Pictures!

Hi! Internet is very slow today but here are a few pics. The little boy is Hagai and he is one of our favorites from our class. The little girl is Joanna and she is the one we are going to sponsor to go to school. The lady in the picture is Ava, her mom and one of the teachers we work with and the man is Jon, dad/husband. Oh and of course a pic of us with our Rasta hair.

Another week!

Hello and sorry to all of our fans for not writing much at all this week! We have gotten so busy hanging out with our rafikis! Monday was the only day this week that we didn’t have anything to do but we all needed a ton of rest from the weekend. The only exciting thing from Monday was that we brought new pencils to school…you couldn’t even believe how excited the kids get over new pencils. The ones we bought have different cartoon characters on them and even better than that-they all have “a rubbah” aka an eraser on the end. This is a huge help because usually during work time they are all constantly calling “teacha a rubbah!” which I just found out this week is what they were saying. It does not sound English at all, I thought the whole time they were saying eraser in Swahili, “Arahaba”….so when Kasey asked the whole class who needed a rubber I thought she was referring to safe sex practices and almost hit her there! Then I learned my lesson, haha. Funny miscommunications happen like that often.
Tuesday we went to work and after that we went straight to town to get pictures of all the kids printed off and to make more copies of activities for them to do during school. It took us 2 and a half hours to make 9 sets of worksheets and print off 30 pictures! Crazy how slow it was but we got it done and we will be making profiles for each kid next week so that they can hang it on the wall! Should be exciting for them-the kids here LOVE taking and looking at pictures. While we were doing this Lara and Sam were finishing up last minute shopping and so we met some of the locals at a restaurant/bar to eat some chips, drink some cider, and watch a world cup game. It was really fun. There were a lot of locals there watching and everyone is excited about it. At school the kids sang some song about it and we did a short little lesson on the world cup. It was cute.
When the game was over we headed to a restaurant called Amans, it was Graemes last night so about 25 of us went here for dinner. The dinner here is traditional African meals that you pre order. It is served family style and it was delicious! They kept telling us to eat it with our hands but Kasey and I opted to use the forks because you just never know if your hands are actually clean here! Unsanitary to eat with hands!
Wednesday was exciting because we had been invited to stay after school to eat lunch with Mama Minja at her house. Her house is on the same property as the school buildings. We ate with her and her husband, Marco. He was such a sweet man. He studied in Canada some years ago and is now retired. We talked for a while to Mama about the kids different life stories and family situations. It was interesting to hear where some of them come from. Their financial situations range from poor to middle class. It was hard to really understand these class differences though because we are used to those classes in American standards, which is completely different than the standards here.
She also told us more about the school, it is only a year old and they built it right outside their house. She already has plans to expand the school to primary and secondary school so that the kids can continue schooling at Bridge. They told us that they only have one son living in their home now and he is getting married in October so they think we should come back and become their adopted American children….dont worry families, we did not take them up on the adoption offer but we did tell them we would stay with them when we come back.
After lunch we went back over to the school buildings because Teacher Eva had offered to braid Kaseys hair rasta style like mine. She promised it would only take 2 hours, but I knew that couldn’t be true because mine took about twice as long! So I settled in to spend a long afternoon at Bridge. While we were there we saw older school kids coming into the classrooms. So we learned that Mama Minja and the teachers stay after to make extra money by doing private tutoring for primary aged students. I sat in the class for a bit. They are all working on different things but the students spoke English very well.
While we were in the room with Kasey getting her hair braided we were able to finally communicate with the porridge girl, Maria, because Mama Minjas grandson, Erik was helping us translate. We had him ask her how old she was, where she is from, and why if she wants to go back to school. She is 18 and he family is from outside of Dar Es Salam. She did not pass her exams in public school and so she is not allowed to continue on unless she can find a way to go to private school. Mama lets her live with her and she is going to try teaching her and catching her up so that hopefully she will be able to go back to school. She gave us a list of books that we could buy her to help her study so we are going to try and get those this weekend. She is a really sweet girl.
Once Kaseys hair was finally finished and she “looked smart” as they all kept saying we walked home with the three teachers. They all live on the way that we walk home to Karanga. When we got back I was exhausted and still not feeling 100% so I stayed in and the other three roomies went to a mansion to watch the Lion King. Sam had been searching for someone who had the movie because she really wanted to watch it while she was in Africa. Finally Eddie found it for her so the local boys we hang out with invited us all to watch it at their friends house which by their description was a mansion!
