The Top of Africa

As if volunteering in Africa weren't challenge enough, I decided to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro before coming home.  I've always enjoyed challenging myself, and summitting this mountain didn't disappoint; it was nothing short of the greatest challenge I've ever undertaken.

Mt. Kilimanjaro from my Hotel in Moshi

From a distance, Kili (as we 'locals' affectionately call it), looks beautiful and peaceful.  However, as we all know, appearances can be deceiving, and Kili deceives!  While its scenery is most definitely spectacularly beautiful, its slopes are also surprisingly brutal and unforgiving.

Not only is Kili the highest mountain in Africa, but it is also the highest freestanding mountain in the world.  Perhaps Kili's greatest allure is the fact that it doesn't require any technical climbing skill to scale, promising any "reasonably fit" person a chance of reaching its peak.  Being a "reasonably fit" person intrigued by the idea of standing on the top of Africa, I signed on for a 6 day trek up the Machame route.  I choose this route because it was regarded as the most scenic, with the best natural acclimatization, and boasted the highest success rate.  What I gave less consideration was its reputation for being the most challenging route...in retrospect, this could be why it's called the "Whiskey Route"as opposed to the more genteel Marangu "Coca-Cola Route"...more than one climber has probably wished for a shot of liquid courage to finish!

Day 1: Machame Gate (1840m) to Machame Hut (2980m)
Hike: 9kms
Altitude Change: +1140m
Zone II: Lush Forest

I arrived in Moshi at the base of Kili in the afternoon and was quickly ferried off by the trekking company to arrange the rental of my hiking gear.  I had arrived in Tanzania grossly underprepared for this monumental undertaking with basically shirts, pants, and running shoes to my name.  With Kili's climate zones ranging from forest to arctic, I needed to be outfitted in everything from hiking boots to rain gear to warm underwear to a massively poofy winter coat and a babushka-esque winter hat.  Once so outfitted, I had the chance to meet my fellow climber, Jessie, over a quick dinner at our hotel.  We carbo-loaded on pizza and made each other pretty nervous about our chances of reaching the peak.

A good night's sleep left us ready to tackle Kili and determined to get each other to the top no matter what.  Anticipating warm weather, I optimistically wore shorts.

Ready to Go!

Our nerves were a bit rattled by the enormous warning signs posted at the entrance to the trail, but noting that we had only to be physically fit were reassured.  Jessie had been running for an hour every morning during her volunteer stay in Kenya, and I had been waking up at the crack of dawn every day to do Shawn T's Insanity exercise DVDs.  We were set.

Warning Signs at Trail Head

The trail was steep from the first step, but tended to to have built-in plateaus every so often that made it bearable.  Before too long, it started to rain, but thanks to deep forest cover, we didn't get soaked.  It got cold very fast, however, as soon as we stopped to rest, so we didn't rest much.  Instead, we dug in and huffed and puffed as we began to feel the first effects of reduced oxygen. We felt rather ridiculous breathing as hard as we were.

Guide Paul & I

After 5 hrs of hiking uphill, I was exhausted, and my legs were tight and wobbly.  I got out of my wet clothes as quickly as possible in a futile attempt to get warm and keep my legs from cramping.  I was fascinated by the blond, hairy moss growing on the trees, but was less enamored with my first encounter with the longdrop toilets (aka, outhouses a la Turkish) at the campsite.  Blech.  Thankfully, dinner was delicious and multi-course (zucchini soup, beef curry), and we were encouraged to eat and eat a lot to replenish our energy.  We were in bed by 8pm, lulled to sleep listening to a soccer match on the porters' radio.  Sleep was fitfull as the damp and chill seeped into our tents.

First Night Lodging

Day 2: Machame Hut (2980m) to Shira Hut (3840m)
Hike: 7kms
Altitude Change: +890m
Zone III: Heather and Moorland

Yesterday was clearly the beginner's course.  The mountain greeted us this morning with an unrelenting uphill climb.  My first tentative steps in the morning were quite stiff, but remarkably I wasn't sore.  Somehow I had mostly recovered from the exhaustion of the day before.  Perhaps it was seeing the snow glinting off the mountain's peak in the first rays of the morning sun that spurred me onward and upward.

First Climb of the Day

The ascent was steep and stair-like.  It was characterized by scrambling over rocks with treacherous footing en route to scenic overlooks.

