Dear friends,
If anyone is, or knows, an expert in US nonprofit law, I would really appreciate being put into contact with such a person! My biggest project for the Umoja Arts Project NGO right now is to do research into the steps we need to take to acquire nonprofit status in the US. I'm making pretty good progress on my own with the trusty Internet, but of course there are lots of IRS things that are pretty much unintelligible to me.
So, if anyone knows a lawyer who's pretty familiar with US regulations of nonprofit organizations (and might be willing to have a little pro bono phone call or email exchange ...) please let me know!
Love,
Ellen
PS I'm feeling much better today.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Thursday, August 30, 2007
honeymoon's over, toots.
First things first: my stomach hurts. This is pretty normal here, especially among the expats, as everybody adjusts to the enormous array of new bacteria that their Western upbringing just didn't include. Still, those who know me well know that my stomach can tend to freak out, so I'm a bit nervous that the whole Africa thing will be too much for my guts. For the past couple of days, every time I eat or drink something, my stomach clenches like a fist and starts "churning and burning." This doesn't change the fact that I need food and water, though. To be fair, Liza and Jessica aren't feeling 100% either, and it's usually a relief to check in with your roommates and find that they, too, are pooping way too often. (Sorry to be gross, but EVERYONE discusses bodily functions here. All the time. To be sure they're not contracting amoebic dysentery or something. YIKES!!) Anyway, I'm sure stress is contributing to the churn 'n' burn factor, so my parents are right as usual, I need to be meditating.
This week was my first week of teaching. It is really intense, but really enjoyable too. My students and their parents (every Suzuki lesson has the parent sitting in as an observer) have responded really positively to me as a person, and despite the initial haranguing of making a schedule which pleases everyone (impossible), I think I've gotten off to a good start with pretty much everyone. Teaching demands so much of you personally, especially one-on-one teaching with children. I'm nowhere near forty hours a week teaching (it's really more like fifteen), but it's still quite exhausting. You must be intelligent, energetic, entertaining, compassionate, analytical, organized, positive, and articulate. It's fuckin' hard! (Sorry grandparents. And Dad. And everybody.)
My group class is particularly nerve-wracking, as I work with seven kids, and all the parents observe. Group classes are supposed to be fun as well as educational, and if you don't move quickly and vigorously, you lose the kids fast. But for my first-ever week as a bona fide Suzuki teacher, I think it's going pretty well. I think I have something like eleven violin students, a group class, three piano students (yeah ... anyway), and two cello students (right ... ).
The work is extremely rewarding, and most of the kids are so sweet, they give you a burst of positive energy and love just by walking into the room! It's adorable how kids actually laugh at your nerdy jokes, and usually reciprocate every ounce of excitement that you create. My tiny piano student, Simon, is four years old, and when I showed him the groups of black keys up and down the piano, you would have thought I had brought him to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, he was so excited. Kids are, like, soooo cute.
Today, I took a daladala to school to teach an extra lesson. It was an interesting ride. These buses are extremely crowded, and as you can imagine in a country where many people don't have running water, the body odor is pretty intense, particularly among the men. (The women, for the record, usually smell GOOD and often emerge from their mud-and-thatch houses with perfectly coiffed hair and radiant skin, wearing gorgeous brilliantly colored wraps and dresses. You go, girls!) Anyway, I ended up sandwiched between two men, one of whom was a Maasai tribesman with traditional red robes and spear. He smelled HORRIBLE, and the other guy was no picnic either. Under the combined influence of B.O., diesel exhaust, and dust, my churning stomach churned a little harder. I was even more mad at the Maasai guy than I would have been yesterday, because I found out today that Maasai women almost always undergo genital mutilation. Not that it's his fault, exactly, but still.
Whew. Sorry to transport you to the world of body functions/odors, but it's a pretty significant part of life here. Wish me and my stomach luck, and write soon. =) Love, Ellen.
This week was my first week of teaching. It is really intense, but really enjoyable too. My students and their parents (every Suzuki lesson has the parent sitting in as an observer) have responded really positively to me as a person, and despite the initial haranguing of making a schedule which pleases everyone (impossible), I think I've gotten off to a good start with pretty much everyone. Teaching demands so much of you personally, especially one-on-one teaching with children. I'm nowhere near forty hours a week teaching (it's really more like fifteen), but it's still quite exhausting. You must be intelligent, energetic, entertaining, compassionate, analytical, organized, positive, and articulate. It's fuckin' hard! (Sorry grandparents. And Dad. And everybody.)
