pausa!

our classroom has fun pictures that we draw on the wall! 

Right now I am in a "pausa" a small break in the middle of my spanish class. we are working a lot these days. things really picked up after the break, which is really nice because truthfully i really was almost not working. because of my classes, i spend my time doing grammar worksheets, listening to music, and watching movies. today i have a test, a quiz and a response paper due! crazy work! 

tudu bem? tudu bem!

brazil:

i feel in love with brazil. it is a city on the ocean (a wonderful nod to cape town) but this time instead of being cradled by just mountains, it is the beautiful jungle. THE JUNGLE. oh my word it was incredible. eloquence has escaped me in describing the city because the greatness of it has made me revert to my elementary instincts. while there i drank açai juice at least twice a day. i ate steaks, went to the beach, listened to samba and spent time with 7 other lovely ladies. to think that 8 girls could go on a trip together and not want to kill every single other one before the end of the trip is incredible. we stayed for 4 nights in copacabana in a gorgeous penthouse apartment that i dont know how we snagged. it was rooftop and 3 blocks away from the beach. we had an outdoor shower. i WILL live n a house with an outdoor shower. its not a question. it is something i prioritize i'm pretty sure. on our first day in the city we started the day off right with fresh fruits and juice, a bit of morning work to free up the rest of the vacation and headed over the see Cristo Redentor, the large jesus statue that guards the city which we lovingly refer to now as "Big Jesus". Whilst waiting for the train up the mountain, we ate corn on the streets and made friends with a local woman at a grocery store/ bakery while enjoying fresh coconut water and pão de queijo: delicious yuca bread filled with cheese. we did more sight seeing and ended up going out to the area Lapa, a nightlight district like ive never seen before. they sell drinks on the streets, kabobs of meat sizzling at stands, music blaring and then you go into these clubs and are engulfed by samba music. trumpets, percussion, clapping, stomping, hips, sweat: it was all so much to take in. after dancing like the unabashed white girls we are, some locals taught us to dance the samba in a dialect we made up that is a combination of spanish, english, and portuguese. i am not saying that i can dance the samba, but i know how it should look. needless to say the rest of our trip to rio was incredible.
after being there for 4 days we took a bus to the beach town of buzios. again, i had my heart stolen by this gorgeous city on the water. it was touristy as anything but i dont even care. it was wonderful. we stayed in a hostel on the water, i got up every morning and went for runs on the beach with my friend gaby, directly followed by dips in the ocean and açai, then more fruit and a short bus ride to a white sand beach and crystal clear ocean with waves and corn on the beach. ugh, recounting it makes me salivate. i'm pretty sure as long as i am in or around the water, everything else could be terrible and i would still be happy. any beach is just the best place in the whole world.

emily prepping for a breakfast of real champions 

view from cristo redentor

big jesus

a casual brazilian lunch. they said it was portioned for 2...

giving buzios some lovin

rio rio rio

this was the view from my hostel steps... 

we asked for a picture con muchas muchas carne

sugar loaf: the beautiful monolith that towers over the coast of rio

some of the ladies

chinchin con meat

me and sabina on beautiful rio steps

fail jump shot a big jesus 

*i am still developing my film. the photo credit goes to gaby sena

its been a while

so it is not like last semester when i was constantly updating, but my absence should read as "im having a great time"....

went to tea when seanie was here!

i hang out at fun graffiti bars with my friends

there is so much corn on the beach! how could i not love it!

this is all pre my trip to brazil of which i will comment more on in just a bit:

pre brazil updates: 

never before in my life have i had so much free time while still feeling productive. i feel like the luckiest girl in the whole entire world. i am taking interesting classes. i have classes that start at 11 and end every day at 5. i go to the movies during the week. i do all my homework whilst sitting at beautiful cafés that pepper the city. it is actually incredible. i have an incredible and genuine group of friends that i wish to know for much longer than this program extends to. of course i have some complaints but they are minor ie in the style of teaching in some of my classes: im just not used to it. and it is strange to be in classes where clearly not all the students have done the work or just dont say a single word when the teacher poses questions to the class. but i dont care that much. the topics of my classes are interesting and almost always engaging. 

