This weekend marks my third week in Dar es Salaam. That’s only about 10% of the total time I’ll spend here, but it already seems like I’ve been here for months. I’ve gotten some valuable Swahili vocabulary in my arsenal. I know how to get from one part of the city to another. And I’ve shared some great food with some good friends.

Classes start this Monday, or so they say. Almost every student I’ve met is equally as hesitant to say with any certainty when school will officially start. There are rumors of a professors’ strike… and hardly any departments have finalized course schedules. We were told the university pushed classes to September 29 (originally set to start on September 8) because the government hadn’t yet determined how much loan money would be given to students. So the university (and students) were left in a lurch.

This brings me to the section I’ll call “The Tanzanian Way.” It’s easy for me to now dismiss so much about my daily life here as “normal.” But it will be useful for me to remember and document these unexpected or not-so-obvious differences between here and the U.S.

Getting someone’s attention
On each daladala (bus), which are privately owned and operated, there is a driver and a money collector/”look out.” The latter’s job is to look for anyone wishing to board the bus or alert the driver that someone would like to get off the bus. He is also responsible for taking bus fare from passengers. If the “look out” wants to get the attention of a pedestrian, he makes a kissing noise. (Imagine puckering your lips and making a loud sucking sound.) And if he wants your bus fare (which is collected at any point during your trip), he jingles some change by your ear.

Correct Change
It is not uncommon for me to pay for something, wait for my change, and have the cashier or vendor give me most of it but say, “Sorry, I don’t have enough coins.” So you just have to suck it up and move on.

China! China!
So my name, Jinna, means “name” in Swahili. Haha, right? Yeah. The word “China” is also pronounced with an “e” sound, so it’s more like “Cheena.” So when I walk around a market, people will yell out “China! China!” to get my attention. Needless to say, when I first heard this, I wondered how so many people knew my name. (I should note that locals also yell out mzungu, or white person, to my friends. This is obviously a loaded word but it’s not necessarily an insult. People are just tickled that foreigners are in Tanzania, with money.)

Line cutting
The pace of life in Africa is much slower than in the Western world. That being said, there is an inordinate amount of line cutting in Dar. You would think people would be content to wait patiently in line. But I have yet to be in a line when someone hasn’t blantantly cut in front of me.

The “S” Word
Sexuality is highly taboo here, which lends itself to significant hurdles in HIV/AIDS education. But a surprising result of sexual stigmatization is the lack of physical contact, even amongst family members. Hugging or holding hands of the opposite sex is considered inappropriate. Fathers don’t kiss daughters (or sons, for that matter), even when they are small children. A brother and sister (or son and mother, etc.) wouldn’t dare sit or stand next to each other on a bus. But, friends of the same sex walk in public holding hands.

It’s a bird
Most of the university classrooms have open windows or walls that have punched-out hole designs for occasional breezes in this tropical climate. This means we share lecture halls with birds. Lots and lots of birds. (For anyone who knows about my love of birds, you’ll know how pleased I am about this.)

Stay tuned for more of “The Tanzanian Way.” Next week, I go to Zanzibar for a long holiday weekend celebrating Eid ul-Fitr, the end of Ramadan.

Safari

Say “Africa” to someone and there’s a good chance pictures of giraffes and lions flicker through the imagination. For me, those images became a reality this weekend.

Just a 4-hour bus ride outside of Dar es Salaam and you’re in a totally different world. The car honks turn to cricket chirps. The tallest structure isn’t a building but a baobab tree. And, when night falls, only the guiding light of distant bush fires and the Milky Way illuminate your path. It’s a quiet remoteness I’ve never experienced before.

A group of eight Americans, Canadians and one proud Finn -- all study abroad students at the University of Dar es Salaam -- went to Mikumi National Park, Tanzania’s fourth largest park.

We stayed on the park grounds in "tourist houses" that were unexpectedly luxurious, especially when you look just out your door and see a giraffe having breakfast (see it to the left?).

