A Climb Up the Uluguru Mountains

Here I am at the beginning or our hike. It was very misty early in he day.


Several of us from the language school had nothing to do this weekend so we decided to climb to one of the peaks of the Uluguru mountains that overlook the language school. Three of the instructors from the language school went with us as our guides. It ended up being more of an undertaking than we anticipated. It is supposed to only take 3 or 4 hours to reach the peak. However, we hiked up the wrong trail for over an hour so it ended up taking us 6 hours to reach the top. All-in-all we were on the mountain for 10 hours. It was really fun and a great experience. However, we learned some important lessons as well. For example: When you decide to climb a 2,180 meter (7,100 feet) mountain near the equator in the middle of the hot season with temperatures in the 90’s (F), you should take A LOT of water.

Here is Amani, one of our instructors from the language school at the top of the waterfall. This was about half way up the mountain.

Here is the waterfall seen in the previous picture. One thing nice about it being the rainy/hot season - everything was very green.

Here I am at the top! The view was very nice from up there. Alex (nicknamed Mengo), one of the instructors from the language school is behind me. I probably wouldn't have made it if he had not been there to help me. Into the 5th and 6th hours of climbing (when we got lost) my legs got very tired and I became extremely dehydrated. Mengo took my bag and helped me climb up the difficult sections. Thanks Mengo!

We climbed back down and are now safely at the language school. Everyone was pretty sore for a couple days, but now we look back on it as an amazing experience.

More Pictures of the life with the Maasi

Here are a couple more pictures of the Maasi I thought you'll might enjoy.


Here is a Maasi house. It is essentially a collection of sticks with mud stuck between them and roof made out of some type of foliage. I haven't figured out how they stand up, but they design must work well because I have seen many similar houses.

yummy. This is how the goat meat was cooked at the Maasi cattle market. It was common to see large pieces of meat hanging from little stands like this one. There was a woman who was hacking up goat intestines with a machete, but she didn't want me to take her picture so this picture is the best I could do to gross out all you vegetarians. While I was at the cattle market we actually ate some goat leg.

A Maasi man on a cellphone. Karleen actually took this picture, but I liked it so much I asked her if I could post it on my blog. It is the merging of two cultures and really shows what the Maasi are going through. The Maasi are generally resistant to change but they are willing to adapt to certain things that make life easier, such as cell phones.

A couple random pictures

This picture of me holding a chicken in the car on the way home from one of our journeys. The next day we were served a chicken dish for dinner.

Here I am drinking the "milk" from a green cocconut. This was after spending the morning at the cattle market. I got just a little sunburned on my arms.

A Visit to the Maasi Cattle Market

This picture shows the general feel of the Maasi cattle market. Every two weeks Maasi men come to sell their cattle at the market. The cattle market is sort-of like a state fair. The Maasi are traditionally a nomadic people. The cattle market gives them the opportunity to sell their cows and goats to big buyers from Dar Es Salaam and other areas to get money for school fees, clothes and other items. Howerver, the Rift Valley Fever epidemic that has spread from Kenya (Rift Valley Fever is a hemorrhagic fever that is spread by mosquitoes and humans are commonly infected from the meat of cows, goats or sheep) and means that all the cattle must be tested for the disease. This prevented many of the large buyers from purchasing cattle from the Maasi on the day we were there.

The Maasi men frequently marry more than one woman (if they can afford it). Apparently the price paid to the father or a Maasi woman for her hand in marriage has gone down from 20 cows to 14 cows. There was a meeting among the Maasi elders and they decided to decrease the price, because it was preventing many young people from getting married. They have arranged marriages, but it is more and more common for the daughter to have some say in the decision of who she marries.

Right after I took the above picture, Pastor Hofferman, Karleen and I were talking to each other and a drunk Maasi man came up to us and asked Pastor Hofferman if Karleen and I were available. Pastor Hofferman (a happily married Lutheran pastor who is almost 70 years old) told the man in Swahili that Karleen (21 years old) and I (22) were his wives. Then the drunk Maasi man pointed at Karleen and said in Swahili "isn't this one your daughter?" (apparently I don't look too young to be married to a 70 year old)! Then Pastor Hofferman told him he marries young like the Maasi. This got rid of the drunk man quickly because it is very bad in Maasi culture to show interest in another man's wife.

