Washington D.C.

I've never liked DC. I've been there once before and wasn't impressed, but I gave it a second chance since I had to go down there for a conference. First of all, it's an extremely cold city, temperature wise and people wise. In a way, it seems like a city that isn't even real--it's very pretty, but empty, like the set of some movie after hours. We wandered around the first night at about 9:30 pm, and there was no one on the sidewalks, and an occasional car every now and then--this was by the Capitol.

Now New Yorkers have a reputation for being mean, but I would say that people in DC were meaner. At one restaurant, I asked people if they would be willing to move down and fill in the empty seat in the center so that both my friend and I could sit down (this was actually at a bar), and they refused! Instead, they pointed at another table that was getting up to leave. When I went to get into my cab, this random guy pretended that he was going to get into the cab with me, which of course freaked me out--then said to me, "It's only a joke, fucking chill." Which of course I screamed a bunch of profanities back at him. Seriously, the audacity of it!

We visited the white house because a friend of mine happened to know someone...apparently it is somewhat difficult to visit the white house since 9/11. It was nice, but not super interesting. Basically, there was a red room, yellow room, green room, and blue room--and they were named that. My friend asked the secret service guy if he was anything more than a glorified receptionist, to which he answered that he did other important things, like travel with the president on different shifts :P

As for night life, there was this area that did have people. Apparently there is an area with clubs as well, although I only went to a bar. It was just okay, but to be fair I was only there for a two days. Perhaps if I actually lived there I would like it more, but it's really not the best place to visit.

Kenya

When my parents came to visit, I took them on a safari that goes from Masai Mara and back down to the parks in Tanzania. In August, the migration is pretty much over, and most of the animals are in Masai Mara. The Mara is a much smaller park than the Serengeti, so the high concentration of animals is particularly startling. Driving into in, we saw so many wildebeest, probably several thousand. At one point, we almost saw a river crossing, but the presence of too many cars made it so that they were afraid and did not cross. Clearly tourism is becoming a problem for these animals, and I think they need to restrict the number of tourists that can enter. Perhaps charge more for park entry fees? It is already very expensive, but apparently Cheetahs are starving to death because too many tourists are interrupting their hunting. Sometimes, there are 20 cars gathered around a single animal.

We did see a lot of lions in Masai Mara, the highlight being the lion cubs, which were extremely cute! One was so young, it couldn't even walk properly and was tottering around after its father (who completely ignored it and fell asleep somewhere in the bushes). In the morning, the lions head for the water hole, presumably to wait for animals to come drink--and then the lions kill them and eat them.

Since I was traveling with my parent, we booked nicer accommodations, the tented lodges. They are very nice, and surprisingly comfortable and equipped with flushing toilets and hot showers.

We also went to Amboseli, the National Park close to Kilimanjaro. Unfortunately, it was too cloudy, so we could not see the mountain. However, there were tons of elephants, and the dry desert created the most realistic mirage that I have ever seen. It looked as though far in the distance there was a huge lake, complete with greenery--we could see the reflection of the trees in the water (well, fake water). In the distance, we could also see dust tornados.

Kigali

City of Kigali

Cafe latte at Bourbon

Rainbow by the mall!

I love Kigali. It is the first African city that I actually thought I could live in and be very happy. Kigali is clean, the people are extremely friendly and polite, and it is very safe. In general, Rwanda is more expensive than Uganda and Tanzania, perhaps because it is so small and has received a lot of aid?

In Kigali, we went to Bourbon, a wonderful coffee shop. I've started to love coffee, mainly because the coffee I have had in Africa has been very rich, aromatic--heavy like chocolate, but fragrant like tea. We went to some craft markets, but our main purpose was to see the genocide memorial.

The memorial is very difficult to endure, because it is so sad. I used to think that the Japanese were the most cruel and depraved fighters, since they had very sick ways of torturing and raping women. After working at the ICTR however, I am convinced that the darkest, most brutal and wretched war in human history is the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. Granted, there probably are worse wars, that I just don't know enough details about. The Interahamwe killed at a rate that was about 30 times faster than the killing of the Jews in the Holocaust. Even worse, it was a war that almost everyone participated in--civilians participated in the killing of Tutsis because the Interahamwe would kill moderate Hutus. Tutsi women and children fled to churches for protection, but the priests often collaborated with the Interahamwe, and allowed them to surround the church and slaughter everyone inside. There was widespread rape, since they would use rape to punish women. People would take bets on whether a pregant woman's baby was a boy or a girl, and then slice her womb open to see. The Japanese did stuff like that too, but I suppose what is particularly shocking about Rwanda is that many of these people lived side by side, they were neighbors--many knew each other, their children played together, but that no longer mattered. Also, the fact that civilians, often children, participated in the slaughter. Often, the interhamwe would drown people in latrines. Their way of killing was so torturous, victims would pay them money for a bullet.

There was another memorial that I did not go to. It is south of Kigali, and at this memorial, they have 800 bodies that were preserved so that they look exactly like they did right after the victims died. I did not go because I thought it would be too much to handle. You can see the expression on people's faces, and there is even a room of toddlers and babies, and you can see the machete wounds on their bodies. So, if you do want to see some of the most graphic consequences of the genocide, perhaps you should visit that memorial.

After seeing the Kigali memorial I was extemely depressed, so I went shopping at the craft market. The large craft market has a lot of traders that bring carvings from the Congo. Popular items included woven plates/baskets.

There are also many heart warming stories as well. We went to visit Hotel des Mille Collines, the hotel that inspired the movie Hotel Rwanda. It is the story of Paul Rusesabagina, a Hutu man who worked for another hotel. The European owners of Mille Collines had evacuated early on, and Paul was left to run it. During that time, he opened the hotel to Tutsi refugees, bribing the Interahamwe with money and liquor so that he could keep some people safe.

During the night, there was the opening ceremony for an annual festival called, fespad, a Pan African Dance festival. It is hosted in different countries every year, but this year it was in Rwanda. China for some reason is also in it. During the opening ceremony, they did three tirbutes t Chinese dance, which they seem to think is lots of people in bright costumes running around in circles. Of course, I was very proud that they did a tribute, and very happy. We were sitting in the free seats, having forgotten about the warning not to attended crowded events that might draw international attention. Paul Kagame gave a speech there! We got within 40 feet of him and took pictures. As we were coming down the steps however, I heard an exploding noise, and people screaming. I thought it was a bomb, but it turned out to be fireworks! I was very happy, and I was telling people that my people invented these, hahahahaha. There was lots of cheering and dancing, people would applaud when particularly large fireworks exploded.