When we woke up on Thursday we were all stunned to hear that 3 of the volunteers at CCS had gotten in some trouble the night before. They had all decided to go to the corner store to buy beer and then stupidly walk down to the river at dark to drink it. There is a river about a 10-minute walk from our house, but it is highly advised to anyone to not walk at night…anywhere. Well these three decided it would be a good idea anyway. They got to the river and a group of men approached them thinking that they were thieves they shot at them multiple times. I actually heard some of the gun shots but didn’t think that they were actually shots because I have not felt unsafe here once, turns out they were. The 2 girls hid behind a rock and made a run for the house, they made it. Andy apparently hid in the river for 30 minutes and then the men found him, surrounded him with swords and guns and took him to the police station. Crazy stuff, but we are smarter than this so don’t anyone worry about us!
So they announced all of this at breakfast and then we went to school. The most exciting story about school from Thursday was that Ithan was being so sweet and we were cuddling all during play and sing time. He had been sad because someone hit him so I noticed his nose was running, a lot. I was going to try and find a hankercheif but I looked down and he had already found one, my skirt! Oh well, he is too cute to be mad at. After school we rode the one of the school buses with a girl Faith because we were going to visit Solitha who had been home sick, they think she has malaria. Her house was very simple but nice and her mom spoke English very well. It was cool to see where she lived but we felt so bad that she had been feeling so sick. After her hosue we came back to CCS and decided to go river because we had never been and it is safe during the day. Also the guards sent us with 6 of the kids from across the street, including the infamous Brenda! So we walked down to the river, and after seeing where they had to walk: through cornfields on other peoples property; we were not surprised that people would feel threatened by them at night. But the river was awesome, very pretty. It looked like a Disney ride at one part. We will put pictures up soon but the day we went we didn’t take our camera. It was really fun going with the little kids and playing with them.
So after this we went out for dinner for everyone’s last big night. We went to El Rancho again and it was delicious. I am going to have to try Indian food more often. It was fun being out with so many of the girls too, although we don’t like to talk about Lara and Sam leaving…tomorrow! It is too sad.
So now that we are finally caught up I can tell you about today. Hang in there, I know it’s a long post! So today we went to school as usual and after school Teacher Eva had invited us to go home with her. It took an hour for us to actually get to her house. We got on the school bus with about 12 of the kids from our school. We dropped all of them off at their houses and finally we were dropped off…to get on the dala dala. A dala dala is a bus but it is not a big bus, it is the same size as the school bus but it is packed with people. There can be something like 30 people on the bus at the same time, they don’t even close the door and men will hang off the side. It is 250 tsh to ride and it was on our African bucket list so we are glad we got the experience. When we finally arrived in Majanga I was extremely happy to not be riding on crazy bumpy roads or in an overly packed bus anymore. We walked just 5 more minutes to Evas home. They all welcomed us and we just sat in their living room for a while talking. Eva and her husband, John both speak some English but it was amazing when Johns younger brother, Hans, showed up because he is 19 and speaks English almost fluently. So we go a translator! We also got to meet Evas daughter, Joann, she is 2 and a half years old and adorable. We talked to Eva about why she wasn’t in school and it is because of money. Eva makes about 14 us dollars a month and that is working Monday through Friday from 730 to 2. So they just don’t have the funds to send her to a good school. We are going to send her to Bridge and so they were all very excited to hear the news, we just have to figure out all of the logistics now. I am so excited because going to their house was honestly on the top of my favorite things we have done so far. They just kept saying how they felt so happy that we were there visiting them. They bought us sodas and cooked us chips (fries) and some sort of meat (I was so sketched out but I have done very well with this whole polite eating thing, cross your fingers we don’t get sick!). They showed us their wedding pictures they had and played their choirs CD for us, we ended up buying one. The music here is great. It was just such a great feeling to be in their home and being and feeling so welcome there. When we left Joann gave us both a kanga as a present. A kanga is a wrap that you see many women wearing here as skirts. They all have phrases on them and the ones they gave us say “The ones who can do anything”. It was such a great experience and I cant express how excited we are to send Joann to Bridge…and how excited Eva and John are to be able to send their daughter to school!
Well we are missing you all and thank you for your support and love. What we are experiencing is life changing and we wouldn’t be here without you!
Posted with love from Africa! –A and K

