Goats are all the rage!

The last week or so has been somewhat eventful retrospectively, but it is Haydom; anything that happens is an event. We’ve continued to make headway on Betsy’s research which is always a good thing. Also, we found something in which Betsy is definitely better than I am, killing flies and other various bugs with our tennis racket. I really think she missed a golden opportunity to become the next Monica Seles. Usually, she’ll spend a half an hour each day casing the “apartment” looking for flies to kill, it’s a never ending battle so she’s constantly entertained. Unfortunately for me, I’m either ducking to get out of the way of a wild electrified tennis racket or having to move out of the volley of life-less fly carcasses sailing through the air. The place usually has a distinct carbon smell to it; I’m guessing all of the wings that are fried in the racket contribute to the burning flesh smell. I can’t complain though since she does an amazing job of ridding our place of the annoyance; I can’t stand it when they land on my face!

I’ve been receiving quite a bit of ‘street-cred’ as of late, I’ve broken out the ‘siata’ greeting. For the most part we get heckled and taunted on a daily basis while walking around Haydom. Peter, our research assistant, has been teaching me some Iraqw words, which is the local language in Haydom. Most people will still speak Swahili but if you’re ‘wazungu’ you definitely do not know how to speak Iraqw! One evening, with the new greeting fresh in my mind, Betsy and I went for our usual walk to the water cistern at the edge of town. Along our route we were being pestered by a couple of boys driving their cattle, after greeting them with a ‘siata’ they immediately became silent. We overheard one of them saying to the other, (this is Betsy’s Swahili translation) “that guy just said ‘siata’!” Since that day I’ve broken out the ‘siata’ with many people throughout the day which either gets a smile or a dumb-founded look in return, either way it’s definitely breaking the tension on a day-to-day basis.

Speaking of tension, I have decided I HATE GOATS! I don’t know where this ‘goat-rage’ derives but it’s definitely a persistent feeling that I have whenever around them and in Haydom it’s hard to keep your distance, they’re everywhere! I think most of my distaste for goats may come from the fact that their “bah” or “neh” or whatever it is they do is semi-reminiscent of the kids who run around town yelling “wazungu, wazungu”, it’s just a misplaced hatred. We were hoping, for Thanksgiving, we would be able to buy one and roast it for our meal…

Something roasted sounds really good right about now, I’ve been drooling for a couple days! Peter and I interviewed a kid from the tribe of Barbaiq, pronounced, barbeque. I’m not sure if their food is any different from the local tribes’ food here in Haydom, but I wouldn’t mind trying it out. I’m sure being part of the tribe of BBQ has its advantages (ie – roasted goat).

Also, I’ve become the project architect for the hospital, much to my chagrin. We met with the medical director a couple weeks back, Dr. Olsen, much of the conversation consisted of Betsy’s research and what the hospital’s objectives in the area are but when told that I am an architect back home, his eyes lit-up. Their “architecture team” currently consists of a carpenter (Anders) from Norway and contractor (Albi) from South Africa, Tanzania doesn’t have an enforced building code so you can pretty much do whatever you like and obviously, anyone can design it. I guess they don’t pay much mind to ADA here either, not that it would matter, one would die here if they became incapacitated anyway. When we find reliable internet, I’ll upload a few pictures of Tanzania’s construction means and methods, very nice. Anyway, it’s good to actually have something that I specialize to sink my teeth into, even if it consists of the most mundane of projects. I have to continually think in an African mindset, they use sticks and mud to build things.

Speaking of dying, we found the hospital’s cemetery, more or less a body drop. Some of the local tribes, when they bring their ill members in, will leave them here, when they die, the hospital takes them to a large plot of land next to the airstrip outside of town and buries them. I would have to say, the plant life out there does grow unusually well, Betsy and I had commented on that many times before learning the gruesome facts about that area.

