Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Home!

Hey Everybody,

We have successfully made it home and fortunately we were not on the troubled flight out of Amsterdam. It was quite the amazing trip and we don't stand a chance of trying to summarize it here. We have put a new link to our flickr pictures on the right hand side of the blog (over there -->). Its also here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/41956500@N05/ . We'll be putting up more pictures over the week, so check it out.

We hope you're having a wonderful time over the holidays and we'll see you all soon!

-Zahra and Max

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Snow!

So while many of you have been enduring snow for many weeks now, our arrival in Amsterdam marked our first snow encounter of the year. Apparently snow is relatively rare here, as all of their transportation infrastructure more or less shut down from about 1.5" of the fluffy stuff. Regardless of this, the city looks quite nice.

We have successfully met up with Owen (of The Washed Rind), and as neither of us have cell phones here, this marks quite an achievement. We have spent the past two days seeing sites, including the Van Gogh museum and Anne Frank house, drinking beers, and wandering through the snowy streets.

We can't believe we'll be heading home so soon, but we can't wait to see everyone!

Until next time,
Z&M

Amsterdam Bound

This post was written on Sunday 12/20

***

Greetings from Athens airport,

Currently Amsterdam is being blanketed in white in preparation for Christmas. An unfortunate side effect of this is that we are now facing an indeterminate delay.

Aside from this minor hiccup, our trip to Athens has been amazing. Chris was a fantastic host, showing us the best of Greek food, music, history, drinks, and food. Here in bullet form, we will give you the highlights.

  • Visiting Greek food markets, including the central market and the local lykee where amazing and amazingly cheep fresh produce is sold
  • Cheese: while one would think that we got our cheese fix in Italy, it was only a preview for Greece. Here we experienced the wonder of having grilled and fried cheeses as the primary protien for many meals, whether as the filling on a breakfast pastery, or served alongside salads, bread and legumes for dinner.
  • Finding some truely authentic establishments, including an unmarked cellar restaurant and local live "Greek Blues" bar. Our lunch in the cellar restaurant was complete with being scolded for even asking where to sit, followed by joining a table with another couple who proceeded to buy us several rounds of Greek resin wine. During our visit to the bar, Chris promised that we would see some drunk people performing traditional dances. He delivered on this promise, although he was the only one to perform, much to the delight/dismay of the other patrons.
  • The sites: Of course no trip to Athens is complete without seeing the Acropolis and many other ancient wonders. We found our favorite on a day trip excursion to the magnificient Temple of Poisidon. The remains of this temple sit up upon a cliff overlooking the sea in the town of Sunio. It is truely a miraculous site.
  • The people: seeing and doing everything greek was a great time, but it was just as great to spend time with Chris. We were also fortunate to catch up with our friend Ioannis, who we went to Brown with, and had previously attended the high school where Chris currently works.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Yia su (hello) from Greece!

Yesterday, we arrived in Athens safe and sound. But before I elaborate on our going-ons here, I will provide a couple more details about our Rome excursion.

Rome was beautiful and wonderful, but a bit dizzying. We often ventured out to see the sites (including the pantheon, spanish steps, the forum, the trevy fountain and st. peter's basillica) in a rather unstructured way: we just took random turns and eventually 
stumbled upon these historical monuments. Though the tour books warned of long
lines, we were fairly lucky. Our favorite destination was the Pantheon which we ended up returning to a couple times and even ate dinner across from it one night.

In Rome, Christmas is in the air. Lights lined the winding alley ways and santas littered the streets. There were even a couple festivals, complete with carnival games, cotton candy, and booths of christmas chatchkas (spl?). 

Besides site seeing, we spent a lot of time eating carbohydrates. We had pizza 4 times in 5 days. We hope to transition from the cheese, bread and wine heavy Italian diet to a more healthy mediterrean one; although, we were recently informed that Greece consumes the most cheese per capita of any nation. Tonight we hope to find some good healthy food with dinner at a traditional Greek restaurant.

Though we are only starting our Greek section of the trip, we have already mastered the public transportation system, visited the acropolis, and learned that coffee is outrageously expensive in Greece.

Over and out,
Z & M

Monday, December 14, 2009

Out of Africa

Hello from Rome. We have completed the Tanzania portion of our trip, and its hard to believe its over. We have actually almost finished the Italy portion of our trip as well, as we will be wrapping up our 5 day sprint through Rome tomorrow. We have seen all the big sites, and eaten all the staple foods. After 3 months of limited cheese, pasta, and coffee we have been on quite a binge.

Tomorrow we will be flying to Athens where we will be meeting up with none other than Mr Chris Duffy (of the Daily Feta). We couldnt be more excited. Hopefully we will find some better internet there and will give you a more complete rundown of the europe leg of our trip, as well as some pictures.

Ciao,
-Z&M

Monday, December 7, 2009

The Safari Within the Safari

Hello family and friends!

We've had a very busy past week. We have wrapped up our time in Moshi, and have just returned to Dar es Salaam, where we will be spending our final 3 days in Tanzania.

Last week we were out in the bush, as they say, on safari. We visited 3 national parks including Lake Manyara, the Serengeti and Ngorogoro Crater. All three of these parks have amazing landscapes and wildlife. Words can do the trip no justice at all, and our pictures will only just begin to give you a sense of what we saw. We took over 1000 shots (Max was a little trigger happy around the cats) and will try to post some of the better ones as our Internet connection allows. We really saw every animal one could hope to see including lions (over 40), cheetahs, leopards, elephants, giraffes, hippos, rhinos, zebras, and many more.

Our first stop was Lake Manyara, about a 5 hour drive out of Moshi. The lake is located on the edge of the East African Rift, which is a steep 600 meter ridge created by a separation of tectonic plates. In this park we saw many elephants, baboons, and monkeys, as well as a few giraffes and hippos. After a few hours of driving around, we ascended the ridge and arrived at the beautiful Lake Manyara Lodge overlooking the park. The day was a fantastic preview of what was to come.

