My December Break: The Heat, No Internet, and A LOT of Alone Time

Here in Tanzania, the school year ends at the beginning of December and starts back up in January.  My roommates jetted off to three different continents for the break, while I stayed here at Sega and held down the fort.  Between living in the volunteer house with Dana, Ellie, and Kini, and sharing Sega's campus with almost 200 girls, in the three months I had been here I could probably still count the number of times I had more than a few minutes of alone time on only one hand.  Despite being the introvert that I am, I actually didn't (and don't) mind it at all.  My roommates are really awesome people and I seriously enjoy the time I spend with them.  We have so many stupid, funny jokes and we have grown to be pretty completely comfortable around one another.  It can be stressful to be here, at times, and we all provide a really good support system for one another that I am really thankful for.  It's also just a really entertaining, good group.  In addition to enjoying teaching and the general everyday interactions I have with the girls, they just make up so much of what goes on every day on the Sega campus.  There would be nobody coming up to our porch saying "Madam...." and standing there awkwardly quiet while I tried to wrap the nearest kanga quickly around my shorts-clad legs before opening the screen door to step out and give them a soccer ball or paper or colored pencils. I knew I wouldn't be waking up to the sound of girls screaming one another's names as they ate their morning porridge.

So, as excited as I was to have a little time to relax and recover from the long battle going on in my stomach, I knew it would be strange.  And it was.  Especially because, for a good portion of that time, our internet was out and I had no way to stay connected with people at home.  And, with a dead computer, I couldn't exactly watch the movies or TV shows I brought from home.  There was a lot of alone time, and very few distractions.  

You may be wondering (and even if you're not, I am going to tell you anyways) what I DID do for a month basically by myself. The answer is, honestly, not too much.  If I had to pick the one thing I did the most over break it would probably be sweat.  I'm not really sure that even counts as a thing I did since it's an unconscious bodily function.  However, I am fairly certain the only time in the entire month long break that I stopped sweating was the day I went to stand in line at the air conditioned bank for 2 hours to deposit school fees for some of the graduates.

Other than sweat, here's what I did over my December break:

Painting a Mural

One of the projects I did undertake, was painting a mural on the wall of the volunteer house.  Before my roommates left I sketched up an idea and got it approved by our director.  Then I took a picture of the sketch, used the school’s projector to put it up on the wall, and (with Ellie’s help) traced what I had drawn. 

I then spent the next 2 weeks painting in the mural with acrylics. 

We’re talking about extending the mural to take up more of the wall, and two of the other Sega volunteers that live in other houses want me to paint murals in their houses as well.  I anticipate a lot of painting in my future, and I am totally excited for it.

Filling More of My Sketchbook

Being alone without a working computer or internet for a long period of time meant that the options of what to do were rather limited.  One of the things that I did do was sketch.  A lot.  Luckily, one of the gifts that Dana brought me from home was 4 new sketchbooks. If I keep going at the rate I have been, I will have no trouble filling them in my remaining time here.

Spending Christmas with My Tanzanian Family

One of my few travels over this break was to Kibaha to have Christmas with Pauline’s family.  I arrived there the afternoon of Christmas Eve and spent two nights at her house.  It was really nice to be with a family on Christmas, and I really enjoyed playing with Rey (almost 2) and Milka (5 ½).  As soon as I got to Paulines house, Rey ran up to me and wanted me to pick him up, giving me a big hug.  I had not met Milka before, so she took a little while to warm up to me, but by Christmas we were sitting on the floor drawing in my sketchbook together.  I also introduced “3…2…1… blastoff” to her.  Not sure why I keep introducing this game to children, because it always ends up in endless rounds of “AGAIN! AGAIN!” and me having really sore arms the next day.  But we had fun. For Christmas dinner we ate pilau, green beans, and cabbage.  They also had fish (which I didn’t eat) and fried grasshoppers (which I tried after a little hesitation... not my new favorite food).  My favorite part of Christmas was the dancing, which is saying a lot because I am definitely not a big dancer.  But, we put on some Bongo Flava and the whole family danced in the living room.  It was really fun and goofy and I definitely enjoyed it.

Getting into Yoga

Those of you that read the last post know my reasons why I don’t run as much as I should, but that doesn’t mean I have forfeited exercise altogether.  I've actually started doing yoga a few times a week and I already really enjoy it.  I don’t really do New Years’ resolutions, but one of my goals for 2015 is to be able to do a handstand by next December.  Even from just doing it a few times over the past month I can already see improvement and can feel myself getting stronger which is pretty awesome.

The Circle of Life: What Happens When I Go for a Run

After my last post it probably comes as no surprise to anyone that my laptop pretty much completely stopped working a few days after the last post.  That in combination with the fact that we completely lost internet for the last week of 2014 (and then again for the past 3 days) meant that updates have been few and far between as of late.  BUT Dana returned from the states with my beautiful, new, functioning laptop and it’s a new year! I don’t usually make New Year resolutions but, if I did, blogging more frequently would be on the list.

If you haven’t noticed from my other blog posts, a lot of things about life here are different from home.  One thing that I have noticed is that the “circle of life” is a much more real and evident thing here.  In the Last month I witnessed both a birth and a death.   Well, actually, multiples of both, really.  And both stories start in much a similar fashion—I went on a run.

I don’t run here that often.  Partly because it’s now summer so you have to wait until like 5:30 or 6 PM for it to get down to a temperature that doesn't feel like you're slowly being baked alive.  Also, we live without air conditioning which means that I am pretty much constantly sweating even when the most physical activity I am doing is lifting… my water bottle to my mouth while I lie on the couch.  Imagine going on a run in the middle of August in Florida and then coming back to have an endless steam in a sauna and you've basically got the picture.  Not the most appealing.  But, this particular evening I went on a run around campus.

