Harvey Scholar Travels - Sienna Z. in Tanzania

Hapa ni nyumbani yako. Swahili for “this is your place”. Before this trip to Tanzania, I didn’t think a place could belong to me, or I to it (and I still don’t to an extent), but I think it’s possible now to leave bits of oneself some place in exchange for some unforgettable memories. Be true to others, and they will be true to you. Most come to Tanzania for the scenery, the people, and the culture, and I had similar ideas when I decided to volunteer at a college there for the summer. We were briefed beforehand on the quality of education the students were receiving, where the emphasis of the government schools was on memorization rather than comprehension, and the lack of experiments and real-world applications made the classes uninteresting. We wanted to inject some fun into the whole thing – Balloons? Check. Hydrogen? Check. Matches? Double Check. After all, that was how most of us really got into science (the experiments, not the explosions). I still remember the first day of teaching – I walked into a classroom of nine students with butterflies in my stomach and pages of notes detailing everything I was about to say – it felt like I would never have enough words to fill the hour. As time passed, the students and my confidence grew and I found it easier to adapt to the atmosphere of the classroom and the students found to courage to ask questions. We also spent many hours outside the classroom playing sports, card games, answering questions, singing and/or dancing (Justin Bieber’s Sorry is absurdly popular) and generally getting to know each other better through our mutual appreciation for fire and food. We discovered they weren’t that different from us – it was just that life moved at a slower pace there, which was simultaneously a welcoming break and a strange thing to adapt to. We were both eager to learn from one other, whether it was language, math/science or just how to navigate through a bustling market or cooked cabbage on an open fire, living and working with the locals was a wonderful experience I wouldn’t trade anything for. One more thing I’ll miss about Tanzania is how easy it was to walk to places. We covered so much ground it felt strange when we weren’t moving. Even now, when I close my eyes, I can still see the rolling hills peeking out underneath the lush of the pine trees, hear the wail of the motorcycle as it speeds past, and feel the oil residue on my fingertips after a mandaazi (fried dough but much better than it sounds). I’m so glad the Harvey Scholarship encourages us to travel and experience things through our own eyes. I’m very grateful for the opportunity to see a part of the world I’ve only read about in books and seen on TV. If you want to get out there or anywhere, don’t be afraid to take a leap – many things in life aren’t as scary as they seem.