Older post

So since the last time we blogged we haven’t really done too many exciting things. We have officially met all 27 new volunteers and some of our great friends have left but good news is, Sam and Lara got to move in as our new roommates.
The new volunteers have brought a completely new vibe to the house. With so many people the dynamic has changes, the lines for lunch and dinner have changed, the computer is never available, and some of them don’t exactly like that we are “loud” at night. Most the new volunteers are around 20 or younger. Then there are the few 30 year olds and then the random father daughter pair. However, in the mixture of all the chaos we have met some really cool new people. Nikki fits in with our little group really well, and she just graduated from Boston University so I have finally found a Boston hook up. She will be helping me figure out what areas I should look for an apartment, and is even writing down good places to go while I am there.
Other than the new volunteers we have just been working all week at Bridge. We got two new volunteers working at Bridge so there are four of us. Kasey and I have been working in the oldest classroom and we have really liked being in the same classroom. We have taught the kids how to sneeze and cough into their arm rather than on us…and also how to say “teacher you look pretty today”. We thought that all of those were good lessons. Haha. The last day of this week one of the new girls was gone so I was working in the baby class again with Ithan…it was so hilarious because I get there and he had on the cutest little sweat suit outfit on. So I looked to see what it said on the front and it was an FFA (future farmers of America) sweater from Louisville, Kentucky! I definitely got a picture of that. Other highlights of the week at school, they got a ceiling put into the oldest classroom and all the kids seemed super excited about that. I also asked Madame Minja what we could send her once we get back to the states and she answered with “40,000,000 tsh to build a primary school” I laughed and asked if they could maybe use new toys? I don’t think she understood the question at first. Eventually she just said we appreciate anything people can give us.
At night we have been hanging out with our local friends and then a few former CCS people we met that are living here in Moshi doing different things. It is so funny how many people we met that did CCS and have come back in just months or a few years to live. Moshi is truly a special place…I cant wait to plan our next trip back, I would definitely live here.
The best night of the week for sure though was thanks to our dear friend, Eddie. We had been trying to plan a way to get to Arusha to see our Canadians one last time before they boarded the plane. We were all working so hard to try and figure out how we could get there and surprise them, we even tracked them down through their safari guide to figure everything out. So as we are trying to figure this out at the Kinderoko (a hotel with a rooftop restaurant) we get a text from Eddie saying he has a surprise for us and he would just drop by to give it to us. When Alex and Emily walked in we all almost died, best surprise ever! So we got to hang out with them a bit that night and the next day we left work an hour early and spent the whole day in town with them until we had to sadly say goodbye! But We were all just so ecstatic to see them one more time, they will definitely be our lifelong friends. I will admit…I even cried a little. Haha.
So this weekend is Sam and Lara’s last weekend and we have a couple of plans. First we are checking out for the weekend and staying in town at the Buffalo hotel. We have a coffee tour planned all day tomorrow with Eddies Company, Pristine. Then Saturday night we plan to try out the Panda Chinese restaurant and hit up la leiga for the Miss Kilimanjaro pageant. So we will definitely write again soon with updates on our adventures.

Another weekend has past with success

So as the weekend comes to an end I thought I would write a quick post about what we did this weekend to keep everyone updated on the adventures we are having.
Friday after placement I went to get my hair braided at Aubrey and Graemes house. I got there at two and the lady doing my braids spoke no English whatsoever. Luckily I brought along a good book and Sams laptop with some TV shows and movies to watch because the braiding process took four hours! I was sitting on a pillow on the floor so by the end I had a huge headache, backache, and was extremely glad to be done! Once I saw the braids it was definitely worth it. I have an entire head of little braids and it is hilariously awesome. Kasey, Sam, and Lara all decided that I no longer look white, good or bad? I dont know but its a good look for Africa. Right now Lara is at Aubreys getting her hair done too. It was only 20,000tsh so it was definitely worth it.
After that we ate dinner at the CCS house and then headed to town to check in. As Kasey said we stayed at the Buffalo hotel and it was ridicuously cheap. A large sum of 24,000tsh will get you a double room with a shared bathroom at the Buffalo. And split between four...that is a crazy cheap hotel rate! The room was pretty basic, two double beds, a finicky light, and mosquito nets. Not much else was needed though because we did not spend much time in the hotel anyway. On Friday night we just went out with a group of friends we have in town-Aubrey, Graeme, Eddie, Mussa, Hussien, Adam, and a few other people we have met living in Moshi. The night was very relaxed and nothing of worthy note happened, just a good time all around.
Saturday we woke up and ate breakfast at the hotel-good food and again, cheap. After breakfast Mussa came to pick us up for our coffee tour. 18 of us went, all girls from the CCS home base. It was good to get to know some of them better. The coffee tour started at Oscars village called Merangu. The village is about 45 minutes from Karanga and the drive was fine until we started up the tiny, bumpy, pot hole filled, dirt road to Oscars house. It had rained earlier and the drive was terrifying. All I could see out my window was the huge cliff we would fall off if the car slipped off at all. The driving got so ridiculous that Oscar made the call we should just get out and walk..thank God for Oscar! So we all got out of the two vans and stood aside so they could turn around. They were both stuck in the mud so there were loads of people, mostly kids, helping to push them out. At one point I look over and one of the vans is about to go down the cliff. It was insane, I was so glad we had gotten out...and eventually the people were able to push the van back onto the road again.
So we started walking up the muddy road to Oscars house. It was so slippery and muddy. My chacos were covered in mud. We finally made it to his house and once we were there we got to see his home and meet some of his family. He has a little brother that has renamed himself Obama, he was absolutely adorable! I have told you before, Tanzanians LOVE Obama. So after introductions Oscar told us a bit about his families business of growing and harvesting coffee. They live at a higher elevations-in the cultivation area of Mt. Kilimanjaro so the coffee trees they grow are different than lower elevations. He showed us all of their plants and told us each to pick five red coffee beans off. We all did and then we continued the process and made our own coffee right there! It was really cool to see the process and once we were done we were able to taste our own coffee-delicious of course!
After we tried the coffee we ate lunch and then we got changed to go on our short hike to the waterfall near his village. The hike was nice, beautiful views of Mt. Kilimanjaro...and I think you will all be happy to know, I made it through this hike! haha. Once we got to the waterfall it was amazing! It is the biggest waterfall I have ever seen. We all got in and it was freezing! But we had to persevere because we knew that you could swim behind the waterfall. All of us agreed that it was so cold parts of our legs were going numb. So I finally worked up the courage to go. It was so scary! Once you get right in front of the falls you can barely breath and then you go under and I felt like I may not come up...but I did and then I was behind the falls! There was a little cave back there and it was the coolest feeling ever! Kasey had to give me a short pep talk to get me back through but we made it and I am so glad we actually decided to go behind it. Even if I lost my breath, once again!
After that we just hiked back to the village and then we were on our way back to Moshi. We ate dinner at the Panda Chinese restaurant and it was pretty good! I was definitely pleased with the quality for it being in Africa...We had dinner with the guys that took us on Safari-Abbas and Richard. After dinner we all got ready to go to the Miss Kilimanjaro show. I did not get to enter, sadly, but it was still a great time. The show was held at a local club we have been to and it was a bit different than Miss America. They started the show with this dance group and the girls butt could not have been attached to her body...her dancing was insane! After that they started with the formal dress competition where they all walked out and said their names and what they like to do and then model their dresses. There were a lot of locals in the crowd so I had to mostly judge if what they were saying was good by the crowds reaction.
I left at twelve and came back to the CCS home base because I wasnt feeling well but Kasey stayed for the whole thing and so she will have to fill everyone in on the talent show and other parts of the show. Today is just a lazy day in Karanga with no plans other than to relax.
This week is Sam and Laras last week here so we are sad about that but we are just going to enjoy the week with them and have fun!