Porter & Paul

High Altitude Rest Stop

The most remarkable portion of the climb entailed inching along a rockface without handholds.  This porter balancing a load on his head made it look deceptively easy.

Precarious Footing

Jessie's climb offers a better perspective on the hiker's experience.  Yikes!

Jessie Scaling Rockface

It took only 4 hours to reach our camp.  Higher up on the mountain, the fog swirled around the campsite, constantly revealing and obscuring the landscape.  I nearly got stranded in an outhouse....the camp was there when I went in....and not there when I came out...I had only the echoey voices of the porters to guide me back.  We were now at an altitude where oxygen deprivation could kick in, and I definitely had a faint headache, but nothing worse than I might expect after getting very little sleep and then walking for hours on end.  Having learned our lesson from the night before, Jessie moved into my tent for double the body heat, and we both slept better. 

Believe it or not...there's a mountain behind the fog!

Day 3: Shira Hut (3840m) to Barranco Hut (3950m)
Hike: 10kms
Altitude Change: +110m

The morning dawned crisp and clear, and we enjoyed the warmth of the sun as we appreciated the gorgeous view of the summit.

Morning Sun with View to Peak...what the fog had hidden!

Before too long, the crystal clear sky was all but forgotten as my view degraded into this...fog, rocks, and more fog.  And this miserable view came with even more miserable rain and cold.

Rain Gear Breaks Out in Earnest

Having lived in Minnesota for 5 years, I thought I knew cold.  Well, I'm here to tell you now that I was wrong.  Negative windchill is nothing to compared to this frozen wet.  I paused only briefly to have my picture taken in front of the scenic Lava Tower, the day's high altitude mark and where many hikers first begin to feel the serious effects of altitude sickness - severe headaches and nausea. 

Lava Tower with Soaked Kathryn

After hours of scrambling up and over wet and slippery boulders, we finally arrived at camp.  We could barely make the tent out in the fog, but raced toward it with the speed of a thirsty man crawling toward a desert oasis.  By this time, I couldn't feel or move my hands and frantically pinwheeled them around my head trying to get the blood back into them.  I also had a terrible headache and felt nauseous and was becoming afraid the altitude was finally getting to me.  I had only started taking my altitude medication that morning and thought maybe I had started too late.  I forced myself to eat dinner and went to bed promptly at 6:45pm, bundled in multiple layers: long-sleeved t-shirt, long underwear, fleece, winter coat, hat, gloves, two layers of pants, and two pairs of socks.  And the damp sleeping bag was still chilly.

Wet & Frozen Kathryn

Day 4: Barranco Hut (3950m) to Barafu Hut (4600m)
Hike: 8kms
Altitude Change: +650m
Zone IV: Alpine Desert

Having gone to sleep in a fog wonderland, imagine my surprise upon awakening to discover that our tents were actually sidled up against this gorge.  One misstep in that fog would have been quite a doozy.

I was thrilled to discover that not only was my headache gone, but I also had an appetite.  I probably felt so awful the day before simply because we hadn't eaten all day in our mad shuffle to get to the campsite and out of the rain.  Remembering the wet horror of the day before, I smartly decided to wear sandwich bags over my socks and repackage everything in my backpack in plastic bags.  This time I was really ready for whatever Kili had in store for me.

Canyon Immediately Adjacent to Tent

My hubris was short-lived.  Almost immediately, I found myself hugging the Barranco Wall as we climbed almost straight up what was, essentially, a rock wall.  I don't like heights, and I like the idea of falling from them even less.  I was less than thrilled.  Nonetheless, I still had the presence of mind to capture Jessie's experience on film.  Terrifying.  The picture doesn't do it justice.

The Wall: Kiss the Rock if You Want to Live

But, since I couldn't go down, I went up and crested the wall just in time for the rain to start.  And today's rain put yesterday's to shame.  The scenery became increasingly desolate and gloomy until we were walking across nothing but a neverending sea of shale.  We shuffled as fast as we could, one foot, two feet, stop, breathe, one foot, two feet, stop, breathe.  The only thing we could hear was the sound of our labored breathing.  To only be able to stop and rest!

