Yes, I'm still alive...

I know, I know, I sort of appeared to drop off the face of the Earth for a while, but truth be told, I have so many things that I am thinking about pertaining to my experiences here that it has become exceedingly difficult to write and express myself without appearing shallow, incomplete, or petty. I will continue to be authentic and honest about my thoughts, maintaining that it will be an incurably incomplete description of what I am learning.

Thoughts from the Ngorongoro Crater:

I’ve been thinking a lot about our trip to Ngorongoro crater as I’ve been talking to other LCCT participants about our thoughts on the experience so far. So far, I’ve been kind of coming up with a big metaphor as to our trip up to the crater, our day there, and what I am thinking some of the rest of my experience will be like. Certainly it will not be perfectly accurate, but they are a guess, and more importantly, they are what have been on my mind all day today.

I entered this program rather blindly. Sure, I’ll study abroad! Sure, I’ll go to Africa! Sure, I’ll enter a country where I do not know the language nor very much about the society! Optimism abounds. But I sort of had an idea as to where I was going, and that allowed me a few moments of calm when I actually got on the plane and started flying East. This is sort of like what driving up the side of the crater felt like. I had an idea about where I was going, I had a pretty good idea about what kinds of things were going to be there once I arrived, but I didn’t really know much more than that, and to top it all off, we could not see more that 8 feet in front of us during some parts of the trip. Talk about going in blindly!

Once we started learning about what the crater means to Tanzania as far as the tourism industry, grazing area for the Maasai and the politics behind that, and other facts, it became more than just a flippant, ‘oh sure, this would be fun,’ thought process. The same goes for what I was learning at TCDC and from Gemma. The more I was learning about Tanzania and the people here, the more I became aware of how important it was to value every moment that I am here, because my Western education provides a flimsy representation of the life here is actually like.

As we arrived at the top of the crater, we could finally start to see the place that we were headed. Then it became that much more real – I’m actually going to see zebras and lions and sweet stuff like that! We got off the plane and showed up at TCDC, we were actually in Tanzania, and I started to understand that my best friend is no longer a twenty minute drive away, my boyfriend and I won’t see each other for five months, and that if my Nana passes away while I’m here, I won’t be able to go home for the funeral. The fog lifted all around us, and we could see for miles and miles in every direction, and it was beautiful. My loved ones are at home, thousands of miles away, and although I won’t see them for five months, it isn’t too scary of a prospect as it was before.

The whole time that we were in the crater, it was amazingly beautiful, but we were still separated from what was outside of our window. There was a constant lens through which were viewing the animals, and there has been a constant lens through which we have been experiencing Tanzania as well. We are here, walking around and looking at everything, but we also know that in 5 months we are going home, which automatically limits our experience. Sitting and cradling children who have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS pains my heart, and it made me sick to my stomach to be grateful about leaving the nursery school.

On the way up out of the crater, we went to the hotel that costs 1,500 per night per person. I sort of think that my thoughts and disgust at my views of the hotel/resort is gong to be a lot of the same thoughts that I will have once I go back to the states. I know that I am already very critical about how much money I have spent while I’ve been here, and I know that I am gong to be even more critical of what money I spend from this point out simply because I am not earning anything these next 5 months. When I go home, especially because we are going home at Christmas time, I am pretty sure the materialism and frustration will be overwhelming.