Start of Week 3!

Habari asabuhi! (how are you this morning?!)
After a long weekend it was definitely good to sleep in a little on monday before going back to teach! It is "study for national exams week" now so we dont get as much fun time with kids as we would hope : ( but thats okay! Monday at school was pretty laid back....not much happening and the school seemed pretty dead since only our Standard 4 and 7 kids are still in school. We taught for about an hour that morning and then left because we couldnt take the kids to play that day. It was okay though because I got to go run some errands around town! I went to pick up my clothes from the dress maker and they are too cool! Can't wait to wear them when I get home...and then went with Brandon and Justin over to the Old Market to see what kind of cool statues and paitings they had! Found dad a fathers day gift I hope he likes!!! We had lunch that afternoon and then Mama Thea had a group discussion with us on Gender and Development in Africa...It was really interesting to see how different and the same in some ways things between men and women are in Tanzania! In the late afternoon I took a quick nap and then tried a little packing just to see if I would need to buy another suitcase to fit all of my purchases...If I did then I was going to have to run down to the monday market and try to find a suitcase...but luckily I dont think I'll need one! Dinner that evening was good with African style Macaroni and Cheese and then I went to bed.
Tuesday morning we had a blast with the kids playing BINGO and taking pictures! We taught for almost 2 hours! At the end of class, one of my students told me my bookbag was wet....come to find out, my bug spray with DEET in it had exploded in my bag (which contained my computer, camera, etc. in it) and the DEET melted my charger because it was plastic : ( ... Luckily nothing else was messed up! After placement, we went to lunch and then I spent the afternoon with the guys at the art centre just hanging out listening to music and helping Niola paint his new painting! I told him if I helped then I got to sign my name on the bottom! But he just laughed at me LOL! We had dinner at the main house that night and then went and met all the art centre guys at Hillside bar for a few drinks before they all walked us back to the Summer House (or what they call the "white people" jail)haha!
Wednesday morning at school was ridiculous! For some reason, the kids were OFF THE WALL CRAZY all morning and we could not get them to call down and be quiet. The only thing that worked was when Justin said "do you want to play football?" and of course they all said "Yesss!" and so he just said "...then BE QUIET!" ... I dont think we have ever heard our class that quiet before! haha. So after an hour or so of Brandon, Justin, and I teaching the adjectives we made our way out to the soccer fields to play around a little! I stayed for about a half hour and then left to run some errands before lunch! After lunch, all of the volunteers made our way over to the hospital for our community service project! We cleaned floors in the new annex of the hospital and had a blast with Didase (one of our drivers) who was cracking jokes all day. The other half of the group planted flowers and plants outside and landscaped the whole outside of the building! It was really funny watching all the locals stop and stare at all of us Mzungus doing hard labor! LOL. After leaving the hospital, we all raced back to take showers and have dinner. A few of us went to Hillside after to have a few drinks, and then we stopped by the Art Centre on our way home to say hey to the guys and play with some of the kids!
It's Thursday morning now and I am about to go to school! I only have 2 days left with my kids : ( ... today is our last day to teach because tomorrow we are having a FUN DAY hopefully for our last day! So I'm off to work! I can't believe I only have 2 1/2 days left in Africa...I feel like I just got here! But I will see all of you soon! Hope you are doing well! <3 yall and see you Sunday! Baadaye!

Weekend on Safari!

