Hi from Rwanda

Jambo from the beautiful Kigali, Rwanda.  We arrived here Saturday evening after a much longer than anticipated plane ride from the Kilimanjaro International airport.  We spent the previous week at the United African Alliance community center.  Upon arriving we were greeted warmly by Pete (The Panther) O'Neil, and his twenty-one adopted children.  We then settled into our comfortable sleeping quarters.  It is safe to say that everyone was enthused to have warm running water, clean clothes and electricity once again. 

We started our first full day with a one hour yoga class at seven-thirty in the morning.  After a delicious breakfast we split up into groups of two and sat in on English classes.  All of the teachers at the UAACC were volunteers, and the ages of students ranged from fourteen to forty.  Many of the student traveled long distances to attended free schooling at the community center.  The advanced English class students were virtually fluent in English and were very easy to converse with.  On the contrary, students in the beginners class needed a lot of assistance from there teacher to translate.  All students were eager to hear about American culture, politics and language.  Later in the afternoons Carpe Diem students attended computer classes to teach students of all ages the basics of computers.  Everyone seemed interested in making facebook and e-mail accounts.  The concepts were difficult at times to explain unless the students were English speaking. 

Following our first day of teaching we attended a dance class in the early morning.  A group of ten locals met us out on the basketball court to teach us a dance from a local tribe.  Though learning the dance was difficult enough, we also had to sing at the same time.  This proved to be quite a challenge but, after a couple hours of practice we were feeling confident in our ability to perform the dance during the UAACC talent show that afternoon.  Our performance of the dance went well, as did our rendition of the Cha Cha Slide; the American dance we all decided would be the easiest to perform without any practice.  The talent show went on for several hours and included dances and skits performed by locals, a fashion show and musical performances both by UAACC and Carpe Diem Students.

The rest of the week was spent in relaxation; learning how to make batik paintings in the art room, collaborating with local artists in the music studio, and interacting with students at the community center.  During some evenings we were able to casually chat with Pete about the life he was forced to leave behind in America and his new life in Tanzania.  Many evenings we would watch both educational and slightly more irrelevant DVDs from Pete's extensive collection. 

Thanks to Emily who verified both flights to Rwanda as well transportation from the airport to our hotel we arrived safely in Kigali on Friday Evening. Though finding a hotel was a bit of a struggle we were able to fit everyone in to two generously sized rooms at the Kigali Hotel, with help from Lilianna.  We spent our weekend exploring the city and attempting to emerge ourselves in the culture.  After almost a month in Tanzania we found our Swahili to be no use here as the predominant languages are French and Rwanda.  There appears to be a strong french and English Influence and the city is much more developed than the previous towns we visited.  We are all very much looking forward to our visit to the Rwanda Genocide Museum on Sunday before we travel to Uganda the following day. 

   

We will keep you updated on more events soon!

Love,

Adam & Sarah

A Brief Summary of Events So Far

Mambo from the United African Alliance Community Center! We arrived here yesterday afternoon fresh (although somewhat smelly) off our three day Safari to the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, and Lake Manyara National Park. We witnessed the laziness of lions, the zen of elephants, the staggering numbers of the zebra and wildebeest herds, as well as many of other creatures of the Serengeti such as: a leopard, a cheetah, a family of hyenas, birds dancing on the backs of hippos, a black rhino, giraffes, impalas, antelopes, buffalo, elands, blue monkeys, vervets, mongoose, diks diks, warthogs, bush backs, water bucks, jackals, white flamingos, ostriches, and many other species of bird including the largest flying bird in the world.

Upon our departure from the Ngorongoro Crater, we paused to snap a picture of a mama and baby baboon. Before we could close the windows on our jeep, the cute momma, with the baby in her arms, quickly transformed into a vicious momma, and proceeded to jump onto the roof of our jeep. Emily fell out of the car, Jill screamed and leapt out the window, Bridget searched frantically for something to hit it with before joining Emily and Jill in their escape, leaving Allison to face the baboon alone. Hearing the screams of terror, our driver quickly came to the rescue screaming and waving his arms. The baboon fled, only to return moments later with reinforcements. Giving new meaning to the phrase “guerilla warfare,” they baboons quickly entered the jeep next to ours, stole a box of crackers and quickly made off with their prize. We learned a valuable lesson that day: cute and fuzzy doesn’t always mean cuddly.

