Graduation

The atmosphere at Sega on Graduation morning was full of excitement. Everywhere we looked there were pre-formals, soon to be form-ones, running around in their scrubbed clean uniforms and polished shoes, with huge smiles on their faces. The new canteen was decorated beautifully, in maroon and white, the colors of the pre-formal’s uniforms. We gathered with the pre-formals in their classroom, and presented them with the graduation gift we had been working on with Fran. We had made three big posters that said “Congratulations, Graduation 2010” and decorated them with pictures of the girls and drawings. The girls are very enthusiastic about photos, so they had a blast searching the posters to find their faces and the faces of their friends. As the guests began to arrive the excitement mounted. The guest of honor, a generous patron of the school, arrived dressed in a beautiful orange and gold kitenge dress fit for a queen. The graduation ceremony was lovely, and Polly introduced special guests from Teach a Man to Fish, a company who support self-sustaining schools like SEGA. This was followed by speeches from Salome, the headmistress, the guest of honor, some of the graduating students, a parent representative, and the chair of Nurturing Minds, Clark. The Form-one girls performed beautiful dances to traditional African drumming and to popular bongo flava songs. Of course, the butt-shaking was included! We were thrilled to see that in one of their dances they incorporated both the Macarena, which we had taught them, and a special dance move that came from the movie Seventeen Again, which we had shown them! In the pre-formal’s performance, one of the girls, Rose, led the chorus with her high, beautiful voice, and the rest of the students echoed her. We had no idea she had such an incredible voice – just one of the hidden talents so many of the girls have! The parents were all very enthusiastic, and during the performances they ululated loudly, and some even went up on stage and started dancing in between the rows of performing girls! When it was time for the non-formals to get their graduation certificates, they were called up one by one to the head table. It is a tradition that after the girls get their certificates their families come up and place a taji (sort of like a colorful Hawaiian lei) around their necks, and often give them gifts of soda and sweets. After the ceremony there was a delicious catered lunch, with bottles of Sprite and Coke for everyone! The girls especially seemed to enjoy the chicken dish, and they all begged to have pictures taken of them tucking in! Everyone was in a giddy mood, and we had a great time shaking our butts to Bongo flava with Fran and the girls; even the Maasai guard, Babu Jona joined in on the dancing and was congratulating the girls as he did so! Eventually the time came when we had to say goodbye to the girls. It was very sad because we have become really close to them, but we gave them all our phone number so that we can meet up during the vacation!

The Snows of Kilimanjaro

Proof that we reached the highest point in Africa!

It looks like the moon!

The sunrise over Stella point

Well, we made it to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro! And it wasn’t as easy as it sounds! We started at the Machame gate, the beginning of the Machame route. From the gate until the sixth and final day, it poured with rain, hail, and snow, leaving us frozen for the majority of the trip. The first day was spent weaving our way through forest (in torrential rain) up to a level of about 3000m above sea level. There were sections that were relatively flat, and there were also stair sections that left us feeling sorry for our eight (yes, eight) porters, who had to carry everything up on their backs and heads. Our first night was spent in Machame Camp. We had some good views of the surrounding forest, and our camp was right on the border of the moorland region. Our guide, Eligius, was really fun and we had a good time talking with him in the evening over a huge amount of delicious food that was cooked for us. The portions they gave could have fed a family of five, but they were still shocked when we couldn’t finish them! The next morning, still soaked, we headed up to Shira Camp, at 3,900m above sea level. The trekking was very enjoyable despite the rain, and we took refuge in several caves we found along the way. The biggest cave, Shira’s Cave, was located just further up the mountain than our camp, so we did a little trip out there to take a look at it. Due to our frozen state, we piled on all the clothing we had (it was still only raining at this point, however) for our walk. Eligius nicknamed us Mama and Bibi (grandmother) because we looked like such idiots in headscarves, huge woolen jumpers and waterproof trousers. Fair enough.  Day three consisted of a not-too-difficult climb to Barranco Hut, made more difficult by an acclimatization detour around the 4,600m above sea level detour to Lava Tower. Most of the day had been spent walking through what looked like an endless moon landscape – piles of scree and rocks shrouded in a heavy mist was pretty much our only scenery for several hours. It didn’t take much imagining to pretend we were on the moon, and we had a good time reenacting Neil Armstrong’s famous speech, much to the confusion of Eligius. Lava Tower was, in fact, just another big rock that was covered in mist. It was snowing and hailing so hard that we had to huddle under a different rock to eat our packed lunch. On the way back to Barranco Hut, we took a path that had been replaced by a freezing cold stream even though it looked as if we could have walked on perfectly dry land on either side of the path. We thought that maybe the guide had decided to test the waterproof-ness of our boots. Well, they ended up soaked, along with the guide’s, and stayed that way for the remainder of the trip. It was that night that our guide decided he wanted to try and sell us for some Konyagi (a hard alcohol they drink here).  After we had been offered around to various other guides and companies, and we were unwanted with our wet shoes and grandmother-esque clothes, Eligius resorted to just paying for the Konyagi himself. It seemed rather an extensive joke, but most Kiswahili humour is lost on us! The morning of day four was spent scaling the Barranco Wall which involved rock climbing and some pretty dangerous games of Twister on daunting rock faces. It also involved many flailing walking poles, especially from the French group behind us who hadn’t quite mastered the whole hold-them-both-in-the-same-hand thing. It took us a couple hours to reach the top of the wall and by that time we both had very sore legs. Eligius had vaguely told us that from now it was another six hours of up-down-up-down-up-very up, as if we were somehow going to remember the amount of up and downs. It basically meant another four hours of walking in moon landscape up a gradual scree slope that killed your calves. It was also getting slightly harder to breathe as Barafu (snow) Hut, our next stop, was at 4,600m asl. Once we passed Karangu Camp, one that we were not staying at, it was supposed to be another three hour walk from there. We walked for two hours up the same landscape. To distract ourselves, Elena created a bucket list in her mind, and Camilla was trying to find countries, vegetables and colors that started with every letter of the alphabet. It was a challenge to keep coming up with things to think about, and so at one point we pulled out the ipod and sung along to Christmas songs. After two hours of walking, Eligius thought that it would be funny to tell us we still had another four hours to go. As we said – the humour is lost on us! We arrived at Barafu Hut, and true to its name, it was snowing. A lot. We sat in our tent for a little in the puddles that had gathered, freezing to death, then decided to move into the lunch tent. We were lucky that we had a table and fold up chairs, and we drunk chai and ate popcorn. We went through 50 tea bags in six days that’s how full of caffeine we were. We took an early night to bed as we had to wake up at midnight. After only a couple of hours of frozen sleep, we woke up, drank more tea and had some porridge then put on literally every piece of clothing we had. We were both wearing at least twelve warm jumpers and five pairs of pants. We wore our headlamps, and in the middle of the night while it was snowing, we started our ascent to the summit. It sucked.  Every couple of steps we had to stop and try to regain our breath, and we hadn’t been drinking enough water. Elena felt dizzy and was having trouble not fainting due to dehydration. Camilla had altitude sickness and was feeling like a truck ran over her, and was also having trouble not falling asleep. On top of that, Eligius had it in his mind that we had to overtake the other streams of headlights who were going too ‘pole pole’ – slow.  We actually enjoyed their pace, but had to keep up with Eligius. As we were nearing Stella Point, six hours later, the sun broke through the clouds and the snow turned bright yellow. It was gorgeous and lifted our spirits just enough to get us to Uhuru Point. Uhuru (freedom) point is the highest point in Africa at 5,895m asl, the highest peak you can reach without oxygen equipment, the world’s highest free standing mountain’s highest peak, and basically just awesome. We spent a while there with the sign, taking pictures and trying very hard to breathe and not freeze at 7:30am. We then started our long descent down, still feeling very sick, and not wanting to spend another eight hours walking. We did, however, and arrived in Mweka Hut (3,100m) with bruised feet and droopy eyes.  The next day was our official get-us-the-f-off-this-mountain walk to the bottom of Mweka Gate. We’d had enough. We were cold, still wet and our legs were so sore we couldn’t walk up the steps to the registration hut. After three hours of hiking, we made it to the bottom and had a Kilimanjaro beer with our guide and porters. We’d done it! We received some pretty spiffy certificates and got a ride back into Arusha, where we showered, ate pizza, then got onto a bus headed back to Morogoro.