Soooo, don't ask me how I'm going to catch up on this blog...I am so far behind and I did so much over the weekend....but I'm going to give it a try...so here we go!
Thursday afternoon we left in our 3 Safari Jeeps from the home base! There were four of us to a car and it was farely comfortable for Mackie, Emily, Becca, and myself for our 5 hour bumpy, dirt road drive to Mikumi National Park. We all slept pretty much the whole way there with the help of our iPods and a pit stop to get soft drinks on the side of the road. Mosheet (i guess thats how you spell it), our driver, was about to pull back out on the road from our pitstop when I saw some people selling spears. Remembering that Becca wanted a spear to bring home I called out to the guy who ended up selling 3 of us spears. With spears in hand, we made our way again to Mikumi. Finally arriving, the drive through the park to our hotel was absolutely gorgeous. I have never seen a sunset quite like the one we saw that night...it was breathtaking! We finally got to the "tent hotel" a little after dark and it was awesome! All of the walkways were lit with candlelight and 2 of us shared a luxury tent. Macki and I stayed in Tent #9. The tents were too cool, they had two beds in them and really looked like the inside of a hotel room....warm showers and all...even though they ran "off the sun", so it was only warm if it was a hot day outside! We had a quick, amazing dinner....with CHOCOLATE CAKE for desert (satisfying all of our sweet tooths!) and BREAD WITH BUTTER! I don't think any of us knew just how much we could appreciate these two things! LOL. After dinner we all went to sleep since we knew we had an early call in the morning!
Friday morning we got up at six for our first game drive!!! Sunrise was pretty, but it was pretty cloudy out. That morning was the first time that I think all of us could have said we had actually been cold since we arrived in Africa! It was pretty refreshing actually! We saw all kinds of animals...giraffes, elephants, hippos, antelopes, wildebeests, a few lions...it was pretty awesome! After a 3 hour game drive (with our, come to find out, horrible driver lol) we made our way back for breakfast with EGGS! haha...and then all of us took a nap before lunch and our second game drive. At the very beginning of the second drive, we saw a group of like 30 giraffes all standing together! It was really cool and we took tons of great pictures (thanks to Dads camera!)!!! I was all decked out in the most stereotypical safari gear ever too...hat and all! And dont worry...we got tons of funny pictures of that too! That night we had dinner and went to bed.
Woke up Saturday morning and our last game drive for about 2 hours...didn't see a whole lot that morning...but we saw plenty the day before so Hakuna Matata (and yes they actually say that a lot here : )! We then loaded up the jeeps with our stuff to make our 2 hour drive to Udzungwa National Park! We unpacked our stuff and gave it to the porters....who carry our stuff to the top of the mountain along with all the camping gear and food! We were veryyyy gracious! LOL. We went and checked in at the headquarters about 10km down the road and then started our VERY uphill hike to the top of Sanje Falls ( the tallest waterfall in all of Tanzania)! We got halfway up and then 5 of us decided to jump into the pools at the bottom of the falls! I had all my clothes on...but who could pass up an opportunity to swim in a waterfall in Africa! After swimming, I finished another hour of, now wet, hiking to to top! When we asked the guide how much longer the hike was, he said one hour which ended up being more like 10 minutes! That was a great surprise! By the time we got to the top of the waterfall, where we were camping, all of our tents were already set up and food had already began being cooked! Our tents were literally RIGHT BESIDE the 180 meter waterfall and you could stand on the top of the rocks on the falls and look out over what seemed like all of Africa! It was so pretty! Since it was pretty late when we got there, we all ate Spaghetti for dinner! Dont ask me how they prepared such good spaghetti over a little camping fire, but it was delicioso! After dinner, all of us were asleep in our tents by 7:30 pm! In the middle of the night, I woke up and thought I had pee'd the bed hahaha! but come to find out it was pouring down rain and we practically had a river coming through our tent! haha...but the porters and guides had been nice enough to bag all of our stuff up right when they heard it start raining! So all of our stuff was saved! Another guy on the trip, Dan, also said that in the middle of the night, he stepped outside of his tent to pee and he looked to the right and there was a huge babboon just standing there staring at him! I dont think Dan has ever jumped back into a tent so fast in his life! We woke up at like 5:45 the next morning after an interesting evening of 3 of us to a tent and sat on top of the waterfall to watch the sunrise! After breakfast, we made our way up the mountain some more....to the top of the second 30m waterfall and the third 70m watefall! Once we got to the top, we made our way back down the mountain...which was much faster than coming up...and actually a really cool hike through the rainforest! The coolest part was the MONKEYS! They were EVERYWHERE and would jump from tree to tree right over heads! It was almost impossible to get pictures of them because they were so fast! Once we finally got down, we immediately got in our jeeps and started our 7 hour journey back to Bagamoyo! It was long but once again, we slept the whole way...aside from a random pitstop on the side of the road where all of us 20 white people ate box lunches on the side of the road....im sure we were a sight to see from the locals who only laughed at us! haha. When we all got back to Bagamoyo, we were all thrilled to take showers, eat dinner, and immediately go to bed! It was a long weekend, but an amazing one! And all of us were so thankful for Ashley planning such a great weekend! Everything about it was perfect!

End of Week 2!

Wednesday was a pretty boring day....I got up and went to school...attempted to teach past tense of verbs which ended up being EXTREMELY hard to do because of the language barrier and then came back for lunch, swahili lessons, and then a long nap before dinner. After dinner we went down to an outdoor bar to hear the musical group from last week put on a show. They even got us up to dance with them a few times!

