A Week in Tanzania

Henry and I had some friends come visit Africa, so we flew to Tanzania to meet up with them. Our first stop was the island of Zanzibar. It had some of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen.

We got to stay in a beautiful bungalow that was open to the ocean, including a private beach area. Never has a mosquito net looked so fashionable. I could fall asleep listening to the ocean every night.

Although it was even hotter in Zanzibar than in Zambia, the ocean, the pool, and the ocean breeze all provided exceptional relief from the heat. I cannot get enough relief from the heat...

 While on the island we also took in some snorkeling.

Henry is thrilled to have gone snorkeling without throwing up in the ocean.

We also did a lot of relaxing, napping, reading, and just plain nothing. It was glorious.

 

After a few days at the beach, we headed to Stone Town, still on Zanzibar. The highlight of Stone Town was definitely the tortoises on Prison Island, a 40 minute boat ride away. They were huge. We got to feed them some greens while trying not to get our fingers bit. They slowly meandered around, and seemed very used to people.

A noble beast!

The boats we took too and from the island off the island did not inspire confidence, but delivered us safely. 

We also wandered around Stone Town, did some shopping, and visited some historical buildings/locations.

The city is a web is small, winding streets. It is very easy to get lost and I am sure we walked some of those streets over 10 times in the course of 2 days.

After Stone Town we headed to the Selous game reserve for a Safari, which was an adventure all on its own.

Quiet Riot

I am still very much trying to figure out what my routine is going to be while here. Of course, there are many things about life in Zambia that can often throw a wrench into your carefully laid plans. The most obvious of these is the unpredictable load shedding and not knowing when you will and won't have power. Today I encountered a second unpredictable factor: student riots.

It is my hope that I will be able to regularly work on the campus of the university where Henry is teaching. I was executing that plan today, working on my laptop in an unused lecture room, also populated by a handful of students. This was going swimmingly until someone came into the room and announced that it was getting hostile outside. I immediately left in the hopes of finding Henry to discover that, indeed, it was becoming hostile. Students were gathering in large groups, and there was a lot of yelling. Students were beginning to create a barricade across the road out of the university. I narrowly avoided being locked in the engineering building as the faculty and staff locked up and left (fire codes are a different beast here and locked in takes on a whole new meaning). I got in contact with Henry and we quickly left campus as well.

Of course, the road to our house goes by the other entrance to the university, and the police prevented us from taking this road. We can only assume this was due to the student riots.

When the university is evacuated and you can't go home, the only thing to do is go to the nearest British pub and work from there!

More grapetizer, please!

Welcome Party

As Americans, we can expect to be the first ones to everything here.

On Sunday afternoon I was thrown a delightful welcome party by Father Bob. Father Bob is a Jesuit Priest who has been in Zambia for over 15 years. Coming from a Jesuit University, Henry has gotten to know Father Bob during his time here. Other attendees included ex-pats from Ireland, Zimbabwe, and India. Some of them had been living in Zambia for over 40 years. It was fascinating to hear them talk about their time in this country and the changes they have seen. The party was planned for 12:30, specifically to account for the load shedding that would occur in the evening (for an explanation of load shedding, see end of post). A lack of electricity can really make it difficult to prepare food and even socialize. I felt really honored to be welcomed by this group and enjoyed the best home cooked meal I expect to have during my time here. I hope I get to see many of them again and hear more stories!

Ready to party.

Load shedding: there is more of a demand for electricity in the country than is currently generated. As a result, the entire country is experiencing load shedding, or planned power outages. There is a rotating schedule, and you will either be without power from 10:00 pm - 6:00 am, 6:00 am - 2:00 pm, or 2:00 pm - 10:00 pm. Of course, the schedule is not always followed, and it is not always discernible.

Arrived in Zambia

I am now into my fourth day of living in Kitwe, Zambia with Henry. My first few days have been a fight to get over jet lag and adjust to a much warmer climate. Although really not that hot (upper 70's mostly), it has come as quite a shock to my system.

Kitwe is the second largest city in Zambia, with a population of about 500,000. In many ways a bustling metropolis and in many ways not. For example, Henry has been told there are under 10 robots (what they call stoplights here) total.