The computer is being extremely fast today so we have just uploaded some pictures from all around...Lara has the braid pictures so we will post those later!

Miss and love you all!

Just wanted to add some pictures real quick for all our fans and share some of the funny quirks at our school. Two of them would include the examples they use for teaching the alphabet. Above yo will find that for the letter "g" the example and illustration is of a gun... and for the letter "x" the example is an x-mas tree. These examples are not only on the wall but also in the teacher's book that she follows. We love it here. Above you will also see us in our new skirts that some very nice women made for us.

Week four is complete and we are already getting sad about leaving. Although this was our first week of living in a house with one thousand other people so we won't miss that part very much... The new people are nice for the most part, it is just very different now. Our friends Lara and Sam moved into our room and so obviously we decided it would be a good idea to push the bunk beds together. Now we have one huge bunk in the middle of the room and so much more room for activities.

Amy is getting her hair braided at this very moment and we are all excited to see how it turns out. She is getting a full head of tiny little braids with "blonde" extensions. There will be pictures up very soon. I'm positive she is going to look stunning.

We are staying in a hotel in town this weekend just for fun. It's called Buffalo Hotel just in case any of you need to get in touch with us... Sam as decided to call this "the weekend of dreams" although I'm not exactly sure why. Basically this means we have no curfew and can shaky shaky all night long. Watch out everyone, the girls from Brown are out again. Just kidding adult fans, we will be safe and responsible all weekend. Promise. We are also going on a coffee tour this weekend where we will go through the whole process and make our own coffee. The best part is after that we are hiking to gigantic waterfall. Saturday night we are going to the "Miss Kilimanjaro Pageant" which Amy may or may not enter depending on how this new hair style looks. Sunday morning we are going to church with our African father, hopefully it is over before dinner.

There will be much more to come soon, love you all.

Thanks for the comments...we love hearing from you too!

So we just so happened to get to come into town today for a bit and use the internet so I thought I would share a quick post because we were so excited for the comments we got back!

Since the last post not much has happened. We have finished another week at school and headed into the next weekend. We went out to a bar last night called Kool Bar with everyone that will be leaving on Saturday since we wont get to do much tonight (most are leaving pretty early in the morning saturday). We met Abas, he is from Bushman and took us on our safari, I call him Dad because he is just a really fun comforting guy, great company. And he is a great dancer too! We also met our good friend Eddie there. He brought along some friends too. Eddie is the owner of Pristine, which is who we went on our hike with. He is also the son of a lady who used to run the CCS Moshi home base. So he very trustworthy and is always watching out for our best interest!

I think one of my favorite things is riding in the back of his truck (for free) but at night Africa just smells good and the stars are so beautiful. No better way to get home!

One good school story from today featuring the ever famous Ithan. He was being adorably obnoxious, per usual, and we were playing with playdough. The teacher tells the kids, "Dont eat it or you will die" (haha) and Ithans response to her was "If you eat it you will go to Satan". It was hilarious. He can be so charming but about 10 minutes later he ran to jump on me and didn't like that I took his toy so he bit me...I made him apologize!

Other than that school was very relaxed today, we sang a lot and had to play inside the whole day because it was raining. Gab, another little girl in my class, has had some bathroom issues as of lately. Yesterday she pooped in her pants and today she peed in her pants two times. So we are working on that.

Tomorrow we will be meeting all of the 27 new people coming to CCS. Hopefully they are as cool as the ones leaving :(

We promise to update again soon.

Also, I must say "HAPPY BIRTDAY" to Wyatt! My nephew who is turning one today! I cant believe it! I wish I could be there but everyone else enjoy a great party and post pictures on facebook!

with love!

Thanks for the comments!

Picture 1: Us and our four friends at the bottom of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Picture 2: Amy and I at the top, after a long break and lunch.

Pictures 3: Me drinking a Kilimanjaro after climbing Kilimanjaro.

