Sorry! No internet again last night! Here is the post for yesterday!

Tuesday, May 8th

Today was my Rwandan genocide day! Not the happiest spirit I've every felt - but definitely informative.  Also a little depressing. We woke up extra early to get there right on time (1 hour drive), and everything was immediately official. We got visitors name tags, went through a security check, and walked down the white-walled hallways to a door that required a lock to get through. Once inside we were required to sit in the room and watch a one-hour documentary about the proceedings of the courts thus far. The very beginning was a brief overview of the genocide, though, and Africa does not filter their movies as much as America does. It was really disturbing. It showed pictures of the dead, mangled bodies in the streets of Rwanda, faces distorted, hundreds covering the entire ground. Flashes of other dead bodies were shown in their bedrooms, the doorways of their homes, and even church buildings. They didn't spare showing the range of ages killed either. It definitely forced reality on me. How terrible and violent African countries are, how merciless and evil people are even able to be. I don't think I even conceived the horror of a genocide until this morning. 

Needless to say, it was a disturbing part of the documentary. The rest was mostly a boring 45 minute explanation of what the court has accomplished so far since 1994. What it did teach me though, is that there is so much involved in a genocide as far as those found guilty. Anyone even remotely involved in it is tried and found guilty with x number of years in prison. 

After that we were lead to the top floor, down more white hallways into another locked room that looked somewhat like a conference room. The director of public relations sat down and gave us a briefing of the court progression in the past 18 years, how they come upon their decisions for sentences, where they found the guilty as they had fled the country, how many are left unfound, etc. A lot of it I wasn't able to grasp because of his accent and the disadvantages of being in the back of the room, but I did learn things here and there. After all this build up, feeling fully informed of the genocide and how things have progressed up to this moment, we went down the elevator and walked to the courtroom where the tribunal was going to be held. 

This is where you'll learn something about Tanzanians. They are terrible at keeping a strict schedule. For this, you know, you'd think they would stay on schedule considering it's officially law-related. But when we arrived at the courtroom the tribunal was to full capacity and nearly finished. Anticlimactic, I know. We left the government building and went to lunch at a crappy hotel buffet. On the bright side, at least I learned a lot about the genocide. Tribunals also only last like 15-20 minutes so I guess it would be easy to miss if we were just 10 minutes late, which might be what it was. 

Because we were still in Arusha, we drove to a tanzanite store - highly secure - and watched a little movie about it (trying to sell it to us) and afterwards browsed all the gems not intending on buying any. Mom, you were right, this stone is predicted to only last one generation and then they are all gone because they are only mined from the foothills of Mt. Kilimajaro in Tanzania. After that we went to a Masai market where I got harassed by every store owner and resorted to sitting in the car and waiting it out. I can't take that. 

Tomorrow is another school day and I've got some more lessons planned out! I'm excited to try them on the kids, see how much I can really teach them. I'll post one picture to make this post worth it =) 

Mt. Kilimanjaro!

                           

Thanks for all the great feedback on the pictures!! It was so amazing. I know I'll never have an experience quite like that again. Today at school I ended up teaching all day! It was a little on the spot, as I've never had to do it and wasn't expecting it. As class started I asked the teacher what she had prepared so that I could figure out how I could be of help and she said "No, nothing. You teach!" I had to wrack my brain on something to teach and ended up teaching names of animals, numbers (math), and continued learning the wiggle song. Before I knew it school was over! Mom probably knows this, but the faster the school day goes, the better it must have been!! It's the worst days when you look at the clock and what feels like 2 hours was actually 15 minutes. That is the worst. So great school day overall!!


Afterwards, I went to town (Moshi) with a volunteer named Christianne to get money. She's been here for almost 3 months, so she is very experienced. She hangs out with all the Pristine guys. Pristine is the touring company that took us on our safari. They're all about my age guys, and really friendly. She's been hanging out with them for awhile now. So when we got to town, I got my money, and then we went over to the Pristine office to meet up with her friend Paul. I would never ask, but he has to have had a traumatic childhood. Half of his face is burned off, so his skin looks like melted wax on that half. He's a really sweet guy though. I wonder what some of these kids my age have had to go through in their life when they either act strange or have had obvious physical damage (possibly abuse). So the three of us went around town doing errands and it was really fun! The city is full of people, street vendors all over the place trying to sell you their used shoes etc., and every young African guy tries to talk to you because you're a mzungu girl. You always know if people say something about you as you pass because you hear "mzungu" in their conversation (again, that means white person). It's a very bustling city, but in an African way, making it that much more interesting. I think I'll go back a couple times.


