The Return

If someone was to ask me which country had the biggest influence on me apart from my home countries, I would definitely say Tanzania. Sure, there are other countries that I have spent more time in and where I accomplished major milestones (e.g., obtaining a Master's degree). However, looking back, my time in Tanzania was very special and has influenced me in a way no other place has ever done. It might have also made me the person I am today. After all, I have since moved to different countries, specialised in Cultural Psychology and even started a career in international development. I am not saying Tanzania has changed me completely. After all, "openness to experience" is one of the Big 5 personality traits and I reckon that I have scored quite high on that trait already early in life. Otherwise, I probably would not have boarded the plane leaving for Dar es Salaam all by myself at the age of 18 in the first place. Somehow the cheesy phrase you see on many touristy souvenirs "I left my heart in Africa" is somewhat true. Tanzania has opened a whole new world to me, has shown me how beautiful this Earth can be, how friendly complete strangers can be and how thrilling it can feel to gradually adopt a whole different lifestyle and open up to new experiences.

Another beautiful thing I took from my time in Tanzania are valuable friendships. After coming back to Germany I struggled a lot navigating my German lifestyle. In fact, I felt like experiencing a bigger "culture shock" coming back home than what I had experienced during my first weeks in Tanzania. It took me two whole weeks before I dared enter a supermarket for the sheer amount of choices in the cereal department alone completely overwhelmed me. I had also adopted a somewhat laid-back perception of time, leaving my mom waiting for nearly 40 minutes in the ice-cold weather, even though I had promised to pick her up from work. However, I had met a whole network of fellow volunteers in Tanzania who had more or less experienced the same things as me, thus going through the exact same struggle. We kept in close contact during the first few months of coming back home and even though contact dwindled over time many connections persisted. In a way, it was a great endeavour to go and meet up with these friends over time. We celebrated Anna' birthday in Ingelheim, a beautiful town in the midst of Germany's wine region. Jin-Ah, Ele, and Leonie also came. I went to see Luisa play a concert on her trumpet in Kaarst, not far from Cologne. I met Anna in Osnabrück, which is not far from my mum’s home. Anya and I met up in Giessen several times, for coffee and hiking. Hannah and I went to several concerts since we share the same taste in music. I even bumped into Robert in my university's cafeteria - turns out he also studied in Giessen, just as me. The list goes on but what I am saying is that the journey did not just stop because I came back to Germany. I continued making memories with lovely people.

And still a nagging urge to travel kept flaring up. What I was suffering from is commonly known as “Wanderlust” and is what I consider a chronic addiction to travel. I always wanted to come back to Tanzania, explore places I have not yet been to, take in these beautiful landscapes and wildlife, walk those powdery white beaches, haggle with people at the market and just whizz around in a tuktuk/ bajaji. But somehow life got in the way. “After my bachelor’s degree I will go”, I promised myself. However, when I got accepted into my dream Master’s and had to move to Amsterdam that plan changed to “after my Master’s I will go”. Who could have anticipated a global pandemic to also make that plan impossible. “I will go after my second Master’s”, I decided. Even this plan did not work out because I got an amazing internship in the field of international development, which then turned into a full-time job. So here we are, 11 years since I left for Tanzania. Too much time had passed, and so I got in touch with Anya to see what she was doing this year. It did not take much convincing, I guess the timing was finally right, “I am in”, where the magic words I had hoped for. And so it was decided. I could not have wished for a better plan. Not only was I going to finally return to Tanzania but doing it with my favourite travel companion from back then was the icing on the cake. After all, I shared so many precious memories with Anya and we had shared so many trips together that going back together would allow us to reminisce and remember all of these things. And so, the planning began. I was finally caving into my Wanderlust, which released a whole new level of enthusiasm to research webpages, watch youtube videos and read travel guides. After weeks of mapping out all the possibilities Anya and I put together a neat itinerary of what we wanted to do on a three-week trip in October. Now that we both had adult money, we wanted to go on safari and properly delve into the wildlife-experience Tanzania is so famous for. We also wanted to go to Morogoro and meet the people we used to work with. Lastly, a trip to Zanzibar was also sort of mandatory. Apart from that, we would play it by ear. There were several things on our list, but past experience had taught us that making plans in Tanzania often resulted in those plans to be overthrown anyway. So why not just be spontaneous. After all, this was supposed to be an adventure.      

It was only when I finally confirmed our booking for a 5-day safari and booked our flights that the realisation hit me: what I had been dreaming of for nearly 11 years now was finally turning into reality.