Next up was the Serengeti. This required another long drive which took us along the rim of Ngorogoro crater, where we were able to look over what was to be our final destination. The Serengeti, home of the Lion King, is even more amazing than billed. The plains stretch all the way to the horizon, and mini forests and rock outcroppings, known as kopjes, dot the landscape. We were fortunate to come during the migration season, when thousands of wildebeest, impalas, and zebras are trekking across the grasslands. This great scene is made even better by the great number of predators attracted to this feeding opportunity. We can only hope that our pictures begin to show how amazing the sites were.

Finally, after two days in the Serengeti, we returned to Ngorogoro crater and made an early morning decent to the crater floor. Ngorogoro is believed by creationists, and Zahra's mom, to be the Garden of Eden. One look and it is easy to see why. In the relatively small crater, averaging 26km in diameter a wide variety of animals including lions, flamingos, elephants, zebras, and the rare rhino reside. Once again, we hope our pictures will begin to give you a sense of this amazing place.

So after making our way back to Moshi, we did our last bit of packing and got a little sleep before heading out yesterday morning. On our way to Dar, we stopped by Zahra's Mom's village, Kwakombo, for lunch and said hello to her village family. Made it into Dar in the evening and went out for dinner with Zahra's family.

So here we are, wrapping up our time in Tanzania. We hope you enjoy the pictures from our safari!

-Zahra and Max

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving

It is a bit bizarre being in a country where everything is open and turkeys are still available on Thanksgiving day. We, however, will not be cooking a turkey. Our microwave size oven can barely hold a chicken, let alone a full-fledged turkey. But in patriotic spirit, we are still having a big buffet style family dinner with our housemates and some close friends. So far the menu includes chicken and veggies (max), sweet mashed potatoes with marshmellows (me) and regular mash potatoes for max (also me), either zuccini bread or carrot cake, a pie, and spinach. There may also be some more traditional Tanzanian pieces including chapati...

A large market run is in order for later today, but currently we are still "on the clock". With only two days left of work to go and a boss who has never heard of Thanksgiving, it is fair to say that we still have to work for a couple hours this morning. Our volunteer position has been a big success and we have paved the way for future volunteers (Max is currently working on an idealist.org post).

In other news, this week has been rather quiet. It took us around 5 days to recover from the mountain. Our muscles were fine by day 2, but our colds lingered. Now, our attention is focusing on my mother's upcoming visit (this monday!) that will coincide with a 5 day safari trip to Lake Manyara, the Serengetti, and Ngorogoro Crater. After that we will officially be done with Moshi...but we still have over a week before that happens!

Anyways, we are off. Hope you all enjoy your turkey (or tofu-turkey), afternoon of football or soccer, and family.

love,
zahra and max

Thursday, November 19, 2009

The Ceiling of Africa

Disclaimer: This is a very long post with day by day descriptions of our climb up Kilimanjaro. If you want to just check out the pictures, we understand. If you're going to read any one section of it though, we advise you to scroll down and check out "Day 5 - Part 1".

Day 1:

Day one provided a deceiving start to the climb. We hauled our gear down the street to the Keys Hotel at 8:00 am to receive a quick briefing from our guide Raymond, after which we packed up the landcruiser and headed off to the park entrance. Upon reaching the park entrance around 10 am, we registered, handed off our bags to the porters and picked up our second guide, Patrick. In total our team included us, 4 porters, 1 cook, and 2 guides.
We started hiking by 11 am. The first day takes you on a dirt and gravel trail from the Marangu gate at 1860m (6102ft) to the first set of huts, the Mandara huts, at 2700m (8858ft). This trail winds through a dense rainforest. The temperature during the day was very comfortable in the mid 60s to low 70s. The hike was 8km long and took about three and a half hours including a decently long lunch break.
Our lunch consisted of chicken, an egg, a banana, cookies, cake, a roll, a cheese sandwich and juice. They provided no shortage of calories and see to it that you consume them, as this energy becomes increasingly important throughout the climb. We each drank about three liters of water a day, which combined with our altitude meds, a diaretic, made for pee breaks every 30 minutes or so.
At 2:30ish we arrived at the Mandara huts. We rinsed off with a bowl of warm water and relaxed over tea and popcorn. For dinner we had another huge meal which we ate under Raymond's watchful eye. On full bellies we packed it in for the night, along with our hutmate Tim, who was attempting to film a scene of the summit for a Kilimanjaro beer commercial.

Day 2:

Day two began at just before 6 am, as we both woke up to pee (thanks diamox). This turned into a wonderful little bathroom trip as we were able to see the sunrise over a sea of fluffy cotton-ball clouds.
An hour later we were served a full sunday brunch style breakfast (eggs, bacon, porridge, toast, tomato, cucumber, and mango). We left just after 8 am, ready to tackle the 11.7km trek to the Horombo huts, 3700m (12,139ft) above sea level.
Minutes into our walk we crossed the abrupt border from the forest to the moorland, a region with completely different vegetation made primarily of tall golden grasses and funny looking trees straight out of a Dr. Seuss book. On a clear day we would have had a view of both Kibo and Mwenzi peaks, the former being the taller, however both were shrouded in clouds (as they would be for the entire climb).
Slowly we ascended into fog and by lunch we were as surrounded by the clouds as the peaks. Substantial cooling accompanied this transition as the temperature dropped to the low 50s.
After another huge lunch, our path took us even higher into the clouds and by 1:15ish we abandoned our polepole pace as it began to rain. We reached Horombo the huts by 2:00 where we were dried off and recovered with some tea and snacks. After another huge dinner, we hit the sack shortly after sunset.

Day 3:

We spent the day at Horombo camp acclimatizing. We went for a quick hike in the morning up to Zebra rock, an outcrop of dark volcanic rocks with streaks of white calcium carbonate that leeched down from overlying rocks, creating a stripped effect, at 4000m (13,123ft). We also saw various igneous rocks that Zahra excitingly pocketed.
We spent the remainder of the day eating, drinking water, resting and preparing for the long days ahead. I also started to feel the effects of the altitude this day with a slight headache.