The safari was awesome, in every sense of the word. No more than 30 minutes into our ride along the dirt path, our guide spotted a pair of lions. Mating season. We were thrilled to see this National Geographic scene play out right in front of our eyes, thinking, “How can this possibly be topped?” Then, a lone male elephant crossed the road, pausing for a moment to ponder our presence.

As the day went on, we saw all kinds of animals: giraffes, hippos, crocodiles, zebras, impalas, baboons…

I don’t think there was ever a moment during the 8-hour safari that I didn’t feel like pinching myself. It’s a surreal feeling to eat a peanut butter sandwich at a watering hole… surrounded by wart hogs… and buffalo.

Safari means ‘trip’ or ‘journey’ in Swahili. And my safari in Africa, though it just started, is already filled with wonderful adventures, friendships and memories.

Habari gani?

Habari gani is a common Swahili greeting which means "What's the news." So here it is...

Courses at the University of Dar es Salaam do not start until September 29. So we have mostly spent our time taking Swahili classes, running errands, and going on little outings. I'm sure none of you particularly care about Swahili sentence structure or exchanging dollars to shillings, so I will spare you the class and errand updates. But here are some notable events in the past week or so...

Dis-Orientation

You know the saying, "Don't put off 'til tomorrow what you can do today?" Well, the University's philosophy seems to be the opposite: "Don't do today what you can put off until tomorrow." That said, orientation was painfully worthless.

Transatlantic Obama-mania

Kris and I went out with some friends to Q Bar, a decidely mzungu (white person) establishment. Even still, you can still find local support for the junior senator from Illinois.

Go Fish

We didn't just come here to hang out with expats, right? That in mind, a trip to a truly Tanzanian bar/restaurant was in order. Two former university students (now working for the office handling foreign student affairs) took us to a local spot. In return, we taught them how to play "Go Fish." You can’t tell from these pictures but, trust me: I've never seen more genuine excitement stem from those two simple words.

K-Life in T-Zania

My parents were right: Koreans are everywhere. Good for me and my hungry-for-kimchi stomach. Some Korean students (from Korea) invited me to Korean church. They have also been a valuable source of entertainment and hospitality, seen here inviting me to a much needed Korean dinner.

The Finnish Line

Our housemates from Finland treated Kris and me to a home cooked meal for their last night in Tanzania. See a trend, here?

Want more TanZANIA? Pics here.

Dar es Salaam

“It looks like the news.”

That description of Dar es Salaam was so aptly put by my friend Kristen. Before I came, I convinced myself that the stereotypical images of Africa were products of a biased media, an ignorant Western populace, or charity organizations pulling at Americans’ heartstrings. But, sadly, those images exist because the reality exists.

The road from the Dar es Salaam airport to the guesthouse where I’m staying was depressing, to say the least. There are no sidewalks, just dirt paths and storm drains filled with trash. I saw a woman carrying an old sewing machine on her head, next to a child with a bucket of water on hers. The rows of “businesses” make the back alleys of Chicago look like Michigan Avenue. And the slums… it’s difficult to describe.

Needless to say, my first impression of Dar was daunting. I’ve never felt more homesick in my life. But, as everyone promised, it did get better.

This is the guesthouse where I’m living. It belongs to a professor at the university and is quite large. Kristen and I are neighbors in a separate building from the professor (and others staying here). It’s more like a complex or estate.

We have our own bathrooms, living area, and kitchen. It’s quite comfortable, even if you have to sleep under a mosquito net. (At first, it’s like waking up in a cloud.)

This is Tanzania’s biggest mall, within walking distance of the guesthouse. Stepping into it was like a long distance hug from America. Some of the stores include a big grocery store, a Sears-type store, a department store, and a movie theater (currently showing movies like Wall-E and The Mummy). I don’t want to spend all my time and money here, missing out on the real African experience. But it’s reassuring to know that, should I want to, I can walk down the street for some pizza, an iPod, and bad Brendan Frasier screen time.

