Jess' Blog - May Term Study Abroad Blogs - Global & Multicultural Studies

About Jess
Major(s): Psychology
Hometown: Elkader

5/22/06
Saturday and Sunday were spent at Maasai villages again. Although they tend to be long days, they were both definately a TON of fun. The students from Concordia joined us both days, and we definately had to cram into the Land Cruisers. On one trip home we had 3 vehicles. In one there was 15 people...8 in the backseat. In the one I was in, two were up front, 6 in the middle, an evangelist, his son, a sheep, and all the construction equipment in the back. It put a new meaning to getting close to the person you are sitting by:)

Saturday we visited TwaTwaTwa (isn't that fun to say)?! They were more than excited for us to come, as the class last year had also visited them. We were able to bring them school supplies donated by a student from last year's trip, and had a wonderful church service. After church and the auction, the warriors paraded us around, and then performed their wedding dance. It was a wonderful mixture of chanting, shaking, dancing and jumping. A few of us were able to tape it, and you'll have to ask to see it when we return. It was soooo much fun!

Sunday we were able to go to the dedication of the church we've been helping build. It was a wonderful celebration, with the bishop, and other evangelists we had met throughout the month attending. There were 4 choirs singing, but for the rest of the day, everyone there was singing the Hallelujah song the "Wartburg choir" had performed. It was great to be able to share the gift of music, even with a language barrier. 'Hallelujah' means the same thing even 20 hours from home:)

Today was spent climbing a mountain that can be seen from here at the Seminary as well as the last trip back to the orphanage. Tomorrow morning will be sad, as we say good-bye to all the friends we have met here in the last three weeks, but we are all excited to get to Zanzibar to snorkle, see dolphins, and go on the spice tour. I may not have a chance to blog again while there, but I will post a summary of the whole experience when we are back in the States on Friday afternoon.

Thanks for keeping your thoughts and prayers with us as we spent time learning, growing and reflecting in a new culture half-way around the world. It has been a breathtaking experience every step of the way.

5/19/06
We continue to be busy in our last week at the Seminary. We've split up quite a bit this week, as we have all been given the opportunity to spend time with the activities we enjoy most. We have spent 3 days this week helping build a church that last year's Wartburg group helped fund. It's fun to watch Phil and Jessie see who can climb ladders higher to paint the top of the gable. Megan, and I have spent our time varnishing every inch of wood in the inside of the church. A long task, but a very gratifying one. Bwana Fred has demonstrated excellent construction skills in making pew after pew.

Fun has been had outside the construction site as well. Chellie has taken a few days to spend with the kindergartners here at the Seminary, and they seem to really enjoy her presence. She's going to be a great teacher someday. Zach and Kali have also enjoyed the school approach attending high school classes also here at the Seminary. Chelsea and Bri seem to fit right in on the farm, as they have looked forward to milking cows among their busy day. Shireen along with a few others has gone back to Faraja, going on more home visits with AIDS patients and visiting schools to hand out supplies with a Social Worker. We have also enjoyed more visits to the orphanage. While this isn't a complete summary of our week, it gives you a glimpse at what we have been up to. We were joined last night by 4 students and a professor from Concordia in Minnesota, and it will be fun to get to know them as we travel to villages together this weekend.

5/15/06
The weekend was full of excitement, as we did lots of traveling and had our fair share of adventure. Friday we traveled through the rainforest to the mountain area where Pastor Haferman did two weddings and a baptism during the service. It was great to see new countryside, although the 4 1/2 hour ride each way had us grabbing on to cardoor handles as we bumped all over the place. My appreciation for paved roads was reinforced yet again yesterday as we did some off-roading to a Masaai village. By off-road I not only am covering the corn fields and pastures we drove through, but also the river we got stuck in. We safely, but accidently, slid down a mud embankment and got stuck, but with the help of people from the village we were near and the other land rover we were able to tow the vehicle out without too much delay. The mud on our clothes from falling, or standing behind the spinning tires re-defined us showing up for church in our Sunday best! The difficulty in traveling was more than worth it though as Pastor Haferman baptised 61 Maasai at the service. He had to promise to come back again, as more wanted to be baptised, but the service needed to get started after 4 hours of baptism registrations.