Day 4:

The day started off well. After an early breakfast, we set off on a 13km hike up to the last hut, Kibo. This final hut serves as base camp for the summit and sits at an elevation of 4700m (15,420ft).
The five hour hike took us out of the moorland and into the alpine desert as we crossed the long, gradual, Martian-like landscape known as the saddle. During the last couple of hours the temperatures dipped down to freezing and we were pelted by hail. The final km of the day took us up a fairly steep ascent where we began to really feel the effects of the thin air as some slight dizziness set in. Fortunately, after an hour at Kibo drinking some tea, we both began to clear up a little bit.
We ate dinner at 5 o'clock and then turned in at around 6, attempting to catch a few hours of sleep before 10:45pm, when we would be woken up to prepare for the final ascent of 1195 vertical meters (3921ft).

Day 5 - Part 1:

Day 5 on Kili actually began at 10:45pm on day 4 when we were woken up for tea before the final summit run. The cold, altitude, and anxiety had made for less than ideal sleeping conditions and we had received very little shut eye. After shivering over our tea, with temperatures down into the teens, we geared up for the ascent. At 11:30pm we shuffled out into the darkness with our head lamps and began the long climb.
The first section of the climb takes you to the Hans Meyer Cave at 5200m (17,060ft) and consists of small switchbacks carving up a steep skree-covered slope. Despite our general grogginess, we made it there in good time, arriving at 2am.
Leaving the caves, really just a small rock overhang, we entered a steeper section of the ascent. Here we took larger switchbacks, and dug our poles into the side of the mountain with each step to prevent us from keeling over. This carried on at a drunkenly polepole pace until we reached a final even steeper rocky section before Gilman's Point.
At this time, my dizziness began to recede slightly, while Zahra's started to worsen. We scaled the rocks with the darkened edge of the crater becoming clearer against the still black sky.
Finally at 5:30am we crawled over the ridge and onto Gilman's Point, 5681m (18,638ft) high. For many, this marks the end of their climb. Gilman's Point sits on the caldera rim, and is on the ring of points at Kili's peak. We sat there for a few minutes watching the sun rise over the cloudy horizon, attempting to catch our breath. Within minutes, however, Raymond was goading us to finish the final climb around the crater rim to Uhuru Point, the highest point in Africa. Under normal conditions this would not be a difficult hike as it is only about 1km long and ascends a mere 214m (702ft) in altitude; on no sleep and already 3.5 miles high, however, it becomes significantly more challenging, and takes most climbers around 90 minutes.
At this point, Zahra was in really rough shape and having some balance problems (more than usual). We stopped every 20-50 meters to regroup and for the occasional dry heave. Almost 2 hours later, hand in hand, we arrived at Uhuru. The feeling was a mix of joy and relief, in addition to lightheadedness, shortness of breath, and general shittyness. At 7:15am we stood at the ceiling of Africa, 5895m, 19,340ft, 3.66 miles up.

Day 5 - Part 2:

We spent only a few minutes up at Uhuru - just enough time to snap a few pictures, attempt to catch our breath, and congratulate our fellow climbers. The descent, while not as taxing, cold, or dark as the climb up, was certainly no picnic. We stumbled our way back around the crater ridge to Gillman's, where we refueled on some water and snacks before beginning the steep descent.
Scrambling down the rocks was considerably less challenging on the way down, but the switchbacks were hell. Instead of taking the zigzagging path, we headed straight down a wider skree/dirt path that had earlier been concealed by the darkness. Going down this path was more similar to skiing than walking, where with each step you skidded down several inches.
Because of Zahra's dizziness and the need to get her down swiftly, Patrick took a vice-grip hold on her arm and kept her upright as he whisked Zahra down the skree. Raymond and I weren't far behind as our quads and knees took the brutal pounding of the major incline.
Two and a half hours after leaving Uhuru, and ten and a half hours after departing Kibo hut, we returned.
But wait, there's more! We were given only an hour and a half to rest and have a meal before we jumped back on the trail to cover the 13 km back to Horombo. This journey took 3 hours, and benevolently, even though threatening clouds and fog loomed the entire walk, we were spared any heavy rain. Like zombies we drifted back across the arctic desert and into the moorlands.
Finally, we spotted the huts over a ridge and made it to our hut 14 hours after our "day" began. We had some tea, a quick nap, and dinner, and by 6 we were out of the cold enjoying some well deserved sleep.

Day 6:

Morning came too soon. We were woken up at 5:45 am and served breakfast at 6. Our muscles ached, and our noses were runny. We grudgingly packed up and started our final hike of 20 km back to Marangu Gate at 7 am. We whisked through the moorlands with only a few stops (two of which involved Zahra slipping and falling on her butt in mud, apparently her legs had not quite recovered).
Around 10, we arrived at the Mandara huts. But after only a 10 minute break, we returned to the trail. By now the temperature was steadily rising and we kept shedding layers. The highlight of the walk was a brief monkey sighting.
We stumbled past Marangu gate at approximately 12:30. After receiving certificates for reaching Uhuru, we jumped into the van to head back to Moshi.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Lushoto, a Little Piece of Heaven

From Sunday to Tuesday, Max and I ditched work for a chance to check out the much acclaimed Usambara mountains. Our roommates have been goading us to see the verdure countryside of Lushoto and eat the amazing food there, and we finally caved. When I retire later in life, I hope it is there.

We boarded a slightly sketchy bus early Sunday morning. Four and a half hours later, we arrive in Lushoto town. Lushoto is located high up in the Usambara mountains, around 1500 kilometers asl. Unlike Moshi which is dry, brown, and HOT, Lushoto was completely green and cool. The drive up the mountains involved weaving along narrow roads that hugged the moutainside, and every corner promised a picturesque view.

From Lushoto town, we got a ride to our destination, Mullers Lodge. This beautiful resort is hidden in a garden of colorful flowers and run by a giant German. To follow the trend of this entire trip, we were the only hotel residents. We spent Sunday, drinking tea and local coffee in their hotel garden and walking around the premises. For dinner, we had one of our the best meals in Tanzania. Every night they serve a buffet dinner. Even though it was just Max and I, we were offered 6 DIFFERENT main courses, with a soup appetizer, and a mouth-watering apple custard pudding and cake dessert. It was phenomenal and we left dinner stuffed.