Dar es Salaam’s city centre is bustling. It took an hour to get there on a daladala (public “buses”), filled with so many people that sometimes they can’t even close the doors. Everyone is eager to say hello—some times to sell you something but often to just learn where you’re from. It’s a friendliness I’ve never experienced, even living in the Deep South. When you don’t know how to say something in Swahili (like, “No thank you, I already have shoes”), they will tell you how. It’s hot, smelly, and dirty. And I can already tell that I will grow to love it.

A fortuitous meeting on my first daladala ride led me to a wonderfully lazy Sunday at a beach with some other expats. My new friend from the UK took us to a wonderful stretch of paradise, just a 5 minute ferry ride away from the city.

(MORE PICTURES HERE!)

Some interesting things to note:
1. The word for “name” in Swahili is “Jina.” That’s pronounced just like my name. This makes for a comical introduction… everytime. I've resorted to introducing myself as "J."
2. As Kris and I were grocery shopping, talking about how truly American the store is, we saw a giant black rat scurry past us. We have since reconsidered how “American” it is.
3. A bus ride anywhere costs about $0.25. A copy of Barack Obama’s “Audacity of Hope” is about $43.

Sights and Sounds of Nairobi

Here is a quick tour of where I'm staying.


And check this link for more pictures of the trip so far.

The Eagle has Landed

+ =
Packed up and ready as I'll ever be. It's been a long journey and it's not quite done yet.

We were welcomed to the equator with a blue, orange and yellow sunrise unlike anything I've seen before. As we touched down and walked out on the tarmac to the flat empty land, dotted with trees around the airport, it hit me: "Okay, I'm finally here. So now it begins."

My first day in Nairobi started with a writing test. At the Voice of America offices, I got some quick basic lessons in radio writing style, voiced a mock report, and met a handful of my colleagues at the East African Bureau. As the bureau chief sat in her office, smoking a cigarette, telling me about war zone after war zone she's covered, I realized how different this experience could be. Reporting in Tanzania is not quite like producing from my comfortable air conditioned office in Chicago.

Barack Obama's father is from Kenya so I asked my cab driver about what he thought of the presidential candidate. He immediately responded with a question of his own, "Do you really think he will win?" He told me that a country of white people would not stand behind or under a black man. When I told him that his chances may be better than he thinks, he brushed it aside. He explained that an African American in office would only mean exploiting Africa's resources, driving up costs for locals. So even if he was an American, he wouldn't vote for Obama.

What I've seen of the city (which isn't much) is strangely modern yet outdated. There are tall glass buildings and short clunky cement ones. Cars drive on the "wrong" side of the road, dodging other cars and weaving through pedestrians. Nokia and Coca Cola billboards are prominently plastered on the sides of buildings. The air is terrible because the cars here are the ones that don't pass emissions test in Asia and America. But the food is good, the people are friendly, and my Swahili is terrible. I opted to stick with English for the time being. Still, when I asked what time the internet cafe closed, the clerk told me how much a donut was.

The YMCA Hostel is wonderful, especially for the price. For about $30 a night, I get my own room, bathroom, and TV (although YMCA didn't pay the bills so there are no channels). It may not seem like much. But after meeting a 23-year-old from Kibera, one of the worst slums in Africa, and hearing about the unimaginable conditions there, I can hardly complain. Meeting him and hearing his story is what this whole experience is about. And I'm glad I was reminded of that on my very first day here.

Tomorrow I will be going to Tanzania, my home away from home.

Take Off!

The day has finally arrived. The weeks turned into days... and then, suddenly, the days turned into hours. I'll be in transit for days (or so it seems) before arriving in Nairobi. This will be my last post until I get settled into Dar es Salaam on September 5!

Just met up with my travel buddy Kristen who flew to Chicago from Minneapolis. And other than her leaving her iPod on the flight here, it's been relatively uneventful. Now it's time to pop a few Tylenol PM's and wake up to 12 hours in London!

Thanks for all the well wishes. Next post will be from Africa!