We’re about to head to the hospital for Research Assistant training, we are starting the second part of the study soon and have to train them on a new section, should be interesting. After that, up to Mt. Haydom, more or less a large pile of rocks, not really a mountain since Betsy and I can climb it in about 15min. I promise to send pictures soon but our internet modem with Vodafone doesn’t work anymore and the hospital shut-down all of the computers, so we have to mooch off of Anders’ computer, which really sucks. That’s Africa for you, rely on nothing because one day it’s here, the next day it’s gone, oh well, I think we’ve adjusted alright to the lack of connection to the Western-world.

Well, I won’t bore you anymore than I already have; I know my posts are extremely long-winded and “somewhat mundane” (direct quote from Betsy). Hope all is well back in the States, since we really don’t know what’s going on there, no phone calls, no packages, no email…
-Ryan

Ps- happy birthday Sarah, not sure I’ll get to my email anytime soon, so wanted to plug it in there. Happy belated birthday Brian, we were totally in the dark through the 10th of the November.

Running Scared

We’ve been back in Haydom for a couple of weeks now and starting to fall into what you would call our “routine”. It has started to get easier for us, partly because we’ve been going gang-busters on Betsy’s research (kicking butt and taking names), which helps my state of mind; sitting around doing nothing was killing me! We spearheaded the qualitative portion of her research last week in a training session which lasted two days, by the end I felt as if I were one of the Leakeys. Peter and Regina (our research assistants) seemed to pick up the idea of the study pretty quickly which put our minds at ease.

Time came when we actually had to start going out and doing the research, but to our surprise it has been going more smoothly than we had initially expected. We have, however, run into a few kinks in the road, one big problem is that I’m a white male over the age of twenty. Normally this wouldn’t seem like an issue but since it’s just Peter and I, most of the kids run away at the sight of me. Peter said that most of the young boys run because white people only come looking for kids when they’re in trouble. It also doesn’t help that the adults in the rural areas are telling the children that we’re going to kill them. All in all we’ve been able to entrap a few of the boys into doing the interviews. We have a long way to go from here but looks like we’re going to do alright.

Many of you have sent packages and I wanted to send you an update as to what both you and we can expect. First the package goes to Dar es Salaam, then it is trucked out to Mbulu, the district capital. It apparently sits there and waits for that person to claim said package. Well, on a daily basis we’ve been going to the administration office in the hospital asking about the package my Mom sent over a month ago, finally a package with the name “Elizabeth” was sitting in Mbulu. Unfortunately, the postal worker took a gander inside and saw that the items were worth something, so basically they black-mailed us into paying them Tsh 6,000. This happens to “wazungu” mail, evidently this does not happen to Tanzanians, which they obviously know by the fact that it’s coming from outside their country. So, we waited another three days for the package, after the dirty-money (figuratively and literally, their money is incredibly dirty, I would rather lick a dollar bill than handle some of this currency) exchanged hands only to see that the package was for Elizabeth Fausenhausen, not our beloved Betsy. We continue to pester the Admin staff, hoping that something, anything will arrive soon, but alas, nothing thus far, so we continue to wait…

...Bat Back Into Hell(dom)

OFFICAL: I am apologizing for the obscure Meatloaf reference, sorry to bring back bad memories

How Betsy was able to coax me out of the KLM Boeing 777 out of Tanzania, I will never know, and how she was able to stuff me back into the land cruiser to Haydom is an even more amazing feat. Well, I guess the rohypnol she dropped in my beer in Dar has finally worn off so my cognitive thoughts have returned, at the very least.

Dar es Salaam was a great experience and we were very happy to get a bit of a respite from the tedium that is Haydom. While in Dar we knew that we NEEDED to bring supplies, snacks and luxury items back with us, as Haydom has nothing to offer in the realm of 1st world goods. After much exploration, we found what we were looking for, chips, spices, fruit spread, TONS of cookies, an electric tennis racquet, a real fan and yes, a wireless internet modem! We packed all of these things, actually stuffed, smashed and piled everything we could possibly fit into an adult diaper box we found at the “wazungu” grocery store, and hoped for the best.