Picture 4: Me with one of the older girls at the orphanage.

Picture 5: Amy with one of the baby girls at the orphanage.

So the internet in all of the Moshi region was down for a couple of days and then we got busy. Sorry to all the fans of this blog, here is an update and a few more pictures for you.

Friday night we went out to a bar called Glacier. It is in a hotel and outside. It was a cool atmosphere with a live band. We invited our teachers to come hang out with us, they did and they seemed to actually think we were funny. Plus we bought them red bull and chicken with chips. We went with Abas, who was one of our safari guides and Freddy, the safari cook, came out too. I heard Enrique, “I can be your hero” start and so I obviously invited myself and Kasey to sing with them. It was epic, sorry you missed it. Later all 6 of us sang Akon with the band…also great. Abas and I got down and he asked where I took dancing lessons which made me laugh out loud. Shots (not that we had any of those) were less than 2 dollars each..so practically free for us. Abas drove us there and home in the safari truck, we thoroughly enjoyed that. Good times all around….

On Saturday we hiked up Mt. Kilimanjaro. It was really really hard even though we were going pole pole which means slowly. It was hard despite the incredible shape both Kasey and I are in. The hike was 3 hours to the first base camp, which was our first stop. On the way we saw caribou monkeys in the trees at a rest point. It was a really pretty hike but very hard.

Due to unknown factors Amy had some trouble breathing on the way up and sort of hyperventilated twice which made her cry. The best part about this story was the guides response to her. He first just kept saying “Don’t cry, you’re safe here” She knew she was safe, it was the breathing issue…dumb...I meant cute man. Second, he said “I have seen this happen at higher elevations but never this low”…and third, “When was the last time you jogged”. He really made her feel much better!

We got to the top and had a delicious cold cheeseburger and fries from a “really good fast food restaurant” called Chrisburger. By African standards a cheeseburger has egg on top and a little bit of real cheese…nothing like an American one. After lunch we hiked 15 more minutes to a crater, this was our peak of the day. Here we had a really good view of all of Tanzania and we could also see the border of Kenya.

On the way down four of the six of us took a fall. We haven’t really gotten to tell much about our group of friends here. There our six of us total, including Kasey and I. Alex and Emily are from Canada, they are creepily identical best friends to us. They are 24 and 25 and are fun. Lara is from Chicago and goes to school at the University of Michigan. She is cooler than us and is getting her hair braided with me. Sam is from Denver and goes to school at Tulane. She is 6’2” and real goofy. Starting tomorrow Sam and Lara will be our new roommates. The Canadians are sadly leaving on Saturday! 27 new volunteers are coming, so we are hoping we get a few cool ones in there.

Sunday we worked on our tan and discovered the awesome straw laying out mats they provide for us…we swear we are living in a third world country. It was hilarious because as we were laying out kids started to figure out they could see us through the fence and we slowly got a crowd of kids just watching us lay there. Other than that Sunday was recovery day for all of us…

Monday we started a new week at school. We switched classes so I am in the baby class and Kasey is in the middle class. In the baby class I get the great joy of feeding children porridge and trying to teach them the letter D! We sing a lot and just have more fun than learning. My favorite, Ithan, is in my class so that makes me happy. We also have a new favorite who is also in my class, a young girl named Winner…and she is just that. Haha. Kasey has been trying to teach them numbers 1-10, colors, and the alphabet. We made a soda bottle tornado tonight and some worksheets for them to color. We finally found crayons today in Arusha so they are going to be super pumped to have brand new crayons.

We made Batik art on Monday too, ours were obviously the best of the group. Tuesday we had another normal day of school and then after that we went to an orphanage. It was the same one we had been to earlier. We started out playing with the babies, Socks was there again still trying to steal our bags. Got some good pictures of that. Then we went to play with the older kids. We used our incredible soccer skills to make children cry. Yes, cry. This one little girl was passing with us so we thought it would be fun to play a little game of keep away. Oh no, mistake on our part because she just started balling for the next 45 minutes. She wanted nothing to do with us. Luckily the other children still loved us. One of them had a diarrhea explosion in her pants which ran down her legs-it was gross and awesome because she was cute.

After this we went to dinner at Aventure. We aren’t sure if they misspelled adventure or what…regardless is was called aventure? So here we had an acrobatic and dance show. We ate dinner and then they taught us how to dance like them and in return we taught them how Americans get down.

When we got back we decided to brave the dark and walk literally just around the corner. There is a little store there where we found out you can try bottled banana beer, for 400 shillings. That means a bottle was ehhh, about 35 cents. Again, it is sketchy but we are having cross cultural experiences. When we got the beer we first noticed that all of our bottles were different sizes and that the labels were a little sketch too. It was worse than the first round of banana beer. After we drank it we sat around for a second and I was messing around and discovered that you could just bottle the beer yourself. I recapped all of our beers. It was pretty gross and so we all just laughed instead of worrying about it. This is what you have to do often while in Africa.