Today has been great! I got up this morning early and went to breakfast and made my way down to Mbaruku Primary. The kids were all really excited today because it is most of them last few days before their winter break (because its their winter here). We took our kids out to play the game Indian Cheif and before we knew it the entire school had come out and joined us. So we had like 200 kids all playing together! It was a blast! After that we took our class back in and played hangman...They thought the little hanging character was really funny and they were really good at the game too! Since we were making today just a fun day, we took the class out to play some soccer (their favorite part of the whole day!) & I decided to play soccer instead of sit with the girls. It makes all of the boys really excited when I play and all of the girls think its really cool that I know how and can keep up with all of them! haha. We had sooooo much fun on the field today....and they kids are RIDICULOUSLY good at soccer! Their 8 year olds are just as good as our 18 year olds here LOL! I scored 2 goals back to back today and they thought that was like the coolest thing ever...all the girls ran up to me and gave me hugs and all the boys ran to give me high fives! It was too much fun! After their break it was time for us to leave so I came back to the house and finished packing and took a shower....& now I am about to board my jeep for my safari that I'll be on for the next few days! So I must go...but expect a great blog on Monday when I get back from Safari! It should be amazing..I can't wait! Hope all of you at home are doing well and I will see you all soon!!! (Shout out to Faith T too! since you asked for one! haha) <3 yall!

Medicine Man!

SOOOOO.....the African Medicine Man was well, CREEPY! haha. We made a 15 minute drive out to a nearby town and met this medicine man. He looked to be about 70 years old. We sat outside because CCS said that some of the volunteers had gotten a bit creeped out inside his house. So we all sat down under a tree to ask him and his future "successor" questions about his "line of work!" I'm not really sure if I offended the guy or not, but I couldn't keep myself from laughing the entire time...to the point that I was crying!! haha He was staring this creepy smile the entire time at this girl Meg and it was just too funny. And then 2 chickens walked by and he reached out and grabbed one and body-slammed it on the ground beside him. When he let it go it ran as fast as it possible could squealing! It scared the daylights out of us! When we thought it couldn't get any funnier we started hearing what sounded like a rooster crow and we didnt know where it was coming from. Next thing we know, he pulls his cell phone out of his pocket and it was his ringtone haha. Needless to say, we thought it was really funny to see an african medicine man who looks to be stuck in the past with a cell phone that rings like a rooster! LOL. After all of us composed ourselves he asked if any of us wanted to volunteer ourselves for his medical observation...Kim jumped up to the plate first and immediately the man started drawing and writing all over a sheet of paper. We asked what language it was in and his translator told us a mix of Arabic and Demonic/Spiritual language....now tell me thats not creepy! haha. She then he told Kim all this stuff that was wrong with her. Eerily at all ended up somewhat true. Two more people did the same thing but when they were done he put this black dust on the top of their paper and then put another BLANK piece of paper on that one asked the person to rub the two sheets together. The volunteer had to have some concern that they were worried about in their mind this whole time and when they finally pulled the sheets apart there was stuff written on the BLANK sheet in Swahili that read You Will Know Your Answer Within 2 Months Time....it was very strange. Not very sure how he did it. After that we made our way into his house. It was really dark and smelled of incense and he had one little corner where he sat and kept all his medicines. For the three volunteers that he "observed" he made them these sheets of paper with arabic written on them in some kind of red dye he made....and he told them to put them into water bottles until the dye disentegrates...and when it does drink it or bathe with the water. When he handed Emily hers, she reached out to grab it with her left hand and you would have thought the guy was having a heart attack....because in this culture you never do anything with your left hand because it is said to be your dirty hand used only for hygeine matters. She felt really bad but it was really funnyyyyy because it was something any given one of us would have done. After meeting with him and coming home, we had dinner and then made our way to bed.

START OF WEEK 2!

