ruthieurq-blog

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While abroad I will learn community engagement and research experience by going to Ghana 2-3 weeks early and stay 2 weeks after the Learning Abroad program. Working with a group in 20 communities, we will provide them with basic skills in preventive health.

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Social Media Submission: Salt Lake City- Winter Fun

Life in Salt Lake City is interesting to say the least. There is nothing quite as thrilling as stepping out your front door in the morning and sliding down your driveway on a sheet of ice. Oof. Alright, stand up and make sure your tailbone isn't broken, brush the piles of snow from your car and climb inside. Turn left and you can get to the sparkling snowy mountains bustling with snow boarders and skiers in less than 10 minutes. Turn right and you can get to the city in even less. You're still a bit irritated at Winter in general from your fall a minute ago, so today you decide to go right.

Salt Lake City is stunning. Surrounded by mountains on one side, smokey factories on another and a whirlwind of activity in between. You stop downtown at City Creek. The lights strung overhead entice you to come see what's inside. You walk across the street and decide to take a spin around the ice skating rink with the young lovers holding hands and showing off their best tricks. Just as you're thinking how nice it is, you again find yourself sliding across the ice on your tailbone. Geez. Winter is not really your thing.

After returning your ice skates and with them, a bit of your pride, you walk up a huge hill. Before you is the State Capitol Building. It takes your breath away. As you are wandering around inside, you hear a tour guide tell her group that Utah's State Capitol Building was voted the most beautiful Capitol Building in America. Looking out over the entire Salt Lake Valley from the hill, it's not hard to believe.

You decide to draw up a truce between you and your tormentor, Winter, and you drive to Park City. The Sundance Film Festival is coming to a close, but the fun has not yet ended. Stars are still walking the streets and the food is fantastic. You stop in for a bite to eat at an old log cabin on Main Street. After your meal, go to a movie. As the lights are going down, you can't help but thinking that your day in Salt Lake really was magical.

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Maasai women dancing.

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The lonesome elephant that was spotted while being towed from the wildlife reserve in Morogoro, Tanzania.

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One of the five cities of Cinque Terre, Italy.

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Sunrise over a mountaintop in Utah

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Bright red train in the cold white mountains of Norway.

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The Thrilling Tale of Traveling Through Tanzania

I was so excited to go on an African safari. I had a tour guide, a certified driver, and every last detail planned so that nothing would go wrong. HA!

I woke up early in the morning and set off with my tour guide and driver. About 10 minutes into the drive my tour guide fell asleep for half an hour before sitting up and having a heated discussion with the driver. He then told me it was the drivers first time going to the park, so we had passed it. When we finally arrived we meandered through the huge wildlife park and saw monkeys, hippos, gazelle, monkeys, hippos, gazelle and some more monkeys, hippos and gazelle. Other tour guides started stopping us to ask if we had seen any big animals, because they hadn’t either. My guide, growing increasingly desperate to show me some safari wildlife, started directing the driver onto less… reliable roads. A large rock got wedged into the underside of the car and it broke down right there by the hippo pond. Aaaah, more hippos! The guide called somebody at the entrance of the park to come tow our poor car out of the riverbed and on the way out of the park I finally saw 2 elephants, hooray!

Well, my guide was not going to let his customer go home having only suffered a mildly disappointing day. “You have Boda Boda in your country?” he asked. I had no idea what that was, but I’m not one to turn down new experiences, so I agreed to do it. Just my luck, Boda Boda means HITCHHIKING.

Somebody pulled over to pick us up and I climbed into a car with 2 mean looking men up front and 6 somber looking kids in back. Boy, was I thanking my lucky stars that I had brought my pepper spray with me. I turned around to see how my trusty tour guide was handling our predicament and whadya know, he was asleep. I swear he must have had narcolepsy because I was no longer worried about being kidnapped, I was worried that we were about to die. The driver liked to drive extremely fast and in the wrong lane. I was praying to Buddha, Zeus and sweet baby Jesus “please just don’t let me die in this mad man’s car.” Miraculously, we survived and what felt like a lifetime later we pulled off the road and got dropped off in the Maasai Village.

Two Maasai women immediately started dressing me in their traditional clothing and a boy taught me the respectful greeting words before taking me around to greet the men. I gave them each a bow and muttered a few words that I didn’t understand and in turn they touched my head and said something back. I sat down and talked with the Maasai boy for a while before I realized that the world’s greatest tour guide was nowhere to be found. That wasn’t an issue though, because the Maasai were lovin’ on their little mzungu (white person). They were taking pictures of me and with me until the festivities began. I was visiting in the midst of a 2 day festival celebrating the boys 13 years of age and older who were now getting circumcised. You read that right. Circumcised at 13, ouch! For the celebration the women got in one circle and the men got in another as they began to chant and sing and jump extremely high. It was pretty incredible to watch. After an hour of dancing my tour guide finally caught up to me and said it was time to go, so I bid farewell to my new friends and returned to the hotel.