Grand Ol' Time

Hello faithful readers, if you're reading this then it means I'm quite happy with you for still following my blog after my Africa/Europe Adventure. So it's taken me a bit to actually get around to writing this but from June 22nd to July 10th I was traveling with my good friend Brendan. I took a Grey Hound bus to Las Vegas where I met up with Brendan and his mother which was followed by us driving out to Salt Lake City for the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly (a.k.a. GA).
It was cool to finally see Salt Lake City, but it also helped reinforce that I don't want to live there. I met some interesting people at GA and had some fun times with Brendan but GA also helped me confirm that I no longer consider myself a Unitarian. I still extremely enjoy the company of Unitarians, but I now feel that it's a religion of bureaucracy. There was a celebration of the summer solstice which I enjoyed, plus they gave me a pouch with salts from the Great Salt Lake which I thought was pretty cool. I visited the Mormon temple and afterward there was a huge storm that snapped two of the cables on a banner at the convention center and shattered two windows, coincidence or a sign, you decide. There was a dance held at one of the nearby hotels and I had great time and after some of us went to the pool for a swim, the downside of that being that I forgot my World War II pilot helmet that I got in Berlin. I brought it to wear to the dance, but I left it at the pool and after that it was never seen again. I'm sad that I lost such a cool thing that was also a keepsake of my time in Germany, but hey, it's not worth it to get attached to objects.
After Salt Lake City, Brendan, his mom, and I headed south. We first stopped at Bryce Canyon where I got these amazing pictures:




Followed by the Grand Canyon:




During the whole trip we saw:
Bison

Condors


A Tarantula Hawk
Deer



Chipmunks
Elk




Crows and Ravens

Turkey Vultures


And Squirrels


The Grand Canyon was absolutely stunning, I was deeply touched by the vast beauty and moved by it's sheer size. The only problem I had were the other people there, families would walk out to the vantage point while complaining the whole way there and as soon as they got to the vantage point they would take the picture and leave. I observed that there are some tourists who don't come to places to see it but to say that they saw it, treat their pictures like trophies in order to flaunt their accomplishments.
After the Grand Canyon I spent about a week and a half with Brendan and his mother. Brendan and I went to a monthly art fair in Vegas called first Friday and went to Fremont Street for the Fourth of July with some friends of his. Vegas was fun but I'm not enticed by much of the flashy stuff there, I more enjoyed the moments of just relaxing with Brendan.
So what's next on my roster you might ask? On the 16th I'll be going to a family reunion in Charlotte, North Carolina and I'm looking forward to because I've never met these relatives before and a large amount of them have careers in some form of writing. We'll see how it is and maybe it'll even be enough to write about here on my blog.

The Road

So some of you might be thinking, "well Chris is back from Europe now, guess that means the blog's done." WRONG, this is a travel blog, meaning that I will be chronicling all of my travels across this great globe of ours. I'm sure this must make some of you giddy at the prospect of hearing more of my experiences around the world, so to give you a taste of what you're in for I'll give you a list of my current travel plans.
*I'll be headed to Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, the Grand Canyon, Santa Barbara, and San Diego this summer.
*Possibly next summer I plan to go on a cross country road trip with my two best friends.
*Another possibility could be living in a Buddhist monastery near my university once I graduate, to center myself before I head out in to the full world of a responsible, independent adult.
*At some point I plan to work on a plantation in Hawaii with one of my best friends, who's father owns the plantation.
*There is talk of the volunteers from CCS meeting up for reunion at one of the volunteer's homes in Southern Mexico on New Years, but this is still uncertain.
*Teaching English in Japan for a year, I'm not sure when.
*Work as a tour guide in Berlin for a year, also unsure when.
*UK and Ireland.
*Egypt.
*Brazil, Costa Rica, Peru, Galapagos.
*Australia and New Zealand.
*Canada.
And so with this list I announce my travel lists. From now on, every place I visit will be added to the new "Places Seen" list (sorry, this does not mean I'll put your house on the list). In addition, all current ideas of places I would like to visit will be put up on the new "Places To Be Seen" list (but this is subject to change over time). Now you know what is in store, stay tuned!

Time to Leave It All Behind and Face the Road

It took all my self discipline to not start typing out all the lyrics to Bohemian Rahpsody. Well fokes, this is the end of this travel chapter. All this traveling turned out a lot more expensive than my parents and I thought. But also on top of that there was just too much stress behind me not knowing if I'd have enough money to last me the next week. So now I will impart to you various tips just in case you end up in the places I've been. Let's start with Vienna since I haven't written anything about my time there yet.

Vienna:

*Hosel Ruthensteiner is by far the best hostel I stayed at during my entire trip. The staff and other hostelers where all friendly and sociable. The facilities were in top shape and the rooms were spacious with comfortable beds. The downsides to the place are that the showers are push button, a lot like the sinks in public restrooms, where you push a button and get a certain, but unknown, amount of time before the water flow just stops. But the showers do have hot and cold water so that's a plus. The other downside was that you had to provide your own sheets or pay two euro extra to rent some out during your stay.

*Definatly check out the Schönbrunn palace, you can easily get there by the subway and it's absolutely amazing. There are statues of Greek gods in the garden accompanied by a small zoo and a hedge maze. In addition there is a magnificent fountain with a large hill behind it and at the top of this hill is something that looks along the lines of the Brandenburg Gate.

Prauge:

*The Czech Republic uses the crown as it's currency instead of the euro. Five crowns converts to something close to twenty US dollars, so traveling around here can be relatively cheap compared to the rest of Europe.

*Prauge is a wonderful mix of the old and the new, the beautiful and the ugly. You'll see magnificent cathedrals and castels, confusingly modern architcture, and depressing remnants of Soviet architecture.

*DVDs in the Czech Republic have no country coding. For those of you who don't know, DVDs have an encoding that makes it so that they will only work in DVD players from the same country. This is done in an attempt to hold back piracy since movies are released in different countries at different times. But DVDs in the Czech Republic don't have this encoding, so they will work in any DVD player, so buy away, they're cheaper than back home!

Berlin:

*I highly recomend the Wombat's hostel in Berlin. There are Wombat's hostels also in Munich and two in Vienna, but I didn't stay at any of them so I can't really speak for those. But the one in Berlin is awesome, it's attached to a resturaunt that will serve a pretty decent all you can eat breakfast for 3.50 euros. There is also a bar with a sun terrace on the seventh floor. On top of all of this the most beds you will have in a room is six or possibly eight.

