formed... he likes ju and always says funny things to her/calls her to say goodnight etc even though he's married- and he has a short temper and last night he got mad because he saw our friend k hold her hand and then she didn't feel comfortable going in the taxi alone with him...

not much else.

sebby will be here in a week and a day. i'm so excited that sometimes it's hard for time to pass.

love, Ganga

rainy season

2006-02-28T02:54:00.000-05:00

the weather's changing. it's suddenly not supersunny and hot anymore. kind of cloudy and cool- the beginning of rainy season i think.

it has to rain in the right places for the electricity situation to improve. it's pretty boring just sitting in the dark at night. kind of nice to talk... but pretty boring. not ever going to buy milk or meat while i'm here.

found out recently that our swahili teacher (when we took lessons during the first few weeks) is sick/dying in a hospital in moshi. he has lung cancer and he's paralyzed. i had plans to take a bus to moshi on sunday with st and visit, but then we realized that we would miss the afternoon visiting hours- so we're going to leave early this coming sunday to go. some of my roomates have gone already and said that you can only talk to him from a doorway of the room that he's in with other icu patients. he's a very charismatic and energetic man. and they said that he's still pretty cheerful.

ju's sticking around for this week. her mom wants her to wait until things completely calm down post-election before sending her back to uganda.

al just got back from monitoring elections there. she said that there was a lot less violence than there was in 2001, but she said it definitely wasn't fair. a lot of people voted more than once, and some people with valid voter cards were not allowed to actually vote...

things are good. sad that ju is leaving at the end of the week. and sad that there's still a whole week after this one to wait for sebby's arrival.

a okay

2006-02-24T02:37:00.000-05:00

hi.

anish, melis, seb, and mom all called me last night all within two hours or so. it was fun to talk.

now we don't have electricity everyday until 11 at night. so we have it all through the night until 7 in the morning... no water=no electricity. things might change if the rainy season to come is rainy enough...

we made a big dinner again last night- have done it for the past few thursdays... but last night we didn't have electricity so ended up using a kerosene stove that was in the pantry. it was nice. there's always a different mix of people that come depending on who each person decides to invite. i invited an and her friend (the one that's becoming st's maybe girlfriend).

afterwards we went out and i saw yuzzo but didn't ever interact. when i was leaving, he said my name a few times in a "i know you can hear/see me" way- but i just kind of winced and kept walking... i hope that that's just how it'll be.

oh. last week i didn't have any change so i gave a taxi driver a 10,000 shilling bill (cab ride at night is usually around 2,000) and said that i'll just get the change from him another time. he seemed nice and he was because he started calling me and texted me to ask about giving it back to me. so i told him to meet me last night. he was there, but he didn't have the change so i said oh yeah i'll just get it later. i don't care if he ever gives it, i just appreciate his effort to return it/being honest. i had never met him before so i thought that it was nice of him because he could have easily just avoided me.
there's another taxi driver called koplo that the wesleyan kid introduced me to that i call to come to our house a lot. it's really convenient because he doesn't charge anymore than anyone else would and he comes to our house- which i like much better than walking down the dirt road in the dark and then walking along a busy road, waiting for a taxi to stop. and he doesn't speak english but wants to learn and is a good person to practice swahili with. i see him in the mornings sometimes too when i get out of the dala dala on the way to work. he surprised me the other day when he put his hand through the dala dala window and grabbed my arm to say hello. i thought it was a stranger at first. he's a pretty jolly seeming man.

the other night a different taxi stopped to pick r, st, and i up and i didn't want to take it because there were two people in the car- and i've heard you shouldn't when there's more than just the driver. but r said she does it all the time. but then something was really wrong with their car because it got really cloudy and my eyes were burning and so were r's and st was trying to open the window but couldn't. r started saying "do you think we should get out?" when we were just on the road/not near our house... i didn't know why but then she told me later that she was remembering what i said about two people and got nervous that they were gassing us... hahaha. they just had a bad car that needs to be repaired. it was funny to see her get nervous about something. she normally never seems to fear/overthink anything.

ju took me on another date with her yesterday. we met this un judge assistant that's been living here for four years for coffee. he's from scotland and pretty young looking. he sends her lovey texts. just when he said he was going to leave, i inhaled some soda by mistake and had a coughing fit. ju always says/jokes "cheap is expensive" (in this instance, free drink but then i suffered from coughing)

there's a nice guy from switzerland who's a lawyer and a magician. i've known him since i've been here and he's a few years older than me but looks ten years younger than me. i've only seen him do one magic trick but it was absolutely amazing. he's passed the theoretical test for the magician's circle of switzerland but still has to take the practical... it's an interesting hobby to have.

i definitely feel like i'm getting used to my surroundings/could live here for a while. part of me wonders if i'll come home when i'm supposed to or not. but i miss people too much.

certain people here aren't new and exciting anymore, but i also don't feel superclose- so it's a boring middle area...

since that bad stuff, i'm sad to think that the lesson is to be friends with people that are similar to you... but i am going to try less to make friends for a little bit.

i think r is going to fall back into a pattern with s. i feel bad that she's opting to reduce her self confidence... but everyone lives their own life i guess.

got a ticket to cairo yesterday. am very excited. itinerary includes, climbing mt. sinai, going to the red sea, seeing the pyramids, etc. this egyptian girl that's interning at the trib here is going home and we're going to visit her.

sat in on court proceedings at the tribunal this morning- boring snoring this time.

have a good weekend

a little better

2006-02-22T01:26:00.000-05:00

hi.

if you're my friend, and want to know what the last entry was- email me and i'll send it to you.

the talk went ok. she's very strong. and s said to let him know if y ever threatens her again...they don't want to involve the police- for many reasons, it seems like a bad idea to them.

i feel a little better about things today. tears kept slowly slipping out of my eyes at the office yesterday and ju kept looking at me and saying "you're fine?" and that made it harder to hold it in. so after a few trips to the balcony, where i'd tell myself to look at the sun or focus on a building, she asked me again and i just started crying. she was so nice to me and hugged me a lot and said that it's good to discover things so that you'll become wise. she made me feel a lot better. i was really just crying because the whole situation had been weighing on me for a few days and i felt bad that i couldn't change it, and sad that i was so wrong about someone.

then i slept a lot last night and i feel a little bit lighter today.

ju has malaria but has managed to stay in good spirits/come to work. we went to the masai craft market after work yesterday with r and two of her friends. i bought a few gifts for people and practiced bargaining but still got ripped off.

ju taught me a saying that means you had something good/valuable in front of you, but you took a chance and lost it. "umechezea shillingi chooni" means you played with a coin and it fell in the toilet more or less. literally, i think it's you played with a coin in/at the toilet. but i think it means you played with something valuable near the toilet and it fell in. she teaches me interesting/funny little things that i can usually find applications for in our later interactions...

