Seasonal Changes

Lake Eyasi

The Rift Valley

No, I don't speak Swahili

I spent one and a half days at school during this trip. And with so many students working on their English, and more specifically their questioning techniques, I would ask to be interviewed a lot. The basic format of the interview, regardless of which grade level I visited, were the same. It went something like this:

Student 1: Where are you from?
Me: The United States.
Student 1: Oh...you look Tanzanian.
Me: Really? Huh...well, I'm from the United States.
Student 2: Do you speak Swahili?
Me: No, I don't speak Swahili. I speak English because I'm from the United States.
Student 3: What tribe are you?
Me: Uh...I'm not part of a tribe. I'm from the United States.
Student 4: Where is your father from?
Me: He was born in Haiti, but I was born in the United States. 

Now this back and forth wasn't a language comprehension error although, I think many of the students I met feared that it was. The problem was far broader than that. It seemed that throughout Tanzania, the people I met had a very narrow image of what an American looked like, and I didn't fit into that mold.

This is not super surprising given that as the United States exports tons of films, music, books, and other cultural media to the world, we are simultaneously exporting our troubled relationship with race. And so those of us who don't look like Jennifer Aniston or Julia Roberts, well we can't really be American. Or maybe more precisely, people who look Tanzanian - people who are black - we couldn't possibly have access to the wealth, glamor and power that is associated with the United States. It was total cognitive dissonance to the students that someone who looked like them could be from the land of opportunity.

I did my best, traveling from class to class to give them a real life example of a black American to shake up their prior worldview. And through patient responses to their questions, I thought I might actually have gotten through to them.

At the end of a day, a student went up to one of the teachers named Lani. He said that he liked meeting me in class that morning. "But," he said, "I'm just confused about one thing. Where exactly was that girl from?"

Back to School!

My friend Lisa teachers English at a private secondary school in Monduli. The mission of the school is to bring a rigorous education to under-served communities.

 All of the students at the school are there on scholarship, and the vast majority belong to the Maasai tribe, a semi-nomadic people who live in fairly remote areas like deserts and scrublands.Some of the students walk more than two hours each way to get to school each day.

And for kids who have never left Tanzania, or even been to a big city like Arusha, English class can be a powerful way to "visit" places  that they have never seen.

They recently read Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, and in this lesson, they got to hang the paper cranes they had made last week. They also were able to experience a little bit about Japanese culture by having a hand in making vegetarian sushi.

I can't emphasize enough what a big deal it was for them to make, and more importantly eat, sushi. In this dry region, where most meals revolve around corn and beans, and eating anything other than fruit raw is pretty much unheard of, trying s seaweed wrapped rice ball that had uncooked (!) veggies in it was an incredible adventure.

It took some heavy pressure from Lisa to get them to take even a single bite. But once she argued that she had tried mughali - a common polenta-like dish that hardens fast when not eaten immediately - most of them relented.

.

Monduli

Today was my first day in Monduli, a district nestled in the fertile Monduli mountains. Today also happened to be Sunday - the day in which there is big outdoor market in Monduli juu. Even though I arrived in the later afternoon, far after prime shopping time, there were still stand after stand displaying vegetables, baskets, clothes, and other day to day supplies.

Market day, of course,  is not just about getting goods for the week. It's also about connecting with the community. I saw many empty-handed women, chatting with neighbors, passively perusing goods.We ran into a number of my friend's students - mainly boys walking hand-in-hand trying to spot some of their classmates and trade stories about their experiences taking the A-level exams and their plans after Form 4.

Safari

This baobab tree is so massive, you can barely tell I'm in this picture.

The elephants were powerhouses. We saw them knocking down trees in the savanna all day. If you'd like to see elephants climbing mountains, let me know. It's a sight to be seen.

Many of the baboons stick around the elephants to pick up any of the nuts they knock off of trees, but this one is feasting on some berries.

My long-necked friends were chilling all afternoon.

I think impalas are so beautiful.

Look at the wildebeests run! (Please note that wildebeests are typically pretty dumb animals. They basically just follow the zebras around since they can't figure out for themselves when predators are near or where they might find food).

A big debate occurred in our safari jeep about whether zebras are white with black stripes or black with white stripes.

These birds don't even seem anatomically possible. Look how little his legs are!

It's the whole animal family.

We even got a glimpse of a lion!

The big takeaway

Mt. Meru Day 4 (Bahati, Rogers & Me)

What goes up, must come down. And so after a short rest and snack at the summit, it was time to pursue the long way dback to camp. Typically, when descending Meru, hikers return to Saddle Hut, eat lunch, and then continue downwards to Mirakamba hut for the night (unless they opt to take a vehicle the rest of the way down).