Zanzibar, Unguja Island (much delayed)

We were sitting on the open air dalla dalla half on someone’s lap and half squashed up against the back of the benches. Something flew down from the roof and splattered on Camilla’s arm – blood. From that point on and for the rest of the hour and a half long ride we were both continuously splattered with blood that was dripping from a someone’s dead animal tied onto the roof. With no room to budge an inch, we had to sit and watch the blood stain the clothes that we had painstakingly handwashed. It was awful. Later that day we were lying on a hammock on a white sand beach in Kendwa watching the turquoise ocean lap at the feet of women clad in traditional kangas as they walked along the beach, buckets on their heads. Our trip to Zanzibar only enforced what we had learned earlier – if you keep a good attitude and laugh the bad moments off, a day can turn around drastically!

            We didn’t start our trip in Kendwa though – we had to pass through Dar Es Salaam first. We decided to visit Slipway – a western market outside of town and the only place in Tanzania you can get real ice cream! We did some tourist shopping then headed back down into town for some Indian dinner food and then to buy our tickets for the 4pm ferry to Stonetown. It just so happened that we arrived during the Islamic holiday Eid al Baraka, and seeing as Stonetown is predominantly Islamic, everyone was dressed in their best outfits, sparkles everywhere, and out on the town. We met Wendy, a VSO volunteer who was kind enough to offer us a bed in her house, and wandered down to Forodhani Gardens, where they have a nightly market of freshly caught fish and other delicious food. We had a Zanzibari pizza, a glass of sugar cane juice and some beautifully grilled mahimahi fish. We ended up eating at that place three times during the week! Stonetown is gorgeous – a maze of ancient buildings and narrow streets that seem to exude island culture. Taarab music blared out of every shop and every few hours the mosques would siren, calling the citizens to prayer.

            We spent a couple of days in Stonetown – we joined onto a spice tour and went into the plantations in the centre of the island to taste cinnamon, vanilla, cloves, ginger, tumeric, and many others! One of the guides climbed a palm tree and brought us fresh coconut, which was delicious! We also went with Wendy to the place of the old slave market and saw the chambers in which they kept the slaves, and the site of the old whipping post and auction. It was really interesting to see – in case you didn’t know, about 600,000 slaves were passed through Zanzibar and were kept in horrific conditions that led David Livingstone to speak out against the trade. We also enjoyed walking around the town and exploring the little corners of the market and the Old Fort, and paid a visit to the House of Wonders – the first place in East Africa to get electricity, running water, and an elevator.

Locals on Kendwa beach!