work is boring because they give me 2 days to do work that takes 2 hours...or they give me vague tasks minus the information that i need to actually do it. and they're in uganda monitoring elections now, so there's nothing to do but take a long time to do stuff. yesterday i walked around to different ngos asking for a copy of their human resource manual... the streetchildren place hasn't emailed me back yet. i really hope that i can work for them also, at least a little. especially after ju's gone...

i'm getting a ticket to egypt today- cairo. i'm going with r a little after sebby leaves-so end of march. it'll be nice to have something to look forward to after he's gone. the ticket stops in dubai so we may try and spend a day there also.

oh. also, one of the volunteers that used to live in our house and has been back in the us for the past few months, came back to arusha to live with her boyfriend for the next three months and see how things go. he's from here. i haven't met her but am curious to because i've heard so much about her.

the other volunteer, st, is starting to maybe start to have a girlfriend. when i met her, she told me that she really wants to date someone that's white so i introduced her to st. then whenever i'd see her, she'd ask where he was and say she missed him. she doesn't speak any english though and it's really hard for them to communicate. she's an's friend and they go to the same school here. he's gone to meet with her and talk after work for the past two days. the only thing that bothers him is that she technically has a boyfriend, but she seems pretty intent on making st her boyfriend.

didn't play in the fundraiser soccer game this past weekend. went dressed to play underneath my clothes, but they had enough players. it was semi-fun to watch. they had uniforms and everything. it was in the stadium in town and there was a local radio station there i think (a truck with loud music?). there were long speeches during halftime- i got hungry and left.

not much else. still heavy but getting lighter. had bad dreams last night. nervous for tomorrow when i see yuzzo for the first time since knowing everything... i hope that my eyes don't show what i think/disappointment/fear/that i know the bad thing...wouldn't want him to do anything that would cause problems for/with her. i kind of hope that we just won't speak at all.

uncensored- read at your own risk

2006-02-20T03:19:00.001-05:00

uncensored- seriously, read at your own risk

oh, about that last post. i'm not worried about it. he stopped calling and then called again twice yesterday, but i never answer so i'm sure it'll stop soon.

but found out things this weekend that have made me pretty heavy hearted and stressed. i'll tell you, but please don't read this if you expect me to filter at all... maybe daddy should stop reading now if he reads this...

ok. remember my friend yuzzo? he's not my friend anymore.

(WAS ORDERED BY CERTAIN COUSINS AND SISTER TO DELETE THE MAJORITY OF THIS ENTRY)

babymama drama

2006-02-17T04:08:00.000-05:00

hi.

so i emailed the head of the streetchildren organization to see if i can work in their arusha office one day a week. we'll see what she says.

so this guy called me yesterday night after i got home and told me that he saw me getting into a taxi and asked someone for my phone number. i said oh ok i'll see you around i guess. then he called me at 7 this morning, 9 this morning and i made juliana talk to him twice, and then he called again and i spoke to him telling him that i'm not interested in meeting him because i've never met him before. and now he's sent me 3 texts and now my phone is ringing again and it's him. and it's only noon. i know, but the point is... his last text was about my roomate(we're different races but he assumes that we're cousins) and it's him telling me that he saw a guy breaking a glass at her feet like he was going to hit her... i thought it was really scary to read because it's true. the guy was her boyfriend. and she ran away crying and left me there last night. i didn't see her boyfriend do that and he didn't tell me that that's what their fight was that made her leave.

anyways, this guy is weird. i don't know what involvement he has or wants in my life, or r's life. i'm not answering him because i don't want to be friends and the more i communicate, the more i'd be accidentally creating familiarity/seeming friendship... and i've never even seen or met him

(this is later now. i just got back from lunch and there are 3 missed calls from him and a text message that says "what's your name? why are you in tanzania? etc.. and then he says that he lives pretty much exactly where i live. i don't know why it's fun for him to do that... he obviously knows my name because he got my number from someone who knows my name- and i hate that he's pretending that he lives where i live and asking me where i live... i hate him. i hope that i never meet him. do you think i should just answer the next time and be rude? but i already said that i don't want to be friends nicely...)

so i feel really bad for r. i hope she doesn't go back with s. it seems like she always does. but hopefully this was extreme enough for her to just move away from it.

i ended up getting home fine last night. my friend yuzzo took a taxi back with me and then slept in our living room. there's a bed there.

we made a big dinner for lots of people last night and it was really fun. ju came over after work and helped cook but then left before the dinner so that she didn't get home too late. it's kind of nice having very little electricity because we burn a lot of candles. then an oldish man sang and played guitar outside after dinner. he came along with r's boyfriend. he's his friend... this was all pre-glass breaking... mom, you talked to the man that played guitar on the phone. and you spoke with r's boyfriend briefly. he's a nice guy, just a little immature and angry(?) i guess.

oh, ju and i went to lunch with tumaini yesterday. it was fun. he's actually much older than he seems. he's fifteen. but cute as a button. he's so polite and there's something so nice inside his face. he's been on the street for many many years. we didn't ask him too much about his life. mostly just eating. he asked if he could take our leftovers for his dog. later, ju said she doesn't think he has a dog. either way, i definitely would've taken them too.

not much else to write. feeling a little homesick.

post valentine's day

2006-02-15T06:15:00.000-05:00

hi.

happy valentine's day yesterday.

my roomate j is doing better. she came home from the funeral day before yesterday and was very upset and crying and talking about everything a lot and i hope she's feeling better. she said that the families handled the funeral very respectfully. sg said that sometimes people fight so much about religion/traditions that the person doesn't get buried peacefully. the boy's dad is from here and the boy's mom is from kenya. she came for the funeral. the boy also has an 8 yr old brother (has a different dad) that lives in a different center for street kids. she said that the boy's father expressed interest in maybe taking care of the boy's younger brother even though it's not his son.

the boy's father only met him when he was 13 and the mother couldn't take care of him anymore. the dad accepted him and threw a party and killed a goat because his son had come home, but i think at that point the boy had already experienced life on the street and it was too hard to live with restriction... she said he was very angry.

j said that the boy that passed away was always threatening/very mean to her and she was thinking in the hospital that he better be nice to her next week. and she feels a lot of guilt because at one point in the hospital she thought if you're going to die, just do it.

i hope she feels better.

sg says that the government hospitals are so bad here that you're as good as dead if you need to go there in an emergency. he said that they can put more than one person to a bed and the doctors and nurses accept bribes. and the private hospitals are very expensive- everything, including operations, need to be paid for in cash upfront. an ambulance ride to one in particular costs a hundred us dollars.

j saw a ten yr old boy next to the boy that she was with die from being treated "locally" with herbs. they poisoned/did something bad to him and the hospital couldn't help. she said that his father looked very guilt-ridden and left the boy as he was dying and then another man came to the boy for a little bit. and then they both left.