Rwanda: Musanze and Gisenyi, Congo: Goma

Dumptrucks carrying people to Kagame's rally

Streets in Goma, where the lava had run through

Beach in Gisenyi, weather was not very good.

We crossed into the border at Cyanika, and took a car to Musanze, previously known as Ruhengeri. In Musanze, we went to the cheapest hotel, recommended by Lonely Planet. However, when we arrived, it was getting dark. The hotel is over a bar, and as soon as our car pulled up, creepy looking men surrounded it. Needless to say, I did not feel comfortable staying in that place so we asked the driver to take us to another hotel, just outside of town.

In the morning, we took a bus to Gisenyi. Gisenyi is by Lake Kivu, and it is now a "safe haven of peace", according to Lonely Planet. I wanted to see Gisenyi, since the man we are prosecuting at the ICTR is from Gisenyi--indeed, most of the Akazu, the masterminds of the genocide, resided in Gisenyi. The Accused was a very famous man there, and gave speeches there (allegedly) about Hutus getting together to fight against the Tutsis. While we were they, we avoided telling people that we worked for the ICTR, since one of our witnesses had been poisoned, and other witnesses claimed that his family was still very influential in that area. So, we told people that we were anthropology students, studying indigenous people from around the world.

We wanted to visit Goma, really just to say we went to the Congo. At the tourism office, we found a man who was willing to take us. His name is Innocent, his family was Tutsi and had fled to the Congo during the genocide. People told us Congo is not very safe, and that we had to go with someone who was familiar with the area. Right now, Congo has the largest contingent of UN peacekeepers. At the border, I forgot to bring my yellow fever card, so they refused to let me in, unless I paid for a vaccine (and let them administer it). Our guide suggested that I give them some money for a "soda", and they might change their mind, so I did, and they let me in. I guess Rwanda is not corrupt, but Congo definitely is. Goma was destroyed by a volcanic eruption in 2002. The town is currently being built (LP describes it as a modern day Pompei), and there are areas where you can see where the lava flowed through the streets and into Lake Kivu. I got out to take photos, and random people would stop and shake my hand. They seemed very friendly. Supposedly there is always ash in the air, but we went on a rainy day (the first rain they had in months), so that was not a problem.

I am still working out the kinks to blogger's picture insert, so it is a bit disorganized. Back in Gisenyi, there was a rally for Paul Kagame, the current president of Rwanda. Election are on August 9th. We were actually told to avoid Rwanda during election time, in case there was violence, but we thought we'd be okay. It was however, very chaotic. There are people running against Kagame, but they do not have the money to campaign. After talking with people, it seems some people definitely want a new leader. However, there were tons of people showing up for his rallies. People got free RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front) flags, T-Shirts, and hats, and they would clamber into these huge dump trucks to be transported to the rally. People were singing, yelling, and banging on the side of the trucks.

A bit about Kagame, for those who do not know: Kagame was the leader of the RPF, who came into Rwanda from Uganda to fight against the Interahamwe; their victory was what ended the genocide of 1994.

Gorilla Photos

Kisoro and Gorilla Tracking

July 21, 2010

The next day, we took a car to Kisoro.

A bit of background information on my Gorilla Tracking: I read about Gorilla tracking when I got to Arusha. There are about 400 mountain gorillas left in the world, half of them are in Bwindi Impenetrable Rainforest, in Uganda, and the rest are in the Virunga Mountains, which are spread over Congo, Uganda and Rwanda. Permits can be booked up to 2 years in advance, and they are often booked several months before the date. Thus, based on my time frame, it was extremely difficult to get a permit. I tried many places, but nothing was open. There were a few cancellations, but either someone snapped up the permit before I did, or the process was just too complicated (in one I would have had to arrange a meeting with a safari guide to pick up the permit and then get transportation to the area). In Uganda however, there were suddenly many cancellations because of the terrorist bombing that killed about 70 people during the World Cup Final. I went the week following this event. One person in our group dropped out because his parents were too upset to let him go, but I figured that it would be even safer in Uganda following the bombing, since the security would be even tighter. At the mall in Kampala, we got searched before going into the building. At Mgahinga, you can only reserve 2 weeks in advance, since the gorillas often cross in to the DRC or Rwanda. They were booked out, so I went on stand by, and luckily for me, three people did not show up, so I got to go! I was so excited!

A bit about Kisoro, before I launch into my gorilla trip--Kisoro is famous for honey and gorillas.

While I did the gorilla tracking, Laura did golden monkey tracking. Golden monkeys are also endangered, and only live in the Virunga area. Usually, it takes 1-3 hours to find the gorillas. I was lucky that day, since a group of Germans had a car with them, and the car drove us part of the way, so we save about 2 hours of walking time. From the camp on the mountains, we hiked for about 35 minutes, and then I saw a gorilla. When the guides approach, they make a noise to warn the gorillas that they are approaching. The noice is supposed to mean, "hey, here is some food!". It sounds like, "MEarrrrgh...MWOAM". Anyhow, the guides were grunting this loudly, and then I heard a rustling noise, and saw my first gorilla! I was so excited! As we climbed higher, the tracker cut some bushes down with a machete. The group, comprised on 13 individuals, has 3 silver backs and 2 babies. the silverbacks are the older males. We saw all the gorillas in that group. The babies ride on their mother's back, and the mother would climb a tree. The baby would peer at us from the branches, and then get off and eat by himself. The German girl got knocked over by a gorilla. She was standing in the path, and the gorilla sort of made an effort to go around her, but then bumped into her. She was scared, but I was super jealous, since she got to touch a gorilla! People asked me if I was scared, but I was not scared at all. I kind of thought of them as dogs...even though thay are 97% the same DNA sequence as humans! The alpha male, an enormous silverback, got annoyed when we got too close, but the smaller males and the females did not care. One walked so close by me, I could have easily patted it with my hand.

That night, we ran into money issues. My bank has a daily limit of $500, which is the cost of the gorilla permit. My friend Laura's card would not work. So, we essentially had no cash. Luckily, we ran into an Irish man and his daughter, who is half Chinese. They live in Beijing, and were very kind to us, and lent us money to pay for our room, so we could make our way over to Rwanda. While the guy at Ugandan customs said that Irish do not need a visa since they are friends of Uganda, on the Rwandan side Irish people do need a visa, and they cannot just buy it at the border. Since it has been our experience that East Africa is very corrupt, we asked another group (they had the same problem) about bribing, but they said that the Rwandans would not accept bribes. Although I was really sad that our Irish friends could not come with us, I was really happy that Rwanda is not corrupt.