Monday morning, we awoke to another amazing multi-coursed meal. Afterwards, we met with Babu Francis for a day-hike around Lushoto. Babu Francis is a tiny Tanzanian from Lushoto. He is incredibly fit, despite being a chain-smoker (and rounded off 3 cigs on our hike). The man is also incredibly warm and garrulous. When he was not greeting every single person we passed, he was recounting details of American history or the botanical names of all the plants and trees for Max and I. In addition to offering many educational lectures during our hike, he navigated us down main roads and through farmland. We often walked in between rows of cabbage, through football fields, and across people's backyards. To see some of our pictures, check out the flickr account. We returned to the lodge, exhausted but satsified (and ready for another awesome dinner, which we received).

Tuesday morning we set off for home. The ride returning to Moshi was not as smooth as the one leaving there, but at least we arrived in one piece.

In a couple of days, however, we leave agian. This time: Kilimanjaro.

Friday, November 6, 2009

Trip to Lake Jipe

Hey Friends,

So this week at work has been filled with all sorts of field trips. On Wednesday we had the chance to visit two villages very close to Moshi town where Qoheleth has built Soil Stabilized Block houses. It was pretty neat to see. Our big trip though was yesterday (Thursday), when we got to see a community bank office the orginization built in a small village near Lake Jipe. Lake Jipe is a border lake with Kenya and the Kenya side of the lake is actually a national park. The trip there took about three hours and was the scariest ride either of us has ever experienced. Our driver was a 20-something year old who drove his Ford Ranger rather aggressively. This is not abnormal for Tanzanian drivers, and would usually only be slightly concerning, but on this trip we happened to be traveling on narrow dirt roads winding their way up a mountain with a very steep cliff falling off into the valley. Of course there were no guardrails, and at points the road was even under construction. Needless to say we were quiter relieved when we made it to the village.

The scenery around the village was beatiful (pictures to come later) and we spent the first hour of the trip just looking around and visiting the community bank office. Unfortunately, there is a very bad drought here right now, so the seed storage facility attached to the bank was extremely empty, a very bad sign. After talking with the employees there and having a pepsi, we headed off to see the lake with our boss.

When we got down to the lakeside, we found that we couldnt actually see the lake at all over the tall marsh grass. There were a couple of fisherman with their small makeshift canoes around though, and after negotiating with them for a short time, our boss convinced them to take us down the marsh canal to the lake (once again, pictures to come). It was quite the experience, and we were happy to escape animal attack free.

Other highlights of the trip included eating a sour beanlike fruit straight from the tree and being dragged along by our guide as he tried to buy charcoal (we're not really sure why).

That's about it for now. We're going to the mountain town of Lushoto for the weekend and then we start hiking Kili next friday.

Miss you all,
Z&M

PS - you can check out the website we've been making for Qoheleth at sites.google.com/site/qohelethfoundation

Monday, November 2, 2009

Still Doing Stuff

Hey everyone,

We apologize for being delinquent in our updates. Last week our boss was out of town, so work consisted of doing a significant amount of reading on various topics including the impact of tourism on the poor population, the outsourcing of tax collection,and the structure and impact of various microfinace organizations (a topic which Max has become very interested in). It's been interesting but we're excited to get out and visit some villages, which we've been promised we'll do this week.

We also finally started taking Swahili lessons last week, as our conversational skills were not improving as much as we had hoped. Our teacher, Mama Semiona, is a retired Swahili teacher who used to work and still lives at Old Moshi Secondary School, Rafik's alma matter. The lessons have been going very well and she's given us some swahili children's books to look at which have been helpful. During our last lesson she even gave us a soda!

The highlight of the week by far though was our trip to the second hand market on Tuesday. The market, called memorial (or mei morea by the locals, who have no word for memorial), consists of rows and rows of booths constructed from sticks and tarps in a large field. The booths mostly sell clothing, with everything from t-shirts, to suits, to leather jackets. Some of it is actually pretty good quality as they have jerseys from every sports leage (NFL, NBA, Hingham Youth Soccer, English Primier League, LA YMCA Basketball, etc.) as well as Patagonia fleeces and Keen shoes. Needless to say we were overwhelmed by this mall of Salvation Army gems and could only settle on matching spandex Barrack Obama shirts (Max's is a little tight). We will definitely be returning there though.

Friday after we wrapped up some reading in the office we went to a local crafts village where several artists were painting and carving. We used it as an opportunity to practice our Swahili and we even bartered for a couple of good deals (we think) in the process. Saturday night we found the one Halloween party in town at the big expat bar here. It was fun, but hardly compares to Halloweens past.

That's about all the excitement here for now. We can't believe how quickly the weeks are passing. We have one more weekend before we climb Kili and we hope to make it out of Moshi for a quick overnight.

We wish you all luck in dealing with the coming of winter.

-Z&M

Monday, October 26, 2009

Back From Another Weekend Adventure

Our two-legged journey consisted of a visit to the village of Kwakombo where Zahra's Mom (De-Bora, as they call her) lived and worked for two years while performing research for her doctorate, the primary reason for our trip, as well as a night stay in the sort of nearby coastal city of Tanga.

Kwakombo is a four hour bus ride away from Moshi. By itself the ride wouldn't be bad, but it is made slightly more stressful by not actually knowing where exactly your destination is or what it looks like. Our pestering of the bus attendents paid off though, as they good naturedly waved us down when we reached our "stop". The bus only has scheduled stops at larger towns or villages, but they're willing to let you off along the way. As a result, we were more or less left on the side of the road with cicel fields across the street and what we believed to be the village extending to either direction.

In an interesting example of modernization, Zahra's village family actually has cell phones, despite lacking in more fundamental resources such as electricity and water. While this fact made our trip easier to arrange, it also became the source of much confusion. The conversation we had over the phone with the village teacher (walimu), who knows some english, after we got off the bus went something like this:

Zahra: Jambo! We're here!
walimu: Where are you?
Z: Here! In Kwakombo!
w: Tell the bus driver to stop at the bus station.
Z: We're off the bus. We're here.
w: Where? I'm on the road.
Z: We're on the road.

