"I don't know! She just came and ate my kuku!"

Oh. So much has happened. This won't all be in order, but it doesn't really matter.

The mama who cooks our lunch and dinner for us, Mama Sisi (so AWESOME) also owns either the restaurant at the Royal Beach Hotel or the whole hotel. We're not sure. But we went down a couple of nights ago to have dinner there. It is beautiful. It is right on Lake Babati, which is full of hippos and sometimes crocodiles. There were also a few canoes carved out of tree trunks, like the Native Americans would do. There were a few patches in them. All the volunteers and teaching partners wanted to go for a ride in them, so some locals kept bringing their own canoes over and charging for rides. Hilarious. Some of the canoes were patched pretty terribly. They kept having to bail water out. But I got some great pictures of the lake and of the group going out in canoes.

Speaking of the lake and hippos... I forgot to mention earlier about the hippo on the side of the road. One night Evelyn, one of our coordinators, gets a call. "Guys, there's a hippo on the side of the road!" We all start running, practically anyway. We thought it was dead and saw a large groud of people around this object. Then we saw that the object was moving and I kept thinking, "That is a weird looking hippo..." We get closer. It's a cow. And her calf. Then we realize the hippo is on the other side of the street. Which makes more sense, since that is where the water is. We got so many pictures. All of us were getting so close and getting into the swampy areas with the hippo. The locals were smart and stood back. Sam and Yonas got really close. Ester did a little dance trying to get close enough for a picture with it and the hippo "charged" at her. Yonas kept disappearing into the trees and popping out at a different place to get a good picture. He was super close and Peery and I just said, "Oh, it's okay. He's Masai." Not really a good excuse, but whatever. It was just awesome.

Grace, Frank, Sara, and I saw the hippo again just last night. We were walking and all of the sudden I see Grace stop and grab Sara. I see what she's looking at it just as she does, and I grab Frank's arm. The hippo is on the side of the road, literally five feet in front of me. All we could really see was its glistening skin in the moonlight. But it was so cool. To be that close. We could have touched it!!

I can't even begin to write everything. We've been having a really great time. Orientation is going great. It's sad we'll be splitting into our neighborhoods so soon to teach!! I wish we could all stay together! But we've been doing teaching demonstrations. It is kind of cool to do official demonstrations. We always get up and teach stuff, but it's not official. We really have learned a lot about our teaching styles and translating a lesson and everything. I'm excited to get in the classroom and on the street!

We've been getting dinner for ourselves the past couple of nights. It's cool to check things out for ourselves. There's a supermarket with peanut butter, honey, nutella (ridiculously expensive here...) and anything else you could ask for! We are all stocking up on it for our homestays so we can have a variety of flavors. That's what we're lacking here: flavor. But we deal and find nutella.

Speaking of dinner... Last night after our hippo incident, Frank, Grace, Sara, Peery, Danny, Kara, and I went to eat at Mama Sisi's place. Frank had some chicken. This woman came in and we all thought she was waiting on us. All of the sudden she reached down to Frank's plate and took a bite of his chicken. We were all wondering what was going on. Frank just sat and stared. When we asked what had happened he said, "I don't know! That woman just came and ate my kuku!!" It was hilarous. Kuku is the Kiswahili word for chicken. The whole incident was hilarious. Plus the fact that Frank threw in a Kiswahili word instead of just using chicken! So great.

Well, I know there's more. I think I might have written about the hippo twice, but oh well. More detail in this post. Next time I will bring my journal so that I can make sure I get all the funny stories. I just don't remember all that now.

Kwaheri!

Ants in Our Pants

So, the story of Tanzania. 20 students (approximately). 2 months. 1 amazing experience.

So they say...

But here's what really happened:

Our bonding nature hike. 8 hours through grueling jungle/forest around Arusha. I swear we passed through three climate zones. The air was so thin none of us could breathe. There was mud, gore, death. But don't worry. None of us volunteers or teaching partners died. We only thought we were going to.

I fell a couple of times. More than. At the end I just decided to slide down on my butt. Got a bit muddy. But it was amazing. Until Ivvette slid into a fire ant home.

They got inside her pants and were eating her alive so she had to strip and get them all out before we could continue. Absolutely insane!!!

But there was a positive outcome for our struggles. We got all the way to the most beautiful waterfall. It had been raining so it sprayed sooo far. We were all soaked. Some of us climbed up behind it. It was definitely worth all the struggle getting up there to see that waterfall. We had to hike through the river for about 30 minutes too. Some of us even got to see some monkeys.

It really was a bonding hike because we all had to help each other. Especially me. Since as Michael said, I was on my ass every time he turned around. ;)

The next day we traveled to Babati, where we will be spending the majority of our time. We are currently in a guest house used mostly for prostitution. The first night, my roommate and I found a blood stain on our sheets. Needless to say, we don't sleep in between the sheets anymore. I brought my own and Jenn has a sleeping bag.

The choos (toilets) are ceramic pits in the ground. The school where we go for our orientation classes, the choos are holes in the ground. You often get bit by unfriendly creatures. No. 2 is a bit difficult. But all part of the experience right?

Orientation is like college, but worse. 8 AM - 5 PM we are in a classroom, learning about everything we will ever need to know. There's no way around it.

We've just been checking out Babatitown. Today we got some kongas (cheap fabric) and katangas (expensive fabric) to turn into skirts for teaching. Kongas are usually used as bathrobes and you just wrap them around you. They are just absolutely beautiful. I am very excited for them. I am also getting a dress made, so hopefully that turns out well. It's always hard to tell.

We move into our homestays next week, Tuesday. I'm nervous and excited to see what it will be like. But the people here are so friendly and we are learning some Swahili. I love it. It's just really amazing to be back in Africa again, and tasting those orange Fantas! :D Just to teach you something I've learned: Sisi tuna fundisha Virusi Vya UKIMWI/UKIMWI. That means we are here to teach about HIV/AIDS. Sweet!!

That's all for now. Definitely keep checking. This is just much easier to update than facebook, since the internet is so sketchy here I can only read about 2 emails in an hour sometimes. There will definitely be a lot more about all the personal stuff we go through once we get teaching and meeting our mamas and babas and siblings in our homestays.

Also, this is OBAMALAND, as they like to say. Someone got a konga with Obama's face on it. Amazing! Alright, check back!!!