New Year’s Eve and a Swim in Paradise--Almost

January 4, 2012

Our plans for New Year's Eve day included a visit to the Amani Centre for Street Children where we visited with some of the children there and toured the facilities. As the name suggests, the center was started to provide for children of the street, and hundreds of children have passed through their program. There were only about 20 children there when we visited, however, as many were away for the holidays. We had a tour and then some of the group participated in a soccer match. It was too hot for me to play, but it was fun chatting with some children on the sidelines. We had a few happy photographers and models as well.

This is from the good boys room.
Every month 10 boys are selected to live in their own room together.
They have some extra privileges like staying up later and having a little privacy. 

This is the timeout room where kids are locked for 10
minutes or so if they misbehave. While I'm a believer in "time out",
I'm not sure that I felt too comfortable with the room. 

Laundry area of the center

Resident

We lost. It wasn't really close.

Fascination with my watch

I'm ready, GQ!

Checking out the photos

We spent New Year’s Eve in Marangu, a village many Mt. Kilimanjaro trekkers start their journey from.

Kilimanjaro rising "like Olympus above the Serengeti"
--"Africa" by Toto. (I always used to kind of mumble those lines--
thanks, Katy, for the clarification! :))
You can kind of see it, anyway.

Alena and Ally supplied New Year’s Eve entertainment with punch (virgin option for us teetotalers!) and paper horns (which were discovered to sound an awfully lot like elephant calls—to the amusement of some and the chagrin of others as loud elephant calls followed by delirious laughter would be heard throughout the night). Eventually we moved from our campsite to a room next to the bar and brought in the New Year dancing to African pop. 

Ally and the elephant horns

Alena and the punch

The following morning we toured Marangu and learned about the Village Education Project—a project started by an English lawyer to teach English and better educate the people of the village by bringing in resources and developing stronger teacher-training programs. (While I don’t know that I’m ready to live abroad again quite yet, I’ve definitely been witness to many amazing projects and would like to involve myself in more service work.)

Our tour guide. He is studying to be an
elementary school teacher. The class he did is
pre-internship in had  sixty 10-year-olds!

From there we drove to Lushoto where we spent a couple nights and spent a day touring the town. I’ve found the people of Kenya and Tanzania to be extremely friendly, and people great us as we’re walking around in our group. I’ve particularly enjoyed moments where I’ve been on my own, however, because kids seems to be less inhibited and will try to talk to you. (Often it’s after they’ve asked for money or candy or pens, but I’m not letting that bother me.) I went on my own to try to find an Internet café in Lushoto to work out my credit card issues, and within 20 yards of leaving the hotel I had six or seven kids walking with me, introducing themselves and holding my hands and asking me my name. (Another evening I went for a run in Arusha and I had a 12-year-old girl running with me for a mile or so in addition to the kids who run over to say hello. Very fun.)

The enjoyment of having your picture taken!

View of Lushoto. The landscapes of Tanzania
are much more diverse than I realized.

From Lushoto we journeyed to Dar Es Salaam. Evidently, the Tanzanian capital is typically teeming with traffic and the 380 km drive can take upwards of nine hours. Luck happened to be on our side this day however, and our 6:00 am departure from Lushoto paid off. We made the drive in record time, and Nat didn’t even have to get out of the truck to ward off would-be thieves from taking things from the truck—as usually happens when the truck gets stuck in traffic.

Inside Helena

My first glimpse of the Indian Ocean was breathtaking—blue sky, white sand, turquoise water. Once we arrived at the campground we quickly changed (a few people had even traveled in their swimsuits as to be able to head directly into the water) and rushed toward the ocean. The water temperature was inviting—a welcome change from the bracing temperatures of the Pacific I’m used to.

It wasn’t until I was fully submerged in the water that I realized the one downfall of the place. And it was a big one: I was swimming with trash—plastic bags, old shoes, Coke bottles, sanitary napkins. It was gross, really. I surveyed the scene and then hoped that if I swam far enough out to sea I could avoid the flotsam and jetsam riding the waves, but it was no use—I was dodging inorganic floating material no matter where I went. I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, but while I know garbage ends up in the ocean and it’s a bad thing, I don’t think I really got it at a visceral level until this moment.

When I had as much as I could handle of the water, I enjoyed the view from the beach. In addition to the natural beauty, there was much to be seen. Young children swimming in their underwear, young men hawking their goods to the tourists, Maasai men dressed in traditional clothes doing acrobatics in the sand.

That night we had our final dinner prepared by our Cook, Sampson, and we said goodbye to one of the group. The following morning we left Sampson and the truck to take a ferry over to the island of Zanzibar.

Goodbye to Sampson