James and I are settled in to our new home. We found a rug under my bed and now our little room is truly a home. I teach three eighty minute periods a day. The math is isn’t too hard, but I haven’t had real math in six years. The children seem to take to the lessons very quickly and ask very tough questions. However, I have another teacher who is also a form three math teacher. His name is Dennis, but everyone calls him Black. He is about six feet and 220lbs and maybe 4% body fat. He is the strongest person I have ever seen. Tammy would have loved to have him playing rugby at SJU. He is very nice though and has helped me understand some math. I don’t have much to do after I figure out my lesson plan, so I mostly just sit around and talk to other teachers. School starts at 7:30 and ends at 2:30. Afterward I usually go to town or read. I have a lot of free time, which is fine with me. We eat the same basic things everyday. Breakfast is bread and maybe peanut butter or just butter. Then at 10:40 we have a break where we have tea and roll type stuff. Then after school is out we eat lunch. Rice and maybe ugali, beans, a vegetable and a kind of meat is what is almost always on the menu. Ugali looks like mashed potatoes, it is corn flour that has been ground up and boiled, it is tasteless, but it absorbs taste very well. The beans are a mixture of baked beans and kidney beans, they are tasty. The vegetable ranges from potatoes, tomatoes or a cabbage type vegetable. The vegetables are always boiled in a different type of sauce, they are very good. The meat is all free range and it is usually fish, cow or goat, again it is boiled in a sauce, but it is very tough and tasty. Supper is the same thing as lunch and we eat that at 7 o’clock at night. It is a good relaxed pace of life that agrees with me. I am still trying to learn Swahili, but it is a pretty simple language to learn. So far the trip has been very good. A week ago, we went to a form four graduation, which is basically high school graduation. It was very interesting. There was a bunch of performances that ranged from rapping, singing, speeches and dances. It was very cool. The audience participated a lot with either shouting their approval or running up to the stage to give money. It was interesting. After the graduation, there was a feast which was very delicious. Then everyone just sat around and drank beer talking. The children went to the assembly hall and danced. It was a lot of fun.
I went to Katavi National park last weekend with a German friend of mine named Christain. We took the bus at 7:30 Friday morning to Staliki. Staliki is a small small town on the edge of Katavi National Park. On the bus ride we saw Zebras, Impalas, and Giraffes. It was cool. We got to Staliki in the afternoon and went to look for a place to stay. The first two places were expensive around $25 per night, so we opted to find a different place to stay. We found a place for 5-6 dollars a night, so we stayed there. We walked to the park rangers headquarters and asked them what the best way to get a safari would be and how to get bus tickets home. They got us the bus tickets and told us to pick them up tomorrow. Then he told us to go back to the place we first tried to sleep at, the $25 a night place and get a safari through them. So we left and went to the place to negotiate the safari, but the guide wasn’t there, so we went to eat something. A nice place in town where they had food and a table outside is where we ate, rice and chicken. While we were eating some local children came near us and started yelling to us. Muzungo is what white people are called in Africa, so the children were shouting that at us. Then they would run away laughing. So I started yelling back, I asked them how they were and then I told them to come here. They replied by telling me to come there, so I got up to go over there and they all ran away. So I sat back down and started to drink more beer. Then we went to the place called riverside camp, to see the safari guide and negotiate a price for the safari the next day. He still wasn’t there, so we took a couple of beers down to the river to see the hippos. There were about 100 hippos just relaxing in this river, no joke. We were about 7ft. away from all the hippos, including one hippo that had been born that day. It was the coolest experience with animals that I had had so far, little did I know that I would get much closer to an animal much more dangerous then a hippo. We saw one hippo out of the water, that scared me a little, but it was a lot farther away then the other ones, so we were safe. The guide, Mr. Jumaa was his name, interestingly enough Ijumaa is Friday in Swahili, and they are pronounced the same. We got our safari set up for 7:30 the next morning. Then returned to the river, drank our beer and hung out with the hippos. We stayed there for probably 3 and a half hours total. There were a couple of children who work at riverside camp, they came and talked to us, but eventually we got hungry and left. We went to a new place for dinner and had chipsmiei. It was an interesting dish, scrambled eggs and French fries, it was good. The restaurant saw us and played only country music, I thought is was hilarious, but Christian was not amused. The bar had only 3 country songs, including two by Reba Mcentire, who’s voice Christian hates. We left and went to bed. Then began the day of the safari. Up early, we walked to riverside camp and met Mr. Jumaa. We got in a green Toyota land cruiser with a removable top and got biscuits for breakfast and some water and paid