Change in plans… we never made it to Mt Kilimanjaro although we have vowed to each other that we will make it there before we die. Friday night was the last for several of the volunteers here. We went to a beach bonfire with three of the girls and some locals. We met numerous artists from Bagamoyo. Many of them asked if we would come to their shops to look at their work… promising to lower our prior “mzungu prices” to “rafiki prices” now that we have met (Overcharging because we’re white to decent prices because we are now friends). We have some funny stories from that night which we will share in person when we arrive home…

Saturday morning we took a cab to a fisherman port known as Mbegani (I loved this because it is similar to Megani… which I am referred to quite often here.. they like to throw I and A at the end of many names/words). A boat came and took us to the Lazy Lagoon Peninsula. Ahhhhh…. The Lazy Lagoon J We loved it there! Some things about Lazy Lagoon: The only people occupying the island are those who work and/or are staying at the hotel. There are only 12 Bandas so this place is very low key and quiet. To conserve energy the hotel has power from 6pm-10pm (We were unaware of this prior to booking, thank God we brought a flashlight!) The only security stopping anyone from boating up to the island unwelcome are 2 Doberman Pinschers (one only about 4 months old that was missing an eye) who do more licking than barking. Now on with the story.. As we have previously mentioned we had two goals in AFRICA… 1. To dance with the Maasai which we completed as you know, and 2. Finding a bush baby. Bush babies are tough because they are nocturnal and it is not recommended for us to go traveling through the “bush” in the dark to track down wild species even though we have contemplated this many times…The manager of the hotel informed us that there were bush babies on the island but rare to ever see them. We expressed our need to find a bush baby to the man who escorted us down our 5 minute walk through the “bush” to our banda. After about two minutes into the walk, TWO BUSH BABIES!!!! We have them on tape! Goal 2 completed!!! This guy must have thought we were crazy as we video taped these bush babies for about 5 minutes. Our banda/hut was right on the beach. We were the last hut, hut number 12 which was furthest from civilization and closest to the bush pigs… our new fear. We were informed to not walk at night… bush pigs are not to be taken lightly, they will attack. After a day of sun and fun we headed to the main lodge for dinner. After some drinks and more delicious food we decided it was time to get back to our banda. With bottle of wine and two glasses in hand we set our on our hike back to our hut… As were about to walk outside on the path we stopped as a man with a spear stood in the doorway… hmm.. He said nothing and turned around… We followed as he walked quickly down the dark path to our hut, not speaking and smacking his spear on the ground. He was our protection against the wild bush pigs. We spent Easter Sunday relaxing, eating more delicious food, and spotting monkeys! Usually by the end of our weekend trips we have been ready to go back to our home in Bagamoyo but not after this weekend! Today is Easter Monday here so all the schools and shops are closed. We only have 4 more days of placement and tons of souvenir shopping left to do… hopefully we can fit everything in before it is time to head back to AMERICA!

***Make sure you scroll all the way down…we added several posts!!!***

Today we got Henna tattoos from a local woman. A man named Rasti is coming to our home to do a painting class! He said he can draw for us and then we can paint it… comparable to a “paint by numbers” style. We decided to take Friday off so we are heading to Mount Kilimanjaro tomorrow with several other people. (mom and dad we have not informed you of this yet) Our flight is Thursday at 6pm and we will be there until Monday night!! We didn’t think we would have the opportunity to get up north but since Monday is a no work day because of Easter and we are allowed to take off one Friday we figured why not. We will be staying in Moshi which is the city at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Moshi is also where another cross cultural solutions home base is located so maybe we will meet some volunteers from there. We are planning on doing a day hike up part of the mountain… nothing too crazy! We are hoping to go to the Ngorangora crater. Supposedly it is full of many animals and roads you can drive through to see them. The internet has not been working at the internet café by our house for several days so sorry we haven’t written lately. We will write again when we arrive back in Bagamoyo on Monday!! Hope all is well J