Mambo vipi again from Bagamoyo! Yesterday morning, Monday, I got up to teach class, glad to have Justin back for his help. It's a lot easier to teach 50 kids with 2 people than it is just one! I gave them their graded tests back from friday and put stickers on all of the ones that had good grades. When they saw the stickers they would just jump and start dancing from excitement! We were letting the kids have a "fun monday" so we gave back their pictures from last week and let them continute drawing. The class flew by and we took them to play some soccer for their breaktime. It is really funny how the boys and girls separate. All of the girls go to play soccer with Justin and all of the little girls come to sit with me and dance. They also LOVE playing with my hair and braiding it. They are all so cute and I can tell I'm going to be really sad when I have to leave them : ( . I came back for lunch and Swahili lessons. Swahili lessons were cut a little short due to the rain. The rain is CRAZY around here. It will be completely sunny and then out of nowhere start POURING! You have never seen rain come down as hard as it does here. It will rain hard for like 5 to 20 minutes and then just stops like it never happened! After the rain stopped we made our way down the road to the Arts Centre for Batik/Tie-dying lessons! Batiking is when you take a piece of cloth and put wax down in any design you like. When you are done with your wax design you put the cloth into dye and it dyes everything but where the wax was. It was really neat to watch and all of them turned out to be a lot better than we expected! After we were done, the guys from the centre did some dancing and drumming for us and I bought an amazing painting!! I think some other people wanted it too, so I'm glad I got to it first! I also got some really cool jewelry! The guys there always wear bent forks for bracelets and I thought it was really unique so I bought one! It was the owner Dickson's birthday, so he invited us all to come back after dinner for a party and celebrating! Some of us went to change clothes and went to eat dinner at the main house (pasta..yummmm!) and then made our way back over to the arts centre. They made us lots of food...which even if we didnt want to eat it we had to...because it is kind of disrespectful when people prepare you food and it is not eaten. It was the strongest tea any of us had ever tasted. I couldn't finish it but others forced themselves too haha. The guys at the art centre played the guitar and drums and sang and danced with the kids. They all take care, feed...clothe...etc, a bunch of kids and also sponsor some of them at school. A few of my kids from my class were there (Patricki, Isa, and Omali)! They were really good dancers too...may explain why they arent so good at school ; ) !! Hanging out with them at a party made me feel like the creapy teacher that you run into at the bar at night tho haha.
This morning Emily, Justin, and myself slept in an extra hour since we didnt start work until late and caught a ride with Didase in the CCS van to Mbaruku School. We had a great day of teaching the kids BINGO and after class watched Brandon teach some of my girls how to dance the Cupid Shuffle! We had a blast and they thought our dances were really funny! After we left, Brandon and I headed down to the dress maker to order some more shorts and headscarves. I also bought some more fabric and figurines since they are so cheap there! Didase gave us a ride back to homebase. When we stopped by to pick up Emily from UKUN Brandon realized he had left his bag of clothes outside of the dress makers. But when we got back someone had taken them and they were no longer there : ( . At least he made whoever found the bags day! Now I'm back at the computer place by homebase and getting ready for our afternoon visiting the African Medicine Man! Should be exciting!!!! But the bell just rang for lunch soooo BAADAYE (later)!

ZANZIBAR!