Saturday was also quite exciting as we traveled to a cattle market. It was neat to see the traditional dress of many members of the Maasai villages, and we had the opportunity to eat a few legs of a goat that had just been bought that morning.

Today we traveled into Morogoro, where we learned more about Faraja-the AIDS organization in the area. We spent the day meeting people with AIDS and even went along on a home visit with Dr. Lucy. It was interesting to talk to women who have already lost husbands to AIDS, have children with AIDS and are suffering from the disease themselves. We also were able to meet with the ELCT Bishop while we were in town.

We are staying busy as ever, and are trying to cram as much stuff into our last week as possible. Ask anyone when we get back, and we'll be able to tell you more of our exciting stories!

5/10/06
Today was the last day of language school, a rather bitter sweet day. Some of us have enjoyed the 5-hour Swahili lessons more than others, but we have all benefited from the experience. We were split into groups of 3 or 4 students per instructor, but all concentrated on the same material. It has been fun to get to know our instructors and learn the language while visiting with them about cultural differences. It has also been enjoyable to see the role reversal in Dr. Strickert being a student instead of a professor. My language group especially enjoyed watching him take his final test today. It was rather amusing. Also amusing, was Phil's inpromptu race with my language school teacher, who has a reputation as a very fast runner. Phil beat him in the 30m dash, but in Alan's defense, he has been down with malaria the last few days. Not much for bragging rights, if you ask me.

We have also been quite busy outside our studies in language school. Sunday we traveled to a juvenile prison, where Pastor Haferman was to be preaching. We received a warm welcome as their American guests, and enjoyed a 2 1/2+ hour church service with some beautiful music. Well, their music was beautiful. "The Wartburg Choir" as they referred to us was also asked to sing, so we did our best to pull together the Love Round. After church they had an auction to buy musical instruments, such as drums, a keyboard and a guitar for their choir, and we quickly learned how to bid in Swahili. We somehow managed to buy everything in the auction, often times only outbidding one another. It was wonderful to see such an active church on a prison base, and see members from surrounding villages who had walked there to take part in the service.

Yesterday after class we listened to a local doctor who primarily deals with AIDS patients. She gave us a ton of information about the populations affected, the education available on the AIDS crisis, as well factors leading to the contraction of the disease. It was startling to hear that she herself has over 700 patients, and in some regions of Tanzania, the doctor to patient ratio is 1:300,000. It gave us plenty to think about, as we will be breaking into groups and going on home visits with her starting next week.

We also have been able to make a few more trips back to the orphanage the last few days. With our newly learned Swahili we are able to count their fingers and toes with them, as well as look at paintings and name animals we saw at Mikumi. Although we can't understand everything they say, the joy in their voices when they see us coming is unmistakable.

Other opportunties here on campus have included playing cards, and learning other games from the people staying here, as well as sharing songs in both English and Swahili as we gather in the common room. Last night we had a massive showing/sing-along of "Lion King" with our language teachers, and the campus nurse and her husband who are originally from the States. We had a good laugh over the constant repetition the phrase Asante Sana Squashed Banana, now knowing that Asante Sana simply means, thank you very much! This afternoon, I also went over to the secondary school where I played volleyball in pretty much a mud pit with a bunch of the school boys. It was great!

With the exception of the few who got food poisoning, we are all in good spirits and doing well. We are looking forward to the next few days when we will visit secondary school classes here on campus, make more trips to the orphanage, and will wrap up the week Friday with a trip through the rainforest to a wedding we are attending.

5/6/06
Day 6 and we are still going strong!

After spending the first day getting acquainted with the Lutheran Junior Seminary campus we were excited to get started with a routine Thursday. It's not extremely hard getting up in the morning when the roosters start crowing at 3:30! After breakfast, we headed to language school where we spent the majority of our day Thursday. Swahili is not an easy language, but it is fun to be able to make basic conversation with those around the campus. Following afternoon tea, we walked to the orphanage about 30-minutes away. Although there was a language barrier, we formed a bond with the kids that's unlike others I have had. The kids were so excited to see us that a few of us were honestly peed on. We had a great time holding them, blowing bubbles in their faces and running around before we had to head back to campus. Despite the 30-minute walk there, I know we will be spending a considerable amount of our time with the kids at the orphanage. We'll just have to remember to wear dark colored clothing next time!

