Not deported!

Yesterday, just one day before leaving Alaska before heading south again to Antarctica, Michiel and I had our dreaded interview with the Department of homeland Security/Department of Immigration for our "Marriage Fraud" interview. Any couple who request a green card after 2 years or less of marriage receive only a conditional permanent residence status. This was the case with us. Michiel received a 2 year green card and, believe it or not, it is time for renewal. (at least for us the time flew by)

We applied for removal of conditions on his residency in January and have been struggling to coordinate the interview appointment with our travel schedule (as you can imagine, explaining that you can't be at an interview in Alaska because you are in Tanzania, Iceland, the Netherlands, etc., etc. is something you can only do once.) We begged the office by US post and phone calls to schedule the appointment before Oct 3, received an appointment for Oct 11 and then finally got our appointment for yesterday.

Over the past 3 months, we have been collecting any evidence of a "real" marriage that we could gather - joint bank statements, beneficiary statements, letters from friends and families attesting to our relationship, photos and joint tax returns, but we were called in for investigation for a fraudulent relationship because we didn't have any of the big items.....mortgage, children, you know....stuff that responsible adults have :)

The interviewer, JR, was a surprisingly atypical federal employee...friendly, helpful and he went above and beyond by doing his background investigation and making a determination DURING the interview rather than afterwards. He appreciated that we were on our way to Antarctica and did everything to be sure that we could leave today.

So you're wondering if he asked us about favorite colors, leaving the seat on the toilet up, which leg he puts into his pants first? He didn't ask any of those things. He DID videotape us, but that was so that his supervisor could evaluate his performance.

He asked us about where we have been in the last several months, why I called from Denver last month, how we met, what we do in Antarctica, what we do in Hope and basically had an easy conversational style that made it easy for us to talk about ourselves.

The real clincher, though, was this weblog. Once we could show real documentation of all the travels we've made together (with photos), he was convinced that we couldn't live this kind of life if we didn't love one another. He also had me translate some of the Dutch on the weblog. When I was able to do that for him, I'm sure he figured that no one would bother to learn Dutch for a "fake" husband!

The result of this positive news is that Michiel will get a 10 year residence permit which allows him to live and work in America. Yahoooooooo!

Tanzania - Chillin' on Zanzibar

With the budget savings accrued over the course of the month, the team decided to fly from Kilimanjaro International Airport outside Moshi to Zanzibar for 4 days of total relaxation on the east coast of the island. Our headquarters was the quiet beach town of Jambiani at the Red Monkey Bungalows. This part of Zanzibar was known for their population of red colobus monkeys, which are not found anywhere else in the world and we were fortunate enough to have a resident family at the bungalows.



The white, sandy beach in front of our hotel disappeared twice a day when the tide came in, but when the tide was out, the water was a gorgeous turquoise.



The view from the dining room at the Red Monkey Bungalows. One of the students getting a henna tattoo. The local women made money by hounding the beach tourists to buy tattoos, hair braids, massages, pareos, shirts, etc.

Jambiani

We left the peacefulness of Jambiani for a Spice Tour and a visit to the historic Stone Town. Zanzibar has long been known for its cultivation of such spices as nutmeg and cloves. Spice tours are a very common way for visitors to learn about how these plants are grown and harvested and, of course to give us a chance to buy souvenirs!

Zanzibar used to be a colony of Oman and, later, Portugal. These influences are evident in the architecture, Islamic religion and conservative culture of the people and the food of Zanzibar and especially in the main city of the island, Stone Town. Stone Town buildings have an incredible variety of hand carved wooden doors and the narrow passageways between buildings make the city a wonderful place to wander aimlessly.









The Old Dispensary (1885) - now the Cultural Centre and the Old Portuguese Fort


Fresh fish, crab, lobster and shark kebabs for sale at the Forodhani Night Market


Faced with years of drought conditions and increasing difficulty maintaining their traditional way of life, many Masaai warriors now come to the cities to sell jewelry and sandals made from tire treads.

