WiFi! and A/C! and Toilets! Oh my

Blog 5.31.10

Yahoo- this is my second blog in one month, which hasn’t happened since December. I’m currently on the bus from Portland, ME headed toward Boston and it’s exciting that they have WiFi on board (“Concord Coach 923 Left Side”—seriously? Does it matter if I’m on the left or right side of the bus?!). It’s a far cry from the buses I’ve been on in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda… for one thing it has A/C, a video playing, and a toilet. Other differences include the absence of any livestock, people standing in the aisles, or peoples’ babies on laps other than their parent/guardian. I will say I appreciate my leg-room and the availability of the loo, but there is some charm in the long-distance bus traveling in Africa. I’m looking forward to going back to Zanzibar for a few weeks, then to Kenya until early August. The move from Zanzibar to Mombasa, Kenya will be a long trip, not in a public bus, but in an avocado-hued safari vehicle that will have 7 people and the year’s worth of stuff.

Before I left Zanzibar, I felt hesitant to come back to the US and was slightly mad at myself for taking 2 weeks for the visit, given that I’ll only have about 3 weeks there once I get back before moving to Kenya. I was also nervous that I would feel uncomfortable and guilty about being back in the US due to some of the discrepancies between the two places, and the general level of excess that is the norm in the US. I felt neither mad nor personally guilty when I landed in the US, however. There were some ways in which I felt uncomfortable and out of place, such as the grocery store, but ultimately it felt so nice to be back in the place where I grew up and have spent the majority of my life.

So, why the discomfort at the grocery store? There are so many choices for everything from bread to crackers to types of yogurt. It is impeccably sterile compared to the open-air and refrigeration-free market where I get my food in Zanzibar, cleaving my food from most traces of its source. Also, you can go through the store without having to have a conversation with anyone (unless you’re buying fresh fish or something from behind the deli counter) due to self-checkout aisles. [by the way, my little sister pressed the “Español” option before I started scanning my items and everything was fine until it was time to scan my wasabi-coated peas from the bulk foods section, which required punching in the PLU number and putting them on the scale. I didn’t know the PLU and didn’t know the Spanish word for wasabi-coated peas (no, it wasn’t listed under “W” for wasabi). So, Annie walked/hopped with her broken ankle boot back to the bulk foods section to find the PLU number and then call me on my cell phone. In the meantime, I had even tried to enter the peas as plain pistachios but it didn’t work. How the machine knew the difference I don’t know]. Another thing is that you don’t have to bargain for anything, the price is dictated by the barcode. Overall, there is just so much stuff there that I haven’t seen, tasted, or thought about in a year that it makes me slightly uneasy.

It was incredibly pleasant to see my family, friends, neighbors, and both the Yale campus and Belfast, ME as a whole. I went to Yale during the class of 2010’s graduation weekend and had a lovely time. I ran up East Rock and quickly realized how I’m not in as good physical shape for running hills as I was at this time last year due to the lack of hills around where I live in Zbar. But, the experience of running on trails in the woods instead of on pavement was refreshing and much welcomed by my knees. I saw some dear friends and admired the castle-like gothic architecture that characterizes the campus. I also went on a boat tour of the Thimble Islands with a mentor and friend of mine that was really nice. It was such a different coastline than what I’ve been seeing for the past year with the classically New England-style houses/mansions.

The day before I arrived at Yale I was in Boston with Nora and went for a run in the morning. While it wasn’t cold by normal standards, my lungs felt as they did when I did the polar bear dip in Maine (jump into the ocean on January 1^st): like they were the size of marbles. It was so hard to breathe! I was winded very quickly, and instead of switching sides of the road to run in the shade as I do in Zanzibar, I opted for the sunny side of the streets to help warm me up a bit and reduce the goosebumps my skin was showing. It was funny to me to see dogs on leashes and people with all sorts of different hair colors and styles, and of course, the short shorts and tank tops. Dogs are only used for security purposes in Zanzibar, they are most certainly not loved pets as they are in the US. Because almost all women cover their hair, it was striking to me to see all the variations when I first got back, and with the short shorts I must say I just find myself thinking “really? why?” I know I wore them at some point in my middle or high school years, but they just seem extreme to me now. It’s all a matter of what you’re accustomed to.

I’m almost out of battery power so need to wrap this up. I’m glad that I came home and had a visit with my family and friends, whether it was a motorcycle ride with my dad, an impromptu walk on the beach with a good friend from high school, a drink at Rollie’s in downtown Belfast, or spending the weekend with my sisters, niece, brother in law and close friends from both Yale and Belfast. I ate some great food, went on some nice bike rides and runs (including running the hill by the Belfast harbor that I used to run for soccer training… preseason memories!), had engaging conversations, and felt lucky to have spent the past year in Eastern Africa but to be able to call the US “home.” If I’ve ever had a tangible amount of pride in being American, I’ve felt it these past few weeks. Sounds cheesy, but it’s true (except for the situation with the gulf oil spill). Off I go back to Zanzibar and then Kenya until early August. I’ll try to keep updating the blog with any happenings in my part of the world.