Zanzibar

On Friday we left for Zanzibar!! Eight of us took a dala dala (van/taxi) to the ferry in Dar es Salaam. We had heard horror stories about the ferry and how everyone is throwing up everywhere... luckily this was not the case on the way there. After about a two hour ride we arrived in Stone Town, Zanzibar. Stone Town’s architecture is a beautiful fusion of Arabic, Indian, European, and African influences. After docking, we were attacked by numerous taxi drivers, peanut salesmen, and local street people that honestly thought they were tour guides. They would be walking alongside of you pointing at buildings, mumbling stuff, and then asking for money for their services. “Verrry nice room for you, very nice, very cheap, you want… I take you there” or “You need taxi… how many of you, 8? Here fit in my 4 door sedan” or “Hey nuts, you want nuts, very good price, cheap for you beautiful ladies”.. It was exhausting. One man followed us all the way to the “Night Market”. Finally after about 100 HAPANAS… GO AWAY (hapana = no) he left us alone. The Night Market is where we stopped for dinner. It consists of many vendors that cooked right at their stands on the street by candle light. We enjoyed Zanzibar Pizza which is nothing like American pizza. It was amazing!! It was more like an omelet wrapped in thin dough then fried. Our one roommate Mary (from Washington DC) met, who we believe, will be her future husband. They met and through talking realized that they live on the same block in DC. Sparks were aflyinnnggg!! Love found in Africa!! They took a picture together and exchanged emails… we’ll see what happens! Next it was time to find a cab to the northern part of the island where our hotel was. Back to the war zone we went to find a taxi. Finally after haggling for roughly 45 minutes we were on our way. Two hours, a heated conversation in Swahili between our driver and a police officer, and a ride down what seemed to be a deserted dirt road in the dark, we made it to Kendwa Beach. While the others went to sleep, we decided we would head to the bar and chat with some locals. We taught them about bears, boxers (the dog), and American History. One man was telling us about his black dog, Jack, he had as a young child. He said he was best friends with Jack and they did everything together. Christine tried to compare that to Tim with Philly. She said did you ever eat from his bowl or pee outside with Jack? Utterly confused he responded, “Why would I pee on Jack???”(you have to imagine it with an accent). We tried to explain that our little brother would mimic our dogs every move but we finished that topic leaving him still quite confused. The next morning we went to the beach. The water was crystal clear! It was a very relaxing day. Then it was time to prepare for the Full Moon Beach Party! We had two goals during this beach party: 1. Find a Bush Baby (we still don’t know exactly what this is but we hear it kinda looks like a koala bear). 2. To dance with the Maasai (The Maasai is a native tribe in Tanzania and apparently frequenters of the beach bar at our hotel; tribal garb, knives, sticks, fanny packs, and all). We had heard that the Maasai hunt and catch lions so we figured we would meet them, dance a little, then convince them to hunt us down a bush baby. But we only accomplished one goal. The first one we met immediately fell head over heels in love with Christine. The first one I (megan) met breathed on me and I almost gagged in his face..time to discard and find a new one. Christine’s had little rhythm but thoroughly enjoyed twirling her. She would twirl then he would twirl… the whole time he had the goofiest smile on his face. After I almost threw up from the first guy I told C that we had to go to the bathroom and try and get away. We thought we were in the clear when we left the bathroom to head back to the bar. We were wrong. Christine’s came flying out of the crowd after her. She pretended like she didn’t see him but it didn’t work. The bartender we had met the night before said we could stand behind the bar so they couldn’t approach us. After standing there for a couple minutes we realized Christine’s was just sitting by the bar looking as though he was about to cry with his head down. He didn’t understand why she wouldn’t dance anymore (huge language barrier!) Pretty much the only common word was dance and beer. C felt bad so we went back over to sit with him…. His face lit up once again! This is when my #2 Maasai man came into the picture. So there we were… sitting Maasai #2, Megan, Christine, and her Maasian. Christine’s presented her with a necklace she could wear for the evening and she gave him a shell. Maasai #2 told me (megan) that our relationship could be like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie… He kept pointing at himself saying “brad” then pointing at me saying “Angelina”…. Repeating over and over. They never found us our Bush Babies..Sadly we had to break their hearts once again as we headed off to bed. We left early Sunday morning and headed back to Stone Town where we had several hours to walk around. We went to the Slave Trade tour which we have two pictures of. One picture shows a room in the basement of a building where they kept up to 50 men at a time. There was another room that held up to 75 women and children. There were still chains hanging from the walls. You could hardly stand up in the space. The slaves were left there for three days. This is how they tested who was the strongest therefore could be traded for more money. There were a lot of small winding streets in the middle of the town that reminded us of Rome. It was easy to get lost which we experienced for a short amount of time until we found the coast again. When we arrived at the port to get on our ferry back home we realized this ferry looked a little different…..(not in a good way..) We took our seats and after about 30 minutes the ride became a little rough. They began handing out “sick bags” to all the passengers. This is when I-Pods came in handy! We put our headphones on and turned them up to block out the sound of puking passengers. Everyone got of the boat feeling pretty sick, only one of our group members lost it… All and all we loved Zanzibar!!