Kabale and Lake Bunyonyi

The bus ride from Kampala to Kabale is about 8 hours long. For most of the way, the road is a fairly flat, dirt road. This dirt is a bright, coppery red color, like a natural bronzer. After travelling along it, I appeared to have a marvelous tan, but I would shower, and the water would run brown, and then I would return to my normal color afterwards. My backpack was completely coated in this dust, so I had to wash it when I returned to Arusha.

Anyhow, Kabale is a small town near Lake Bunyonyi, the deepest lake in Africa, and I think in the world as well. At Kabale, we met Jon's friend Bruno. Bruno knows a lot about gorilla tracking, and when to school for tourism. I will go into more detail about gorilla tacking later. After taking a water taxi, we arrived at our hostel, Boona Amagare. This is a very environmentally friendly place, but in all seriousness, I think environmentally friendly is often a nice way to disguise being cheap. It is run by an American, and uses only solar energy...which would be super cool if there was electricity at night, which there isn't. There is no electricity at night, and no plumbing. They give their toilets the fancy name of, "compost toilet" instead of just calling it a porta-potty. It was disgusting. There are no hot showers, but for extra money, they will boil 10 liters of water and you can use that. However, we had a very nice view of the lake, and their restaurant was really good. They have a lot of crayfish, so I had crayfish avocado (an avocado with friend onion, garlic, and crayfish in it), and crayfish curry.

The next morning, we went canoeing with Bruno and his friend Ipuff. Bruno assured me that the lake was safe to swim in, no crocodiles or hippos, only "small friendly animals", like otters. It is rare to see an otter, but we did see one. There is a sign by our hotel that asks us not to bleed in the water since it attracts otters, who bother the fish...I would think it is preferable to have otters, but perhaps they cause all sorts of trouble. We rowed to some of the islands.

About the Lake--it is a large lake, with a bunch of mountains rising in between it. I guess they are islands, technically, but they loom so largely, they really are mountains. One small island however, is called punishment island. Women who got pregant out of wedlock were taken here to die. Apparently most Ugandans cannot swim. Demarcus told us this, because he yelled at a school teacher at the Nile because he send children in wooden boats, close to the rapids, with no life jackets. Many children have drowned before because the waves will just knock the wooden boat over. Anyhow, the pregnant women would die on the island, unless a poor man who could not afford to pay the bride money rowed to the island to get her and make him his wife. So, free wives for poor men from Punishment Island.

On another island, we walked around, and saw some plants with bright, red, thin petals. Bruno said that people used to think that fire came from this plant, since the flower looks like a flame. We met Marvelous Grace there, she is an orphan who is being raised by people who own the hotel on that island.

In that area, there are also the Batwa Pygmies. I never got to see them, but Bruno says they aare very small people.

In the early morning, the lake is very still, and there is a mist that hovers over the water. It is very pretty, and hard to capture on camera. The water in the lake is quite cold, but after having grown up swimming in the Atlantic, no water is really cold for me.

Kampala Day 2

In Kampala, more so than in Arusha, people seem very excited to see me. Within 20 minutes of walking in the market, at least 7 people have pointed at me and yelled China! or Japan!! or Konichiwa!! Jon (who did peace corp in Uganda for 2 years) said that there are Asian in Uganda, but they usually stick to their own community and rarely go out where the local people are. I tried to explain to Demarco that there are many types of Asians, and not everyone is Chinese. He got confused, and was like, "but you ARE Chinese!" and I tried to explain, "yes, I happen to be Chinese, but Koreans and Vietnamese and various other groups also exist." Not sure how successful it was. I did think it was annoying sometimes, to have people yell into my face, "Ni Hao!", but I reminded myself that they are trying to be friendly. If I was in a good mood, I would pretend to be a rockstar and wave back and people like they were my fans.

We went to go see Mengo Palace, which used to be the home of the King of the Buganda; Buganda is one of four big kindgoms that made Uganda. The Buganda Kingdom dates back to about 800 years. During Obote's rule however, he used the prisons by the palace to torture people. There are three cells in the prison. On the walls of one of them, a man wrote, "Obote, you have killed me, but what about my children?" What is very sad is that you see handprints on the walls outside the bars, and there are messages that children wrote. The children whose parents were missing would come to the prison to look for them, because so many people got put in there.

Interestingly, we also saw posters for a book titled, "Amin DaDa, the other side" (Dada meaning father). Idi Amin was the ruthless dictator who usurped Obote and then, during his reign, killed about 300,000 of his own people. The people selling things told us we should definitely read it. Perhaps Idi Amin is the Mao Tse Tung of Uganda, as in the West hates him, but lots of people in his own country think positively of him? Plenty of Ugandans also openly despise Amin and have very bad memories from his rule.

That night, we ate Ugandan food. Matoke, which is made from plantains, is kind of sour, like Ethiopian injera (the flat spongey bread thing). I did not like it. Kalo, which made me think of a Chinese desert, is made from cassava and plaintain, it is sticky in consistency, like a rice cake. A popular dish is ground nut sauce and meat or beans. I had smoked beef in ground nut sauce, which was delicious. The ground nut sauce tastes like a peanut curry.

Jinja

On June 16, 2010, we got picked up from our hostel at around 7:30 am to go white water rafting on the Nile. The source of the Nile is Lake Victoria, the largest lake in Africa and 4th largest lake in the world. On our way over there, we crossed a bridge and I saw a crocodile in the water; I have always been afraid of crocodiles, there is just something very creepy about them. Maybe it's the fact that they drag their prey into the water and drown it, and then leave it to bloat and get soggy for a few weeks before eating it, maybe it's that they are deadly in the water and pretty dangerous on land as well. At least sharks stay in the water, crocodiles and alligators can come into your backyard and eat your dog or child. I know people like Steve Irwin tried to show that animals like crocodiles are not evil, etc., but I just don't like them.

Anyhow, I figured that at the rapids, there wouldn't be crocodiles, since they prefer calmer water. After eating breakfast at the company, we got fitted for life jackets and helmets. I asked a friend of ours who did it before whether anyone fell out of the boat, and he said that I should be asking "if" people fall out of the boat, since the entire boat flips over, multiple times. Somehow that didn't bother me that much, since I had a helmet (I have a lot of faith in helmets).

Our guide, Demarco, is a very funny man. We practiced falling into the water the right way, flipping the boat over, and flipping it back. When the boat flips over, there is an air pocket below it. The guide will climb on top of the raft, and then we all come out, and hold onto the side of the boat. When the guide flips the boat back, we are supposed to duck under the boat (where the air pockets are) to avoid being hit when the boat flips back again). Demarco said he wanted to avoid getting his shirt wet, which made me think perhaps we would not tip over, but I guess he was joking and the sarcasm bypassed me. On a particularly large rapid, a bunch of locals sit on the shore (like, a hundred people at least) to watch the white people flip over on their rafts. Every boat flipped on that rapid, except for ours. Demarco says it is because he prayed. He told Michelle, one of the girls in our group, "you are not religious, you just pretend to be". He then said to me, "this might be a stupid question, but if Jackie Chan popular in China too?" I explained to him that yes, he was very popular, but that I actually am American and cannot really say what's very popular in China or not. Regardless, Demarco told me. "when you go back to your country, can you please tell Jackie Chan to come to Uganda? Ugandans really love Jackie Chan." I told him I would give him a call and relay the message.