My group class is particularly nerve-wracking, as I work with seven kids, and all the parents observe. Group classes are supposed to be fun as well as educational, and if you don't move quickly and vigorously, you lose the kids fast. But for my first-ever week as a bona fide Suzuki teacher, I think it's going pretty well. I think I have something like eleven violin students, a group class, three piano students (yeah ... anyway), and two cello students (right ... ).
The work is extremely rewarding, and most of the kids are so sweet, they give you a burst of positive energy and love just by walking into the room! It's adorable how kids actually laugh at your nerdy jokes, and usually reciprocate every ounce of excitement that you create. My tiny piano student, Simon, is four years old, and when I showed him the groups of black keys up and down the piano, you would have thought I had brought him to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, he was so excited. Kids are, like, soooo cute.
Today, I took a daladala to school to teach an extra lesson. It was an interesting ride. These buses are extremely crowded, and as you can imagine in a country where many people don't have running water, the body odor is pretty intense, particularly among the men. (The women, for the record, usually smell GOOD and often emerge from their mud-and-thatch houses with perfectly coiffed hair and radiant skin, wearing gorgeous brilliantly colored wraps and dresses. You go, girls!) Anyway, I ended up sandwiched between two men, one of whom was a Maasai tribesman with traditional red robes and spear. He smelled HORRIBLE, and the other guy was no picnic either. Under the combined influence of B.O., diesel exhaust, and dust, my churning stomach churned a little harder. I was even more mad at the Maasai guy than I would have been yesterday, because I found out today that Maasai women almost always undergo genital mutilation. Not that it's his fault, exactly, but still.
Whew. Sorry to transport you to the world of body functions/odors, but it's a pretty significant part of life here. Wish me and my stomach luck, and write soon. =) Love, Ellen.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
house/pets
Tyler has been asking me for pictures and so I'm going to post a crapload for everybody!
Here is a picture of our kitchen!
Here is a picture of our house from the outside, complete with laundry line! Our yard is small but nice. We are enclosed by a six-foot wall and a super-fancy locked gate, for security.
Here is a picture of Kili, our dog. Kili had a litter of seven puppies at the beginning of the summer, so she's quite tired of having puppies biting her nipples all the time. She's also tired of how everyone pays more attention to the puppies than to her. She's a really sweet dog; your average overworked mother at the moment.
A very sad thing happened in the first week of my time here: Kili's puppy, Binti (the one puppy Erica chose to keep at the house) was accidentically hit by Erica's car as she pulled into the driveway on a very dark, rainy night. Usually, Binti was smart and didn't go near the car, but it was a horrible accident, and she died immediately. I cried a lot that night! I thought Binti would be my puppy all year long. In memoriam, here is a photo:
Luckily for our souls, we were able to get another of Kili's puppies (he'd been living at the field office of Erica's organization). This one's name is Eddy, and he's an extremely scruffy, lazy, affectionate little guy.
He gets along extremely well with the cats.
The cats, by the way, are Burrito (the blackish one) and Rockstar (the orange and white.)
Now you've seen real African animals.
Here is a picture of our kitchen!
Here is a picture of our house from the outside, complete with laundry line! Our yard is small but nice. We are enclosed by a six-foot wall and a super-fancy locked gate, for security.
Here is a picture of Kili, our dog. Kili had a litter of seven puppies at the beginning of the summer, so she's quite tired of having puppies biting her nipples all the time. She's also tired of how everyone pays more attention to the puppies than to her. She's a really sweet dog; your average overworked mother at the moment.
A very sad thing happened in the first week of my time here: Kili's puppy, Binti (the one puppy Erica chose to keep at the house) was accidentically hit by Erica's car as she pulled into the driveway on a very dark, rainy night. Usually, Binti was smart and didn't go near the car, but it was a horrible accident, and she died immediately. I cried a lot that night! I thought Binti would be my puppy all year long. In memoriam, here is a photo:
Luckily for our souls, we were able to get another of Kili's puppies (he'd been living at the field office of Erica's organization). This one's name is Eddy, and he's an extremely scruffy, lazy, affectionate little guy.
He gets along extremely well with the cats.
The cats, by the way, are Burrito (the blackish one) and Rockstar (the orange and white.)
