| Photos that have not been published yet (October 17th, 2005)
Here are some photos from Tanzania that I haven't put on the blog yet, but are definitely worth seeing. As you can see, I miss Tanzania a lot. It's a beautiful country with beautiful people. After coming back to Europe, first Netherlands and now Slovenia, I haven't seen half as many smiling faces as there. Last few posts of the blog were published after I came back and all the rest has been written during the internship in Tanzania. I'm welcoming you to scroll down and join me at my adventures. And if you wish to get in contact with me, here is my e-mail address: metka.hercog[no spam]gmail.com. Looking forward to reading your opinions. | |
| Ljubljana! (September 6th, 2005)
Ljubljana is great! Every time I come here it makes me want to stay here. It's so lively and cosy at the same time. Yesterday, we went to see that concert in Križanke, which is according to some people the best place in the world for concerts. It's an old building with an open space and utterly good acustic. It was my first time there which is quite embarrassing for someone who studied in Ljubljana for five years. After the concert, hunger forced us to consume some junk food and after that we headed on to another place, but the party was over. Thanks to that, I'm rested today and can do some visiting. First, I'm going to my old faculty and then I'll try to get together with some old friends of mine. Many of my old colleagues are still here and since it's such a nice place to live, many want to move here and add to centralization of Slovenia:)I can't blame them. | |
| Graduation ceremony! (slideshow) (September 4th, 2005)
My graduation day was progressing from exciting and a bit nervous to a very relaxing evening in a circle of very close people. | |
| I am a Master of Science! (September 4th, 2005)
On Wednesday, I became a Master of Science! Everyone was at the ceremony, my family, best friends from Utrecht, colleagues and professors. It was a very special day, one of the sunniest days of the year and next to it, being surrounded by very close people, who came there for me. We had drinks after all the speeches, many talks about plans for the future and after that we went in the city centre to taste some African food once again. However, African food in Utrecht is completely different than in Africa. Nyama Choma is much bigger here. And definitely much more expensive;)
Next day, we left Utrecht. I didn’t want to go. When I saw a sign Utrecht for the last time, I was very sad. But leaving it doesn’t mean that I’m not coming back. I’m already making plans when to go back. This whole year, since last September, was very intensive for me. I moved into a new room in Grote Trekdreef, enjoyed almost every piece of living in this large community, then studying a field that interests me a lot, meeting great people and with them exploring better sides of myself. Then spending almost four months in Tanzania was an experience I will never forget and made me more reassured that I am on the right track. And now, that I have finished the studies, my feelings are rather mixed. I wish it was longer. Especially in the last days before leaving, I realised that I don’t want it to be over. Before I was too busy to think ahead. All that I had on my mind was to finish the thesis and then I will think further. And when this time came, I was lost. What now?
Now, I’m in Slovenia, at home. I feel it’s more like holidays than something permanent. But on the other hand, I deserved holidays. So far, I haven’t wasted any time and I don’t feel such a rush to start working. Slowly, I will be applying for internships and in the mean time, I will try to enjoy as much as possible. Tomorrow I’m going to the concert of three French bands: Mei Tei Sho, Le Peuple De’L Herbe and High Tone. I will let you know about it.
| |
(August 24th, 2005)
We've done it. In these last weeks I was staying awake until late and then waking up early.
This is our thesis pals! | |
| Back in Utrecht! (July 28th, 2005)
Since the last post, many, really many things have happened. If I just start thinking about it, I get excited again. First, report about the fieldwork had to be finished and then the fun part began. My brother Jani and cousin Gorazd visited me and after each of them has accomplished his main travelling goal, climbing on Kilimanjaro and going to Serengeti, we all together headed to a tropical island Zanzibar. It was on my mind all the time that I could not leave Tanzania without visiting this beauty. And I was right. It was stunning. On the eastern side of island, we found a nice cosy hotel, just next to the beach. As far as you can see, there is white sand and if you look more carefully, thousands of shells. And not only the little ones like I’m used to in the Adriatic Sea. Do you know this thorny oysters (in Slovene we call them klapavice) that you get around twenty on the plate (and that’s only for a starter;)? With a Zanzibari size, you wouldn’t need more than one. And fish! You should see what colours they were. Their colours and shapes struck me so much that I had to remind myself to get out of the water to get some air. Although they were very nice to watch, we joined fishermen to catch some. We were swimming around and snorkelling while he was diving and shooting fish with a harpoon. Catch for that day was ten fish and ten octopi. A part of it, we finished for dinner. That’s just one of the stories from Zanzibar that I will share with you in this place, because I have to go on with trip to Uganda.