Placement thus far

These pictures are of the kids from our placements. Sadly, they have a two week spring break so Friday was our last day with them L The class picture of the kids in maroon uniforms are from Megan’s placement. The blue are Christine’s. On Friday we both went to Christine’s placement for play day. We took the kids to the beach. Typically, it’s a 5 minute walk but with 70 kids under the age of 7 it takes about 20. Last Friday we took them to the beach too. I assumed this week would be like the last; all the kids take off their shoes and socks, run around in the sand and get their feet wet. Then at the end we (the teachers) try to figure out whose shoes and socks are whose, why one has two left shoes on, and where each shoe’s match is. Well, this week the kids decided to take off all their clothes. Now, not only were we trying to match the kids with their shoes and socks, we were trying to match them with their skirts, jumpers, shorts, shirts, and underwear. Talk about chaos and dysfunction!

Our former placements have a two week spring break so on Monday we started at our new placements. I (Megan) am at a school called AMAP (African Modern Art Project). The school is run out of a man and wife’s backyard. The wife sews for the community (which is where we are getting our skirts and dresses made). The money she receives goes towards the school they started for street children. Many of these children arrive to school with an empty stomach. Some never received dinner the night before. They all come from poverty and many from neglectful homes. Yesterday was by far the most challenging day for me. There are roughly 50 kids at this school, 1 teacher (the man who owns it), and 5 volunteers. During our attempt to teach these children, they were hitting each other with rocks, flipping the benches over, punching, biting, kicking, pinching… I tried to stop one fight by yelling HAPANA… ACHA (NO, STOP) all they did was mock me, laugh in my face, and continue on. I was smacked about three or four times… I turned around at one point and a child about 4 years old is holding a knife pointed toward his chest… It was quite a frustrating day. Many of these kids know that one way to get the attention they want is to act out, even if that means the response is negative, it is still a response. I was able to see first hand that those who act out the most are the one’s who are in need of not only one on one attention and but nurturing as well. Today we took them to the beach and had a completely different experience. I made it my goal to work closer with the “trouble makers” and focus on positive reinforcement. I taught several how to catch and throw a Frisbee. They collected dead crabs and several were carrying them in their shirts.. it was disgusting. Tomorrow we will be back in the classroom so who knows what will happen… should be another adventure! The one picture is the backyard where AMAP school is held. It is their bathroom, play area, and classroom… quite different from America.

Christine will be updating about her placement at another time... internet problems

The Beach at Bagamoyo

So while it is so very nice to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner prepared for us at our home, we needed a break. We had been told that the Travelers Lodge has the best food in Bagamoyo and it is right on the beach so we decided to head there after placement on Thursday. This was our first time swimming in the Indian Ocean!! (Pri, we waved to your people as requested… they say hi). The water was incredibly warm although not as clear as we had expected. After the beach we headed to the restaurant where we had fried calamari (Tim it was not as good as Sovana) and crab meat with melted cheese along with some much needed beverages.

Traditional African Music

Last Wednesday we went to the bar behind our house where we watched a local family of musicians and dancers perform their original songs. Many of the routines have been passed down from generation to generation along with all of their handmade instruments. We quickly found out that they like to put the “mzungus” on the spot… (mzungu = white people). We were pulled up during several performances.. Couldn’t quite shake it like the natives. We are hoping to buy their CD before we leave.

Bagamoyo and Cooking

Here are two pictures of our home in Bagamoyo. The third is a picture of us during our traditional African cooking lessons taught by our in-home cooks. This is where we were introduced to our new found love…. Chapati. It is sort of like a thick crepe and tastes good with anything put on top. We wrote down the recipe with high hopes of being able to reproduce this when we arrive back home.