I was feeling pretty smug as I got to the airport in Zanzibar, knowing that I would arrive in Arusha mid-afternoon fresh as a daisy, raring to go with my 3 week Swahili course. I was chomping at the bit. I had also been toying with whether I would reward myself with an in-flight beer and subsequently wondered what I could attribute said reward to. These thoughts kind of fell by the wayside as my flight was finally called (shrieked?) and I headed out over the tarmac to the plane. I was behind a couple of Australians and it appeared we had a choice of plane. Both looked rather teensy to me but they asked our steward if they could go in the slightly newer model, and the steward referred to the pilot. The pilot shrugged and said get on whichever plane you want, so the couple started towards the newer plane. Having seen Flying Doctors and knowing all aussies take the plane to get to the nearest pub I made after them. ‘By the way’, shouted the first pilot, ‘that one will go via Dar’. There was the catch; losing several hours going the wrong direction. Quick about turn and we got on the original plane. I think we’d mildly insulted its pilot. In-flight beer? The 10 seater didn’t even have anywhere to put your bags. I almost had as good a view out of the front window as the pilot! Think VW campervan with wings.
I had only been on a plane that size a couple of times and since cutting down on the old air miles it had been almost 10 years. You feel so vulnerable in something that small. Mild turbulence translates into a sudden vertical drop and my fear was far from inconspicuous both audibly and visually at those times. I was glad I wasn’t sitting in front of the seasoned aussies– I lost several years of f my life on that plane. In saying that, the flight was truly awesome on such a clear day. Over the Zanzibar archipelago and then Tanzania mainland. It reminds you how huge Tanzania is, obviously, but also how sparsely populated huge areas of the mainland are away from the main roads. Coming into Arusha looked a bit like a video game from where I was sitting around mountain ranges, with Kilimanjaro and Meru in sight. When you come into land in a plane that size you actually go down slightly head first to lose altitude, and I could see the incoming airstrip from miles away. It genuinely felt like a rollercoaster ride, which isn’t really my strong point. Epic journey.
Despite working up a bit of a lather on the flight and feeling slightly wobbly in the terminal, I still had residue smugness due to my organised pick-up. I didn’t need to worry about anything for the next three weeks – all was in hand. Hmm, not so. I waited almost two hours, convinced the training centre wouldn’t muck up something so basic, before resigning to more sweaty dalla dallas and negotiating across Arusha for the first time. I arrived at the TCDC ‘Danish’ centre 4 hours after landing and utterly exhausted and dehydrated. No matter though, as it was a really lovely sight that welcomed me. Set on the foothills of Mt Meru, the grounds of TCDC are lush and green, away from the road and with nothing but cheeky vervet monkeys breaking the silence. There was a bar, our own personal ethno-tat market (bone earings and the like), library, gym, sauna, pool. Well, no sauna or pool but you get the idea. The place was truly awesome and all the fresh fruit and salads were highly welcomed after a week on the hoof. Pig in mud.
Morning monkey madness - Get off my roof!!
Next morning, however, as our class of five convened, I was somewhat taken aback firstly by the fact that no one else in the class seemed able to string a sentence together. Secondly, by the entrance of our teacher Kisanji who bounded in like something out of Sesame Street. Think Dave Benson Phillips but in Swahili, if that’s not too uncomfortable. I checked the front of my course folder again; what the hell had I signed up to? And so, the next few days proved a bit of a tussle between the teaching staff and the course participants. From the teacher’s perspective there were very few participants and no beginner’s course running parallel and so they were forced to put us into one class or not offer the course at all. From the learners’ perspective it was plaintively clear our differing levels were not going to help ourselves get anywhere. By the end of the first day one girl had been forceful enough to drop out to get 1.1 teaching at beginner level. I made some noises that I felt I would need to be stretched but the teacher assured me this was normal to have such different levels. ‘I have never taught learners who are all the same level’ he said, quite coldly. There was another, rather sinister side to Dave Benson Phillips that read ‘do not even think about disrespecting my authority’ and so I was willing to defer to that for a day or so for politics’ sake. Come Wednesday, however, after listening to one woman struggle for several minutes to say ‘my baby is fine’ (oh yes, NB there was a baby too…) I picked up my books and walked out of the class.
So, forced into a corner I had no choice but to approach the centre administrator who was highly sympathetic and helpful. We made arrangements for me to get 1.1 tutoring in the morning and then join with the class activities in the afternoon. In the midst, however, of these negotiations, I was suddenly hit by quite an intense fever and took myself off to hospital for a malaria test. Having had it a couple of times before I was taking no chances, but of course there is always the worry you get a diagnosis too early. Us wazungu are pretty sensitive to the early stages of the illness when the parasite enters the liver, but at which stage they do not show up on a blood test. It’s a bit of a lottery when you go to get tested – too early you have a negative result and too late you end up in hospital for a week with 9 bags of intravenous quinine, as I did circa 2003. I was sent home with a negative result and some painkillers and waited it out hoping it wouldn’t get worse. Luckily after a few days things improved and by this time the first week had ended.