*It will take you a very long time for you to see everything in Berlin and, since there is so much constrution going on in Berlin, most likely once you have seen everything there will be something new that's been built for you to go see.

*The housing market is very low in Berlin, something around half of the apartments in Berlin have no one in them. This means you can get a really nice place for really cheap.

*The 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is coming up and for the occasion all the artists who painted murals on the longest stretch of the wall, and whom are still alive, are being flown in to repaint the murals because of the large amount of graffiti that has been put up over the murals (while I was there I even saw a girl who had her friend take a picture as she wrote her name on the wall). So go see how it is now before it changes forever.

Amsterdam:

*Amsterdam is small, you'll never need to catch public transport anywhere, you can probably see everything you want to see in two, possibly three days.

*Most people come to Amsterdam for the weed and hookers, if you're one of those people then you'll love the place, but because of this most fellow travelers in your hostel won't be extremely sociable unless you want to share a bowl.

*Amsterdam was, in my opinion, one of the most boring cities I visited. If I could do this trip over again, one of the many things I would change would be that I wouldn't go to Amsterdam. The Netherlands is amazing and the Dutch are generally likable people, but Amsterdam isn't much like the rest of the Netherlands and you won't likely meet many Dutch people there.

Now I have some general travel tips for people going through Europe:

*BRING A LAPTOP. It may be yet another thing you have to keep a close eye on, but it will make your life so much easier. Most places offer wi-fi and of those places a majority of them offer free wi-fi. But witout a laptop you'll be paying an arm and a leg if you're trying to keep in contact with people back home via the internet. Plus, something I wish I had known, it is next to impossible to find computers available to the public that have MS Word.

*Bring a cell phone. Things are so much easier if you can just pick up a cell phone to call home, make a reservation at a hostel, or meet up with a friend. Yes there are pay phones, but I can speak from experience that they are a major pain in the ass.

*Use the subway. With the acception of Amsterdam, I used the subway in every city I went to. You can buy day passes that allow you to take all the public transport for twenty-four hours and usually ends up paying off. The public transit runs mostly on an honor system, in that they don't check you for a ticket every time you get on. So yes you can get away with quite a few free rides, but there are also people under cover who will randomly hop on the transit and ask everyone to show their ticket and if you don't have one then you are SOL, the stupid tourist line doesn't usually work.

*Book your flight with the flight company itself instead of a booking agency. Changing a flight is much easier when there is no middle man.
*Pocket change is much more important in Europe. The one and two euro comes in coin form and when you go to a ticket machine for the train, subway, tram, or bus many of the machines will only take coins and not take bills.
*There are many passes you can buy that allow you to travel on all forms of some sort of transit for a certain amount of days or a certain amount of time. I thought to not buy the Eurail Pass because I was told that unless I was hoping from place to place very frequently that such a pass would be too expensive and paying for the trains at the station would be much eaiser. But the trains themselves cost amounts up in the double digits usually if you want to go from one country to another, so I ended up using Eurolines buses for my whole trip. I wish I had bought the pass they sell because it would have saved me a fair bundle, the pass costs about the equivalent to four bus trips and I could have used the pass much more than four times.
*Night buses and trains can be great, you get a night of sleep without having to pay for a hostel. Trains are even nicer in that they have sleeper cars occasionally which is quiet the nice change from a seat on a bus. But I was told of some girls who took night buses and woke up with a stranger groping them, not all trains are like this and it doesn't occur frequently, but it is a risk that occurs for female travelers.
*A towel is very valuable since most hostels will not provide you with one, but make sure that it is fast drying because you don't want to have a wet towel rolled up in your pack, that is unless you like the smell of mold on all your clothes.
*Bring a padlock because not all hostels provide a lock with the locker they give you for your pack.

I'm sure there's more, but currently nothing comes to mind. At this point I see this trip as a good experience, but there are many things I wish I could have done differently that would have made this trip more enjoyable. I now consider Europe checked off my list and I will travel else where before returning to Europe, though I do plan to someday return. But when I do I plan to have plenty of money saved and I will be willing to tavel in a more comfortable, touristy, luxury style of travel. This hostel traveling isn't exactly my thing.

Ninety-Nine Red Balloons

Okay, so sorry for the long period of time with no updates, but this is the first time that I've reallz had enough time to update since my last post. Sort story for those of you in a rush, Berlin was amazing and right now I'm in Prague and I'm loving it.
Now for those of you who are still reading, the rest of the story. I stayed at the Mitte Backpacker's Hostel (in a 32 bed dorm) for three nights. The huge dorm wasn't so bad with the snoring, I got a pretty good sleep, but it was the smell. Nearly every bed was filled for the time I was there, mostly wiht people who really need to shower more often, and their smelled exuded and mingled into one seriously funky dorm. That wouldn't have been so bad if there had been any sociable people but really everyone was there either to sleep or they were in a group and only associated with people in that group. The bar that also served breakfast in the morning was a really cool place, but it was hard to enjoy when you were always sitting there silently eating your food.
Every day I went on a tour in Berlin. I felt it would be good for me to do the touristy things for aa bit and then the non-touristy things and then compare the two and Berlin was going to be designated for tourist stuff just because there was so much to see. I went on my tours with this cool company called Sandeman's, but really everyone just knows it as the "free tours group." With that being said, they offered free tours. I found the company in Amsterdam from the hostel I was staying at and found out that they actually do tours all over Europe. They also hire people specifically from Western, English speaking countries so that tourists feel like they are being led through the city by another tourist, which to a degree they are. Not all of the tours they offer are free, there's just the free tour and then others they offer which you pay for. So first day in Berlin I went on the free tour, then the alternative culture tour, then the Potsdam tour, then the concentration camp tour. During the time I spent with the tour guides I started talking with them about what made them become tour guides and if they are able to pay for their stay in Berlin with the money they make from the tours. They said they made a good enough living and so now I'm thinking that some time, a few years from now, I'll come back to Berlin and give tours myself.
On the free tour I met a very friendly Aussie couple who were, ironically, staying at a hostel called Wombat's. I later ended up going to stay at the Wombat's hostel which I really liked more than the Mitte Backpacker's Hostel. Also on the free tour we saw what might have been a wedding at a fountainin the middle of Museum Island (an island between two rivers upon which the major museums of Berlin are built, pretty self explainatory). Everyone gathered around the fountain had a red balloon with what looked like a peice of paper, probably with some kind of wish or something written on it, tied to the balloon and then everyone let the balloons go to the winds. I don't know if there were exactly ninety-nine of the balloons, but there were a lot, they were red, and I was in Germany and so I felt the song reference was needed.
Along with the tours I also visited the Pergamon Museum, which is a reconstruction of an ancient greek temple. This obviously has close to nothing to do with German history, nor does the reconstructed gates of Babylon, but it was still really cool to see. Unfortunatly I did not get to see the Berlin bears, the Berlin Zoo, the Memorial Church, German Parliment, or my german relatives. You might say I missed out, but I say I just have another reason to go back there.
Now I'm in Prague staying with my good friend Ondrej. Prague so far is awesome and Ondrej is making it all the more enjoyable, my time here in Prague doesn't feel as touristy as Berlin did, here I'm doing what most locals do at my age; hang out, watch movies, drink beers, and watch the game. It's not some amazing thing that would warrant pictures that you would bring back home and show in a slide show to everyone, but it's fun and it's the closest to what you could call a genuine experience in a foreign country, something which every tourist seems to be persuing.

