Americans on a Boat

I can’t believe this time last week I was on a plane flying to Tanzania. I am finally starting to feel at home here and I am really stoked about starting Swahili classes tomorrow! It will be awesome to be able to converse with people beyond “hello” “how are you?” and “cool!”. Today I had my first experience in the ENORMOUS open-air market called Mwenge, which is about a 15 minute Dala-Dala ride from the university. This market is probably the size of an entire neighborhood and sells just about anything that you could imagine. It was pretty intimidating at first but it ended up being a lot of fun to browse around and haggle with the vendors (even though I was probably still getting ripped-off). People were really friendly and offered to hold my stuff and helped us find the items that we wanted amongst the giant heaps of clothing. I only bought a couple of things but I plan on going back and really going to town on the clothes and souvenirs. I only brought a few items of clothing with me to Tanzania, and given the heat I have already sweat through most of them and it is getting pretty uncomfortable. Plus, it’s always fun to buy new things.

            Yesterday was quite a journey. We went to Bongoyo island, which is off of the coast in the Indian Ocean. It was a 2 and a half hour journey to get to the island, but it was SO worth it. The island had white sand, turquoise water, and cool wildlife like crabs and eels. It felt amazing to lounge in the sun and float in the warm water. On the ferry ride back to the mainland our poor little motor was having a lot of trouble. About every five minutes it would give out and the high tide was flooding the engine. The choppy waves made a lot of people sea-sick and we kept joking that we were probably going be stuck there all night. Luckily we had some Dramamine and mars bars to get us through. Our drivers were amazing though and somehow managed to revive the engine every couple of minutes so we made it back in about an hour, even though it only took us 20 minutes on the way there. All 22 of us squeezed into a 15-seat Dala-Dala for the bus ride back, so we developed a long chain of lap-sitting so no one would have to stand. When we got back we all went to dinner and right in the middle of the shower frenzy the power went out. Luckily the plumbing system is not connected to the electricity so we just showered in the dark and then went to bed. (Pictured below is us squished in the Dala Dala). 

Tonight we had a debrief at our director's house just discussing the week and any issues or concerns that we wanted to voice. It was helpful to hear the other kids in my group talk about culture shock and some ethical issues that we have been thinking about, and I think we will figure it all out over time. Well I better post this incase the electricity goes out again, but I hope everyone is doing great and feel free to shoot me an e-mail about what you have been up to! My email is manda1010@gmail.com, or you can just Facebook message me :)