While in Dar, we spotted local stamp makers, guys on the side of the road who take old tires and cut the rubber into stamp-sized pieces and customize them with old razor blades for people who, well, want a stamp. I have been eyeing the possibility of having a stamp made since I first stumbled upon these people in Arusha, so I had to have one. Betsy and I made friends with one of the local Dar stamp makers, apparently everyone in Tanzania loves stamping things so it allows for ten stamp makers to set up shop within a mile radius. So, Betsy created a little drawing, this is something I definitely should have done, and gave it to Martin, our designated stamp dude. Martin told us to return in two hours at which time the stamp would be complete. At the designated time, we returned to find that the stamp was exactly how Betsy drew it out, unfortunately it was not what we wanted which was, Tembo (elephant, Betsy’s nickname for me) and Twiga’s (giraffe, Betsy’s nickname for herself) Tanzanian Adventure, with an image of a giraffe and elephant in the middle. Instead it said, STEMBO and TWIGA, in place of the elephant they carved a tree. The STEMBO mistake came from the fact that Betsy had made a little “scratch-out” at the beginning which Martin mistook as an “S”. Now, STEMBO is not a Swahili word so confusion abound for Martin who probably couldn’t understand why on earth we would want such a word, but did exactly as he was told, much to our chagrin. Both Betsy and I quickly realizing the mistake, asked him to carve an elephant into the remaining space on the stamp. In what looks more like a malformed fetus, Martin, tested the stamp and proudly handed it to its new owners, giraffe and fetus; apparently fetus will be my new nickname. Thoroughly disappointed, I returned to Martin drawing in hand, this time done by myself, and asked him to create a new stamp. The drawing I had created left nothing to the imagination, which was sketched in roughly ten seconds, since we know what happens when you ask Martin to design something. Delighted to see me, he directed me to return in two hours, status-quo. When we returned to purchase the stamp, to my surprise he cut the stamp EXACTLY how I drew it, EXACTLY! As you can see, it’s quite hilarious, since the elephant I drew was semi-retarded looking. Next time we will come to Martin with a computer print-out drawn in AutoCAD.

After the excellent week we had in Dar, we had to jump back on a bus heading to Arusha, we heard Scandinavia Express was the “best”, so we decided to try their service. The tickets were 4000Tsh cheaper than the Dar “not so” Express, the trip was to take eight, not ten, hours and they had a restroom on the bus! Well, the day of the trip we boarded the bus to find the restroom was not functioning, typical Tanzania for you. We also noted that only 12 people came on and all of them were wazungu, weird! So the bus headed for the country-side doing break-neck speed for Tanzanian roads, which is roughly 45mph. The reason this is thought of as quick is because every five miles or so you’ll hit a speed bump, literally, a speed bump. Well, what was a quick trip soon came to a crawl as we began to pick up “ticket-less” passengers on the side of the road. Before we knew it, we had a bus load of people and the driver and attendant had a fist full of schillings! (ok, no more cheesy pop-culture references from the 1960/70’s) After having stopped over twenty times, we quickly realized that this trip was infact much worse than the Dar Express, we arrived eleven hours later, three full hours after the designated time, again very Tanzanian. This wouldn’t be so bad, had we traveled 800 miles, but the distance from Dar to Arusha is roughly half that! After watching two extremely cheesy B films, one which was titled “The Base”, look it up, I highly recommend it, we arrived in Arusha. All in all, we were glad to go get a decent meal and rest the evening before climbing aboard the dreaded land cruiser to Haydom.

The next morning, butts still sore from the prior day of travel, we jumped into an 11 person land cruiser. Of course it was not only stuffed with 16 adults and 2 children, making the human total 18, but also 4 chickens! Knowing what to expect on our trip back, the 6.5 hours of rough-riding was relatively predictable and manageable. Our driver, we’ve had a different one each of the three trips, was semi-blind, which only added flair to the white-knuckled ride up the mountains. We finally arrived in Haydom that evening, Costech approval in hand and a box full of snacks in tow. We are now ready to conquer the task ahead of us, researching adolescent nutrition, for all of those not sure why the heck we’re here (albeit I ask myself that same question from time to time).