Tomorrow I won't be going to school. I will be attending the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha. This means I'll be listening to the trials from a genocide that occurred in Rwanda around 1994. To quickly brief you, and I don't know much more than this, about one million people were killed in this genocide in Rwanda. There was a clash between two major (what sounds like tribes) parties, the Tutsis and and Hutus. The Hutu overthrew the Tutsi people as a rebellion against the current government. As a means to accomplishing that, they killed everyone in their way, drastically changing the structure of their population. Aka killing nearly 20% of it. They killed half a million people in 100 days during the worst of it. So a very, very terrible part of African history, and they are just now putting each officer responsible for these crimes on trial. Kind of like they did with the Nazis after WWII. It's not like a jury where I have any say in the trial, but more like a briefing so that I understand and am aware of the goings on of this event. The government actually "assigned" us to come. They must encourage outsiders to attend to maybe spread the word or something, I'm not sure, but it's a lot like Jury duty just with no say in the final decision. Oh, and it's being held in Tanzania because this is an impartial country. Very peaceful here, and no bias would be present. Tanzania seems to be kind of like Europe's Switzerland as far as stance towards wars and things such as that. So that should be extremely interesting!! I will tell you all about it when I get back! Love you all!!!

My safari was incredible!!!!! I can't describe in words what it was like so I will describe in pictures! 

Enjoy!! 

On the way to our lodging as we drove towards Ngorongoro Crater (3 hr drive), we stopped at a Masai village. They were so friendly, so happy, and they greeted us with a traditional dance and made us join. Right when I got there they put that big necklace around my head and had us jump up and down with them (apparently how they dance?) as they sang some song in their language. The Masai tribes are the ones who have the HUGE holes in their ears as earrings dangle from it. A lot of times they've been referred to as "bushman." Afterwards they sold all their jewelry to us, in which I bought a couple things because you kind of have to as "thanks" for allowing us into their village. It was a really interesting experience!! 

Right as we were entering the Ngorongoro Crater National Park, in the front parking lot where the gate is there were dozens of baboons!! Look at this cute baby and her mother! 

I got so close to them!! After being close for too long though I got too comfortable with it, and one time I got too close to one of them. The baboon started chasing me and kind of yelling at me. I screamed and ran away while the rest of the people in the parking lot laughed. The monkey wasn't actually attacking me - just scaring me off. It worked. 

Right after we passed the gate about 100 meters down this elephant was right off the side of the road!! Sad story goes with this though. On our way back from the crater we passed the same spot and there was a group of ranger-type people grouped over here. When we drove up we saw this elephant laying on her side with her eyes open but not moving right in this bush area. She was apparently really sick. The vet apparently tried to fix it, but later on in the night found out that she passed away. She was very old - about 60 years old. You can actually tell by how sunken in her cranium is and how brown her tusks are that she was old, sick, and ready to pass away. It's the circle of life. 

This group of lions were lying RIGHT off the side of the road! Amazing creatures. Out of all the animals I saw today - even the monkeys - these were my favorite. You can see their sense of pride and authority. It's so incredible to see these kinds of animals in their natural habitat.

If you can see it, there are spots on his leg still. That means he's still young. They fade as the lion gets older. This is a male teenager. 

Amazing birds with zebras and wildabeasts on the ground. 

Apparently it is very rare to see rhinos!! We got lucky today! (they were pretty far away though so this was the best I could do)

Zebras!! I love how the stripes mess with your eyes. They look exactly like donkeys, just with incredible designs on them.

Saw A LOT of zebras. Also blocking the road half the time so I got a lot of close ups. 

See his spots still on his belly? A little older, but still not all the way there. 20's maybe.  He's probably my age :)  He's actually looking up at a plane here but it made for a great picture! 

He was right off the road

These are the girls from my group at CCS! On the left is Jessica and the right is Kayleigh. Both really great girls!! 

 Very convincing sign. 

Ngorongoro crater. It was a volcano before, erupted, and the caved in on itself (or something) and created this amazing crater. Very diverse landscape, all with plenty of water and great habitats for most of these animals. That's why so many safaris are done here. All the best animals in one place!

They wanted me to do a thoughtful looking into the distance picture. I hate those. That would be my facial expression describing those thoughts. But great background, huh?! This is from a different viewing point. Notice how the clouds reflect off the lake on the far side of it. 