We left Stonetown on November the 23^rd. It was Elena’s eighteenth birthday, and we celebrated with a huge slice of chocolate cake, a candlelit beach dinner of pizza and coconut calamari and a well-deserved pina colada! We were staying in a thatched banda at the edge of the ocean and had a huge stretch of beach where we could take walks and beachcomb. Our banda was in the town of Kendwa, a little place right at the tip of Zanzibar, and it was beautiful. We really enjoyed relaxing on the beach, reading our books, and taking a dip in the picture-perfect waters when we got too hot (all the time!) We met Big Mama, a lovely lady who gave us beach massages and taught us how to put henna on our arms in the traditional Islamic way. We loved it, and she had so much fun decorating our arms! We did a day excursion to Mnemba Island, a coral reef marine conservation park and went snorkeling for the day. We went on a traditional dhow, which they even let us drive on the way back as we had made friends with the captain! The snorkeling was great – we saw hundreds of fish and coral of all shapes, sizes and colors, and even saw a puffer fish! The reef looked exactly like the one from Finding Nemo and we saw the whole cast of characters! Included was a BBQ lunch on the beach, which was tuna steak and a whole array of fresh fruits. Later, in Kendwa, we befriended two German volunteers who had been working on the Kenyan border in Moshi, and went with them to a nearby town called Nungwi for the day. We went to a local turtle conservation aquarium where they had huge turtles and snakes. Both of us held a massive African python – it was so strong and kept curling itself around us - quite scary! We had sundowners with Anne and Sabine and had a yummy veggie burger at one of the restaurants. We met them again on our trip back home, and had drinks with them at Archipelagos, a café in Stonetown, and hopefully they will join us in Morogoro soon! Our travels back were long and stressful – we took the overnight ferry and had hardly any sleep, then had to navigate several dalla dallas in Dar (not an easy feat) to get to the Indian Embassy only to find out that it was closed. We must have looked suitably upset as the security guard came out and talked to us before going back inside and reemerging with the mobile phone number of the High Consul of India in Tanzania. Score! Satisfied with that information, we found the next bus going to Morogoro and managed to board in the sweltering heat and head home. Now home, we decided to decorate our house for Christmas as it will take a lot longer to get into the Christmas spirit in Africa’s hot season! Our living room is now completely covered in paper snowflakes, paper chains, a balloon snowman (yes, we were creative), and a huge Merry Christmas banner. Yay!

Us two snorkelling off Mnemba Island

Pole Sana! Arusha TZ

Hey guys!
Sorry that it has been so long since our last update - we have had some internet difficulties at home! We have a beautifully long blog about Zanzibar we will post next week along with some pictures! Yay! We managed to survive a ten hour long hair-raising bus ride to Arusha (a city in the north of Tanzania) and are preparing to climb Mt.Kilimanjaro tomorrow! This past week has been hectic but very fun as we were wrapped up in preparations for graduation which happened on Friday. On Tuesday we went on a field trip with the girls to a town on the coast called Bagamoyo. It was an old slave town and the girls had been dying to see it, so we went as an end of the year treat. We took a big bus and a dalla dalla there and we both sat on the big bus. Somehow the girls managed to sing the entire three hour ride there due to excitement, and all of the songs were about Mungu - God. Typical of TZ, the dalla dalla got lost and ended up in Dar in terrible traffic and arrived an hour and a half late. We then proceeded to get everybody some chai-tea and maandazi -doughnut before starting our day at noon. We took a tour in Kiswahili around the various ruins - and actually managed to understand a fair amount. The highlight of the day was the beach. Many of the girls had never seen a beach or the ocean before, and a stampede of sixty girls ran, fully dressed, straight into the ocean. This included Babu Jona, who had a great time splashing around! The bus home was full of soggy, salty girls who insisted on drinking water bottles full of salt water that they had collected at the seaside. Days later, Mama Pili showed us a bottle of sand that one of the girls had brought back for her. She was so excited! Friday was graduation and was a beautiful ceremony to celebrate the school's past year. The girls performed many traditional dances and speeches were made by the headmistress,a guest of honour, the chair of Nurturing Minds, and a parent. We all cried at the awardingof the certificates to the pre-formals who were graduating to Form 1. Half of the crying was because we were so happy for them but we were also affected by the fact that many of the girls had no family to witness their graduation and give them the tajie (a flower lei) that is traditionally given to the graduates. We remember our graduation and how lucky we were to have families present to support us. As usual, the ceremony terminated in wild dancing and everyone was in such a good mood! Now we're off to a Maasai Market, and then to conquer Kili!

Busy Weekend!

We’ve had plenty to do this past weekend, and it’s all catching up to us – we’re exhausted! It all started with a ‘Pizza Night’ in a restaurant called Dragonaires just outside of mjini town on Friday night. Our pizzas took forever to come and we were in a rush to get to town in a teksi, and had to ask the kitchen to hurry up! We went to town and met friends who accompanied us to the mziki disco as we were told it was an experience not to miss. It sounds pretty dodgy but was perfectly fine, and we went to one often frequented by our Auzzie friends at the International School. It was funny as most of the time people were just sitting staring at the moving lights, exclaiming WOW! We did a bit of dancing to the songs we know (we’re getting familiar with quite a few Bongo Flava songs) and had a good time. A taxi driver we knew came to take us home and we didn’t sleep until 2am, which is way past our bedtime, seeing as most people sleep when it gets dark here! It was quite a night for us! Saturday night we went to the school to have a sleepover with the Form One girls. We can’t describe how excited they were! We ate rice and beans for dinner, and then popped an entire bucket of popcorn (two kilos) and poured salt all over it! Just as we were about to set up the movies, a huge truck arrived at the school. Typical of Tanzania, it arrived at 9pm, when it was pitch black. It turned out to be the new furniture for next year’s non-formal class in the new building. There were thirty mattresses, hundreds of plastic chairs and some extremely excited girls who were squealing and so anxious to see all their new furniture! Mattresses were being thrown on people’s heads and carried into a classroom and we all climbed into the back of the truck and started dancing. We’ve never seen such excitement!! It was perfect for our plans though, as we took a couple of the mattresses, spread them out on the floor of the classroom, covered them with kangas and kitenges, and all lay down on them! Yustina, one of the girls, described our haphazard laying down as the same as the saba saba (a second hand clothing market) because the vendors ‘don’t arrange them’! The level of excitement was so high that it was impossible to sit still or calmly on the mattresses, everyone was jumping around, lying on top of each other, and bouncing up and down. We had brought two bags of sweets with us and threw them out at the girls, like at a concert, and they scrambled and jumped for the candy, laughing! Once we had all settled down somewhat, we set up the movie ’17 Again’ with Zac Efron to show the girls what it looks like in America. The girls had enough English to understand the basic plot line but what they enjoyed the most was the scenery and little actions the characters did. What made us laugh was Babu Jona’s interest in the movie – we couldn’t comprehend how Zac Efron kept a Maasai guard enthralled for two whole hours, as he doesn’t speak English! By the time we’d finished the movie, it was late and some of the bouncing had turned into sleeping, but they didn’t want to stop! We ended up watching Pirates of the Caribbean until saa saba (one am) then retired to the dorm. The girls all pair up in bed because they enjoy the company, so there were plenty of empty beds, and Elena slept in Martha’s. Camilla shared a bed with Lucy, a girl sponsored by the Hunnewell Book group, who had made her promise to share the bed because she was so excited to learn that she lived on Hunnewell Ave.! The next morning was Fran’s birthday, and we had some delicious birthday chapati to celebrate! In the afternoon we met with Rehema and Jesca for them to take us to the saba saba to look for clothes! It was utter chaos, with thousands of people grabbing at you, cheap clothes strewn everywhere, and shouts of MIA TANO, ELFU MOJA (FIVE HUNDRED, ONE THOUSAND)! We managed to find a few bargains and bought the girls a couple of tops each, which they were so thankful for! In the evening we took Fran out to Hotel Oasis to have some Indian food (YAY CHICKEN TIKKA MASALA) which we had been craving forever!