Today we had a day off from work to go to Arusha. Its about an hour away from Moshi and is a much bigger city, about 200,000. We went to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. We were supposed to sit in on a court session but the two that were going on were closed to the public due to witness protection. The next group will go while we are still here so we may get another chance to see a court session. We spent time in the human rights library research center and then we watched a documentary on the history and current situation of the main people being accused for the genocide. Then we were able to speak with the head of protocol manager. She taught us a lot about the situation and then we were able to ask her questions that we had. It was really interesting and we both learned a lot!

We had lunch in Arusha and then they took us to a Masai market to shop and then the last stop was to a ShopRite, which is the closet thing we have found to a grocery store. On the way to the bathroom around the corner from the ShopRite Kase and I discovered a bakery…they had cookies. Seriously, we were so excited so we went back and got our friends and indulged in some not what we expected, but still pretty good chocolate chip cookies.

Also, if you noticed I said I am getting my hair braided…I am. It is going to be awesome. A full head of braids and I feel like I will fit in better…probably not much since my braids are blonde, but still. Plus I have found that with less showers my hair turns darker…I know, sexy.

Kasey would like to send out a PSA-if you want any world cup gear put your orders in. Cups, whistles, Frisbees, soccer balls (shocker), and yo-yos. Just let us know.

Also, we are working very hard on this blog and we would like to thank those who comment, for those of you that have not commented….please do. Karibou, you are welcome. It makes us feel loved.

Sorry we have been so busy, but we are just in Africa trying to save the world. Until next time-A and K

Waterfalls and Banana Beer = Good Day

Yesterday we had a very adventurous day. It started bright and early, as does every day here. We are gentle awoken by screaming dogs outside our window. Amy firmily believes that one even got killed this morning. From the noise it was making if it is not already dead than I promise you it will be soon...

Our first stop was in a little village where we met a man who makes batik art. He is coming to our house on Monday to teach us how to make our own. Then we stopped at a very small village to look at a big tree... we don't know why, but just in case you also wanted to see a big tree we posted a picture.

So after this we went to a blacksmith, which you can also see in the picture! This was more just a selling point for the blacksmiths. Neither of us particularly wanted an African spear so we didnt help them out much. From here we took a short hike to a locals home where there was a historical underground cave. The cave was meant for the chagga people to hide in for weeks at a time when the masai people would attack their villages.

The cave was dug out and had many rooms. It went miles all the way to a connecting point at the river. It was incredible to think that they could actually build this with little access to tools. We actually went in the cave, five people at a time, and it was an adventure. Tiny little tunnels, we both came out with dirt splotches...pretty awesome though.

Next we stopped at a local maranga market where the guy we were with wouldnt let us leave his side so it was a pointless stop but I guess we can say that we stood in a maranga market while we watched our friends buy kangas.

At the stop the older woman on our trip got extremely cranky so we had to find her a "nice bathroom" Both Kasey and I fodn this hilarious because if you are traveling to Africa you really shouldnt have such high standards for bathrooms. A lot of times it will just be a hole in the ground (which I still cant really get the hang of) but oh well...

After the market we went to the waterfall. It was AWESOME, best part of the day. We hiked down a "hiking trail" that would be completely unacceptable in the states. It was more like stumbling down a steep dirt hill and the only reason we didnt tumble was the weak bamboo stick fences for stability. Still great though.

Once we got to the fall Kasey and I with two of the guys treked across the crazy rapids created by the water fall and made it to the base. It was cool because the water was hitting us so hard we couldnt even open our eyes!

On the way off the base back into the rapids...it was a bit difficult to find your footing to get down. Andy, a funny awkward guy that gets easily flusterd, is tryign to tell me where to put me feet to get down. In the process he just gets annoyed and then he straight up picks me up and plops me into the river. Hilarious. I was like a little rag doll to him.

The other funny part of the hiking trail was the continuous string of painted arrows showing us where the water fall was. It was like rocks under the water even had arrows. We were cracking up everytime we saw a random arrow guiding us...as if we couldnt find it without the painted arrows.

So we ended the day at a very rural bar near the falls. They served banana beer which I believe is the equivalant of moonshine. See picture above. It was not great and it was a bit sketchy but hey, you only get to be in Africa once.

Other highlights of the past few days include a random ride to an Italian restaurant (delicious food) in the back of a truck-it was free! Multiple times when we were positive we maybe getting sold to the sex trade industry-dont worry we havent gotten sold..yet! And we still have lost no weight or gotten any tanner...that is to come.

Also to Daddy Boston-the biggest bully, worst student at Bridge is named Ithan and he is our favorite BY FAR!

More later. Enjoy for now.

-A and K

Safari Time!

Just got back from a three day safari! It was amazing! We went to Lake Manyara and the Ngorongoro Crater!

The first day was very rainy. We drove for a long time and we and finally ended up in Lake Manyara. For the first bit we saw mostly forest areas. The forest stays green here all year round. After first entering the park we came up on some baboons. They were so cute and right outside our car just sitting there. There were three babies holding onto their moms and it was so adorable. The next big animal we came to was a huge giraffe in the middle of the road! It was just standing there and as we surveyed further there were about 10 more off to the side eating.

My favorite part of the safari was also in lake manyara-we were driving and all of a sudden a baby elephant just hustles right across the street in front of us! I actually did a dance and sang a song about how awesome it was, haha. I was excited! After the baby walked by a HUGE male elephant came through.

