England!

This will be the briefest of brief updates...
I HAVE A JOB! I'm working at a hotel up in Newcastle!!!
The address is:

Jessica Scott
Knowesgate Hotel
Kirkwhelpington
Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Northumberland
NE19 2SH
UK

So, feel free to send me things as long as they will get there by July 23rd, and I'll write shortly when I get a mobile phone number!

Love ya'll!

Leaving Africa? NEVER.

Hello world. Tomorrow I am "free", finished with the program here in Tanzania and once again released into the wild... be afraid, be very afraid... but now, at this moment, I am suffering from intensely mixed feelings, as Tanzania has definately become home to me and the folks that I've met are some of my best friends... yet at the same time, I'm heading off in about a week on an entirely new adventure in London. I am speaking Kiswahili better than I ever have, the people in town have begun to see me as more of a local than a foreigner (BROAD spectrum), and I'm really enjoying spending time with the other students and traveling around town and knowing in general what to expect. A lot of folks are heading out to Dar and Zanzibar this upcoming week before going home, but as I don't have enough time really I'm going to hang out around Arusha and go see my homstay mama, do some tourist shopping, and generally be a bum until about Tuesday. On Tuesday or Wednesday, I'm headed up to Nairobi and will spend a few days with Judy, my friend Helen's cousin, who I met when I was in Kenya for "the removal". And then comes Friday, when I board a plane and head to London, the most expensive place in the world, where I will have to remember to speak english; won't be able to talk to random people on the streets; won't be able to stare and point at anyone I want; will have to actually use public transportation on a schedule; can't pick my nose in public; will have access to a real toilet with real toilet paper at any time; and will need to find a job and place to live really fast. Not to mention will stop eating because: 1) I will most likely get sick after eating only african food for 4 months and 2) I won't understand having to pay more than $2 for a full meal. Which is going to be even more of a problem because the dollar is so bad against the pound right now... thanks Bush. If you can't yet tell, I am wicked excited :). Ooo, and I'm seeing Othello at the Globe Theatre the second night in town, which is going to be great!

So I joined this great online community/organization thingy called couchsurfers.org... and this is where if you are related to me in a motherly capacity you should tune out :). Its basically this network of people from all ages all around the world who open up their couches, floor space, spare rooms, etc to travelers coming through their areas for a few nights for FREE! Its a great way to meet new people, and to get an inside view on their city. Also, they have a great reference system where if you get a bad reference from someone who's stayed with you you get kicked off of the system, never to return... ANYWAY, needless to say, this has amounted in me looking for free housing in London rather than paying 14 pounds a night for teh hostel I'm looking at... and I've found it! I shan't tell you details, but this person seems quite reliable, has a spare room that I may even be able to rent out for the summer (maybe), and has a really good location for conducting a job search from. Yes, I realize that this is potentially dangerous, sketchy, questionable, ridiculous, and utterly absurd... but don't forget adventurous, fun, and bound to be a good story no matter what happens. ( and now is your chance to get out the comments you have about this idea... I told you not to read this mothers :))

So, to change the subject, in terms of my return to Africa, I'm already planning it :). I'm CONSIDERING applying for a research grant from Bucknell to come back and work with the organization I was working with in Dar (LEAT) and continue investigating the Usangu conflict, conducting in depth interviews and collecting more information. There is a chance, albeit minor, that I may try to do this as part of a senior thesis and come back over winter break...but if not, then potentially after I graduate next year (scary). I will be back in some capacity however, so that Africa doesn't miss me for too long!

Alright, thats enough to chew on for now. Be back in a few days :)

Back to Arusha

So, here are some pictures of the beach on the coast of Tanzania. As you see in the second picture, you can own cows ANYWHERE... beaches, residential areas, in the middle of the city. I wonder what would happen if I owned a cow and just let it graze on my lawn in a suburb in the states? The third picture is of two of my friends here, Johanna and Rickard. She's from Finland, he's from Sweden, and I met them through LEAT. More about them later... the fourth picture is the lovely form of public transportation I have mentioned before, the dala dala. Looks like a mini van, runs about as well as a hippie van from the 1960s (aka don't turn it off or you have to push it to get it started again), and can fit about 30 people in it...if you are lucky you get a seat, if you are unlucky you are half hanging out the open door... which is quite exhilirating as you speed around other cars, over speed bumps, swerving on a second's notice to avoid potholes... However, for about 20 cents a ride ya can't complain. Too much anyway. :)

Tomorrow I leave Dar es Salaam and head back out to Arusha to finish up my semester. Its crazy to imagine, but next Friday is the last day of my program in Tanzania! I've spent the most consecutive days in a row here in Dar es Salaam out of any place in Africa, and I've made some great friends here, more than anywhere else. I've spent the past two weeks living with Johanna and Rickard (and 2 other swedish girls), because the other woman I was living with was having her boyfriend up from out of town and I didn't want to interfere. It has been great living with other wazungu who appreciate my attempts at cooking american food! I have eaten more cheese during this past month than in my entire time in Africa combined... and I am NOT complaining!

Johanna and I went out on Saturday night to a disco called the Garden Bistro. While discos usually start to get busy around 11 in the states, it took until 1230 for people to start showing up, and dancing didn't really pick up until 1 or 130 in the morning! However, when dancing did start we had a blast! We pretended it was my birthday (which got us a few drinks), and talked to some nice men from Brazil. We ended up getting home at 5am, after finding the only 24 hour pizza place in Tanzania and having our Brazillians buy us a few pies to share, which was great as pizza isn't the cheapest african food :). I love the little moments where you could be anywhere in the world, and its only when you actually stop and think that you realize "Wow, I'm in Africa!".

Anyway, I'm definately sad to be leaving Dar. While it is certainly too hot here, I have really enjoied getting to know the people who work at LEAT. I feel like I am part of the family here, and I think I will end up coming back to visit everyone in the next few years and maybe even working for a short time for LEAT after graduating. This experience has definately raised more ideas about what I could do after Bucknell, which is definately NOT what I needed as I had too many possibilities already :)... such is life as a young adult I guess!

I'm looking forward to seeing the other students on the program, and to hearing what they've been doing for the past month, because there is such a variety of interests in our group that I know everyone will have amazing stories to share. One lucky soul is even going to get to read my entire paper during our peer review process, which turned out to be 35 pages long, by far the longest paper I have ever written. And I still have to start and finish a 10 pager on the Serengeti, which I knew would get put off until the end of this trip but which now (of course) I regret not doing little by little, as well as prepare a presentation to summarize in 20 minutes what I have learned in the past month. Should be a lot of work but I think its managable...

So as of the 18th I am a free soul again. Between the 18th and the 25th I'll be bumming around, not really sure what I'll do yet, I may head up to Nairobi Kenya and actually try to see the city rather than just the hospital :). Or, I may just hang around Arusha for the week, we'll see. On the 25th of May I fly from Nairobi to London, to begin a new adventure in the UK. I still don't know where I am going to work or live, so if you've got any connections anywhere in the UK (England, Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland) and want to put me in touch with them I'd be eternally greatful! Otherwise, I'm going to bum around London for a bit until I find a job in a restaurant or a bar, which shouldn't be too difficult. After 2 months in London, Marge is flying out to join me at the end of July and we're heading to France to catch a stage of the Tour de France, and to either Switzerland or Germany, and then she's heading home and I'll travel through Italy on my own! And then I'll return to the states, to finish up my last year at Bucknell. Crazy to think that a whole new adventure begins in less than 3 weeks... but I'm very confident in my ability to travel and plan on the spur of a moment now so I'm not worried one bit! Talk to you all next time from Arusha!