Long, long ride from Nairobi, brought us to Jinja, which is a centre for water sports in Uganda. That was also a reason for us to stop by and see how Nile is for rafting. If you remember next time when we see each other, ask me to show you a DVD from rafting. You’ll see then how many times we flipped over and how they were saving us from the rapids and then the happiness at the end that we survived 30 kilometres of excitement.
Since then, I’ve been at home in Èrna for twelve days, enjoying homely feeling and catching up with the local gossips. In these four months, some got married, some split up and then got back together, there are some new babies, those babies from last year can already walk and mumble some words and so on;) I really liked being at home. What I found boring before, made me feel so relaxed and seeing that people have not changed much and that it’s very easy for me to get in touch with them and that they simply know what I’m talking about, all that and much more was telling me that I’m home.
Now I’m back again in Utrecht. I should work on my thesis and finish it by the 20th August. Not much time. Being aware of that is stressing me out. Despite that, I’m trying to combine work with pleasure. I’ve been on few farewell dinners and parties since everyone is going on holidays. I still have very good company here and I’m sure I’ll have good time in Utrecht despite a lot of work.
That was in very short my last month. Since it was very intensive, I had to make a short summary of main happenings. I still like thinking about it.
| |
| safari weekend (slideshow) (June 15th, 2005)
I'm very busy lately, so I will share with you only some nice pictures from last weekend. Ngorongoro is simply amazing! For stories you will have to wait few more weeks when I'm back home. Already! Time flies. | |
| from five star hotel to the bush (June 3rd, 2005)
Once again I have experienced diversity of stakeholders in water use. I took part at the conference on water management which took place in a fancy hotel in the centre of Arusha. After several speakers presented how the “ecosystem management” should be implemented in the Pangani Basin, guests started complaining that they can’t follow the presentations. First of all, they spoke in English which is still not very well understood among Tanzanians despite the fact that it is an official language. Secondly, level of presentations was way too technical for the listeners, many of whom were unskilled in this field. Since aim of this conference was to introduce different stakeholders with some new measures of nature conservation, it’s hard to understand why organizers don’t make more effort to approach those that are actually going to implement these measures and see benefit of it in their environment.
Next day I witnessed quite the opposite event when the river committee was gathering under a tree to discuss water distribution among the furrows. All participants presented their views and despite the fact that they didn’t agree, they were still able to lead a discourse in an organized way. All this preaching about participatory governance apparently took more ground at the lower levels than at conferences of development organizations.
Since these meeting took more than four hours, members of the committee got hungry, so villagers brought a bucket of rice and shared it among all of us on plastic plates. Eating plain rice with hand, I couldn’t stop myself from not comparing this meeting again with the conference from previous day where we concluded meeting with a buffet where you could choose anything you wanted.
The rest of the day I spent on the streets of Arusha, just wandering around, visiting boutiques, trying on clothes and bargaining for prices. Although I felt I made a good deal, I found out later that I paid an exorbitant price for tingatinga paintings. But that couldn’t change my mood, since I was just bursting out of good temper.
| |
| working alone (May 25th, 2005)
Kas and I are left alone in Moshi. Yesterday we saw Hasse off to the airport and he left for Holland. His twin brother was hit by a taxi and is seriously injured. Hasse didn’t want to wait here for a phone to ring that his parents would inform him about brother’s condition. By now, he is probably already in hospital. I hope Hasse’s support will help Maarten to recover.
Only an hour before Hasse's dad called, we had a slight argument about cooperation. I was complaining about Hasse’s affinity for structuring and organizing and he was accusing me that it looks like I have never worked in a team before. Now, our team work will be put on an even bigger challenge, since I will have to do the remaining part of fieldwork alone and Hasse is going to help me by mailing. I think we can still carry it through although things are really not on our side. It is going to be kind of weird now that’s Hasse is not around. It’s been more than two months that we were together every single day. Mostly from morning till evening. Starting a day with explaining our dreams or often when we shared a room, I was explaining his dreams. I know it sounds strange, but you should hear him talking in sleep.
The rest of our common days we spent hunting people in the villages to get some interviews and after the exhaustion, we were hunting for some bananas or chapatis;) Well, now I’ll have to get used to not using “we” so much anymore and go back to “I”.
| |
|
.JPG)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.JPG)
.jpg)
.JPG)