The rest of the day we mostly saw different birds, zebras, wildbeast, warthogs, and hippos. It was all very cool. We will post pictures so you can see more!

The second stop we made was to a Masai Village. The Masai are just another tribe located closer to Arusha. The tribe living around the Moshi area are the Chaggas. The Masai people are much more traditional from what we learned. The village we went to was completely remote. It was off the road in a clearing. The people all wear fabric wrapped in different ways-it is all plaid and different colors, but the colors represent different things. We will post pictures at the beginning of the week so that you can get a better idea of what I am talking about.

When we approached the village the people all came up and surrounded us welcoming them to their village. Soon after they all lined up and started chanting and doing a traditional dance. The men were on one end of the line together jumping-the higher they jumped, the more cows they owned. The women all wore these large necklaces that they then put on each of us and we all were able to dance with the people. We have a video of Kasey in action, dont worry Bostons, definitely one of her best dances ever! haha.

After the dancing they showed us their huts. The huts are made of sticks carefully placed and laced together to make the back bone of the hut. Then cow dung is used like plaster to insulate and hold the building together. The top is sloping because it is the rainy season and is also made of sticks bundled together. The huts were TINY. I am about 5'8 and I was as tall as the building (not including the roof) When you walked into the hut the door curved around so that animals could not get in as easily. The first thing you saw was on the right and it was a pin for the young animals. Then you proceed into the hut and there are only three areas. In the middle there is an area for cooking and then there are two sleeping chambers. The main one is for the father only and then the second chamber is shared by the mother and children. Their matresses are made from cow hide and as one of the men told me, "lie on it, its very comfortable". I did not choose to lie on the mattress in the dirt with the children because I already know-there is NO way that mattress is comfortable!

In the Masai culture the women do the work-they build the house completely alone, cook, and take care of all the children. The culture also believes in circumsition of both men and women. The women are circumsized at the ages of 10-12 and the men from 15-18. So sex is not a part of their culture other than for the natural purpose of procreating. The only time the man and wife will have sex is when they want children. Polygamy is also in their belief.

After visiting the village we finally arrived at our camping spot for the night. It was within a hotel ground area and the hotel was really nice. We slept in tents in the back area. We had dinner cooked by Freddy and Goodluck, it was delicious! Pumpkin soup and bread with pasta and fish, and the equivalent of tater tots.

We then hung out by the pool with our cooks and our main Bushman, Abus. They are great fun and we got to experience African liquor for the first time. It tasted a lot like vodka. We all went to bed fairly early because in the morning we had to wake up at 6, eat breakfast and hit the road for the rest of the safari!

The next night we stayed at on the rim of the crater. It was very high and overlooked the entire valley. It was a beautiful view but not a fun place to sleep. It had been raining all day so the ground was a complete mixture of mud and elephant poop. It was also freezing because our elevation was so high. I had on every piece of clothing I brought and still had to spoon with Amy all night to stay warm. As we were falling asleep we could hear lions growling and elephants making sounds in the distance. It was a little scary but I had my pocket knife and pepper spray so we felt safe....

The next morning we got up at 5:30 and drove down into the crater while the sun was rising. It was a beautiful view that our cameras could not even begin to capture. As soon as we got to the bottom we saw two cheetahs laying in the grass. They were brothers because they were laying together, apparently enjoying some early morning sun tanning.

As we drove to our the lake to have breakfast we passed many zebras, wildebeasts, and gazelles. We also saw a rhino, and rhinos look a lot like dinosaurs. This is when Amy asked our tour guide if we will be seeing any woolly mammoths. He didn't understand her questions....

The lake was full of hippos, which pretty much just lay around in the water and make loud noises. Right beside the lake was a very large, cool looking tree. Right when Amy climbed onto the tree so that I could take her picture a HUGE python dangled itself above her head. Being the good friend that I am I didn't want to tell her for fear that she would freak out, jump, and fall into the lake of hippos, which would also be a bad situation to be in. So I told her to just come back over to me and right after she did the python slide off the branch and dropped into the lake. I have a picture.

Right after breakfast we found some lions, which was perfect timing because we had just gotten my ipod out and were listening to the "circle of life" from the lion king as we pulled up. There was one very pregnant mom and three of her children. Two of them walked right up to the trucks and did some modeling for us. We also saw two other sets of lions throughout the day, which apparently is very rare so we are lucky. The crater itself was beautiful. There were huge fields of flowers and gigantic elephants frolicking through them and mountains of every side.

We have many more stories but I they are ringing the bell which means its time to go learn about the education system in Tanzania.... More to come soon.

Well it is Thursday and we are back at the cafe because our house internet is down.

We have been at our placement for three days now. It is really fun but also exhausting. We get there at 8 and we sit in one big room and play with the kids until everyone has arrived. After this we stay in the room to sing songs and they also do a chanting thing and then they pray.

The songs they sing are all in English and familiar but they are hilariously reinterpreted by the teachers. For example, "old macka donalda" and "brown cow, brown cow have you any milk? Yes sir yes sir for jack and jill" haha. It makes me laugh.

