After the Safari we headed straight to Zanzibar to have some sun, salty winds and some relax before going back to Sweden and the winter… We started out in the main city – Stone Town. It is such a nice little town just by the sea! A labyrinth of small streets between high buildings with the most beautiful doors! We celebrated the new year in Stone Town and then headed to the beaches on the east side – Paje and Jambiani 🙂 Beautiful! Oskar spent his last days with us before heading back to Sweden.
After some last editing we have now sent the essay in!
Chakula nzuri sana at Forodhani foodmarket in Stone TownSpice tour!MuscotLipstick fruitHappy new year!Sandbank outside Stone TownWe joined a local fisherman for a sailtrip!
Jamhuri Day, 12th December, is the celebration of Kenya becoming a republic 1,5 years after independence from the British Colony in the 60’s. As of this day in December most/or a lot of working people go on annual leave for Christmas and New Years. It would have been difficult to arrange more interviews etc during this time, however some CGO’s were still working and I was invited to a two day conference/meeting at Friends of Lake Turkana regarding organizing communities. There was an organisation from Peru who were invited to present their work they have done with a similar situation as the one we are experiencing here in Turkana. Their work and results were impressive and hopefully in the future we will see the same strength and work in this region.
Before I attended the meeting and conference at Friends of Lake Turkana, I had had to take a short trip down to Nairobi to sort out my visa, to extend the length of it to be allowed to stay in the country. When I applied for my visa online, I applied for a tourist visa for 10 weeks, and 24h after application it was approved. When I arrived at the airport, the person at the boarder only granted me 4 weeks and said I had to come back down to Nairobi to reapply for an extension of my visa. I was told by my contacts at the organisations that this process would take at least a whole day, so I prepared two full days in Nairobi for this. When I went to the migrations office, I was informed that this is a common procedure for students as there are many occasions where students apply for visa in Kenya because its easier, and then disappear into Ethiopia or Somalia. The extension is to make sure that those applying for the visa is actually staying in the country. Once I arrived at the migration centre it did not take more than 20 minutes for me to get my visa renewed, which left me with two amazing days to spend in Nairobi.
After the conference at Friends of Lake Turkana I ended my stay in Turkana for December and flew down to Nairobi again as there was nothing left for me to do up here. I spent a week in Nairobi working on writing on my project and transcribing some interviews before heading down to the coast to celebrate Christmas and New Years.
I am now back up in Turkana doing my last interviews and I will finally get an interview with the oil company and county government officials. When I have finished here I am moving further south to meet with the environment institution NEMA and Kenya Land Alliance in Nakuru and Nairobi.
Happy new year everyone!
I seem to be following this trend of delayed updates, but life here takes way too much of my attention.
Even though I was told that going abroad for MFS will not always be as smooth as you want it to be, it is rather more likely that the opposite happens, I am a little disappointed on how slow the work has turned out to be. There have been times where the stress got hold of me with a strong feeling I don’t have enough time to finish it.
Due to different things, almost already from start, difficulties arranging interviews, delays in getting the interviews translated and transcribed, holidays and being sick I have decided to submit my study on a later date in March instead of next week. This decision I made together with my supervisor. She believed that I should give my study the time it needs rather than try to hurry up just for the sake of submitting.
This certainly gave me some peace of mind and I have been able to systematically go through the material. This is my last week in Mumbai. I will try to get some final questions answered from MAVA before I leave. Meet with my translator and some other people I have been in contact with for this study as it is easier while here rather than back in Malmö
I also took some time off to travel for the new years weekend to the countryside outside Pune. The landscape was amazingly beautiful and the sky was clear and full of stars at night. A peaceful New Year’s Eve without the hazzle of fancy dinner and fireworks. The Indian countryside is something completely else from the intense city of Mumbai and it was wonderful to get a break.
Hi everyone! Sorry for the late update AGAIN…we are not good at doing this blog-thing cause there is happening things all the time here in Tanzania, and you get pretty frustrated with the internet from time to time…
Anyway! We’ve been at a Safari in Mikumi. It was wonderful! Two whole days with driving around in the national park with lions, zebras, hippos, elephants and so on and so on <3 We’ve been enjoying ourselves like crazy!