Rainy Shalescape

Alas, my extra fortifications against the rain were for naught.  I was drenched to the core and stung by the piercing hail.  Unfortunately, our first-time porter got altitude sickness and was delayed getting to camp.  After hiking for 5 hrs, we waited almost 4 more to get our "dry" things.  Thankfully, the camp rangers let us hang out in their yurt and gave us tea and blankets.  Once reunited with our belongings, we quickly ate dinner and settled into bed at 7pm.  Damp and cold everything and high altitude heartburn made sleeping almost impossible, so we tossed and turned until our 11pm wake-up call for the summit ascent.
 

Wet & Frozen Kathryn Take 2

Day 5: Barafu Hut (4600m) to Uhuru Peak (5895m) to Millennium Camp (3730m)
Hike: 19kms
Altitude Change: +1295m; -2105m
Zone V: Arctic

Lying in bed, we had been listening to the familiar sound of rain falling against our tent and had prepared ourselves for another day of being wet.  Instead, we were greeted by a winter wonderland of lazily falling snow.

We donned every piece of clothing that we owned that could be called "dry," flipped on our headlamps, and tottered out of camp at 12:30am.  Looking ahead and up, I could see nothing but black and a series of headlamps snaking ever upward.

Midnight Ascent

My range of vision was limited to a few feet in front of me.  I focused intently on the guide's feet as we inched ahead, slipping over rocks and boulders.  Our pacing was ludicrous.  One step.  Pause...1...2...3.  One step.  Pause...1...2...3.  Ludicrously fast.  Our chests were heaving.  The joke: take an arthritic, 90-year old grandma walking backwards...and go half as fast.  Time almost seemed to stop.  There was only that moment, this footstep and this breath.  And then another.  Silence engulfed us.  To rest would have been divine.

Instead, what was divine was the clarity of the stars when we finally broke through the cloud cover...brilliant specks of light against a black velvet sky.  Then, it was time for a cup of hot, sweet tea to steady us for the final push to the top....in time to watch the sun rise.  Glorious.

As the sky filled with gorgeous shades of pink and orange over a blanket of clouds, all of the pain and misery of the past few days was forgotten.  The sight was spectacular.

Dawn Breaking at Stella Point

After a brief celebration, we pushed onward.  That's right.  We weren't done.  We hadn't yet reached the official peak.  What happened over the next half an hour was the slog of all slogs over roughly 200 yards.  The final stretch to the peak was dotted with a long line of brightly colored ski parkas.  If you looked too quickly, it would have seemed that each bright spot was stationary, but they were indeed moving.  A line of slow-moving, drunk zombies was dragging itself inexorably to the unseen finish line.  I actually stopped and laughed with what breath I had.  To be moving so slowly while working so hard and looking so absurd just struck me as hilarious.

When I crested a ridge and actually saw the sign in the distance, I nearly broke into a sprint...I made a land speed record for all of three steps.  Then, I stopped and breathed for a few minutes and finally shuffled on my way to ultimately pose with great alacrity at my destination.

Made it!!!

I was quite lucky and actually felt good at the top - easily winded, but otherwise fine.  Jessie developed a bad headache and felt out-of-it, but was still significantly better off than the gentleman we passed who was becoming reacquainted with his breakfast.  My camera objected to the cold and altitude by insisting that it was low on battery (even though it wasn't), but I still managed to take some shots of the scenery.  Looking at them now, I realize just how incredible this setting was.  It was too overwhelming at the time to really take it all in.

Glacier

Cloudscape

 After a lengthy stay of about 15 minutes, we turned around and began the trek back to Barafu camp.  To muscles trained over the course of days to go uphill, downhill was an unexpected challenge.  And my boots, which had been sooooo comfortable, suddenly became sooooo uncomfortable....each steep step was like a hammer to my big toes.  I endured this grueling pain for about three hours, rested for about 2 in our remarkably hot-house tent, and then packed up for a quick hour downhill race in the all-too-familiar rain to our final camp.  I collapsed into my sleeping bag, utterly exhausted at 7pm.

Unforgiving Descent

Day 6: Millennium Camp (3730m) to Mweka Gate (1800m)
Hike: 13kms
Altitude Change: -1650m

Dawn arrived with another striking sunrise, still high above the clouds, but once again surrounded by plants and animals.

Final Mountain Sunrise

Dawn also arrived with my big toes throbbing in pain and turning a lovely shade of purple.  With no way to go but down and on my own two feet, I rigged together makeshift bandages of Jessie's leftover cotton face pads and bandaids.  I managed to squeeze these contraptions into my running shoes since there was no way on earth I was subjecting my feet to another day in those battering ram boots.