So that went on for a little while. Mixed in was us also confirming with confused onlookers that we really were in Kwakombo. Thanks to a helpful guy on a motorcycle we were eventually united, though that too involved a few mix ups.

After Chabanga, Zahra's village grandfather (babu), was delivered to us on the back of the motorcycle, the introductions began. First we met his daughter, Hemhina, then his grand-daughter (the walimu), then his wife, two more of his daughters, and many neighbors and children of indecernable relation.

Chabanga's house is one of the nicer ones in the village, from what we saw. About a dozen family members and us crowded into the largest of the few rooms in his house. Here we spent the majority of our visit eating, looking at pictures either taken by or of Zahra's mom and attempting to converse in Swahili. Most of our communication ended with Chabanga repeating "Thank you, thank you very much" in English to nothing in particular or us being offered something. These somethings included coconut, sugar cane, soda, water and eggs. The latter of these we were given as a gift to take with us, which we thought was odd, as we now had to carry around eggs which were sure to break on the bus (when we finally did make it back to Moshi we found that one of the eggs was indeed cracked, but we also learned that the eggs were all hard-boiled anyway).

Though it was a very rich experience, the visit only lasted a few hours. After a brief downpour, Chabanga and his family joined us in waiting by the side of the road and assisted us in waving down a bus to Tanga. We caught a crowded mini-bus (daladala) and two hours later arrived in the coastal city.

Tanga was a ghost town and wildly uneventful. We got seafood for dinner, which was a nice change, as the only fish in Moshi is a little suspect. We watched some football (no, not that football, just soccer) on our hotel TV (one of the great luxuries that comes with an $8 hotel room, although running water is apparently not included in that fee) and passed out before 9. We hopped an early bus out of town the next morning, and 6 uncomfortable hours later arrived back in Moshi.

Congratulations for making it to the end of this marathon post. Our visit was quite the experience and we're very excited to be able to share it. Hopefully we've succeeded in getting some of the pictures up as well.

Miss you all,
Z&M

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

The Date is Set

It is official. We are going to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, the majestic beauty that sits on the horizon, on Friday, November 13. (We figured if we could fly on September 11, we could climb a mountain on Friday the 13th). It will be a six day climb up the Marangu route. More details about the climb to saved for the actual climb recap.

Booking the climb date was one of the more exciting things we have done this week. Work has been progressing slowly. As I write, Max is attempting to create a website for little Qoheleth. I think the browser has crashed 6 times in the past 30 minutes...My work has been much easier, at least in terms of having little to no technological hiccups: I have started making some information flyers about the specific projects Qoheleth has lead. We have already completed one task though: a brochure. In fact, we turned in our spanking new, COLORFUL brochure to our boss today and he seemed quite thrilled (especially because there was a picture with him in it).

When we are not working (more than half the time), we have been occupying our time with extensive reading. Max is currently reading Nelson Mandela's autobiography and I am reading a book on AIDS in Africa, with an in depth case study of Leshoto. I am starting to understand why a lot of my friends who studied abroad in developing countries wanted to then major in developing studies, anthropology, and economics.

Other exiciting things on the horizon: our first official Swahili lesson tomorrow, visiting my mother's village (aka where she spent 2 years collecting research for her PhD) in Kwombo, and playing more of Max and my new favorite game: throwing a frisbee against one of our back yard trees.

over and out,
Z & M

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Finally working

We arrived at 8 am on the dot Monday morning for work. At 8:30 am our boss rolls in (from there after, we have been coming it at 8:30). He gives us an hour and a half 43-slide power point presentation about the NGO. Then he clears off his desk, moves into the other room (it is a small two room office, the total size is similar to a double dorm room) and leaves us alone. He gave us full reign over his files and project reports, but no real guidelines on what we should be doing.

We have spent the past couple of days pouring through all the project reports and files. Some of the files, as we slowly learned, have nothing to do with Qoheleth's work, but relate to the projects of similarly-missioned organizations. And of lot of the literature is in swahili.

Two days into work and we had our first holiday: Wednesday, October 14 is Neyere Day. The late Julius Neyere, often referred to as Mwalimu (teacher), was the first president of independent Tanzania. He brought together the country by instuting Swahili as the national language, an action that has lead to Tanzania being a much more peaceful country than it's East African neighbors. Though a bit of a socialist (he nationalized schools, land, everything), is he often referred to kindly and nostalgically. And we were more than happy to tip our hats to him on our day off from work.

The rest of the work week, was similar to the first half: full of us translating random packets and asking our boss lots of questions.

This weekend we plan to just relax in Moshi.

over and out,
Z & M

Monday, October 12, 2009

Lots to Report

Hey all,

After a rather slow couple of days, we finally have some news to report! We started volunteering at an NGO called Qoheleth, which works to improve rural village life and prevent youth from becoming street children. They work in several areas including stabilized soil block construction, basic technologies, and health education. The office where we are working is a five minute walk from our house and currently consists of two people, the head of the organization, Ezikiel Muhubiri and his assistant. Mr. Muhubiri is an extremely friendly guy who seems very excited to have us on board. Though we still have a lot to learn about the organization and what our exact roles will be, we hope to assist him in his work on stabilized soil construction, to help develop a website, and to write-up some promotional information about Qoheleth.

We made our final decision to work at Qoheleth during the day on Thursday, and afterwards we were invited out to dinner for our housemates friend's birthday. We met three other voluteers who work with them at Amaini, a home and school for street children. Despite the restaurant's atrocious service, we had a great time meeting some new people whom we hope to see more of in the future.

Buiding on our momentum of the previous day, we decided to go to Amaini on Friday. At their facilities, they are currently housing approximately 90 children, almost all boys, ranging in age from 9 to 16. These kids all have different stories, but have somehow or another found their way to the home. The building itself is very impressive, resembling a small college dorm. The first floor consists of offices, classrooms, and a dining area, while the children all sleep upstairs. The backyard looks like any good sized elementary school playground with a soccer field, basketball court, and some equipment. We spent a couple of hours playing frisbee with some of the kids, who came and went as they got bored. Most of the boys however, were preoccupied with doing different acrobatics. They have been getting instruction in gymnastics and have some rather impressive moves from doing cartwheels, to flipping each other, to controsioning. We are hoping to find more time to go back as we get into the routine of our new schedule.

