Mambo! That is what everyone shouts when you walk down the street, and the response is POA! It pretty much means "whats up with you?" and "i'm cool!" EVERYONE greets you when you walk down the street, it's very different from America, where if people constantly saying "HELLO! HOW ARE YOU? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" you'd be sufficiently freaked out. This past weekend I went to a Maasai village with a couple people from my hostel which was incredible! Both guards from my hostel are from the Maasai tribe, a traditional African tribe from Kenya and northern Tanzania. They were happy to take us to meet their families.. one of the guards had FIFTY THREE brothers and sisters.. his father has 10 wives! To get to the Maasai village we hiked through a desert for about three miles ( SO HOT) until we arrived at a collection of mud huts and grazing cattle. We were caught in these dust tornadoes a couple times, so we were almost as brown as the Africans by the time we got there. (ok well not quite...) I will upload pictures soon from the Maasai, they wear these brightly colored robes that clash beautifully against the brown landscape, and don these intricately beaded necklaces and earrings, so the pictures are great!They are very peaceful people and immediately offered us food and tea, and later in the day performed a celebratory dance for us. It was one of the neatest things I have ever seen, and they even gave us bright robes to wear so we could join in. What an amazing culture.
Earlier today Hilary, the boy that translates for me, ( though my Swahili is coming along!) and I met with a group of HIV positive women from Shimbwe, the village in the foothills of Kilimanjaro that I work at. There were about ten women who came to the meeting, and I asked them questions about the problems they have been facing since being diagnosed with AIDS. I was shocked to hear the prejudices and they face just because they were brave enough to admit to the community that they have AIDS. There are many, many people who are HIV positive in this area, but will not come out and say it to the community because they know they will be shunned. All of these women do not have a spouse anymore, either because the spouse has died, or left them because they had HIV. This leaves them with very little money and ways to get food, and only some have family members to take care of them. Even the family members do not understand the sickness, and expect their loved ones to still work and earn money while they are very sick. They can't open shops because no one will buy from them, and they aren't even greeted by anyone on the street. We discussed that the reason for this prejudice against them is ignorance.. the community has not been properly educated about AIDS and has false beliefs about how AIDS can be spread. The problem is these beliefs go back many many years, and will be hard to break. For the rest of my time here I'll be spending a lot of time with my NGO trying to work out ways to educate this community, which will help these women and others infected, and also prevent the infection rate. Lots to think about! If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know! Miss everyone and hope to talk to you soon! Baadaye! Later!
ps - sorry about the captions getting all messed up on the Safari pictures. I'm still new to the blog thing haha. I'll try and figure out how to fix it when my internet is faster!

Safari

Jambo! Thanks for everyone who has written me emails, it might take me a little while to get back to you since I have to go into town to get Internet, and its super slow and not very reliable. Everything is going well in Moshi town, it's been a week now and I'm getting settled in. I've gotten lost plenty of times and had some interesting experiences trying to find my way back. This past weekend I kick started my time in Africa by going on a Safari with some of my friends from the hostel. East Africa is known for its amazing wildlife, and I definitely wasn't let down! The first day we ventured in Tanguire National Park, and the second day the Ngorogoro Crater. Both places were absolutely incredible, I felt like I was in the real life Lion King! If you look up online both places you'll get a better explanation and idea of the area, the crater was especially unique. If you click the pictures they will become larger. Hope to talk to everyone soon!




Zebras in the Ngorogoro Crater



















The birds were BEAUTIFUL, Dad you would have had a field day
















Ostrich in the crater


















Hippos! If you look in the left corner you can see me swimming with them!!















Wildebeest


















King on the Crater
















I love this picture










The lions got so close to our Jeep! They were stalking wildebeest and using our Jeep to hide behind. The Safari guide FREAKED OUT at me because he thought I was trying to pet the lion. I swear I was just trying to show how close!














MUFASA














We camped out at a campground somewhere near the crater and had a campfire with some of the local Tanzanians. This man brought his guitar and played us some African songs, it was beautiful!









We stumbled upon an African wedding, overlooking the Crater. We stayed for part of the ceremony, it was really lively.






















Giraffe in Tanguire



















Zebras at the watering hole!



















These Balboa trees are one of the things Tanguire is famous for. These trees supposedly live for over 1000 years ( our guide said even 3000 years?! Is that possible?) There are a lot of ancient African beliefs about the powers of these trees, and their bark and branches are used by thousands of different animals.













Leopard, we were very lucky to see one!















Baby elephants :) So cute!


















Baboon and its baby. The baboons were very mischievous, at lunch a baboon jumped onto our picnic table and stole my friends candy bar right out of her hand!
















Wildebeest stampede.

















More wildebeests by the river
















Group by the Safari Jeep. I'm short.














I forget what kind of monkey, but they were cute!








Group on top of the crater



Our guide, Abbas, he was hilarious

Just having a chat

Karibu kwa Afrika ( Welcome to Africa!)

Jambo! I have arrived in one piece in Moshi town, Tanzania after a long crazy flight half-way around the world. I feel like so much has happened in the past two days, I don't even know where to start!
I'm living in "Hostel Hoff," an international youth hostel right outside of Moshi. There are about 20 of us living there, ages ranging from 20 ( I'm the baby) to about 27. There are a couple of Kiwis (New Zealand) , some Brits, Scots, Canadians, Irish, Israelis, Aussies, and Tanzanians who work there and help us with our Swahili. Guess who is the ONLY American? Haha, it is a little intimidating being the only "Yankee" ( as they all call me) but I'm doing my best to represent. Almost all of us will be there for 3 months, so it's really neat that we will all become so close. Most of them are adventure travelers and have been roaming around the globe, which makes me want to explore even more!
I've done some exploring around Moshi town, it is MUCH bigger than I imagined. It's a big bustling town with ZERO traffic laws and people everywhere trying to sell you things. Yesterday afternoon a friend from the hostel and I went exploring around town and a local Tanzanian boy about our age saw our lost expression and gave us somewhat of an insider tour through the marketplace. The market is absolute chaos, I was 100% overwhelmed by the yelling and everyone tugging on your shirt yelling MZUNGU ( white girl!) CHEAPY CHEAPY! It was a crazy experience, but I loved it. I absolutely love how colorful everything is here, the women's clothing, the buildings, the thousands of vegetable and fruit stands, and the wild plants growing out of every crack.
I met with the directors of the nonprofit I'm working for yesterday and I'm really excited about what I'm going to be doing. The name of the organization is called Minjeni, and we assist a local village, Shimbwe, in the foothills of Kilimanjaro. Minjeni helps Shimbwe with sustainable agriculture, schooling, and health care. They needed someone to direct the women's health care project, so I took on that role. I'll be conducting seminars for the women of the village on keeping clean and sanitary, pregnancy, breast exams, contraceptives, etc. The next couple weeks I'll be doing a lot of research and working with a Tanzanian doctor to learn more about the subject. I'm really excited to have my hands full, and get started. Plus, the directors of Minjeni are two American nurses fresh out of nursing school, so I'm going to get to shadow them at the local hospital. I'm hoping to be a global nurse once I'm done with school, so it's great to get some experience!
Well, I'm going to go grab some lunch and practice my Swahili. I need to get the basics down since I'll be interacting with the local villagers soon, who don't speak much English. Hope everyone back at home is doing well, email to keep in touch! (Shapirmr@gmail.com)
Kwaheri! Goodbye!