First week of classes

We’ve had four days of Swahili now, and I’m enjoying learning the language a lot more than I’d expected. We have two hours in the classroom, followed by 2 hours outside in small groups led by a language assistant (as in the picture). So it is tiring, but we’re able to move at a fast pace which makes it a lot more interesting and keeps me from becoming discouraged – every day I notice how I’m able to understand and say more, which makes me want to learn even more. I’ve never been good at languages, and partly that is probably because I’m somewhat impatient. With Spanish, I’d have maybe an hour of class a few days a week, and I never felt like I’d make any progress so I’d get frustrated and bored and stop working, and then I’d really not learn anything. Now there’s a ton of new grammar and vocabulary to learn every day, and not studying it isn’t an option as trying to catch up is a somewhat frightening thought. Consequently, I’m now able to communicate much more than just a few days ago. The idea that if you put some work into learning a language you will get better at it seems like (yet another) painfully obvious fact of life that I’m treating like an epiphany, but I’m rather amazed.

Two days ago we took a field trip to the American Embassy and the National Museum. We got stuck in traffic for ages on the ride back. In Dar there are lots of people who try to sell you items as you sit in your car. Ice cream makes sense, but giant inflatable “Hello Kitty” chairs, or aprons, just seem random. People do buy them, too. At one point, the people in the car in front of our ACM bus were buying aprons, when the traffic suddenly started moving again. The guy selling the stuff just hopped in the car to continue the transaction, and was let out the next time traffic stopped. Seeing things like that makes it not unpleasant to be stuck on the bus for hours. This is one of the reasons I love travelling so much. There is always something interesting to look at, and even the most mundane interactions between people are fascinating to watch.

Beach!

Went to the beach yesterday! It was amazing. To get there, the 21 of us ACM students as well as Hamida and Emanuel, the two USDM students who have been showing us around, had to all pile into a dalla-dalla that took us to Mwenge, where we got in another dalla-dalla that took us to the city center, from where we could walk to a ferry that took us to an island, where we got on a third dalla-dalla that took us to the beach. This beach was part of a resort hotel, so we had to pay a bit to get in. It did seem very touristy, and makes me all the more glad that we’re living at the university and are getting an exposure to the actual Dar. Not only is it more interesting, it is much cheaper as well; a meal on campus rarely costs more than 2000-3000Tsh (so around $2-$3), whereas at the resort food was closer to 10,000Tsh.

The beach was perfect: fine, nearly white sand, warm turquoise water, palm trees, very few people (because it is Ramadan), lots of pretty seashells… I spent the day swimming, floating lazily (the water is really salty so it’s really easy to float), eating coconuts, and wandering along the shore picking up shells. The most fun part was swimming out quite far. This was because the soccer ball Emanuel had rented somehow ended up drifting way out, and I went with the guy who swam out to rescue it. We swam out fairly far, to the point that I felt myself getting very tired (and I’m a decent swimmer) and turned back. So for the return to shore I was alone. I’ve always been mildly afraid of bodies of water that contain living creatures. I know this is about on par with my fear of snails, but for some reason I get freaked out by the thought of fish-like animals brushing against me in the water. Hence, I tend to stick to the shallow water where I can see what’s around me and can easily run to land if a stray piece of seaweed startles me. If I do go out farther, which I have been trying to do more lately because I hate being such a wimp, it is always with someone else. It feels safer – the more people making noise, the less fishy things there ought to be. Despite this, I thoroughly enjoyed finding myself alone in the middle of the Indian Ocean. I did make sure to not look down, in case I’d accidentally mistake my shadow for a shark, and did have to somewhat bully my thoughts into focusing on how wonderful it felt to be swimming, and how gorgeous the water and beach and trees were. But I’m SO glad to have done that, and next time we go to the beach I want to swim out far again.

The other person who went out continued and did save the ball. He also got a ride back with a fishing boat, and me and Emanuel met him on the shore. Several boats had just come in, and we got to watch them sell their fish to people. The fish themselves were beautiful. There were some long, red ones, and some broader iridescent ones, as well as an octopus. What was really interesting though was to see these people go about the transactions. These were subsistence fishermen – what they catch they sell, and what they earn will (hopefully) be enough to get them through the day. I’ve never seen that before. Seeing poverty, as one does every day here, is odd. Like the dalla-dalla driver the other day said he drives about 14 hours a day. It’s horrifying. And yet everyone here is so incredibly friendly too. I'm certainly glad that I'm getting the chance to see this kind of thing, as it is very different than simply reading about it.



Today we had our first Swahili class. Four hours... It was exhausting. But also a lot of fun. The professor is great, and the language assistants are all very helpful. I'm just scared of falling behind, as I doubt catching up later is much of an option -- the class moves too fast for that!

I've been here a week now. This is going to be one very eventful, interesting and thought-provoking semester!

First few days

I’ve been in Tanzania for a few days now, and so far it has been great. The food is surprisingly delicious. It’s kind of repetitive, with lots of rice and chicken/meat and some sauce, but it is all really good. The breakfast foods are my favorites though: there’s “andazi,” a bun (with cardamom in it sometimes); “samosa” dough filled with minced-meat; and “chai a maziwa,” tea with milk. And fruit!