Now you've seen real African animals.
attempted update!
Look! I think I finally figured out how to shrink photos down to a size that Tanzanian bandwidth can handle! Here are David and Liza, posing for me during our walk from the beautifully village district of Bangata.
In other news, our fellow teacher, Jessica, arrived in Tanzania yesterday and it's really nice to have her here! I'm looking forward to getting to know her better, learning from her teaching, and becoming friends.
I jammed with Liza's band last week, and I think I'm going to be "hired" (the band's pretty casual and wonderfully fun) to do some backing vocals and even a little bit of keyboard! Liza's good friend Janelle appears to be the de facto front woman of the band, and she's a REALLY talented songwriter and fantastic person! They were extremely warm and welcoming people; I even played one of my own songs for them. They gig around town when they can, and there's even talk of traveling to Nairobi to play a gig at some hotel ... I think studio recording time is quite cheap here in Arusha, so if my salary will allow, perhaps I can record my first full-length solo album here! That would be exciting.
I start teaching lessons TOMORROW. My first student is a piano student. It's a little boy who's never had a piano lesson in his life. Right. Sooooo ... since Liza, Jessica and I are the most highly trained classical musicians in all of Northern Tanzania (and perhaps beyond) right now, this qualifies us to take on piano students, with the disclaimer that we don't ACTUALLY teach piano (by American standards, that is). Liza's mother is an awesome Suzuki piano teacher, so I hope to be able to correspond with her regularly and get advice about my piano students. In the meantime, little Simon is going to play clapping games with me tomorrow ...
We hired a wood fundi (fundi is a word used to describe anyone who works on anything: car fundi, wood fundi, bike fundi) to build me a set of shelves and to build my bed frame. However, contracted labor is quite a more lax process here than it is in the States, and the "fundis" are far less qualified to do their work. My fundi is now 2 days late with the cabinet installation, and we're hoping he doesn't make off with my $90 cash advance. This is particularly annoying because, as my Mom said in a recent email, "Dad could make you a bed frame in about one hour." The shipping would be a bit steep though ...
We had our first registration meeting on Saturday with the parents of our Tanzanian outreach students. There are about seven or eight families whose children take lessons from us at the rate of about $2/hour, and the kids play on the instruments donated to us in the States. I was struck not only by the incredible feat of getting these people (who are quite poor, and whose society barely runs on any kind of real schedule) to the right place at the right time, violins in tow, quite dedicated to their children's music education, when music education is virtually nonexistent here. I also witnessed for the first time the practical consequences of Tanzania's extremely high illiteracy rate. Although these parents are some of the most smart, dedicated, and forward-thinking in Arusha, it probably took them an hour to fill out a simple registration form, even with English-Swahili assistance from Liza and David. To me, this was staggering. As I told Tyler about it later, I wondered: how does anyone pay taxes? how does anyone read a newspaper? how does anyone sign up to have their baby at a hospital? To read and write at such a low level slows the entire pace of the country to a crawl. It is no small feat to successfully bring Suzuki string education to such a community, and there are still many challenges before us.
Happy Sunday!
Ellen
In other news, our fellow teacher, Jessica, arrived in Tanzania yesterday and it's really nice to have her here! I'm looking forward to getting to know her better, learning from her teaching, and becoming friends.
I jammed with Liza's band last week, and I think I'm going to be "hired" (the band's pretty casual and wonderfully fun) to do some backing vocals and even a little bit of keyboard! Liza's good friend Janelle appears to be the de facto front woman of the band, and she's a REALLY talented songwriter and fantastic person! They were extremely warm and welcoming people; I even played one of my own songs for them. They gig around town when they can, and there's even talk of traveling to Nairobi to play a gig at some hotel ... I think studio recording time is quite cheap here in Arusha, so if my salary will allow, perhaps I can record my first full-length solo album here! That would be exciting.
I start teaching lessons TOMORROW. My first student is a piano student. It's a little boy who's never had a piano lesson in his life. Right. Sooooo ... since Liza, Jessica and I are the most highly trained classical musicians in all of Northern Tanzania (and perhaps beyond) right now, this qualifies us to take on piano students, with the disclaimer that we don't ACTUALLY teach piano (by American standards, that is). Liza's mother is an awesome Suzuki piano teacher, so I hope to be able to correspond with her regularly and get advice about my piano students. In the meantime, little Simon is going to play clapping games with me tomorrow ...