So 1.1 started the next week, and was a marked improvement. I had a really lovely older lady Mama Lois, since retired from the centre but who did contract work, who was very supportive and I appreciated her more reserved approach to adult learning. Leave the pashas at the door Dave (SPWers will know what I mean…). The first full day’s learning 1.1 was so intense it felt like something out of the matrix and I was reeling by the end of it. We had got so carried away, however, that we had forgotten the agreement was 1.1 until lunchtime only, and were duly reminded the following day. The problem, however, was that the two classes’ timetable diverged, the less the afternoon activities stopped matching my studies. On top of that, the remaining 3 Germans, including a couple with the baby, had started to drop out of afternoon activities preferring to revise the morning’s class as the pace was too tough, or to spend time with the baby. So before I knew it I find myself back to self-study in the afternoons. Hmm, Teach Yourself Swahili Part 2.
The lovely Mama Lois
On the occasions that Kisanji (Dave) was free we did some ad lib spoken work in the afternoon. What I was finding with the course materials, which were absolutely fantastic, was that I had been stuck a bit in a comfort zone language wise so struggled with the new topics such as education, politics, development and research. Kisanji himself had undertaken research at masters’ level and so was helpful in translating lots of my research terms. Not that I will end up using them no doubt – by the time you get to that level of topic it’s kiswaenglish all the way. And so my experience at the centre was a strange mix of intensive 1.1 (although I’d confess Mama Lois was not as strong a teacher as Kisanji), some activities that worked, some that didn’t, some that never took place, and periods of self-study. Overall I guess I felt some level of disappointment but I certainly moved forward. Some of the teaching staff said I was actually a lower advanced level (and as such hinting that I had chosen the wrong course!) but I really couldn’t agree as I was finding the new topics so challenging.
Social life at the centre was mixed I have to say. I started off trying to network, meeting mainly east Africans studying for a BA. I tried to mix with the Germans and other expats too, with initial gusto. It did not prove, however, an easy task as many of the Africans (mostly male) had rather inflated egos that comes with prominent positions and salaries and rather looked down on me as a paltry (female) researcher. The Germans were as stereotypically German as you can get with such literal senses of humour it bored me to tears. And of course whether they had been in Tanzania for 6 weeks or 6 years they knew it ALL, better of course, than the Tanzanians. Reminded of my general dislike for expats I resigned myself to a quiet beer before dinner in the evenings before retreating to the delight of endless wifi, emailing and skype in my room. I also took the opportunity to hit the gym and aerobics classes, eat healthily and generally be good to myself.
Weekends were not incredibly eventful – on one I met with a friend from Bagamoyo and his parents and their home in Arusha. The welcome was incredibly warm as we shared a meal of ugali, beans and dagaa (little smelly fish I’d successfully avoided for some years) and chatted about Scotland, where Mama Baraka, rather unexpectedly, had visited 10 years before. The next Friday we had a night out in Arusha, although I spent much of the evening worried about how to get home after dark. On the Sunday, however, myself and one German joined a group of 3 other girls living in Arusha for a day trip to Ngorogoro crater. It is a much trumpeted wildlife attraction, to which I had never managed to visit due mainly to its inflated entry fees and had been somewhat put off by reports of how crowded the crater had become. Somehow, however, this time as a day trip it was just about affordable.
We left at the crack of dawn and headed west through Arusha and then northwest towards the crater. There is a lovely brand spanking new bit of tar to the park, courtesy of the Japanese government. With the road in western Tanzania from Mbeya to Kigoma not yet complete it’s great everyone’s got the roading priorities straight. It’s firmly Maasai territory on the road to Ngorogoro and we saw plenty of Maasai herdsmen and villages en route, including lots of adolescent men dressed in black with black and white face paint, marking they were preparing for the circumcision ceremony and enter into manhood. I had asked a friend at the centre whether Maasai men still kill a lion as part of the ceremony. He was adamant that it did still take place outside of the nature reserves although with lion numbers as low as they are it is hard to imagine it can still go on to any great extent.
Ngorogoro crater floor
Ngorogoro crater itself is quite a sight to behold. The crater has a massive 20km diameter of flat grasslands, surrounded by the high crater rim which is thick, wild forest and mountain peaks. It is quite disorienting to have such thick vegetation above you when you are on the crater floor; it was almost like a mountain had been turned upside down and inside out. We were lucky viewing that day, seeing black rhino, several prides of lions and even a cheetah, which probably tickled me the most. We saw herds of young elephants up high in the forests and older, grumpier ones with giant tusks on the crater floor, due to the minerals in the grasses. The setting itself was probably one of the star attractions for me; I’d never seen anything quite like it and it was definitely interesting to see the maasai live side by side with their cowherds and in the heart of all of this tourism. I was reminded, however, how uncomfortable I was with the safari experience in queuing up to watch lions by the roadside and take photos of maasai children. I haven’t quite worked out why I feel like that – the lions and maasai certainly don’t seem to mind. I guess it’s something to do with commodifying those animals and children to such a crazy extent for the enrichment of others. I think it’s probably the last time I’ll go chasing either.
Chasing cats
Hangin out horses - check out the lion queue in the background
posted by Kathy @ 11:26 am
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