*Note*My spelling might be a slight bit worse in this post, something due to spell check not working the same when you're working on a computer that knows Czech. If the spelling errors are too much for you, don't let me know and just stop reading.

Holiday In Cambodia

I wouldn't be surprised if there actually was a holiday in Cambodia because it seems everywhere I go there's a public holiday. Usually that would be a good thing, but not when you are a backpacker who doesn't even know how the country works on a normal day. So yesterday was Queen's Day in the Netherlands, a holiday to celebrate the dutch queen's birthday. But it's actually the queen's mother's birthday because the current queen's birthday interferes with some other holiday. And like most other holidays, Queen's Day doesn't have much tradition other than everybody partying and getting extremely drunk. One of the people who worked the desk at the hostel told me about Queen's Night, which isn't anything official but you're basically supposed to start drinking heavily the night before Queen's Day and then maintain a drunken stupor through all of Queen's Day.
I didn't participate in this tradition though and so I was sober enough to realize that it really stinks to celebrate a holiday with no one you know to celebrate it with. I ended up roaming all day, I had already checked out of the hostel and so couldn't go back to hang out there, so I walked from one live performance to another. I had nothing to do until 10pm that night which was when I was supposed to catch a night bus to Hamburg, luckily some friend Dutch people randomly struck up a conversation with me, first asking me what I was doing in Amsterdam on Queen's Day alone. They were really friendly and talking and walking with them helped kill about four hours before they had to leave.
So after an uneventful wait for the bus to Hamburg, a dull bus ride, a boring wait in the Hamburg bus station for a bus to Berlin, an equally dull bus ride to Berlin, and a quiet subway ride through Berlin I arrived at the Circus Hostel. The place looked really cool and like a place I would really enjoy, too bad they were full. I come to find out from the people at the desk that there is a holiday nearly every week of the month of May in Berlin, meaning almost all hostels will be booked, cost more, and almost all other businesses will be closed. Luckily they were able to direct me to the Backpacker's Hostel, which would have felt like a much shorter walk if I didn't have the giant pack on my back. At first I was extremely annoyed because I couldn't find out where in the world the place was, but then I found it tucked away around the corner of some nondescript buildings. I climb the stairs, unsure if I'm going to the right place, but then I open to the door to the hostel and instantly my worries melt away. The place is brightly painted, modern art all over the walls, couches litter the reception hall, and awesome music is playing on the speakers. They give me the key to my room, which turns out to be a 32 bed dorm, but I don't even care because at least I have a place to sleep tonight.

Pole F*cking Sana

Pole sana literally means "very sorry," but it is also used very commonly for expressing sympathy and in both cases today warrented many pole sanas.
Yesterday I left CCS and boarded my plane, the whole time I was worried about how they would react to the masai spears in my bag, luckily nothing happened and tomorrow I'll be shipping them home. When I got to the check in desk I couldn't seem to find the boarding pass that I had spent half of the day trying to print out, but thankfully the woman at the desk didn't even ask for any codes or anything, she just looked at my passport and then printed out my boarding pass.
During the flight I talked to a man in his 60s who had quite the story to tell. He apparently moved from the Netherlands to Kenya when he was 18 because at that time it was compulsory for every Dutch citizen to serve two years in the military. Apparently he told them that he ws going to make toruble for them so it would just be better for everyone if he just was sent away and so he ended up volunteering in Kenya and he fell in love with the country. He also fell in love with a woman there but she ended up using his Dutch citizenship to somehow run off to Canada, I'm not exactly sure how that works but I didn't feel like pressing the subject. Anyway, he found another woman he fell in love with and married in Tanzania and they had several children together before she tragically died, again I don't know how because I didn't want to press the subject. This man was certainly a seasoned traveler and I gave him my email when we got off the plane because he said that there might be a place for me to stay in Amsterdam at his son's friends place.
So then for the next few hours I sat around with the other volunteers who had the same flight as me, they were all waiting for their connections and I was in no rush. It wasn't until about two hours after we had gotten off the plane that it occured to me that maybe I should go pick up my checked luggage (i.e. my humongous backpack) but I also felt that since it had already been two hours that another two hours couldn't hurt that much. I was glad to relax and just have some last minute chats with my friends before they left to be seen again at an unknown time. Then I finally go to pick up my backpack, it obviously wasn't going to be on the conveyor belt by this point so I just went up to the service desk to pick it up from storage. But then they couldn't find it, after a few minutes of stressfully searching around the baggage claim room to see if it was lying around anywhere I began to fill out the form for where they should send my backpack when they finally find it. I had just one more line of information to fill out when suddenly one of the attendants popped out of no where with my backpack, I was so immensly relieved, it turns out that it was just hidden behind some other luggage.
So I've finally got my backpack strapped on and I'm ready to start my Eurotrip. I take a train into Amsterdam Central Station and then I'm lost. Dutch public transit for the most part is totally void of English directions. After a few minutes of wondering around, not sure what I was doing and frequently refering to my euro hostels guide book, I find a info booth where I'm able to buy a tram ticket. I follow the directions and get off at the proper stop for my first attempt at finding a hostel for the night, but it turns out those directions where a little hard to follow once I got off the tram. It wasn't much of the fault of the book, it's just that there aren't too many street signs here and so it was hard to figure out which street I was walking down exactly. After walking in circles a few times I finally come to a place that I had stopped at before but for some reason didn't think it was the one I was looking for, which it turns out it was. The hostel is freaking awesome and I'll be enjoying the next three days here.
Then I got some directions from the person at the desk in the hostel on where to get my camera fixed. They directed me to a really nice, professional place, but unfortunately they themselves don't do repairs and they would have to send my camera to the Fujifilm base in the Netherlands, which they predicted could take from two weeks to two months. Fortunatly, they directed me to a place that does their own repairs and could possibly repair it sooner.
So today was crazy, but I was lucky on multiple occasions and I'm excited and optimistic for what is to come. I've already met two Slovaks who have invited me to come visit them in Slovania, which I think I might just take them up on.