We hired a wood fundi (fundi is a word used to describe anyone who works on anything: car fundi, wood fundi, bike fundi) to build me a set of shelves and to build my bed frame. However, contracted labor is quite a more lax process here than it is in the States, and the "fundis" are far less qualified to do their work. My fundi is now 2 days late with the cabinet installation, and we're hoping he doesn't make off with my $90 cash advance. This is particularly annoying because, as my Mom said in a recent email, "Dad could make you a bed frame in about one hour." The shipping would be a bit steep though ...
We had our first registration meeting on Saturday with the parents of our Tanzanian outreach students. There are about seven or eight families whose children take lessons from us at the rate of about $2/hour, and the kids play on the instruments donated to us in the States. I was struck not only by the incredible feat of getting these people (who are quite poor, and whose society barely runs on any kind of real schedule) to the right place at the right time, violins in tow, quite dedicated to their children's music education, when music education is virtually nonexistent here. I also witnessed for the first time the practical consequences of Tanzania's extremely high illiteracy rate. Although these parents are some of the most smart, dedicated, and forward-thinking in Arusha, it probably took them an hour to fill out a simple registration form, even with English-Swahili assistance from Liza and David. To me, this was staggering. As I told Tyler about it later, I wondered: how does anyone pay taxes? how does anyone read a newspaper? how does anyone sign up to have their baby at a hospital? To read and write at such a low level slows the entire pace of the country to a crawl. It is no small feat to successfully bring Suzuki string education to such a community, and there are still many challenges before us.
Happy Sunday!
Ellen
Monday, August 20, 2007
One week in Arusha!
Dearest everyone, it's my one-week anniversary in Arusha, I just realized! Well, today I celebrated (I guess) by taking the daladala (public bus) by myself for the first time. I'd like to make this mode of transport a comfortable option, if possible, because it's extremely cheap, faster than walking, avoids unnecessary use of fuel, etc. So I successfully got onto the correct bus (the Kisongo line) and, with the help of a very kind old woman next to me to who conversed with me mainly via hand gesture, got off at the right stop! Getting around is not easy or relaxing, but if you keep your head about you, it's perfectly safe, and anyway I have to get used to it sometime ...
Doing work for my job (helping manage the Suzuki program, corresponding with parents, doing US non-profit funding research on the internet) can be really comforting when things start to feel chaotic here. It's good for me to remember that I did come here to do a job, and that I can be helpful and productive even as I'm getting settled into third-world living. Of course, for me it's mostly first-world conditions: hot showers, internet, clean clothes, good Indian restaurants, rations of dark chocolate, etc. But occasionally the energy required to deter theft, or the unannounced power cuts (on Sunday night we had no electricity for thirteen hours or more), remind me of where I am.
In general, I'm feeling fine. I got to talk to my entire family yesterday on the phone, which was truly great. I got choked up of course. I'm talking with Tyler as often as we can manage, though I miss him terribly and the time difference and other communication barriers are taking some getting used to. He's being extremely patient, and I'm grateful. I'm already dreaming of when he visits in February. Not exactly living in the moment, I know, but still .... =)
Thanks SO much for the friendly comments, it makes me smile to read them! Please keep 'em coming.
Doing work for my job (helping manage the Suzuki program, corresponding with parents, doing US non-profit funding research on the internet) can be really comforting when things start to feel chaotic here. It's good for me to remember that I did come here to do a job, and that I can be helpful and productive even as I'm getting settled into third-world living. Of course, for me it's mostly first-world conditions: hot showers, internet, clean clothes, good Indian restaurants, rations of dark chocolate, etc. But occasionally the energy required to deter theft, or the unannounced power cuts (on Sunday night we had no electricity for thirteen hours or more), remind me of where I am.
In general, I'm feeling fine. I got to talk to my entire family yesterday on the phone, which was truly great. I got choked up of course. I'm talking with Tyler as often as we can manage, though I miss him terribly and the time difference and other communication barriers are taking some getting used to. He's being extremely patient, and I'm grateful. I'm already dreaming of when he visits in February. Not exactly living in the moment, I know, but still .... =)
Thanks SO much for the friendly comments, it makes me smile to read them! Please keep 'em coming.
Friday, August 17, 2007
It turns out ...