Our boat flipped over twice, which is actually quite good. Once however, I got hit in the fact with the oar, on the side of my head, right below where my helmet ended. I suppose the helmet was not as helpful as I had thought it would be. While we were rafting, we had a professional photographer take photos and videos. I look very grumpy in the video, although I was having a very good time.

At one point, the water was rapid, but then became very still. Demarco said if we fell out there, to get back in as soon as possible, since there were crocodiles in that area. I can't tell whether he was joking or not, but I clung to the rope during that period. If the rapid is shallow, we are supposed to lie on our back and avoid swimming. If the rapid is deep, we are supposed to try to swim to the boat. At one point, we went down a waterfall (Demarco was saying it is so small, it doesn't even count as a waterfall, but it is a significant drop). Many boats would get stuck at the waterfall, and they had people around that area with ropes, since it is common that the power of the water will trap you, so you can't even swim out.

There is one point where the rapid is so bad that we had to get out and walk, while people carried our boat on land to the other side. Demarco told us there was a racist rock in the water that only hits white people ("muzungus"), and not black people. I might have been okay, since I'm a "mchina". We ate pineapple, which was very sweet, and had an early dinner after rafting. We stayed the night at their camp, and went back to Kampala the next morning.

Kampala Day 1

I just got back from a 10 day trip to Uganda, DRC and Rwanda. I will separate the posts, although they will all be listed on the same day. I realize that I should have put dates on the previous posts. Oh well.

On June 15, 2010 I flew into Entebbe from Arusha. From Entebbe, we went to Kampala, a large city. The first thing I noticed was the air quality. While I do not have problems with asthma in America, I do in Taiwan, where it is very polluted, and I did again as we rolled into Kampala. The city is growing, and there are too many cars wedged on roads that usually have only one, at most two, lanes. Supposedly they are building a new highway that will help alleviate traffic jams, but for the moment, we often inched along in the cab. Bodas, which are motorcycles, are usually much faster, cheaper, but also more dangerous. I figured since I had ridden motorcycles in Taiwan frequently that I would be fine on a boda. In reality, boda in Uganda is completely different from biking in the US or Taiwan. First of all, there are often no traffic lights, and the bodas will speed in front of cars, weave through traffic, and sometimes cut across a busy intersection while cars are coming at them from the opposite direction. Needless to say, I rode a boda once, and determined to always take a taxi afterwards. The taxi ride however, usually makes me sick because of the heavy stench of gasoline, mixed with the red dust that lines every road.

In Kampala (which is the capital, by the way), we went to a shopping mall. There is a place called New York Pizza in the parking lot, which is just okay, but probably nice if you miss American food. That day, we went to a craft market and a used clothing plaza. The craft market in Kampala is much nicer than the one in Arusha because the people do not heckle you at all. Granted, it is also slightly more expensive. In general however, Uganda is cheaper than Tanzania.

I slept early everyday, mainly because I was still recovering from a stomach infection that struck again (the doctors suspect it was the same one, and that it had never healed, but I think it is just a new infection).

We stayed at a place called Red Chilli Hideaway, which is decent. They have goats and dogs running around, and one huge pig that comes out every now and then. The food is not bad, but it is extremely slow. The waitresses have an attitude, I guess since everyone is always asking them how much longer it will be until their food comes out.

Zanzibar!

Last Thursday I left for Zanzibar. The name for Zanzibar means land of of the blacks, and it was part of the slave trading route. Now, the island is beautiful and warm, basically everything I had expected Arusha to be. When we got off the plane, the sun was shining, even though the forecast had been for rain. We have perfect weather all weekend, except for a slight drizzle during lunch one day.



On Thursday and Friday we explored Stone Town. Zanzibar is predominantly Muslim, and the architecture in Stone Town reflects that. The area was famous for the spice trade, and the stone buildings and narrow alley ways make it seem like its part of a different time period. There are very ornate doors, which reminded me of the doors of some palaces in Beijing, with the studs on them. We went to see the old slave market, which is now a cathedral. They have a pit where people were chained by their necks, and tiny rooms, about 10 by 10 feet, in which they would shove 75 people. As we were walking to this market, we passed a series of winding shopping streets, with a lot more variety than the stores in Arusha. I really liked all the colors, especially the kangas, other clothes, beaded purshes, and paintings. I ended up buying a lot of fabric to make dresses with. The sunset over the water was gorgeous, since the water there is an aquamarine color near the shore, then turns to a tourquoise, and then a rich, dark blue. Someone commented that the dark red of the sunset indicates that there is a lot of pollution here. Other buildings that we saw included the distillery, the House of Wonders, the Old Fort, Princess Salme's House, and the big tree (which literally is a very big tree). Princess Salme apparently eloped with a German Merchant, and is still famous in Zanzibar. We stayed at a hostel called Princess Salme Inn, which was really nice and had a rooftop cafe. At night, we went to Forodhoni Gardens, kind of like a nightmarket. There are stands with tons of seafood. I tried shark, baracuda, rock lobster, crab, red snapper, snail, octopus, and squid. Most of the seafood is very cheap, about a dollar per stick, but my favorite was the crab claw (half kilo) which was about 4 US dollars. They also made a Zanzibari pizza, which was mango and chocolate in a crepe. One restaurant, called Monsoon, supposedly has the best coffee in Tanzania. Their coffee is spiced with either masala, clove, cinnamon, and some other spices. I liked it a lot, and wanted to return for dinner (supposedly their food is very good too), but did not have enough time.

Afterwards, we took a shuttle to Kendwa, the northern part of the island. The beaches there are really nice, with white sand, clear water, and not that many people. There were some annoying people on the beach who would try to sell you stuff, but other than that I have no complaints. On the first night, we took a sunset dhow cruise. The water is very warm, but also saltier than the Atlantic (at least I think so). The next day, Sunday, we went on a "dolphin adventure" to Mnemba Atoll. Mnemba Atoll is the best snorkeling I have ever done. In the water, there are many schools of fish that overlap. It is such a high concentration of fish; their scales reflect the light, so it just looks like the water is shimmery and silver. Every now and then, something would freak them out, and the entire school of about 200 fish would dart one way, in unison. I saw some baracuda, and a really psychadelic neon purple, blue, green, yellow and pink fish. Blue starfish and giant sea urchins were sprawled across the ocean floor, and our guide found us a sea cucumber. About half of our group got stung by jellyfish though, including me. The guide had a bottle of vinegar, which he poured on (so at least I didn't have to have someone pee on me). For most of the day, we just lounged on the roof of our Dhow, and enjoyed the perfect weather. The resort itself is very inefficient, and the staff is incompetent, but the beach is so nice that it is easy to forget about all that. The best dish I had in all of Tanzania is a lobster curry that I had from white sands hotel. I will try to make that at home.

