Saturday, March 14, 2009

Elizabeth from Ohio is the BEST!

You are probably wondering who the hell Elizabeth is and why my blog entry is named after her? haha, she is a grad student that I met this past week who is doing her research in/around Dar es Salaam that I hung out with last week, she even gave me her old pair of running shoes, for which I deemed neccessarily to thank her by giving her the title of this blog...haha. You now are wondering what I was doing in Dar... it's a long story.

So two weeks ago my tooth started feeling a little weird so I wanted to get it checked out. In the US this requires a 30-45 min drive to your local dentist... well in Tanzania it was a journey that initially was supposed to be 3 days (max) that turned into a week and a half travel across the country of Tanzania. Along the way I met some awesome... and not so awesome people and had fun, almost cried and ate yummy food! haha (honestly at this point anything other than beans and ughali is yummy).

The trip to Dodoma is a 6 hour bus ride on an unpaved bumpy road for half way. (Never again will I complain about the potholes in Ohio). So for three hours you're bouncy up down and around on this bus in 100 degree weather, sounds fun right? But when we got there, we went shopping had awesome chinese food and met a white business man from South Africa... this is where it get's interesting. He was really nice. Although the first day we saw him, we almost killed him (and nearly everyone else in the resturant) with our fahijta entree.... but honestly it was worth it. The next night he offered to pay for our dinner and of course being the broke volunteers we are, we ordered up half the menu..hehe. It was a great night until he started criticizing Americans because we prefix every other race with _____ American. Like I said he was from South Africa, so how could he talk about us when their country just recently ended the apartheid not even a decade ago??? But anywho, since he was paying we tried to rationalize with him and not pay him too much mind. We left gracious for his generousity but a little ticked by his mentality.

I went to the dentist there and they told me that the reason my tooth hurt was because (and I quote) "God made everything in pairs, and it's missing it's other half". Ummm, and then he said he wanted to do a root canal, without any x-ray or test? That was a definate no, which meant I would have to travel to Dar es Salaam on another long bus ride (7 hours... atleast this road is paved all the way through.)

(sidenote about riding the bus in Tanzania- you can get almost anything you need during this ride...shoes, clothes, food, drinks, jewelry, anything! It's great!)

So I went to Dar and ended up staying for a whole week! I was not to happy about that (didnt have more than 3 days worth of anything!) Although I despise the heat, the many people that harass you and being there by myself, I love the amenities you can get there (for most things, the only place you can get these items). I ate chinese, lebanese, PIZZA(although I ordered it one day and I waited for two hours and called the lady back and she said she forgot and now they were closed! Only in Tanzania, I swear) and real ice cream. I know that may not sound great to you but when you only see beans, rice, ugahli and mchicha (local spinach) you get excited over almost anything.

Oh yeah, good news... I weighed myself and thus far I lost 45 lbs! I am so happy. I have a goal and I have been excercising and stuff. I have even considered running the 5K next year... its only about 2 and a half miles, but it seems like fun. It'll be a great acheivement!

So now I am back in Singida and never thought I would be happy about that! Next week is mid-exams and then easter break. I am excited about that because no teaching next week, then I am off to Morogoro for IST and then to Lindi for a 4 day beach party with other volunteers. Life here is starting to seem normal and I feel like I belong here and actually am making a difference!
Tomorrow is our Women's Day celebration (a little late, but this tanzania...haha) Wish me luck!

*My email is acting up, so I created a new account. My new email address is kimber.s.lynn@gmail.com. Send me some mail! :-)

*My sister is almost due.... OMG! I am so happy, I can't wait to see pics of my beautiful new neice thats coming into this world! Yay!
(and all the upcoming pics of other babies that people are having!)

* Melanie and Sherry, thanks for the box! I received it in Dar a few days ago and I absolutely love it! My address in Singida is:

Stephanie Kimber
PO Box 288
Singida, Tanzania
Via Airmail

Well, I hope everyone is doing well and keeping their jobs... I heard the economy is getting worse day by day... I went to convert some US dollars into Tanzanian Shillings and the rate was 15% lower than it usually is.... I couldn't believe it.

Miss you and love you all very much!