... my walking 'friend' Richard is indeed a flycatcher, just one of a different type. Erica gave me a little education on them over dinner. I'll leave this previous post as it is, however, just as a tribute to my mzungu naivete about whom to trust. (Don't worry, though, they're all pretty harmless.)
This place is crazy.
I just returned, feeling moderately victorious, from my first big walk around Arusha by myself. Liza's out of town this weekend working on our organization's legal NGO status, so I'm left a little bit to my own devices ... which is certainly daunting, but probably a good thing for the long term! I decided to venture out after taking some time around the house to relax and put down a big, round straw mat in my room for a kind of rug. (The floors are concrete, which helps keep the house nice and cool, but it also makes the room feel kind of like a cell.) It looks nicer now. I also have a newer, fancier mosquito net to hang up (we sleep under them every night), if I can get my spacial reasoning skills to function later.
Of course I was a little bit nervous to go out by myself, because I've heard a lot about African men staring at white women, asking them to marry them, and being in generally a little sketchy. The staring is certainly true, and you can see why: on my forty-minute walk into town, I saw only two other white people. (Once you're actually in town, there are more white tourists and residents, but still a tiny minority.) There were certainly some suggestively raised eyebrows, a few whistles, and some hisses (my least favorite) from the men, but in general, everyone is kind. They smile, and look pleased (or maybe they're amused) to hear you use Kiswahili. Going out by myself was a fantastic way to see my neighborhood up close, and to practice my greetings!
On my walk, I conversed at length with three men. The first, Richard, was a young Tanzanian guy who stopped me and began speaking to me in very good English. He began to walk alongside me on my way into town, which made me a little nervous at first, but he ended up being a wonderful person to meet! He was extremely gregarious as he regaled me with stories about the other (probably young, female) foreigners he had welcomed into Arusha and shown around town. He explained the difference between himself, a nice guy, and the 'flycatcher' men who were prowling the roundabout in the middle of town, talking to foreigners, trying to get them to come into shady shops or be paid to show wazungu around town. (Later, when I was alone, these men were quite aggressive.) I let him show me a craft market in town, where I impressed him by using Swahili with the vendors. Then I told him I needed to stop in at one of the airline offices (which I did, sort of), just in case Richard ended up being less innocent than he seemed. But he truly was a nice guy: he never asked for money or was sketchy, and seemed genuinely friendly. This was a pleasant surprise.
The second man, Harry, was a tourist from Southern Scotland. He was sitting alone in the coffee shop that I ducked into to avoid the flycatchers described above. We struck up a conversation, which consisted mainly of Harry's glum, flustered complaints about Africa. He'd been traveling all over the continent, and seemed to come away from the place largely remembering the poor service, dirt, poverty, and discomfort. I listened sympathetically; he seemed like a nice guy who wasn't cut out for solo travel in Africa. Then, I discovered he'd done a similar trip before, and was returning to see friends he'd made it in several countries! Then, he began to complain in a similar way about Heathrow Airport in London! Some people just know how to complain. It was actually kind of funny, and I didn't mind sitting in the cool, safe coffeeshop to make him feel better.
The third, Mike, was an extremely tall Tanzanian guy on the way to work at his duka (little roadside store). He was very cute, friendly, and said I had good Swahili.
It's amazing what you run into when you travel by yourself.
Photos aren't working so well right now, but I'll keep trying.
Of course I was a little bit nervous to go out by myself, because I've heard a lot about African men staring at white women, asking them to marry them, and being in generally a little sketchy. The staring is certainly true, and you can see why: on my forty-minute walk into town, I saw only two other white people. (Once you're actually in town, there are more white tourists and residents, but still a tiny minority.) There were certainly some suggestively raised eyebrows, a few whistles, and some hisses (my least favorite) from the men, but in general, everyone is kind. They smile, and look pleased (or maybe they're amused) to hear you use Kiswahili. Going out by myself was a fantastic way to see my neighborhood up close, and to practice my greetings!