We hope that all is well back in the States and that fears of Africa have not frightened Betsy’s parents into retracting their desire to meet the two of us here... it’s not that bad, so long as you have cookies. 
-Ryan

(pics: Ryan and Rachel in Boat at Maliaka House, Ryan eating a fish head, stamp guys, Martin closest to Ryan, Stamps)

Ten Things the U.S. Hates About US!

Our journey continues! Thus far, we have done everything the US Embassy security personnel explained not to do while you’re in Tanzania. We had our mandatory security briefing at the Embassy today, which went well but left most people shocked and bit freaked out. The things we have done which we’re told not to:

1. Walk in the middle of the night down unlit back-roads in search of an elusive restaurant.
2. Use ATMs, apparently people in Nairobi want to steal our money.
3. Use the DalaDalas, taxis or CNGs (little three wheeled motorcycles)
4. Actually walk into markets without armed guards or purchase wooden giraffes at the carving market
5. Go anywhere in Posta (downtown area) especially the Muslim section
6. To be anywhere within eye-sight of the water (Indian Ocean, since Dar is located on it)
7. Never leave the confines of Dar es Salaam or Arusha, since the rural areas of Tanzania are lawless (Haydom apparently falls under this category)
8. Eat at any restaurant regardless of lit atmosphere, aside from the two Subways.
9. Follow local Tanzanians guiding you somewhere because you were lost.
10. Last but not least, never trust any of the US Embassy guards… aside from the eight Marines which guard the interior compound.

The security personnel would rather you experience Dar and Tanzania from your hotel window rather than actually go outside; sorry Bill and Laura, looks like the safari and Kilimanjaro are off, we can’t leave the airport, it’s far too dangerous!

Friday, as Betsy and I became hungry for lunch, we set off from our hotel in Posta (not only are we not supposed to be down here, actually residing here is unheard of for Wazungu!) in search of a tasty meal. We were staying at the Safari Inn, it’s a modest place located on Libya Street in central Posta. Heading in the direction of the harbor (also, don’t go near the water), we happened upon a restaurant called Al-Hazzari, it was centrally located on Mosque Street, and was serving up a most pleasant smelling food. Wide-eyed and oblivious to her surroundings, Betsy headed onto the patio of the open-air restaurant. In what looked to me to be a recruiting hotspot for the Taliban, ten Muslim men sitting outside eating in a row almost spit their food out as they watched in horror as a white, blond-haired, blue-eyed woman walked into the restaurant. Friday is the Muslim holy day, it was about 1:30pm, right after their second call to prayer for the day, I’m assuming many of them had just retired from the mosque to enjoy lunch. Realizing the situation, I grabbed Betsy’s arm and immediately walked her out of the establishment. Walking down Mosque Street in the opposite direction, I noticed I had not seen a single female for the last 10 minutes, it was time to find food elsewhere! We ended up sitting down at a place called Ladybird’s, a small Indian restaurant, it served great food and cheap too! It was good to have escaped out of Little Kabul, unscathed.