i have not traveled outside the city as much as i would have thought i would but its okay because i am growing very comfortable and familiar with buenos aires. the city itself is incredible and asks to be explored. i keep finding new cafés, new graffiti walls and book stores to enjoy. the city is so conducive to this sort of lifestyle. 

basically killin it

because i am lazy and i don't want to type this stuff out again, here is an excerpt from an e-mail i just sent to mi padre:

...

besides that i had my first test in 9 months today! it was for intensive elementary spanish and i spent close to 12 hours studying for it... i think i over did it, but i cant help it #reedkidproblems and now i can tell you just about every object you would find in an office or classroom and tell the time. i'm basically killin it over here :) 

i tried to tell my host mother than im giving up dulce de leche for lent (basically cuz i dont want another "africa body" as i so fondly call it) which will be hard because that stuff is basically like a carmel-ly liquid deliciousness of a topping the argentines dollop and drip on any sustenance that will accept it - its like salt and ketchup for americans but more of a sugar rush to the melon - she wouldn't have any of it and gave me the tiniest cracker with dulce on it tonight after dinner. her name is silvia and she's adorable and cute. i really love living here. 

I went to the beaches of Cariló this weekend with my new NYU friends. It was a 4 and half hour bus ride which is nothing because the buses here are like first class American Airlines. The seats recline back to a comfortable sleeping position and a friendly hostess checks on you to make sure you are comfortable and if you have enough snacks. i'm taking buses everywhere. anyway the vacay was what id like to call "bitches do the beach". We got there, went grocery shopping for pizza/pasta fixings and more delicious fruit and veggies that would put straubs to shame. We then used said fruit to make champagne clerico (http://www.chow.com/recipes/10326-clerico-sangria-blanco) which we proceeded to drink whilst watching sex and the city for hours as rain soaked our day 1. not to worry tho, we made a bomb pizza, had an early night and woke up at noon to the sun shining and the beach calling our name. We were there for three days and did almost nothing but tan, concoct delicious meals, eat champagne soaked fruit, plan a clueless inspired theme party for later this week and i even wrote a college essay or two. twas very nice to say the very least. 

...

it ends here because the internet does not need to know all about my life and what i write to the fam.

i recently came by an old point and shoot kodak camera which is why the pics are lacking, but hopefully it is worth more than i got it for and by that i mean i hope it works. if it does i will post new photos soon, but here is a strange taste of my life here...

you might think this is a joke, but we got to draw pictures of our classmates and decorate them to hang out our elementary spanish class. this is a classmate's rendering of my good friend brooke (brooke is very beautiful in real life). #wedrawpicturesinmyspanishclass and i love it

beaucoup de choix of snacks on the bus to Cariló

if i didn't have to go to school (which is great too) i wouldn't have left

BUENOS AIRES

im off again!

i really should have posted earlier, but with all the craziness that is trying to move into someone elses house in another city in another country on another continent than the one i'm used to, things get hectic. 

but here are some teasers into what my life has been like so far:

this is my rooom!

a colorful barrio

san telmo street fair

the graffiti here is amazing #casualtagandworksofart

san telmo street fair

im so home!

home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home home

coming back... its strange. but i was ready for it. i can drink from the tap, sleep not under a mosquito net, i still take malarone (whatever), have dairy! its good. ill be home for just over a month before venturing off to buenos aires for the semester. i better start learning spanish yesterday. oh happy holiday fun!

safari fun and loving rwanda

mama's on safari!

surprise visit to maasai village

elephants!

we did safari right this time 

mbuzi mawe camp site! go here!

cute little rwandan babies in a tree

gorilla trekking! see the silverback!

beautiful rwanda

hot spring unofficial tour guide

beautiful garden at lake kivu at the border to congo 

i love it here!

