Leaving the honeymoon phase

2/10/12

Mambo! (whats up!) to which you reply- Poa! ( which means ‘cool’, but that’s just how your respond)

I have a lot to write about in this post cause it’s been awhile, so sorry for the length in advance.

Last week we had our first safari trip to Lake Manyara National Park, and it was such an amazing experience. We piled into large, 8 seater green trucks and drove down to the bottom of the manyara escarpment(we live on the top of it) to the entrance of the park. Then it was time to put our roofs up! You can lift up the entire top of the trucks and then stand on the seats and look out at everything around you. Really awesome. It was finally time to drive into the park on the dirt roads, with dust being kicked up everywhere and dense forest vegetation on either side of the road. It was an overwhelming amount of visual and audible stimuli, and its really difficult to explain how beautiful this place is. Definitely not what I imagined for a safari trip; I imagined pretty much a desert with very few trees and being able to see animals everywhere. Instead, there were many different types of habitats that we drove through (acacia woodland, riverine vegetation, grasslands, etc). We had three different assignments to do while we were in the trucks, but all I wanted to do was take pictures and observe!! Unfortunately that wasn’t possible, so on my neck I juggled my camera with my large telephoto lens, my binoculars, my sunglasses, my hat, and in my hands I had my clipboard, a notebook, a safari field guide, and a pen. Overwhelming. But I was too excited by what I was seeing to care! We saw elephants(about 7 feet from our truck!!! Amazing!!), giraffes,zebras, warthogs, buffalo, baboons(tons!), vervet monkeys, dik-diks(which are about 2 feet tall, adorable little deer-like ungulates), lots of impala, some amazing birds, and more. Its really quite magical as you drive through this place, with the top half of your body out of the roof of the truck, snapping pictures fervently, and there are these white butterflies that are so numerous its like you are constantly driving through flower petals falling from the sky. Its so amazing. On the horizon are mountains and the top of the escarpment, with baobab and acacia trees everywhere. The trees are so stunning and some look as if they are sculpted from clay. In the grassland area near the lake(which is so vast) there were so many zebras and water buffalo. Flamingoes dotted the lake and flew up in groups every few minutes. I got some pretty good pictures and am very excited to show them to you all!

                

 The second day we went back to Lake Manyara NP and focused on studying and observing olive baboon behavior. This consisted of driving until we found a troop of baboons(a group,  stopping and observing them until they retreated to the forest where we could no longer see them, taking notes every 5 mintues. These guys are so cool, with very interesting social interactions. And the babies are so adorable!! I had to write a scientific paper on my observations that I just handed in yesterday, and I think it went pretty well.

Okay. So a few days after that we had a non-program day, meaning we didn’t have class. So, you would think we would just get to laze around right? Nope! They had activities planned all day that we could choose to sign up for, but OF COURSE im going to sign up for all of them! I don’t want to miss anything!

First we went to Karatu, a town near us that is bigger than Rhotia(I was mistaken in a previous post. We are not in karatu,  our camp is in Rhotia. Sorry about that). We were let loose to explore and buy things if we so desired. As soon as we got out of the cars we had at least 7 people surrounding us trying to make friends or sell things to us. I could tell their items were mass produced, but they all insisted that they made them themselves or their grandmothers made them or stories like that. I didn’t fall for it. We ventured away in a smaller group to try to avoid seeming as touristy, but lets be real. Everyone knew we were tourists. We walked off the main road and explored little alleys and side streets with shops selling fruits, fabrics, clothing, toiletries, etc. Overall everyone was very friendly, but we still had people following us. One was very nice, his name was Christian, and he helped us learn the name of various fruits as we explored this really fantastic food market. He actually didn’t try to sell us anything, which was nice of him. I bought some fabric in karatu which is really beautiful, I think I may have it made into a dress by one of the tailors here.