Fourth of July

This weekend was the fourth of July, and of course there were barbecues and parties. One of the ladies who works at the UN invited us all to her house, which is gorgeous. After entering the main gate, her house looks like a secret bungalow in the middle of the jungle. It is exactly how I would fantasize life abroad in some exotic place. She decorated the entire house herself, pairing colors that I wouldn't think to put together, but ultimately look very nice--like lavender and bright red doors. She has many pieces of yard furniture, covered with woven clothes, some embroidered. I've decided that I'm going to copy her and decorate my future house the exact same way, kekeke.

One thing about Arusha though, is that a lot of the dogs are guard dogs, and at least two interns have been bitten. One had to go to the hospital and get the foot long rabies shot into his stomach, the other got bitten on the leg and bled, but supposedly those dogs had all their shots so she didn't have to get rushed to the hospital. There are also a lot of bigger dogs here, I haven't seen any of the lap dogs that seem so common in the US.

Safari

Monkeys at Lake Manyara

Hippos at Ngorongoro
Wildebeest Migration at Ngorongoro
Cheetahs at the Serengeti
Elephant in the Serengeti
I went on a 4 day, 3 night safari last weekend, with a company called Soko--I highly recommend them. Our guide, Mohammed, was very dillegent about waking us up at 5:30 am so we could get into the car by 6, drive down before everyone else woke up, and see the sunrise and early morning animal activity. He would spot things that other guides totally missed, and he'd be able to see things from very far away. We'd be driving, and then he'd stop and point at a speck in the distance, in the tall grass, and be able to identify what animal it was. When watching the big cats, he was very informative, and would be able to predict certain actions--he could tell by how the animal was sitting that it was about to get up and walk around, and he'd be able to tell whether the big cats were seriously going to make a move on their prey (as opposed to just watching them) and estimate how much time it took. He would use his radio to call other guides to ask them if they found anything cool, then he'd drive like mad to get us there on time so that we could see it. We probably massively overtipped him, since the tipping system here is different, but he did such a good job that I'm not upset about it.

Our cook was also very good. I ate better on safari than I do at home. He was very dilligent about not wasting--if we had left over food from dinner, he would use it to make something delicious for breakfast or lunch the next day.

So, actual details about the Safari:

Lake Manyara:
This is a gorgeous lake. When we were looking at safari companies, a lot of people told us to skip the lake, but I thought it was really nice. When we drove out, it really looked like a scene from the lion king, with the bright sun, the acacia trees, the reddish brown mountains, and big, white birds flying in a spiral in the sky. The actual lake had hundreds of white storks in the water, and dozens of hippos. Hippos are supposedly very aggressive in defending their territory, though they are vegetarian--essentially, they won't eat you, but they will kill you. We also saw tree climbing lions, which is somewhat rare. These lions are the same species as in the Serengeti, but in Manyara they have adapted to climbing and sleeping in trees, like leopards. It is because Manyara has so many forests as opposed to the Serengeti, which is mostly plains. Our first night of camping was quite comfortable. Mohammad told us to always buy things with him, because the locals would try to charge us absurd prices. Surprisingly, I did not get bitten much by mosquitoes--in Arusha I get about 1 or 2 bites per day, but I think I only got 1 during my entire safari.

Masai Village:
Mohammad asked us if we wanted to stop by a Masai village. It was an extra 15,000 shillings, but it was a very interesting experience. Cultural tourism however, if supposedly a great experience, but I can't help but feel bad about it. I wonder how much of the "cultural" performaces are actually a part of their culture, or something concocted to show tourists. I studied Taiwanese aborigines, and many of them complained that cultural tourism for their tribes were fake, and the performances were staged to look exotic. Anyhow, I still liked the Masai village, because we could see the houses that they lived in. They performed a welcome dance, and the men and the women dance separately. The Masai jump very high, so they had us go jump with them. Thier huts are made with cow dung, and women build the huts--one hut for one wife. The men have multiple wives, and if they want to pick a chief, they often pick the man with the most wives, the reasoning being that if he can manage that many wives, he can manage a village. The chief of that village had 22 wives. As for the women, they can only have one husband. Totally not equal. Their houses are made by hand, and quite small, so you have to duck to walk into them. Inside, they have beds made of wood and cow hide, as well as a fireplace for cooking. Three people lived in the hut that we visited, in a very small space. Someone commented to me that the Masai have cell phones and modern looking watches, and was upset by this. I of course, do not think it is anything to be upset about. After all, it is not fair for us to dictate that they reject all modern technology when we ourselves are swimming in it. I also think you can choose to retain certain traditions, while adapting to the modern world. I bet cell phones help a lot--they have to walk so much each day (children often walk 4 hours a day just to get to school), it's nice to just be able to call people (there is reception out there) as opposed to walking hours to find them. The masai did try to sell us a bunch of stuff, at exorbitant prices (one man charged us 25,000 shillings for a beaded bracelet that was actually about 2,000 shillings). From the Masai village, we went on to the Serengeti.