I, however, was on my own different track. While, I gained some energy from the food and daylight, it was still painfully slow for me to move down the mountain. The downward trek caused a constant pounding of my big toe into the tip of my boot, resulting in me opting to walk the last 4 miles in my socks. By the time I finally reached Saddle Hut, with my hiking shoes in hand, no one expected me to walk any further.

And so on Day 4 of my trek, I only had two travel companions: Bahati and Rogers.

Bahati's name means "luck" in Swahili, which is a great moniker for a Park Ranger. Rangers are required for every hike up and down Meru as they are armed with a rifle and ready to take down bisons or other animals that may attack.

Bahati was a pretty loquacious,16-year-old guy. He told me about certain plants and their nicknames (like nature's toilet paper, pictured below). He told me how that he was 5 years into his 6 year park service commitment, which meant that they would soon send him and pay for him to attend university to study forestry. He even told me about his last gig as a ranger at the Serengeti national park, which made him feel like like a ranger and more like an enlisted solider, as he frequently had to protect the animals from Somali poachers.

Rogers, of course, was my guide. And over the last 24 hours, I had gained a sort of affection for him. He was like my Haymitch, a little bit of a mess up, who came through when it really mattered. And despite the fact that I was complete pain, I think he had grown fond of me too.

Rogers gave me my first Swahili lesson, and I mastered counting to 10. He joked around about my terrible state the day before. And he entertained me with stories of rescues he had led down Kili. During one of these, he mentioned having to carry one of his 300 pound clients down the mountain. Which caused me to pause. I had to ask why he hadn't offered to carry me when I was tired, vomiting and shoeless.

His reply: "you were still walking."

Mt. Meru (Day 3: The Summit)

I thought that I had asked Rogers, my guide, all of the questions that I would need to successfully prepare for the Summit Day.
What time do we leave? Midnight
What will the temperature be like? Very cold
How long will it take to get to the top? 6 hours
How many hours till I get my first break? 1 hour
Is it easier or harder than Day 1 of the hike? Easier
Than day 2 of the hike? The same
And how many hours till my second break...

So when I at 11:30 PM, a mere 6 hours after my return from Little Meru, bundled up in every article of clothing that I had packed and a head lamp attached to my head, I felt READY.

We set off at midnight and at first I was loving it. There is something magical about hiking underneath an expansive African sky, peppered with hundreds of stars, and free from the stresses of the physical challenges that might be coming your way. It wasn't until about an hour and half in that this romanticism faded away, and I realized the question I failed to ask Rogers the day before: will it be a fairly straight path or will we be walking across dangerous terrain that would challenge even the most skilled and sighted climber?

Yes, I think it was around 1:30 AM when we went off the path and had to scale a rocky mountain wall at some height that I couldn't even fathom because it was outside of the range that my light could cover. But with each step I took, I heard pieces of rock giving way into a dark abyss and I was fully afraid. I reached for Rogers hand, and as he took it, I could smell the stench of liquor on his breath, and at that moment I thought to myself: this is the craziest thing that I have ever done or even conceived of doing.

I wish I could say that this was the worst of it. But soon after, we had to climb up a steep and gravely section of the mountain. Most of the other climbers easily cleared this section with their hiking sticks, but I was without them, and I couldn't manage to get my footing in this loose terrain. It was the classic one step forward, two steps back scenario, and it was through the strength of Rogers half pulling me that I made it up to steadier ground.

And it was just at the top of that section where the thought crossed my mind: I don't think I can do this.

Now for any of you hikers out there, you know this is danger zone. Climbing is mostly a mental game, and the seed of doubt can destroy your efforts completely. So immediately after thinking that I started pulling tools out of my mental toolkit. I tried to pair each step with a breath. Then I tried reminding myself that hiking was really just walking, and I've walked 6 hours in a day before. I even tried visualizing -- seeing myself at the summit jumping up and down like Rocky Balboa.

All of these failed.

I'm not sure what triggered the weeping, exactly. I don't know if it was when the nausea bubbled up from my anti-malaria medication. Or if it when the exhaustion from 15 hours of hiking with little sleep settled in. Or maybe it was sight of snowflakes reminding me how deeply cold and incredibly dark it was up there. But tears were running down my face, and I just kept repeating that I couldn't do it.

Rogers to his credit vacillated with ease between motivator ("You will miss this view, come here and see") and drill sergeant ("Stop crying. It will make you lose energy."). He also managed to stay strong against my appeals for a break ("It is too cold; you will lose heat if you stop walking).