            Today we had a really interesting day at school – one of the VSO volunteers, Renee, works in Dodoma at a school for the deaf, and came to stay with us for the night tonight. We asked her to come to the school with us and do a presentation about deaf culture in Tanzania for the non-formal girls. The girls absorbed it so quickly, and were fascinated by the Kiswahili sign language and culture! They were all so attentive and involved, asking hundreds of questions. At one point, Sharifa came up to us and signed in Kiswahili sign language “Can I go to the bathroom?” It was incredible! Also it was so cool for us to learn Kiswahili sign – it’s awesome and beautiful to watch. We had many additions and subtractions to our household this week! We gained a few mirrors, which was shocking, as we hadn’t seen our reflections in over a month. We lost a few mice, due to rat poison, which we feel very bad about, but they were eating our favorite clothes! We also have a new member of our household, an adorable three week old puppy, which we named Kahawa (coffee in Kiswahili, due to his color.) He technically belongs to the landlord, but we take care of him, and he spends all his time in our house! This Friday we are off to Zanzibar and are really looking forward to it!

Maasai Boma

We just returned from an incredible weekend that for us has fit the definition of what most people assume is Africa. We left early Friday morning to drive North past Dodoma to a small Maasai boma in the Maasai Steppe.We drove for about two hours on a cement road then for another five hours along a dust path that led us directly into the African bush. We passed a few small villages and ended up off the path in a small clearing. We were visiting Noah, the brother of the SEGA Maasai guard Sytote, and his village consisted of five round stick huts with mud roofs and fifteen Maasai, clad in the traditional dress of ananka which are the sheets they wear. All of the women wear mostly blue and a ton of white beaded jewelry and they stretch their earlobes out and adorn them with huge earrings which tinkle as they walk. They strap adorable babies to their backs and there were maybe ten children in the village. They also burn circles onto their faces as a tradition, and have so many other interesting traditions it’s difficult to describe them all! For instance, if one man is away from the village and another man comes to visit the village, he can sleep with the first man’s wife! Another tradition we were worried about was the donation of an animal to the visitors, which they then have to kill and eat. We were given a chicken, but luckily managed to escape the killing and got Moudy, the driver, to do it! Phew! There were tons of baby animals around – goats, chickens, donkeys and puppies – it was really cute! The language of the Maasai is Kimaasai, which we obviously don’t speak (well, now we know a little!). They speak a little Kiswahili, and so do we, so that was the mode of communication between us. After a dinner of beans and rice the first night we had a moment where everything just seemed completely unreal. Elena and I were sitting on a log by a small fire with three of the Maasai men in the pitch black under a blanket of stars (you can only imagine how many there were!) We were having a conversation with them in Kiswahili about how many lions each of them had killed. It felt totally normal at the time, but looking back on it, we were so lucky to have an opportunity like that! The answers by the way were simba saba (seven lions), mbili (two), and sana (loads!) We were lucky that night to have Noah guarding over our tents as we slept to scare off any animals! No lions came, but some hyenas visited us last night! We woke up a couple of hours after retiring to bed to singing in the background, which seemed far away. We sat listening for a while then thought “What are we DOING?” – we had to be there, not missing out! We went and asked Noah what was going on and he explained that it was a church service, unaitaka kuenda? You’d like to go? So, we went, and came across a fire behind one of the huts with the whole village sitting around, and the children singing a Kimaasai hymn and dancing around the fire. It was incredible to see, and we really enjoyed it! After half an hour we heard singing coming closer and it was another boma, coming to join! When we tried to leave because we were exhausted, they stopped us, and one of the men came out in a burlap sack with twigs and animal hides and was pretending to be a ghost, scaring all the little kids! That was the highlight of our trip. If you ever get a chance to go to a Maasai boma, take it!!!

Mama Leia and Baraka

Hanging out under the tree - the only shade around!

The Boma!

The Maasai children around the fire at night

Uh Oh!

So we have been a little lackadaisical in our water treatment recently, and both managed to catch some weird disease that makes us look like this!!