Hamjambo?! Harbari?! Hope all is well with everyone at home! I am missing you all dearly & wish all of you could be experiencing all of this with me!!! I'm a few days behind on my blog so I am using right now to catch up finally. This past weekend was a BLAST! We had an fantabulous time in Zanzibar, very relaxing and entertaining at the same time! Friday morning I got up and went to teach. Decided to give them a test to see how well they were truly understanding time telling! Plus it was the easiest thing to do with 50 kids, when I didnt have Justin there to help me.haha. After bidding farewell and a good weekend to the kids I made my way back to home base to get ready for our trip. After throwing some last minute things into my bag, all 16 of us piled into a pretty nice bus...even though it did have small chinese children wallpapered all over the inside : ) . Because of a local named Kennedy, who did all of our planning for us for the weekend, everything was extremely easy. We made our two hour journey back to Dar Es Salaam to board onto the ferry. Kennedy also surprised us with First Class tickets for the ferry which ended up being a blessing! The inside of the boat is set up like plane seating, with the upstairs being upstairs and much more spread out...so it was very nice! Especially since this two hour boat ride ended up being in high seas and some peoples first boat ride ever...it made for some pretty upset stomachs! Once we got off the ferry and went through Customs, we boarded another bus and made our hour long ride to our hotel on the Eastern coast of the island. It was very bumpy roads in the dark of night, to what seemed like the middle of nowhere. Our hotel was a lot of little bungalows with 3 four-poster beds in each room covered with, of course, the mosquito nets! And the best part was our bathrooms with WARM WATER!!!! & very large commodity around these parts! After grabbing a quick dinner we all were extremely tired and went to bed.
It was so cool waking up the next morning to the beach, which we couldnt see at all the first night there. It was GORGEOUS! White sands...Blue Skies...Light teal water...and a Bar of course! haha. They had a PADI dive center there so Meg went diving, some of us spent the day snorkelling, and others kayaked. We all had a great day laying on the beach catching some rays...some of us maybe too many rays! LOL. All up and down the beach there were locals with little huts, selling painting and sculptures, and other kids of art. We decided to make our way down there after having a HAMBURGER : ) for lunch! And let me tell you, these locals are Hustlers!!!! They would come by and grab your hand and pull you into their stores to buy something...and if you even ask the price of something they immediately think you will buy it. Sometimes we would just say yes just to get them to be quiet! But a lot of bartering was done that afternoon & we got some really awesome artwork for really cheap! Our favorite purchase was our MZUNGU (white person) t-shirts haha...we can't wait to wear them when we get home!
Every local we say kept asking us if we were going to dance with them tonight...and come to find out there was a big full moon party going on on the beach that night to celebrate the full moon! So of course we said we would join in on the fun! So that evening we made our way down the beach to the next hotel over and paid the 5,000 shillings to go to the party and for one free drink! We had a blast dancing with each other and watching the Kilimanjaro group do their acrobatics show. We also ran into a lot of the locals we had seen early that day...Shadrac, Mr. M, Captain Morgan (whose dog we adopted and name Jessie-George earlier that morning), and a few others. They were all really nice, but most of the locals were a little creapy. They would follow you around until you danced with them and always ask you to hangout...I'm pretty sure a few girls got some proposals haha. After dancing all night I retired myself back to bed.
The next morning we had to check out at 10AM, but our driver wasnt coming to pick us up until 12 so Katherine, Suzanne, and I got breakfast and then were brave enough to face the locals again for some more paintings! At 12 we made our hour ride back to Stone Town so we could walk around and see some of the history. We only had an hour and a half until we had to catch the ferry and many of us were starving, so we decided to stop and eat. We waiting FOREVER until we only had 10 minutes until we had to meet the group. So I asked the man if they could hurry because we were in a rush and he said that the food was coming out of the kitchen as we spoke. but 5 minutes later he came out and said "We have no cheese"...dumbfounded, because we had all ordered GRILLED CHEESES, Meg said "sooo you are bringing us a grilled cheese w/o the cheese...soooooo just bread???" and he said YES hahahaha...so, upset that we didnt get our food, we all just got up and left! We all made our way wiht about a million other people back onto the ferry...everyone pushing and shoving...I think i dropped my stuff like amillion times and we were all about to scream or cry haha. And the ferry right didnt go quite as smoothly as the last one either. We were all fine watching Rat Race on the boat until Jamie, who was sitting beside me, throws up in his hat from sea sickness. When I let everyone know that he was sick and that we needed paper towels, everyone else got sick too. So we had over half of us outside throwing up over the side of the boat. It wasn't pretty AT ALL!!!! I never get seasick and I was really queasy too : ( but I forced myself to fall asleep thru it. Everyone was EXTREMELY glad when we were back on land! On our way home we stopped at a Shoprite grocery store to grab food...when we were walking out of the store I looked up above the doorway and there was a VERY large sign that read..."Thank You CALL again!" (instead of come) haha...I thought it was hysterical that they put that much money into a sign that made no sense for a grocery store! After getting a good laugh, we boarded the bus and finally made it back home where we all fell dead asleep in a matter of seconds. As much as we loved Zanzibar, we were all very happy to be back in Bagamoyo! I think we missed the soft pillows from the hotel more than anything (because our pillows here are like rocks)!