Hope you’re all doing well :-)

highlights from the past month and a half

two pictures to start things off with:

this is a sunset Nora and I saw one evening. I told her how the dhows (sailboats) usually sail across the horizon at sunset to make nice pictures for the tourists, but she didn't believe me. At least the birds got the memo that I had brought my camera.

A gas station that had no gas. Nora and my friend Allison are standing there, wondering how we're going to make it to Matemwe to go snorkeling at Mnemba if we're on empty. Luckily, I was able to get a 5L jerry can of gasoline with the help of the snoozing gas station worker a little ways down the road from some guy who happened to have some. I'm not sure why anyone bothered coming to work if there hadn't been gas at the station for a week, but I guess that wasn't his fault-- he gets paid by the hour, not by how many litres he sells!

Happy Mother's Day!!

I only have a few more weeks here in Zanzibar (until the 3rd week of June, with 2 weeks in the US starting May 19th), and have been thinking more and more about how this past year has gone. On the blog front, I haven't kept it up as much as I anticipated. While I suppose it could be viewed as a sign of neglect on my part, I think it's more just a lack of opportunity and is indicative of the amount of time I actually spend on the internet here. It's not the same access as I had in college where I'd check my email in the morning when I woke up, between most classes, before track practice, after dinner, as a study break, and before bed. Here, it's more like 2-3 times a week on average, less for those 3 months when the electricity was out.

So, instead of telling about weekly happenings I find myself trying to recap 1 or 2 months worth of adventures. What have I done since March when I last wrote?

-late March/early April: Nora came to visit!!! We went around Zanzibar, swam with sea turtles (after getting stopped by many many cops and told that I'd have to go to court and pay a big fine over a registration discrepancy), snorkeled at Mnemba Island, went for sunset swims, and shopped around Stone Town, then went to the TZ mainland for a safari at Mikumi National Park. Nora got her first experience on a long-distance bus in Africa, complete with us holding someone else's baby for part of the ride and having a live chicken on board (what other way is there to travel?). I'm so glad she came. Thanks Nupa!

- mid April: LOTS OF WORK on the research project, transcribing and translating the focus group discussions, revising the interview guides for the one-on-one interviews we'll do, getting permission to do interviews at the hospital, getting our interview room at the public hospital set up... many many little things that end up taking a lot of time. I feel like our team has a good dynamic between working on the various projects we have.

-Was a co-quiz master with Dodie and friend Hilda for the monthly Quiz Nite that attracts a mix of Zanzibari and ex-pats. It was very fun and the people seemed to enjoy our cleverness. We had 4 rounds of about 10 questions, with the answers to the questions pointing toward a "meta" answer. For example, if you had the clues "46664, Madiba, Robin, Winnie, ANC, 1918, Nobel Peace Prize" the meta answer would be Nelson Mandela (46664 was his prison #, Madiba his nickname, Robin referencing the island where he spend 27 years in prison, Winnie referencing his wife, ANC his political party, 1918 the year he was born, and he won the Nobel Peace Prize). For this round, one of the questions that didn't make it was "what is the square root of 729?" (answer: 27) I was told it was too hard and people wouldn't get the answer. Really? I'm not so sure it was too hard, but I got the veto anyway. In making the quiz, we all had to realize how relative "general knowledge" can be depending on a person's age, nationality and profession. Most of the quizzes I have attended this year have a fair amount of commonwealth-country related questions, whether it's on history, geography, or those sports that we just don't play in the US (cricket, handball, etc.) Luckily my team has always had at least one commonwealth member, so we've been ok :-)

-I've finished season 3 of The Wire, the only TV-esque thing I have here. I'm looking forward to seasons 4 & 5!

I think those are the highlights.

I will be in the US from May 19th until June 2nd, then will come back to Zanzibar for a few weeks. Then, I'm heading north to Mombasa, Kenya to help teach the Yale Summer Session course there on east African history. I'm greatly looking forward to having a concentrated intellectual engagement with this area after having my own experiences this past year. I'll be in Mombasa until the beginning of August, then will be home until mid-September. Then, it's off to Lille, France for the year to teach English there! I'm excited to go there and try out life on my own with all of those "adult" things like finding an apartment and bank, grocery shopping, having a strictly scheduled job, etc. I'm also sad to leave here, though I suppose it's good to leave with the feeling that I want to come back so I'll have that as an option. Lille's weather is supposed to be similar to London's (ughhhh rain and clouds) so I will surely surely miss these beautiful tropical days, but growing up in Maine should have prepared me to deal with whatever conditions the clouds spit at me.

I'm off to help make dinner and munch on a few Hint of Lime tortilla chips that Alison brought back from the US. These coveted "green dot" chips access a flavor spectrum we just do not have here. They're incredible. I will most definitely be bringing them back with me when I fly back over here in June after my 2 weeks in the US. For sure.

I hope to see many of you in the second-half of May. Let me know if you'll be in the Maine/Boston/NYC area any time between May 19th and June 2nd! I fly into Boston the 19th, then out of NYC the 2nd of June.