Tanzania - Safari Time!

Having survived three strenuous weeks of working, sweating, hiking and food denial, the team started week four of the expedition with a 2 and a half day safari to Ngorongoro Crater and Lake Manyara National Park.

The students chose the safari company and negotiated the price per person. As the Lonely Planet suggested, you do get what you pay for and our budget-priced tour also included the headaches of haggling over extra costs, poorly maintained equipment, disgruntled and unknowledgeable guides (our guide didn't know the difference between a monkey and a baboon) and an itinerary that included a visit to Lake Manyara at a time of day that was not conducive to seeing the majority of the animals.

We were there in the hot, dusty time of the year so the photos are grainy and brown, but you can get a sense of the type of wildlife we saw. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see rhinos or leopards, but the kids were satisfied with the proximity and quantity of critters we did get to enjoy and even with the headaches, they all agreed that they did not regret their choice of safari operator given that the next lowest cost operator would have cost them $56 more per person - money which went towards the purchase of air tickets to Zanzibar (versus a day-long bus ride, then ferry trip to the island).


Lion and lioness



Safari vehicles

Hyena




Pregnant zebra


Wildebeest and zebras often travel together in a symbiotic relationship


Traffic jam


Hippos and flamingos at Lake Manyara. Wish I had a better zoom lens.


Thompson's gazelle


Ostrich


Baboons


Impalas


More elephants


Giraffe

Tanzania - Community Service

The third week of the Tanzanian expedition was dedicated to project work at the Kifaru Secondary School, a 1000 student boarding school in a small village about 45 minutes outside of Moshi. Other World Challenge groups had done work here in the past and, in fact, during the time we were there, two other World Challenge groups did their project work at the neighboring Primary School.

The Tanzanian school system is set up much like the British system - with A-level and O-level (University degree track) programs. The primary schools are mandatory and all classes are taught in Swahili (except for English classes). The reverse is true in secondary schools - all classes are taught in English, except for advanced Swahili classes.

On the first day at the school, we set up our tents, got a tour of the sprawling school grounds (which were on the site of a former German sisal plantation), and met with the headmaster (a man who looked not unlike a stereotypical African dictator) to determine the nature of our servitude.





Anthill


Our team and the headmaster decided that painting the new A-level girls' dormitory was the best project to tackle for the 5 days that we had. The headmaster figured that if we did the labor and paid for the supplies and paints, the money he had received from the government for the project could be put towards building the toilet and shower block behind the dorm. We were a wee bit concerned about the possibility of shady dealings, but construction on the toilet block started as soon as we started painting.

Here are the BEFORE pictures:


Most schools in this part of Eastern Africa use a similar design for the front facade - two colors and a black stripe on the bottom. We worked with the local contractor to finish the inside, front facade and to do a sort of spray stucco on the other three external walls. The red-brick colored spray stucco was cement mixed with dye that was sprayed onto the walls using a manual crank. Hard to explain....see photo, below.

The DURING and AFTER photos - we even had extra time to paint the basketball backboard and soccer goal posts.



Posing with the A-level girls who would soon move in. They were so thankful and happy.

The project phase is often the toughest part of the month because the students have to be self-motivating and organized. It is also very difficult because it is often provides the least comfortable, least hygienic and most rustic (authentic) accommodations of any other phase. We had a small room with a table to prepare and store food and belongings, a toilet (which didn't always work), a water tap (with undrinkable water, of course - none of the tap water in Tanzania is drinkable) and a shower that worked one day out of the week we were there. Additionally, the 5 AM wake-up call for the students, the wandering cattle (one of which gored my tent), goats and vervet monkeys, the heat, the constant curiosity of the students and the lack of sufficient food (the students do all of the shopping and cooking. 'Nuff said.) made the week challenging for everyone.

During this phase, there were other team challenges - like one student who had to be tested for malaria, a teacher who wanted to leave the expedition to go to Kenya, a slit open toe, fighting amongst the two halves of the team about who was doing all the work and how the extra project money was going to be spent and other interpersonal difficulties between me and the other teacher. I was....completely exhausted.