i've been reading a lot about the arusha caucus- the group of orgs that wants to solve problems that arise between street kids and the govt and i really like reading about it and feel like maybe i should volunteer with one of the streetkid places. i also met tumaini again yesterday and ju and i both gave him money. he said he doesn't smoke or do glue, but of course he'd say that- but i also believed it. i know that maybe that's bad to do, but there's just something about him that's bright and optimistic and sweet. anyways, it seems like this place (where i work) has made commitments to the caucus but i'm not sure about the follow through. if i feel like there's a real potential to be productive here, i'll stay. but after ju goes back to uganda, i feel like i won't like it here. and i really like reading about the streetkids. and i want to interact with people.

i was reading interviews with boys that were being held at the adult prison here and one of them was imprisoned for 6 months because a man approached him and asked him to recommend a houseboy- so he did- but then the houseboy stole a cellphone from the man and ran away. so the man went and arrested this kid because he had recommended the houseboy. it's so sad and scary for that boy...

anyways, so yeah. i'm conflicted. i know that you probably think it's crazy that i'm even considering switching organizations.. i mean i won't if i feel like my caucus task isn't bogus... but i will if i realize that it is or i can't push anything to work. but the streetchildren center mainly needs someone to do administrative work in their office/be in it because no one is... and even though that's not the "career path" developing that i said i'd do, i'd get to interact with the kids because they come in when they need stuff/help or just to talk.

i don't know.

i have so much fun and laugh so much with ju. she reminds me of what it's like to really really get along/be close with people. i'm going to be really sad and realize that arusha's a lonely place once she goes back to uganda. she's already missing some of school and might go back even later depending on how the elections go/when they end/if it goes smoothly...

she came with me to that wesleyan kid's birthday/valentine's day dinner party last night. it was more fun than i expected. our nightwatchman lied to her and told her he doesn't have a wife, and so did a taxi driver who had invited that wesleyan kid to his wedding... she said that the men here just say that. a lot of suitors come into our office to talk to her. and one of them came by in a suit yesterday (for valentine's day?) and he said that the reason he wears rings on his wedding finger(he seems too young to be married) are because he has to ward of ladies that chase him. i've never heard of a single man doing that before...

i try and supply romantic background music when i can tell they're trying to make her agree to date them

my stomach's been hurting a lot the past couple of days...

lastly, st-the other new volunteer annoys me whenever we're around other people, he makes jokes that reflect a "it's a sick sad world we live in" attitude. it absolutely gets under my skin. i can't tell if it's put on or if that's how he really is and just isn't himself around me... who cares i guess

routines

2006-02-13T02:00:00.000-05:00

so i felt that little feeling of boredom that follows me wherever i am whenever i settle into some sort of routine. it's nice to finally know that you can't escape it and that i'll just have to deal with it anywhere and always...

i have some bad/sad news that i'll get out of the way now. mom and dad, you already know this so you can skip ahead if you want. my roomate j came home at 3 in the morning on thursday because a streetkid fell out of a tree in the afternoon and she took him to the hospital and stayed there until he eventually died. she's been kind doing ok but i feel really bad for her. she started to seem to come out of it/a little cheerier yesterday...

also, my other roomate a's friend died in moshi recently. he was a 21 year old volunteer from the uk that'd been here for 6 or 7 months. he was getting out of a dala dala and another vehicle came and hit him. he died en route to the hospital. his parents are coming here and want to spend some time to see what his life was like here.

we got a ride to work with some people that r knew on friday and when she told them about the streetkid passing away, both of them started laughing... i think the reaction meant "wow, she has a tough job"... not sure though

the weekend was kind of slow. went to an outdoor party with a lot of un people. ju came along so it was fun. all in all kind of boring. i'm kind of sick of seeing those un people. i've reached my "point" of conversation with a lot of them and i feel like they're boring/uptightish... rude, but true. anyways, i think ju had fun. i introduced her to yuzzo and they didn't get along as swimmingly as i had hoped. she was kind of standoffish when she met him at the party and then later explained a little bit- but i can't say i understand really. i think it's mostly a class issue. it seems like she doesn't like general things about the subculture that he's a part of. she said things like the music that they make is loud, they use a lot of slang to the point that it's almost their own language, they're not highly educated etc.. etc. none of which matters to me because i really like yuzzo and think he's a good person. it's just funny that i assumed that they would get along since they're both two of my most real/reliable friends here. oh well.

oh yeah. here's a funny story. after the party i took a cab with ju, and her friend d that works near us.. we were going home in the order of ju, me, and then d. after dropping ju off, we stopped for gas and d was saying, " i like this driver. i've known him for a long time. he lives near you. he won't rape you. he's old. he's lost that desire for women. he takes the job very seriously." it was funny and memorable. later ju told me that the driver told her that he keeps a big knife in the car to protect it. i'm really happy that i didn't understand when he was saying that because i would have been frightened that he anticipates being robbed.

i never ended up going to yuzzo's place. maybe next weekend. i was tired when he got in touch with me on saturday and i wasn't home yesterday when he wanted to go. we also postponed going to the nightwatchman's house because j thought the funeral would be yesterday... so we're going to go next weekend i think.

yesterday, i went with a and st to a recycled items charity fashion show. it was put on by a rotary club and another charity organization. a is very ecofriendly/enviro so she was excited about it, and for me it was something to do...it was pretty boring but something to do. then it started raining and everyone left so a , this girl n, and i went swimming in our clothes. it was fun and much warmer than standing around in the rain. then this pilot guy with a broken arm that's of euro descent but born and raised in zambia and living in arusha gave us a ride home.

i agreed to play in a soccer game next weekend with chawakua versus a team of people that have hiv- i'm sure that they're probably an organization or something... but that's how it was explained. the game is to raise money for aids orphans. i don't really know who's going to pay to watch but apparently a lot of people do...

there hasn't been much rain for several years so they're having to ration electricity. we've been informed that we won't have electricity on mondays or fridays indefinitely.. and we didn't yesterday either but that was unplanned. i think other people only have water during certain times of the day- at least that's what that lady told me that time i went to her house.. but visions probably pays for us to have a constant supply because we always have it.

i eat a lot more since i've started working. i buy a chapati or beef samosas and cookies every morning outside of work. then i go out for lunch to a local place and eat a lot of hot food. i try and eat as much as i can during the day at every opportunity so there's less pressure to figure out what to eat at night... so far it's been working out well.

i'm really excited for sebby to come. he's coming so soon! i'm going to look into a two day safari to ngorongoro crater but then he will only get to spend one night in arusha... so maybe i'll show him around here for two days before going to zanzibar... we'll see.

ok. lots of love, Ganga

a day in the life

2006-02-09T02:33:00.000-05:00

yesterday i had the chance to do something really fun. ju and i left work a couple of hours early and went to sit in on court proceedings for the rwandan tribunal and it was so so interesting- much more than i thought it would be. her friend who works there invited us.

in one of the cases- a witness was talking from a covered booth confessing to his specific murders and also testifying against the defendent who he had formerly worked for/with. the defense lawyer seemed to be american and had a horrible attitude and you could sense that a lot of the people in the room didn't like him. the "madame president" of the judges kept correcting him and you could see that he was getting flustered.
we were trying to get there in time for the judgement of a certain case in which two people that've been imprisoned for ten years were acquitted- but we had just missed it.