Haha! Just kidding! We were bored one night and so decided to take some weird pictures - there's not a whole lot to do at night in Morogoro! We have a new housemate though! She's a VSO volunteer called Fran, and she's awesome! (Check her blog out - http://franbruty.blogspot.com .We're having a great time with her, and she even brought movies that she's letting us watch! We had a real treat a couple of nights ago - popcorn, Sprite and a movie! Yay! We've been doing more and more work at the school and are having so much fun. Below is a picture of our recorder lesson! They are sitting in the new canteen that is still being built ( I think we annoy the builders somewhat) and in the background is the kitchen and composting buckets! Notice in the picture how they're all holding the recorders the right way around! Such progress! Today we mastered Hot Cross Buns, and were singing very, very enthusiastically. We also tried a round of Row, Row, Row Your Boat, which still needs some practice ;) One of the girls, Sharifa has a particular talent of blowing the recorder through her nose. We hope it's just a joke, as we haven't seen her play it any other way! We're also very excited as we're having dresses made for us as we speak! We bought some kitenge material and took it to the tailor and asked (mostly in Kiswahili) for what we wanted! We'll see how it turns out! Tomorrow morning, bright and early, we're leaving for the Maasai village ( a ten hour drive) with Polly, Martha, and Malaki, a tiny little Maasai who's coming with us. There's only four huts in the middle of nowhere apparently (we're imagining the village from the Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton)! We'll let you know how it goes!

  

Saraphina, Salome, Adolphina and Mwanaisha playing the recorders!

We love Tanzania!

This weekend we have so many plans – a sign that we’re really settling in! Today we went to the sokoni and bought some animal print material for our Halloween costumes. We plan on sewing some skirts and headbands and showing them off at the Halloween Party on Saturday. We have also bought three boxes of jelly to take to the girls on the 31^st to celebrate Halloween, which none of them have ever heard of.  The thirty-first is also election day here although it is pretty much guaranteed that the CCM Party will win due to corruption. People around here are going election-crazy though, and are wearing bright yellow and green kangas, headscarves and banners to represent CCM. The president at the moment is Kikwete, and everyday there are articles in the newspapers about his questionable campaigning (they found a huge box full of CCM ballots already filled out in Arusha!) On a side note, talking about newspapers, we also read that Fiji had lost its declaration of independence and had to ask England for a photocopy (we laughed for about half an hour with Peter, the school driver). Imagine!

            We’ve been cooking up a storm here as we’re tiring slightly of the daily ugali, beans, and rice. We made jam sandwiches and dipped them in batter to make doughnuts, we’ve attempted chapati, and we made a tuna and mosquito quiche (a delicacy in Tanzania…just kidding!)  As we were sprinkling cheese on it we accidentally hit one of the many mosquitoes buzzing around, and it fell and sunk beneath the egg, but we ate it anyway. We were introduced to Mrs Fusi, our landlords wife and made the mistake of telling her that we liked to eat samahaki (fish) because we do – when its already prepared. We knew it was a big mistake as soon as we said it, and sure enough, the next day she brought us an entire frozen fish which we now have to thaw, gut, and de-eye. Ew.

            We had a really good day yesterday with the girls and were helping them to write letters. Their English is coming along, but we always get some good laughs helping them to correct their writing. Our funniest yesterday was “I know school is liberation in my wife”. We had to explain the difference between ‘wife’ and ‘life’.  We also got really cute messages like “I promise to always work hard in my studies.” There’s no doubt that these girls are dedicated to their futures and it is so rewarding to teach students who work so hard, and love to learn. ALSO big news: we both got a 96% on our Kiswahili exams! Yay! The girls were very proud of our studying!

            Times have also been scary. For Camilla – the weekly spider eradication of our house, for Elena, the neighbours dog which sometimes gets locked in our garden and was rumoured to have attacked Mustafa. For both of us – the appearance of a meter and a half long (possible Cobra) snake at the school. Sytote, the Maasai guard, killed it with his special Maasai stick (which Elena loves) and brought it up to us to show. First, the girls poured kerosene on it which made it wriggle and seem alive (we don’t know how that works) and we could also see the mice it had eaten as lumps in it’s body! We then picked it up and held it by it’s tail before Babu Yona started chasing the shrieking girls around with it, turning it into a game. 

Recent pictures

Pendo shaking her butt!

Us and Moodini at the top of the waterfall

Do the Dew (African style)

On our way to Morningside Camp

Nyumba yangu, Tanzania

It’s been a busy, busy couple of weeks for us, and we’re exhausted! We’ve done two long hikes since we last posted, both in the Uluguru Mountains which loom over Morogoro. The first one was a trip up to the village of Choma where Mustafa lives with a lot of his family. We enjoyed a refreshing swim in the local waterfalls and decided to climb up the rock face behind the waterfalls for a photoshoot with Mustafa and Moodini, who are obsessed with digital cameras!  We then carried on up-mountain to Mustafa’s strawberry farm – a tucked away paradise near the peak of the mountain – and were allowed to taste mulberries, strawberries and raspberries! We had such a good time with Mustafa and Moodini despite the large language barrier (filled with interesting noises like Wooooow, and Shure!), and a week later decided to do another hike! This time, our ambitions were higher, and we planned to take a hema (tent), way up onto a misty peak and camp at an old German hut called Morningside, or Moningi seiti as Mustafa pronounces it! We packed our bags to the brim with warm clothes and some cabbage and homemade berry pie (made with Mustafa’s berries which we were very proud of) and set off on the dalla dalla bus. Due to our lack of Kiswahili (improving as we speak!) and their general lack of English, we found it difficult to decipher through our communication of weird noises what exactly we were getting ourselves into. We were slightly shocked when Mustafa met us in town with nothing. No food, no bag, and no tent. We found however, that the tents and floor mats were waiting for us further up the mountain with Moodini, and Mustafa only brought a toothbrush. We bought some ugali  on the way up, and hiked for five hours until we finally spotted Morningside, and Moodini took the mattresses off his head and wanted a picture with it. We set up our tents in front of an old historical German hut inhabited by a Tanzanian named Saloom. As soon as we had finished piecing together the falling apart old Scout Jamboree tents, it started to rain. The first rain in Morogoro in several months, what good planning! And it wasn’t just spitting, it was pouring. Luckily, we were offered a cement room in the ruins which we could spend the night. We woke up at 5am the next day and hiked back down to Kihonda in time to teach our midday classes.