Good Day, SCARY night : (

Woke up thursday for breakfast and school. We are still trying to teach the kids telling time in English. They have it for the most part except for when it comes to saying " It is quarter TO the hour," but hopefully they will understand eventually! We took some pictures with the kids today and they absolutely LOVE seeing themselves on the camera! It made me miss all my little neices and nephews at home that want to see the camera everytime a picture is taken of them! We made it back early because Justin, Talia, Trent, and Allie were all leaving for Zanzibar a day early. First thing that afternoon, we had James, Matiga, Maola, Doe, and Dickson from the Art Centre come to the house and teach us drumming, bead making, and painting! Drumming was a blast! We had fun learning a few beats from the locals, or at least those of us with any rhythm did!!! Bead making was fun too! We were taught how to make different necklaces, braclets, and anklets. I made a necklace that tooke foreverrrrr to make because it had so many beads and I got Dickson to tie the knot at the end of it. When he tied the knot, the necklace broke : ( ... just my luck! haha...but they were nice enought to do it for me over again, since they are much faster at it then myself! After our lessons, everyone made their way down to the dress maker to get our clothes made out of the congas we bought. On the way there I bought a painting from RASTI of massai warriors that I really liked! I'm really excited about putting it the new apartment! haha.
Since there were so many of us at the Dress makers, Charlotte, Meg, & I decided we would come back next week. So we headed back to the main house. When we got there, we werent sitting down for more than 5 minutes when we heard the loudest scream you have ever heard in your life from one of the volunteers across the street. She came running over and we had no idea what happened. We all just figured she had been bitten by a bee or something, but she kept screaming and running. When she came around the building and saw us, all she could say way " He has a gun, he has a gun." Freaked out and not knowing what to do, we all ran into the staff house and hid in a room on the floor. Once it was cleared that we were out of harms way, we made our way out of the building to find out what had happened. We could tell there was a mob of over 100 locals outside of the walls of our gate and we knew someone had been threatened with a weapon for money, but we didnt know exactly what was going on. Two seconds later, a man was dragged in by the security gaurds and everyone outside went crazy. Kara, the girl who had been screming and Nick were asked to go over and identify if that was the man that threatened them and it was. The gaurds, Mama C & Mama Thea, and others began beating the man on the ground. Kicking him in the ribs and face and punching him. We had never seen anything like it before and it scared all of us. It was one of those things you didnt want to see but it was so horrible that you couldnt help but watch. I was most worried about all of the volunteers walking back from the dress shop because I knew they would be walking right into the mob outside of our gates. Thankfully, they all got in safely! The man wouldn't stay still, so they tied his feet and hands together and continued to beat him. We thought he would be killed, but the cops were called and escorted the man away & brought the volunteers that witnessed it all down to the station. Later on that evening we had a meeting to debrief the days activites. We got the full details of what happened. One of the volunteers had met this man who said his name was George Wilson. He had used the volunteer to find out where the volunteers all lived and that afternoon came into the Annex house looking for John (this volunteer). When he didn't find John, he sat down to talk to the other volunteers in the house. But since we are not allowed to have locals inside our gates, he was asked to leave. When he stood up he pulled out a butcher knife and told them that if they didnt give him $100,000 he had a gun and would kill them. Kara gave him all the money she had but when he saw it wasnt enough, he freaked out. This was when Kara ran out of the room screaming. The man followed her to stop her but when he realized she had attracted attention outside, he began running down the street. When theifs are caught red-handed in Tanzania, many times they will be immediately killed by the locals. So everyone was trying to catch him in the streets because all of the locals respect CCS (our program) and what we do for the community. As the locals tried to kill him, our security gaurds grabbed him and pulled him inside to question him before he was killed. This is why so many locals were gathered outside our gates...because they wanted to see him killed.
Thankfully no one got hurt. It was a crazy situation, nothing like anything we had ever seen before. There was a lot of crying from everyone and people worried about how our parents would take it. But CCS assured us of our safety and that we had nothing to worry about. We knew we just had to be more cautious and think twice before befriending a random person from the community. After a traumatic night we all went to bed, ready to start a new day and leave for Zanzibar for the weekend!

Wednesday, Week One!

Wednesday, Week one! We woke up at 6:00 for breakfast and made our ten minute walk to the main house @ 6:30. We made it to Mbaruku Primary around 7:30, which was extremely early! Come to find out we dont have a class until around 9. So in the meantime we just sit around until our period to teach. We were very thankful to finally have a schedule to go by though! I usually teach one or two 40 minute english classes a morning and then play Futball (soccer) &/or dancing and games with them during their break time. So I am usually done by 11AM and can then go back and take a shower before everyone gets back for lunch! Today, I went back to our house after class and tooke a LONG, much needed nap and skipped lunch. I made it back to the homebase just in time for our Kiswahili lesson and then we made our way to Bagamoyo Secondary School (high school) to learn more about the education systems in Tanzania. After going there, I never want to hear anyone complain about how bad their school is in the U.S., because they can't even compare to the conditions of these schools. They are about 150 women and 700 men. They must all pay to attend the school and only men are allowed to live at the school. The women must find housing outside of the campus. All of their lessons are taught in English (many children never make it to highschool because they never learned enough english). Many of the students go on to University after attending (most within tanzania for teaching and a few outside of the country). After meeting with the head of the school and touring their classrooms and dining hall we made our way back to the home base for a quick dinner and bed!

1st day @ Mburuku Primary!

