“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” ― Ghandi

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Exploring Moshi

Monday, May 28, 2012


Today was our first morning in Tanzania, and oh my goodness the weather was absolutely beautiful. Our plans for this morning are to head into the Town of Moshi and exchange US money into Tanzanian shillings, buy a phone, and meet with someone from the orphanage we will be working at.


The trek from the volunteer house to the town of Moshi is about a 45 minute walk down bumpy, rocky, and dusty dirt roads… and I’m wearing flip flops. Funny thing is, my whole life I’ve been the type of person who would rather be barefoot than wear shoes, so the fact that my feet were practically black by the time we made it back to the volunteer house didn’t phase me at all. However, the flip flops didn’t provide the kind of support I would need on these daily walks, so from here on out I will be wearing my sneakers to the orphanage.  To be quite honest, the walk to the town of Moshi was very peaceful, even though there are dozens of cars, piki-piki’s (motorcycles) and dala-dala’s (buses) passing by every few minutes, the rugged beauty of Tanzania overwhelms me. Many of the homes are in very poor condition with none of the kinds of resources that are available to us in the States, but there is something about them that makes them absolutely beautiful. Perhaps it is all the smiling faces you still see peering through the windows, sitting on the front step, running through the street. I find that many Americans are good at putting on a fake smile when someone asks them how they are doing, but the smiles here in Tanzania FEEL so genuine. You’re probably wondering, what the hell are you talking about? How can a smile have a feeling? I don’t really know myself, but these children, men and women are all so welcoming, it is almost as if you have known them for years.
I should warn you though, not everyone in Africa is always so nice. “Fly-Catchers” are people who walk around the town looking for mzungu’s. They will follow you around nonchalantly, waiting to find out what you are searching for, then try and steer you in the direction of where that item is, but then jack up the prices on the items. For them, they are only trying to make a living, as whatever business they bring to the shops they receive commission on. However, after you witness this once, it gets very annoying, and sometimes you have to be rude in order for them to stop. Within ten minutes of leaving the house, I encountered my first fly-catcher. He very mysteriously followed us into town for about twenty minutes before he confronted Deb and asked her what we were in town for. She politely declined and in Swahili said “no thank you, not this time” and the man stopped talking but continued to follow us for another ten minutes before asking again.  I don’t know about you, but I was not grown up to be rude to people, so I find it very hard to tell these people that I’m not interested. I feel bad, and many times feel compelled to buy from them because perhaps my purchase means they will get to feed their children this week. But I also have to keep in mind that they also only see me as a mzungu, a mzungu that is made of money, because of course all westerners are filthy rich.
After converting our money from US dollars to Tanzanian shillings (tsh) we purchased our first Tanzanian cellphone! While I have re-hashed my relationship with my Iphone after suffering through my blackberry phase, I was a little disappointed to find out I would be stuck with a Nokia. There are other options available, so far as to a blackberry, but they are far more expensive. Considering we will only be in Tanzania for 5 weeks, we agreed that the cheapest phone would do for now. No QWERTY keyboard though, so I have had to re-teach myself to text old school style. Our first lunch in the town of Moshi occurred at the Kilimanjaro Coffee Shop. A quaint little shop with a full menu and outdoor seating. Many of my friends and family were concerned about what kinds of food I would be eating, but surprise surprise I had a "beef burger" with fries... real fries... as in freshly peeled and chopped potatoes. The beef burger is not exactly the same as I am used to at home, but the seasonings make it absolutely delicious. I have been pleasantly surprised with all the amazing food I have encountered in the past two days.
Our first dala-dala ride was quite an adventure to say the least. For those who don’t know, a dala-dala is sort of like a bus, or a big taxi. Certain dala-dala’s go to certain locations so you have to be really persistent when asking if it goes to “Moshi mgini” which means Moshi Town. We grabbed our first dala-dala in Moshi and rode it to Pasua, which is where the orphanage is located. It is about a 15 minute ride, but it is the most uncomfortable 15 minutes you will ever experience. These run down vehicles seat about 10 to 15 people, but I swear they will cram up to 30 people into one dala-dala. All consideration for respect and decency goes out the window as 9 out of 10 times you have someone’s chest, armpit, or back end in your face. To the best of my knowledge, the reason they cram so many people into one little bus is because the rides are very cheap. They are about 300tsh per person, which equates to about .20 cents in US dollars. There isn’t any place in America that I’m aware of where you can hail a ride across town for .20 cents. Back tracking to the mention of armpits before, I hate to turn gross on you but the hardest thing to get used to (in my opinion) is the body odor. It seems that many Africans do not use deodorant, so not only are the dala-dala rides physically uncomfortable, but it also isn’t very pleasant on your senses. Growing up in a country where personal hygiene is so important, it’s difficult to understand the lack of cleanliness here. I shouldn't say a lack of cleanliness, because they are clean, it's just that personal hygiene products such as deoderant are not important to them. I’m hoping that over time I can grow used to it, we will see…
Our first visit to the Kilimanjaro Orphanage Center was fairly short only because we got a late start to the day. When we arrived, all the younger children were napping, while the older ones were still off at school. We met Lucy, who is in charge of the orphanage. She is a beautiful African woman who never gets tired of saying karibu (welcome). The other “employees” are Stella and Zuena. Although I am still unable to understand what Stella is saying to me, she always manages to make me laugh. She has a very upbeat personality and always has a smile on her face. Zuena is an older woman, but that doesn’t stop her from working just as a hard as the others. She also has an awesome personality, and you can tell the children really love her. The orphanage consists of one classroom, which doubles as a TV room, a reading room, a make-shift kitchen, a machinery room where they grind maize, and four dormitories. The dormitories are split into two dormitories for the girls and two dormitories for the boys. Each room consists of two bunk beds where approximately two or three children sleep on each mattress. During our introductions one little girl named Deborah woke up from her nap. She is about 3 years old, one of the youngest, and she is absolutely adorable. For twenty minutes she kept hiding behind the door playing hide and seek with me and every time she saw me she would scream “teacher!” Within a few seconds I had created a friend for life, which I find ironic because sometimes it can take years to build the level of trust she built with me in just a few seconds. This concludes our time at the orphanage for the day, as we have a long trek back to the volunteer house.

