Mizunguko

A panorama shot of the Ngorongoro Crater

Tanzania is a land of the truest colors you can imagine: an eternity of green rolling hills stretching across the nation, azure waters punctured only by bright coral in the hidden bays of Mafia, and the unmistakable blended sherbet sunset of Zanzibar.  Even the brownish, rustling grasses of the Serengeti have a characteristic color you can’t quite place, except maybe from the documentary about lions you watched in the 6^th grade.  Over the last month, I have experienced more colors, sights, and sounds than in the last year or so!  And, the most incredible part was experiencing it all with my family, who came for a visit this holiday season.  Here’s some pictures and highlights from the trip.

Some of my friends on the trip - We on a Boat!

Buying fish directly from the fisherman in the ocean -
talk about fresh caught!

The “pre-game” to the holiday season was an island getaway with some of my Peace Corps friends to Mafia Island, a gem a ways south of the coast of Dar es Salaam. 

With some Peace Corps vacations, you get the best of both worlds – cheap hostels and food, aided by an ever-growing Swahili vocabulary – together with endless hours in warm, positively bejeweled waters of sapphire and azure.  We spent a day swimming in a bay with the most incredible coral reefs, picked up fish from a fisherman in a little wooden boat in the ocean, and roasted it over a coconut-shell fire on the beach.   

Roasting our fish over a coconut-shell fire on the beach

We spent a day seeing what all the hullaboo was about swimming with the word’s largest fish – the whale shark – was.  (It turned out to be chasing these gentle giants around the open ocean, and jumping out of the boat and splashing alongside them, breath taken with their sheer size and taken aback by the intrusiveness of it all.  Not an experience that we would care to repeat on this Earth).   

Swimming with the world's largest fish!

These were "small ones" - about the size of a minivan!

We couldn’t wash the sticky residue of our steady diet of jackfruits and pineapples from our hands, any more than we could wash the easygoing, blasé islanders from our minds.  Every day, I stuffed my face with rice, beans, veggies, and to-die-for fish all for 50 cents, cooked for me by a mama who almost has you convinced to marry the son she saved for me and stay on the island forever.

Quite the receiving party for 2 am!

Luckily, I did decide to catch the pint-sized airplane out of the island, and brave a day of quite nearly getting stranded in Dar es Salaam’s nightmare of a bus stand to meet my family for Christmas!  They arrived in the heat of a Christmas Eve night, received by not one, but two pastors, and the love of all my villagers sent along too.    Experiencing my village with them was much like experiencing Tanzania for the first time, but this time through their eyes.  They took photos of the chickens and goats being auctioned off alongside bananas and papayas at the auction after mass.  Things that have become so routine for me – picking up a Sunday treat of sugarcane for kiddos or stopping to greet each and every single villager – became a novelty for them.


And when I say novelty, I mean adding excruciating minutes broiling under the equatorial sun. 

After mass on Christmas.  Note the matching outfits -
a Christmas tradition in Tanzania!

We had a wonderful Christmas luncheon at our Pastor’s house, and a opened presents after napping off the feast.  “Kristmasi ya Pili” (Second Christmas) was a little party at my house with my close friends.  My family all walked the sunny 6 kilometers to my local market, and got to hold my bags as I greeted my favorite mamas and selected my fruits and veggies, all odd shapes and sizes but each one perfect in its own way.  I packed them into our village car for the return trip, and in the wait usually takes the greater part of an hour, they started to realize how half the day goes with only tomatoes to show for it.  

My father with his prized rooster - a gift from my friend!

 My dad, who had just been waiting for the day to kill a chicken, was surprisingly zealous through the slaughter.  The cooking went surprisingly smoothly, with my gas burner helping the charcoal stove considerably.  Altogether, it was a unique Christmas filled with the love of family and friends, and not one to be topped anytime soon.

Sharing our culture was so much fun - especially Christmas "kuswar," snacks and sweets that we make
 especially for Christmas.  Pictured with the fruit tray is a momma and her daughter who had a
baby on New Year's Day!  My mom and I got to visit her in the hospital the next day :)

We left early the next morning to go on our much-awaited Safari trip.  My mom, literally, said we were “going big or going home,” so we got to see all the major Northern parks – Tarangire, Ngorongoro, Serengeti, and Lake Manyara.  Our safari company was owned by my best teacher-friend’s cousin, and our safari driver happened to grow up in my village, so we knew we were with the best of the best.  Our driver shared the most amazing stories of the wildebeests, elephants, and even lions that used to be in the village when he grew up.  Plus, it’s always fun playing tourist, but understanding the jokes the drivers make to each other without knowing that a passenger speaks Swahili.