It’s funny how despite being so very different from Swedish standards, everything about the dorms seems perfectly adequate. The mattress is a bit lumpy and the bed short even for me, the shower only has cold water, laundry is done in buckets in a sink, etc. and it doesn’t even feel that odd. The fact that there is water, and that we have flush toilets in the dorms instead of the hole-in-the-ground present in most buildings, is something I’m actually appreciative of. Last semester at college I grumbled when I had to wait ten minutes take a shower because the one on my floor was closed for cleaning – imagine the inconvenience! I wonder if I’ll quickly return to that mentality once I get back. Hopefully not.

So far, we haven’t really done a whole lot. This is an orientation week of sorts, and we’ve had a few presentations on topics like safety and health. It’s rather nice to not have to constantly be running from one organized activity to another, and there’s always plenty to do. Swinging from the vines hanging from trees is one of the most fun things, and we’ve gone to the market at Mwenge, and today we’re going to the beach. At the same time, I kind of wish we’d started Swahili right away. Not only would it be practical to know more, but it would also have helped me feel less like yet another clueless tourist. I hate not being able to reply when someone says something to me, especially since everyone here is so very friendly.

Vervets!

Culture shock? And time to go!

I’m finally all packed, and in about an hour will leave for the airport. I feel like I’m forgetting multiple really important things, but can’t think of what. I have my toothbrush, my passports, socks… I’ll have a roughly 6 hour flight to Doha, a 7ish hour layover there, and then another flight of about 6 hours. In just about 24 hours, I’ll be in Dar es Salaam!

I’m getting really curious about how I’ll react to Tanzanian culture. Some sort of culture shock is inevitable, which is good. Going somewhere without a culture shock would be boring – that’s part of what makes travel so exciting.

I spent the summer in the US, and have had about a week here in Sweden before going to Tanzania. In many ways, Sweden is my “home;” I was a resident for 20 years, my parents live here, all my schooling until college was in Sweden. Nonetheless, I’ve definitely been experiencing some culture shock since getting back. It started in JFK as I was waiting in line to get my boarding pass for the flights to Reykjavik and Stockholm. The family ahead of me was Swedish. Several times, the father absentmindedly rammed his suitcase into my backpack, which I’d placed on the floor. In Keflavik airport, the cashier at the store where I got a croissant barely made eye-contact. At the baggage claim in Arlanda (Stockholm airport), an announcement on the loudspeakers informed us that our luggage would be delayed as they couldn’t open the hatch in the airplane. There was some grumbling among people travelling together, but that’s it; when the baggage finally came and I was struggling to simultaneously pull my two nearly 50lbs duffel bags off the carousel, a few hundred people watched me and no one made the slightest gesture to help.

I’ve flown across the Atlantic a good 25 times by now (my mom is American so we’d spend every summer with her family in Maryland, and now I go to college in Iowa), and have had similar experiences in multiple airports. On a predominantly American as opposed to Scandinavian flight, these scenarios would almost certainly have been very different. Any accidental nudge would have been acknowledged with an “excuse me” or “I’m sorry.” In stores, you’re given a smile if not a “have a good day.” There’s invariably someone who will take a delay as an excuse to make some comment that bonds the flight as a group caught in a mutually inconvenient, but unavoidable and somewhat humorous situation. In the US I can haul around way more than I can possibly carry on my own because I can more or less count on people helping me – whether that’s getting a ride from Wal Mart to campus in Grinnell, or help with moving wheel-less bags through a New York subway (even back in the good old days when you could have two bags of 64kgs each).

I know that there is a dramatic difference in how people act in Sweden and the US. I’ve always known that. Nonetheless, every time I switch countries, I’m surprised by people’s behavior. I’d like to think my reactions have gotten somewhat more nuanced over the years, but on the whole, they tend to remain pretty stable. When I go to Sweden, I’m horrified by how rude and selfish people are. When I go to the US, I’m appalled at how shallow and impersonal everyone seems. At the same time, I love how independent and no-nonsense Swedes are, and by how friendly and open Americans are. I’m not really a foreigner in either Sweden or the US, yet experience culture shock in both. I guess it isn’t the culture itself that is as important as the change from one to another. Tanzania will be a huge change. On the other hand, I’ll be expecting to feel out of place there, whereas I’m always taken slightly by surprise at how weird it feels to arrive in Sweden or the US (since by the time I leave either, I feel entirely at home there). I wonder if the fact that Tanzania is so vastly different from anywhere I’ve ever been will in a sense make it easier to adjust to it.

Vaccinations

Back in Sweden now! The last four days or so in Portland were crazy -- I had several nights where I only had time to sleep two or three hours -- but it was a lot of fun, and seems to have helped with jetlag, as my sleep schedule was already totally messed up when I got here. Dar es Salaam is only an hour ahead of Stockholm time, so I won't have to deal with jetlag arriving there either, which will make the transition easier.

I've finally gotten vaccinated against most of the things one can potentially get in Tanzania! It's a relief to have it done, but I ever do this again, I think it might be better to space it out more. I've never liked shots (who does?) but don't mind them terribly. Nonetheless, after the fourth one I actually fainted. It was a very odd experience. I felt faint and vaguely recall trying to tell the nurse, and the next thing I woke up utterly confused about where I was and what was going it. For some reason I was convinced that I was at home and trying to get my dog to stop jumping up, and it took a good twenty seconds to remember that I was at the vaccination clinic. At least that gave me a good excuse to head to the cafe next door and have coffee and a Swedish pastry. And now I am vaccinated against yellow fever, typhoid, hepatitis A and hepatitis B! And this evening I'll start malaria pills and take the first of the drinkable cholera vaccination!

Six days until I leave for Tanzania. I still can't really believe it.