The four of us had a good Christmas and an awesome safari!
We have sent our essay to some friends that will read it and tell us what more we can do so we can feel that we did our very best before handing it in 🙂 Wish us good luck!
I started to write this text while sitting on the most delayed bus ride any of us has had.. But when I was finished and ready to post, the website refused to work. Since then I have been busy celebrating Christmas on safari!!! But more of that next time 😉 And here is the updated version of the text:
So I will start with the bus ride between Dar es Salaam and Morogoro: We went to the bus station at 10 on sunday morning, and there we found out that there was no tickets left until 2 pm. So then we just had to wait. After a while we got to know that there had been an accident, and all busses where delayed. So, instead we left Dar around 4:30 pm, but that was not the end of it. There was so much traffic jam that we only drove a few kilometers the first hours. The journey was supposed to take around 4 hours, instead it took about 6 hours.. And then there was maybe one and a half hour drive to get from Morogoro to Mikumi.. So we went to bed around half past 2, that was ours “uppesittarkväll”! Haha 🙂
We arrived in Dar es Salaam on thursday after a week in Tanga. We really loved Tanga, it is such a nice city, with such nice, friendly people! We have been shopping at the local market, hanging with our new friends, visited the beach, gotten ourselves a haircut, eating local food – our favourite is Maharagwe (Beans) and the fantastic chapati 🙂 It’s been so good to just stroll the streets, or take a ride on a Boda-boda (motorbike), greeting everyone with the little Swahili we know and finally just live and explore Tanzania <3
And also: The last day in Tanga we finished our essay! It feels so fantastic 🙂 Hongera! (Congratulations!) to us!! 😀 It is really cool to look back at the work we done, all the way from emailing the whole world in search for a contact person and at last finding TICC! To starting to plan the essay and do the application to SIDA – and getting it! Then, to actually arrive in Tanzania, starting the interviews, gathering the data and until now, when all the data has been analysed and actually has something interesting to say! Wow 🙂
Hongera to our finished essay!
We then went to Dar es Salaam for two days. Compared to Tanga this is just such a crazy, chaotic city! Wow! We went to the market here, and it was such a chaotic and still awesome experience. There are shops, and then there are stalls outside on the streets, and then there are people walking around selling stuff, and then there is motorbikes, cars, tuk-tuks and then there is also all the people there shopping! You can barely move around, so it’s not that easy to do any shopping.. but it was really fun to go there! We also welcomed Oskar (Nike’s boyfriend) to Tanzania! He will travel with us for two weeks 🙂
We’ve been to Ubud and experienced some Indonesian culture. We have visited waterfalls, rice terraces, the Holy Spring Temple and undergone a sacred cleansing ritual and visited the Monkey Forest! The Monkey Forest was full of (mostly) friendly and curious monkeys, we both enjoyed it very much, less so when a monkey decided to jump up on my shoulder and urinate…
All fun and games until…Water ritual!Rice terraces
But in spite of the unfortunate pee incident, the Monkey Forest was very nice! After a few days in Ubud we decided to move yet again! This time to Canggu which is near Sanur where we intend to spend Christmas! In Sanur we have made reservations at Café Smörgås who are going to serve a traditional Swedish Christmas table, something we both are looking forward to! As for our studies, we have begun to examine our gathered data and gotten some very exciting insights! The program Nvivo 12 has been particularly helpful in this process. We can’t wait until we’re finished with our Empirical Findings chapter, so we can begin to analyze the material.
So it finally happened.. in the middle of trying to analyze my material and finally getting somewhere… I got a cold making my brain work the slowest possible. Then, as a trip to India is not ever complete without it, a wonderful case of stomach problems hit me. As if a normal stresstummy is not enough. This left me weak for several days and I am still not feeling 100%. It was after all doomed to happened so I soldier on!!