Serengeti
The Serengeti is an expansive golden plain, with dark blue mountains in the distance and acacia trees dotting the landscape. It is amazing, because the plains seem to go on forever. During our first day in the Serengeti, we saw a Hyena by the side of the road. It was looking kind of ragedy, so I thought perhaps that it had come out there to die. After all, Hyenas are pack animals, and at least for dogs, a dying individual will separate from the group. I think that is very sad though, to die alone. So, hopefully he was just mad at his group or something, and wanted some alone time. We saw many gazelles. They hop like rabbits. Towards the end of the day, we saw a leopard in a tree, but it was quite far. We also saw lions stalking some gazelles; one had a collar for research. That night, we went back to our campsite. This site is more dangerous than the Manyara site, because it is just in the Serengeti and the animals can just come around our tents. Ashley was worried abot lions attacking us, so we asked Mohammad how often lions come into the campsite; Mohammad said "quite often, but don't worry, they will not come tonight, they will probably come tomorrow instead". After dark, it isn't even safe to walk to the bathroom, so you are supposed to just go outside the tent. We briefly contemplated just bringing a can with us into the tent, so we wouldn't have to leave it. That night, I heard growling, but I convinced myself that it was Ashley breathing funny. It turned out that lions and hyenas were indeed walking around our tents that night. Mohammad was telling us that once, they woke up and a herd of wildebeest were around the tents, and just 3 meters away the lions killed one. Anyhow, no one got attacked by lions, and we were in our car by 6:30 am to see more of the Serengeti. We saw many elephants and giraffes. One elephant almost charged our car; we had been snapping photos of this herd, and the male comes up to us, clearly pissed. Mohammad tells us all to be very quiet, because the elephant is debating whether we are a threat or not. Then, the elephant backs up, and Mohammad drives away, because when they back up while facing you, it means they are backing up to give themselves room to charge at you. As we were driving, Mohammad saw a speck, and thought it was a Hyena. Then he goes, "Shit it's a leopard!" Leopards are quite rare. This one was stalking a gazelle. It was cool to see the leopard actually moving (usually when people see them, they are sleeping in the tree). The gazelle escaped though. Supposedly the leopards are the most efficient hunters, and they prefer smaller prey, like gazelle, because they like to take it up to their tree and eat it there. We saw a pride of lions, but they were quite far away. At one point however, a lioness walked along the road, and we followed her for some time.

Olduvai Gorge
The masai said it should be called Oldupai, since it is called Olduvai because the foreigner asked the Masai the name, and then misheard them and wrote it down wrong. Oldupai is a type of plant that grows abundantly in this gorge. This gorge is famous because it is where they found a skeleton of the early humans, the austrolopithecus (probably spelled that wrong). They also found footprints preserved in the ash, proving that these early humans walked upright.

Ngorongoro Crater
The crater was my favorite part of the entire trip. It was freezing cold, but luckily my apartment mate Will, who went last week, warned me about the cold, so I brought plenty of layers and an extra blanket; I borrowed gloves as well. When we arrived at the camp, there were four elephants walking among our tents, going to our water tanks and stealing our water. Then, they went to the tree, and started breaking off branches. Mohammad had shown us another area in which the trees were completely destroyed, and he said elephants were the culprit. Surprisingly, they did not trample our tents, but walked around them. We left our camp, the next day, at 6:00 am. The sunrise over the crater was beautiful, it is amazing how the land will just change colors throughout the sunrise, from a light blue under the moon, to a lighter yellow, then orange, reddish, and then back to a yellow. During noon, the green and blues of the grass and water are more vivid. Early in the morning, we saw the most amazing cheetah hunt. The cheetah has become my new favorite animal because it is so graceful. There were two of them. One of the was approaching a group of gazelles (Cheetah 1), while the other went on the road, around our car, to the opposite side (Cheetah 2). Cheetah 2 is farther, but then suddenly takes off like a bullet. Their stride is about 23 feet, so this cheetah is just ripping through the tall grass at the gazelles. The gazelles freak out of course, and run the opposite direction, but they don't realize that Cheetah 1 is waiting in the grass there. They run directly at Cheetah 1, who makes a beeline towards them. Somehow, the gazelle manage to jump or dogde Cheetah 1, so now both Cheetahs are chasing the gazelles. The distance that they covered was amazing--I would say they covered around 100 km, but I'm not that good as estimating. Basically, they ran from one end of a mountain range to the other. The gazelles got away, even though we were all rooting for the cheetahs. After the gazelles crossed the road, the cheetahs just collapsed. They must be very exhausted. Cheetahs are supposedly the most inefficient hunters because they expend so much energy. While the lions and the leopard will wait to get very close to their prey, the Cheetah will just take off from farther away, precisely because it is so fast and can get to the prey much faster than the lions or the leopard. Supposedly the cheetah hunts are successful only 10% of the time. After running, they have to recharge, so often they will kill, relax, and then eat. The problem is however, that other big cats will steal their kill, since cheetahs are not particularly strong--they are built very slender, unlike the lions and the leopards.
In the crater, the zebra and the wildebeest walk in a single file line. The line will stretch out far into the horizon, and usually end with a huge group of them by a water source. At one point, a pride of lions was waiting by the line. We initially only saw two of the lions, but over some time we kept seeing them pop their heads out of the tall grass and move closer to the wildebeest. They were waiting, 4 lioness and 2 young male lions, to make a move, but never did. Eventually, the line ended and they missed their chance, so they reconvened, as though they were having a meeting about what went wrong :D Then they moved on to another group.

After going on safari, I cannot support zoos anymore. I think it is especially cruel to keep those big cats in cages. Even a large cage cannot compare to what they have in the wild. A cheetah could never run like that in a zoo...although I suppose perhaps the cheetah is happy, since it doesn't have to keep hunting stuff. I'm not quite sure. I guess it might be nice to have people feeding you all the time, while you lie there and get your picture taken, but seeing these animals in the wild really makes me think that they are far better off there. Especially birds--I think to keep a bird in a cage so that it can't fly is awful. Imagine being able to fly, but not being allowed to. As a child, I had many pets in cages, but I will never be able to get a pet that is kept in a cage again.

East Africa is really amazing, and I think everyone should visit it at least once in their lifetime.

Stomach Infection

I had to miss work on Wednesday, because I got a really bad stomach infection. I had been feeling funny all week, but suddenly, overnight, it got so much worse. In the morning, I couldn't even walk by myself. My apartment mate helped me get to the clinic, and they gave me rehydration salts and some antibiotics.

I'm not quite sure what made me sick, but I suspect it is this barbecue. The place, called Khan's Barbecue, is an auto repair shop by day, and a Tandoori barbecue stand at night. Their chicken is really good, and the owner, Khan, is a really nice man. The chicken is delicious, but sometimes is undercooked, and there will be raw pieces. I will probably go back, but I will check my chicken more carefully to make sure it is fully cooked.