This morning we woke up late because my alarm never went off! Just in time to make the bus to the home base at 6:30. After a quick breakfast, Brandon, Justin, & I made our way to Mburuku Primary for the first time! We had no idea what to expect. Getting out of the van, we had about 400 smiling faces watching our every move. The school consists of 2 open air buildings, consisting of 7 classrooms, an office, and a "teachers lounge". There is a large courtyard in the middle and 2 soccer fields beside the school. We first met with the principal...the language barrier made it a little confusing, but we decided that justin and I would be working with Standard (grade) 4 and Brandon with Standard 7. Since the schools are drawing towards their end next week for their winter break, the schedules are a little crazy. We waited for about an hour for the kids to finish their exams and were shown the lounge and introduced to some of the other teachers. We were told we would only be observing today and not teaching but after the kids were done with exams we were thrown right into the classroom...SCARY right?!?! haha. At first we had no idea what to do. We introduced ourselves ("Jina langu ni Katie na Justin") & asked them all of their names ("Jina lako nani?). After going around and hearing all of their names we decided to teach them how to play Heads Up Seven Up! Although they could not understand the game at all the first few times (they especially had problems not peaking lol), they slowly got a handle on it and really had a good time! Our curriculum for our English class today was to teach them how to tell and write time. We drew clocks on the board and taught them half past, quarter past, and quarter till the hour and they all picked up on it really fast! & were surprisingly good at writing in english as well! Since that was really our only lesson for the day we decided to draw pictures on the board and see if they could guess what they were in english...they had a lot of fun doing this and we even got them to draw some pictures on their own to see if we Muzungus (white people) could guess too!!! After teaching them the Hokey Pokey and letting them teach us a few of their dances and songs, we thought we were down with the class so we went back to the teachers lounge during the kids break time. The other teachers had made us Chupati and some chi tea which we graciously accepted. When all the kids were back in the classroom, we asked the other teachers what they were going to do next and they said they had nothing for them to do so they would just wait until their next exam at 12:30. Considering they dont ever have much of a schedule in Tanzania, this didnt really surprise us...but we didnt want to just sit back and do nothing when the kids could at least be having fun! So I decided to take Standard 4 out to the soccer fields for some game time! & we had a BLAST!!!! the kids can't get enough of us! Everywhere I went I had a child burrowed under each arm and holding every hand, arm and leg possible...and they couldn't stop touching my hair! They are all ADORABLE children and I can already tell its going to be so hard for us all to leave them in a few weeks : ( Justin and Brandon joined us out to play...Brandon being an African American is really funny here because no one thinks he is from America and they dont really understand why he speaks so differently than them. haha...but we all just give it a good laugh! After running around like crazy people playing soccer, all the kids taught us circle songs and dances and we had so much fun! I dont think we volunteers have ever been so hot and sweaty in our lives, but we were having some of the best times so we didnt even care : ) ... after we were done and went back to the school, we had to leave the children (after assuring them that we were coming back tomorrow) and go back to homebase for lunch! After a quick shower, lunch, and our daily Swahili lesson we met with Mama Thea and she taught us about culture and family structure in Bagamoyo. She also taught us how to carry the big bottles of water on our heads! How fun! After meeting with her we went to meet with a musical family for what was supposed to last only 30 minutes. They are a large family of 45 people who all live together and have travelled all over there world with their musical group performing for all kinds of people. They have tons of kids, all adorable, and we had a blast playing with them and taking pictures! After the family made us chi tea and the best peanuts ever that they had been cooking all day, we got to hear them perform on their personal-made instruments and they were amazing! They all played instruments and many of the kids sang and danced with them. It was truly a moment to remember for sure! They are coming to play for us again next Wednesday and we can't wait! After Mama Thea and Mama C had to drag us away after being there almost 2 hours, we came back to home base to eat dinner & then find me here, back in the small computer "cafe" down the old dirt road from our home! I will be posting again tomorrow because missing a day completely throws me off and I can't remember what I've done! So Kwaheri (goodbye)! & will post again soon! Asante Sana!

p.s. i fell out of my bunk bed last night when i was half asleep trying to get out to use the bathroom hahaha! so the hip isnt feeling so good today! <3

Whew!

Habari!!! It has been a lonngggg 2 last days...but tons of fun! We spent most of the day yesterday exploring Bagamoyo and in Swahili lessons. The town is amazing, tons of people and all extremely nice! I made my first native friend yesterday @ his art shop down by the beach. I stopped and talked to him because he looked like a pretty cool rastafarian and come to find out his name is RASTI! lol. I brought some friends back to see him later on that afternoon and look at his artwork and he says he will give us african art lessons whenever we would like over the next three weeks! We also went and bought some really neat African fabrics for this local lady that is going to make us some shorts, skirts, and head scarfs for only 5000 shillings (less than 5 dollars)! Bagamoyo town is awesome! It is a typical african town/city...a lot of mud huts with twig roofs, dirt roads, and tons of people and kids everywhere! There are 4 primary schools in the area and an arts college all within walking distance. It's always fun going and joining in with the kids playing soccer! &&& we have the BEACH! which is rather smelly due to their large fishing industry but still a gorgeous beach with many boats and palm trees. The sky looks huge in africa, like it goes on for days, and at night it is extremely dark. We will be walking down the street when a motorcycle rides by and blinds you for 5 minutes because of the light. We've run into many a biker and local because we weren't used to it being so dark : ) The Swahili lessons are great too! & the language is so easy to pick up! It has become easier and easier for us to conversate with the people everyday & we are having a lot of fun with it!