On my walk, I conversed at length with three men. The first, Richard, was a young Tanzanian guy who stopped me and began speaking to me in very good English. He began to walk alongside me on my way into town, which made me a little nervous at first, but he ended up being a wonderful person to meet! He was extremely gregarious as he regaled me with stories about the other (probably young, female) foreigners he had welcomed into Arusha and shown around town. He explained the difference between himself, a nice guy, and the 'flycatcher' men who were prowling the roundabout in the middle of town, talking to foreigners, trying to get them to come into shady shops or be paid to show wazungu around town. (Later, when I was alone, these men were quite aggressive.) I let him show me a craft market in town, where I impressed him by using Swahili with the vendors. Then I told him I needed to stop in at one of the airline offices (which I did, sort of), just in case Richard ended up being less innocent than he seemed. But he truly was a nice guy: he never asked for money or was sketchy, and seemed genuinely friendly. This was a pleasant surprise.
The second man, Harry, was a tourist from Southern Scotland. He was sitting alone in the coffee shop that I ducked into to avoid the flycatchers described above. We struck up a conversation, which consisted mainly of Harry's glum, flustered complaints about Africa. He'd been traveling all over the continent, and seemed to come away from the place largely remembering the poor service, dirt, poverty, and discomfort. I listened sympathetically; he seemed like a nice guy who wasn't cut out for solo travel in Africa. Then, I discovered he'd done a similar trip before, and was returning to see friends he'd made it in several countries! Then, he began to complain in a similar way about Heathrow Airport in London! Some people just know how to complain. It was actually kind of funny, and I didn't mind sitting in the cool, safe coffeeshop to make him feel better.
The third, Mike, was an extremely tall Tanzanian guy on the way to work at his duka (little roadside store). He was very cute, friendly, and said I had good Swahili.
It's amazing what you run into when you travel by yourself.
Photos aren't working so well right now, but I'll keep trying.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Village visit
All is well here in Arusha! I am enjoying everything so much: doing lots of organizational work for the Suzuki program with Liza (it feels wonderful to be my our own bosses for now), absorbing as much Swahili as I can, and keeping basic goals of personal health and sanity (use a mosquito net, apply bug spray after dark, stay hydrated, eat, get some quiet alone time). I have been incredibly fortunate to receive a truly amazing introduction to my new home in the first two days.
Today, Liza, David Sengenge (my fellow teacher, of guitar), Erica (my new housemate) and I visited a beautiful village in the Bangata district, just outside of Arusha. We were there to watch a choir rehearsal run by a few American women who are volunteering for Erica's organization, called Support for International Change, which sets up volunteers who want to work in AIDS/HIV-related projects here in the Arusha region. Erica is one of the higher-ups on the small staff, and I'm already learning so much from her about running an organization, speaking Swahili, being brave, and driving an ungodly huge 4x4 truck. (She and Liza have lots in common.) Erica wanted to hook the American volunteers up with Liza, David and me, because we're music teachers. We watched, made some suggestions, and Liza got started connecting them with local resources. The children have unbelievable ears! They are so accustomed to singing, clapping, and dancing in church and community. They can sing parts in thirds easily and heartily, without the shyness we all remember from middle school chorus.
The village was unbelievably gorgeous. It was lush, green, and QUIET compared with the relatively urban hustle and bustle of Arusha proper. The road up to the village was incredibly rough, and is apparently only passable in ONE kind of truck. (Erica's organization owns several; without these, their rural outreach work would not be possible.) Because these people are more removed, white people (wazungu) are pretty unusual. Enormous crowds of schoolchildren developed around the truck whenever we needed to stop.
Because many people don't really understand how cameras work, why you'd take their picture, and where the picture's going, locals don't like having their picture taken. In order to respect this, I kept my camera out of sight until we began to walk back down the road, and captured some nice images without annoying anyone. When the internet's better, I'll post them. =) Love and miss my friends and family.
Today, Liza, David Sengenge (my fellow teacher, of guitar), Erica (my new housemate) and I visited a beautiful village in the Bangata district, just outside of Arusha. We were there to watch a choir rehearsal run by a few American women who are volunteering for Erica's organization, called Support for International Change, which sets up volunteers who want to work in AIDS/HIV-related projects here in the Arusha region. Erica is one of the higher-ups on the small staff, and I'm already learning so much from her about running an organization, speaking Swahili, being brave, and driving an ungodly huge 4x4 truck. (She and Liza have lots in common.) Erica wanted to hook the American volunteers up with Liza, David and me, because we're music teachers. We watched, made some suggestions, and Liza got started connecting them with local resources. The children have unbelievable ears! They are so accustomed to singing, clapping, and dancing in church and community. They can sing parts in thirds easily and heartily, without the shyness we all remember from middle school chorus.