An adventure to say the least

Sunday, May 27, 2012


Everyone has told me that this trip to Africa would be a trip of a lifetime. But I’m not exactly sure if anyone knew just how life changing this experience would be. Having not even arrived in Tanzania yet, I encountered my first ah-ha moment, where I witnessed an Indian family being patted down and all of their bags being searched. Back tracking a few minutes, while waiting on line to go through security before boarding our plane from Amsterdam to Kilimanjaro, a very nice and friendly Indian gentleman told us we could go in front of him because TSA would be checking all of his bags. Not thinking twice, my mother said “Oh thank you, but they are going to search my bags as well” (we were carrying a lot of expensive camera equipment in one bag) ..still we did as he asked and we cut in front of him. After going through one of those body scanner machines I sat down to put my shoes back on and noticed that the TSA agents literally were going through every single one of his bags and every member of the family was being patted down. None of our bags set off an alarm, and neither did theirs yet they didn't go through our bags.. I  simply could not understand the racial profiling because of the color of his skin, or the name on his passport. I know we live in a world where everyone is judged based on the way they look but to actually witness it first hand was something I hope I never have to experience again.


When you think about how large the World truly is, it is somewhat scary to think that people who live so close to home are off experiencing the exact same thing I set off to do. On our first leg of the flight to Tanzania my mother and I sat next to a woman who is a professor at Stony Brook College on Long Island who was travelling with 18 anthropology major students who were coming to Tanzania for a summer internship. This is her sixth time to Africa and actually met her husband in Kenya. What is even more coincidental, while we were waiting to board our plane from Amsterdam to Tanzania, we met a couple from Rochester, NY. They were also sitting next to a woman and a man who I believed to be her father. The younger woman asked me where I was from because she said I looked familiar. I hesitantly told her New Jersey, as many non-NJ residents simply think of the Jersey Shore TV show when they hear New Jersey. Then the older couple asked me where in NJ, and I responded with Toms River, but phrased it rather as a question than a fact. I knew they were from Rochester, NY so I wasn’t completely sure how familiar they would have been with Toms River, because as mentioned before it seems to get roped into the “Jersey Shore” name. The older man looked at me with a questionable expression, and simply said “Are you serious? My son lives in Jackson!” He then proceeded to tell me that their grandson attends Ocean County College, the college I just graduated from a few days before. As if the world didn’t seem small enough, the ropes just tightened a little bit more.
Having slept roughly an hour on the plane from JFK to Amsterdam, I was fortunate enough to sleep most of the flight from Amsterdam to JRO. Upon arriving in Tanzania, our plane had to abort landing and circle back in the sky for twenty minutes. There is nothing like being a thousand feet from land and suddenly being jolted back up into the air.  I started thinking to myself, of all the plane rides I’ve been on and never had anything like this happen to me, why did this have to happen now when I wanted to land more than anything. However, we did land in the Kilimanjaro International Airport, and I can officially check off one of my bucket list items- walking out of a plane onto the tarmack!!! It was so cool, and I swear, our plane was about the size of the entire airport! The not so cool part was waiting on line to get our Visa’s and then waiting another hour to receive our CTA permits. We were beginning to worry that our driver from Foot2Afrika was going to leave because he thought we hadn’t shown up. Luckily for us, Salimin was still outside, and after waiting an hour and a half he was still very pleasant and welcoming. He packed all of our luggage (yes! All three checked bags made it to Tanzania, with no damage!) in the trunk  of his car and asked me if I wanted to sit in front. Without a thought in my mind I immediately went to the right side of the vehicle, where he was also standing, and looked at me funny. It then clicked in my head that the driver sits on the right side of the vehicle.. Salimin thought it was absolutely hilarious that I made the innocent mistake. Nothing like breaking the ice by making a complete fool out of yourself.