Makeshift Toe Bandage

After a final look to the mountain peak, it was down hill all the way.  It stayed sunny all day, and we enjoyed the warmth even as we slipped and slid our way down the muddy trail.  5hrs and mud-caked shoes later, we emerged at the bottom to receive our official certificates for having summitted Kili.

Peak and Last Mountain Lodging

Thrilled to have beaten the mountain, we were excited to return to the hotel and take a hot shower, something we had been dreaming about for days.  Lucky for me, I got some hot water; unlucky for Jessie, she got none.  Remember TIA?  This is Africa.

Farewell Dinner with Jessie

It's hard to describe the experience of climbing this mountain.  Words and even pictures can't do the experience justice.  It felt something like this: stand in a subzero freezer, get dressed in multiple layers of clothes soaked in ice water, put on fogged swim goggles, stand in front of a fan while someone throws darts at your exposed skin, hoist a backpack full of heavy rocks on your shoulders, have a cow sit on your chest, bang your head against the wall a few times, and get on a stairmaster set on high.  Cold.  Blind.  Suffocating.  Exhausted, but endlessly moving.  It literally took just about every ounce of my mental and physical strength to push through the unrelenting physical exhaustion and discomfort.  More than once, quitting seemed like a viable option.

Of course, I'm glad that I didn't quit and had the chance to stand at the top of Africa, watching the sun rise above the clouds at dawn.  It seemed a fitting end to my African journey.  An apt metaphor for the hard work, the frustration, and ultimately the victories that made the hard work and frustration of teaching worthwhile.

I will tell you more about the work I did at the Jue School and share my final thoughts in my next and last blog installment.

Beyond My School

As I wrap up my time in Arusha, I thought it would be worthwhile to share a little bit about some of the other volunteer work being done here and give a bit more perspective on the challenges facing Tanzania and its children.  (I'll be leaving Arusha to hike Kilimanjaro today.  I'll tell you all about it and share my last Tanzanian tales when I'm back home.) 

Errat Care Center
The pictures below are at The Errat Care Center.  It's a non-profit seeking to provide education to children on the outskirts of the city.  It is also striving to provide community education programs to help adults learn new skills to better provide for their families.  As limited as the resources are at the Jue school, here it is even worse.

It is in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by dirt and dry, brown grass.  It is a shell of a building - the roof doesn't meet the ceiling, the windows are open, the floor is dirt, and the warped blackboard rests on cinder blocks.  When it rains, everything gets wet, and the class clusters in the center of the room.  One girl walks an hour each way to get there.  As part of her trek, she has to cross a big gorge.  Unfortunately, she can't cross it to go to school when it floods in the rainy season.  And she is lucky...she is the only kid in a town of 40 who goes to school at all.

There is a single teacher at the school who is only 19 years old.  She speaks limited English, but tries to teach it to the children.  During the first lesson my friend Claire saw her teach, she told the children that the "arm" is the "hand."  The classroom is generally chaotic with kids ranging in age from 3 to 7 years old.  They are all taught the same thing at the same time.  Claire has made great strides teaching some of the children their numbers and letters while older children are learning English greetings and colors.

Besides a basic lack of educational resources, these children are medically challenged beyond the normal dirtiness of kids here.  There is a very sickly looking boy with HIV (who just got sponsored to go to a real school.)  There is a girl with a black and infected thumb.  Scabies and ringworm are endemic.  Claire actually bought scabies meds for a whole family...a mom, the student, and a baby.  The son had scars on his back from scratching them so hard.  One treatment and he was cured...for now.

Claire has also been working to help get funding to dig a well for the community.  Now, people walk hours each day to get water...which is opaque and muddy.

Living here is more than rough.

The school "building."

Cinder block walls, dirt floor, and decrepit blackboard.

No toys?  A shoe becomes a car.

Even so...all smiles with Claire.

Cradle of Love
Cradle of Love is a baby orphanage.  As I've mentioned before, there are countless orphans in Tanzania, largely due to the AIDS epidemic.  This orphanage is run by an American family.  In the grand scheme of things, it is a very nice facility, complete with a playground.

The children are adorable and love to play.  One of their first words is "again!"  They do cry a lot though and constantly want to be picked up and held.  They are held so often in fact that many experience delayed walking.