I dry heaved on the side of the road, multiple times. Rogers cleaned the snot off of my face. And when there was still 2 hours to go, he finally relented and granted me a break, pulling my head on to his lap, and folding himself over me, so that we didn't freeze during my seven minutes of rest.

By the time I saw the Tanzanian flag atop the summit, I couldn't care less about reaching the top. For the last hour, I had been fighting for every step. Rogers hand was literally on my sacrum to help propel me forward with every meager lift of my food. And as I looked at the steep, jagged and rocky final climb - just 30 more minutes after I had already walked 7.5 that morning - and I felt so sure that I didn't have it left in me.

And then suddenly, in a Holland Reynolds-inspired act of tenacity, I dropped to my hands and knees and half dragged and half-crawled my way to the top.

In the early morning light, I saw an impressive view of Kilimanjaro. Was it worth it? I'd be lying if I said it was. But I learned more that morning about myself and fear, hopelessness, and grit than ever before in my life.

Mt. Meru (Day 2)

Goal of Day 2 of trek: Do not embarrass myself.

Day 1 of the trek brought me to Miriakamba Hut, a fairly basic hiker's lodge located at 2500 meters. After heading straight to my room and using the warm water bucket they typically give out for hand washing to soak my aching feet,I resolved to do better on Day 2.

And do better I did. For the first 2.5 hours of the 5 hour hike to the next hiker's lodge (Saddle Hut 3500 meters), I kept steadily in the middle of the pack. And while I did lose steam toward the end, the number of times people asked me in a gentle, condescending manner whether "I felt tired" decreased by at least half from the day before.

I felt so good that I didn't even complain when my guide, Rogers, woke me up from my mid-afternoon nap to climb up to Little Meru.

OK, I complained a little, but relented when he explained that it was to help get acclimatized before the summit the next day.

Mt. Meru (Day 1 Cont: The Reckoning)

As some of you may know, there was a little bit of a mix up at the pharmacy before my trip to Tanzania, and I wasn't able to get a new typhoid vaccine. This might have made some other people nervous, but to me, it was no big deal for three main reasons.

First, hardly anyone dies from typhoid, usually it's just stomach pains and fever. Second, my previous typhoid vaccination "expired" this past April. But vaccines aren't like on/off switches and I figured I was still partially protected.Finally, typhoid is mainly contracted by eating food that is contaminated by human fecal matter. So in my mind, I was pretty much in the clear if I stuck to only eating fruits and vegetables that were cooked, boiled or peeled.

So here I am, exhausted while only halfway through the first day of my epic hike up Mt. Meru, and the ranger finally announces it's lunch time. I drop my pack and grab my lunch bag with a speed that no one had seen me demonstrate all day. The lunch was provided and packed by the tour company, who my friend had explained no less than 5 times to that I was a vegetarian. So I felt confident that I was going to be able to dig into a hearty meal.

Instead, when I ripped open the box, I found myself face-to-face with what could only be described as a typhoid sandwich. It was a typhoid lunch really. It consisted of a cucumber, tomato and mayo sandwich on white bread; an apple; and an unwrapped veggie samosa.

It's at moments like this that you start asking yourself questions you never thought you'd have to consider. Questions like: "has anyone really ever contracted typhoid from just half a sandwich?" or "what would feel worse the continued rumblings in my stomach now or having typhoid later?"

I went for the samosa first - it seemed the safest - and then eyed around for what my fellow hikers were eating. I gazed longingly at their hermetically sealed lunches - hard-boiled eggs and bananas, roast beef sandwiches in cellophane wrap.

And as I much as I wished that I had the guts to ask for a bite of theirs, I knew I would never do it. This left me with only one other choice: I crossed my fingers, and I dived right in.

Mt Meru (Day1: The Beginning)

I realized in my last blog post that I might have given the impression that I planned to climb Mt. Kili.

This is not true.

I'm a day hiker, at best. I have a few overnights under my belt. But from the climbing friends I know (and by climbing friends, I mean Jon Kraukauer), to attack a mountain like Kilimanjaro you actually have to train -- on real mountains -- for a long time.

I opted instead to hike Kili's little sister -

a smaller mountain called Mt Meru. It takes half the time; it's a much lower altitude; and it promises fantastic views of Kilimanjaro. Sure it is billed as "technically more challenging" than Kili, which made me a little nervous. But in my mind, at three days and four nights, it was totally manageable.

When I arrived at Arusha National Park, I was met by the rest of the group that would be sharing a ranger with me up the mountain, and any doubt that I had about my physical ability quickly disappeared. They were mainly middle-aged, extra-pounds-around-the-bellies Frenchmen, one who was actively smoking a cigarette, and another who had let on that he packed cheese and port in his bag. I looked at them and thought...I got this.