after work, i was going to get a ride home with ju and her mom but we ended up running a lot of errands and then meeting her real dad for dinner. the mom and dad split when ju was born, but they're friends. it was fun. the mom has a drinking problem and that's why ju doesn't drink. i trust her driving though because she drinks so much and so often that it must not affect her that much. it was the first time that i met her dad and he was very polite and friendly.

i got home at around 10 and then this kid that went to the same college as ernie came over with his laptop and we watched a movie. mostly we just talked. i invited him over because we kind of get along and i think that i should invest energy in making friends with people that'll be here the whole time that i'm here. he's lived here for the past two years and has raised a lot of money for ngos around here. he's very enterprising/innovative and brings that mentality from home and improves businesses here. also he does something something microfinancing... but any profit goes back into loans for people. right now i spend a lot of time either with ju, who's leaving at the end of feb- or r, who leaves at the end of march.

that indian aunty that i met up with once called me again yesterday. she has trouble understanding my accent. she said that she has something that she wants to talk to me about and that i should go to her house. i said ok ok but i don't know when i'll go. i wonder what she wants to discuss, i have a feeling it has something to do with finding a girl in america for her son. she kept bringing that up/asking if i knew people when i went there before... don't know.

i met a streetkid yesterday that told me he knows my roomate j. he was really cute and charming and his ear was injured because another kid bit him when they were fighting over money. it looked like a bad burn. his name is tumaini (sp?), i think it means hope.

have some work finally

2006-02-08T01:30:00.000-05:00

hi.
i like when you post things because it makes me feel like you're saying hi to me... so keep it up.

came to work an hour early today because i just leave when anyone's leaving around any time that i might leave, so that i don't have to cross the street alone- i never say that but they must suspect. i just find it terrifying and i'd much rather be at work at varying times than cross that street alone.

let's see. i finally met with him yesterday and he gave me some work to do. 3 broad projects and he kept saying "be a team leader" when i spoke with him. (i was trying not to remember that there are xrated websites on the computer that he lent me.. it might just be a virus...) they're part of a group of organizations called the arusha caucus which works on the street children issue (probs for the kids, and probs for the govt), and most recently they stopped police roundups of the kids (where they abuse them and throw them in adult prisons and try them as adults) by giving it media attention. but lately they've started doing the roundups again...he said that this organization has kind of been doing the bare minimum for the project and i should see that they are keeping the commitments that they've made and see if i come up with more stuff that they can do. it's very broad, but more interesting/room than jobs/menial tasks that i've always been given at home. i think the woman that worked on it before was fired just before i got here. also, he wants me to make suggestions for website changes/compare it to other human rights org pages and see if info is accessible etc.. and then he said that i'll be doing some event planning... seems ok, what do you think?

my roomate j works with streetchildren for another organization that's part of the caucus and she does outreach in the streets. she likes what she does, but gets sick of it/angry and frustrated with all of the attention she gets for being a foreigner and when the kids trick or beg her. she's brave to do it. i wouldn't be able to handle having the children beg me everytime i walked anywhere on the street. and i would be too saddened by their lives. they are raped and beaten a lot on the streets, but many of them think it's better than going back home.

i had bad dreams last night. i don't remember them but i woke up feeling appreciative that i'm not a streetchild. if i felt so unsettled by bad dreams, i can't imagine how i'd sleep on the street if i was in fear of being raped or beaten either by other streetchildren or adults.

other stuff. i took a quiet older than me woman from the office out for lunch yesterday. ju couldn't make it. i asked her if we could speak in swahili the whole time so that i can practice, but it made me so tired by the end of it... i had never really spoken to her/didn't know her personality so i'm happy we went.

last night i ate chicken for the first time since october when i had that bad experience cutting a cornish hen. i went with r and her boyfriend s to a restaurant where they cook nice fish and chicken and we ordered one of each and two plates of chips and we ate with our hands. i felt more comfortable reaching into what was closer to her than reaching across to him- so i ate the chicken...haha.

oh yeah, that woman that grabs people until they give her money- saw her again the other day when walking with ju around lunchtime but ju noticed in time to cross the street away from her. i felt bad for the woman and not scared of her this time though because one of the street children screamed something at her and she got scared and started shouting and lifting up her dress a little bit.

ok. no more news. love, Ganga

feb 7

2006-02-07T02:27:00.001-05:00

hi!

this is old but-remember how i told you i met that mt. kili guide who told a sad story about how two of the people in his last group died from a rockslide and graphically described their deaths? i forgot to mention that earlier when i was still sharing a room with a, she had a bag of clothes near my bed that were the dead climbers' clothes. their families decided to donate their climbing clothes to the porters assistance program that a volunteers with. she said that she was trying not to tell me until the clothes were taken away but then it slipped out when someone else walked into the room and asked her where those clothes came from. i felt a little bit affected that i met their guide/heard their story and slept next to their clothes but never met them...

ok. onto other things i guess. so the bossman's back from kenya but not in the office yet today. today might be it. the day i get my list of tasks. keep your fingers crossed.

they do roundups here on sunday nights and throw street children in jail with adult prisoners so i think one of the things that this place does is try to help the streetchildren stay on the street instead of going to prison... i don't really know.

al left for uganda yesterday. she'll be gone for about a week. and then back, and then back to uganda again to monitor elections.

i'm taking ju and another woman from the office out for lunch today. i hope they don't mind if i insist that we speak swahili the whole time.

yesterday ju came over after work and we had ice cream from the store nearby and talked. it was fun as always. then later in the evening yuzzo stopped by with his friend to pick up a vcd of his that i had, and we sat around and talked with r. he said that he'll come by and get me on saturday and take me to see where he lives. he keeps saying that he lives in a slum and i'm interested to go and of course want to see where he lives, i know it's bad but i'm a little bit nervous just because it's different, and i've never been there. i think he lives with around 10 guys in two or three rooms... i'll tell you after i go. ju's sleeping over on friday so i think she'll still be over when he comes to get me so she'll come along. i want her to. they've never met each other but i like them both a lot so i'm sure they'll get along.

also, on sunday i have plans to go to our nightwatchman's house with j and st. he's invited us to go and meet his family etc... he's very nice and doesn't speak any english so he's a good person to try and practice swahili with.

i've been spending a lot of time with r because she's trying to have a life here independent of s. he made her a cd with a song on it that he sings, but the words are a joke i think because they are far from romantic. it basically says stuff like "you like me 'cause i'm rich/we're gonna play by my rules" etc.. and the chorus is "girl, things are looking bad for us".
on the dala dala (small bus) on the way to work today, we heard a man shouting our destination so i thought we'd stop but it was really the conductor shouting it as a question-and since no one said anything, we missed it. so we got out when we realized that we had passed it, and took a taxi here...
after work today, i'm going with her to a restaurant that's supposed to have great fish.

