Jambo, Rafikis!

June 12

After an entire day of traveling, I’m finally in Africa! While the majority of the flights were good, I hit a snag on my way out of Houston. Right before getting on the plane to Amsterdam, I was stopped and forced to check my second carry on bag. After all the flights, I arrived in Kilimanjaro to find that my bag didn’t make it! Because of this, I don’t have a mosquito net, three pairs of pants, pajamas, my journal, long sleeved shirts, and other items of clothes. What a great way to start my trip, right?

Aside from that, Africa is amazing! It’s beautiful and just so full of life. Our two leaders, Peter and Erin, are really cool and fun. Our guards are Dominic, Munissi, and Babu. Munissi is a natural model, and it’s so fun to take pictures of him! The village we’re staying in is full of such beautiful plants and friendly people! You can buy fruit, like pineapples and avocados, that have been picked just a few hours ago! Our first meal, made by our “mommas” consisted of pasta, some sweet tortilla thing I forgot the name of, chicken, a giant avocado, pineapples, mangos and peanut butter.

Bedtime was not as fun as dinner. My room name is mnazi (which means coconut in Swahili). My roomies are Claire, Tracy, Sarah, and Kylee. I got a bottom bunk, which didn’t seem so great until I realized that I don’t have to climb down the stairs We all had to set up mosquito nets around our beds with our sleeping bags on them to make sure no bugs got in. Not only did the bug sounds scare me in the middle of the night, but I thought the clicking sound of my watch was a bug! I was terrified for about ten minutes until I figured out my watch was making the noise. I went to sleep at one o’clock at woke up at three thirty to by burning hot sleeping bag. I was sweating so much but couldn’t get completely out of it because I didn’t want my legs to touch the net! My predicament: get stung, or sweat up a storm? I found some middle ground, taking my legs out halfway and not touching the net, and after taking a sleeping pill at four thirty, slept for another two and a half hours. Yay!

June 13

For breakfast I had some delicious eggs that Sarah and Jacob cooked, and wonderful pancakes that Cade, Ms. Hartman, and Ms. Bottoms cooked. Yum! After breakfast, we walked to the local church (which took about an hour because we stopped to talk to all the adorable children) and I learned some Swahili! Jambo means hello, Mambo means hello (to your friends), Asante means thank you, Asante sana means thank you very much, Nzuri means good, and I can introduce myself with “Jina langu mini Lindsey!”

I also learned a cool phrase that means “cool like a banana in the fridge.” I don’t know how it’s spelled, but it’s pronounced “poa kacheezi comma ndeezi frigi buriti.” Fun, right? Anyway, the church service was really cool. They sang, and one guy laid down funky beats to the church singing. He also added random phone rings and all around sounds that don’t really mix with church. A bunch of women also went up and danced during the church service. Afterwards, our whole group went up and sang “Amazing Grace,” and the denizens of the village returned with a song in Swahili to the same tune.

When we returned to our house, it was already lunch time! We ate leftovers from the night before. After lunch, we had a Swahili lesson. Mkalla, our teacher, taught us so much, but I don’t want to say too much because I want to surprise everyone with my knowledge of Swahili when I get back. :) After the lesson, we all walked around the village and played soccer with the little children. We couldn’t take pictures yet--Peter and Erin wanted the villagers to become familiar with us before we took shots of them--but I still had a lot of fun making friends! Tracy had a huge entourage at the end of the day, and she had trouble getting all the children to let go of her hands when it was time to leave!

At last! Time for some CAMERA ACTION! Ms. Bottoms, Ms. Hartmon, Erin, and Peter rounded all of us in the background of our little compound, then let us loose around the house! Everyone got some really fantastic photos of the giant sunflower patch, and we all stole a few pictures of passing children outside the gate. :) Later, we all chose our top ten pictures to download onto Erin and Peter’s external hard drive along with all the pictures we took for the day. I’m so happy that all my pictures are safe, saved in my computer and the leaders’ hard drive!

Mashed potatoes, rice, and beef stew--yeah, dinner the second night was good! After dinner, we all gathered around the campfire outside and learned about our responsibilities at our house. I was assigned to be in a group with Kylee and Kevin, and we learned we were on the cleaning room for tomorrow and the cooking crew the next day. How fun!

Ah, but what sucked was when I got into my bed, my lower back started hurting really badly. I could barely move, but I tried to do some stretches for my back.

June 14

The whole sleep situation was better last night. I slept well except for a weird dream I had in which I was in my bed, but I had to take pictures of people walking past and say “Asante!” Because I was in my bed during my dream, I couldn’t really tell if I was awake or asleep. Oh, but my back didn’t hurt as much when I woke up. It just felt kind of sore.

Breakfast consisted of eggs and pancakes again, and I was so tired I can’t really remember what happened during breakfast except that I used one of my koolaid packets in my water. Delicious!

Morning cleaning crew was fun. When it comes to depositing waste, “when it’s yellow, let it mellow. When it’s brown, flush it down.” We also can’t put toilet paper in the toilet--we have to put them in trash bags in the stalls. So you can imagine how fun cleaning was. When we dumped our trash in the hole in the backyard, Kevin had a nice surprise in his...tampons!

Today was the day that we started working on the irrigation system! What we pretty much had to do was dig a long, long ditch. The walk up to the starting point was at least a mile, maybe two, and it was tiring in the African heat! I became master of the shovel--the pickaxe doesn’t really do it for me. Honestly, we Americans could not hold a candle to the work the natives did. They could dig! But even with us slowing them down, we accomplished a lot before lunch time. AND all the exercising healed my back!