Saturday, we went on an adventure with one of our housemates to the village of Marangu. Marangu is about one hour away from Moshi by daladala (small bus) and sits at the foot of Kilimanjaro at an elevation of 5000 ft. We met up with a Tanzanian guide which we arranged through one of the local hotels, and he took on a hike to a beatiful waterfall. On the course of our hike he showed us locally grown coffee, and bananas, as well as wild rasberries, and mint. The land was extremely fertile and green due to the cooler and moister mountainside climate. We experienced the moisture firsthand as we were caught in the season's first real rainfall. (It was the first rain we have experienced in a month and it was glorious!) Our hike into the mountain valley down steep steps half the size of Zahra culminated in us taking a dip in the cold pool at the base of the waterfall.

To top off the day, we met up with another of our housemates and her boyfriend, the one we had met in Dar, to go out for a nice evening of drinks and Chinese food in Shantytown (the name is a bit of a misnomer, as it refers to the upscale part of town).

So as you can see we've started to ratchet things up a bit here, and are now preparing to settle in to our routine. Hope all is well wherever you are!

-Z&M

Thursday, October 8, 2009

...and more meetings

Hey all,

So since we last updated we've mostly just been going to more meetings with other NGOs. After today our list will be up to 7 organizations. They are as follows:

Mokombozi Vocational Training School
Pamoja Trust
Quohelith
Traditional Irrigation Project (TIP)
Tanzanian Traditional Energy Development and Environment Organization (TaTEDO)
Masadonia Ministry
Kilimanjaro Industrial Development Trust (KIDT)

Of these organizations at least three were not really looking for volunteers right now and some of the others didn't quite align with our interests or have their acts together well enough to support volunteers. The organizational structure here is much looser that what we are used to at home, and it is only through meeting with these different organizations that we can come to understand each group's state of affairs. In addition, many of our meeting feel like moderating a political debate, as we try to ask people what specific work they are actually conducting, only to get very vague and rambling replies. We are getting closer to a decision though, and we hope to start actual work next week.

On a side note, we ran into our friend Alice from Brown on the street two days ago. She had just returned from hiking Kili with her uncle and spotted us from inside her taxi. It was a very bizarre coincidence. We ended up having dinner with her and catching up a little bit.

Anyway, that's about it for now. We posted some more pictures, so definitely check those out.

More to come soon,
-Z&M

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Quick Update

Hey all,

So not much new to report since our last update, but we have met with two more NGOs and will be meeting with two more today. One of the two yesterdy was looking for volunteers and has some interesting projects going on in the areas of compressed earth brick construction, natural medicine, and comunity education. Today we will meet with a group which specializes in irrigation (but is probably not looking for help) as well as a broader organization which may have a solar power project underway.

Kilimanjaro was very visible from our house yesterday, a relative rarity. We have some good pictures, but unfortunately we didn't bring our camera to the internet cafe today. Until we get ours up, here's a picture from online of Kili taken from Moshi.

http://7summits.com/faq/pix/kili-from-moshi.jpg

Thats all from us for now. We love hearing from you all too, so let us know what you're up to!

-Z & M

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Afternoon In Arusha

Hey Friends,

We're running out of time in our internet session for the day, so here's a quick recap of what we've been up to. We went to Arusha, a large town about an hour and a half away by bus with to of our new housemates. The bus rides there and back were both very crowded and eventful. On the way there one of our housemates had a stranger's baby on her lap for the whole ride. On the way back to Moshi we got stuck in between two people having a heated verbal confrontation about... something. In Arusha we saw many many pirated DVDs with everything from the West Wing, to a documentary on Michael Jackson. We had a lovely lunch at a western style restaurant that felt very out of place. We also went to a large supermarket which is the closest thing we've seen to a grocery store at home here. That's about it. We like our roomates a lot and look forward to hanging out with them more.

Out of time.

Z & M

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Getting Settled In

Moshi is much more managable than Dar. Within a couple of days, we have almost ventured to every corner of the city and already marked out some potential favorite spots: A western style coffee shop complete with bagels, a bakery, a handful of grocery stores, and several samosa shops (though they dont compare to KT shop, dad).

We have set up a couple meetings with different NGOs for Friday and Monday. They are involved in various causes from agriculture to Kili porters' rights. But in the mean time, we have just been hanging around the house, playing cards by candle light (the power went out again last night), cooking (well Max has; I've been washing the dishes), playing frisbee in our yard, and studying Swahili. We have tripled our amount of flashcards since we got here.

The thing that will take the most getting used to (we predict), are the chorus of noises at night including the call and response of police cadets running at 4am, roosters crowing at sunrise, and our dogs making pathetic whimpering noises at all hours. Oh, and then there are the lizards in the roof that sound like they are trying to burrow through our ceiling.

We are getting antsy to start working and are looking forward to our first interview tomorrow.

Cheers,
Z and M

PS - We have taken twitter off the blog. We could not get our international phone number to register. : (

PPS - If this internet connection likes us, we will try and add some new photos.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Karibu Moshi

We have arrived safely in Moshi! Our bus got in around 5 pm last night and we were greeted by our Moshi liason at the hectic bus station. She is the leader of the Visions in Action (VIA) volunteer program here, and while we are not officially part of the program, she has been kind enough embrace us as if we were. She met up with looking as if she had just left her New York City appartment, wearing her Soho shirt and Ray Ban shades. She proceeded to demonstrate her own stylized version of Swahili with phrases such as "hodies" when speaking to the volunteers (generally in Tanzanian culture one says "hodi" before entering someone's home, sort of an alternative to knocking). She has a rather colorful vocabulary in both languages.

The bus station is a 5 minute drive to our house, which is an easy walk without our mountains of luggage. The house is wonderful. We have a large fenced in yard that is big enough to toss a frisbee around in and two friendly dogs (Max is thrilled). When the morning haze clears, we can see Kilimanjaro from our window, adding extra incentive to climb Kili if we didn't have enough already. The house is one story, filled with four bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a living room and a kitchen. During the day there is a woman who cleans and takes care of the house, and at night we have a guard.

