MZUNGU IN MIKOCHENI

ookaaayy so long since i last wrote, MIKOCHENI is the suburb where we are living. MZUNGU is white person, when we got back from the internet cafe last time Lealah and Robert had arrived at Mama's house, lealah is a past volunteer and robert is her boyfriend, it was good having them in the house, they gave us a few ideas and made it quite easy to settle in.

Meg and I are trying to think of a project/present to leave behind, all the volunteers do something, a few have done murals, some fixed up the library and someone created a sports day, so if anyone has ideas they would be greatly appreciated!

Sorry to say Sally, but you are going to have a fatty in your wedding!!! ahaha is constant eating of potatoes, rice, Ugali (which im sick of already) chipatees (sort of like pancakes) and you are guarenteed to have this at least twice a day! Lealah said she gained 3 stone, which is just under 20kgs!!!!

I havent done too much full on teaching just helping out, walking around... some teachers get you to do nothing, others tell you to do everything, which is daunting when you have not prepared anything!! i am focused on grade 1 and 2's at the moment, and go swimming with the grade 4's, as well as the grade 1's. both lessons i have been to i have worked with the kids who are really struggling... like scared of water struggling, so its a little frustrating how some dont try at all! but they are getting there!

I have had one moment of homesickness, just briefly, it was 2 days after getting to ESACS, and it was when Mrs Diana (Mama) left the room because she got a phone call, i had about 10 kids screaming "teacher. teacher." asking to go to the toilet, asking me to check their work, had about 10 others running around the room hitting eachother with rulers. Mr boolinyinyi, came in had a few words and hit 2 kids, that was confronting, it wasnt too hard, but still you wouldnt see that here, i was so overwhelmed i just had to focus on my breathing because i felt like i was going to burst out into tears!

Meg and i went to the UNICEF down the road, but not much was happening there.

We tried to go to this beach called Cine club, Mama gave us directions but said just to ask people and they would point us in the right direction.... well the first people we asked told us to turn left instead of right, so that was a bad start! so we kept walking the wrong way, eventually we gave up and went home, after a bit of a rest Vashti's friend (Vashti is Mamas daughter) said she would be able to drop us off, and Cine club is the same place we went to in orientation just the building that was next door, i wouldnt call it a building, but it was alot nicer at this place anyway.

Meg and i have also done 2 loads of washing..... by hand! haha we could have paid hadaya (housekeeper) to do it.. TSH 2000 a week which isnt much, but we would prefer to do it ourselves. But we arent very good at rinsing the clothes out. some have soap marks on them! haha.

Connie and Alisha, two volunteers from Ikwiriri came to stay for a night, we took them to Kunduchi Wet n Wild, it was pretty fun, they have huge slides, and as they were closing they brought out a huge python, Connie and i held it.... not the head though we let the proper guy do that! haha we got some photos but on Alishas camera so hopefully i can get hold of them somehow. after staying with us they then went on to Zanzibar. At Wet n Wild they like have a stage thing and a DJ, the stage has water showering over it, and there was so many people dancing! it looked so fun! so african! i thought how funny it would be if we got up there... but decided against it because we cant shake our bootys like they can!

Meg and i have started to do nightly exercises, but have been a bit slack lately.. we do crunches, push ups, wall sit, the plank and a few others, mainly just to tone! I DONT WANT TO GAIN 20 KGS!! haha

The constant tooting and traffic jams are part of the normal here, but still is so suprising, that is not how i pictured Africa, on the bus ride home, we sometimes have 6 people sitting across whats meant to be 4 seats, very squishy, very hot, and very uncomfortable!!!

We have the month of August off because that is when its the end of their school year, Meg and I definately want to go to Zanzibar in this time, among a few other places!

The kids are beautiful, its when you have 3 or 4 kids grabbing onto you trying to hold your hand that you can see the contrast in our skin, and also in their own, there is sooo many different shades of "black" the kids also have some fascination with sharpening their pencils, they purposfully break them... just to sharpen them again... i dont get it!