got over the homesickness that i felt yesterday and feel good today.

feb 6

2006-02-06T02:21:00.000-05:00

hi party people

i thought i was over any and all feelings of homesickness until last night. before i went to bed, and when i woke up i felt it. i know it's because sebby went to pittsburgh for the superbowl and everyone's together without me, and without kavi... but it's easy to pretend that kavi's there too. and it's just me that's not... just kidding. anyway, i felt better when seb and deets called me on the way to work. congratulations pittsburgh.

someone just called my phone and he called me yesterday too. yesterday i couldn't figure out who he was and today i finally remembered while i was talking to him. he gave me a distinct creepy vibe when i met him last thursday and i'm certain that i didn't give him my number. i bet he asked around and got it. anyways, he said he wants to meet for lunch or dinner and i didn't know what to say so i kept saying "no, (long pause), thank you". it doesn't feel nice to say that when someone's trying to be nice, but it feels worse to agree to do something that you don't want to do.

oh ok. i don't know if i said this before, but i met this prosecutor for the rwandan tribunal who i spent a lot of time talking with and he told me different reasons for why it's a good idea to work for the un and i was saying how i'm split about where i would like to be on the spectrum of ngos etc.. and he said that i should send him my resume and email and he thinks i should work there etc. then he called me at work on friday and told me to send him my resume. i thought about it over the weekend, and wrote him an email this morning that said that i'm not going to send it because i feel undecided about it. but really, i don't want to send it because i think he has other intentions and i don't want to be in a position where he feels like i owe him anything... and it's not nice to get a position just because someone's interested in you. so that's that, and a good decision because it's very much my instinct.

so work- i bet you're wondering what i'm doing. the answer is nothing. the ceo is in nairobi and wasn't here at the end of last week. he gets back this afternoon and is coming to the office so i hope to meet with him and have any idea of anything to do soon... i gave his secretary some forms to fill out today for my residence permit. i don't know if i mentioned it before, but there are about six people that work here and it's two rooms in one of three buildings that make up the aicc- arusha international conference center... the other two buildings are un buildings. our building is called ngorongoro, and the others are serengeti and kilimanjaro.

this weekend was good. i stayed in friday because i was really tired. and melissa called me so it was nice to talk and laugh on the phone. saturday night i went to dinner and then dancing at this place colabus which is a place i've heard a lot about but never been to. it was fun but super dark in there. then yesterday, i went to snake park with ju and her mom. r and al came too. ju's mom was very nice and told me that i must be missing home because i look small and then she said don't worry, you have a mummy here. so i half jokingly called her mummy- part joke, part i didn't know what else to call her. saw a lot of snakes, found out that a black mamba is bad news. also went to a masai cultural museum where i learned a lot about masai people which i was happy about because they intrigue me very much. they still do female circumcision during adolescence, but i think they're trying to outlaw it in tanzania...

i like ju very much and feel like she's a reason that i'm happy here. not that i'm that close with her, but i feel promise/i don't see a limit/i can tell that we're both excited to see each other- which is nice, except that she's going back to school in uganda soon and then won't be back until may. we'll see what happens. things seem to change rapidly here so hopefully whatever happens, i'll be happy and not notice.

r and s weren't that nice to each other when they were in the same place on saturday and she was in a really upset mood when we came home. but now she seems happier and i think they're going to try and be friends or half date or something. whatever makes her happy. she's really nice and makes efforts to be friends but something about her is a little bit formal or hard for me to connect with... but i try and sometimes succeed. i connect well with yuzzo despite the language barrier but have to not initiate calling him and stuff- first of all because our phone conversations are very difficult and pointless and also because i don't want to give the wrong message- which is silly i know, but here it would give the wrong message even though it would be fine at home.

i don't know why. i just can't shake the homesickness this morning. hopefully it'll be gone by tomorrow.

oh, i practiced a lot of swahili this weekend. but i've noticed that when i make a mistake, people don't correct me because they know what i'm trying to say, or they just laugh. i guess i do the same for english if someone's english is really bad and there's just too much to correct. but it's hard to practice because people act like hey good you're on the right track and then they want to speak in english. so i'm going to try harder to review and build my vocabulary on my own...we'll see.

ok. bye.

feb 3

2006-02-03T02:31:00.000-05:00

so i'm still waiting to meet with him and make a list of stuff for me to do... he said either yesterday or today. if not today, i'll remind him that i exist on monday.

in the mean time, i've been reviewing my swahili notes and flipping through random publications.

yesterday, ju asked me if i wanted to go to lunch with her and maybe meet a friend of hers. so i went along and then realized that i was actually accompanying her on a first date with a guy that she met somewhere once. it was funny and fun. they spoke in swahili most of the time and i would interject once in a while by repeating a sentence that i understood back as a question... anything to practice right? the man was really nice, kind of older- early thirties i think and he mines tanzanite and sells it in dubai. ju said she stays away from anyone that mines tanzanite. i guess a lot of people do that here and it's a way to make a lot of money in a short amount of time. al didn't come on the date because she went to the bank and she ended up having to wait there for a long time. then she met us afterwards.

while we were walking back, there was a woman standing on the street across from two other women and we kind of walked through them on the sidewalk and as we were passing the single woman put alice in some sort of wrestling hold. she just grabbed her very quickly but putting her arms underneath alice's armpits. alice screamed i think, i don't remember because the three of us were really surprised and we kept walking and the woman let go of alice and walked away. apparently she's known for grabbing people and holding them in a headlock or something until they give her money... that's why the other two women were standing there. one was getting money out of her purse to pay the woman for hitting her i guess. anyway, ju said that when she told her mom last night that her mom said that you can avoid the whole situation by giving the woman 100 shillings when you see her because that's all she wants. ju said that if you don't give her money she'll start hitting you with a rock. anyway, it was definitely interesting. i kept making myself laugh last night by re- imagining the woman grabbing alice and the look on her face.

sorry that i keep typing about ridiculous crime stories but i don't know why i do- just because i notice and remember them. most of the time things are happy and good so when something different happens i remember.

went to the reggae concert last night. it was fun. yuzzo rapped a little bit. i couldn't understand the words but most of the songs are about "life in the ghetto". he lives in a ghetto across the road from us called kijenge. i asked before why it's called a ghetto and it's because a lot of people live together in a room and i think share clothes and stuff. i've only been there once at night to drop s's housegirl off and i was in a car so i didn't really feel like i was anywhere.

anyways, the concert was good. r and s were both there and they weren't really speaking but then left together at the end of the night and then she came home in the middle of the night crying. i was sleeping and didn't wake up so i didn't hear any of it. and then she left again later. so i hope things are sorting out...