We were constantly questioning the roommates on how to use things as we made dinner last night. One of them was telling us how to use the propane stove in case the power when out. Literally as she said that, the power went out. It works quite nicely. Apparently the power goes out every friday night and one other random night.

All in all we are extremely happy with the set up and the other housemates here. We look forward to meeting up with the VIA leader tomorrow to discuss volunteer placements. Also, we have a potential lead on where we can teach frisbee.

Love,
Zahra and Max

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Zanzibar Safari

Our adventure started the time we got out of the taxi the port. The port is a hub-bub of activity with people fighting for our attention to buy ferry tickets, or take a taxi. In Tanzania white people are referred to as mzungu, or more loosely "open wallet". At the port this effect is magnified with the number of wazungu traveling to Zanzibar. It was a bit exhausing, but a few Swahili words, mainly "no", got us through with limited trouble. Packed like sardines we were crowded into the ferry, where we found a nice rail spot. The 2 hour ride was highlighted by views of Dar es Salaam from the harbor, and a brief whale spotting. Arriving in Zanzibar we were once again met with "friendly" taxi drivers. Our hotel sent a driver who rescued us from the shark tank and brought us across the island with detourts to see various members of his family.

Our temporary home was located on Zanzibar's eastern coast in village of Bwejuu. Like everywhere on the island the beaches here were beatiful, but the best part of the trip was meeting the Bwejuu residents.

Finding dinner the first night was quite an ordeal. Unbeknownst to us, protocal for dining out requires one to make arrangements earlier in the day. This is because they catch the fish daily, and in addition it was Eid (the celebration concluding the month of Ramadan). This village threw an especially large carnival-like party, that lasted for the four days when we were there. Most places closed early in order to take part. We went to an inn next door at 7pm for dinner, to find it dark and empty. We were directed down the street to a small local establishment. It was pitch black outside and the one piece of advice Karim uncle gave us was 'Do not walk around at night by yourselves in an unfamiliar place, especially on the beach". Oh well. Eventually we made it (with the help of a zanzibari), to find ourselves as the only customers and the three person staff drunk. Our waiter who indroduced himself as Harry, like Harry Potter, amused us thoroughly with his comments on island life -- again polepole. To elaborate, he told us the story of the tortoise and the hare, where zanzibaris are like the tortoise. We let with stomaches full of fresh crab and calamari and high spirits.

This was ony the beginning of our adventures as we met some of our Bwejuu neighbors, including a German inn owner who had studied swahili and africana studies in college, a helpful young villager who took us to the festival, and our rastafarian friend, Ibrahim.

On our second day touring the village, we followed signs to an inn off the water called Miza wa Miza. While peeking around the bungalows, we ran into the owner Ibrahim. Immediately we were struck by this truely fascinating character. Having grown up in the village, his talents include music, organic farming, construction, and progressive thinking on how to help his fellow villagers. Two months ago he started an organic garden and after a month or two of talking about the benefits of this farm (which uses local seaweed and compost as fertilizer), he enlisted the help of 10 women from the village. Already there are huge eggplants (which we ate the next day for dinner) among other fruits and vegetables. He was clearly a man of action and it was inspring. When Max mentioned the potential for solar water heating, he immediately started asking questions, wanting to know more. And he invited Max to stay there for two months and help him build such a system (next visit?).

Later that day, we met one of our neighbors from the village who offered to take us to the Eid celebration. Of course we jumped on the offer. We actually ended going to the party twice. First, it was early, around 6. At this time, the festival was dominated by children all dressed up in new clothes. All the girls were wearing shiny, puffy dresses, had painted finger nails, and lots of make up. Kiosks of candy and toys were set up. And when we returned later that evening, those same kiosks were then selling dinner food and beer. There was also a disco party set up in the middle and everyone was dancing. It was riveting. Everyone was so happy and so warm to us, it was impossible not to reflect on how special an experience it truely was.

During our third and final full day in Bwejuu we wondered the beach for quite a while, before returning to visit our rafiki pya (new friend) Ibrahim, whom we enlisted to cook us dinner. He made a fantastic spread (not unlike what we had eaten the previous evening) with whole fried fish, vegitables in coconut sauce (from his garden), and rice. He sat with us after our meal and we chatted about a variety of topics, from rasta beliefs to african history, for several hours. If any of you ever find your way to Zanzibar, you really must stay with him. ---- Once again, Miza wa Miza, Bwejuu Village, Ibrahim -----

After only three days, we found it difficult to leave Bwejuu, as we had grown quite fond of the people, the food, the beach, and the cows wandering the streets. Alas, we left Wednesday morning and spent the remainder of the day in historic Stone Town. It was nice. We liked Bwejuu better. In all fairness, Stone town has great history and we hear it has a lively night life.

Now we are back in Dar es Salaam, where the traffic is a lot worse (we only saw a car or two a day in Bwejuu) and the people are more city-like. Our swahili is progressing polepole. We are beginning to make our final arrangements for our trip to Moshi...

Kwa heri,
Z & M


PS - Check out a couple of pictures from the trip on Flickr (see right sidebar)

Friday, September 18, 2009

asubuhi nzuri (good morning)

Reporting live from the Movenpik hotel.

We have found that people really like the TV reality show Big Brother Africa. This is where people from all over the continent are selected to live in a house covered in cameras, with no outside contact. They must complete tasks (like building a stage and performing on it, on making a meal representing their country) every day and only after the task is completed, do they get food. There is 24/7 coverage, and you can tune whenever you want to a particular station. Anyways, I kind of feel like our lives have been a bit like that. Every day we have one big task, and then we are granted food. So much food.

Tuesday's task: navigating the streets of Dar on our own. After checking in, we made 3 excursions around town. We didn't really have a purpose...just wandered. And then after an hour, we would retreat to the hotel. We serendipitously found my father, just as we were about to give up on finding food (it is currently the month of ramadan and a lot of places are closed for lunch), and he helped us find a sandwich (see rewarded with food for trying! though on big brother, if you fail, you don't get food...). Then, to top off a whole morning of walking, we went on another long walk with Karim uncle along the seaside. It was peaceful and beautiful.