Therefore I dont have any pictures from this week but I share the results of my saffronbun making mentioned in my last post
In a way I am almost glad I am not home in Sweden to celebrate christmas. Now I can just lock myself in my room and study not having to stress about meeting family and friends while doing so.
I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
My week in Lokichar was highly eventful and went a lot better and much quicker than I thought. I was introduced to my contact person there through Friends of Lake Turkana who came to see me as I arrived to plan our week and the interviews.
The plan was to interview 3 local tribes affected in different ways of the extractives, as well as other key people and one of the managers of the oil company operation in the area. We managed to hold focus group discussions/interviews with the tribes and the information collected has created a good foundation for my work. We also visited a couple of sites holding hazardous waste and collected information regarding the impact of this on the environment and living standards of the nearby tribes.
I was invited to and participated in an information meeting for CSO’s by the oil company, however the interview I was going to have with one of the managers kept getting cancelled and postponed and it later came to my knowledge that the person in question had deliberately been avoiding me. Through some further contacts made during my stay in Lokichar this was later resolved after I had left and the person in question have now confirmed with me that he will agree to having a meeting which will take place after the new year.
I have had to reschedule a lot and re-plan my visit due to Christmas Holidays. After the 12th of December (Jamhuri Day, the day Kenya celebrate becoming a republic) most people go on leave return after the new year. However, before this I had to go down to Nairobi to extend my visa and fly back up to attend a 2 day conference which I will write about in my nest post.
This week has gone by so fast! Actually every week does, but we still need to say it to make you realise how fast it goes!
The week started with us leaving for a three hours car ride to get to a Massaj-village. We had a private driver who was the best! He drove us at a rode…we wouldn’t say it was a rode, rather a path…but he took us 🙂 Several times we thought it wouldn’t work, but he just kept on going! So we arrived at the massaj-village and we slept there and cooked some food there. We also to a walk around the village and got to meet the leader of the village. He served us half a litre of hot milk – Jesus! That was good but we were so full after drinking it.
The massaj-kids were playing soccer 🙂Goats in the massaj-!
After visiting the massaj-village we traveled to a town called Lushoto. There we got the best guide who we travelled with for two days. Wow wow wow! Lushoto was so nice! We went up in Usambara mountains and that was the most amazing thing we’ve seen and done so far in Tanzania. It was so green, and beautiful, and cool, and something that you never could stop getting amazed of. We can just say WOW.
Some ladies were making potteries 🙂
Hiking with Brighton!View in Usambara <3
With sore legs and a smile on our face we went back to Tanga to stay for a week and continued to write our essay. The essay goes very good and our teacher is helping us out with all the details 🙂
Dinner upon arrival in Tanga!
During Sunday we went to Amboni caves here in Tanga and it was a really cool experience! When in Tanga visit the caves if you have time 🙂
So I have finally completed all my interviews. I had aimed for 10 but with some difficulties of getting students to agree for interviews I ended up with 8. I am starting to stress a little about finishing it all in time and working hard analysing my material and writing. (So hard I forget to do my updates here haha).
Me, my translator Priya and two of the students from MAVA
Today is Lucia and I’mm both struck with a cold, making my brain work all slow, and homesickness. Since I have been away from home over Christmas a few times before I came prepared. Other times I have been able to go to IKEA for my homesickness treatment, but India only have one store in the country hahah. So, this time, to save some time trying to search for ingredients I brought dry yeast and “pärlsocker”. I am planning to do some cinnamonbuns and saffronbuns (lussebullar). Hopefully it turns out okey. The house where I stay doesn’t have a proper oven though. Which is not a common thing to have in India. They usually make do with just a gas stove. Wish me luck!
One great thing (among many) about doing my thesis here in India is the marvelous option of ordering food through an app. It is cheap and I can pretty much chose from whatever restaurang in the area. This saves me great time. Like instead of cocking I can 100% focus on writing…. or watch youtube videos…. or sit for 40 mins deciding what I want to order and then wait another 40 mins for delivery… you all know how it goes. And did I mention dessert.
Anyways! It is for sure time to pick up some speed to finish this in time.
Christmas is around the corner and so is deadline!!