As we were walking outside our lodging area to see the sunset, we ran into these kids and tried talking to them for a little bit. They lived in a village right next to the lodging. Extremely poor, as you can see. They were so adorable. It is heartbreaking to see children in this state though. Again, if only there was something I could do. 

DAY 2 - Lake Manyara. These are our tour guides the whole trip. Extremely knowledgeable in just about anything to do with animals and really great guys. 

Here you go Trent! This is the best I can do. I will not bring them home in vials, but I will take pictures of them. It crawled around like an ant, and there were multiple. Tell me all about them in a comment. I'd love to hear it. 

As I was joking around with the driver, telling him he looks tired maybe I should drive, he says "ok" and gives me the keys!! Haha he knew I was joking but he said he'd let me try it.  So yes, I drove a safari jeep, on the wrong side of the road, wrong side of the car, stick shift, in an African wildlife park full of wild animals. Sweet, huh??!! I did an amazing job by the way - all 5 mph I was going. And no, no wild animals attacked us. I'm sure the tour guide knew that. I think the closest thing to us were some zebras. 

DUMBO!!!

This family of elephants - right next to our car!!

This biiig mama elephant walked RIGHT next to our jeep. See the railing? I could have reached out and touched her.

Baobab tree!! I love these trees so much! 

It's not a toucan but something like it! 

Look how small this little baby baboon is!! Mommy and Daddy are right there too. 

Can't remember the name of the species but here's another monkey!!!! 

Giraffe!! 

Here is our jeep with the other girls!! This was the most amazing trip I've ever been on!!! 

I have about 20 minutes before we leave for the safari and I'm all packed so I'll tell you quick about my day at school! Basically it was chaos. There were 75 children and one teacher that they understand. Andrea and I took one class and the other teacher took the other class. The kids know that they can get away with a lot with us, so they were never really behaving. At one point Andrea was teaching and I was keeping the kids quiet, and the really obnoxious ones I would take outside and lecture so they'd settle down. Mom - thank you for conditioning me for this. Years of helping in your classroom and being raised by a teacher really kicked in today. I would say things like, "No kaa (sit down), no futbol (making the motion of kicking a ball). You kemya! (stay quiet)" He understood enough and was perfect after that. It's all I can do to mix english with swahili because I barely know anything swahili. 


Also the kids are learning that when they cry they get attention from the teacher! So at one point, about 10 kids had their heads down in their arm making crying noises. It was a chorus of moaning. When you go up to them and lift their head up, they smile mischievously at you. We taught them the "I love you" song from Barney, and the "I wiggle my fingers, I wiggle my nose" song. They can get as far as the first two lines in I love you, and only copy my motions in the wiggle song. This little boy about 3 years old will now come up to me all the time and say "I love you!" It's the only english words he really knows, but so cute =) 


After a hectic day, though, I get to go on a safari!!!!! I will post a lot of pictures and talk less, because I know that's what you wanna see =) I love you all!! Have a great weekend!


Here - I still have 10 minutes. I'll post some more pictures.

 Me under a chagga hut!! 

 This goat had JUST given birth the the little baby goat when we went over there. The umbilical cord was still hanging from the baby. Mama goat looked at me right when I took the picture too! 

 These are the acrobats that performed for us. Just a group of young guys! They were great! 

These girls loved me. I don't know why but they all wanted to take a picture with me. The first time the girl in the purple saw me she said "you're cute" :) Maybe she thought I am really young? Wouldn't be surprised.      

Today, I think, marks the day that I really saw Africa in it's true form. I finally realized that I am HERE, and not just viewing it from the outside in. I'll tell you why later though. 

First I want to tell you about my significantly better school day! I've mentioned this before, but another volunteer, Andrea, teaches at the same school I do. We each take one of the two classes. Andrea is 32 and has done 3 other CCS programs in different areas of Africa, so she is not foreign to this system. I asked Andrea if she would mind being in the classroom I was in yesterday to see if she could break through the teacher in allowing volunteers to participate in the teaching. She has so much experience I thought she might be better than me at it. Plus, I didn't want another day like yesterday. We did that, and I tried out the second class with the other teacher. It was great! This teacher is much more...humble...in that she does not have strong English skills, so greatly relies on us to teach it. Today I was able to have the classroom to myself and teach them numbers. It was really great trying something out by myself. The teacher wasn't even in the classroom - she was making lunch in another building. I really enjoyed today. I'm excited to plan more lessons and see how much I can teach these kids in the time that I'm here. 