I'm Leaving On A Jet Plane, Don't Know When I'll Be Back Again

Well today is the faithful day for my departure from Tanzania. Soon I shall begin the next leg of my journey, backpacking through Europe for two months. Yesterday was my 21st birthday and I couldn't have thought of a better send off.
Last night all the volunteers at CCS went out to dinner at Indoitaliano (a resturaunt that served Indian and Italian food and local haunt for most CCS volunteers). Of course, because it was my 21st birthday everyone was trying to get me as drunk as possible, but I held my ground and am happy to say that I only had three beers and a glass of wine that night, I was definatly a goofy person but drinking to the point of having a hang over the next morning is never something that seemed appealing to me. After dinner we all went out to the Glacier bar. Glacier is mostly a wide open field sprinkled with occasional tables and chairs, then there is an open air bar and a stage for live bands that come to play every Friday. Seeing as how this is Tanzania the live band is always, ALWAYS regea, but I've never had "Happy Birthday" sung to me in a regea style before so it was pretty nice.
When we came back to CCS popcorn had been made by the cooks, a regular occurance late at night, and we all sat down and chatted while munching on popcorn. Then without notice everyone started singing "Happy Birthday" for what must have been the fifth time that day, but then they handed me a birthday card signed by everyone. In conclusion though I dearly missed celebrating my birthday with all my friends back home, my 21st birthday was a wonderful and touching moment with the best gift ever, backpacking in Europe for two months.
So I'll be arriving in Amsterdam airport April 26th and for the first few hours I'll be enjoying the city with my friend and fellow volunteer, Deveny, who has a seven hour lay over in the Amsterdam airport. Then I plan to look for a hostel and then who knows. I've tried to plan only to the point that I'll be prepared, but flexible enough for me to do and go wherever I want. The basic structure of my plan is to go from Amsterdam to Berlin, to Hamburg, to Prauge, to Vienna, to Salzburg, to Munich. I might also possibly pass through Amsterdam again to cross the English channel and go visit some friends I made here at CCS in England.
If anyone has recommendations of something I should do or see, please let me know. I'm hoping that my camera, which broke two weeks into being in Tanzania, can be fixed in Amsterdam. I'm also quiet happy because instead of paying an arm and a leg to ship out my Bushmen bow and arrows, one of my masai spears, and a hand carved wooden bowl from Kilimanjaro the safari company that I went on safari with, Bushmen Expeditions, is going to pack them all up and I can just check it as my other piece of luggage and I can ship it all out of Amsterdam, which will be much cheaper.

I Told The Witch Doctor You Didn't Love Me True

I realized that my last post ended mid sentence, so please look over it again so that you can read the exciting conclusion which I've just added.
So on Saturday I called my friend Justin with no idea what was in store for the next day. I woke up Sunday thinking it would be a slow relaxing day much like most of the other weekends I've spent here. I walked over to have breakfast, which is where one of the volunteers, Aubrey, asked if I wanted to go to see a witch doctor. To be fair, this wasn't totally out of the blue, three other volunteers had gone to see the witch doctor on Saturday and I hadn't gone because I thought it would cost too much money, but when they came back talking about their amazing experience I knew I had to go. That night I was talking with Aubrey and Scott who ended up telling me that they were heading over to see him on Sunday, but they didn't think I'd be able to join in on such short notice.
So when I woke up on Sunday I had no thought in my mind about going to see a witch doctor that day. But sure enough, I did, we took a safari jeep to his house because it was up in the foothills of Kilimanjaro. Now when you think of a witch doctor you probably visualize a man in a loin cloth with all kinds of crazy jewelry on, maybe some shrunken heads or skulls, and a chicken head on the end of a staff; but when we got there the witch doctor was dressed in normal western clothing, with a decent grasp on English and living in a home free of chicken blood sprayed across the walls or any disembodied limbs of animals hanging from the ceiling.
First thing he did was take us around his large herbal garden and tell us the different properties of various plants. Then we walked in to this small, modest building with colored glass windows and we sat on reed mats and he told us what he did and why. He told us how he no longer uses the various magical divining tools that most witch doctors use because he found that people begin to have more faith in the tool than the actual healer. Afterward he told us to go out into the garden and find a place that seemed to call to us and sit there until he came to talk to us one on one. When he came to me we had a great discussion about my life, my spirituality, who I want to be, and who I want to love. Some of it he said was based off of where I was sitting and what direction I was facing, but also I knew that part of it was just that he was extremely good at reading people. But also I found that witch doctors here in Africa function more like a therapist than some man who uses his mojo on you to make you better.
Maybe people may think that the stuff that the witch doctor practices in mumbo jumbo, but I say that it should be something that you listen to with an open mind and then follow the advice that sounds right to you, sometimes you already know what to do to make your life better, but you need someone else to tell you before you'll actually do it.