The village was unbelievably gorgeous. It was lush, green, and QUIET compared with the relatively urban hustle and bustle of Arusha proper. The road up to the village was incredibly rough, and is apparently only passable in ONE kind of truck. (Erica's organization owns several; without these, their rural outreach work would not be possible.) Because these people are more removed, white people (wazungu) are pretty unusual. Enormous crowds of schoolchildren developed around the truck whenever we needed to stop.
Because many people don't really understand how cameras work, why you'd take their picture, and where the picture's going, locals don't like having their picture taken. In order to respect this, I kept my camera out of sight until we began to walk back down the road, and captured some nice images without annoying anyone. When the internet's better, I'll post them. =) Love and miss my friends and family.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Safe in Arusha
Hello! I'm pulling away briefly from hanging out with Liza and my other new roommate, Erica, to get some quiet time to catch up with myself, and whoever might want to read something, or look at a picture. We arrived safely in Arusha around 3pm today and it has been a beautiful and overwhelming place so far. I had dinner tonight with several other American women doing various kinds of work in Tanzania, and it was quite amazing to be able to feel so at home, with young women who share much of my background and probably many of my values. A few of them are Liza's really good friends, and they're really good people, I can already tell. I'm a little too overwhelmed to be really social, but hopefully they understand. It's only day 2 on the African continent ...
We stayed in a fantastic hostel in Nairobi. It was clean, comfortable, had a computer with Internet, a 24-hour kitchen that could make hot sandwiches, and full of interesting people (mostly European and American), some of whom had been backpacking for months and months, all over the world. The hostel bedroom we stayed in was full of colorful bedspreads.
We got on the shuttle the next day from Nairobi to Arusha. It was a five-hour trip, and while it was logistically smooth, it was physically REALLY bumpy. Although this is the biggest main road between the two cities, it's full of potholes. For one long stretch in Kenya, our driver had to swerve all over the road to avoid huge potholes, or slow down to about 5 mph just to avoid breaking an axle. (Drivers here already make a habit of swerving into the opposing lane in order to pass, since there are no roads with more than two lanes. Many times, you end up unnervingly close to a directly oncoming car ... yikes!) The ride was full of sights: I saw a gazelle, a bunch of camels including a baby one, and two ostriches! I also saw many, many Maasai tribesmen (this is an enormous indigenous tribe in East Africa) walking their herds of cattle through the endless plains. They wear traditional robes in bright colors (sometimes plaids!), the men often have earlobes that have been stretched to great lengths by weights, and their shoes are made from recycled car tires. They also send tiny boys, who look as young as five years old, out to the fields with their own herds to supervise. This was quite incredible to see. Here is a picture of the plains they walked through. (I just wasn't comfortable sticking my camera out the window of a bus full of white folks ... it's a big effort to take out my camera and feel like a tourist.)
Arusha is fantastic, also with lots of bumpy roads, people and bikes walking along them in a fairly chaotic arrangement. Lots of beautiful plants. Our neighborhood is a true African neighborhood, a bumpy dirt road, EXTREMELY narrow, with vegetable stands and tiny ramshackle establishments set up all along the side. We are among very very few white people living in the neighborhood, and the children of our neighbors smile and hug Liza when she gets out of the car. They hugged me too, actually. These people seem extremely warm and kind, though sometimes they hold out their hands for money immediately after ... it is a daunting but very exciting experience to know I'm going to live in this neighborhood and hopefully, with improving language skills and a smile, get to know my neighbors.
This is the view from the grocery store.
I'm really overwhelmed, but trust I'll settle in eventually. Please stay in touch and say hello whenever you want to.
We stayed in a fantastic hostel in Nairobi. It was clean, comfortable, had a computer with Internet, a 24-hour kitchen that could make hot sandwiches, and full of interesting people (mostly European and American), some of whom had been backpacking for months and months, all over the world. The hostel bedroom we stayed in was full of colorful bedspreads.