As far as how Andrea dealt with my classroom from yesterday, apparently the teacher was much more dependent on her than she was with me. She would have Andrea joint teach with the teacher, ask Andrea if she was pronouncing an English word correctly, allow Andrea her own time for teaching kids a song, etc. We were discussing it later, and we believe the reason for this is that the teacher respects Andrea's opinion more because she is an older woman. I mean, not old, but you can tell she's 32 by her face & body. They do not see her as so inferior as they might see me - and let's face it - without makeup I look 16. Age is a very big deal in their culture. The older you get the more respect you deserve, and respect is given. Whatever the reason, it's working out great this way and we are just going to stick with these classrooms now. 

As for the life-changing event. After school a group of us (volunteers) gathered together and traveled to an orphanage. This wasn't an orphanage in the sense that the kids are up for adoption, but they are about 45 in number and living in the care of the most amazing couple I've known. The couple just takes in kids with no homes or parents, so orphans in essence, and gives them a bed to sleep in, food to eat, and sends them to school to get an education. The father figure does not have a well-payed job, so money is basically nonexistent. They get donations from some organizations and help from the surrounding community, but they live in poverty. In each twin sized bed three kids sleep in each one, the bathroom consists of a hole in the ground and a room the size of a small closet, the kitchen is outside with tarp walls and one pot over firewood. Let me add that most of these kids are not tiny little tikes running around. The majority are teenagers now or older kids. How they all fit in that tiny house I hate to imagine. 

This little girl was standing confused in front of me as the rest of the kids were doing an introduction for us (a thank you song as we had brought them food & a soccer ball), so I motioned for her to come over and I picked her up to sit in my lap. After that moment she immediately attached to me. She is about 2 years old and does not talk, or would not talk, the entire time I was there. What she did do though, was never let go of my hand as we were walking, and eventually got comfortable to want to be held. While I held her she would rest her head against mine, lay into my shoulder, and look at me for reassurance on certain things that were going on in which I smiled and she smiled back, satisfied. We helped this family pick plants for the cows to eat, and the whole time she was helping me by pulling the dirt off the roots. When we walked back with all our plants she immediately wanted to be held again. 

On top of the terrible living conditions, the fact that each of these kids have a horrible history, and the selfless charity this husband and wife give the children, it was all so overwhelming. The love that this little girl desperately needed was so sad. Who knows if she's ever known her mother. According to a volunteer who has been at that orphanage recently, she'd never seen this girl, so she is probably right off the streets. The most heartbreaking part of this story is that as I was leaving to go back to CCS, this little girl continued following me even after I had said goodbye. I climbed into the van, looked behind me and she was trying to climb into the van after me to come with me. The other kids had to pull her back so that she didn't get all the way in. It was almost more than I could take. I was holding back tears nearly the whole ride home and it took everything I could not to cry in my room afterwards. I've never seen this much poverty, or never let it effect me if I have, and I feel like this connection I felt with the little girl forced me to see life the way she, or all those other kids, have to live it. It makes me angry that I can't do much. I will try to see if there is any way I can help while I am here, and maybe even after I get home. But their lives would not drastically change and it kills me that I can't do anything about that. 

On a lighter note, tomorrow I am going on my weekend safari trip starting tomorrow so I will not be updating till Sunday night (Saturday day your time)! It is a 3 day 2 night safari with a really reliable company (through CCS), we will be camping at night and in the jeep during the day! I will see how many animals I see and try to take great pictures for you all! I am so excited to see the animals!! I've been waiting for an experience like this since I was 9 years old and decorated my room in a jungle theme! I will be safe, promise =) I love you all and I'll talk to you soon!!! 

Girls from the "cultural night" from yesterday. I know, I'm glowing. Hopefully this weekend will take care of that.

This is her. The little girl that didn't leave my side. I love her so much and I don't even know her.  All I know is she is the sweetest little girl who needs more love than she gets.

You wanted more pictures with me in them! Here's one! Big leaves in the forest! This comes from a banana tree.

Sean, how'd you like to work out with this?? This is literally what our tour guide from yesterday at the waterfall hike uses. Moral of the story - don't take the gym for granted. 