Swept Away

So I woke up this morning and there was no power, no water, and a big chunk of our fence missing. And now I shall explain why this all happened.
Last night was a night like any night. Some volunteers and I headed across the street to Mzungu Bar to get some drinks and meet up with some local friends. We were excited because that night we were heading out to watch a football (soccer) match between Liverpool and Chelsea. Tanzanians are crazy about football and quite a few are huge Manchester United fans, don't discuss football with them unless you really know what you're talking about. As we were at Mzungu Bar it started pouring rain, so we called a cab. But the cab wanted to charge way too much because they felt like they could hike the price since it was raining. But we showed them, we walked, which went fine but man was it muddy. We got there and enjoyed the game, professional soccer players have inhuman skills out there on the field, but some of us were saying how we would like it a lot more if they wouldn't flop all the time, faking an injury to try and get a player carded.
We walked back from watching the game, got rained on, got even more muddy, but for the most part it was fine. But as soon as we had stepped inside an absolute torrent started falling outside. So afterward the power went out. Later on many of the volunteers were woken up by an odd chanting, is was the nearby police academy doing their daily march, something which is usually drowned out by the sound of the fans in our rooms which weren't working due to lack of electricity. Some of the volunteers had also been awakened by the sound of a part of the CCS fence falling over, though not many because the rain was so hard and so loud against the tin roof that something like a fence falling over could be drowned out by it's sound.
To understand what a force of nature this is, you must first understand the nature of the CCS fence. The fence is comprised of huge bougainvillea bushes that have grown around chicken wire that is held up by wooden beams, so these things are pretty sturdy and a commonly used form of fencing in Moshi. But essentialy in the middle of the night a flash flood had torn through our compound and in the process totally downed a part of our fence. When I walked to placement today there were small uprooted trees on the side of the road, the terrain had completely changed by the amounts of sand that had been displaced, and the mud was rediculous. One of the volunteers who goes to juvy, Nicole, lost here sandals to the mud and had to go back to get rain boots. Later that day I found that businesses had been flooded, crops and homes washed away, and generally many lives were shaken and/or ruined by the rains. To try to lighten spirits I said, "maybe people were praying too hard for the rain."

Face Scars, Bushmen, and Waterfalls, Oh My!

Hello everyone, so my face injury has healed nicely in a cool scar that makes me look tough. Some of you may be asking right now, "Wait, face injury, what face injury is this," well about three weeks ago I cut up my face pretty badly, I didn't say anything in my blog because I was thinking of not saying anything so that I could come up with all kinds of exaggerated stories of what happened to me. But now the truth is out, I was working at the Tuleeni orphanage and I was giving one of the orphans a piggy back ride. I was chasing after a chicken while I was carrying the child on my back and everyone was getting a real kick out of the whole thing until I lost my footing and fell. I didn't want to put my hands out to stop myself because then the boy on my back would get hurt, so instead I ended up breaking the fall with my face. According to my friend and fellow volunteer it looked like in the cartoons where there's a cloud of dust and a scramble of legs. When the dust settled the child was fine, but I had blood running down my face. I didn't know how hurt I was but I could feel something warm on my face so I turned to Graeme and asked, "How's my face," to which he responded, "It's not nearly as bad as it looks." I cleaned up the cuts on my face and, with much pain, rubbed them with an antiseptic wipe, but when I was done with that the boy I had been playing with was nowhere to be found. He ended up being in one of the bedrooms hiding from me because he apparently felt it was his fault. I told the women working there to make sure he knows he did nothing wrong as I was leaving. So now, fast forwarding back to the present, my face is fully healed and I have a cool scar.
So I'm sure you're dying to know about my Bushmen bow hunting expedition. The first day of the safari we didn't spend any time with the Bushmen because they hunt in the morning and it was too long of a drive to try to get to them in the morning of the first day. So instead of seeing the Bushmen we visited a blacksmith tribe that melts down broken padlocks to make jewelry, knives, and arrow heads. The Bushmen buy these arrow heads for their arrows, so the visit was still related to our Bushmen trip, plus I got to work the billows and I bought a brass bracelet so it was definitely worth while. Afterwards we visiting an onion farm, which made no sense to me at all, but the children we saw along the way were adorable. There were also these super tiny puppies eating from a trash pile and just in front of them was a hen with a group of chicks, third world cuteness at its finest. We then arrived at a lake as the sun was setting, the view was absolutely breath taking and we got some amazing pictures that I'll have to show you at a later date. We went back to the camp ground which we had all to ourselves and sat around the camp fire for a long time talking about anything and everything.
The next day was the anticipated Bushmen hunt. We got up early in the morning and our guide, Abbas, kept telling us to wrap up even though it must have been only around 60 or 70 degrees Fahrenheit. We got to the tribe, they handed us bows and arrows, and before we knew what was happening next they were off into the bush. We tried to keep up with them, but those guys move fast, not to mention there were four Spaniard women with us from another safari who were really slowing us down. There were a few times were Graeme and I almost got something, but no luck, only the Bushmen caught anything and they only caught some squirrels and birds. The Bushmen started up a fire and didn't even skin the animals, they were too small, the just threw them on the fire and then ate the meat straight off the bone when they were ready. When we got back to the Bushmen village we bought the bows we used, sorta, on the hunt and then the women laid out jewelry on a donkey skin that they wanted us to buy. The girls who were with us wanted to buy some things, but before they could get to it the Spaniards bought nearly everything that was on the skin. Then chaos ensued, suddenly everyone picked up the left over jewelry and rushed up to us, all of them trying to sell us their stuff at the same time. They would put their wares on us no matter how many times we said "hapana asante" (no thank you), but in the middle of the commotion I went of to the side where I saw the men tanning the hides of their kills. Apparently another group had gotten an antelope and then I saw a pair of horns on a nearby tree branch, which I bought for 5,000 shillings (less than five dollars). It wasn't until one of the men turned it upright that I realised how freshly the horns had been removed from its owner because then blood started to drip from the bottom of the horns. Needless to say, the drive back to the camp sight was a smelly one, but our safari group salted the horns and properly wrapped them so that the rest of the drive home was much more pleasant smelling.
And now for what happened today. Today I went with some other volunteers to a waterfall, the one I mentioned before that you could jump off of. Today the newest group of volunteers was going on a CCS programmed trip to Marangu, which ended up being the same area that our waterfall was in, so it was fun to see the puzzled looks from the volunteers as we waved to them as we drove by. Later, the dalah dalah (a large van which is the primary mode of public transportation here) that we had rented out had to stop before we came to our destination. It had rained the day before and the road was too steep for the dalah dalah to be able to drive up it, so we got out and walked. But it was well worth the walk when we came to the waterfall, it was absolutely beautiful and surrounded by stunning tropical plants. Once again, some wonderful pictures were taken which I will have to show you at a later date. The jump into the pool below the waterfall must have been about thirty feet up, but I did it and it was amazing. When I jumped for the first time, I wanted to do a cannon ball, but I slightly uncurled from my ball when the thought struck me, "holy crap, I'm still falling." When we were done at the waterfall we walked back to the house of the person who apparently owned the waterfall and had lunch. As we ate our lunch the rain began to pour outside, we had to wait for a while once we had finished our lunch because our drivers were out for their lunch. Then they called us to say they were on their way and we should start walking. We walked through the rain to the place we were supposed to meet the dalah dalah, the only problem was that it wasn't there. We took cover in a nearby bar as we called them to find out where they were. As we waited the locals at the bar warmly welcomed us and offered us large amounts of mbegae (locally brewed banana beer which is served in a cup the size of the mega gulps at seven eleven).
So it goes without saying that the last few days have been pretty exciting.