Boy was I wrong.

I'm not sure when I found out that my French compatriots were actually from towns that bordered the Swiss Alps and considered hikes like these their regular weekend jaunts. I'm also not sure when it came out that like many serious climbers they were only doing Meru as a warm-up to Kilimanjaro.

But what I do know is that 4 hours into our 8 hour hiking day, I was sweaty, starving and straggling behind. And this was only Day 1.

A Humbled Traveler

I've been in Tanzania for about 14 hours now, and it has already challenged just about everything that I thought I knew about traveling outside of the U.S.

1. Things aren't cheap here

I always thought, and I believe other people have been on board with me on this one, that if you are traveling anywhere outside of Europe, your US dollar can get you pretty far. Sure, there is a serious investment in the flights, but the cost can be more than made up in ground transport, accommodations, and activities.

This couldn't be less true in Tanzania. A taxi from the airport is US$50. A night at a hostel -one that warns of water shortages - is US $47. To climb Kilimajaro is a whopping US $1500.

It wouldn't be that hard to go for broke here.

2. You actually need to plan in advance

My previous experiences has always been that planning ahead for international travel is almost uniformly a bad idea. The price tour operators from the US charge you is far more expensive than if you go with a local operator. You also lose the flexibility of learning from fellow travelers and changing your plans when hearing advice from real people in the moment, instead of five year old guidebooks. Besides, it's always nice to not get locked into something awful because you didn't really understand all of your options.

So here I go into the "tourist town" of Arusha thinking there would be lines of small shops offering safaris, treks and flights to Zanzibar. I imagined I'd see tons of people like me -solo travelers looking to pick the best of a bevy of options for guided tourism. I basically was using the Asia paradigm of travel in Africa. And it totally failed.

Tour operators looked at me like I was insane when I told them I wanted to climb Mt. Meru tomorrow. They were even more confused by this question I had of wanting to join an already existing group.If it weren't for the persistence and know-how of my friend Lisa, I might have been holed up in a hotel room all week.

3. No one cares about me.

This sounds much more dire than it actually is. Whether it's been in Asia or in South America (my two most traveled continents), I've been stared at... a lot. And people were uber-friendly to me all of the time. Not the genuine kind of friendly. The curious sort-of friendly that people put on when they are talking to someone who has a third eye or is a bearded lady. I've grown used to being like some strange alien dropped into a homogeneous land.

And the truth is, no one here thinks I'm special. Not in the least bit. Which, all things considered, is a pretty sweet pill to swallow.

8 Hours in Switzerland

So getting to Tanzania isn't easy, and in my attempts to avoid multiple stopovers on the way in (which sadly were unavoidable on the way out), I opted for an 8 hour layover in Zurich.

Apparently, this isn't an uncommon thing, because when I Googled ::what to do on a long layover in Zurich::a whole hosts of suggestions popped up.

Two important things that I learned about Zurich

1. It's insanely expensive

2. If you're a vegetarian and are afraid that you might not eat for the next two weeks, it's an amazing place to have your last meal.

Sure I could tell you about the quaint, cobblestoned streets, and the beautiful lake, and the joyous families feeding the swans and playing on slack line. But the real story is about the food.

I went to the Odena Apotheka cafe, which I can't imagine by any stretch of the imagination is an extraordinary standout place to dine. But that's the beauty of Zurich. Their medicore meals ARE exceptional. Highlights included: lightly breaded and fried cheese fondue on a salad (gorgeous), a warm cup of hot chocolate, and a finish with chocolate gelato.

This must be why everyone loves the Swiss.

Tanzania Bound!

I usually like to start trips with a little soul searching. I like to sit alone in my room and imagine what it's going to be like to travel to my next destination. I get real honest with myself and let all of my preconceived notions and expectations spill out on the page.

But things are different this time. Not only is it my first time in Tanzania, it's also my first time in Africa. And what Chimamanda Adichie so deftly explains in this TED talk, is that Africa is plagued by a "single story." The Africa Americans know is of Lion King sunsets, tribal markings and tongued languages, and children who we are told would be thankful for our leftovers.

And while I don't know much about this place that I am traveling to, I know there is more than that. I am excited for some of the world's tallest mountains, the Indian Ocean, uniformed primary school students, and meeting new people -real people- with jobs and modern music and literature and thoughts about the absurdity that Mt. Kilimanjaro will only accept US dollars despite Tanzania having its own currency.

OK, I'll admit it. I'm also pretty pumped about going on safari too.