First day of working at the school and it....was a bipolar experience. Parts of it were incredible and other parts completely overwhelming and discouraging. When I got there it was wonderful! The kids are just like you see in the commercials, running up the side of the van waving with huge smiles on their faces.  The minute I stepped out of the van there were 6 kids clinging to my skirt, hands, arms, waist, anything they could touch. They would look up at me and say "teacha, teacha!" with their cute little accents. It can actually get aggressive for which kids get my hands. It's like king of the hill. One kid will try to cling onto a hand while other kids are trying to pry one of my hands from him/her so they can hold it. I tried telling them to "share" or "don't hit!" but they didn't understand what I was saying so it was really no use. The best I could do was take my hands away from them entirely. The school is in terrible condition - I guess I should have expected that. It consists of two small buildings, one with the classrooms and the other the lunch room. There are 4 classes & 4 teachers, each with about 30 kids ranging from ages 3-6. Today, though, 2 of the teachers didn't show up. Apparently a common occurrence. Wonderful. So we had to combine 2 of the classes to make it almost 50 kids a classroom with one teacher in each and then us, the volunteers (me in one classroom and Andrea, the other volunteer in the other classroom). Inside the kids have a simple 2-person desk setup with cement walls and only the windows to provide any cooling or light. The front is a messed up blackboard which is made of I don't know what, but it works. They get 3 different sessions of recess including lunch during the 2nd recess. For lunch each kid gets a child-size plastic cup filled with porridge. That's it. One cup and they are done, and the porridge comes from a huge pot that is cooked throughout the day over a firewood fire. They do not waste, either. If one kid doesn't finish theirs, the teacher asks which kids want more and the quickest are lucky enough to get a portion of the extra porridge poured into their cup. They have three balls to play with - a soccer ball, tennis ball, and air-filled bouncy ball - to distribute amongst the 100 kids. Otherwise they have to entertain themselves with the dirt, grass, and each other. As you can see, they are in terrible conditions. It is so sad and it just adds to the overall depressing atmosphere of Tanzanian poverty. 


The overwhelming and discouraging aspect of my experience begins and ends in the actual teaching, though. The teacher spoke only in Swahili the entire lesson, so I had no idea what was going on. At one point during the lesson she asked if I would take over when we got to the English part where they would be learning about plants. I got excited because I would actually be of use, but when we got to that part of the lesson she forgot she had asked me, I guess, because she just kept cruisin through. She would say the English word "tree" for example, and would follow it up with a big long explanation in Swahili about what that English word she just said meant. It was then that I realized that even if I had tried to teach it & she remembered she asked me to do it, how could I explain anything further than pointing to the tree and saying "tree" with them repeating what I say? I couldn't explain anything more in depth than that and they might not understand it well enough to really learn it. The only thing I DID do today was check the students' work. They have pencils and workbooks (meaning books with specially spaced lines to guide where to write the letters and normal lines for math) and after the teacher would write a bunch of "today's" letter (which was P), they copy it in their workbooks. They would line up in front of my wanting me to check their work. The biggest problem, and I had the same problem when I was checking the addition for math, is that if a child got something wrong, how do I explain to them what they did wrong? The only thing I could do was point to their mistake, try to write out how to fix it, and tell them to try again. They would look up at me with confused eyes. I couldn't ask for the teacher's help because she was helping other students. This was also confirmed when the kids I had told to try again would come back 5 minutes later and had made the same exact mistake they had made before, they had just written it twice now.


Basically I felt worthless. Most of the lesson consisted of me listening quietly as the teacher jabbered on in words I did not understand, and then confusing the children as they're trying to do their exercises right and I'm just making matters worse for them. As you can imagine my first day of school experience was not so great. 


It got better afterwards, because after we got home a guest speaker came and talked to us about health issues in Tanzania, and afterwards had a lesson on Swahili at the home base. Following that we drove to a Women's Center for a "cultural night," consisting of dinner and performances by local youth. They did acrobats, classic hip-crazy African dancing, and had us join in at the end while they did the electric slide. It was fun to interact with kids more my age so I was able to see that age-group of Tanzanian culture. For some reason in the villages it seems to be only little little kids or older parents and grandparents. 


I really hope that tomorrow school will be better. I will make more of an effort to learn simple songs that I could teach the kids and maybe even be a little more insistent on playing a part in the lesson. If the kids only learn things in Swahili they'll never know English past one-word descriptions of things. Overall it was a great day, just a little overwhelming. Love you all! See you soon.

I’m sorry about not posting yesterday!!!! You should know that the internet here is not reliable! It just cut out yesterday and didn’t work the whole day (which would have been the middle of your day into the late night). I kept up my Microsoft Word “blog” though to post when it did start working so here you go:

Monday, April 30th

Today was an okay day. A lot of it was orientation which is why I say it’s just ok, but through any organized program you’ve gotta go through those. For one “activity” during orientation we had to do a scavenger hunt thing and go to houses in the neighborhood and ask for certain things like how many are in their family etc. This is when I really started to take in the poor lifestyle of people that live here. It is so sad. They barely have 4 walls standing, dirty water they use for everything but drinking, and absolutely no floors. It was really depressing. I bought a bag of sugar to give to them for their kindness and will be giving that to them. It’s a cultural thing. You give them a bag of sugar, spices, etc. to show respect for their generosity.

