Its All Unchartered

So, I’ve been in Africa for two weeks now. I’ve seen lions, cheetah, zebras, elephants, impala, giraffe, tortoise, and monkeys galore. We spent a couple days in the city, Arusha, and I learned the art of bartering for a price for everything you buy. I met a man who has 25 wives and 120 children. I’ve learned to identify over 60 species of birds, and I can say my favorite bird is the von der deeken Hornbill. I’ve learned the cultures of the Massai Tribes, and attended a very “interesting” Lutheran church ceremony. In only two weeks, I’ve begin to understand what it means to truly be a Tanzanian, and I’m starting to grasp what values they live by.

So last week, we attended a Lutheran church meeting in a Massai community. We were welcomed with open arms into their little church, complete with a tin roof and 14 rows of benches. The music in the church was particularly interesting. Unfortunately, most of the music was played on a small plastic keyboard, and all the singing involved pre-recorded keyboard tunes. But overall the music was so entirely unique. There was one part of the service where three women were chanting, two women were doing traditional Massai singing, which the children would repeat. The music was what I would call beautiful chaos. The speeches though I couldn’t understand them, were passionately expressed and once translated, I understood that each speech was about how you should always do good in your life no matter the hardships you go through. I sincerely enjoyed the respectful and open environment this church showed us. Afterwards we went to a bar and I tried some of the local brews, such as Tusker (which coincidently you can get in the united States), Kilimanjaro, and Safari.

This week, we spent at Tarangire National Park. We split up into three groups and left early in the morning to collect data on either ruminates, non-ruminates, and birds. I was in the group that researched the various species of birds in the grasslands and the riverhine. Once we compiled our data, we were able to run our calculations and report our conclusions to the rest of the group. This was excellent practice for our independent study projects that we will begin at the end of the semester. As well as collecting data, we were able to act as tourists for the afternoon. We saw wild dogs (which apparently our AD, Baba Jack, hasn’t seen in 5 years! So this was a rare occasion!) cheetahs, and lions on just the second day in Tarangire!

I’m off to Mozumbai, a tropical forest, tomorrow (an eight hour drive…) to do more research and then my homestay begins a week after that!! My homestay family has two sons, two daughters, and four cows! I can’t wait!

Hope all is well in America!

P.S. here are some pictures!!