I found my new favorite sandwich! For lunch, I ate an avocado and cheese sandwich, which was just so good.

After lunch, we had another Swahili lesson, during which we learned a song: Simama kaa! Simama kaa! Rooka Rooka Rooka! Simama Kaa! (Stand up, Sit down. Stand up, sit down. Jump Jump Jump! Stand up, sit down.

Working on the irrigation system after lunch was just tiring, but Erin and Peter brought us a great surprise when we finished--soda! I enjoyed a coke in one of those old fashioned bottles, and the pure cane sugar was perfect.

We took pictures out in the village while the lighting was still good (even though we were all disgustingly dirty from digging all day). But once again, all didn’t turn our well for Lindsey! About halfway through my picture taking, my camera wouldn’t take pictures anymore. I looked down and read “CF Error.” My 16 Gb Cf card wasn’t working! I quickly switched it with my 2 gig, but I could only get about 30 more pictures in the waning light. I showed my camera to Peter, and he established that the problem was that I didn’t format the CF card in my camera after I bought it. Before we could fix it, though, it was time for dinner.

Dinner consisted of pasta; bananas that tasted like potatoes, paired with gravy; and this fried wonton beef pastry that was amazing.

Peter then formatted my Cf card in his camera, and later had me format it in mine, and it started working again! Alas, I lost all my pictures I had taken earlier that day, but I’m happy that I can still use my massive memory card! Picking my top ten was difficult with so little choices, but I managed.

So what could be more complicated than fixing a camera error without the power of Google? Brushing my teeth. We can’t put the tap water into our mouth, so we have to use our water bottles for this activity. In my left hand: toothbrush case, toothbrush, retainer, retainer case. In the other hand: water bottle and toothpaste. I have to somehow juggle brushing my teeth; brushing my retainer; and rinsing my mouth, toothbrush, and retainer while having virtually no counter space. It’s a challenge every time.

June 15

I had the same dream as the night before! Once again, I had to take pictures of people from my bed. Then we all got up and walked around the town. I kept asking, “Should I be asleep?” and Ms. Bottoms kept replying, “Naw.” I didn’t sleep through the whole night--I woke up at 2:30, and then at 3:30--but I slept better than I had the other nights. The sleeping bag and mosquito net aren’t as big a deal now. I’m so happy I’m gettting used to them!

I was a part of the cooking crew today! Kylee and Kevin and I had to wake up at six to start cooking at six thirty. We didn’t want to make eggs and pancakes again, so I came up with the idea of cucumber and tomato omelets, and Kevin came up with the idea of banana pancakes. We worked hard, and even enlisted Cade to help, but we finished and it was delicious!

We worked on the irrigation system today, and the pipe crossed the street into the jungle! So, we ended up taking a short cut. I didn’t really work in the morning, but just ran around with my camera, trying to make up for the pictures I missed yesterday. I got some cool shots of the pants, then I worked a little bit before we left.

For lunch I had the delicious avocado and cheese sandwich again, then it was time for our last Swahili lesson! I was so exhausted from working today that I kept on dozing off during the lesson. (Whoops). Nevertheless, I still learned some more Swahili!

Before we left to go work on our ditch again, Peter and Erin gave us some good news: We only had to work for an hour more! The other National Geographic groups coming after us will finish the irrigation system. It will probably be done in August.

Most of the boys went with Peter and Erin in their Jeep to bring pipe up to put in the ditches.

On our way up the hill to our ditch, a drunk guy started talking to us. We didn’t have Peter to translate, so he kept following us all the way up to where we were working. Once there, he took a shovel himself and started digging. It was scary at first, but once I saw that he just wanted to help, I relaxed. Working was easier when I knew that I only had to work for an hour, so the time flew. Once we were done, we went up to where we started the trench to see our progress (we had dug a lot!). Then we had to walk allll the way home by ourselves (Peter and Erin were taking the Jeep back, and our teachers were going to Mama Rose’s--their new friend’s--house) with the drunk guy behind us. We power walked the entire time, and made it home safely. The drunk guy stopped along the way.

There wqs a fight for the showers, which I didn’t participate in. I just worked on my blog until these drumming women came.

They were outside in the front of our house, dancing in a circle and chanting. One lady had drums, one had a tambourine, and one was in a headdress, jumping around to jingle the bells on her legs. We all took so many pictures, and it was fun.

After the drumming women left, it was dinner time! The boys and girls from the school we’ll be staying at for the last few days arrived to eat with us. Lexi and Camryn did some cheers for them, which majorly broke the ice.

Dinner was fun, and we got the yummy tortilla things from the first night again. Yum! The guy I sat next to, Ernest, told us he was a singer, and we persuaded him to sing for us. When he performed, he rapped! He was a rapper! Sarah got everything on video. I showed Ernest the collage I made, and he loved it.

After they left, it was shower time!! The cold showers were hard to get used to, but Betty in the shower next to mine convinced me to “just give in.” So I did! It feels amazing being clean.

Campfire time was next. I brought my tripod out and got some fly pictures of the fire. Peter and Erin told us that today we’ll be going to Arusha tomorrow to update our blogs and visit a Leprosy hospital.

We then worked on choosing our top ten pictures and blogging for the rest of the night. I wasn’t able to finish my blog, so I’m working on it now, the morning of June 16. I just wanted to say that I had a weird dream last night that aliens invade the United States and I had to show them how computers worked at my beach house. But the good news is that I slept through the whole night! And now I’m done with my blog! I love you guys for reading! :) Mom, Dad, Michael, John, and Sam, hello! I’m having a wonderful time!

P.S. Jambo Rafikis means hello, friends :)