our park entry fees, then the safari started. The first animal we saw was a fisher eagle, it looks just like a bald eagle, but has more white on it, then some guinea fowl, a bird that looks like a turkey with a turquoise head, then an African Buffalo. These animals are huge, our guide said that when you see one or two they are dangerous, when walking, but in big groups, no problem. We saw two at first, then around 75 in one part. Then some Impalas wondered our way, we saw these all day. Giraffe was the next thing to shoot, a picture of course. They are huge and beautiful creatures as long as you don’t look at their faces. The face makes them look really stupid. Then we saw a warthog that only had one tusk, that was neat. Then we saw a car ahead of us stopped, I was wondering what was going on, until I saw them. There were five lions sitting on this hill about fifteen yards away from us. We stopped and I started taking pictures. A couple of them left the hill and slowly walked over to a tree, hesitated, then jump into the tree and climbed up. The male and a female stayed on the hill. Then our guide pointed out another lion on the other side of the road, I still couldn’t see it. Then the car in front of us left, so we got a lot closer. We were maybe 7 yards away now. We took a bunch more pictures and I found the other lion in the grass. Our guide then started backing up right at the other lion. I was afraid at this point. Christian and I were sitting on top of the car, outside of it, no protection and the lions had already demonstrated that they can jump very well. The large cat, another female, just got up and moseyed to a tree right next to the other lions. Then our guide drove the car around the hill and stopped by the tree. The lions just looked at us like what are you going to do I’m a lion. We stopped about 5ft away from a lion. It was amazing. I can’t begin to describe how lazy these animals are, they are more lazy then any house cat I’ve ever seen. Then we left. We saw hippo number one of what would end up being about a thousand for the day. I turned to Christian and said “now we just need to see an elephant and I’ll be happy.” Five minutes later I was happy, an Elephant was on the horizon, so our guide cut him off on the road. The elephant was huge. Though it was only a teenager, so having raging hormones, it thought we were encroaching on its turf and trumpeted at us and fake charged. It was awesome. I was terrified. Then we saw a bunch of vultures and cranes eating a dead elephant. We stopped for some buttered bread and cokes. Then we saw more of the same, until we came to this place we thought was full of rocks, we’re talking about four hundred rocks, but as we got closer, we realized there were no rocks, only hippos hanging out in mud. We stopped there and took some pictures. We went to a ranger station near by and saw an hippo and elephant skull. They were both huge. The hippo skull had a tooth still in it and we got to hold it, it was bigger then my forearm and heavy. We moved on and saw two more Elephants and some velvet monkeys. Then we saw a couple of crocodiles and hippos hanging out together. Whenever they were close by each other, a couple hippos would be looking at the crocs and a couple of crocs looking at the hippos. Then we got to the crocodile caves, these are caves that the crocs go into to escape the heat and tourists. I actually saw one climbing into the cave. We stopped at a bridge right next to the caves and saw a bunch of hippos. One hippo let just its nose out of the water to breath, a neat sight to see. Then we drove some more, saw some zebras and stopped for lunch. We stopped next to this river with a bunch of hippos. Two adolescent hippos were play fighting. This consisted of them opening their mouths really big and pushing on each other with their mouths. An amazing sight. Lunch was finished, so we left and went to the flood plains. We saw waterbucks, zebras, giraffes and buffaloes hanging out together. Waterbucks are just big deer with horns like an impala. They were very beautiful. Then came a big stretch of time were we did not see any animals and I fell asleep. Then we saw another eagle and an owl. Our guide started to head for home. Which was fine with me, I was tired. We saw more lions and tried to get close to them. Our guide ended getting a little too close and one lion roared at us. Needless to say that warning was more then adequate for me. There were three males lying around by themselves, with two females nearby. One of the females was laying about 5 ft. away from a hippo. Then we left. Christian and I ate at the place we got lunch the day before and had some beers. It was one of the greatest days of my life. The next morning we waited for 3 hours for our bus, but this is Africa, so it didn’t matter. Yesterday was a national holiday, Julius Nygiere, the first president of Tanzania and a very good president at that died. So we didn’t have school. One of the sisters had passed away, so we went to the funeral. It was pretty much the same as an American funeral, except for a couple of changes. Everyone walks with the body to the grave, then prayers are said, then the body is buried, while everyone watches and if you want to, you can help cover the grave, after that everyone is invited for a meal, then the funeral is over. It was very nice to see everyone gathered for a meal after mourning. It has more of a community feel, the community lost someone, not just the family of the deceased. Life here is good, teaching is going well and I have no regrets. Everyday is a new experience.