After class on Friday we headed to the Mikumi game park to do some real playing with the animals...lions, elephants, giraffes, impala, wildabeests and much more! We were taken care of better than I could imagine, with a multiple course meal under the stars after driving around the park for hours looking at the wildlife. We headed back out to the park again this morning for more adventures in creation. I think I saw enough giraffes to cover one a day for the next five years!

5/3/06
Hujambo!

Greetings from Tanzania! The 11 members of the class on the Churches Response to the AIDS crisis in Africa arrived safely in Tanzania last night around 10 p.m. with no major difficulties and no lost luggage! We definately were blessed with amazing travel.

6 of us left Waverly around 9 a.m. Monday morning for the Waterloo Airport and had a short connecting flight to MSP where we met the rest of our class. We had no trouble getting to our layover location, Amsterdam, where the adventure began. Because of the 4-hour layover, Dr. Strikert told us we were free to explore the airport and/or the city, although it was only 6:30 a.m. A group of 9 of us decided quickly to exchange money, buy train tickets and make our way to Central Station in Amsterdam. After attempting to use an electronic train ticket machine programmed in Dutch, we hopped what we thought was the train and arrived at our destination 30 minutes we later. We spent about an hour running around the central area of the city, admiring the architecture, and canals, and observing the way of life as people around us bustled to work and school. We got back to the station to find out that our tickets weren't valid, as we had been riding the metro, not the train. We were pointed in the right direction, and got back to the airport with plenty of time to spare.

Our flight to Tanzania was much larger than I had anticipated, but was not full so a few members of the class had a chance to spread out and get some sleep. After a stop in Arusha, we arrived at our destination, the capital, Dar es Salaam around 10 p.m. As soon as we stepped off the plane, I was amazed by the immediate change in climate. Pastor Haferman was waiting at the airport, and we were bused to the Lutheran Seminary in the city for a short night's rest. The bus ride was incredible. There is so much to see.

This morning we got up, and were on the road again by 6:30 for the bus ride to the Seminary in Morogoro-where we will be staying for the next few weeks. We received a warm welcome when we arrived around 10 this morning. The 8 women were shown a house about 10 minutes from the main campus where they will be staying, and the two guys and Dr. Strikert are staying in the dorms. We just finished a wonderful lunch of pork, potatos, beans, cabbage and carrots, and watermelon, and were given a chance to rest, unpack, and clean-up before we have a tour of campus and attend our first church service in Swahili. We will jump right into routine first thing tomorrow morning, when we start language classes.

I'm more than excited to learn the language and talk to the people residing here. It will definately be an experience unlike any I've had before. I'm already amazed by the people, especially their ability to balance almost anything on their heads as they walk along the road. I also won't get tired of seeing the wildlife, such as the baboon we passed on the side of the road this morning. I'll keep you informed as our class has the chance to indulge in this wonderful culture!

4/13/06
Hi! My name is Jessica Wilke and I am a 4th year Psychology major from Elkader, Iowa. I'm super excited to be going to Tanzania this May with Dr. Strickert and the other members of our class. We are planning on spending the majority of our May Term abroad in a Massai village near Morogoro and then finishing up the month with a few days on Zanzibar. It should be a good time.

In preparation for the trip we have been meeting as a class to talk about the AIDS crisis in Africa, and the culture of the Masaai people as well as learning a few need-to-know phrases in Swahili. It has been great to have the chance to get to know my classmates a little better before we leave and learn more about the culture and environment we will be living in for a month.

I am especially looking forward to the language school and the interactions we will have with the youth. I feel that our class has a wonderful opportunity to be not only ambassadors of Wartburg and America, but ambassadors of Christ. I am also looking forward to visiting the game park. I will keep you updated on our travels, as we go across the world.