Today, I can say that I only have five more weeks left in Tanzania. Time is flying by here. The weeks are full of teaching lessons, practicing violin, planning events at Umoja and hanging out with friends, trying not to spend too much money. The weekends, which really only consist of Sunday, are full of dinners with friends, and trips to see the bad American movies that come to our cinema.
Since roommates Frank and Erica are probably moving from Arusha in the fall, and Jessica and I leave in June, we gave away two of our pets yesterday to a friend. It was my first goodbye to anyone I know in Tanzania, as we loaded Kili the dog and Rock Star the cat (of chicken-murdering fame) into Ake's car. I definitely teared up a little bit, but it will be a good home for them, and we had to find a place for them sooner rather than later.
I'm organizing the 2nd Songwriters' Night at Umoja in a couple of weeks -- it was a big hit last month, with lots of local songwriters getting to share their stuff, and Umoja sold lots of drinks! So we're having another one, hoping to make it even bigger and more successful. Then, on May 31, we're having a benefit event with a live jazz band, an art exhibition, and food & drink. Our friend Anna is giving a workshop called Junk Art, on making art from recycled materials, and our Suzuki program has 2 more recitals to give. You can probably tell it's going to be a really busy month, one that absolutely flies by.
I'm being really terrible about blogging, taking photographs, and (probably) keeping in touch with family members! It's much harder to keep up with the blog once the "real life" feeling sets in, but I'll try to be better as things wrap up here.
I'm really looking forward to going home. I'll arrive in NYC on June 16, and I'll be staying in Massachusetts until June 24. Then I'll head to Nashville, where I'll be spending the summer with Tyler. We're taking a trip to Chicago in late June and early July, because ... we are moving to Chicago! So we have to look for apartments! And I'm going to take Suzuki Book 4 teacher training.
Tyler is starting philosophy graduate school at Northwestern, and I'm planning to teach violin, find symphonies and gigs to play with, and hopefully get ready for graduate school auditions of my own. I can't believe we are moving to such a COLD place, after my year in sub-Saharan Africa, but the music scene seems amazing there. I think the opportunities will be amazing. And Tyler and I are so incredibly excited about having our own place. And not having to deal with cell phones, gmail chat, slow internet connections, laptop batteries, fuzzy Skype conversations, phone cards, and an eight-hour time difference in order to talk to each other! YES!
I hope I get to see lots of family during my week at home.
Lots of love,
Ellen
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Tyler!!
In just a few hours, I'm hopping on the shuttle to Nairobi to go pick up Tyler from the airport. I'm SO EXCITED! It's the best post-Valentine's present ever. He and I are going to Zanzibar next week together, and hopefully will get to go camping the next weekend. To celebrate, I am posting a picture of him and Rusty, one of his dogsters back in Florida. If you don't hear from me for the next couple of weeks, this is why:
Things are going wonderfully for Umoja. Our new school has opened, and on Saturdays, it's absolutely overflowing with children and parents of all different backgrounds who are there for the art, dance, and music classes taking place. It's quite busy the rest of the week, too -- and with a kitchen to make tea, a nice new electric piano (thanks Mom and Dad) to play on, and great people around me, it's a fantastic place to teach. I wish all of you could see it!
Things are going wonderfully for Umoja. Our new school has opened, and on Saturdays, it's absolutely overflowing with children and parents of all different backgrounds who are there for the art, dance, and music classes taking place. It's quite busy the rest of the week, too -- and with a kitchen to make tea, a nice new electric piano (thanks Mom and Dad) to play on, and great people around me, it's a fantastic place to teach. I wish all of you could see it!
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
pictures from our Meru climb!
I've taken more than a month off from my blog (mostly because I took about 3.5 weeks off from Africa ...), but what better way to jump back in than to show some photos from the recent hike that Mom, Dad and I took? We all struggled our way to the summit of Mount Meru, which is 14,900 ft above sea level. Yow. The mountain is absolutely beautiful in all its diverse landscapes: lush green forest, open grassy sections, and moon-like craters and slopes as you get closer to the summit. We got rained on, we hiked for four hours in the dark, and we pretty much all got altitude sick ... it was intense. I'm not really ready to flesh out the entire narrative of the hike, so here's hoping the pictures will tell some of the story.
(P.S. Mom and Dad are chilling out on Zanzibar now, which is the beautiful, relaxing island off the Tanzanian coast ... and pretty much the exact opposite of climbing a mountain. I am happy for them. They went snorkeling yesterday. Yes!)