Explaining why we were walking down a deserted, unlit road in search of a restaurant will never make a lot of sense until you visit the Malaika House. We, Betsy, Rachel Favaro (Betsy’s friend who is currently in Dar) and myself, set off on our fateful journey around 7pm Monday evening, it was already pitch black out since Dar is close to the equator, and walked in the direction our hotel staff had prescribed. After wandering through deserted residential areas for about 30min we happened upon, Lipold, a security guard at one of the compounds who told us the restaurant was in the opposite direction we were headed. We turned around and walked down another unlit area in which we hit, what seemed to be a dead-end. A young man sitting in a drainage ditch caught our attention, telling us we didn’t have to walk all the way back to the main road, but instead to follow him on a short-cut through the ditch. We continued on this and finally hit the main road, in which we deviated once more down an unlit residential area. This time we actually hit a dead-end, populated by fifty or so Tanzanians, we couldn’t tell how many there were since Tanzanians are REALLY hard to see in the dark of night, seriously! A friendly Canadian, who also happened to be a Tanzanian, popped out of the shadows to direct us in the best North American English accent I’ve heard since our KLM flight attendant on our way to Amsterdam. He explained that he had never heard of the Malaika House but that he loved the Houston Astros and BBQ, and were lucky because there was a great BBQ restaurant around the corner. We walked away from the crowd of Tanzanians, who by this point had broken out in mass singing “happy birthday” to us, since it is the only English any of them knew. We walked another 15 or so minutes until we decided it was no longer prudent to continue the course we were currently on, so did an about face and headed back to the main road. By this time it was nearing 8:30pm and I was getting cranky, I had walked for miles on end that morning in search of a functioning ATM (something we’re not supposed to be doing, according to the US Embassy). We finally hit the main road and located the nearest taxi stand (also, don’t do this) in which he drove literally half a mile down the road to the Malaika House, ugh! After much tribulation we finally arrived at our destination. When I say it was Malaika House, it was definitely a house, without any lights or identifying features which would traditionally signal that you are at a restaurant. In fact, we opened the door to the house and found a security guard sitting in a chair in a dark corner of the entryway. He explained that the restaurant was through the house and on the beach. As we approached, the place opened and saw a great sight, the Indian Ocean with the coolest Tiki-hut/bar in the world! It was awesome, the food was fantastic, Betsy and I had grilled fish and Rachel had beef. We sat in the chairs on the sand for two hours drinking beer and having a good old time. Apparently, the place closes down at 10pm so we were forced to leave and make the 5 minute walk back to our hotel, not too bad. Apparently, these are all things you should not do, should not attempt or even think about doing while overseas, because according to the security personnel, you will inevitably die.
-Ryan

(images: local fishermen, original slave trading ship still in use, Betsy with cows)

COSTECH update

Well, Monday rolled around, and Ryan and I headed off to our appointment at COSTECH. We were armed with letters of support from various organizations and village leaders, and lots of time to just sit in their office and wait. I walked into the office ready to fight for my permit. I handed over the letters, and the guy read them carefully and said “Ok, now give me $300, and you’ll have your permit.” SUCCESS!!!! Only one little step between me and research clearance. The problem was that we didn’t have $300 in US dollars, being in Tanzania and all, where they use the shilling. I brought up this point to the man, and he said that all we had to do was go to a bank, and deposit the money into a bank account. It was all very easy really, and there was a branch just up the road. After yet another Tanzanian miscalculation of distance, we arrived at the bank.

We had our ATM cards to get T-shillings, and all the information for the account, we were good to go! We walked up to one of the account managers to ask how this process would work. She said that they didn’t exchange money at the bank (despite the rate chart on the wall indicating otherwise), and that we would have to go to an exchange bureau to get dollars, then bring them back to deposit them. We asked about the rate chart, and they said they would only do dollars to shillings, not the other way around. We walked out into the parking lot, but decided to go back and see if by some chance someone had bought shillings, and maybe they had dollars on hand. We went to a teller, who said “of course you can deposit shillings into a dollars account, you just have to have an account manager approve it.” Ugh. Back to the account manager. We told her what the teller said, and she said “oh, yes, if I approve it, you can do that. You just have to get a receipt from COSTECH.” Um, what? We were AT THE BANK to get a receipt to take to COSTECH. After explaining this to her, and that we wanted to put money in, not take it out, she asked if I had any documentation from COSTECH, that she could see as proof. I didn’t, however, I had my USF research approval stuff, so I showed that to her, and she said it would work. This paperwork actually has nothing to do with COSTECH, and was basically just a random piece of paper I was carrying, but whatever, I wasn’t going to complain. She told us we needed to get a photocopy of it and bring it back.