The stories of some of the children are incredible.  Karen was brought in by her grandparents because her parents basically left her in a corner to die.  Vivian, who is blind and has cerebral palsy, was left in a closet to die, but was discovered by her neighbors when they heard her crying.  Pendo was starving because her father was dead, and her mother didn't have work and couldn't feed her.  She was skeletal when she arrived at Cradle.  As she's gained weight, she's been relearning how to walk.  And she's been smiling again...with the dimples she had lost in her emaciated face.

Life here is hard, but there is hope.

Nothing beats being held.

The kids just love to be hugged.

Kids and Books!

A great big thanks to all of you who have donated!  And these kids were not posed - they really were this excited to get the books and read them all!!

School Days Again

It's almost hard to believe that I haven't always been a teacher.  It's by far the hardest thing that I have ever done, but it has also been by far the most rewarding.  5 weeks ago, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing; now, I have a bit of an idea at least and have been working hard to make the most of my short time here.

It has been fun figuring out how to challenge the children and get them to think beyond the standard practice of simply parroting the teacher and copying what's on the board into their notebooks.  I've discovered that  they actually like to be pushed hard.  When they finish their math assignments, I'll give them extra, increasingly hard problems, and they'll keep coming back for more.  They'll even scrounge around for extra paper so I can make them problem sets to take home.  Instead of just copying a story off the board, I'll ask them to think of what happens next and to share it with the class.  To encourage the kids to pay attention and participate in class, I'll throw bits of trivia into the class presentation - Ben Franklin flying a kite and key into a cloud to discover electricity, 'shovel' as a synonym for 'spade', or the saying "sweet dreams" that we use before going to bed.  The kids who pay attention and remember the trivia, get stickers.  I also give stickers for 100%, and there have been quite a few proud kids who have shown them off to their Tanzania teachers.  I've also tried to make learning vocabulary like 'fever' fun by creating a "hot and cold" song and dance.  The kids love to sing and dance - I've got some great videos to share once I'm home.

Besides actual teaching instruction, I've introduced a number of games that American school children love.  Some are purely for fun while others offer a bit of education at the same time.  Tic-Tac-Toe was a huge hit right off the bat although the strategy has been tough for some of the kids to pick up, and Simon Says was perfect for teaching the kids the English words for various body parts.  Otherwise, classics like Heads Up - Seven Up, Red Rover, and Duck - Duck - Goose have become playtime favorites.

Thanks to help from one of the teachers, I've been able to form a reading group with six children from first and second grade.  These children are at the bottom of their grades and basically can't read.  I've put together daily reading lessons that another volunteer teacher and I have been using to tutor them.  It has been a real emotional roller coaster.  One minute, they can read "fat, sat, cat" and the next minute they will seem to have entirely forgotten.  They can't even read basic words like "the" or "on" without constant review and repetition.  Bright, who was the first boy to read a word for me, is picking it up quickly - he can rapidly read lists of rhyming words once he learns the rhyme; he can turn "at" to "cat" and "sat" and "et" to "pet" and "get."  But he'll forget the rhyme because he doesn't remember the sounds the vowels make.  A boy in second grade, George, read his first sentence the other day and was beaming with pride.  He forgot it the next day, but got it faster the second time.  So, we go at it, day after day, making a little bit of progress, sliding back, and then moving forward again. 

The kids in tutoring and all of the other children love books - literally clamoring for the few that I bring out at lunch time.  Thanks to the kind donations that have been made so far, I've been able to buy a variety of books that I am very excited to donate to the school.  The donations are greatly appreciated (if you are even thinking about donating, please do, it means so much to me and these kids)....I have so much more to do to get the library started in such a short time, but I'm determined to get it done.

There is nothing like hearing an excited chorus of "Teacha!  Teacha!" every morning and being greeted with hugs and kisses and High Fives. Nothing like it except that look on a child's face when he realizes that he can read and that someone cares.

Stranger in a Strange Land

It's been almost a month since I wrote about my first impressions of Tanzania.  In that time, I've grown fairly comfortable here - that is, I've grown used to just about everything even if I still think it's strange.  Of course, no matter how comfortable I feel here, I'm still a mzungu - a foreigner, a European, a white person.

