Today was a great day at school! Again, I taught the whole day. I think this will become a consistent thing, so I need to make sure I have a lesson planned every night for the coming day. They learned how to say "Hello my name is ____", "I am from Tanzania", and "I like to play!"I would write it in Swahili and then English, one on top of the other, so they could make the comparison. If you would like to practice your Swahili to see if you're cut out for this confusing language, say the following:
            Swahili: "Hujambo! Jina langu ni _______. Mimi ni mmarekani. Nina penda _______!"
            Translation: "Hello! My name is ______. I am from America. I like to _______!"
Could you do it? That's actually a pretty easy set of statements as for as complexity of words go. Especially when we're expected to remember things like "tutaonana kesho" and "kaaeni chini" (see you tomorrow & sit down). It's fun though! 


After school the other volunteers and I walked down to the street market about 15 minutes down the road and got a couple things for our students. Walking down the street we saw a little 2 year old boy playing with a (so be it dull) switchblade with no parents around. Being maternal girls and invested in this child's life, we took the blade away from him and gave it to one of his older brothers to put away. Also at the street market store, right next to all the children's school supplies they were selling machetes! Right out on the shelf. No, no, there was no plastic or material covering the blade. Just giant knives chilling next to the Crayolas. It's a wonder children grow to adulthood in this country without killing themselves first. As we walked back, approaching the gate to our home base, there was another safari company waiting outside for us. This is the third company that's done this since I've been here. Because there is such a constant flow of white kids coming in they know about it and just show up randomly to convince us into going with them. It's so annoying. We lied saying we've already done everything and ditched them, leaving them to their failed attempt.


Something I failed to add in yesterdays post - I gave one of my Books of Mormon to a volunteer last night! Her name is Jessica and she's probably my favorite. So down to earth and has the funniest sense of dry humor. On our way from the trial she turns to me and says "In a quick explanation, could you just...tell me what Mormons believe? I don't even know."So I browsed over having a modern day prophet, 12 apostles, temples, baptism by immersion, all of these being the same as Christ's original church & we believe ours is the restored version of that. She inquired further about if we believe the Bible or if we have our own version, etc. I clarified that, explaining that Christ also visited the Americas in addition to Israel - the Israelites weren't the only people Christ cared enough about to visit :) - and how that's what the Book of Mormon is consisted of & how it's an addition to the Bible, not a replacement. She was very supportive towards a lot of the Mormon beliefs I had explained, so that night gave her one of my little travel Books of Mormon. She was flattered and ensured she'd return it before I left :) I told her she could keep it and that made her even more pleased. I'm serving my own little mission down here!!!!

Tomorrow will be another full-on teaching day for me, and then a night in town!! I'll take some pictures of Moshi town because it is so packed and fast-paced! Love you all!!

Just to give Mom a heart attack.
Happy early Mother's Day!