We set off to find the closest stationary shop. These shops are EVERYWHERE in Tanzania, so this wasn’t going to be a problem. We found one just around the corner, but due to rationing, there was no electricity in this part of Dar today. She thought the other side of the street might have electricity though. We headed over there, but again, no electricity. We remembered that the bank seemed to have electricity, so we headed back there to see if we could pay THEM to make a copy. Back to the account manager. “Oh, why yes, of course you can make a photocopy here. You don’t need to pay for it, either.” Thanks for telling us that now. She pointed us to the poor over-worked secretary who seemed to be the busiest person in the bank and went back to her office to wait. Another wait in line. Ryan decided to expedite the process and go get the money from the ATM while I got the copies. Problem was, the ATM wasn’t working here, so he headed off down the street in search of a functioning one. I got the copies and headed back. The account manager stamped them and told us to go to the teller with the money. I waited….and waited….and waited….and then started freaking out. Meanwhile, Ryan was on a 6-mile wild goose chase for a working ATM that took VISA cards. These are amazingly few and far between in Dar. After almost an hour and a half, he arrived safely back at the bank (albeit a little dehydrated and tired) with the money, and my blood pressure and heart rate began to return to normal.

We triumphantly walked up to the teller with the money, the account info, and the stamped photocopy to deposit our money. The teller looked skeptically at us and promptly disappeared for the next 10 minutes. When she returned, things went amazingly smoothly and we got the money deposited and hopped on a Dala Dala back to COSTECH. Back at COSTECH, we showed our receipt from the bank, drank about 2 liters of the coldest water in Sub-Saharan Africa, and in about 20 minutes, I was ready to do research in Tanzania!!!! After the bank experience, we spent the rest of the afternoon taking a much needed rest and re-hydrating.

-Betsy

Dar Days

Note: sorry for the backlog of posts, we didn't have time to sit around and blog much, as we were out having too much fun!

I’m back to my old digs, Dar! (I lived there for about 3 months when I was an undergrad, studying at the University of Dar es Salaam.) A lot has changed since 2003 (movie theaters, shopping malls, pseudo-Target?!), although after a day here, it seems exactly the same. We started our day by attempting to walk to the American Embassy from “Posta” (downtown) where our hotel is. We quickly learned that Tanzanians a) give the worst directions EVER, and b) are seemingly completely inept at map-making. Although the Embassy was off the map that we acquired at the hotel desk, someone had hand drawn directions to the Embassy in the margin, making it look approximately ¼ mile off the edge of the map. Oh how wrong that was. We walked ….and walked….and walked out on the road that went off the edge of the map, looking for the embassy on the right, just off the corner of the main road. After about 2.5 miles, we thought we must have missed it and turned around. After making it back to where the map stopped and not seeing the American Embassy (we passed Iran, Sudan, Poland, Norway, France, Germany, Mozambique, Canada, Egypt…), we stopped and asked directions. After much discussion – some of it even about our problem at hand – they decided it was much too far to walk, and that we had to take a cab. Boy, were they right. At the bargain-basement price of 4,000 Tsh, we hitched a ride to the Embassy. For the distance – about 4 miles – it was a pretty good deal.

Once we arrived at the Embassy, things were good. The Embassy staff were great, and very helpful. We ended up sitting around chatting with them for a couple of hours. It’s a literally a little slice of America, where you can drink out of the drinking fountains, and even their port-a-potties are the fanciest Ryan had ever seen. (This ain’t no RAGBRAI, baby!)

Anyway, we then got yet another completely disproportionate map made by one of the Embassy staff (a Tanzanian) and headed off to COSTECH, the research ethics office. After about 3.5 miles in the mid-day equatorial sun, we made it! ….only to be told to return on Monday. Since both Ryan and I were not about to walk another step, we attempted to get a cab, but failed miserably at getting anything but ‘wazungu’ prices. Luckily, we were on a Dala Dala route, so we hopped on and Ryan got his first taste of true Dar life. Dala Dalas are public mini-busses that shuttle around the city for about 20 cents per ride. They are jam-packed and hot as hell, and definitely not made for people over 5’5”. But they get you where you need to go, and cheaply, plus you get free entertainment from the circus that is the Dala Dala.

-Betsy