oh- i never wrote about the food here. there's chapati (pronounced differently only because the t at the end is a hard one) that's cooked a little differently than indian chapati- it's a little flakier and kind of buttery. and there's ugali which is kind of like kaddambutu(sorry about the spelling) but smashed together in a big heap and you break off pieces and eat it with meat. chips mayai is eggs with french fries cooked into them(i love it but a bit tire of it easily). what else? i don't know- vegetables, meat, normal stuff. i've had really yummy barbecued beef here. the food's not a huge adjustment and i don't think it would be for anyone. anyone would like it. but st is veggie so he has trouble finding stuff sometimes...

i forgot to tell you about the masai. i don't know much about them. am slowly learning more... so please forgive me if my description is basic and bad. they are a tribe i think and there are lots of masai people around here. you can tell who is masai by the colorful clothing that they wear that is wrapped around them like a shawl and some of them have very big holes in their ears and they're often carrying what i think is a herding stick. i think that they believe that all cattle belong to them. that's what i heard. and i heard that they are very good warriors. and i've heard that masai people have very good hearts. when we went hiking, a nice masai man came with us to show us the way.

oh, and the women here are called mama and then the name of their first born child and the men are called baba and then the name of the first born kid. i don't know if i mentioned it before but our house is attached to a family's house which is nice. there are lots of dogs and kids always running around.

not much else. love, Ganga

work started

2006-02-02T01:14:00.000-05:00

hi!
started yesterday and just read through their "strategic planning" binder for most of the day... supposed to meet with the ceo today or tomorrow and make a list of specific tasks.

i sit in an office with al, a lawyer from uganda who's 30 and ju, whose a little younger than me and finishing law school in uganda but she's from here. she's leaving in a month.

in the first 5 minutes of meeting alice, she said "you're still like a kid" a couple of times and i wasn't sure if she thought i looked younger than i am or what but it made me laugh. she's one of 10 children and she said that when she told her parents that she only wants to have 2 kids they told her she might as well have none at all because anything can take two children away from you (death..). she has a lot of stories and makes funny jokes. i went for a walk with ju who was instantly warm and i like a lot. she was holding my hand a lot and it made me feel like we're already friends. i went to lunch with them and two other women and it was fun even though we sat in a restaurant for an hour and a half and the food never came so we had to come back and then just ate chapatis from the stand outside the building. after work, i went window shopping with al and ju and then we took a bus to ju's house which is pretty out of town. it was al's first time going to her house also. it was fun. drinking juice and talking until it started to get dark. then took a bus with al to where she was going and then took a taxi from there because it was dark and sg told me not to take the bus's in the dark and i didn't think i'd be able to recognize where i live in the dark etc... even in the taxi, i was telling him to stop at a place that wasn't where i live- but he didn't listen to me and kept driving which was good.

i hope that it's fun to work here. it's my compromise place. it's not the un/not helping anyone at all but myself because i feel like a part of the world says that you should work there for your resume... and it's not chawakua which is kind of where my heart wants to work just because you get to be so involved and it's underfunded but not part of a career path that i want- which is what i need.. a career path. i promised myself i would try and work on it. so this is my in between. but i already feel good about it because the people are so great.

yuzzo's concert is tonight. i'm excited. it'll be fun. he's very passionate about his music so that makes him good at it. it should be fun.

i forgot to mention that i went to that indian lady's house who stood me up my first week here. i went sometime last week and spent an evening with her. it was fun. i was super affectionate with her because she seems a little lonely and grumpy. i think we both had a good time but don't know if we'll stay in touch. i told her i'd go to kenya with her last weekend if she was up for it but then she called and said she wasn't feeling well. i suppose it's up to me to keep up a connection 'cause i'm younger but i don't think i'm going to.

i can't think of what to write. i heard a horrible story yesterday of this girl who lit herself on fire in seventh grade because a boy broke up with her and then she burned and burned and never died. she spent a long time in the hospital and her father used all of his money and now she's finally out- but sad. her dad has no more money and shows her picture to people and explains that he spent all of his money to treat her and asks people to help him out...

did you like that story? ju told it to me during lunch yesterday. i really like her. i wish that she would be here for the whole time that i'm here.

my swahili's getting worse. it was best last friday after my last lesson. i can feel myself forgetting. i made flash cards the night before last and i told st that we should practice for half an hour every evening... he said ok.

oh. bad news. r and her boyfriend s seem to be breaking up.

more bad news. he's letting me use his travel computer for the month until ju leaves and then i'll sit at her desk- but i realized that lots of x-rated sites have been visited and i'm having trouble connecting to the internet and need to ask for help. i hope that no one thinks that it's me!

ok. bye!

sorry so long

2006-01-31T07:17:00.000-05:00

sorry i haven't written for a bit. been busy...
so for work, i start my first full day at east africa law society tomorrow. it's a human rights ngo for east africa (tanzania, uganda, and kenya (they want to include rwanda by the end of the year)). i'm excited and happy. they used to have a program assistant that they don't have anymore so it sounds like there's a lot of stuff to do. the man is very energetic and interesting so i'm happy. my roomate r used to work there before she switched to the rwandan tribunal and she really liked it...
i also kind of wanted to work for a place called chawakua that does hiv awareness/counseling but has no funding. i think st is going to work there. i told him i'll help him if he ever needs any. but i really liked the lady that works there too.
sunday was the best day of my life. not my life, but best day here so far. went to mt. meru for hiking with r, her boyfriend s, yuzzo, st, this guy bobjulie, and a girl named anita that i just met last week. she's friends with s and goes to school here. i thought it would be a picknicky type of hike so i wore shorts which i regretted immediately. it ended up being a day of very jungley full-body-climbing. st and anita went back to the car because it was too steep. it was really fun though. i feel like i'm getting to know people better and it's fun to do different things. the boys that i've been around have a very adolescent sense of humor though- don't know if it's everyone or just the people i'm around... anyways, after hiking we got a flat tire on the way back into town. once again, i regretted wearing shorts again for a different reason. no one wears shorts here and it was funny to be standing by the car for so long. so they fixed the tire, we went home, and then went to a barbecue and there was an outdoor band playing. then yuzzo went up and sang and he was sooooo good. i was really happy. i love to see anyone i know do anything that they're good at. oh, one of the un people got jumped by 3 guys outside of the barbecue. they kicked her once, and grabbed her phone, and tried to get her bag but didn't because it was under her arm... scary, i know. my roomate r had a bad experience last week where she was walking through a bus stand area where everyone tries to make you get on their bus (dala dala) and someone pulled money out of her pocket. she grabbed it back and then he put his fist up to punch her in the face but then people on the bus started shouting and she ran away. i hear lots of these stories but i feel like if something like that happens, it's just going to happen. at least you know that all people want is a little bit of money, they're not just trying to hurt you for no reason. i'm more scared in dc because you hear stories of people hurting people for no reason.

but i really love being here. i feel really lucky. the people and the place are soooo wonderful.

sg and j are back from the trip with her parents so the house will be more full. i also switched into a room yesterday and unpacked all of my stuff. i hung up the christmas stars that i bought in india and they look very cute. oh yeah, i bought tickets to zanzibar for when sebby visits. it's funny to have to pay for everything in cash. it was funny carrying 400,000 shillings to the airline to pay for the tickets. it definitely makes you think more before buying.