            In other news, teaching is going really well, and we are about to give the non-formal girls each a coloured plastic recorder, which they scream about everytime we mention it. They are really interested in music, and we have written out countless American pop music lyrics for them, ranging from Westlife to Justin Bieber to Shakira. We taught the girls how to make brownies, which they really enjoyed, and in return we got a Kiswahili exam!! We’re still waiting on the results for that, we’ll let you know! We also met other volunteers at the International School of Morogoro Quiz Night (which we failed), who have invited us with Polly and Martha to a Halloween Party next Saturday night. We’re starting to really settle in here now, and love Tanzanian life. Sorry parents, we aren’t coming home!!

Our house, Tanzania!

After our stressful day, things seemed to perk up a bit, and we had a good time teaching on Thursday. We made name tags with the non formals and they really enjoyed drawing on them and putting stickers all over the paper. One of them even wrote "Love Camilla and Elena", which was really cute, and surprising as most think that our names are Helen and Camera. We've had some pretty funny teaching moments - during one nutrition lesson, when trying to explain the meaning of healthy, the girls got confused and we ended up with sentences like "Malaria is healthy" and when we tried to correct it, we got "Carrots is ^not healthy!"
 On Friday, the girls put together a fashion show for us which lasted a long time and had many different styles of clothing including office wear, khangas and kitangas (traditional African clothing) along with punjabs, special occasion clothing, and casual wear. One of the most interesting categories was the religious clothing - there were Christian dresses, and Muslim dresses along with burqas and headscarves.
We spent the weekend at the school, hanging out with the girls and spending a lot of time cooking. We managed to make a delicious banana bread loaf even though we had no measuring utensils, an oven without temperature markings, and only a bowl instead of a pan. It was so delicious, and to top it off we frosted it with some of the Nutella we brought with us! We never would have expected to be eating Banana bread on a Saturday morning in Tanzania! When we went to the school on Saturday, we brought an Ipod with us, and danced to Western songs with the girls, which they loved! They tried to emulate our style of dancing, while we desperately attempted their butt-shaking - something we now know we will never be able to do! We also had a lesson of how to carry buckets of water on our heads, which we couldn't do on Saturday, but after some practice, and a day's rest, we managed to carry a 10L bucket of water balanced on our head, with no hands! Granted, it was a little wobbly, but we were so proud of ourselves! The girls found it funny though, as they can carry a 20L bucket and then another 10L bucket stacked on top of it, while dancing around underneath it all!

Balancing the buckets, its harder than it looks!

Sunday was 10/10/10, and there is an organisation called 350 that promotes environmental awareness by organising activities on that day. The SEGA school decided to promote awareness of bush fires, as there had been one last week that burned their compost, so we gathered facts on the topic to make the posters later in the week. We also dug eighty five holes with the girls' hoes, which we were to plant sixty passionfruit trees in. The girls found it very easy, and took a short time to do it, but we were less than experienced and weren't much of a help. We're looking forward to watching the seedlings grow, and were invited by the gardener, Mustafa, to visit his strawberry farm in the mountains, which we plan to do next weekend!

Digging holes for the passionfruit trees

Mama Ntilie - one of our favourite songs!

Pictures!

Some of the girls looking at our photos!

The view from our new house!

Josephine teaching us Kiswahili

Kihonda, Morogoro, Tanzania!

Well, we're all moved in! We just got home after a quite stressful day ending in a good dancing session with all the girls! They are preparing a fashion show for us on Friday, and somehow the rehearsals always end with the inevitable butt-shaking! This morning we went to the International School with the non-formal girls to teach them to swim. It was complete and utter chaos, but fun nonetheless. Just as Polly was about to explain the basic rules of swimming - not diving in the shallow end, and no running - the girls eagerly dived in (the shallow end) and proceeded to jump around and almost-drown. When we managed to regain control, we tried to teach doggy paddle, resulting in thirty girls basically running on the bottom of the pool and yelling "Look Madam!"
After swimming, we went with Loveness, Polly's housekeeper, into Morogoro town to learn how to use the dalla dalla bus and then to go to the huge fruit and vegetable market in the centre of town. Haphazardly strewn burlap sacks and tin roofing make up the roof of the busy market, and are sometimes so low, you have to duck to pass through. Around the narrow pathways are huge sacks of beans, rice and flour to make the Tanzanian specialty ugali. The prices astounded us - for a kilo of sugar and a kilo of flour it was only two thousand Tsh - about one dollar. As we made our way through the piles of tomatoes, bananas, and pineapples, children followed us around, harassing us to buy a plastic bag from them. Once we had finished shopping, we were picked up by Peter, the school driver, and squished into the small car with the matron of the school, a Maasai warrior, Peter, and Loveness. What a strange situation to be in! We were expected to be at the school at half past one for our computer lesson with the girls, but either it was lost in translation (Swahili time is different) or they just didn't care (time is not of essence in Tanzanian culture!) Therefore, we got to the school ten minutes before the end of our lesson, and were just told nonchalantly to take over the next lesson.
We are now exhausted, but at least we get to come back to our beautiful home. We now have to boil water for drinking and teeth cleaning, and make our dinner of rice and raw vegetables as we forgot to buy oil and other essentials when at the market. Plus, we don't yet know 'oil' in Kiswahili! Kwaheri (goodbye)!