The only other interesting thing was after orientation we went into town. There were about 5 different men shaking their products in our faces for us to buy. They followed us to the store we were trying to go to, waited for us to be done, and followed us back to the van. Even when we were waiting in the van for our driver they were outside the window continuing their pointless effort. It rained as well so I was able to see real tropical rain! It rains hard!! Tomorrow will be a much more interesting day and I’m excited to tell you about it!

Tuesday, May 1st

Today was a crazy day! It is national Labor Day for all of Tanzania so nobody had to work. Therefore, we did not start at our schools yet – I’m really getting antsy to start. Instead, we went on a big trip. First, we went to a “batik” artist. Batik is a form of art that is done on a piece of cloth and they use wax and paint to create these amazing pieces. My favorite were silhouettes of African animals with the sunset behind them.

After that we stopped along the road to look at Baobab trees!! I got very excited to see those because one – it’s where Rafiki lives in the Lion King, and two – it’s in the play I was in “Little Prince.” They are known as the Tree of Life. It is easy to see why. I climbed up one and everyone was so impressed. The men who owned that land who welcomed us were so impressed they called me “koala” the rest of the time =)

After that we visited a Tanzanian blacksmith. It’s a horrible job. They sit outside in the blazing sun with one man pumping air into the coals to keep them hot and the other pounding down on the melted metal. They had me go over and pump air into the coals. The man I was pumping the air for suggested that I come back tomorrow too, haha. It was so hot though – I don’t know how they do it. They were making mostly spears. I tried asking if they make them for modern day use or if they were just for show but he didn’t really understand my question. I think they were souvenirs though because he explained the story about how in his tribe the men must kill a lion and take it back to the village to be considered a marriageable man. They were souvenirs…I’m almost sure.

Then we drove to the caves/waterfall hike. These caves were awesome. Most of the people around Kilimanjaro come from a tribe called the Chugga tribe, and they would have tribal battles with the Masai tribe, their enemy. So as a defense from the battles, the Chuggas dug this intricate set of tunnels and caves that they would hide out in. We toured those today. I love how in Tanzania they don’t have all the tourist safety restrictions they have to worry about. The tunnels were so small and hard to fit through, but then you’d come to a pod of a cave that the 6 of us comfortably sat in, but the natives would have 15 or more people cram together to sleep. They would also have to cut up the dead bodies to fit them through the tunnels and eventually take them to the ocean to dump – gross, huh?? After that we trekked to an amazing waterfall. The scene was something like you wouldn’t believe. It was so green and lush, vines hanging down the edges of the cliff…if the picture loads I’ll show you.

- Just so you know the Internet here isn’t great so it takes ages to load up pictures. I’ll only be able to put up a couple pictures at a time – if that. I’ll try my hardest.

After we had gotten home, a girl from my group and I went across the street to the poor ladies house I mentioned yesterday to give her the sugar and spices. She wasn’t there, but instead there were at least 8 kids there and ready to play. They are SO happy and all they want to do is climb all over you, play ring around the rosy, and call your name (our name here to little kids is “mzunga” which means “white person” in Swahili. Not a bad name by any terms) to show off a trick they know. It was so sad though, because right when we got there and started playing the first thing they asked was “do you have a futbol?” We said no, but I asked if they have anything that could work as a futbol and they looked around and said “no.” Which was true – nothing was round that they could substitute for a soccer ball. It made me so sad, comparing it to the U.S. Kids are so spoiled compared to these kids. The only toy I’ve seen them play with is a stick nailed to the lid of a bucket and they run around and roll it by holding onto the end of the stick and rolling the lid on the ground. I’m so happy I can start school tomorrow to at least attempt to do something for them.

Again, sorry about the internet. You’ll just have to go with the flow! I’ll tell you all about school tomorrow!

Pictures!!

Baobab tree ^

The waterfall - doesn't do it justice ^

Me pumping the air into the coals ^

^ A little boy peeking inside as we were learning about batik paintings. If you notice the background you see what kind of neighborhood it was. Very poor.

This is the family from the scavenger hunt from yesterday ^

Where is Michele?? ^