There were a couple of highlights, however. The English part of the team had raised so much extra money for the project that they paid for a big disco party that the students loved. (The rest of their fund-raised money was used to buy food staples for an orphanage in Moshi.) The staff and headmaster of the school invited us to a great feast, where we enjoyed local African and Indian-inspired stews, fruit and lots of soda. (I drank more orange Fanta in one month than anyone should.)

Both halves of the team had purchased gifts for the school in advanced and we were featured in a school assembly so they could present these gifts to the kids. They purchased soccer balls, frisbees, ball pumps, and soccer uniforms.

My Seventh Continent!

AFRICA!

A dream come true...I finally reached my seventh continent and even prior to my 40th birthday (which was my goal) and I got paid for it, as well!

As I wrote earlier, I signed on to work again with World Challenge Expeditions out of London and Boston to lead a group of 9 teenagers and two teachers to northern Tanzania for one month. The group consisted of 4 students and their teacher from a wealthy private school in Palm Beach, Florida and 5 students and their science teacher from a school in Northampton, England.

The individual schools did not have enough students to launch their own expeditions, so World Challenge paired them up and as I was visiting mom in Florida and then visiting family in the Netherlands (just a cheap flight away from England), it was a natural choice for them to assign me as the expedition leader.

Preparation for the expedition started for the students in January of 2006. At that time, the teachers chose a location (in this case, Tanzania) and the students started working on designing an itinerary and raising money for their (very expensive) trip. As it turned out, the American students got almost all of the money from their parents and the English kids raised almost all of it themselves. This was just one of several differences between the 2 groups but one that caused the most problems later on.

I was informed of my placement with this team in late February and started making arrangements to fit our travel plans around the pre-expedition meeting schedule. I met the American kids and their parents at their school in early May and then met the English kids and their parents at the school in late May.

After lots of emails with the teachers to coordinate visas, vaccinations, and transportation for the Build Up day, I said good-bye to Michiel and my father-in-law and headed off to England for 1 day of preparation with the English half of the team. We checked gear, discussed roles and responsibilities and tried to get some sleep on the floor of the teachers' lounge at the school while blocking out the booming bass of the wedding band in the gym next door.

We got a ride to Gatwick the next morning, where we met the Florida group, who had already taken 2 planes to get to England. We spent almost the entire day on the floor of a small hallway in the airport getting to know one another (ice breaker games, interviews, etc.), clarifying the roles of team members, setting the rules of the team, planning for our first 24 hours in Dar es Salaam and discussing health, safety and hygiene.

The philosophy of the World Challenge is to facilitate growth and development by having each student take turns performing set roles, including leader, food manager, transport manager, accommodation manager, accountant, health manager and environmental officer. My job was to help them learn what they needed to do to be successful in each role, to keep them safe and to teach them how to take care of themselves so they remained healthy. The main vehicle for feedback was the nightly review session which is never popular with teenagers....especially since they tend to only hear how perfect they are from their over-indulgent parents. My honest and, sometimes, brutal feedback wasn't really welcome, but in the end, not one of them got sick, nothing got stolen, they managed to arrange a 4 day trip to Zanzibar, which they were afraid they wouldn't be able to afford and they had $20 per person left over in their budget to go towards food and lodging. (Considering that their normal daily budget for food was $4 and $6 for lodging, $20 was a significant amount of money.) I guess I can say that the trip was a success!

It wasn't all fun and games for me, however. The adults proved to be very difficult to manage and a couple of the teenagers were....well....teenagers - head strong, argumentative, bossy, etc. (Hey! I'm sounding like an old lady.) but the positive side was that Tanzania is an incredible country to visit and travel with World Challenge allowed me to do project work and spend more time in communities I would never see as a regular tourist. Additionally, traveling with teenagers who are still so open to strangers offered me the chance to get closer to local people than I would have otherwise.