As those of you who follow me on Instagram know (@clmacek if you don’t and you want more frequent and random updates on my life), I've made good friends with the canine contingent on campus and they've become my running partners.  I enjoy this both because it motivates me (“COME ON CARE, JUPITER HAS THREE LEGS AND SHE IS RUNNING FASTER THAN YOU”) and because I can appreciate how insane I must look to a Tanzanian that passes by on the road.  To understand the hilarity you have to know a few things:

1. Tanzanians don’t really run for exercise.  I’m pretty sure the only times I have seen a Tanzanian run was to chase after a cow that had gone astray.  Or when they were playing football (soccer).  That’s it.
2. A lot of Tanzanians don’t really like dogs.  In fact they are kind of afraid of them.  If it weren't for the fact that all of the dogs run faster than me and are usually in front, I am pretty sure people would think I was being chased by a pack of dogs.  But, no, just an mzungu chasing a pack of dogs.  Way more normal.
3. Our pack of Sega dogs is pretty visibly… special: Jupiter got hit by a motorcycle a few years ago and had to have one of her front legs removed.  Bingo is short, stocky, and only has one eye.  Neptune is the alpha and insists on coming to a dead stop every 100 yards to mark, frequently causing collisions with whatever canine or human happened to be running behind him.  Casanova  spends the entirety of most of our jaunts either insisting he runs directly behind me so that I frequently kick him on accident and look back to wheeze “pole sana” (translation: very sorry) to him.  Honey/Pluto/Mama (we haven’t decided on her name yet) is pretty normal, except for the fact that she was incredibly pregnant at the time of this run.

I know I am not doing it justice but, believe me, it’s quite the ridiculous spectacle. 

After I finished this particular run I went to the big banda to stretch and the canine crew joined me.  When I run I listen to music and, enjoying the fact that campus was empty because everyone had gone home for break, I started to sing along.  In the middle of my out-of-breath and off-key rendition of the Lynyrd Skynyrd classic “Sweet Home Alabama”, Honey started howling. Quickly, the rest of the dogs joined in.  At first I thought they just wanted to join in my singing, but I quickly realized Honey’s puppies were on the way.  The rest of my roommates and I watched as she gave birth to the first puppy, quickly carrying it off to a more protected place.  In total, she had 6 puppies.  Sadly, two didn’t make it, one being stillborn and the other dying the next day.  One of the Maasai guards endued up burying them both and it was weirdly touching to see the care and tenderness he used putting the little pups to rest.  The four that made it were so cute and little and it was really pretty amazing to see.  After giving her a few days alone with the pups I tested to see how close she would let me get and ended up being able to pick one of them up and pet it for a bit which only further cemented the fact that I really want a puppy.  Unfortunately, about a week after they were born, someone showed up who was apparently the “owner” of Honey and took her and the puppies, which was a huge bummer.  BUT she has been showing up on campus pretty frequently so I’m hoping the puppies will end up back on campus when they’re old enough to follow mama.

A photo posted by @clmacek on Dec 15, 2014 at 6:49am PST

About a week after all of this excitement happened I went on another run (like I said… I don’t run often).  It started off in the usual fashion—I was quickly joined by the dogs (excluding Honey who was still exhausted and nursing her 4 pups).  We ran for about a half hour before returning to campus and cutting behind the chicken coops to do one last cool-down loop.  All of the sudden, Jupiter sprinted off into the bush and the other dogs followed closely behind.  They occasionally do that, so I really thought nothing of it and continued on my usual path.  About a minute later, I got to the classroom building and started to stretch, thinking it was odd I hadn’t seen the dogs again.  And then I heard the noise.  The fact that I heard it at all is relatively miraculous, as I usually have my headphones pretty loud to try and distract myself from the pain of running.  I’m not sure I could really accurately describe what the sound was, but it was loud and clearly animal.   At first I thought the dogs might have caught a bird of some sort.  I walked around the classroom building to investigate and saw what was clearly not a bird.  It was a small antelope. And it was now lying on its side in the middle of the circle of dogs.  I was shocked—mostly at the fact that our ragtag group of dogs was able to bring down something that big, but also at the fact that there were even animals that big on campus.  I know that I am in Africa, but our campus and town are both pretty isolated from the wildlife.  The weirdest wildlife experience I had previously had on Sega’s campus was the time I saw a chameleon chilling on the ground behind the school kitchens.  Cool, but not exactly anything in the way of big wildlife. 

As I was standing there, shocked, one of the Maasai guards walked up, grabbed the animal by its back legs and dragged it from the circle of dogs.  I followed at a distance, curious what he was doing.  I stood at a distance and he motioned for me to come over closer so I did, cautiously.  At first it appeared he was trying to save the animal—he brought it a little ways to where a few other Maasai were standing and they kept the dogs from grabbing it again.  They helped it get back to standing and it didn’t seem as though it was too badly injured.  It began to charge at some of the dogs and they let it, breaking it up when it looked like either side would get hurt.  And then one of the guards picked up a rock and bashed the antelope over the head. Repeatedly. 

It was surprising more than anything.  As different as things are here, it is pretty easy to forget just HOW different they are until something like that happens.  But, one man’s deer is another man’s dinner. And, judging from the fat bellies of the dogs the next morning, I think all those involved in the catch got to enjoy in the spoils of the feast.  Everyone’s a winner.  Except the antelope.  And my fragile constitution.

As Simba says in the Lion King, “Oh well, Hakuna Matata”,

Carolyn

Giardia update—the second round of meds seem to have worked and I've been healthy since then.  Here’s to hoping it’s gone for good.