March 2009
35 posts
Gone mountain climbing. Back Thursday.
Hey, anyone remember way back when…when I was prissy(er) and spent time doing things like parting my hair and matching my bra to my panties? Yeah, me neither.
Tried ugali, an East African staple food made of cornmeal for the first time today. I know, waiting almost two weeks to sample this crucial element of the Tanzanian diet is a crime. Please note though, I’m cooking for myself here mostly…without a microwave. I’m too busy remembering how hot dogs are made on a stovetop to try out traditional Tanzanian fare. But today, I went...
“Oh, Africa,” has become a phrase that I say a lot (to myself) here. Like, whenever something goes slightly wrong…the electricity going out right before the water for my coffee is hot enough, getting to a town an hour away somehow taking the entire day, thinking I’ve bargained my price down to an amazing deal and then seeing the same thing sold to an actual African for a...
This week I went to the HIV clinic with the positive babies from the orphanage. Each nanny was assigned a baby and I was in charge of one of my favorites, a happy little baby who is normally all one toothed smiles and absurdly loud giggles. I want to think that the nannies assigned her to me because they know that I like her so much, but I’m pretty sure that it’s because she’s ginormous for her...
I’ve started running again. (Lauren’s wedding, I will be skinny for you, oh yes, I will be.) And running in Tanzania is pretty amazing in terms of motivation available. Not only am I running through gorgeous fields with all kinds of lush greenness, but there are so many people that help me out. Like a lot of times a guy will start running next to me and before I know it,...
While their Swahili classes are well above my price range, the school down the street also offers aerobics classes twice a week for a very reasonable $1.50. So yesterday I slipped on my oversized conservative spandex capris and headed over. The workout was about as rigorous as the one time I did water exercise with my grandma in Boca. Not that I wasn’t sweating, for the record, but I sweat...
Tanzanian firsts
Today was my first rain here. It was also my first time hanging laundry out to dry here.
Oh Africa, you don’t cut any slack, do you?
So I’m staying at the volunteer apartment provided by the orphanage where I’m working. Not only is the internet in and out here, but so is the water and the electricity. I’m so hardcore Africa! It makes me wish that I bought those zip-off-into-shorts-pants so I could look the hardcore part too. I guess I’ll just have to wear those awful khaki pleated pants and look like someone you want to...
And the odyssey that was my two night, three day journey from Marrakech to Arusha, Tanzania is now officially over. It started with taking the late train from Marrakech to Casablanca and then an unexpected over-night stay in the Casa train station. My original brilliant plan was to sneak into the hotel by the train station to spend the night in their cushy lobby instead of in the dank, dirty,...
So, the first part of this trip is officially over. Leila is probably touching down in Washington right about now…and I miss her already. I have one more day in Marrakech and then I’m heading off to Tanzania for part two, or maybe more accurately part two and a half because Morocco was kind of its own thing, of this trip where I’ll be all on my lonesome. I better like myself...
From Fez, we took a seven hour long train ride to Marrakech. All in all, a delightful ride with some pretty interesting folks as our cabin mates. First, we had an old Arabic teacher who lectured us for ten minutes in French about how we should learn Arabic. Then, there was this business guy who had me take a glamor shot style fist-to-chin photo of him with his cell phone. He didn’t smile...