ok. i'll stay up to date with this. i hope everyone's healthy, happy, and great.

love, Ganga

been back in arusha

2006-01-24T03:08:00.000-05:00

hi!
not much news. things are pretty slow moving over here. hope to be placed/settled by next week, or maybe mid-next week.
it's fun to be back in arusha but i can't sleep in the night that much 'cause of the bar that opened up right next to the house. i've been lying awake for a lot of the night for the past few nights and then taking a nap in the afternoon. the girl i share the room with for now, a, came home and slept in the room last night and i have a feeling that she won't be coming back anytime soon. she's really nice, cares about the environment a lot, and pretty interesting/seems to have had an unconventional upbringing.
so i made an effort to become friends with the other new volunteer, st, because we spend and will be spending so much time with each other. i told him that we should probably try and be more friends than we are and he said okay so then the next night i asked to see pictures of his family and friends and asked him lots and lots of questions about them and the next day it felt like we had made some progress... so that's good i guess.
my friend that i text with, yuzzo, came over last night for a little. i'm happy he did, and i hope he wasn't bored because st and i get used to staring at each other and not talking for a long time.

yeah, so not much news. just waiting for a placement and a room that's not the one that's basically in the new bar...

going tomorrow

2006-01-20T09:32:00.000-05:00

i could see all of mt. kilimanjaro today. it was unbelievable. most of it is above the clouds.

moshi's been growing on me. it's quiet and a little lonely but so pretty.

we've been meeting with a lot of great organizations. yesterday we met with one called kwieco that does a lot of public education of women's/children's/rights in general and provides legal assistance to people who can't afford it. it seems like a place where i would ideally like to work for the rest of my life. but for a volunteer, the project is very openended and they want someone to create a lobbying/research department and that's a little overwhelming...
part of me starts to feel really deflated and useless during the meetings because the need for staff/skills/etc is so much and i am just one person with basically no skills and no time to invest...

anyways, stay optimistic.

today we went to a home for street children called mkombozi that was started in '97 by two volunteers. it's grown so much in the past however many years and houses almost 100 boys. it's very well organized and very effective. some of the boys that have grown up there come back and help with the children that live there now. it seems like a really nurturing environment and there's no attempt at "rehabilitation", just support and assistance in what the boys express interest in. a 12 yr. old boy caught me by surprise when he ran up to me and hugged me for a really long time and then kissed me a lot of times on my forehead and head and then made me do the same to him. he just came running from across the street. then he did the same to sg and st.

sorry this is so disjointed. i'm kind of sick of this blog and typing. and i don't know what i think about anything.

now that i've slowed down to the pace of moshi and love how pretty it is, i'm nervous that it'll be hard to go back to the hustle bustle of arusha. i just don't know which place/organization to pick.

i think i'll end up in arusha though just because i don't want to read every night from 5 until 10 which is what i've been doing in moshi. we'll see.

if you're reading this, write me an email. friendship is a two way street.

love, Ganga

more moshi

2006-01-18T06:24:00.000-05:00

sorry if i sounded really homesick yesterday. i feel a lot better today.

we met with a small ngo called white orange today that does aids awareness/prevention with adolescents and parents in moshi and some surrounding rural areas. the director seems like such a goodhearted man that if i don't find another place that i feel more connected to, i'll pick it. the only reservation that i have is that i'm only here for six months and that is not enough time to effectively accomplish stuff in that type of organization. they are very new and not very structured. i feel like i'd need to be here for longer to be of use. we'll see though. we have more appointments later this week and early next week.

the boy volunteer, st, who i'm absolutely sick of at this point was vomiting yesterday. i felt bad for him. we ate some kind of old food that hadn't been refrigerated that well because the electricity was gone for a couple of days so maybe that made him sick. i'm not sure. he says he has a sensitive stomach. our orientation guide, sg, left to go back to arusha tonight for one night to meet his girlfriend, j's, parents. they pretty much plan on getting married so it's a big deal for him to meet them and he was nervous. he's coming back to moshi tomorrow morning. the older girl, t, that lives here in moshi is kind of warm and unintentionally cold at the same time- she kind of reminds me of an exfriend of mine (some of you may catch this reference) and it makes me wary... but overall she's nice, just seems very reclusive and untrusting of people in general...

moshi's really pretty. and a few of my hellos were returned today. so i feel a little better. i got stuck in a greeting back and forth thing with an older woman on the way here and we each greeted the other 3 times and then i started laughing.

i'm reading a book that they have in the house called a million little pieces and it's gross because the man describes himself vomiting so many times. it's about a man's recovery from drug and alcohol addiction.

not much to write today. i just keep coming to use the internet each day because there's nothing else to do. but if no one reads this, and i can tell by whether there are posts or not- i'm going to stop writing.

ok. take care everyone. bye.

still in moshi

2006-01-17T07:34:00.000-05:00

there are a couple of things that i forgot to mention about arusha last week and i'll say them now while they're still fresh in my mind while time stands still in moshi.

first of all, i'm here with the other new volunteer and the orientation guide, sg (who dates j- a volunteer in arusha). it was really fun to go around with sg in arusha because he's from there and knows tons of people and invited us to his house for tea a couple of times so we got to meet his warm family and some of his cousins. while there are more pickpockets or whatever in arusha, there are also a lot of really friendly people that are open to talking all of the time.

oh i forgot to mention that i met a kilimanjaro guide that told a really sad story about two people in his last group dying from a rockslide. he was an interesting man and seems like he'd be a very motivational and reassuring guide. the oldest person he's taken up was 78 and the youngest 12.

i didn't talk about the indian community in arusha either. it seems very very isolated and closed off. it seems like they basically pretend like they live in india. i met some people my age and they were born and raised here but have indian accents. it seems like tanzanians don't like indians very much, or some of the UN expat community because they live in a bubble. i met one aunty and she said she'd come and get me to go to her house and she sounded very concerned that i just came here- but then she stood me up. maybe she was scared to come to where the visions house is... just kidding. but it is rude that she stood me up.

i don't know why but i hate moshi so far. i feel really sad and lonely and bored here. i woke up at 4 this morning terrified- i know that's horrible to say- because i heard a lot of men singing and shouting really loudly. i stayed awake until everyone woke up naturally and then asked about it. it's a police academy training in the mornings. how silly of me to get scared. i just feel a lot more like an outsider here and kind of generally unwelcome. people aren't immmediately friendly and trying to talk like in arusha. i don't really want to be in tanzania and live like a hermit. i want to talk to people.

i'm still split though. the moshi nightwatchmen drinks coffee and stays awake all night and the arusha one falls asleep on the roof sometimes. i feel bad for him. he has a really hard life. he has kids and works odd jobs during the day and then has to try and stay up all night. and he's really sweet and friendly. basically, i feel like i had friends in arusha and i miss interacting. besides the girls in the house, i also made another friend named yuzzo who i text with. he raps in swahili and he takes it very seriously and he's supposed to be really popular locally. anyways, it's little hints of friendship, livliness, laughter that make time pass a lot more quickly in arusha.

