Atangaye na jua hujua: Dad I'm big but we're smaller than small

Well, I'm back in Arusha, completely finished with my ISP data collection period. I can't even tell you how strange it is to think that I am almost completely done with my study abroad experience. I have taken and learned so much from Tanzania as a country and a people, and I am so grateful for the experiences I have had while abroad. Now, I am a mere five more pages of my paper, a PowerPoint, a mountain, and less than two weeks away from returning home to Massachusetts. It seems almost unbelievable that I have been here since January, but I am honestly excited to return home to see my family and friends!

These past few weeks on the Tanzanian coast have been beyond anything I have ever imagined. Tsunami warning, jellyfish stings, and the roof of the land rover closing on my finger couldn't change the wonderful time I had in Ushongo. Not only are the villagers welcoming, the reefs beautiful, and the fisherman talkative, but everyone in the town was so helpful with everything that we needed throughout the week. Every afternoon when I would walk through town, on my way to my Mama's house to get lunch, other Mama's would yell "Mambo Emma, Habari?", and all were honestly curious how my day was going. Every time we sat down to talk with someone they always had questions for us, and were more than willing to answer the questions we had for them. Especially, Mama's in the village were interested in why we didn't have children yet, or even husbands, and some of the Baba's were even willing to help us with the latter... I played soccer with the village children, played catch with one of the hotel staff's young boy, and taught a school of 200 children why it is important to conserve their reefs. This experience has been unlike anything I have ever had before.
Everyday, my friend Maureen and I would wake up around six and get ready to head out to the reefs while the sun rose above the ocean. We walked over to the village, which was only about twenty feet away from our tents, and sat with the fisherman before they went out on the sea. They would always ask us how our evenings had gone, watch us with amazement as we braided our hair (many women on the coast have shaved heads or cornrows), and bring their young children out to play in the morning. At around seven, the fisherman had prepared the boat, and myself, Maureen, and three fisherman would load into a little wooden boat and prepare for an hour to an hour and a half ride across the Indian ocean to the outer reefs.

Disclaimer: this next section is about to have many movie references.
So you know the point in Pirates of the Caribbean where Jack Sparrow is walking across a sand island and looks around him, and can't see anything but ocean? If you don't, just imagine. That is pretty much exactly where Maureen and I spent our days after we finished collecting data. So once we had reached the island, after our long boat ride, we were "marooned", left on the island to do our data as the fisherman anchored the boat a little ways out, and swam in all different directions to spear fish for the day. The reefs are absolutely amazing. The live coral is everything you could imagine and more. There were bright colored polyps, vibrant individual fish, and massive schools of fish that you could pretty much swim with. However, surrounding these areas were large areas of destroyed dynamite. Many parts of the reef I studied at have been destroyed by dynamite fishing, and are now large plots of coral rubble and sand. Unfortunately, though dynamite fishing is illegal, in many third-world countries it is extremely difficult for regulation, and villagers embracing the lack of enforcement are still using these destructive methods.

Anyway, I really enjoyed almost every day I spent on the reef. The only day I didn't enjoy was the day Maureen and I call "attack of the jellys". Here comes the other movie reference. You've most likely seen Finding Nemo. You know the scene where Dory and Marlin are swimming over the trench when the should have been swimming through it? Well, there wasn't a trench, but that scene is one-hundred percent accurate in terms of the jellyfish practically appearing out of thin air. I looked down at one point to record my data (Step 1: Laminate paper twice, Step 2: Scratch the surface of the paper with sandpaper, Step 3: use a pencil and you can now write underwater!!) and when I looked up, i was surrounded by massive jellyfish. These jellyfish weren't the tiny thumb sized ones that you can easily push away, but rather they were about eight inches wide, with tentacles about a foot long each. And they had surrounded me. Not the best situation when you're trying to record fish on the coral reef, so that day we pretty much just sat on the island until the fisherman were ready to return to shore.

Well, I'm off to climb Mt. Meru tomorrow!!
Be back in three days!
-E

Ushongo, Mtoni

At the school - right after our talk on conservation

Our fisherman, and the boat we went out on every day

Left to Right: Leah (Studying trash) , Jenny (Studying tourism) , Myself (Studying fish) , Eliza (Studying mangroves) , Drew (Studying sexuality) , Maureen (Studying Corals) , Mia (Studying Crabs) , Zoey (studying turtles)