Here is a picture of me trying to engage in Swahili conversation at the Maasi cattle market with a Maasi man. I didn't understand much of what he said but it was a good experience anyway. The native tongue of the Maasi is Kimaasi, but they learn Swahili so they can trade and communicate with the non-Maasi. Apparently more and more Maasi families are sending their children to school so some of the Maasi children spoke English as well.

This is a Maasi woman I met when I went to the Maasi cattle market last Saturday with Karleen and Pastor Hofferman. When I first asked her if I could take her picture, she acted embarrassed and hid her face. However, I had Karleen take a picture of me with my digital camera and let the Maasi woman see the picture. Then she was very excited and really wanted me to take her picture. She also brought me over and had me take a picture of her son.

Meal time with the Maasi

Yup, Africa is pretty cool. Here I am eating goat liver and rice with my fingers with my new friend Karleen and about 15 Maasi men.

Ng'ombe = the impossible Swahili word

Here is a picture of how I spend my weekdays at the language school. I am in a group of 3 students and we have native Tanzanian instructors/tutors who rotate every week. This week's teacher is named Abraham. In my group there are two other students. There is a man from Italy, Lucio, who will be managing a Catholic hospital when he is finished at the language school (on my right). The other student (on my left) in my group is named Narooma. She is from Scotland and will be working in Kenya after the language course.

My Swahili studies are going well. Our group has shorter time to study than the other students (we are only staying 2 months instead of 4) so we try to go through more than one lesson a day. Swahili uses the same alphabet as English and pronunciation is almost completely phonetic. However, there are a few words that I have trouble with. One such word is "ng'ombe." Ng'ombe is the Swahili word for cow, and the first syllable (denoted by Ng') is a sound that never appears in the English language. It is a nasal "n" sound merged into the "g" sound. Individuals fluent in German are generally able to say the word perfectly on their first try. (If only Aaron was here!) The traditional American mistake is to say a "ny" sounds when trying to imitate a native Swahili speaker.

A Trip to the National Park

Yup, we really were that close to the wildlife. This giraffe just walked across the road in front of our jeep.

A Mommy wart hog with her two little baby wart hogs. Ahhh, what could be more adorable?

Since it is the rainy season, the grass was thick and tall. This made some of the animals difficult to see. However, I was able to take a picture of this zebra. The zebra seemed very interested in us.

I got the opportunity to go with another girl from my Swahili class to the national park that is about 1 and half hours drive from the language school. (I do study here, I promise!) We saw tons of animals and I took enough pictures to go through 2 sets of batteries on my digital camera. I have posted just a few of the pictures here. A tall friend called a "twiga" in Swahili.

This elephant was every close to the road so we got a very good look at him (or her). An elephant is called "tembo" in Swahili.

The morning in Morogoro

Here is just a quick snapshot of the market in Morogoro. It is a really busy place.

This morning (Saturday) we went to the Children's Home for about an hour and then we went to the town of Morogoro (it is about 10 km from the language school). In Morogoro we went to the market and bought some fabric and a some food.

Here I am looking at the bananas for sale in the market. I am sorry the picture is so dark - it was really sunny and the bananas were under a shelter.

To get back to the language school we took a local minibus. It is the form of transportation most locals use. It costs 300 Tanzania Shillings (about $0.30 US). It is a very interesting experience. The little vans are made to carry 11 people, but in the one we rode in this morning there were 27 people including the driver and 5 children. (At least 4 people had to stand the whole time). I really wanted to take a picture, but it was so crowded I literally couldn't move. It was at least 90 degrees F today and there was no air conditioning in the van. It was a very memorable experience!

My room at the language school

This is my room at the Swahili language school. It is very cozy and more than sufficient for all of my needs. Since it is so warm everyone keeps their windows open day and night. The green thing above my bed is my mosquito net.