Old Chris Marten Had A Farm, Ee Ay Ee Ay Oh

So since the rainy season has finally started in Moshi we started planting the seeds for the farm in the back of juvy today, which ended up being more exasperating then I first expected.
My plans for the farm were that we would make rows of mounds in which we would plant the seeds and they would be planted in a pattern of corn, beans, corn, beans. This planting pattern, to the best of my knowledge, makes it so that the beans put nitrogen into the soil as the corn removes it and, in addition, the bean stalks can grow up the corn stalks, making it so that we don't have to put in anything for the beans to grow on. I told this to the people at juvy, Mr. Gumbo, Brother Toll, and Agnes, but they all brushed it away saying that we would plant everything seperate from each other. The thing that irritated me the most was how they seemed to treat me like I didn't know what I was doing and so my planting advice was irrelivent, obviously I'm not an experienced farmer but these people keep on asking me for help and in that moment it felt like they didn't want me to actually help.
And then there was the actual planting of the seeds. Once we finally got the kids out to work on the feild they just started making rows of holes in the ground with their hoes, no measurement or anything. As I said I was under the impression of us making rows of mounds, so that the water could collect in the space between the mounds and this better irrigate the feild. Once again, I'm not an expericened farmer, but I felt like this was some worth while knowledge that they were just brushing aside.
After planting the whole area designated for the corn, I was ready to move on to planting the peanuts and beans, but they said that I'd have to wait for tomorrow, yet another moment of exasperation for me. I go back to teaching the children in the classroom, but today a few of them weren't listening to anything I was saying. So in summary today was a day I felt contiually disrespected. Agnes ecspecially made me feel disrespected, when I told her how I wanted to plant the seeds today she laughed at me and said no. It's really hard to keep the enthusiasm to want to help people when they don't seem to appreciate it or want to accept it, but this could just be a bad day, we shall see.

So Little To Do and So Much Time, Scratch That, Reverse It

So the last month went by fast but also there was much that I had to do, there was a large amount of napping and lounging in the hammock going on during that month. But that all soon changed. Last Saturday I went to a hot spring with some fellow volunteers. The place was beautiful and made me wish my camera was still working, but I'm sure I'll get some awesome photos from the other volunteers off of facebook. The hot springs weren't exactly hot, defiantly nothing like the hot springs I went to with my family when we were in Banff. The water went from average temperature to luke warm, the thermal vents kept the water from being cold and you knew they were there went you would feel a slight current of warm water brush by you. The hot spring was in the middle of the desert and it was an absolute oasis, there were trees with roots that looked like mangroves and the branches grew over the water so we climbed them to jump into the water. After going for a fun swim and eating lunch we went on a trek to find some monkeys which to my great disapointment had no results. When we returned to the hot spring there was a group of wazungu (white people) who had just biked in, a large amount of them being children. We later found out that they were all native Tanzanians and that they were children of volunteers who had come to Tanzania and then decided to stay. It threw me off a little to meet a white person in Tanzania who was fluent in Swahili, but I also thought about how they must have to explain themselves a lot when people mistaken them for tourists or volunteers.
So when we got back from the hot springs we were soon joined by a new batch of volunteers. They're all pretty young and so far they all seem fun, though slightly lacking in any defining personality, but that could just be because they just got here. With the new volunteers came a new person to come to juvy with me. A volunteer from the previous group, named Scott, had joined me about a week ago, but today was the first day for the new volunteer, Nicole, at juvy. She's from Washington and is decked out in tattoos so we get along well.
And with the new volunteers came the rains! Today it finally started to really rain, luckily right around the time we brought everyone in to sing, dance, and play games. We played Duck, Duck, Goose for quite a while, the kids really loved it, but here they call it Bati, Bati, Kuku. The rains mean that everyone can finally start planting their crops and it feels like a lot of tension has been washed away by the rains.
Also, thanks to the new volunteers there's now more than enough people who want to go bow hunting with the Bushmen, something which I've been trying to do since soon after I arrived here. On top of that we're making plans to go on a day trip one of these weekends to a waterfall where you can jump from the top into the pool below. The plan is this up coming weekend will be the Bushmen hunt and then the following weekend will be the waterfall trip. It feels like this last month in Tanzania is really going to fly by, as well as be action packed. Stay tuned!

Rainy Season

You know how in my past posts I talked about the rains and how I thought the rainy season was starting? I couldn't have been more wrong, the past two weeks we've been going without a drop of rain and I think it's effecting everyone here.
Although it could be the new batch of volunteers as well. I enjoy my time with them and they're all close to my age range, but that age range has also resulted in a lot of stupid drama that belongs back in high school. I'm always hearing about so-and-so kissed so-and-so, now so-and-so is pissed or Joe Shmoe likes Jane Doe, but Jane Doe doesn't like Joe Shmoe.
I feel like when the rains finally come the locals will be happier because they can finally begin growing their crops (which is the only way most people can get their food here) and/or the volunteers will be so cooped up in the CCS compound that the drama amongst each other will only get worse.
But every day I wake up hoping to see rain clouds in the sky, something which I don't normally do, because when the rains start that's when we'll be able to start the garden in the back of juvy to help feed the kids. I'm also thinking that I might teach the kids about how seeds grow with that whole thing we did in kindergarten where we put seeds in a clear plastic cup with dirt in it and watch as the seed sprouts roots and leaves, I was also thinking of maybe buying some potatoes, cutting them in half, and putting them in water. These things might seem juvenile to us, but the education system here in Tanzania never did fun things like that for young children; either because of a lack of supplies or simply because primary schools in Tanzania run on memorization. This memorization teaching style causes only a handful of children to truly learn anything and many of them are never asked to exercise critical thinking in class.

