Welcome to Tanzania

Crossing the Kenyan/Tanzanian border was the most tedious process.  We were to meet the other group coming from Tanzania into Kenya there too, and we did.  For just a moment, while fleeting between paying for my visa and retrieving my passport I was able to excitedly hug Amy (another friend and peer from DU) and get out a few quick things we both think the other should look forward to in her new camp.  Though the Tanzanian group arrived well after us at the border, we left much later than they did.  It took hours for all of us to go through the visa approval process and then load up.  Tanzania is much stricter than Kenya.  Though they are poorer, they are more stable, are stricter on immigration because they don’t want refugees and they don’t want people coming in and stealing jobs or land.  Makes sense.

I loved the staff at KBC.  I will and already miss them.  From them we heard a lot about the staff at Moyo Hill and I have to admit, though I have come in with an open mind, I was and still am a little nervous about what their personalities hold for us.  Whitney is our new SAM (Student Affairs Manager) and John is the new intern.  So far they seem nice enough and John is really awkwardly funny, but we were warned that they’re a little tight and difficult to deal with.  Only the future will tell.  The Tanzanian staff is also very nice but we have been warned they are much shyer than KBC staff and so far I have found that to be the truth.  It will take a little more time and prodding but I’m looking forward to making more friends.  Many of them don’t even speak English (Tanzania’s national language is Swahili) so I better start scraping the rust off of my Swahili speak.

On our six-hour drive from the border to Moyo Hill, where base camp is located, we passed a large boma on a hill beneath a baobab tree.  John told us that a famous fortuneteller lives there and each one of the small bomas surrounding his belongs to one of his forty wives.  He built a school for the community just on the other side of the hill but the only children that attend it are his own.  He is his own community.  So much for stifling over population.

As we left Kenya and ventured further into Kenya the vegetation started to become more dense and green.  Tanzania is a subtropical climate whereas the Amboseli ecosystem in Kenya is a semiarid one.  In Tanzania there is a lot more water; there is a lot more GREEN!  Whoever knows me knows I love green and upon reaching Moyo Hill, meaning hill of the soul, I knew I would fall in love with this place.

Our first full day in camp we went through an introduction to classes, the schedule, and our location.  Moyo Hill is an assemblage of agricultural plots, livestock herding, and tree growing.  It’s beautiful.  Just down the road from us is a primary school where we are welcome any time.  We are introduced to a three-mile loop around the hill that is wonderful and I am so excited to have a place to explore.  Though we’re not supposed to leave the trail, that’s exactly what Maria and I did the first chance we got.  We’re explorers and not impotents to be regulated!  We stick it to the man!  Actually, there’s a lot worse we could get in to here to push the rules but leaving the designated paths is the only one we’re interested in. 

Exploring the hillsides is great but there is also a small town called Rotia, which we are aloud to venture to just at the bottom of the hill.  Everyone here stared at us as we passed but whomever we greeted was very friendly and welcoming.  It’s nice to have a town so close after having Kimana so far away from KBC.

It’s also nice that we got to keep our banda mates.  Our bandas are smaller with bunk beds but we do have our own bathrooms.  Tanzania is seriously like living in a five star hotel.  There’s greenery, we have our own toilet, there’s a gazebo, a student maintained garden and the water out of every tap is safe to drink!  What more could a princess ask for?

My first evening in Tanzania I spoke with an Iraqw (said like Iraqi- they’re the local tribe here) woman in Swahili.  She didn’t speak any English and it felt good to be practicing my language skills.  Afterwards, the group broke in the place with a great game of Mafia, which, if you haven’t ever played you definitely should.  We played the game to exhaustion and boredom back at KBC.  I find it a little slower than when I first started, I’ve learned most people’s poker faces by now so it doesn’t make for much competition.  Here in Tanzania though we played with fervor and excitement.  We were very loud and screaming and I guess introducing the staff to our rowdiest selves just so they know what they’re in for.  A few joined actually us and it was a great way to start to learn names.  Our second night I was MOD and gave a very long salsa lesson that people have been pestering me for weeks.  It was great fun and I think it will become a regular thing whether I’m MOD or not.  It just feels good to dance.

Classes in Tanzania are similar to those in Kenya.  We have Wildlife Management, Wildlife Ecology, and Environmental Policy but a lot more of them are field-based rather than in the classroom.  They also touch on the issues and specifics of Tanzania rather than Kenya.  We also no longer have a Kiswahili and cultural class and once these intensive two weeks of classes are over with, we will start our directed research projects.  These are very serious and even publishable.  

Our third day in Tanzania, tomorrow, we are going to Lake Manyara National Park.  I’m so excited.  The next two weeks will fly by- they are filled with fun classes, then we have finals, then a week on expedition in Serengeti National Park and then we plunge into our directed research projects.  This second half might fly by faster than the first!  

Our new garden.

My new room.

My new bed.  I have a new personal rule that I have to be in bed by ten pm because the roosters wake me up every morning between 5 and 6.  My roommates sleep right through it.  Lucky ducks.

Bits of Moyo Hill outside our gate...