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Published: January 15th 2009
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Mt. Kilimanjaro
This is the view from the front yard of our CCS home base! Hello all.
Well, here comes the blog. Where to start? How about at the start!
I left for Toronto to meet my friend Sadie who came here to Tanzania with me. We spent the day in Toronto with her mom and sister and got dropped off at the airport later that evening. It was our last taste of the cold winter. Or so we thought. As we were checking in Sadie realized that she left her wallet in her moms car. No money, no debit card, no visa card. Things were going swimmingly. The best part was Sadie's mom is from Vermot and didn't have her American cell phone on her. By some merical sadie remembered the Canadian phone number (after about 3 tries) and they debit card, visa card and money all made it to us in time for our flight!
After feeling like we'd been drinking for about 3 days we arrived in Tanzania as jet legged as you can get! It was so warm stepping off the plane in Tanzania for the first time. You could smell the earth. Dirt. Not dirty, just dirt. Refreshing actually.
My placement for the first week of volunteering
Ngorogoro Crater
This is the giant crater we went into on Safari! All of the animals go here after the rainy season. here was at Tuleeni orphanage. As soon as we arrived, all of the kids ran up to the van to greet us. They wanted to hold all of our hands. I think I had about 5 of them on my left arm alone. Don't worry, it stayed in its socket. "Mzungu!" they all said. It means foreigner in Swahili, but its not a negative/racist term here. Still, its a bit odd for people to point at you can say mzungu when you know the literal translation! Anyway, walking up to the doors, or should I say metal sheets, was eye opening. The kids were all in rags and tattered shoes. The orphanage itself is comprised of a courtyard for playing and about 7 small rooms off to the side. The floor is...well there is no floor. The floor is dirt and rocks...hard rocks at that. It was like seeing a world vision commercial in person. But they kids were happy. They found rocks and objects to play with. They are just kids, just like anywhere else in the world. My job was to play with them and teach them. I taught the older kids (13-17) my very limited knowledge of
Massai Village
Me hanging out with the Massai village kids after jumping with the Massai Men French as they requested it. They learned the basics...b/c God knows the basics is all I've got. I don't have any pictures of the oprhanage just yet but I'll be sure to get some before I leave.
Cross Cultural Solutions also takes us out on cultural excursions. We went to a bar one night where we learned the shakey-shakey. It's a 'traditional dance' where you shake your shakey-shakey ba-donk-a-donk like its no tomorrow. I don't know how they do it. Apparently the dance was used for men to figure out who would be their wife/wives. Yes, wives. It happens here. Moving on....they ladies doing the shakey-shakey then proceed into the audience and pick out MZUNGUS to dance with. Well, who do you think they decided to pick on first? Yep, I had to go shakey-shakey my white non-existant ba-donk-a-donk in front of the whole crowd. Slightly akward? Lil' bit.
Safari!!! I just got back from a 4 day trip on safari! We went to the serengeti for 2 nights and the Ngorongoro crater for 1 night! (PS. I'm running out of time on this internet cafe computer so I'll have to make this brief). Lets just say
Massai Men Jumping
During our visit to the Massai village the men were singing and jumping. Some could jump the almost to the top of my head. that I was able to see elephants, 11 lions, hippos, cheetas, leopards, water buffalo, rinos, ostrages, antelope, warthogs, hyenas and much more. If you are a safari fan then you should have figured out that I saw the BIG 5!!!! Also, we camped in the serengeti and the crater. And by camped I mean camped...in tents. Tents like we'd use at home. Tents that animals can easily munch their way through. I'm only letting you know this after the fact mom and dad...I figured this would lessen the freak out symptoms. But honestly, I could hear hyenas howeling all night long...and I swear I heard a four legged animal run by our tent a few times!!!
The coolest thing was seeing a lion hunting a zebra. The zebra kicked the lion in the face though and was able to get away!! OHHH...we also almost say two lions do the giggy-giggy...and if you remember what the shaky-shaky was then I'm sure you'll be able to put two and two together to figure out what the giggy giggy is!
Ok I'm out of time!
Talk soon.
Tim
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