Tanzania - Part 2

So to continue with where I left off, we got back to UAACC on the afternoon of the 4th and just relaxed, showered and did some laundry until dinner. We didn’t have anything planned after dinner, so after some technical difficulties, some of us watched the first half of Malcolm X while others headed to bed. While we were watching the movie, UAACC’s band Warriors from the East started practicing, and they provided an interesting background to the movie. They are a reggae band that is absolutely amazing. I guess I should stop here to explain that most of the staff at UAACC is Rastafarian, and so the fact that they were playing reggae was not a huge surprise. I was a little shocked to see so many Rasta’s in Tanzania, but that might also just have been a result of where we were staying. Either way, they had this amazing band that served as an interesting background to the movie. After we turned the music off, Karen (another girl in the group) and I decided to go and watch the band rehearse for a little while. They weren’t very hard to find, and were on the roof of one of the buildings in the compound. They loved the fact that we wanted watch, and even gave us instruments to play. Ok, so they might have just been tambourines but whatever. We were still a vital part of the rehearsal. Sitting on the roof was a little surreal. I kept having to remind myself where I was – in Tanzania at an amazing center surrounded by an incredible band who was pretty much giving us a private concert on a roof at about 11 at night – all less than 12 hours after having been in Maasai land for an amazing few days. Like I said, surreal to say the least. I really wanted to stay awake to see the end of their rehearsal, but as I was literally falling asleep in the chair (while playing the tambourine), I decided to head to bed.

The next morning was a typical African morning. We had planned to see some of the programs that UAACC has, but the woman who was supposed to show us around wasn’t there since it was Easter (Easter’s like a week long holiday here – I don’t really understand it.). So we ended up just hanging out all morning and talking, journaling, reading, etc. It was a little frustrating to not be doing anything, but kind of nice at the same time.

After lunch, we piled in the vans and went to an orphanage for some community service work. There was a little confusion as to what we were actually supposed to be doing, but things got worked out and we spent a few hours there painting doors, cleaning walls and floors and playing with some of the kids. They didn’t really tell us much about what the orphanage was all about, but I guess that’s not really too important, huh?

We headed back to UAACC for dinner, and afterwards had a discussion with the center’s HIV/AIDS education group that was fascinating. They first put on a skit for us that we didn’t really understand (it was in Kiswahili). Then we got to have a discussion with them which started out by us asking them a little bit more about what they do and how they get the messages out to the community, etc. They also asked us about how the disease is viewed in the states and how sex ed works. From there it got a little interesting…some of the questions they asked were:
-How can a condom protect against HIV since it was invented before the disease was an issue?
-Where did HIV come from?- Something about salt being able to escape through condoms and how this was possible (I think a large part of this one was lost in translation – we still don’t really get it)
-And my favorite – something about how when women wear skimpy clothes they are bound to get HIV because men can’t control themselves.
It was a little disheartening to hear some of their questions – I had kind of assumed a certain amount of knowledge about HIV/AIDS from them since they are the ones educating the community about it. But I guess that was a bad assumption on my part.

The next day we had planned on going to the International War Crimes Tribunal where we were going to see the trails regarding the Rwandan genocide. I was really excited to see it, but when we got off the bus, we were informed that it was closed for the day since it was Good Friday (damn Easter ruining our plans again). Apparently someone had checked if it was going to be open and was given the wrong information. So we changed our schedule around a little bit and were given the morning to explore the town of Arusha. I was really disappointed, but it was actually an awesome morning. I went with 2 friends from the program to an ice cream parlor, and then to a book store. After that we decided that we didn’t really want to shop anymore so we just walked around a little bit.

After a few minutes we found a park that led us to a playground – this was kind of shocking since playgrounds aren’t really something that you find all over the place in Africa. But we decided to take advantage of it and played around a little bit. I was a little upset to be wearing a skirt – not really conducive to playground-ing. But I still managed to make it work. A little while after we got there, we were joined by 3 young kids who were so cute – probably ranging from 5 – 8. We ended up playing with them for a few hours. The best part was that they didn’t ever ask us for anything. They were just so happy to be playing with us that that was all they wanted. And when we did by them some cookies, they split them equally between each other with out even a hesitation. Pretty great kids, huh? I kind of wanted to take one home with me, but I’m not sure how the officials at the airport would feel about me smuggling a kid back to the states…

We meet up with the rest of the group and spent the afternoon at a snake park – a little random, but interesting I guess. Snakes aren’t really my thing, and neither are zoos, but it was still pretty cool.

This was our last night with UAACC, which was pretty sad. We all really loved it there! But it was kind of cool, because the band that I was talking about was having their kick off concert for their East Africa tour that night. So we all went as an SIT sponsored event! It was a pretty cool show – like I said before, the band was awesome and has such great energy. The private roof-top show was definitely a lot cooler, but seeing them perform live for a bigger audience was also pretty sweet. It was a great show and a great conclusion to an amazing trip. I wish we could have spent more time there, but the next day it was an early morning wake up to drive back to Nairobi and all the pressures of SIT – papers, discussions and in a few days ISP (!).