A picture with me in it

So far, this is the only picture that shows me in Africa. An unexpected difficulty of traveling alone in Africa is that it is hard to get pictures of yourself. A friend from my Swahili class took this picture for me.

Another picture

This picture is also a few minutes walk from the language school. When we went on this walk it was 33 degrees C outside (about 92 degrees F). Isn't Africa beautiful?

Finally a Picture!!

Here is a picture I took on a walk yesterday. This is just a few minutes walk away from the language school. This picture only took 15 minutes for it to load onto the blogger site.

Swahili Class

I have settled in at the language school and we have started Swahili classes. There are some amazing people here studying Swahili in our class. There are:

- A very sweet couple from Denmark who plan on working as IT support for the Danish churches in Tanzania after they learn Swahili. They are really nice and they speak fluent Danish, English, and German and are conversational in French and Tai.
- A priest and a nun from India who are starting a secondary school in Northern Tanzania.
- A young woman from Scotland who has been working in Kenya for a year and a half.
- A woman from Eritrea who was been working for an organization in Kenya for a while.
- A middle-aged man from Italy who manages a Catholic hospital. He already knows a lot of Swahili because he doesn't speak much English so Swahili is his primary form communication.
- An American girl who is doing a study aboard program for her BA degree.
- An American pastor and his wife, and their adopted 3 year old son from Kenya.
- And another young American couple who are extremely nice and who plan to work in rural Tanzania for the next several years.

In addition to the language school students there is a very nice girl from Germany who is volunteering in the school’s kindergarten for one year.

There are 3 people who can only stay for the 2 months (versus the typical 4 months) so we were placed into our own group. We are going to try to get through as many lessons as possible in the time we have.

The Airport Odyssey

I actually made it the Swahili Language School in Morogoro, Tanzania! I wanted to up load some pictures on the blog, but the computer I am using for internet access is REALLY old (it proudly wears a sticker that says “Made for Windows 98”), has black ants crawling on it and is extremely slow. I think that trying to deal with digital pictures might kill it.

In view of trying to extend the life of the school's computer, here is a summary of my journey from Camano Island to the Language school without pictures:

Feb 1st:
4:15 am Andy drove me to the airport shuttle.

6:50 am I was informed by the airlines that I had been bumped off my original direct flight to DC. Fortunately they were able to put me on another flight through Chicago.

Flight #1: Seattle to Chicago (approx 4 hours)

Flight #2: Chicago to DC (about 2 hours)

Flight #3: DC to Rome (a little over 10 hours)

In Rome we were supposed to have a 45 re-fueling stop, however, the plane got a flat tire. Now you might ask yourself, "How does an airplane get a flat tire?" and that is an excellent question. I still don't know the answer to this question even though I got to discuss it with my fellow passengers for 3 hours while the tire was being changed.

Feb 2nd:

Flight #4: Rome to Addis Ababa (continuation of earlier flight) (approx 8 hours)

Once I got to Addis I got my visa (this took about an hour) and collected my bags. Since the flight was 3 hours late, the driver who was supposed to take me to the guest house was not to be found. I found an airport taxi driver and gave him the directions the guest house that Tesfaye had written in Amharic for me. It is now about 11:45pm.

Feb3rd:
We arrive at the guest house only to find that it is locked and the guard doesn't have the key... He told us to find the person who has the key and come back. 1 am: It starts to rain as we pull up to the home of the person with the key. We then knock on the door and honk the horn of the car for 15 minutes. Finally we get the key and go back to the guest house. I lay down from 2am to 6am.

I get to the airport bright and early for my flight to Nairobi, only to discover that it has been delayed for 2 and a half hours.

Flight 5: Addis to Nairobi (about 2 hours)

Flight 6: Nairobi to Dar es Salaam (about 1 and 3/4 hours)

Since the first flight was delayed, I arrived in Dar late in the evening (about 8pm) and was informed that I had to wait until the next day for the bus to the language school. So, I got a hotel and actually got my first good night of sleep in 3 days.

Feb 4th:

Took a bus to the language school: Dar to Morogoro (about 2 hours).

I made it!