Pictures can do better justice than words can, but we found ourselves speechless each and every day of the safari.   

Elephants in Tarangire National Park

 
Tarangire is filled with herds of elephants, so close that we could see every wrinkle of their leathery skin and almost hear their thoughts that could be nothing but wise.

My family and I on the lip of the Ngorongoro Crater

 

The much-awaited East African Black Rhino on the left
- "kwa mbali" (from far away)

Ngorongoro was identical to the picture of the watering hole that we all know from the lion king – we saw all sorts of animals living in harmony, as well as the rare East African Black Rhino!

I turned 24 while in the Serengeti, spending the night in a “luxury tent” – despite the hotel’s best efforts to make it posh, hearing lions outside the tent at night was a bone-chilling reminder that a think plastic sheet was our only protection.  Boy, were we happy to get back in the comfort of a lodge after those two nights!  As per my birthday wish, we got to see majestic male lions with their auburn manes – and bounced over the grassy plains for much of the day much like a high-speed car chase to find them.

 

We were within a meter of six male lions, lackadaisical and full-bellied after making a kill the previous day.  I could have stayed for a week watching them, but we had plenty left to see in the Serengeti.

A brother and sister lion on the lookout for more warthogs. 
This was after we saw them chasing a warthog who managed to escape

We saw two emaciated lions trying and failing for a warthog kill and thousands upon thousands of wildebeests migrating in the eternal search for new grasses.  All of their parks had their own charm, and the week spent on safari was one of my favorites.

My father and sister at Kighunduma, the waterfall in my village

My family with the people who have become a part of my family in Tanzania!
The bottom photo is in  my home with my famous "Happy Feet" mural!

We spent a few more days in my village, trying our best to make a headway with the copious list of villagers who had vowed me to promise to bring my parents to meals at their homes.  While constantly waiting for me to play translator got tiresome and times, they got to experience the love and generosity of people who have taken excellent care of me, and share everything they have on a daily basis.

On New Year's Day, we were surprised with a special blessing - a baby boy!  No, don't worry, not ours, but part of my wonderful Tanzanian family - the baby of a close friend at school and in the village.  Having my family share in this birth celebration made it all the better.  My mother and I visited the baby in the hospital, and love outpoured from the entire family.  My mom, as a doctor, saw quite a handful of things that surprised her in the hospital - ask her to share a story next time you see her!

Laundry day - for all of us! Talk about #secondgoal

One especially interesting cultural exchange from our time in the village was washing clothes.  Now, laundry may not normally be the most noteworthy story, but hear me out here.  In Tanzania, men do NOT wash clothes.  As students and unmarried men, they unashamedly scrub their clothes outside.  But, as soon as that ring appears on the left third finger, they magically forget that their dirty clothes exist, and that a person is sitting and scrubbing her knuckles down to bare bone to return them to their clean state.  However, when my family went out to wash clothes, the four of us went together – creating a somewhat harmonious lather and rinse system that turned out to be quick and painless.  All the people in pastor’s house poked their heads out with dropped jaws to see my father scrubbing clothes with the rest of us (you go, poppa!).  To my surprise, the next day we washed clothes, I looked up from the mosquito net I was washing to see our pastor scrubbing clothes in earnest!  It was the second time I had seen him doing laundry – the first was the day his wife’s father passed away, when I saw them quietly sharing their grief.  So, whether or not this happens again, this was a day of great cultural sharing, and not one that will be forgotten soon.

Arguably one of the most beautiful
prisons in the word

On the unbelievably blue waters near
Prison Island

Massaging the neck of a
194 year old tortoise

We closed the Tanzania leg of the trip with a few days in Unguja, the large island that’s part of Tanzania’s famous Zanzibar islands.  The bustling markets and narrow stone-lined streets of Stonetown seemed to be straight out of a storybook.  We took a day trip to “Prison Island,” and got to give neck massages to the 190-something year old tortoises that are protected there.  We took a surprisingly delightful tour of a spice farm that was a rich learning experience to boot.  We also got to swim in what is accepted as one of the best beaches on Earth.

We left the island more tan and relaxed than we’d been in our lives.

We ran into the family of another Peace Corps Volunteer,
 in Zanzibar, which made it fun to share stories.

Overall, I needn’t have been so nonchalant about leading my family across this great nation – it was filled with unprecedented stresses and responsibilities.  In many ways, though, I got to see Tanzania again for the first time, but with their eyes and ears.  This exposed a lot of the ways that I’ve changed in just a year and a half in this country.  Almost everyday, there was something that I did without a second thought but that floored the people who had known me since my birth.  The people in my community still ask about my parents everyday – and it was a priceless experience for both parts of my heart to meet together in this place that has changed my life for the better.