safari and arrival into kigali

oh my gosh. safari was amazing.
mama got in on the 6th and immediately we went to the hotel, toasted to our promised adventures and climbed the emergency stairway to get a view of the arusha skyline. on our 5 day safari we started first at ngorongoro crater. oh my word it was incredible. i've been before but the elephant on the crater rim road the night before our crater tour must have been a sign because we saw it all! all of it! everything we could have asked fore and amazingly close. babboons scampering across the pathways, rhinos close enough to actually see them, lions lounging in the sun, a bijillion buffalos, and sooo much more. we saw it all. it was so great. if you go to tanzania, go to ngorongoro crater. i dont care what they say. the crater is so beautiful and such a strange fishbowl, there must not be anything else like it in the world. upon leaving the crater mama and i visited a maasai village. oh baby, talk about culture shock. we were greeted with lots of grunts, jumps and white beads galore. there is really almost nothing i can say that could describe how awestruck and awkward i felt all at the same time (mama felt similar i believe as well). it was beautiful, uncomfortable, loud, dusty and like nothing ive ever seen before. just us and about 50 maasais singing to us for about 20 minutes. ill post pictures, i can't do it justice. i can't even try. just incredible. also if you go to tanzania, stay in tented lodges in the serengeti. like daymn. :) no joke, after a drive thru the serengeti, it seemed only appropriate to stay in tents hidden by huge rocks in a camp site peppered with buffalos, lions and bmuzi mawe. we loved it. we wanted to stay another day but couldn't cancel our next stay in lake manyara.

ngorongoro: everything you want to see
tents: the best place i might have stayed in my life.

no im in kigali.
mama and i arrived here just a few hours ago. we road in our Rwandair flanked on every side by the Rwanda national soccer team! such nice guys. ton will be so jealous. i didn't know that french was the national language of rwanda tho and tried to speak kiswahili to them... pole. one guy told us, "welcome to the beauty of africa". im taking his word for it. everyone we have met here is so sweet and friendly. the city is beautiful on rolling hills and to think this county is recovering from a so recent genocide. the people here are just beautiful. i can already tell i won't want to leave after just a few days. 

all alone in a big dirty city!

on my own in arusha. its a strange feeling being completely by oneself in such a strange town that i think i truthfully hated for a long time. however, my feelings of hate have since given way to acceptance and simple delight in many of the aspects i despised.

 i fondly refer to arusha as the armpit of africa, not just because there is such a buildup and transfer of sweat in everyday life here, but because it is definitely the most physically unattractive city (on the whole) that i might have ever visited,strangers are seemingly rude and often make fun of me for my funny accent when trying to speak swahili and when walking down the streets i am often yelled at, followed and groped. for all these reasons, you must understand why i did not immediately fall in love with the city. volunteers would say that they liked arusha because it made everywhere else seem that much better. i think that is a terrible reason to like arusha; and when i heard this, i think it made me dislike arusha even more. however, for some reason my feelings have swayed more positively in the past week and a half. why might you ask? i actually believe since my program ended i have been much happier in arusha living like a normal backpacker in a shitty, cheap but adorably great hostel in the middle of town off the busiest street, sokoine rd. sokonie rd, before living in meru house, was probably my least favorite part of town in my least favorite town. but now i feel a solidarity towards the town and the street people that i was missing at mama's. at mama's, we were always worried about the bad things that were happening outside the gate. mama's was a sanctuary from all the cheating, lying and dirty people who we were warned would take advantage of us at any time and to think otherwise would be letting your guard down and then you would get mugged. plain and simple. but that is so not the case. yeah the town is noisy and dirty, but its strangely nice. people no longer shout mzungu as much when we walk down and if they do we just look over and smile. if someone gives us shit, we give it right back. living in town has become so fun! i love being a dirty arusha backpacker. my feet are just as dirty as they have always been, my clothes are probably dirtier, but im happier and more excited here now than i think i was at mama's. the freedom to do what we want also probably has something to do with it. (*we has been refering to me and anniken, who left me just yesterday and now im here all by myself :)) arusha and me are kinda friends now.

right now my biggest problem is going to be how to show mama that side of arusha when a dumb tour company wants to not let us go on daladalas? :) 

out of there

me and anniken are out of mamas! its so weird, but so far its sooo fun. our last day of school was on wednesday and it was so cute. the kids all wore their sunday bests and played all day. we were then treated to a feast of biscuits (plain bland cookies), fanta, corn flakes and some stale popcorn. it was wonderful. since it was the end of the school year, the kids who preformed exceptionally well got presents (paper and a pencil) before going home. im so proud of the kids! their english has improved even since we arrived and it is so great to see them so confident in what they are saying. i swear tho, this one girl, Zamzam, she didn't say a single word  for the entire month, wore a head scarf and would never finish her work. on wednesday, she had braids in her hair, a bright pink dress with floral piping and more attitude than i would have ever imagined. i think just the idea of school really scares the shit out of some of these kids. it was so nice to see so much confidence.