As a white person, you stand out here, no question, and "spotting the white person" is something of a safari for Tanzanians.  Walking down the street, you are greeted with a chorus of "mzungu, mzungu, mzungu" with a pointing finger or a wave.  Little kids, old people.  Everyone thinks it's quite a sport.  It's funny at first and then gets annoying...some white folks have even bought shirts that say things like "well spotted...I'm a mzungu" or with just the simple "MZUNGU" emblazoned in all caps.  I almost can't blame the Tanzanians...I've done a double take myself when I've seen another white person that I don't already know!  But could you imagine walking down the street pointing people out by race at home?  Most of it is in good fun, and people are generally excited to give you a high five (which is a fist pump here) and ask you your name and where you are from.  Unfortunately, some Tanzanians aren't so welcoming...it hasn't happened to me, but some other volunteers have had Tanzanians get off the dala when they get on, or refuse to get on when they see them, or move their seats away from them.

As a mzungu here, you are very aware of the line between the haves and the have-nots - they exist in two entirely separate worlds.  You can retreat to a Western restaurant that serves 4 course meals and where the only non-mzungus are the wait staff.  You can then step outside this very restaurant and find two brothers, in rags, living on the street, with nothing to eat.  (One volunteer offered to buy these children new shirts.  When the little brother picked a white one, the older brother/parent, reminded him that that wasn't a good choice because it would be harder to wash in the river.) Of course, the divide isn't just between white and black.  There are Tanzanian families with big houses and satellite tv, whose kids watch cartoons and play video games in the internet cafes.  And then there are Tanzanian families who live in dirt huts without running water, electricity, or food.

Overall, the lack of infrastructure is a huge adjustment.  The water company just doesn't have enough water to supply the city because the country is so arid - plus, a water pump broke and the replacement has to be shipped in from Sweden.  As a result, our house has been buying water privately - a man arrives before dawn every morning pulling a huge cart loaded with barrels of water that he painstakingly pours into our cistern.  There isn't any means of garbage disposal - trash either gets tossed into the street or burned alongside it.  Huge clouds of smoke billow everywhere - burning everything you can think of (bottles, CDs, papers) - filling the air with a pungent, acrid smell.  If your nose isn't already burning from the smoke, it's probably scratchy from the dust.  Dust is everywhere and on everything - clean doesn't exist here.  Your feet are black when you take a shower and they're black when you get out of the shower - as soon as you remove the dirt from under your nails, there's more dirt under your nails.  You get comfortable with dirt - clean is a luxury.  This is even more true because of how you do laundry.  Laundry machines and driers don't exist.  Your clothes go into a bucket with, per the instructions on the package, "enough soap to do the washing."   (Ummm, how much is that exactly???)  And then you scrub and scrub until your arms and back ache, and then you rinse, and wring, and hang the clothes on the line.  What we do at home is NOT laundry....THIS is laundry!!  This is more than laundry actually...it's a backbreaking workout!

Filthy Feet

 In spite of the dust and the shortage of water, car washes are a major industry here.  They line the roads one after another.  I can't figure out why the Tanzanians are so fixated on keeping their cars clean...when the roads are potholed and dusty and their clothes are often dirty and full of holes.  Cars rule the roads here...pedestrians beware...you don't have the right of way.  People zip by you at breakneck speeds in cars, dalas, flatbed trucks hauling people as cargo, and on the back of motorcycle taxis (bodas).  Taxis can pack as many people into them as the car can hold, and no one wears seatbelts or uses child safety seats.  Traveling is cramped, hot, and sweaty, but you'd never know it looking at the Tanzanians - they routinely wear winter hats, parkas, and fleeces...while the mzungus are baking in long pants and t-shirts.  One kid came to school wearing a winter coat many sizes too big - well past his knees - when it was easily 80 degrees!  And if they aren't wearing excess clothing on their bodies, it's probably on their heads.  I've seen people carry bags and pots and things on their heads before, but here they carry things for sale on their heads too - very movable commerce!

The most annoying thing I've discovered is the complete lack of understanding of the concept of waiting in line.  It's a free-for-all at the grocery checkout, in public restrooms, and in school for grading.  Elbows come in handy to help stand your ground.  You also have to be on the lookout for creative math and changeable pricing on receipts...some days it seems everyone thinks that every mzungu is rich and stupid and easily parted from his/her money.

Of course, for every bad egg out there, there are great people too.  It's a wonderful day when someone stops you and says "thank you" for being here.  And on those days, you don't feel so strange.