Then we went to the Karatu market, a few minutes away, which only happens once a month. We drove up to a large, open area with dust clouds hanging in the air and hundreds of people congregating everywhere. We were told we had 45 minutes, and then had to be back at the cars. 45 minutes seemed like so little time at the beginning, but in retrospect any longer than that would have been way to overwhelming! This was the strangest experience of my life to date. It went something like this:

We stepped out of the car and IMMEDIATELY  5 men were around us shoving necklaces, bracelets, and t-shirts in our faces. “Hapana, asante” (no, thank you) we replied meekly, afraid to offend. Myself and two others were on a mission to find maasai fabric, but were unsure where to start. Around the perimeter of the main area(consisting of hoards of people with various items placed out on large tarps), there were people selling cattle at auctions, radio stations rapping to audiences, and tons of people conversing and sitting on bikes. We started to venture into the thick of it, and already had a group of about 15 men following us, trying to sell us things. One passing man blatantly tried to pickpocket beth, luckily she had nothing for him to take, and after that we kept a very tight hand and eye on our bags. One very forward man, who I am POSITIVE I saw in karatu as well(how did he get here so fast??) asked us directly “what are you looking for?” and I replied “fabric.” He set off in a brisk pace and motioned for us to follow. Winding through tarps, meat cooking on sticks over fires, various smells of spices being sorted, and clouds of dust we finally arrived at a tarp with at least a hundred different types of fabric. “what color do you want?” he asked me. “im not sure. I am just looking” I replied.

“take your time” he said, and then proceeded to literally bombard me with choices. “what about this one? Very pretty! This one? Or this one! This has that color you touched before. You want that color? All these are that color! What color do you want? This is a nice one, very cheap. I sell you for good price. Very cheap. This one? You like that one? I have this one too. Look at this”

IT WAS THE MOST OVERWHELIMG THING I HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED. Dude! Just let me look! I then told him I wanted maasaii fabric, and he set off again to find another tarp. Here he did the same thing, but I actually found something I wanted. After bartering with him to get the price down, I got a large piece of, beautiful purple fabric for about 20 USD. I’m so excited about it. But, we still had a group of people trying  to sell us things, following us, staring at us, etc. and I felt like I just needed to get OUT. So we walked to the outside, and some still followed us. At this point we had gotten used to forcefully saying “HAPANA.” (NO.) and then they finally took us seriously, walking away in disappointment.

After the market we went to a place to get some food, and I got a cheeseburger and some beer, which was great at the time! Later that night…not so much. Definitely not used to eating that much red meat and rich foods, so it hit my stomach pretty hard. A lot of people weren’t feeling so hot that night.

Since then I have actually been feeling pretty rough. These past three days I have had abdominal pain, nausea, loss of appetite, and achiness. Havent been eating much lately, but at least now I can be around the dining hall during meals, meaning the smells don’t make me nauseous! Yay! Improvement! Still can only stomach fruit though, and am working up to bread. It seems a lot of people are having these problems. Perhaps just now our bodies are realizing and catching up to the fact that we are going to be eating the same things for some time, and are just getting used to it.

Im leaving the’ honeymoon’ phase of being abroad now, and starting to hit a low point actually. Feeling homesick for my family, friends, bed, normal food, normal activities. You wouldn’t believe how much I miss cheese. Like, seriously. I am really trying to push through these feelings though, knowing I’m just getting adjusted. In the meantime, email me about your lives cause it makes me really happy to hear what you have been up to. I may not get back to you for awhile, but trust that I do read them!

Im off to write a paper on the effects of poaching on zebra populations. Interesting  stuff! To me, at least. 

UPDATE: wrote this post while our internet was out. it just came back a bit ago, so now i can post! update, i am no longer sick! huzzah! 3 days of feeling REALLY crummy and pretty homesick and now im feeling way better. lifted spirits, can eat the food again, and my papers are written! tomorrow we get to visit a rural maasai village and volunteer at an orphanage. im SO EXCITEDDDD. 

Also, today we had a traditional maasai goat roast! Johanna, one of the staff who is so knowledgeable and amazing(he is maasai and grew up in a very rural village in the typical maasai community you can read about) did it for us and it was really interesting. I watched the process the entire way though, and then ate some ribs and leg. Dont be grossed out, its actually way less gross to me than eating factory produced meats at mcdonalds. I like knowing where my meat comes from! 

Love,

Natalie