anyway, it was sad to say goodbye to mama. she has been so good to us and more than generous in so many ways. on our last night there, she gave anniken and i kongas, patterned wraps that women here wear either around their waist or on their heads, with "where the is love, god is near" written in swahili. she was so sad to see us go, she really loves having people around her so she says that she is always sad to see anyone go. but after leaving, anniken and i checked into a 7 dollar a night hostel in downtown arusha. sounds much worse than it is. our room is massive. much bigger than our one at mama's and we have our own bathroom and a great mosquito net! it is incredible! we have a view of mt meru out on of the windows if you lean and a balcony! for 7 bucks! africa, man! unreal. its also got a great roof terrace and if you climb up a really sketchy ladder you can get to the very top of the roof and have a 360 degree view of arusha... but also all the lies beyond. it is incredible. we went up and watched the sunset with a bunch of other american that are staying there and then danced the night away at a local bar nearby. not too shabby. anniken, an adorable 19 yr old norwegian girl who was also at mamas with me, arrived on the same day as me and is leaving on the same flight as me, is my traveling bud/ accomplice for the next week until my real mama comes!!! yay!!! im so excited! mama needs to ride in a daladala. itd be too funny. hopefully its full of goats or chickens or maasai or a communal baby is being passed around. ill miss the dalas. 

reverse culture shock

the other girls and i often go to lunch at these few cafes in arusha that most other mzungus also go visit. we frequent a handful of them and have started to go quite often now that placement is over. we saw a few days ago that there was a poster for a christmas market just outside of town. we, having absolutely nothing to do, decide to make our way there. with the help of a very friendly local woman we finally found the right daladala to get on and took it about 20 minutes outside of town just past the airport. this landed us right in the middle of nowhere east africa, but we saw a sign that signaled us down a random dirt road and we took that path. we figured it couldnt be too far and just started walking. we do lots of walking so the thought wasn't daunting or strange. we walked for a good 20 minutes and noticed a bunch of other mzungus going that way in nice big land cruisers and then one stopped and a handsome guy with an australian accent asked us if we could use a lift. we aren't the type to typically get into cars with anyone, you just can't do that here, but it seemed nice enough, however we declined and said we were enjoying the walk. 5 minutes later we were still walking and regret began to sink in. but no worries, another car pulled up just after we began to lament our decision and offered to give us a ride. thank god. it was still about another 10 minutes driving like a bat out of hell. the guy was a big time hotel developer from cape town and owns a swanky hotel here in town. he was nice enough to buy our way into the market and proceeded to spend the rest of the time at the wine and cheese bar. but i skip ahead. we pull up to gates with southern accented people taking tickets and wishing us welcome... what the fuck. well dressed white people had taken over the rugby field and suddenly we blended in. i looked around. it was so clean. everything. the grass was cut. there was grass. babies were in strollers. people wore boots and openly talked on their phones and took pictures. we were all stunned. we thought of the christmas market like the maasai market we go to where you literally are pulled into shops, constantly yelled at and promised to only receive "non-mzungu price. rafiki price" while you stare at the same beaded necklace over and over again. it was incredible. we didn't know what to do with ourselves. we were giddy. it was so strange. we spent the day walking thru small shops of boutique safari clothing, beautiful iron and wood working, face painting stations and food booths. we ate wraps with lettuce in them (!!!), drank cold white wine under umbrellas and were graced with a breath taking view of the ever shy mount meru all afternoon. we were able to again hitch a ride not back to town but back to our house! it is crazy. the people were all so nice. just so so nice. we went back today and did exactly the same thing. it was such a good weekend. it was just so strange, i feel weird that i enjoyed it so much. but arusha is a hard city to live in and this strange break from being harassed every moment and disapproving stares and constantly watching my bag and body was very much appreciated. i still cant believe we found that place... i wonder where all the people are on the day to day because because in our house, at 3 restaurants and in the mirror are basically the only places i see white people. 

zanzibar, school closings and happy thanksgiving

so much has happened since my last posting.

i got sick and had to take cipro. it sucked. however am feeling much better.

i went to zanzibar with some 3 very great ladies from canada and one from scotland.

