magda's travels

After a year at home in San Diego I picked up and moved to Tanzania, so I thought I would dust off the old blog again so I could keep people up-dated on my life. But as always its content is not a reflection of the U.S. government, Peace Corps or anything else.

Friday, January 22, 2010

You know you live in Africa when...

T. I. A.  is something you hear tossed around a lot here.  It stands for This Is Africa.  And there are definitely a lot of great stories that end that way.  So as I am starting to get more acquainted with my new home I thought I would share a few quick ones.

I live a few kilometers from the edge of Ngorongoro Crater so when my friend Christy and I go for walks at six am we try to be very cautious about where we go, but when we went out in the middle of the day we did not expect to end up face to face with a Bull Elephant but then T.I.A.

Today I had the clinic confirm that I have my second round of parasites in the last two weeks.  T.I.A.
Best part about that is when I asked the doctor if it was a large infection or small he said.  Well, it isn't too big, but when you see a hippo in a pond you don't jump in to find out how big it is you just walk away.  I -laughed my butt off- and said ok.


New Year's Eve I spent drinking some wine with the volunteers until midnight when people from the nearby settlement showed up with drums singing and dancing.  It was amazing we ran out to the gate to meet them and danced and chanted some songs with them.

There are always different moments you experience living abroad that trigger a strong reminder that you are ... where ever it is that you are.  Seeing peanut butter in the foreign food isle in German grocery stores would always make me smile; but for me it's staring out the window as I travel that is when I fall in love with the new country I am living in.  In Germany I could stare out the train window for hours, in Azerbaijan it was the mini bus (even as I was bumping along) I would love to watch the terrain change in front of me, in Tanzania it is the same thing.  Driving on the tarmack from Arusha to Karatu I am blown away each time at what is out my window.  It's not just the giraffes or baboons that I may see as I pass that remind my I live in Africa.  It's not just the poor cows I saw dead and dying a few months ago before the rains came -- or how different the landscape is after any change in weather.  It isn't even simply how the green pops off the red dirt (although I do love that).  I really think it is all of that mixed with the vastness that reminds me of where I am.