On another note:

This weekend I stayed in Arusha, and made a new friend. I suppose for anonymity's sake I will call her Greta. Greta essentially is a gangster princess. When we met her in the office, she seemed very demure and calm. She drives a car here, so she took us to go eat lunch. On the way there, she parks wherever she wants to on the street, and throws shillings at the police who come scuttling over. Bums will approach, and she'll just give them shillings because she is "too tired" to deal with them. Later that night, we all go out together. As she's driving us, she takes a bottle of vodka from the side of her seat and chugs it while we're rolling down the road. As we exit to go into the club, some local club called AQ, she pours the rest of the vodka into a plastic water bottle and commands my room mate to stuff it into his back pocket. At the club however, they've got higher security than the UN does--not only do you have to walk in through a metal detector, they also manually run over your body with a handheld detector. I can walk in through the UN detectors with my keys and wallet, but in this one even my cell phone beeped. They searched through my purse, I guess to make sure I wasn't carrying any weapons. Of course, they discovered the hidden bottle. Greta was telling us that no one in Arusha buys drinks at the bar, they bring their own. Of course, my room mate failed, and in her opinion, at the very least should have chugged the vodka before giving the bottle to them. The club is definitely a local club, not the expat ones that we have been going to. Afterwards, Greta offers to drive us home. We worried that she was drunk, but one of our landlord's children said she's fine, so we figured it was probably okay and put on our seat belts. She drops us off safely, but then as she backs out, hits a car, then just drives away. She sends me a text message saying that her car is fine, despite the hit and run. Note also that according to Greta, 84% of the people in Arusha have guns. I wonder if Greta has a gun too. Anyhow, Greta is very cool, and definitely will take care of her friends. The next day, the driver of the car that got hit came to our apartment, because our useless security guard told him that my roommate and I had hit the car (even though we don't drive here, and were actually outside of the car when Greta hit it). Of course our other room mates were not pleased about the situation, since the guy woke us all up at 7:00 am. We worried that he'd come back with the police, so we called Greta, and she basically came, threw 40,000 shillings at the guy, and everything was okay.

The Weekend (and Thursday)

Thursday

A friend of mine from work was nice enough to drive us to another intern's birthday party. On the way back home, we pass a hotel, and he goes, "oh, a concert!" Apparently he had just heard music and thought it was a concert, so we all go there. It turned out to be a private party for the World Bank, but the people were really nice and let us stay.

Friday

I almost died. Well, realistically I suppose the actual chances of me dying were not as high, but it is the second time in my life in which I really thought that I would die. We were going to a farewell party for Sylvie, and she had a friend who was willing to drive us. I didn't realize this at the time, but he was really drunk. Apparantly he and his friends got into a fight with some other guys because his friend hit their car and completely dented in the door. They were arguing, and then Sylvie tells us to get out of the car because she heard some very alarming words in Swahili and was worried that they would start fighting with weapons. We tried to get out, but then the driver got offended and yelled at us. Then he starts driving recklessly, at 100 km/hr on the dirt roads in Arusha, flying over speed bumps, driving on the wrong side of the road, trying to pass and cut people off on a one lane dirt road, turning without slowing down...the car had no seat belts, so I really thought this was it, and I was thinking what a stupid way to die this was. Luckily, I didn't die, and we went to karaoke.

Saturday

We watched the East African South Rugby Championship at the stadium in Arusha. I used to think football was a rough sport, but it is nothing compared to Rugby. The players would get up and wipe blood off of their legs and then keep playing. Mauritius won, and a helicopter came and carried the MVPs away, then back. The trophy was surprisingly small.

Sunday

We went to a sport bar to watch the game, and had an interesting conversation with a Tanzanian guy. Apparently he doesn't pay taxes, and can park his car anywhere, anytime, because the police like him. Also, he can leave his valuables in his car and it won't get robbed because the street kids will guard it for him. His friend meanwhile, shakes his head and goes, "this is corruption, you see how corrupt our country is?" They were a very funny group. The first guy then says that Arusha is a very dangerous place, which is why he always carries a gun--then he shows us his gun. He said that Arusha is the only city in which you can shoot someone in the face in a bar and be back on the streets the next day. He then offered to take us on road trips to his village and etc. I went back to work on Monday, and one of my Tanzanian coworkers said never travel anywhere with anyone who has a gun, since if they have a gun, they either stole it, are really rich, or they are a bandit, or some combination of the three. My Tanzanian coworker is very sweet, I think she does worry about us. O_O

Central Market

While staying in Arusha, we buy our produce at this huge outside market, called Central Market. Since we cannot speak swahili, and we obviously are foreigners, people will charge us different prices, often double, sometimes even quadruple what they would charge the locals. One woman tried to sell us an avocado for 1000 shillings, when the fair price is about 300 shillings--of course, 1500 shillings is a dollar, so either way it is quite cheap. The avocadoes are enormous here, and one avocado, one tomato, an onion, salt, and a bag of rolls can feed 3 people for dinner.

A woman from my office who is Tanzanian went with us to the market so that we could get an idea of what prices should be. The people here are really kind (unless they are trying to sell you something). Before coming to Arusha, I had read many things about the city. I read that it was one of the 10 worst cities in the world from the lonely planet forum (or at least, one of the 10 cities that really failed to meet people's expectations). In that sense, yes, Arusha is small, there are lots of people who will heckle you in the street--we will have people follow us for blocks just to pester us to buy a painting. For me, it was quite frightening at first, because they would not stop following you until you got into a cab and drove away. Now that I have been here longer, people seldom do that to me, since they know by now that I am not actually a tourist. Although, a few will still approach me, and make me promise that when I do buy (they assume that we will all buy at least one painting before we leave), I will buy from them.

Since I am Chinese, I think they do charge me somewhat lower prices than they would charge a white person. Also, I think I have an easier time haggling, maybe because they think Chinese people are also poor? They do however, call everyone a mzungu, regardless of race (I will get called China as well). Mzungu just means foreigner, and some people get very offended that people keep calling them that. It doesn't really bother me, I mean, that is what I am, right? I think I'd get offended if I was a native Tanzanian, and people still called me mzungu. If anything, it's kind of nice that all foreigners are mzungus, regardless of skin color. Some people ask me if I get annoyed that people point at me and say China! China! or Konnichiwa or Ni Hao or Anyung, etc. It really depends on my mood. I do not get angry, because I do think the people have good intentions--many of them didn't have a very good education, so I don't think we can blame them for not realizing that China, Korea and Japan are 3 different countries. Most people do not have access to the internet, newspapers, etc. I don't think you can get offended at people for things they cannot control, and for many of these people, a good education is simply not in their range of opportunities. So no, I do not get angry, but depending on how tired I am, I will try to explain to people, etc., so in the future they can keep in mind that there is more than one country in East Asia. While the majority of the population is quite poor, there are also many very educated Tanzanians, who have finished university (and know that China, Korea and Japan are different, among other things); many work at the UN. I have had some very interesting discussions with those people, one about China's increasng presence in Africa. A Tanzanian man was telling me that the Chinese are taking over Tanzania (economically), controlling it, and getting rich while the locals still remain poor. It is a topic that I plan to look into, in more detail.

Coffee Plantation

Mural by the secondary school
Orphanage outside of Arusha
Coffee plants
I don't drink coffee, but I might change my mind now. My reasons for not drinking coffee before were mainly that I didn't like the taste, and also the caffeine would make me jittery while upsetting my stomach.