This field at the base of the mountain was a beautiful beginning ... and we saw a buffalo skull displayed prominently on a log. This was a fashionable thing to do on Mt. Meru, apparently. There are LOTS of buffalo on the mountain.
After a fairly low-key three-hour hike, we arried at our first camp, Miriakamba Hut. From there, Dad and I took a very short side hike. We saw a lot of baboons (which I failed to photograph successfully), but also got a beautiful view of the ash cone, an old lava-related formation below the summit of Meru.
When we woke up that morning, the sun was casting a really nice light on the summit ridge.
The hike to the next camp was more than four and a half hours. We arrived there (around 11,600 feet) and after a brief rest (and waiting for the rain to pass), did an acclimatization hike to Little Meru, a minor peak. Of course, the clouds kept us from having any really great views, and as soon as we reached that peak, the rain began to come down again. So we broke out our matching, five-dollar ponchos, which would continue to haunt us with their crappiness. Don't we look cute, though?
That morning we awoke at 1am for a 2am departure for the summit. Yikes. After a grueling, psychologically unsettling, nearly seven-hour trudge to the summit, this was the view we were rewarded with.
Still and all ... our first-ever hike of this magnitude, and we all made it to the top: Socialist Peak! Haha!
The descent was really difficult. But, now that it was daylight, we did get to find out just how incredible and other-worldly the hike had been. It looks like we're on a crater of the moon!
We had to descend all the way to Miriakamba, the first camp, and we were all exhausted. A certain someone whose name rhymes with Bark had been vomiting from altitude sickness (!), we were all totally exhausted, our gear was wet ... we did NOT want to hike downhill anymore. But we did, and slept a pretty solid night at lower altitude. The morning views of Kilimanjaro were definitely worth it.
On the way down from Miriakamba, our final descent, we took the "scenic route" and got to see lots of incredible Colobus monkeys, blue monkeys, a faraway giraffe, etc. We also got to stand under the HUGE Fig Tree Arch.
That's all I've got for now -- hopefully more pictures to come, we're going on a short safari this weekend! Of course I'm having more adventures with my parents than I have living here for the past several months. Lots of love to everyone at home.
(P.S. Mom and Dad are chilling out on Zanzibar now, which is the beautiful, relaxing island off the Tanzanian coast ... and pretty much the exact opposite of climbing a mountain. I am happy for them. They went snorkeling yesterday. Yes!)
This field at the base of the mountain was a beautiful beginning ... and we saw a buffalo skull displayed prominently on a log. This was a fashionable thing to do on Mt. Meru, apparently. There are LOTS of buffalo on the mountain.
After a fairly low-key three-hour hike, we arried at our first camp, Miriakamba Hut. From there, Dad and I took a very short side hike. We saw a lot of baboons (which I failed to photograph successfully), but also got a beautiful view of the ash cone, an old lava-related formation below the summit of Meru.
When we woke up that morning, the sun was casting a really nice light on the summit ridge.
The hike to the next camp was more than four and a half hours. We arrived there (around 11,600 feet) and after a brief rest (and waiting for the rain to pass), did an acclimatization hike to Little Meru, a minor peak. Of course, the clouds kept us from having any really great views, and as soon as we reached that peak, the rain began to come down again. So we broke out our matching, five-dollar ponchos, which would continue to haunt us with their crappiness. Don't we look cute, though?
That morning we awoke at 1am for a 2am departure for the summit. Yikes. After a grueling, psychologically unsettling, nearly seven-hour trudge to the summit, this was the view we were rewarded with.
Still and all ... our first-ever hike of this magnitude, and we all made it to the top: Socialist Peak! Haha!
The descent was really difficult. But, now that it was daylight, we did get to find out just how incredible and other-worldly the hike had been. It looks like we're on a crater of the moon!
We had to descend all the way to Miriakamba, the first camp, and we were all exhausted. A certain someone whose name rhymes with Bark had been vomiting from altitude sickness (!), we were all totally exhausted, our gear was wet ... we did NOT want to hike downhill anymore. But we did, and slept a pretty solid night at lower altitude. The morning views of Kilimanjaro were definitely worth it.
On the way down from Miriakamba, our final descent, we took the "scenic route" and got to see lots of incredible Colobus monkeys, blue monkeys, a faraway giraffe, etc. We also got to stand under the HUGE Fig Tree Arch.
That's all I've got for now -- hopefully more pictures to come, we're going on a short safari this weekend! Of course I'm having more adventures with my parents than I have living here for the past several months. Lots of love to everyone at home.
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