Africa

                                                        Our Swahili lesson the girls gave us

Morogoro, Tanzania

We've arrived! These past two days have been a blur of Swahili, dust roads and meeting new people. We woke up on the airplane Friday morning to stunning views of the sunrise over Nairobi, Kenya and Mt. Kilimanjaro. When we arrived in Dar es Salaam, the immigration process went smoothly and we found ourselves whisked away from the airport by Polly's driver, Abbas. Looking out the window, we saw the morning chaos of the city: bikes carrying huge stacks of egg cartons and bundles of grass, cars swerving into the oncoming lane, men waiting on the side of the street for the Dala Dala bus, and women wearing colorful kangas carrying huge buckets of water on their heads. We drifted in and out sleep as we passed through many small villages with tiny mud buildings and makeshift markets. In Mikumi national park, we awoke to the sight of a couple of baboons or Nyani lounging by the side of the highway. Morogoro is larger than we expected and has one main cement road going through the center, connecting a maze of smaller red dust roads. It is the dry season, so the dust manages to spread everywhere and everything- houses, plants, people- is covered in a layer of rust colored dust. When we went to the Sega Girl's School, we were greeted with a heartwarming welcome dance and were immediately surrounded by eager girls wanting to talk to us. We got a tour of the school, then spent a while getting to know some of the formal girls, who live at the school and speak English well. The non-formal girls are day students, wear red skirts and don't speak as much English. We sat in on a religion class, which is split into two- Muslim and Christian- as the school is 50 percent each. It was very different from any class we've ever been to because both the teachers and students were very passionate and kept chanting Amen! Later, we met with the staff of the school, who gave us our schedule, it looks they're planning on keeping us very busy! Our classes involve life skills, swimming, English, nutrition, music, drama and debate. Lol. It will definitely be a challenge, because we are not experienced teachers and we will be working mostly with the non-english speaking students, but we are ready to face it! Today we went back to the school and showed the girls many photos of our families and friends. They loved it, and many of them wanted to keep the photos, even though they don't know anybody in them! We're not sure what they are planning to do with them, but the girls seemed ecstatic to have them. They also gave us lessons in Swahili, which they plan to do every week and today's focus was body parts. We also learned a Swahili song, with a beautiful melody and these lyrics: "Wito wetu niukombozi, Elimutuipatayo itukomboe." This translated means "our motto is liberation, the education we get should liberate us."

Gavin's House, England



Us on Paradise Beach



We have mixed feelings about being back in England. Don't get us wrong, we love it, but leaving Greece was devastating! After our post in the residential island of Naxos, we went on to Mykonos. For the first night we stayed in Paradise Camping which was located on a beautiful beach and lined with beach bars. Although we enjoyed the atmosphere, it wasn't high tourist season, so there weren't many people around and it was quite far from Mykonos town. Luckily we befriended some locals (Sidrit and Jianis) who were kind enough to drive us into town and show us all the hot spots of Mykonos. They also enjoyed teaching us Greek swears - ones which we were then forbidden to use in public! The second night we decided to relocate ourselves to the middle of town and spent a while trapsing around with our huge packs trying to find a cheap place to stay. We were laughed at multiple times when we said we only had 12 euros to spend each while the going rate for rooms was about 90 euros. Oh, the joys of being on a gap year! Zooming all around us were crazy Greek moped-ists, and to add to our struggles, one of them happened to run over Camilla's foot. We managed to limp up a hill and put on good puppy-dog eyes to talk Kostas, the owner of a hotel, down from 95 euros a night to 25. Camilla's bloody foot probably helped. Our room was really nice; the only peculiar feature was the shower. If you could call it that. There was simply shower head stuck to the wall, with no floor or wall to contain the water which managed to spread throughout the entire bathroom.

We spent the rest of the time in Mykonos going to idyllic beaches, having cappucinos with locals, eating delicious pastries and going out to the Scandanavian Bar at night with our new friends. Our friends recommended that we try a white Nutella crepe ( a specialty of Mykonos) which was basically white chocolate Nutella and was incredible. We've also found a new love - BAKLAVA! There is no parallel to the Grecian baklava - piles upon piles of crispy dough and nuts dripping with honey. When we finally had to leave Mykonos, we sadly boarded a slow ferry to Athens and stayed overnight there in our favourite hostel, the Pagration Youth Hostel. Now, we're back in England and are preparing to go to Tanzania tomorrow evening, which we are both excited and nervous about. At least we know that the weather will be better than here!

Our 6 euro beach hut in Ios

  



Our cute little ATV on a country road in Naxos






Camilla and Jianis




Elena and Sid

Naxos, Greece

Hello! After a two day stint in Ios, Greece per recommendation of Barb Kenslea, we have been staying in Naxos, the biggest Cyclades Island. Ios was lovely, and we stayed at the best place ever! It was a campsite in Mylopotas Beach at the end of the only road in Ios, and we had a beach hut right on the edge of the water for only six euro per night! There were not many people on the island at all, but there were two Australian tour groups who we spent the evenings with, and we spent the days lounging around on the beach! The water was incredible - it was crystal clear, and even though it was very deep you could almost count the grains of sand on the bottom! We took the ferry to Naxos yesterday, and after learning that it was better to book accomodation before arriving somewhere ( we took a bus ride all the way out to Naxos Camping, which we later discovered was shut), we found a lovely room by the sea and near the centre of town. Today we rented an ATV to drive around the island because there is not much of a bus system. It was awesome! The views were incredible, and after a few wobbly starts on the vehicle, we managed to go over dirt paths and around hairpin corners up into Mt. Zeus. We have returned to the Port area now to see the sun set over the Panagios gate. Tomorrow we will go to Mykonos!