but i am still a little nervous about ever ending up sleeping in that huge empty space of a house alone but sg said that i can call him and tell him to sleep there or call make arrangements with one of the girls if that should ever happen because his girlfriend j is almost always sleeping there, unless she decides to go out of town...

oh, and i'm a little nervous about arusha because a bar is being built right next to the house and there's only a very low wall there and sg said that people might jump over it either to come to the house or to try and sneak into the bar. he's super cautious and gives a LOT of safety advice and always follows it up with lots of scary stories. but maybe he's just paranoid. i don't know.

but i don't want to be depressed in moshi and just read books and be with personalities that make me feel like i'm in a daze...

so yeah. i'm homesick.

we met with kilimanjaro porters assistance program today and it's a great seeming organization but they only want someone part time but it made me excited about the meetings coming up with different places. while we were in there, there were two men in there who cycled to south africa from france and then took a bus here because one of them got sick with malaria. and they're cycling back too. it's taken them 4 months. a lot of sleepless cycling..they wanted to hike kilimanjaro in 2 days and it usually takes 7 but they told them that it won't be possible.

ok. bye for now. moshi's boring snoring.

dilemma dilemma

2006-01-16T03:12:00.000-05:00

hi. sorry i've been bad at keeping this up to date. it's just hard to motivate to go use the internet. once i'm settled somewhere i'm sure i'll get into a routine of doing it, or not at all. best way to get in touch is calling. my cell phone works here or there. seb/my mom have the number.

i can meet and greet in swahili and speak a little in the present tense. it's a hard language, but very interesting.

anyways, i have a lot on my mind. let's see where to start. i've spent the last week or so in arusha and had a wonderful wonderful time. the people are very friendly, everyone wants to talk and i got to go out a lot in the nights with one of the roomates, r, and her boyfriend, s, who i think i've mentioned before- half tanzanian, half finnish. it was really really fun. but the other night i made a promise with God that if he got me home safely that i'd make decisions that were safer and not just based on seeming funness. that night we went to a local place called active that's in the supposed bad part of town where s's friend was playing music. it was great. a really fun place with reggae music and in the middle of the music there was entertainment where men wore fake pregnant bellies and bathing suits with layers and layers of shorts on top and took some of them off while dancing and pretended to play horns and stuff with their bums. i'm describing it badly but it was a high energy comedy dance with music in the background. then there was another one that s translated the words to that was about getting aids. and we danced a lot too and r was really nice about not making me dance with strange men. we traded a lot. but then it was weird since i was there with two couples i obviously chatted with a lot of people and i'm super open and friendly here and am so curious to talk a lot to anybody that will talk to me- but then it got confusing and one of s's friend's that i had talked to for a bit told me that he might hit another one that i spoke to later and s told me that he was having trouble explaining to people that i have a husband at home. whatever. it was confusing and i realized that it's probably weird to go out as a single woman here and it's hard to tell how my friendliness is interpreted and how i should/would communicate clearly... whatever. we got home with a very scary drunk ride and i promised God that i'll think about things more. it's hard to decide to stay in arusha with all of the girls having boyfriends etc... i wonder if i'd be home alone a lot etc.. basically if i decide to stay there, i'll work with the east africa law society that does human rights work in east africa. it sounds interesting and i'll meet with them when i go back next week for more swahili.

got to moshi yesterday. my hands are tired from typing. there hasn't been electricity yet 'cause of a storm i think. just in our house. but moshi's very green and beautiful and a much slower pace. i'm meeting with a couple of organizations this week and i have a feeling that if i work here, i'll pick kweko which i heard is very underfunded so maybe hard to get stuff done- but also a place that needs the volunteer work more. . so we'll see. there doesn't seem to be anything in between the two places. it's either pick something beautiful and quiet and pretty lonely but safer. or a fun city that's fun part of the time but lonely in that busy-ness around me but i feel lonely way... we'll see.

the people in this moshi house are a couple who are away right now. and a ten years older than me girl who seems nice but kind of awkward/scared and this volunteer boy who's new like me who's probably going to stay here. he's nice but nerdy-ish. i really don't know what to choose...

if i pick arusha, i'll definitely meet more people, interact more- but don't know if i'll start making bad decisions like travelling in cabs alone at night. but then i don't really see another option. other than staying home unless i go with someone and their boyfriend and come home with them. and if i'm just going to stay home in the evenings, might as well stay where there will be other people at home too even if they want to be left alone...

maybe i'll just base it on the organization/work environment/people that appeal to me.

ok. miss you. love you. bye.

first real day

2006-01-10T07:55:00.000-05:00

hi! got in close to midnight last night and today's been my first real day. i was nervous that no one would be at the airport for me, but i walked out with my luggage and stood staring at the different cards when someone came up to me and asked if i was looking for visions in action. the house has three girls already living there and maybe a boy that's new like me. we're staying here for the first week and having intensive swahili- which we had this morning for 5 hours. it seems interesting but very very hard... only one of the girls was home last night. but she's really friendly and she dates a guy from here that's our orientation coordinator who also has an easy to get along with/great personality. the other two girls also have tanzanian boyfriends and mostly don't sleep at the house. i might end up sharing a room with one of them if this boy and i both pick to stay in arusha instead of moshi. supposedly there's more action here... i don't know. i haven't made up my mind completely. i like this girl and her boyfriend though and i heard that the other house is a couple that came here together and a woman about 10 years older than me- so we'll see. oh yeah, i also heard that they're pretty quiet. so far, the only bad culture shock/rebel against my decision feelings that i had were on the plane. and i'm a little overwhelmed with the swahili, but our teacher is great and friendly and it's only me and the other new boy doing the lessons so it's very interactive...
i miss my mom a lot. i was sad to say bye to her in the airport and i kept thinking about it on the plane. and of course i miss sebby too.
i hope this experience is good. i'm applying for an internship with the ICTR so hopefully that works out. otherwise i want to work in a women helping nonprofit.
i need to buy some food. i've only had a power bar and a piece of bread because i don't own any of the food in the house. i'm going to get some noodle packets if i can in a minute.
the house is a lot bigger than i expected and there's hot water for the shower if you heat it in advance. it's kind of like the house we stayed in in costa rica, but not as nice.

i miss everyone

leaving on a jetplane

2006-01-08T10:53:00.000-05:00

got back from india two days ago and going to tanzania today. feel a little sick to my stomach (nervous, excited?)... i hope it's a lot of fun. i was sick of the drudgey go nowhere office life... so i think this'll be good. seb was in town for the past 2 days and it was great to see him. and fun to hang out with deetsquad and family.

also, india was great. but sad to say bye to kav but she's happy i think.

ok. let's see if i "blog".