The Final Blog

Day 13: The Finale of 2k19 Tanzania Trip

            We were told to sum up the ENTIRE trip, so we’ll see how this goes…

            When we first arrived in Tanzania we were shy with each other and those we met. However as the days went on, we quickly grew closer and became friends with David and Juma and many others we met. Adjusting to the ‘pole pole’ lifestyle was difficult at first and required a lot of patience, but soon we grew to appreciate some of its aspects. Late night chats on the roof and early morning grogginess brought us together. We cannot imagine this trip with any other group of people.

            Manual labor was hard. The first day of manual labor we were overwhelmed by the task at hand: manually digging a 6 ft. deep hole with only shovels. We soon learned that the best strategy for digging the hole was to loosen up the dirt with hoes and pick-axes, then digging up the loosened dirt with shovels. Communicating with the mamas was a challenge, many of their English vocabulary was as “good” as our Swahili. We had to learn how to communicate with the mamas through Jesca and lots of pointing, and use the skills of both groups so the job could be done most efficiently. By the third and fourth days of manual labor we had a decent system down, and we were making fast progress. Through all our hard work, and a few broken gardening tools, we almost finished digging the hole by the time we left.

            One of the schools we went to was St. Louis, it was the most well behaved and best English speaking kids out of all the schools we did service with during the weeks. We read books to them and they could read them back to us just as good. They were 7-12 years old and are taught in English everyday at school.

            Agano preschool can be called organized chaos. They were not well behaved in the slightest bit, but that also added to the fun. For the older two classes, we helped teach them English numbers and the alphabet. There was also a daycare where the babies hung out, and threw chairs at each other. This is where Bryce was peed on. Recess with the older two grades was the best part and we quickly learned not to pick them up, otherwise we would be surrounded by at least 10 other screaming kids wanting to be picked up too. The teachers at Agano were awesome and we can’t imagine having to do their job everyday.

            Upendo orphanage was very chill compared to the other two service areas. Everyday as soon as we got there, you would be carrying a child in less than five minutes. We would carry them by the windows so they could see the chickens and cows. When this happened you were carrying at least 2-3 kids at once. The day consisted of playing and sleeping, so hopefully you got a drowsy one. We helped feed them at milk time and lunch time. After lunch time we had to run out so they wouldn’t notice that we left.

            The food here was amazing. It’s called chakula here and Baba Dick loves all of it. Every breakfast we would smear nutella all over our toast and pancakes. Lunch and dinner never failed to have rice, chicken, and bananas. The kitchen staff did an amazing job making sure that everyone had something they liked to eat. We had many opportunities to try many new foods including chappati, fried bananas, and the last night we had goat that we all had seen tied up outside for the last 13 days.

            Jason Becker single handedly bought up all the stores in the area… almost. We created “National Jason Becker” day for how much he raised the Tanzanian GDP. Almost everyday we were met by flycatchers who would follow us around for miles, persistently trying to make us buy their products. We did get some good deals from them though- and at “tinga tinga”, an art shop across the road. We got better at bargaining as we got more purchases under our belt.

            We wrapped the trip with an amazing wildlife safari experience. In Swahili, ‘safari’ means ‘journey’. We drove to and through two of Tanzania’s most beautiful national parks: Lake Manyara and Ngorogoro Crater. We were lucky and had awesome safari drivers and open roof cars which gave us the best view of all the wildlife we passed by. We saw elephants, lions, giraffes, zebras, wildebeests, water buffalos, a black rhino (super rare), hippos, gazelle up close and in their natural habitats. Between the two parks we stayed the night in high-end tents. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and a great way to say good-bye to beautiful Tanzania.

-       Sam, Jake, Taylor, Tricia :)