Tanzania

The itinerary was broken up into 4 parts: acclimatization, main trekking phase, project (community service) and R&R (rest and relaxation). The destinations for the acclimatization and main trekking phases were determined by the students prior to departure and were pre-booked by the company. The project location was chosen by World Challenge and the R&R location was at the discretion of the group while in-country and was paid for with extra pocket money.

Acclimatization: The acclimatization phase is meant to give the participants a chance to get acquainted with customs of the country, the way transportation works, the currency, the pace, camping and trekking and most importantly, the altitude. The idea is that groups will travel to a destination and do some treks that will prepare them for their main trekking phase.

We flew into Dar Es Salaam via Dubai on Emirates (great airline, by the way) and traveled by bus to Morogoro, which lies about half way between Dar and Dodoma, the capital. Our acclimatization treks took place in the Uluguru Mountains just outside of Morogoro. Our guides were provided by the Cultural Tourism Programme (CTP), a nationwide organization of Tanzanians who are trained to give guided treks and culture information. They were friendly, fun, knowledgeable and completely committed to working with our ethos of student leadership. (This was a real challenge on earlier trips to South America. Most guides are trained to only work with adults as leaders and had a hard time taking requests or working together with teenagers as leaders. The guides in Morogoro were excellent in this respect.)

Here are some photos of the headquarters of the CTP, Morogoro and the first day trek up to a former German hotel from the early 1900s when Tanzania (then Tanganyika) was a German colony. There was also a kindergarten on the grounds of the CTP office, so we enjoyed the singing and sweet, shy smiles of little kids each morning when we awoke.


Learning how to eat ugali - a sort of corn meal mush rolled into a ball and dipped in stewed tomatoes




Trekking in the Uluguru Mountains and photos from the small town of Kinole




Singing with local kids


Banana market and brick making


Downtown Kinole and a view of the Uluguru Mountains from Morogoro

Main Trekking Phase: The group had decided that they did not want to climb the highest mountain in Africa, Kilimanjaro, but preferred to climb Mt. Meru, the 5th highest mountain in Africa. Meru is nearly 15,000 feet high (4,562 meters) and the trek takes 3 or 4 days to complete. We opted for the more reasonable 4 day trek starting from Arusha National Park and due to the experience and professionalism of our guides, the great weather, Diamox (anti-altitude sickness medication) and sheer perseverance, everyone summitted.

The trek is one of the best I've ever done, especially the first half hour trekking through the grassland with giraffes, warthogs (wrattenzwijn) and buffalo and the views into the volcano itself from the peak. From the entrance gate, we climbed through moss-covered trees to the first hut at Miriakamba (8,500 ft/2500 meters). On the second day, we climbed to Saddle Hut just above tree-line at 11,700 feet/3570 meters and did a side-trip up to Little Meru Peak (12,500 feet/3800 meters) to acclimatize to the elevation. That night, at just before 2:00 AM, we left our hut for our ascent under a crystal clear, starry sky. As we slowly, slowly (pole, pole in Swahili) climbed, our guide sang Swahili songs about angels. It was absolutely magical being serenaded in the darkness with just the dots of headlamps along the trail and the stars overhead.

We watched the sun rise behind Kilimanjaro in the distance and finally reached the summit at 8:30 AM, where the teachers pulled out letters for the students. When I had met the parents in May, I asked them all to write letters to their kids for them to read on Meru's summit. Luckily, they all made it. Needless to say, the exhaustion and the emotion brought almost all of them to tears.

That day was incredibly long and our breakfast of biscuits and tea didn't do much to hold us over, but everyone made it in various states of brokenness back down to Miriakamba Hut after nearly 15 hours on the trail. Brutal!


We hiked with an armed ranger to protect us from charging buffaloes but later saw the ranger use a small rock to frighten one off the trail.


Moss forests and on the trail with our guide, Whitey (that was really his name!)




Kilimanjaro from Meru and the ash cone of Meru from the peak



Read on in the next posting about our project and R&R.