dilly daladala-ing

I’m feeling overwhelmed just thinking about summing up the past few days in one blog post. Classes started on Monday and today has been the first day that I’ve had the chance to take a nap and debrief everything that has happened since my last post. I rode in a daladala, took an African drum lesson, visited the African Court, fell in love with Shanga, showed a Maasai tribesman who’s boss of the dance floor, toured the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), …..the list goes on! Although I regret not writing every day, I have needed every minute of sleep available.

On Monday I had class from 8am—6:30pm, and I loved every minute! After eating a delicious breakfast composed of toast, some form of egg, African Pride tea, and the world’s best fruit, we walked as a group to the National Natural History museum for our core class titled Tanzania in the Midst of Peace and Conflict. Arusha seems like a completely different city at 7:45am. There’s a cool breeze in the air, you can hear the sound of kids playing on their way to school, the dust is settled on the ground, crowds are absent, hagglers are at bay, and, most importantly, there’s no reason to be fearful for your life when you cross the now-empty streets. Yes, so far, so good.

The core class is taught by Roland Adjovi, program director extraordinaire. Roland is incredible. Originally from the French-speaking West African nation of Benin, he went on to study law at the University of Paris. He held some fancy positions in the Organization for African Unity and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. 50% of the time I’ve been around Roland, he’s been sharing his vast knowledge on International Law and Africa with us. The other 50% of the time, he’s been laughing… (I did a double-take the first time I heard it because it sounds strikingly similar to Rafiki’s laugh). Needless to say, he’s the bomb.edu.

The classes are each 2 hours long, but they feel significantly shorter! We have two students from East Africa in our program who provide incredibly valuable input during lectures. Geroge Stanley is from Kenya and before coming to Tanzania, he had never left his home country. Stanley has single-handedly brought chivalry back from the dead. He’s very determined to go to Harvard Law School next year and he has expressed a desire to be president of Kenya one day (and I bet he will be!). The other East African student, Halima, is from Zanzibar, a small island off the coast of Tanzania. Halima is staying with a family in town so I haven’t gotten to know her very well yet. However, I do know that she’s 28 and has a Valentine back home in Zanzibar… (Having a Valentine in Tanzania is very serious. It’s considered to be one step down from marriage. Candy has never been so committal…).

My first Kiswahili class was very efficient. I can hold a very basic conversation, which is all I need to get around in Arusha for now. My International Law class is held at the Nyerere Center for Peace Research, which also serves as Arcadia’s program base. The classes are definitely going to be harder than I thought, but the topics are very interesting… and besides, I only need to get above a D- to have the credit transfer back to Miami…

If I were to get below a D- in a class, it would definitely be in African music and dance. Although I really enjoy music and I love to dance, I’m kind of horrible at both. Unlike all of the other classes, the music class is taught at an actual University. In order to get from the city-center to the Makumira campus, the six of us in the class have to take a daladala, which is the form of public transportation here. Transportation has never been more public. A daladala has four basic components: the van, the driver, the dude hanging out of the vehicle yelling at you to get in, and the people crammed inside. The whole process follows a business model that maximizes profits while undermining safety. While the van is still moving, a guy opens the door, two people jump out, they yell at three or more people to get in, and within 10 seconds, the van is moving again. The van is not much bigger than a mini-van, but it manages to hold four times as many people. On the 20-minute drive to Makumira, I sat on my friend Whitney’s lap the entire time (it was rather unfortunate for her when we went over speed bumps). Kids sit in your lap, people stand in the small walking space, and if you’re in the back of the bus and need to get out, it’s not uncommon to climb out the back window. The whole ride was 500 shilling, which is about 40 cents. Quite a bargain for such a long bus ride and an amazing experience!

When we got to Makumira we were told to wait at the gate for our professor, Randall Stubbs, to meet us. Although we had just assumed that the person teaching us African music and dance would be someone experienced from the region, the name itself should’ve been an indication that this wasn’t the case. A tall, skinny, balding white guy came walking up the dirt path toward us. Yep, this was our professor. But as it turns out, I was wrong to judge a book by its cover, to use a cliché expression. Mr. Stubbs can rock out on the African drum just as well as any native! He’s the head of the music department at Makumira, which began as a small 300-student Lutheran seminary school and recently expanded to a sizeable 1600-student campus, complete with a 1,000-student strong education program promoted by the Tanzanian government. Mr. Stubbs showed us his home where he has lived with his wife and three kids for the past 7 years. They grow all of their own food, get milk from a neighborhood goat, and have yet to get malaria despite living adjacent to rice fields. Despite my lack of rhythm, I think that I’m looking forward to this class the most. Later in the semester, Mr. Stubbs arranged for us to make our own African drum and to do a homestay with Maasai after going to one of their performances. Hopefully I won’t embarrass myself too much.

I have so much more to write about and I know that I teased you with an introduction, but unfortunately I must cut this post short. I’ll try my best to sum everything up soon! I hope all is well in the states, in Luxembourg, in New Zealand, or wherever you’re reading this!

Until soon.