Fira, Greece

Okay so seeing as Elena has to use the internet, and we wont have access to the internet for a few days after this, I am just going to upload a couple more pictures while I can! Today we are moving campsites to Perissa, home of the black beaches, where we have to do some food shopping (quite a hassle when you don't understand any food labels) and book our next ferry to Ios. Yesterday's donkey ride was incredible though rather scary up the steps of the Old Port of Fira - there was no controlling them and quite often they would slip down the slippy edges of the steps! Elena thought that hers was going to fall over because it kept trembling but it was all okay in the end. We also discovered the joy of taking selfies with the donkeys that were lined up the steps! In the evening we went to Oia and saw the sunset and spent two hours wandering around the maze of streets looking for somewhere that sold cheap food (everywhere else it was 12 euro for a salad). We ended up eating souvlaki, which is lots of random food wrapped in pita bread. I'm not quite sure what mine had in it but it tasted alright, and was only 1,80 euro! After we returned to Fira we went to a club called Enigma with Jojo and David and Kerry, our roomie from Athens who decided to join us in Santorini! It was full of locals, and they played some American music but mostly Greek, which was awesome! Anyway, here's a couple of photos!

Santorini, Greece

Our first real day in Santorini, Greece, and we're having a wonderful time. Our campsite is great -we have a little canvas tent with two mattresses in it for 12 euros a night each! It has kitchen facilities and a swimming pool too, so we are very happy with that! Yesterday we walked around Fira, which is the main city of Santorini and has many pedestrian cobble stone streets and beautiful views over the caldera. It is the perfect time to be here because it is baking hot, not over crowded, and full of local people who love to practice their English! We are meeting a lot of travelers too, and last night we went out with two of our neighbouring tent friends, Jojo (apparently pronounced cho-cho because he's Guatamalan? according to Elena) and David, who are from France. The nightlife here is crazy, as you can imagine, and we spent most of the night dancing on bars with the owners and meeting backpackers from all over! Today we are taking a donkey ride up the steep stairs from the Old Port, and are going to make a trip to Oia to see the famous sun set! Here are a few pictures from our last few days!

Santorini, Greece

Just a quick post from an internet cafe in Santorini, Greece! We had a wonderful time in Athens, and we managed to see most of the important sites in the one day we had there! Highlights included the Panatheniac Stadium, in which the olympics first took place in 330 B.C. Elena got to run a lap around, the track, which made her VERY happy, and both Camilla and Elena got to stand on the first place pedestal! Later that afternoon we hiked up the Filopappau hill, and got to see breathtaking views of the Acropolis, and the entire city of Athens. The Acropolis was also incredible, and the Parthenon definitely was as impressive as we had expected. The photo above is in front of one of the buildings of the Acropolis. We stayed in a wonderful hostel in Athens, with a full kitchen (we've been cooking all our own meals) and we roomed with these two boys from China. Early this morning, we caught a ferry to the island Santorini in Greece. The ferry was seven hours long, but we never got bored of the terrific views of the many different islands we passed. We are styaing in a campsite, as most of the accomodations here are very expensive! The traditional white bulidings of Santorini are very beautiful, and most of the churches have stunning cobalt blue stone roofs. We've only just arrived in Santorini, so there will be more to come later!

Bishop's Stortford, England

Well, a few days and a fair amount of rain later, we've almost completed the first week of our gap year! In the Cotswolds, we helped out at Camilla's little cousin Adam's beaver group (boy scouts in America) which was basically a bunch of six year olds running around screaming. We did a weather wordsearch with them only one of the boys kept trying to eat his pencil, so it proved somewhat difficult to get them to do it and they kept on making fun of Elena because she has a weird accent! Later, we played Lego Rockband at the cousin's house and failed at the guitar to the point that we were doing worse than Adam (6) and Peter (8), who were on the 'Super Easy' level, and didn't even have to press the right coloured buttons. We saw the Severn Bore, which is when the tides out at sea become too high, and create a small tidal wave on the River Severn in Gloucester - it was about three feet high. There were some people there who were getting ready to surf it, which would have been quite fun, though cold! We then went to Newport, Wales. Elena didn't believe it was a different country, despite the sign saying "Croeso I Cymru" or "Welcome to Wales", until Jim and Camilla convinced her that she needed a passport to get across! Wales was good, and we had a lovely pub dinner with the Shearman family while Jean (Camilla's grandma) was trying to get us drunk! The last couple of days have been spent in Bishop's Stortford visiting Camilla's school friends. We stayed at Aphra's house, and gave Elena her first taste of fish and chips before spending the night at the pub with some other English friends Katie, Lucy and Tom. The next day we walked past Camilla's old two schools Herts & Essex and Summercroft to Izzie and Lizzies house and went to town. If you haven't had Dorrington's before, it is the best food EVER! The iced buns are ridiculously delicious! Last night we watched the new season of the Inbetweeners (amazing!) with the Ollie, Claire, Gav, Harry and Matt. And now we are at Gavin's house packing for Greece! We will be sleeping in London Heathrow Airport tonight, and will be spending most of the day in London getting ready for our 4am departure! It's 30 degrees centigrade / 86 degrees F in Greece! Yay!
- E&C

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKFjWR7X5dU
watch this! as requested by Lizzie

Bath, England

Hi everybody! So we arrived at our first destination, England, yesterday evening and stayed with Camilla's aunt at her home in Guilford. After our first slightly jetlagged night, we woke up this morning at 1am (American time) and hopped onto a train headed to Bath (pronounced Both in England, according to Elena.)
We assumed that we would be able to actually bathe in the hot springs that make up the Roman baths and came equipped with bikinis and towels. As we should of known, it was a museum, DUH, and we realized how much we have to learn. Other than that, the Roman baths were pretty incredible and we saw some beautiful Roman artifacts. We also got to drink a bit of the water as we left, which made up for the no bathing rule, but tasted absolutely disgusting! We walked around the beautiful town of Bath for the rest of the day and saw some amazing street performers. We left Bath, and after doubting our choice of train when our train reversed and started going the complete opposite direction, we arrived in Cheltenham, The Cotswalds, and were graciously picked up by Camilla's grandad. So that was day number 1 of our gap year!
- E & C

Getting ready to leave!

Hey guys! We'll be leaving on the 8th of September and will post on here to let you all know about our travels throughout the year!