If you are interested in getting a glimpse of the city, you are in luck. Someone filmed themselves driving through the city which you can enjoy here:


In between naps, I have spent a lot of time shopping for things like soap and a cell phone and generally getting situated. I have also had to overcome a lot of very ingrained routines and muscle memory - like getting into the car on the left side when I am not driving or stopping myself from automatically rinsing my toothbrush in the sink (have to use bottled water instead). I expect that to become much easier quite soon.

Kenya: Muhuru Bay

We finally got to Muhuru Bay, the final destination after hours and hours of travel. Henry and his team of engineers set right to work prepping and doing what they needed to do to get the micro grid installed. I eased into work, as we had to figure out what the team really wanted the interviews to look like as well as arrange for an interpreter. 

Mornings were the best. Henry, I and some other team members would take our fancy van out to the headmaster's house, where we were greeted with some amazing hot chai tea and breakfast. Breakfast was usually pancakes, french toast, potato omlets, or mandazi (kenyan donuts).

The installation was happening mostly outside, but a fair amount of problem solving, meetings, and relaxing happened in the living room of the head master's house.

Good morning!

Mandazi, eaten with jelly. Yum!

For lunch, we ate almost exclusively peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on white bread. I got so sick of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I'm going to need a long break before I can eat one again. Henry and I may host a party for the team back in Seattle, and we've already decided to serve PB&Js. I will not eat one, however.

On our first day there, we walked around the village to get acquainted with the place and to check out lake Victoria. We quickly learned that you cannot go anywhere without acquiring a large posse of children. There were always children hanging around the headmaster's house, so it was impossible to leave without being seen. Even if that had happened, children would flock to us from houses all along the road.

It's a parade!

Lake Victoria was beautiful, and oh so tempting. Given various parasites, snakes, and who knows what else, it was strongly encouraged that we not go in the water (never mind that we are showering in it). No matter how hot and sticky we felt, no cooling off was worth a parasite.

Lake Victoria: look, but don't touch.

This was right before a huge tentacle came out of the water and pulled Henry in...okay, not really.

One day we went to Kristy Cape Academy, were the students were giving an assembly for the school's namesake (Kristy). Kristy is the wife of one of the engineers on Henry's team. The students LOVE to have their picture taken, especially if you can then show it to them on a screen. It was the best entertainment ever. There are so few mirrors there, it makes it a bigger deal to see yourself.

Selfie!

Henry is burried among kids who want to see their picture. Henry is the red hat.

 With a little free time on my hands, I taught the headmaster's kids some card games.

Kenya: Is this the bus to Cartegena?

To get to Muhuru Bay, we took a local bus. Unfortunately for us, our preferred bus line (Easy Coach) was completely booked. Quality of buses appears to decline rapidly after that option. We ended up taking the Guardian Angel Line, which was a less than pleasant experience.

As Henry mentioned, the bus was wet on the inside and outside (confounding). Every seat on the bus was full, and Henry and I had to sit in the very last row. There were absolutely no shocks left, and Kenya is full of large speed bumps. We got launched into the air multiple times. We could tell it was coming by the way the bus slowed down, and the entire back of the bus would brace for impact. After 8 hours of riding, it got pretty painful. There was loud music (of all kinds) playing constantly.  There no seatbelts, and Kenya traffic can be terrifying. The temperature alternated between chilly and molten lava. Astoundingly, at the times Henry and I were dripping with sweat and on the verge of passing out, local Kenyan's were wrapping their children in puffy winter coats and refusing to open windows (also confounding).

Our bus dropped us off in Migori, about an hour and a half away from Muhuru Bay.  At this point we were picked up by a private car that we had hired for the duration of our time. The car was way spicier than we could have imagined.

Many members of the team stayed at the school's headmaster's house, but a few of us stayed at a the Genasa guest house in downtown Muhuru Bay (called custom).

 

Like Nairobi, a lot of places had gates and guards because of the high crime. 

Although the rooms (and especially bathrooms!) were pretty rough, the landscaping outside was very nice.

Can you find Henry?

I think I failed to take a picture of our actual room, but it was just larger than the bed. It was quite a squeeze to get two suitcases in there. The room was adequate, but had no frills. The place had power about 60% of the time. Unfortunately, part of that time was due to the generator running right outside our window. The day we checked in, the window had been closed all day and the temperature was even hotter than the bus had gotten.

The real adventure of the guest house was the torture bathroom, as we dubbed it.