HAMJAMBO FROM TANZANIA!

hey all! glad to say i was finally able to get on and make a post! I don't even know where to begin...but just to let everyone know, i have arrived safely! It was a LOONNNNGGGG flight, especially from JFK to Dubai...but my upgrade on the Emirates flight definitely helped me with my sleep deprivation! We finally made it after 3 long flights, a long wait at the airport, and an even longer and bumpier drive to Bagamoyo down a dirt road in a packed van of about 20 people and a million pieces of luggage! The drive here was amazing! We came thru around 8pm TFT (Tanzanian FLEXIBLE time) and being a saturday night in Africa, everyone was out on the streets, bands playing, and everyone with their candles (due to the lack of street lighting). Everyone on the streets that would see us pass by would either give us a thumbs up or shout out MZUNGU (white person) at the top of their lungs! It was almost like a dream (especially considering all of us could barely keep our eyes open after the long day of travelling)! We finally arrived at the Home Base and had our first meal! I don't think anyone needs to worry about me or any of the other volunteers starving to death, because we have more than enough amazing food to eat thanks to the great staff! After dinner and a meeting with the volunteers who have already been here a few weeks, we made our way to the "Summer House"...its overflow housing for extra volunteers BUT with the luxury of air conditioning that most volunteers never have! After extremely quick unpacking and showering, all of us were asleep within what seemed like seconds! We sleep 2 to a room on bunk beds and each room has its own bathroom! We woke up this morning at 7am and made our way to another great meal for breakfast with AMAZING pineapple! We spent the rest of our morning exploring Bagamoyo and all of the historical sites. The town is very historic and his one of the main portals for past ivory and slave trades. After one day of siteseeing (kaole ruins, the beach, markets, etc.) I believe I have already taken over 100 pictures, all to be on facebook very soon with any luck! This afternoon we have been doing some paperwork, meet and greets, and learning a little more of our swahili! It's really cool how fast the language comes to you and how appreciative all of the people are that you make the effort to speak Swahili (because they definitely try very hard to speak English)! I am in a really tiny internet cafe right now...pretty much just a 5 by 10 foot room with 8 large computers for use! and its CHEAP (only 1000 shillings...or about a dollar every 30 minutes!!!). BUT ive got to meet back for dinner soon and a night out on the town! but I will post back tomorrow or later this week and let you know more about the town of Bagamoyo, because it is a spectacular place and I can already tell I am going to love it! ASANTE SANA for reading my blog! and I will post again soon! <3, katie

My Bagamoyo Volunteer Placement!

Hey everyone! I finally got my job placement for my trip & I thankfully got exactly what I was hoping for! I will be teaching students and assisting teachers at Mbaruku Primary School in Bagamoyo. Mbaruku is a primary school for children aged 4-14 years old. Currently, the school has 447 students. The classes are broken down into: Pre-school (4-6 years) and primary education (7-14 years). My Volunteer Activities and Duties will include teaching english, mathematics, reading and writing, teaching sports, games and songs, and arts and crafts, helping assess the development and progress of students, helping create testing procedures, Organizing projects and activities for the children, and working with the teachers to develop primary school activities and materials that can hopefully be used for years to come! I can't wait to get there and get started! Should be an amazing opportunity! 3 weeks left!

Today was a crazy day getting ready for the trip! Finally got my VISA information sent off and filled out a million other things of paper work just in preparation! On Monday I have to get like SIX shots!!! UGH! I thought I would only have to get three but I was wrong : ( They are all worth it though! Returning with Yellow Fever or Malaria wouldn't be much fun! But I'll put another post up in a few days to let you know how preparations are coming! One exam left at school tomorrow morning and I'm out for summer!

Preparing for my Trip : S

I only have LESS than ONE MONTH left before I leave for my trip!! I'm starting to get into panic mode with everything that needs to get done (still have to get my VISA, vaccinations, learning a little Swahili, .... )Ahhhhh so much to do! & still finishing up college exams on top of all that! But it WILL get done! I'm determined : S