Tough Love

Before you read this post, please make sure that you read my post about the Maasai because I've updated it.
So today I came to juvy, just like most days, with the local volunteer Agnes and a volunteer from Australia, Lauren. Lauren and I have become quiet good friends in the three weeks we've been working at juvy and Agnes is quiet helpful in that she can translate for us, but tends to spend most of her time texting people on her cell phone or reading one of the books from the supply cabinet at juvy.
When we come in to juvy we usually get there before they have breakfast. The boys have been watching after the key to the supply cabinet but one boy, Modi, is always the one who has the key. Modi also is one of the boys who prepares breakfast so the first few minutes is spent waiting for breakfast to be served so that we can get Modi to open the cabinet.
Today it was about an hour after we got there that breakfast finally came, ridiculously late. Then Modi was off doing who knows what for a few more minutes until he finally got around to opening the supply cabinet.
When we opened the supply cabinet we were shocked to find only one pen. The first week Lauren was here she brought a handful of about twenty pens for the kids because they were running low. Over the past few weeks the pens have decreased slightly in number but I never thought anything of it, but then suddenly all but one were gone. We found out that someone had been stealing the pens, apparently the kids can trade in pens for cigarettes. This got me pretty mad, we sent the kids to the sleeping area to go look for some pens that one of the kids might have hidden. They came back with about three pens, not even close to all of them, and wouldn't fess up to who had taken them.
This was when I went to the Warden, Mr. Gumbu. He sent one of the workers, Brother Toll, to go look for the pens because he used to be an inmate who was reformed and began working there, so he knew all the hiding places. He turned up about four more pens and some pencils, the rest had probably been already traded in for cigarettes.
I wanted these kids punished but I didn't know a proper way, I couldn't give them a stern talking to because they wouldn't understand what I was saying. I was thinking about just not doing anything with them for the rest of the day or possibly leaving early to send them a message that I was not happy when they started asking for forgiveness. Apparently if I didn't forgive them they would be beaten. Corporal punishment is used very readily here in Tanzania and at that moment it didn't look that bad to me. I'm not a supporter of beating as a form of punishment because it never really trains better behavior, it just causes it out of fear and when there is no fear then there is no reason to behave. But I also feel like since these kids have been raised with corporal punishment, in addition to them being criminals, that sometimes it's the only way to get through to them.
I didn't want to forgive these boys, I've spent weeks working with these kids and using money out of my own pocket to give them things like soap and shoes and food and then they steal from me. They take these pens and yet almost all of them refuse to work in their exercise books with anything but a pen, they were essentially expecting that I would buy more pens not matter how many they stole. I had already felt like they were taking advantage of me in that there was never an end to the requests for things they wanted me to get for them, but this was the last straw. I sat with my back to all of them as they talked with Agnes in Swahili trying to tell her to tell me to forgive them.
Lauren and Agnes were feeling sorry for the children, especially when some of them started crying. But I didn't feel like they were actually sorry for what they had done, it was one thing to steal the pens but it was another for none of them to fess up to who did it, so I wanted them all to be punished. It felt like they weren't sorry and that they were only afraid of their punishment and even as they pleaded with Agnes a few of the boys would occasionally laugh. Yes some of the children were crying, but I can remember faking crying to get out of trouble and I know that some of these kids can be good actors so that they can get money out of wazungu.
Finally I went to Mr. Gumbu again. He said that we would forgive the boys this time, but that we would also closely regulate what the kids use. We also would no longer trust the boys with the key to the supply cabinet, that it would only be available among myself, Brother Toll, and Mr. Gumbu. He also said that if this happens again then the boys will not be forgiven. He apologized to me as well, saying that it's very discouraging for volunteers who come here out of their goodness of their heart trying to help the boys only to be taken advantage of. Mr. Gumbu really is a good man and he exactly described how I was feeling, like all my enthusiasm about helping these boys had been deflated.
We'll see how things go, but if the boys keep this up I might not be able to take it any more and have to change my placement to an orphange.

My Time With The Maasai

So I've been having a hell of a time trying to just upload the photos I took while I was in Zac's village, but now I've finally succeeded.
Zac, his brother, and I got on a bus from Moshi to Arusha and then another from Arusha to I forget where but it was headed towards the Serengeti. The bus to Arusha was extremely crowded and hot. There was a baby sitting next to me who kept on wanting to drink from my water bottle. She was an adorable baby, but I needed all the water I had for my time in the village plus her mother had a water bottle for her, it's just that her mother wasn't paying any attention to her.
When we disembarked from our second bus we then set out on an hour walk to Zac's village, it was literally in the middle of the dessert. The sun was setting by the time that we got to the village. One of the warriors handed out the notebooks, pens, and candies I had brought as gifts for the children. Then Zac and his brother and I walked over to a nearby Babao tree. While we were there we climbed these sticks that were stuck in the trunk of a tree like a ladder because the Maasai harvest the fruits from the tree, plus we saw a herd of zebra.When we returned to the village Zac's mother cooked rice for us. The sauce she put on it was delicious but apparently it was just a bunch of stuff she had randomly thrown together. The downside was the amount of rice they gave, I know it was a gesture of generosity but they gave me something close to a half gallon bowl filled up to the top with rice and I always felt I was being rude when I couldn't possibly finish it all. Maasai huts are especially good at containing the heat within them, which makes things uncomfortable since food is made over an open fire in the middle of the hut. After dinner and many cups of chai we went to sleep. A Maasai bed is made of sticks and goat skin and I shared my bed with Zac, his brother, and his half brother of whom the hut belonged to. The hut was pretty warm and the bed pretty hard, but thing that made sleeping difficult for me was the lack of space. Many times I'd be able to drift of to sleep only to be shoved into the wall of the hut by someone else shifting in their sleep.






The next day, to most of the village's happy surprise, I dressed in Maasai clothing. We then spent the day watching after some of the village's animals as they were out grazing. I thought this meant a day of chilling out under a tree, but because the rains haven't really come yet it's still very dry and so we had to walk for something like three hours to get to where the animals were.
Once we came to the herd we slept under a tree for a while. The feeling was very peaceful, it was so quiet out there in the African wild and it was a welcome relief from all of the walking. Walking back we saw giraffes, impala, ostriches, and more zebra. We stopped under another Babao tree, which is where I ran out of water. By the time we got a village that could give us some water I was feeling pretty dehydrated and so I drank the water they gave me without caring about not having put a purification tablet in it. The way I saw it , it was better to get a stomach flu than pass out of heat exhaustion in the middle of the bush.