When Meg and i were sitting in the staffroom one day, there was 3 kids kneeling (on the concrete floor) in front of one of the teachers, he was yelling at them in Swahili and waving a ruler around in front of them, it was too much for me, i think you could tell by my face, but i did not want to be around if those kids were going to get hit, im not sure if they did, im not even sure what they had done, but i couldnt sit and watch it. Also at home i walked outside at the wrong time! Hadaya was hitting shakira with a stick, i didnt no how to react, Shakira ran up to me crying, i walked with her till we were alone and gave her a hug and tried to get her calm, but we just have to accept that its common here, and there is nothing that we ( Meg and myself) can do to change that.

Meg and i have been talking to a senior girl on the bus, her name is Suph, she is in form 3 (year 9) so a bit younger than us, but its still good to talk with someone who is closer to our age. she is a huge twilight fan so i leant her my book ( the sort second life of bree tanner) i think she really enjoyed it.

Mrs Agnes took meg and myself into the business managers office and gave us TSH 50,000 each, we felt a bit odd taking the money and were not sure what we were going to do with it, so we spoke to Lealah who said the money is ours anyway, from the fees we paid which made us feel alot better about taking it. Meg thinks it may be a monthly thing, but im not so sure, i guess we will just wait and see.

I have had sooo many dreams about Tubby i dont even know how many, but i like having those dreams, they feel so real, they are usually that he is here with me, or we are back home!!

Meg and i went to Morogoro another placement on the weekend, it is about a 3 hr bus ride away, and Marie, Ross and Phoebe are there, there was also Jack an English guy there (not with lattitude) we left school early 11am, and the school bus dropped us off at Ubungo station and Mrs Agnes also organised for a teacher to help up buy our tickets and he walked us actually onto the bus, thank god other wise we would of had no idea! its so hectic, people trying to sell you everything and anything, you realise how desperate they must be when they run alongside the bus for 200 metres so you buy something thats worth TSH250 ( less than 25 cents) when we arrived we didnt do too much, Marie thought she had Malaria, but she did a self test and it came back negative, she would be very unlucky to have Malaria so early on! then on Saturday they had organised to climb a mountain, mount ulguru or something, no idea actually. we had 4 guides for 6 of us... unfortuantly much to Tubbys delite i didnt make it.... neither did Marie, so i guess kili is probably out of the question. haha. the mountain i think is the 3rd highest in Africa, but dont quote me on that! We met the head master Charlie (from morogoro international school) he was very young, we also met his girlfriend. we went out for tea and in true tanzanian style, ross meg and i rode in the back on the ute.... and Charlie definately did not take it easy because of that! on saturday i met Jen who is sort of the GAP co ordinator for Morogoro, she was lovely! and let Marie and i take a shower at hers..... IT WAS HOT WATER!!! i hadnt had a hot water shower since i left home, and i did not want to get out!!! Sorry Dad but i think my first shower at home is going to be at least 4 hours, and im going to use all the megalitres or whatever that i have missed!!!! it was heaven, even though i had no soap and the water pressure wasnt that great, it was amazing!

Oh about 3o mins into climbing the mountain i could already feel blisters forming, they are gross. started to heel now, but they were read raw!!! we walked down the mountain, and alllllll the way back into town because there was no Taxis, and you cant just call them like back home! might feet felt like skeletons and they had nothing there cushioning my walking at all!!!

Oh in Morogoro a Tanzanian guy came up and started talking to me, saying how he wanted to be my friend, i was like oh yeh... we're friends, then he asked where i was from and asked for my number..... i said i didnt have one... then he asked for my email... once again i said i didnt have one.. he asked if i had a boyfriend i said yes... he continued to say how he wanted a girlfriend from afar. a few volunteers had said how this is common as we are "exotic" with our white skin. ahhaha!!!!

Mama was asking me about religion and everything back home, it was awkward saying i wasnt religious, i think she found it difficult to grasp because she said" but your parents go on sunday" i replied no... she also asked when are me and tubby getting married... i was like uhh.....?

i think i have mentioned everything.... if you have any questions... feel free to ask!!!

Kwaheri.

It was Lealah and Roberts last night in Tanzania on sunday, we had an amazing feast! and i was so hunry because i hadnt eaten a proper meal since saturday lunch time!

Meg and i have been trying to use the internet for a few days but there was a network outage, that apparently affected the whole of Tanzania!