Wednesday's task: Visiting the marketplace with Bertha (Zahra's "godmother"). The marketplace is not like any other place in town we had yet visited. It was swimming in people (and supposedly it was emptier because of ramadan) and under a tented area, people had piles and piles of fresh fruit, vegetables, rice...There were even crates of fresh chickens that they would slaughter for you right then and there. We did not stay long enough to see someone get a chicken.

Thursday's task: Ordering food and picking up a taxi on our own. We went into town bright and early with Salim uncle. We walked to Karims/bapas and left, soon there after, with Karim for the medical university, where he works. He took us through a new part of town for us, western Upanga. The university was empty; classes do not start for another week. But Karim is off-loaded with work. We toured the campus, got an inside peak into the library, and ate at one of the cafeterias. While Karim ran some errands, we killed time by walking around the nearby hospital compound. Then, around 1, we left for home...but little did we know it would be a 3 hour execursion, back to the market and down many streets whose names I can not remember.

We left Karim in search of a taxi. We were practicing exactly what we were going to say to the taxi driver, and our meager attempts at haggling in swahili. But turns out we didn't really need to bargain. The taxi driver volunteered the price we were aiming for: easy kabisa!

Friday (today): Our task is to buy ferry tickets for Zanzibar...

Besides walking, we have been doing a lot of eating goat, strange fruits, spicy lasanga (we actually have eaten italian food twice) and drinking lots of Tusker beer.

Plus, we are constantly surprised by random sites on the street. The other day we saw a guy where a red sox champion t-shirt and a yankees hat....never would you see that in the US.

---While Zahra was writing what you see above, and I started talking to a guy in the computer room. He commented on my red sox shirt, and after a while he realized that his girlfriend is of one of the girls who we'll be staying with in Moshi. Crazy world! He says the place we're staying at in Moshi is really nice. So that's good.

Anyway, as you can tell all is well here and we can't wait to hear from you guys!

-Zahra and Max

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

We're Here!


Hi Friends, we made it!

After a long, but smooth journey we've arrived in Dar es Salaam. Our first few days have been very exciting and we have much to report.

Rafik (literally friend in Swahili, but also Zahra's dad) picked us up at the airport at about 10:00 pm local time with his taxi driver friend, Chonongo. A short ride later we arrived at Salim's house (Zahra's uncle and our gracious host), where he was throwing a party for his friend Sofiya's birthday. This party, which had been put together with only three days notice, was complete with DJ, flashing lights, delicious meats from Salim's butchery: mishtaki (a skewer of meat, where, if you are lucky, you get a magical piece that is purely fat aka beef bacon) and sausage, and plenty of drunk 30, 40, 50, and 60 something year-olds dancing ferociously. It was quite the way to arrive. We ended up staying up until 3 am, but the older, truer partiers made it until 6 am!

Here's a picture of Zahra hiding behind a tropical plant.


Our first full day consisted of a walking tour of Dar's city center guided by Rafik. Highlights from this trip included eating at the KT Shop, which has Tanzania's best samosas and tea, visiting several of the beautiful hotels with high rise waterfront views, and drinking fresh coconut milk on the street (Literally people have piles of coconuts on the street that they cut up in front of you. With a few slashes of a very large and sharp knife, a small hole is cut at the top of the coconut which you can drink the milk out of. When you finish, they cut a larger hole, as well as scoop out the coconut 'meat'). Following our tour of city center, we visited another one of Zahra's uncles and grandfather at their home. Here Karim Uncle taught us a very important lesson about going "polepole" or slowly around tanzania. As he says, "We may go slowly, but we still make progress". This coming from a man who has a PhD in mathematics and has attended or taught at just about every major university you can think of. Our day wrapped up with a couple of beers at the local outdoor bar, and a feast of delicious Indian cuisine.

Yesterday was our first day on our own and we used it to recover from jet lag, waking up at 1 pm. We were made cheese on toast (an instant favorite) by Salim's worker Hadithi (splg?). She only talks to us in Swahili...and major confusion ensued. But we sorted out that even though it was afternoon, we still wanted breakfast. We then ventured out of the house 10 minutes away to Slipway, a nice small market place (think outdoor strip mall meets craft fair) near Salim's. Hightlights from this trip included seeing Kanga's (East African serong-type fabrics) with images of Barak Obama and Michael Jackson printed on them (now you all know what you're getting for gifts).

So yeah, that's what we've been up to. We are currently writing you from a YMCA in the city center this morning. Plans for this afternoon...tbd.

Hope all is well wherever you may be,

-Zahra and Max

PS - We couldn't figure out how to post pictures today.
PPS - If you're wondering about the weather, it's gorgeous.

Friday, September 11, 2009

The Flight that Never Ends

After many weeks, days and hours of waiting...we are finally off for Tanzania. But before we can really rejoice in the fact that we are finally free, we have to over come the two days of marathon flying; it is supposed to be 26 hours from gate to gate.

I, for one, am fully ready to spend the next 26 hours watching airline movies. I only hope the selection is good, because nothing is worse on a long flight than crying babies and a terrible movie selection.

kwa heri (goodbye) and see you on the other side.


Sunday, August 30, 2009

Final Preparations

Hi Friends!  Thanks for visiting our bloggy-majig.

This site will serve as our digital home for our trip to Tanzania and beyond over the next few months.  As you can see we've added all sorts of fun stuff like twitter and flickr feeds, and also links to some of our friends' blogs (let us know if you have one that you want us to add).

We'll be leaving from Boston next Friday (Sept. 11th) and will arrive in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania 26 hours later.  Our trip look something like this:

We will be visiting family and friends in the coastal city of Dar es Salaam on the first leg of our journey.  Following that we will be heading inland to Moshi, where we will be joining up with an ngo to do some volunteer work.  Finally we will be heading out on safari before flying up to Europe for a couple of weeks.

We're very excited to get going, and we look forward to sharing our stories and pictures with you along our way!

Kwa heri,
-Zahra and Max