Because I fell behind on the blog, I have a lot of ground to cover. Here’s a summary of our safaris on the Serengeti and Ngorogoro:
At the gates, on our way in, a baboon climbed into the half-open window of the safari car, over the body of our academic director Felicity, and into the backseat, where it stole a granola bar before a group of men scared it out (baboons are very sexist).
While in the park, we saw all da animals ever. Our safari car broke down outside a leopard den. An elephant walked right through our campsite one night. Also a lot of hyenas. We saw a clan of over 70 elephants cross a river, which was stunning. We saw some hippos having sex. We saw the beginning of the wildebeest migration, wildebeest as far as the eye can see. On our last day in Serengeti, driving out of the park, we saw a cheetah crossing the road. We saw also saw a fantastic sunsets.
Elephant clan passing
At our Ngorogoro campsite a kite, basically a big hawk, dive-bombed me while I was enjoying a scenic vista and stole the bag of chips out of my hand. Still kind of bitter about this. I needed them more. Also at this campsite were many Marabou storks, which look like guardians of Hell. Their diet is often trash, which is fitting because they are trash.
Ngorogoro Crater, Tanzania
On our last day of safari in Ngorogoro, we saw one of the 2500 black rhinos left in Tanzania. It was amazing to see, and also a little bit sad, because call me a pessimist but I imagine showing the picture of me with a little rhino in the distance to my future kids and explaining what a rhino is. “I’m a cool mom, I’ve seen a rhino and you never will. Ha. #thanksDonald.” Or some variation of that.
After Serengeti and Ngorogoro, we went straight into our Masaai homestay, in Loiborsoit. This homestay was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I don’t want that to be misconstrued. I had an amazing host family. It was my own privilege and the way that it was such an extreme expression of inequality that made it so difficult.
I slept in our round mud hut with 2 goats and 6 to 8 young children, who slept on the floor on blankets. I shared the bed with my host mama, and the 4-month-old baby. My guess at a spelling of his name is Subuni. Subuni was a relaxed, happy baby who was passed between mama, me, and most of his siblings and cousins. He peed on me upwards of 4 times. We also had few small breast-feeding misunderstandings from which we both came away frustrated with the other’s unwillingness to compromise.
Subuni, with a sticker that his siblings helpfully stuck onto his head.
Subuni had a terrible cough, as did all the kids. The night I arrived, I went with my mama (whose name was also Sarah) to the pharmacist/doctor with him. They didn’t have infant doses, so the pharmacist took the adult cough suppressant, poured some water in to dilute it, and told Sarah to give the baby a very, very small amount. It was a bit of a long first night, because Subuni was coughing and crying a lot, which would wake up the other small kids, who slowly climbed into bed with us.
When I first met my other little brother, about 3 years old, he was sucking on a piece of broken mirror. There were about a dozen kids under the age of 10 in the boma, which was a lot of fun. I don’t wanna brag, but I brought my A game on the gift front. I had bubbles, a jumprope, and glowsticks, which I slowly revealed over the 4 days. It was my social peak.
Little host brother hiding in my robes
This experience definitely gave me a new perspective on kids, particularly kids and freedom. I watched a 4-year-old pick up an axe and carry it around. The kids would run around with knives sometimes. They also played with the fire, and sucked on rusted pieces of metal. And I never witnessed a single accident. I’m sure they do happen. I’m honestly surprised I never saw any. But it was definitely a testament to the fact that kids are resilient. It was a truly incredible contrast to Western parenting, which features Baby Yoga classes and outlet protectors.
Most of the days were spent cooking, doing laundry and dishes, collecting firewood and water, and if these things were done, sitting in the shade. My family collected water from a small murky pond nearby. Many women spend hours every day collecting water for their families. We were lucky to have it so close, only a 10-minute walk away.
During the homestay, we wore traditional Masaai dress. For women, this involves a complicated setup of 3 different pieces of fabric tied in different ways. Over the 4 days, I underwent 3 outfit changes. This is too many outfit changes, and was entirely my fault.
The first was when I arrived. As mama put on layer after layer, all I could think was a semi-panicked How will I pee? Somehow, I always put the wrong arm through the hole, even though I had a 50% chance of success. The second time was when the baby peed on me. The third time was when I got myself dirty while fetching water with my sister. This was particularly disheartening because I thought that I was being helpful by offering to carry the heavier water container so that she wouldn’t have to keep kicking it, and thought she protested because she didn’t want me to have the harder job. It was actually because I got myself very muddy by carrying the jug and my sister immediately tattled to Mama that I was dirty and they had to try to find fresh robes, which I felt very guilty about, and Mama immediately changed me. I mentally refer to this incident as Watergate. Sometimes, my sisters would descend on me to fix the clothes that I kept ruining. This meant 8 hands all over my body, tugging and fixing.
A summary of the situation is this: I was a giant white baby. I required the same level of care as our 3-year-old, maybe more. I had to be dressed, bathed, fed, and also taken to go to the bathroom (hint: there wasn’t one). While it was tough and overwhelming at times, there were also plenty of highlights. I milked a goat. The stars were like nothing I’ve ever seen before. My host siblings taught me songs and dances. The sunsets were beautiful.I am so grateful to my host family, who were nothing but patient and kind.
Me and host Baba; feat. my 3rd and final outfit
After the homestay, we returned to Arusha, where the previously good health of our group rapidly deteriorated, including 2 cases of ringworm, several very serious cases of bed bug bites involving antihistamine shots, and about 6 cases of some type of stomach virus/dysentery type thing. During the week in Arusha, those of us who were not ill went to a hot spring and on a waterfall hike. Then, we all went our separate ways for our independent study projects.
Hot springs a few hours outside of Arusha
There’s more info on my independent study project in my post for Maji Safi Group’s blog. Maji Safi is the nonprofit organization that I worked with during my study project, based in Shirati on the shores of Lake Victoria. Check them out! They do amazing work.
Sunset over Lake Victoria
My ISP experience was entirely positive. It was only at the end of the period that I had one somewhat negative experience that I think is worth sharing. I was asleep on the 5-hour bus ride between destinations after our independent study period finished, and woke up to an immigration officer standing over me, asking for my passport. SIT policy is to keep our passports in a safe in Arusha as a precaution, and have us carry only copies. Long story short, the documentation I had wasn’t enough, so I was kicked off the bus and detained by the side of the road for 2 hours while various immigration offices interacted and my program directors sent pictures of various documentation.
While this was a somewhat unpleasant experience, in hindsight it is also one that I’m glad I had. In America, this probably never would have happened to me. Because I’m white. But this does happen in America, to many people. Being the only person (aside from my travel companion) of my race on the bus, being asked to leave while everyone was staring and feeling embarrassed, being scared and uncertain and asked a lot of questions in a language I didn’t fully understanding (which actually led to me crying in front of the immigration officer)… these are all things that people face in America right now. And when I was finally free to go, and another bus pulled up to the side of the road, I saw that it had a sticker on the front that said Trump. It felt like a slap in the face.
After the month of ISP and a week of presentations, it was time for us to go home, which was emotional for everyone. I’m back in the U.S. now, and miss Tanzania a lot. I had a wonderful, unforgettable experience there, and if you get the chance to go—go! I owe so much to the families that hosted me, the kindness of strangers, my parents here in America, and dozens of other people. Thank you to everyone who supported me these past few months!
Sanzania 