When I found out one of my apartment mates was going on a coffee tour, but that there was no more space for extra people, I got super excited when this other girl told me that there was extra space. I suppose it's reverse psychology, because when I actually thought about it, I'm not super interested in coffee, and I really just wanted to go because I thought I wouldn't be able to go. Anyhow, the tour turned out to be awesome, mainly because of the food.

First, we visited an orphanage, in which I wanted to adopt a bunch of babies. It is sad though, because so many women die in child labor that there are tiny infants in these orphanages. While the volunteers care for the babies, there are too many babies, and not enough volunteers. The baby that I was holding was sick actually, so I ended up getting sick the next day. My apartment mate held the same baby, and also got sick. Note also, that this happened before we went to Arusha National Park, even though I am posting about it later, so we ended up giving our cold to this other kid who was stuck in the vehicle with us for 6 hours.

Anyhow, after buying some rice and produce for the orphans we went to the coffee plantation. Granted, this was the part of the tour that I did not like, I found it kind of boring. Coffee grows on trees, and they look like berries. Inside the berry there is a white pit, which it the coffee bean. The wild coffee trees have a lot of slippery goo between the flesh of the berry and the pit, while the planted trees have less. The farmers grow organically because it is actually cheaper for them to do so--it is more time intensive, but they save money and get a larger yield. To keep bugs away, they plant something that smells very strong (like sage) around the plantation.

After the plantation, we ate an amazing lunch. The women who ran the tour is Norweigian, she moved to Tanzania because she came on a safari here and fell in love with her safari cook. Beate and Frank have two really pretty children, and they live in a very nice house, kind of like a mansion, close to the plantation. 90% of their buyers are from Norway, and they sell out of their coffee each year. At their house, we ate goat stew and Norweigian pancakes with the brown cheese that I love. Apparently she doesn't give everyone the cheese, she just brought it out for us because I told her that I visited Norway last year and I loved the cheese.

The factory, if you can actually call it a factory, is part of their house. It is actually just one machine. They roast the coffee, and then seal it in airtight plastic bags, and then put it in a cloth package to ship out. The coffee that they gave us to drink was roasted the day before, and it was the best coffee I have ever had. I normally would never drink coffee black, but this coffee was so aromatic and not bitter. It also didn't make me jittery or iritate my stomach. Beate says that real coffee connosoirs will throw out their beaks 2 weeks after they have been roasted, but most people can just drink the coffee within a year of the roasting date. I brought some beans back with me (we got a free bag of coffee beans with the tour), and plan to drink it. Although, that means I'd have to get a bean grinder and a coffee machine, so perhaps I'll just give it away as a gift. Alternatively, I could just get the grinder and the machine, and then just purchase more coffee.

The brand is called Wild Tracks, and they ship anywhere in the world. The price is 4500 shillings per bag, which is about 3 USD. I would highly recommend it.

Arusha National Park

Before I left for Tanzania, the guy who gives international interns advice told us not to blog because 1.) it's nerdy and 2.) it could get you in trouble if you badmouth people. Oh well, what can I say, I guess I'm a nerd?

Anyhow, we went to Arusha National Park, sort of as a teaser safari. I would not recommend that company, but unfortunately I don't remember the name, so I cannot warn people not to use it. I enjoyed the park, it is very beautiful, and we saw lots of giraffes and zebras. After some time, we got kind of jaded--we'd see giraffes, and it would be like seeing a horse. Baboons would just sit in the road, with their babies on their backs. During this time of year, there are a lot of baby animals; I think February is a season in which a lot of animals are born, and during these months they are big enough to wander around more independently, but still so cute! Unfortunately it was kind of cloudy, so we did not get a great view of the small ngorongoro (a crater within Arusha National park). I was hoping to see elephants, but we did not manage to find one. Rather, we just saw huge piles of elephant poop, and the guide remarked that we must have just missed them.

We saw many colobus monkeys, which I found really cute. I normally don't like monkeys, but these were pretty black and white monkeys with longer, silkier looking hair. They looked kind of like skunks actually. In the lake, there were a lot of flamingos. There are so many of them, that it can be hard to tell what there are. It really does look like some pink plant, because they stand so close together. I made our group get together for group photos, and gave our driver detailed instructions as to where to take them from. I had to get pictures from other people, since my camera broke the night before.

I haven't posted in a while, so I will divide these posts by subjects.

In Tanzania!

So, I haven't written for a very long time. This summer, I will be interning at the ICTR in Arusha, Tanzania, so I figured to start writing again. So far, I have been here for about a week.

Day 1: I was fortunate to run into a bunch of other interns on the same flight, so I was less worried about transportation from the airport to Arusha. When we got there, the UN did send a van to pick us up; there were three men with machine guns to escort us. I was dropped off last, at this hostel, which sucks. If you ever go to Arusha, do not stay at Arusha Backpacker's Hotel. Other people seemed to think it was okay, but I was mad because they ripped me off. I reserved a single room, but they gave away my room. Of course, while the UN guy with the gun was still there they were like, "Oh, single room, yes", but as soon as he drove away, they said, "sorry, we have no more single rooms, you have to stay in a double". Which I would have been okay with, except they made me pay for the double price. At that point, it was 10:30 pm at night, my driver with the gun just left, so I didn't have a lot of choices. The next day, when I tried to take a cab to my workplace, which is supposed to be 2000 shillings, they told me it was 5000. Since I knew better, I decided to just hop onto the shuttle with the other interns (I hadn't reserved the shuttle, but fortunately there was enough room for more people), and then they tried to convince me that "those people" were not going to the same ICTR as I was...

To be honest, I have stayed in worse hostels in Europe (louder, dirtier), but when you are traveling it is not too bad. If you have to get up at 7:30 am to work, it just sucks.

Anyhow, that day I found some people to live with, so I moved out of that awful hostel and into an apartment. My apartment is really cute, it is in a yellow building and a 20 minute walk to the ICTR.

At work, I initially got assigned to a team in which the supervisor was on vacation, but then got transferred to work on a really interesting case. Right now, I think I have the perfect amount of work--I am doing interesting things, but it is not too overwhelming. I am really glad that we have internet in our office, so I feel somewhat connected to people back home.

During this first week, I went to the central market to buy produce with the people that I live with. It is a huge market, and you have to haggle for everything, which can be fun. Apparently they call everyone who is foreigner a mzungu, although they also shout China at me every now and then. The fruit here is really sweet, especially the pineapple. As for restaurants, they are quite affordable; there is a lunch place that I have gone to almost everyday called immigration cafe, which is 2000 shillings for a meal, about $1.33 US. Last weekend, I went to a really good Chinese restaurant, called Dragon Pearl, and a pretty good Indian restaurant called Big Bite. More later!