The first blog from Africa!

Hello from Rotia (village) , Karatu (district), Arusha (region), Tanzania!



I am finally (have been for two days after three days of solid travel) at the base camp. The trip started on Sept. 4th and came to a complete end on Sept. 7th. It was one heck of a trip getting here! 10 hours in Heathrow, 10 hours in the Nairobi airport, 3 hours in the Tanzanian airport (most only received one bag.. some didn’t receive any).. I was lucky and got the bag with clothes in it, one night in an Arusha hotel, a three hour land cruiser ride (saw two giraffes, donkeys, and a baboon family with a mama carrying a baby baboon!!), and finally we arrived at our base camp next to a village in Rotia. The camp is beautiful… so much more than any of us ever expected. There are five bandas (houses) split between the 28 of us. There are four people in one and the rest have two or three people. We sleep in bunk beds with mattresses that have mosquito nets around them (it‘s kind of nice and cozy), have running water for showers and teeth brushing; however, the sustainability committee we brought together decided showers should only happen once every four days. This is of course, fine with me, and none of us were expecting to have water that frequently anyway. I am going on day 7 of no shower and I still smell like roses J. The gist is that this camp is amazing and surrounded by a very friendly village with lots and lots of children.

The first day we arrived at camp, we were all exhausted; probably running on 12 hours in that last 72 hours we’d been alive. But, we got to camp and were too excited to think about how much we just wanted to lay down. We got a tour of the camp… there is a chumba (dining hall), a classroom, houses for the Tanzanian and Kenyan staff, houses for us, a volleyball net, a fire pit, and tons of filtered water to drink! It’s really beautiful and feels a lot like Colorado weather. It’s super cold in the morning until lunch or so and then gets really hot in the afternoon, it’s also really dry so I have to maintain the chapstick application. After the tour we had orientation with Erica who is a 25 year old chick who graduated from CC and just fell in love with Africa and the SFS program so she stuck around and has been the manager for a couple years. She has been very helpful and got everyone’s bags to camp, which was so nice.

Next, we got to go out to Rotia, which is the village located right outside of our camp. We walked around the village on our running trail that we can use from 7am-5pm each day. Most of us got up early this morning (6:30am) and went for a couple laps. It was great because a bunch of the school children started running with us. We have already learned a lot of greetings. To children we say, “mambo” and they reply with “poa;” which basically means “what’s up, how are you?” and “cool, good.” To adults we say “jambo” and they can reply with “si jambo” or “mzuri,” the conversations are essentially the same. They just emphasize the age of the person you are speaking too. The children and most of the adults are very kind and interested in meeting us. They come up slowly and we try to initiate conversation in Swahili, which seems to make them feel more comfortable and then they participate in the very small conversation we are capable of having. E.g. my name is, what is your name, are you a student, I am a student, and I have no money.

We have Swahili classes about two or three times a week, so hopefully by the end I will be able to tell some of the stories in Swahili. After the walk around the village, we went back to camp, hung out, and then had a delicious dinner. The food is very good and healthy. We eat a lot of lentils, broccoli, cauliflower, and potatoes. I think we have had every kind of potato so far (fried, baked, mashed, soup), but it has all been wonderful. My digestive system… not so much.. But it’s getting use to the change. (should’ve packed some fiber pills or bran stuff ;) ).

Yesterday we had some more orientation stuff on safety and basically all of the things that could possible go wrong. Jiggers, scorpions, black mambas, Egyptian rattlers, mosquitoes, etc. all of the bugs/reptiles that can make you feel pain. Woof… not so much of a good conversation, but good to know for sure. I had to keep my eyes on the ground everywhere I went due to an extreme case of paranoia; however, today I was much more relaxed and am making sure to take caution when I need too and not be too much of a worry wart. And no mama, I haven’t missed a malaria pill. We also discussed safari etiquette and how not to act around the elephants, lions, giraffes, buffalo, etc. We then practiced some Swahili greetings and went to town for an hour or so to talk with the locals. It’s about a fifteen minute walk to get to town from our camp, so not too far, and I am definitely going back to play some soccer and just talk with them! It was so much fun. Everyone in Tanzania is so welcoming and kind. We had to approach them for the most part, but as soon as we got to talking a little, they would smile and it just filled my heart with compassion for such happy people who practically live with nothing. We (me and two other girls) talked to so many people on our walk. The best meeting was when we had an arm wrestling contests with the Tanzanian men and then got to practice carrying potatoes on our head with the help of the women. It’s seriously crazy how much weight these African women can carry on their head and with no hands! I tried to let go of the 10-15 pound bucket on my head, but I just couldn’t do it, I had to keep one hand on the rim. Perhaps with some more practice I will get the hang of it and integrate the tradition into the States ;); people should seriously do more labor themselves.

Today (9/9/10) consisted of the first day of classes. We have wildlife management, wildlife ecology, African socio-economic policy, as well as Swahili. Classes are about 1.5-2 hours each and they change from day to day (there time slots and days), so classes are very sporadic, which is kind of nice because it makes for an interesting routine. We were up this morning, running and enjoying the Rotia children company. The running trail we have is almost a mile long and goes around our camp through the village. There is so much vegetation around the area, lots of different trees and plants. We get to go on nature walks in the mornings and try to learn some of the flowers and such in the area. I do know that we are surrounded in a plant called the “pencil plant” and it is filled with a milky substance that can make you go blind, so all of us steer away from that. We ended the day doing a circuit workout (yes, the people here are a bit crazy like me and it’s awesome!) We just set up stations around camp and got a workout in before dinner. I played a little bit of soccer with the staff afterward, which was a lot of fun and they are all very accepting and let me play with them.

Tonight we had a good amount of free time to get our books and class schedules down. There will be a lot of work, but I think it will all be very enjoyable to do. We also saw the constellation Scorpio, which was really neat, because I cannot see it at home due to the hemisphere switch. The stars are very abundant and bright here, so night time it very calming and the sky just shines with millions of stars.

On Saturday we are off to Lake Manyara National Park to have our first research session. There will be hippos, birds, giraffes, plants, lions, etc. We will be there all day and we have to pick one or two animals to investigate, we then have to observe them and come up with questions and hypotheses to write up in a report. I will fill you in on what my study ends up being. I am hoping hippos will somehow be involved.

My classmates are a lot of fun and we all get a long really well. I am looking forward to spending more time with them, the staff, and the people, and just opening my mind and my heart to this once in a lifetime experience. I promise to only post a couple days instead of five from now on, it was just a bit tough getting settled in and on the internet. I hope all is well wherever you are and that life is brilliant and beautiful.


Kwaheri (goodbye) until next time!



-Katie