After one shower, I was ready to tell the authorities everything. This toilet situation (not that uncommon), is the worst of both worlds. The traditional system is to use a squat hole. However, I found several places that had toilets with no toilet seats. This required the most uncomfortable kind of squatting, and was pretty awkward to use. You can't see it, but there is a shower head that extends just to the right of the toilet. The spray mostly missed the toilet, but water ended up going everywhere. There was no working light in the torture bathroom, which really added to the mystique when using it. That meant that we had to have the door open when showering, and water would run quite far into the room. The floor was also really rough, which meant that pockets of water would form in the quite large grooves and never dry out. This is perfect for mosquitos and the dank smell that never quite left. When we did shut the door, it would stick quite forcefully. I had to have Henry get me out on several occasions.

We really only slept and showered at the room. Even though it was only about 3 miles away from the project site, it took between 20 - 25 minutes to get there. So we would leave early in the morning and not return until 9:00 - 9:30 at night. It was really nice to be able to charge our phones and other electronics some of the time, which truly was a luxury.

Despite the inconsistent power, one thing the guest house did have was an outside TV. It was obviously a very social thing, and one evening there were tons of people gathered to watch a soccer game (the commentary and cheering of which we heard quite late into the night).

Another treat: almost every night without fail we heard a cat sacrifice. We have no idea what was going on, but at least once we would get woken up with the sound of the most horrific cat screech/wail. It was quite the rude awakening and quite a regular occurrence.

Kenya: the dazzling city of Nairobi

I just got back from an amazing 2 week trip to Kenya. It is beyond me to recount everything, so I am just going to share random stories in no particular order.

We spent the first two days in Nairobi. This place will never rank among my favorite cities, but it was a great chance to get caught up on sleep and ease into the transition. It was my first introduction to sleeping under a mosquito net.

Leaving the net up during the day allows you to try to trap as many mosquitos as possible in with you when you lower it at night. Sleeping with a mosquito net also forces you do to a lot of planning ahead when you go to sleep. For example: glasses on or off when you tuck in the net?

While in Nairobi, we stayed at the Rosa Mystica Spiritual Center. It is not affiliated with any church that I am aware of, but it is run by nuns and we were often woken by singing early in the morning. The furnishings were very modest but adequate, and felt like a palace after returning from Muhuru Bay (but more about that later).

Nairobi is not a terribly safe place to be. Fortunately, there is a huge mall located one and half blocks away from the Rosa Mystica (#1 on my list of things I never thought I would say). Even this walk, however, felt incredibly dangerous at times. We heard of another person staying at the Rosa Mystica who got held up at gunpoint walking to the mall. Going to a mall has never been so fun, seriously. Unless we hired a car, this was about the only place we could get to on our own. It was also a reliable source of food (read: does not lead to diarrhea). Henry commented that he has never spent so much time at a mall since high school. Being from rural Nebraska, however, I don't think I ever hung out as much at the Indian Creek Mall (shoutout Beatrice!) as I did at the mall in Nairobi. Highlights from the mall: a self serve yogurt store and a combo Japanese/Lebanese restaurant that also served burgers and pizza.

Because we had an extra day before traveling to Muhuru Bay, Henry and I went to a national park just outside of Nairobi. It is huge! We drove around it for about 5 hours, and weren't really in the same area very much. We saw zebras, multiple animals in the antelope family, ostriches, hippos, enormous birds, a warthog, and giraffes. It is pretty cool to see these animals in their natural habitat with the skyline of the city in the background.

A rare venture outside of the car in the park. We were not looking to get charged by a rhino.

A really cool resort on the egde of the park where tourists could stop for a rest, drink, and food.

Fluffing himself.

One zebra giving another the ol' butt shot.

A display of bones from many of the animals in the park.

Hello, Friend!

By the evening, other team members had arrived and we all went to the Carnivore. This is a restaurant in which they bring around spits of exotic meat (a la a brazillian steakhouse). I ate ostrich, but also lamb, chicken, beef, and pork. I also had my first tusker, an African beer (served cold, which becomes relevant later).

Bring on the meat sweats!

Up next: we place our lives in the hands of kenyan bus drivers. This includes profuse sweating, getting airborne between 5 and 10 times, and alternating between traditional music and backstreet boys all at the same incredibly loud volume.