AY.
Tomorrow will be the first day of my fourth week in Africa and the first - yes, the first - day of actual work. Boggles the mind, really, that we're just now beginning the work we came here for. After two weeks of superflous daily orientation, Emma, Lori and I decided to forego the more popular options of safari (yes, we're so jaded that we turned down a safari) and a ten hour treck up Langai, an active volcano that can easily swallow inexperienced hikers, for the beach.
We broke out our iPods (discreetly, of course) and took the seven-hour busride from Arusha to Tanga on a crowded bus that didn't fit us longlegged wazungu. Our bus was blessed with not only abundant rainbow decals on the outside and strings of fake roses across the dashboard, but also with a horn that blasted tunes reminiscent of a Mexican wedding procession at the most inopportune of times. So, clearly, I loved it. I've noticed that there is little concept of personal space here, as I practically adopted a little eight-year-old boy for the trip after he had nowhere to be but on my lap.
When we finally got to the Tanga bus stop, we were hassled like no other. There were handfuls of taxi drivers vying for our patronage, and we picked one duo that our bus driver harangued for long enough, we figured they must be safe. It took us only 10 minutes to get to Penori, our hotel, which we thought was strange. We were sure that our hotel was at least 35 minutes away. We also found it strange that we had a 20 minute walk to the beach once we arrived. Later that night, after a horrific dinner in the Penori restaurant where Jimmy Carter apparently once dined, we were casually flipping through my trusty Lonely Planet to see if there was something more interesting in the area. This is when we realized that we were at the wrong hotel. A page before the Penori listing was Peponi, a lovely beachside compound about thirty minutes down the coast. After some incredulous looks and much laughing at our stupidity, we befriended the head concierge at Penori, a shy 19 year who ate up the attention from three hyper white girls. Peponi was fully booked. We begged. In the end, we got the caravan.
We woke up at the crack of dawn, hopped a bus (which was sent to Tanzania after the filming of Speed, according to Lori), and finally made it to Peponi in time for breakfast. The caravan, which we Americans call a trailer, was absolute luxury after a week of rural life. (My feet were so scrubbed clean by the sand by the end of the weekend that I had to take a picture.) We had the whole day ahead of us and decided to rent snorkeling gear and go out on the Peponi dhow, a traditional Swahili fishing boat, to a sandbar an hour into the ocean. The water was too choppy to snorkle, but we lunched with a handful of British volunteers and a friendly family from Mauritius in the middle of the sea.
The rest of the weekend was spent yoga-ing on the beach and refueling our minds and bodies for the next six weeks of bona fide, much-anticipated WORK!
Next post to bring: first teaching amazingness, host family craziness, and chai tangawizi-ness.
:)
Tomorrow will be the first day of my fourth week in Africa and the first - yes, the first - day of actual work. Boggles the mind, really, that we're just now beginning the work we came here for. After two weeks of superflous daily orientation, Emma, Lori and I decided to forego the more popular options of safari (yes, we're so jaded that we turned down a safari) and a ten hour treck up Langai, an active volcano that can easily swallow inexperienced hikers, for the beach.
We broke out our iPods (discreetly, of course) and took the seven-hour busride from Arusha to Tanga on a crowded bus that didn't fit us longlegged wazungu. Our bus was blessed with not only abundant rainbow decals on the outside and strings of fake roses across the dashboard, but also with a horn that blasted tunes reminiscent of a Mexican wedding procession at the most inopportune of times. So, clearly, I loved it. I've noticed that there is little concept of personal space here, as I practically adopted a little eight-year-old boy for the trip after he had nowhere to be but on my lap.
When we finally got to the Tanga bus stop, we were hassled like no other. There were handfuls of taxi drivers vying for our patronage, and we picked one duo that our bus driver harangued for long enough, we figured they must be safe. It took us only 10 minutes to get to Penori, our hotel, which we thought was strange. We were sure that our hotel was at least 35 minutes away. We also found it strange that we had a 20 minute walk to the beach once we arrived. Later that night, after a horrific dinner in the Penori restaurant where Jimmy Carter apparently once dined, we were casually flipping through my trusty Lonely Planet to see if there was something more interesting in the area. This is when we realized that we were at the wrong hotel. A page before the Penori listing was Peponi, a lovely beachside compound about thirty minutes down the coast. After some incredulous looks and much laughing at our stupidity, we befriended the head concierge at Penori, a shy 19 year who ate up the attention from three hyper white girls. Peponi was fully booked. We begged. In the end, we got the caravan.
We woke up at the crack of dawn, hopped a bus (which was sent to Tanzania after the filming of Speed, according to Lori), and finally made it to Peponi in time for breakfast. The caravan, which we Americans call a trailer, was absolute luxury after a week of rural life. (My feet were so scrubbed clean by the sand by the end of the weekend that I had to take a picture.) We had the whole day ahead of us and decided to rent snorkeling gear and go out on the Peponi dhow, a traditional Swahili fishing boat, to a sandbar an hour into the ocean. The water was too choppy to snorkle, but we lunched with a handful of British volunteers and a friendly family from Mauritius in the middle of the sea.
The rest of the weekend was spent yoga-ing on the beach and refueling our minds and bodies for the next six weeks of bona fide, much-anticipated WORK!
Next post to bring: first teaching amazingness, host family craziness, and chai tangawizi-ness.
:)
posted by Ruth at 9:26 PM
2 Comments:
ah ruth! i miss you soo much! love to hear the craziness in africa and the wonderfully written posts you leave.. write as often as you can! i guess by now you have already started work and next week i will start school... what a bummer! but, im pretty excited and anxious for my new routine to become a routine. i hope you experience amazing things and learn just as much as the children you teach. keep safe... i didnt like that trailer idea at all... but im sure you know what you're doing. miss you tons and tons! love,
quellyn
Why yeth. I basically ditto everything Jackie wrote. I know I'm an awful friend for just NOW reading your second of three blogs, but EH WHAT CAN YA DO (I temporarily lost the blog address ok?). I love you bso much Ru and can't wait for you to be home (but these awesome blogs are a pretty good second-best to talking with you directly). Oh and I just got your postcard with the lovely flamingos and I guess I should just end this post by singing (screaming?) this right back at you: AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH SAVENYAAA!!!!!!!!
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