more on zanzibar:
i arrived in zanzibar on a precision air flight only to be engulfed by the butter-consistency humidity that coats the island and met by the girls in a private dala to take us to our lodgings in kendwa - a small town on the north end of the island. it is a beautiful spot with almost no town but pristine white sand beaches. we woke up on our first morning to find sun and a well stocked buffet of mangoes, papaya and hard boiled eggs. it started to sprinkle shortly after we gorged ourself on the plenties of african breakfast cuisine, but we didn't let this deter us in one bit. the rain was warm and the ocean warmer. we spent the morning swimming in the wave-less indian ocean and getting henna on our feet from silk-draped women on the beach. we finished the afternoon off with some sun and happy hour cocktails on the dunes. not a bad first real day in paradise.
the rain was already coming down the next morning when we woke in our treehouse bungalow, but again we didn't let it get to us and sat under canopies of palm leaves and read our books on the beach for house punctuated by quick naps and dips in the ocean. in the afternoon we played volleyball on the beach with some other hotel goers and locals who had just finished a work out at the "gym" (the gym is one set of barbells and a complicated monkey bar set, it looked harder than any work out ive ever done). twas very nice. this puts us at saturday night which is the biggest party night in kendwa and the party was at our backpackers. we had a barbeque on the beach beforehand of lobster, prawns, mahi mahi and so much more fresh fresh seafood. then we danced into the night only to be woken up by perfect sun the next morning. we swam away any reminders of the night before and were having such a good time doing it, we all ended up crispy by the end of the day. it was such a nice place to stay, i even ended up meeting some other kids from the states who we just happened to have mutual friends from school! its a tiny world.
we ended up catching a shuttle to stone town that evening. im in love with stone town. it is a unesco protected historical site so everything there is so old and wonderful. one of the girls, lauren, and i spent the day planning how to walk all around the city to see everything and visit every museum we had our eyes on, but only to be contradicted when after visiting a giant catholic church that served as a main slave holding site in the past our church guide offered to show us around all day to wherever we wanted to go for only USD$10. score! im so glad we had him (elvis was his name), because much like venice was, stone town is a maze of cobblestone streets just wide enough for two to easily pass thru and where maps would be more confusion than helpful. we saw it all, painted with local artists, found spices, ate falafel and hummus, and absorbed as much of we could of the vibrant town that is stone town. we topped off the trip with a visit to the night food market, i got a rock lobster spiced pizza, which was essentially a crepe with lobster, egg, spices, and a bit of cheese, cooked to a crisp on both sides and then cut like a pizza. my favorite meal ive had in tanzania. it was so delicious!
the next morning we caught the 7am ferry from stone town to dar es salaam and drove the 10 hours back to the always rough arusha. needless to say, i would have much rather stayed.

i had my last day of school! i got back on tuesday night and went to school that following morning. it was a normal day. the kids had exams the day before so we were just going over their tests and singing songs to fill in the free time. after break one girl started singing under her breath, "no schuul tomarrow no schuul tomarrow", i corrected her and told her this was not the case. she corrected me again. i went outside and asked a teacher, she didn't know. we found the director sitting, doing nothing in his office. he had forgotten to tell us there would be no school. its funny how things work in africa. surprise last day of school! it was so sad and sweet. we walked back into the classroom after talking to the dim director and we told the kids the bad news. some started to cry and others stared with blank look then one kid, derek (the kids call him "dereki") slowly broke out in the hokey pokey, the song i taught them during my first week which has since become our unofficial class song. it was so damn cute. we danced the hokey pokey for the last fifteen minutes of school and then off on the packed bus again one more time. it was good. 

chasing waterfalls

me getting the board ready for a class on the parts of a plant

this is just the afternoon baby bus with Anniken in the backseat too. there are about 3 times as many kids in the morning squeezed into this little van. 

this is dereki, hes a trouble maker but so cute. 

last weekend we went to moshi and did a waterfall hike. we had to trek thru banana fields to get there.

moshi waterfall!

a day in the life

6:00 AM: wake up to my alarm clock or Andrea coming in and telling me i've slept in too late. roll out of bed to eat a slice of white bread with jam and drink a cup of joe

6:30 AM: out the door with Anniken and Andrea. walk up the street to where the "bus" comes and picks us up with only a few students in the bus which is actually a minivan that would normally fit 8 people. we fit about 30 small children into the damn thing. bounce down the road. pick up a few more kids.