When we got back we ate a goat and I drank some of its blood. Pictures of that have been omitted for the sake of my vegetarian readers.
In Zac's village there is a home that his father is building from bricks, his father wants a "mzungu home" and this is where we prepared and ate the meat. Women aren't allowed to see the preparation, cooking, or eating of meat because Maasai men feel that meat gives them strength and in order to gain this strength women must have nothing to do with it. So as we skinned the goat and cut off pieces to eat we put up sheets over the windows so the women couldn't see. It became difficult to keep the sheets up because soon after we started it became very windy. Whenever a sheet was blown off the men and I would scramble to put it back up, it reminded me of when you're little and doing something with "no girls allowed." What ever game you're playing becomes your second priority with you're first being ensuring that girls have nothing to do with it.
To a certain degree it can be said that it's sexist to not involve women in the eating of meat, but to what degree do you also need to respect the Maasai culture? The Maasai practice female circumcision, something I could never support, but also I slightly understood the want to eat meat away from women. It's unfair to label women as toxic or someone who will ruin what men want to do, but there's something about sitting around the fire with men, eating meat with a machete that really does make you feel stronger. It all felt very ancient to me, like eating the goat that night sent me back thousands of years.
The Maasai also drink the blood of the animals they eat. In order to preserve the blood Maasai will suffocate the animal instead of slitting its throat. Neither way is exactly humane or a way that I would want to go, but for some reason it felt better that they didn't slit the goat's throat. As I'm sure you're all dying to hear, yes I did drink goats blood and no it didn't make me the slightest bit sick, but I did gag when a little piece of liver went into my mouth while I was drinking the blood. In case you were wondering, blood tastes kinda like if you had bleeding gums and a mouth full of phlegm and then swallowed it.
After we ate the meat the left over parts were put into a stew. This includes the head which they roasted to get the hairs off of before putting in the big pot. The stew was for the young boys who were also tending to the fire. As the pot boiled Zac and I sat back and talked the night away. First he told me how his village is his father, his father's wives, their children, and the children's wives and children; so nearly everyone in the village was related to Zac. Zac was very interested in the Amazon forest because he had read about it once in a book, he asked me if the Amazon was in California, I told him no, that it was much further south. That might sound rediculous to you, but how many of you would be able to name which contries had which African landmarks. This then led to me telling Zac about various ancient cultures across the world and their similarities to the Maasai. This all took place by the dim light of the fire, with the wind blowing all around us, and dry lightning striking frequently as it does out in the bush.
After this whole experience I can without a doubt say that I'm glad that I did it, but also that I don't think I want to do it again. I learned a great deal about what life is like for a Maasai and it made me value a lot more of my western comforts. The sights of the open African desert were breath taking and something that can never fully be described in words. I came back from my time with the Maasai a different man.

Zac the Maasai

So this Friday, at noon, I get on a bus with my friend Zac to spend the weekend in his village. While I'm in the village I'll sleep in a manyatta with Zac, a manyatta is a Maasai hut made out of cow dung. I will dress the same way as the Maasai and gaurd the herds with Zac during the day.
While I was on my safari to the Serengeti, we stopped at a Maasai village, I felt like the village was more specific to entertaining tourists, I wanted to expeirence what it was really like in a Maasai village, which I think I'll be able to have this weekend with Zac. While I was at the Maasai village on my safari I bought a calabash (a calabash is a hollowed out gourd that use like a Maasai version of a canteen) but I soon realised that the inside of the calabash smelled like a dead cow and I didn't want to drink anything out of it. Zac told me that when we go to his village his mother can make a wash for the calabash to clean it out and smell really nice. A Maasai's diet consist of milk, meat, and blood (blood being used in soup and some times being drinken during a ritual) resently they've started farming corn and beans to give them a better diet. The other volunteers said that if anyone is best suited for sleeping in a cow poo hut and drinking blood, it's me. On top of this being a great experience, it's also great stuff for the paper I'm writing for Hutchins about the cultural infuences the Maasai and Chagga have had on Tanzania.
Along with getting Maasai clothing and getting a clean calabash, Zac also said he will get me a Maasai spear. I already have one spear which I bought in the village Marangu, which is on the slopes of Kilimanjaro, but I later realised it was more just an oranmental spear and wasn't very functional. The spear Zac will get for me will be a full on functioning, authentic Maasai spear which I will use while I'm out gaurding the herds with him. Maasai men also wear a large amount of jewlery, primarily necklaces, and Zac told me that his mother makes quiet a few and he will get one for me from her. The children in most Maasai villages know about three English words; pen, book, and money. They come up to tourists asking for these three things, they ask for pens and note books because they want supplies for going to school. So when I visit Zac's village I plan to bring lots of pens and note books, along with some candies and something like rice or sugar for Zac's mother. I'm not really sure what to bring for Zac's father, but I'll ask before we leave.

Cash Cow

Some times the kids at juvy make me feel like a jerk. It started when I bought some rings from the kids. They make these rings and bracelets out of beads and fishing line, they make them to the size of their wrists and fingers so they're a little too small for anyone at CCS but people want to buy them to help out the kids. After I bought the rings one of the kids, Bonifas, would hold out his hand and just say "money" as soon as he saw me. It's important that we teach the kids to be able to take care of themselves, so we don't just give them money, instead we try to teach them various ways they can earn their money.
Then one of the children, Isa, asked for money to buy soap. I didn't give him the money because I wanted to make sure that he was actually getting soap, so the next day I just gave him a bar of soap instead. After that everyone wanted soap and something as simple as that I was more than willing to help out, I mean who wouldn't want them to be clean.
Later one of the kids, Martin, was limping around because he had stubbed his toe and the nail had nearly been torn out of his toe. I gave some money to one of the workers to buy the kids shoes. But then any kid without shoes wanted them, again not a greedy request so I wanted to help.
But it's feeling like there's no end in sight. I buy them soap, they want shoes. I buy them shoes, they want hair cuts. I buy them hair cuts, they want tooth paste. It's never anything that would be considered anything more than bare necessities, which make me feel worse if I try to deny it from them. But how to the children see me, do they see me as someone who is helping them out, doing them favors, or do they see me as a Santa Claus who will give from their endless wish list. I'm really conflicted because I feel like I'm being used and yet not wanting to help them makes me feel like some kind of scrooge.