We got on the shuttle the next day from Nairobi to Arusha. It was a five-hour trip, and while it was logistically smooth, it was physically REALLY bumpy. Although this is the biggest main road between the two cities, it's full of potholes. For one long stretch in Kenya, our driver had to swerve all over the road to avoid huge potholes, or slow down to about 5 mph just to avoid breaking an axle. (Drivers here already make a habit of swerving into the opposing lane in order to pass, since there are no roads with more than two lanes. Many times, you end up unnervingly close to a directly oncoming car ... yikes!) The ride was full of sights: I saw a gazelle, a bunch of camels including a baby one, and two ostriches! I also saw many, many Maasai tribesmen (this is an enormous indigenous tribe in East Africa) walking their herds of cattle through the endless plains. They wear traditional robes in bright colors (sometimes plaids!), the men often have earlobes that have been stretched to great lengths by weights, and their shoes are made from recycled car tires. They also send tiny boys, who look as young as five years old, out to the fields with their own herds to supervise. This was quite incredible to see. Here is a picture of the plains they walked through. (I just wasn't comfortable sticking my camera out the window of a bus full of white folks ... it's a big effort to take out my camera and feel like a tourist.)
Arusha is fantastic, also with lots of bumpy roads, people and bikes walking along them in a fairly chaotic arrangement. Lots of beautiful plants. Our neighborhood is a true African neighborhood, a bumpy dirt road, EXTREMELY narrow, with vegetable stands and tiny ramshackle establishments set up all along the side. We are among very very few white people living in the neighborhood, and the children of our neighbors smile and hug Liza when she gets out of the car. They hugged me too, actually. These people seem extremely warm and kind, though sometimes they hold out their hands for money immediately after ... it is a daunting but very exciting experience to know I'm going to live in this neighborhood and hopefully, with improving language skills and a smile, get to know my neighbors.
This is the view from the grocery store.
I'm really overwhelmed, but trust I'll settle in eventually. Please stay in touch and say hello whenever you want to.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
my extra luggage!
I write with just four days left in the US ... and I just sent out my blog announcement email, so if you're checking out my blog, hello!
While I was taking Suzuki pedagogy in San Diego, I got to experience some of the wonderful energy and generosity towards our Africa program that Liza has told me about. Because of the awesome work of Karla Holland-Moritz and Glen Campbell, the co-directors of the Strings by the Sea Institute, many musical families in San Diego know about our outreach program with Tanzanian kids. Throughout the week, we received donations of money, instruments, bows, music, and teaching supplies. It was truly exciting!
Of course, the whole thing about getting donations is that we have to find a way to physically GET them into Tanzania, where the kids need them. So Liza and I split up the biggest donations -- I took three full-size violins and one tiny violin; Liza took the full-size cello (!) -- into big boxes, and flew them home with us to Providence and Pittsburgh. I'll drive my little violins to New York, then they'll get checked (for a fee) through to Dubai and Nairobi, and then (hopefully) they'll survive the long, bumpy bus ride from Nairobi to Arusha.
If the instruments make it there unharmed, it'll be amazing.
All that being said: all you musical folks out there, if you've got instruments, bows, music, rosin, strings, teaching supplies, or money lying around unused at home ... please consider donating them to our Suzuki outreach program. If you/we can't afford the shipping this year, we can pick them up from you next summer.
(Liza will be glad I'm already putting in shameless plugs for us on the Internet.)
With love and thanks,
Ellen
While I was taking Suzuki pedagogy in San Diego, I got to experience some of the wonderful energy and generosity towards our Africa program that Liza has told me about. Because of the awesome work of Karla Holland-Moritz and Glen Campbell, the co-directors of the Strings by the Sea Institute, many musical families in San Diego know about our outreach program with Tanzanian kids. Throughout the week, we received donations of money, instruments, bows, music, and teaching supplies. It was truly exciting!
Of course, the whole thing about getting donations is that we have to find a way to physically GET them into Tanzania, where the kids need them. So Liza and I split up the biggest donations -- I took three full-size violins and one tiny violin; Liza took the full-size cello (!) -- into big boxes, and flew them home with us to Providence and Pittsburgh. I'll drive my little violins to New York, then they'll get checked (for a fee) through to Dubai and Nairobi, and then (hopefully) they'll survive the long, bumpy bus ride from Nairobi to Arusha.
If the instruments make it there unharmed, it'll be amazing.
All that being said: all you musical folks out there, if you've got instruments, bows, music, rosin, strings, teaching supplies, or money lying around unused at home ... please consider donating them to our Suzuki outreach program. If you/we can't afford the shipping this year, we can pick them up from you next summer.
(Liza will be glad I'm already putting in shameless plugs for us on the Internet.)
With love and thanks,
Ellen
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