For the ten days proceeding the Safari, we lived in a traditional boma in the Maasai village of Esilalei. A boma is a large circular fence constructed from acacia trees, which possess large thorns, to protect the dwellings and livestock within from lions and hyenas. The dwellings are built from mud, manure, and tree limbs, with a thatched roof of grass. There are two separate structures, one for men and one for women, as well as a guest house constructed only of sticks, giving it a more open feel and allowing the breeze to cool it during the heat of the day; the latter acted as our dining hall. In the center of the three houses is a smaller boma. This is where the cattle, sheep, goats, donkeys ad chickens are kept during the night. We stayed within the boma in tents provided for us by Maasai Wanderings, and ate delicious food prepared for us by our chef Jackson.

While living with the Maasai we worked on three service projects: painting a road sign for the school, filling in a concrete foundation for the school’s kitchen, and constructing a water tank and gutter system for the kitchen that will catch precipitation during the rainy season. The projects took about five days to complete, and were greatly appreciated by the village and those working in the school. Some mornings we played with the students who were very eager to meet us, and found everything about us and our culture to be utterly fascinating. We loved spending time with them and teaching them American games such as Duck-Duck-Goose and ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.’

A typical day in the Maasai village consisted of a morning spent on the service project, and a lazy afternoon spent writing in our journals, doing laundry, and interacting with our ever friendly local hosts. In the evenings before dinner, we often helped bring the cows home under spectacular sunsets. We also visited a weekly Maasai market where Saxon bought a pair of traditional Maasai sandals made from recycled tires. We went on a walking Safari led by two Maasai, on which we saw elephants, giraffes, lions and wildebeests, saw a lamb being born, and slaughtered and ate a goat Maasai style. The celebration of the goat was a much needed thank you to the Maasai tribe for allowing us to stay with them. We saw how they skin and butcher livestock for meals, traditionally consisting of milk, blood, and meat. While the goat was being butchered, Allison performed an eye ball dissection, which was really fun and interesting to see.

As mentioned earlier, we are currently residing at the UAACC, a community center created by an exiled black panther named Pete. During our stay we will help teach English, art, sewing, music and computer classes to anyone who wants to learn, as well as to the twenty-two children who live here full time. After the UAACC, we’re heading to Rwanda for a few days to visit the site of the Rwandan Genocide and further our knowledge of the events of 1994.

Stay tuned for future posts!

Salama! (Peace)
Saxon, Bridget

Jambo from L'Oasis!

Yesterday we went on an eventful scavenger throughout Arusha! We did awesome and hit almost all the goals, speaking in our newly learned Swahili along the way. We have been spending time doing orientation and learning about each other. The hostel is beautiful here and has modern amenities that we have been gratefully taking advantage of :) Bridget, Saxon, Lil, Emily

Mambo! from Arusha, Tanzania

From Adam, Jill & Sarah!!!

We are in the middle of our scavenger hunt in Arusha right now. We made it here alive! Yay! We just begun learning Kiswahli today and are eager to speak it. We love and miss everybody! We will blog more when we actually figure out how to use it properly. Wish us luck- We are trying to win this scavenger hunt!!

Safe & Sound (& Sleeping!) in Arusha

We've just received word that the group was picked up without a hitch and are now settled into the hostel they'll call home for a few days' worth of orientation, cultural briefings, language basics, and general group bonding as they begin their thorough journey of East Africa.

When they awake, you'll begin hearing from them themselves--so stay tuned!  From here on out, this is Team Africa's blog!

-HQ out.

Amsterdam and Beyond!

It's official.  Team Africa is complete, all are accounted for in Amsterdam and they are embarking on an adventure of a lifetime as a complete unit.  Next stop?  TANZANIA.  The next blog you read should be from the group themselves.  So come back to this site often and follow the adventures from the eyes and ears of Carpe Diem Africa Spring 2011!

Signing out for now...

Carpe Diem Headquarters

Spring in East Africa

Hello Team Africa!

We hope all of your preparations are going well for our upcoming adventure and that this introductory blog entry finds you all well. This blog will be a very useful way to tell the story of our trip to your friends and loved ones, so please pass this address on to them or tell them how to find it through the Carpe Diem website's blog link.

Allison and I are currently in Portland managing the various logistical details for our rapidly approaching departure. We have spent the winter break visiting friends and family in North Carolina and Vancouver, Canada - staying mobile to honor our inner nomads. Making phone calls and perusing the "student files" has revealed to us that we will be traveling with an incredibly interesting group of students and we can't wait to explore this fascinating region with you all.

For those of you who haven't spoken with us over the phone yet, expect that fateful call within the next couple of days. We are so excited to meet you all and look forward to a spectacular semester.

Happy packing!

Adam and Allison