The drive from the airport to the volunteer house is approximately 45 minutes, but it is not like any drive we mzungu’s (westerners) are accustom to. As far as I’m concerned, there is no speed limit in Tanzania, so 99% of the people drive between 80 and 100 miles per hour, swerving in and out of lanes to avoid other cars, piki-piki’s (motorcycles), pedestrians, chickens, goats, any sort of bump in the road, etc. Perfect for people like myself who have a need for speed, but as I experienced today (5/28) it is not always as much fun when you are the person walking on the side of the street with all the cars zooming past you at 100 miles per hour. Upon arrival at the volunteer house we were greeted by many people, including Deb (the Volunteer Coordinator), Sadock (the founder), Leema (the cook), and many of the volunteers. We sat and spoke to mainly Deb and Sadock for about an hour or so about the various misconceptions mzungu’s have about Africa, for example: you can’t ever ever ever use an ATM- wrong! It was nice to sit with people who truly understand that beauty and simplicity of Africa, not only because they live here but also because they see the positive in life, whereas in the US, I find the majority of people tend to focus on the negative things in life. Sadock is a very sweet man with a big smile, but an even bigger heart. He spends all his time giving to others, helping those in need, and never asks for anything in return. I’ve come to learn in the short time I’ve been here that he has a very hard time saying “no”. Time for bed !!!



Friday, May 25, 2012

exhausted and excited!!

We are EXHAUSTED!! Almost all the packing is finished, but we added a third checked bag. So now we have 2 carry on bags, and 3 checked bags. We were hoping to bring less stuff with us, but we are carrying quite a few things for others, and gifts for the children at the orphanages we will visit. Soon we leave!! YIKES!!!!!!!!

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Quote of the Day

“The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt.”
- Frederick Buechner

Saturday, May 19, 2012

almost time

In six days, Rebecca and I will board an airplane that will take us half way around the world to an unknown place. When we first started talking about the idea of me joining her on this trip, I am not sure if I really thought it would happen. Not for her, but for me. It seemed like such a daring thing to do: to take off and leave the rest of my family for a 5 week-long journey to a place most of us have only read about.


But the time is near, and it is very real. The dining room table is covered with "things" we need to pack: cameras, laptop, chargers, batteries, power converters, shampoo and all the "luxuries" we are not sure if we can buy over there: bandages, antibiotic ointment, and all manner of medicines to combat intestinal problems, headaches, you name it, it's on my table. Mosquito repellent (they're fierce in Tanzania and carry malaria and yellow fever), sunscreen (even though it is "winter" there, the sun is very strong as they are close to the equator), flashlights and headlamps for the frequent power outages......so much stuff! And we haven't even gotten to the clothes yet, although there isn't much to bring, just some old t-shirts and cargo pants as no one really pays too much attention to looks or dress. The environment is tough on clothes and we have been advised to pack light and expect what we bring to wear out before we get home. Oh, and no hair dyers, or makeup. Headbands are good, bandanas, baseball caps to keep your hair out of your face. "Leave your western ideals at home" we have been cautioned. I think it will be a pleasant change.