7:00 AM: get out of the bus around a banana patch and walk with 3 other teachers thru a maze of funny shack houses, bananas and cement gardens. the walk is just over 45 minutes. mzungu is yelled at almost every corner. mzungu means white person. we are just the only white people on that side of town. ive never seen another there yet.

7:45 AM: arrive at school. sit and watch the students play on the "swing set". the swing set is a bar with chains on it that the kids tie together and then sit on their backpacks as a cushion. many play animals in the grass in front of the school.

8:00 AM: the kids all line up and do morning exercises, tell stories to the school in english, sing their school song and pray. then we all go into class and start teaching. they learn english, math, science, vocational skills, handwriting, and kiswahili.

8:30 AM: the kids from the bus arrive and being to catch-up.

10:15 AM: break time. the kids get a cup of porridge and we teaches leave the class to enjoy a cup of sugar tea and either 2 massive fried mendazi rolls each or 4 pieces of white bread each. its too much but we can't say no. it would be too rude. class starts up again at 11.

12:15 or 12:30 PM: we get into the bus again with the baby school and head back to down town. we are dropped off at a dala stop and catch a dala back to down. the trip takes about 25 minutes. we either take it to the dala station and catch another to go home for lunch with mama or we then get off and walk to get lunch at another spot in town. then we nap or read.

we could stay until 4 and get home at 6 but normally we just do the mornings because the kids mainly do kiswahili after class and one of the employed teachers teaches that due to our lack of swahili.

once home we normally now run up and down mama's driveway, nap, read or go to the internet cafe. its a nice way to end an always hectic morning.

6:00 PM: mama serves dinner. it is always good. it is always a lot but what can you do. its africa.

then we normally read more. talk. talk to people on skype.

9:00 PM: we are normally in bed by now passing out. this day wears me out every time. its nice tho.

african foods: the good, the bad and the fried

my african mama is making me fat. i swear. the portion sizes she serves up are not only massive but fried mostly. its delicious, do not get me wrong, but how does one go about telling a very generous african woman and proud cook that you just cannot eat all that she makes. if you know me, you know that i am not shy about my food intake and love food (including the majority of african dishes now added to the list) however i am thinking that for the life of me i would love it if i didn't have to eat something fried for just one day of being in tanzania. legitimately i eat something fried for almost every meal of every day and my body does not want that. i dont want that. its good but i just dont eat fried food that much. also mama keeps coming into the kitchen when we are eating and telling us we must not like her cooking and that she must be a bad cook due to our birdlike intake of her cooking. it is delicious but to eat the portions mama eats herself would be undesirable to say the least. it would probably be easier to deal with if we didn't have to eat FOUR meals a day, but because we are volunteers people want to show us that we are appreciated and give something to us. for example at school the teachers give us two massive fried dough balls roughly the size of my fists or bigger which we have no choice but to eat both and all of it because otherwise it is essentially a slap in the face to the teachers, the cooking and the school. it is the same principle with mama as to why we cant eat smaller portions. its a huge dilemma in the house and none of us know what to do: not eat as much and have mama be actually angry at us or eat it all and feel nasty...? bah! #whitegirlproblems

safari

there are elephants behind me

this is lake manyara national park. it was our first day of safari and the sun beat down on us like it was tanzania in the summer time... the shade provided by the 92' land cruiser we blasted thru the countryside in was not sufficient

there arent naturally camels in tanzania but this maasi man explained to us that they were given to his family as a gift from a british family who lives on some maasi land

a good spot to have lunch before the storm 

wildebeest crossing 

no zoom

no zoom 

going into ngorongoro crater on day 4. nothing but wild life down here

camping on the crater rim and waking up to a mist-laden crater below us

maasi women welcoming us to their village 

making new friends 

maasi warriors jump and grunt to display their strength to the maasi women 

maasi warriors running across the open ngorongoro to relieve the young boys that normally watch the cattle and donkeys as a massive african storm sets in

giraffes literally just chilling on the side of the road

dirty, wind burnt, tired but not wanting to leave a moment early 

the safari crew