The chanting I mentioned is sort of like

teacher: "Who is our father"
students:"God is our father"
teacher:"Who is Satan (said saaaaatane)
students: "Saaaatane is bad!"

This goes on for awhile then we pray. During this time the kids are just surrounding and playing with us. Touching our hands, holding our hands, playing with our toys, and hair, and eyes, and nose, and really anything. The teachers started yelling at them and making them move away from us for playing with our hair-I did not care they love playing and touch it but I for some reason we are still unaware of that is very frowned upon at Bridge.

The kids are really sweet, they all wear uniforms and they all love to take a big lick off their hands or wipe their snotty, snotty noses and then hold our hands! This is something I am still getting used to, of course we let them do it but it definitely doesnt settle well in my mind. I have decided showering will commence after we get home from the placements.

The teachers at our placements are sweet and seem happy to have us there but a language barrier is something we are struggling a little bit with. While we can understand what to do to help they sometimes just will say "teacha, teach!" I am assuming that they think because we are volunteering and that CCS put us at a school, and because we are american that we are teachers.

Welllllll little do they no I have NO idea what to do. They always ask me for songs, the only ones Kasey and I have come up with are the baby shark song (and they dont know what sharks are-I drew them for tomorrow art lesson so they can see) and Jesus loves the little children.

I guess I need to clarify. The shchool actually has three rooms-little, medium, and big sized kids as they explained. Kasey has been in the little room where she says the teacher has no clue what to do with the kids but she helps feed them poridge at the approrpriate times and her class plays a lot so she is good at playing soccer wtih them and she has also tried teaching a bit too.

I am in the big classroom. My main job is to walk around during lessons with the eraser and a red pen. The kids will scribble on their page and all at the same time be screaming "teacha arahaba" which is for eraser. I was more stern today about hte scribbling and yelling. I also do one on one with them during this time because they are all actually very intelligent they just sometimes need an extra bit of help.

The two favorites-if I can say that- are in the front row at the table in front of my chair (like my desk haha) Gerald and Sabra. They are the smartest in the class and I love working with them to teach them other ways. For example, the kids add with bottle caps. So if the equation is 5+3 they put aside 5 bottle caps and then 3 bottles caps and then combine them and recount to get the answer. I taught Gerald and Sabra to count on their fingers like that. Small steps!

After our placements we have cultural learning in the afternoons-like when we went to the hospital. Yesterday we went to an orphanage. Heartbreaking. We mostly played with the young ones (under a year) but even then they just seemed so excited to be playing wtih people.

After we had about 10 minutes with the older children. They swarmed us and we played but leaving was hard.

We are both having amazing experiences. I am trying to post more pictures as we speak. We have one of the school room and kids from Bridge, one of our room at the home base and if the third and fourth work or I have time it will be of our Mount Kilimanjaro view (its not always visible they say "the majesty is shy she only shows herself sometimes", the little girl Brenda-the little girl from across the street, and one of Kasey with some of the children from Bridge. She is full of life and always there to play and greet us. Beautiful.

But that is all I have for now. Hopefully the internet will be working at the home base again soon.

quick post...

...because I only have five minutes left on my computer time.

We are in Moshi at another internet cafe because some of the other volunteers didnt get to go yesterday. I dont think these trips to the cafe will be so frequent the longer we are here.

We just were on our way back from a hospital "tour". You can definitely add this to the website about what white americans like to do. It was awful. They took us into all the different wards and it is the first time I have just felt like I shouldnt be. Not because of the people, they all greeted us and continually said welcome to our country. But it just wasnt right to be healthy, blessed foreigners walking around staring at these poor sick people trying to do what they can to save their children, save themselves, or their family. It was terrible.

There was one ward for pregnant women to wait for labor to start and here there were three to four women per bed. They said that this ward was a crowded one. I found throughout the rest of the tour that this was true for every ward.

It was an eye opening experience. There will be more to come but for now I am at 29 minutes of 30 so I will just say thanks for reading my blog and keep checking back. I have lots to say about our first day at the school!

Amy

From an internet cafe in the town Moshi

Finally got my hands on a computer that works long enough to type out a blog I am currently in the town Moshi and it is a hustle and bustle sort of place. It is so different from any other place I have been. If you look around there are all sorts of people. There are people wearing bob evans hats and boy scouts of america shirts, but then there are traditionally dressed people, and a few wandering tourist. There is a local market across the street that we made a visit to yesterday when we came into town, the market is packed rows of fresh produce, this is their equivalant of a grocery store.

In the market yesterday someone was killing a live chicken while we were there and there was also an incredibly smelly meat row with carcuses just hanging around. I couldnt stand the smell so I stayed away from the isle. While in town yesterday we also got a bus tour of Moshi, there are always people moving around town but most are walking. I love seeing the occasional woman balancing a basket of bananas on her head. Today our country director, mama thea, showed us how to wrap up a head rset for the basket and proceeded to set a ceramic platter on another volunteers head. As Marci started struggling to even take a step keeping it balanced mama thea chimes in, "what is wrong with you! Walk normal!" The people at CCS are always joking around and their laughter is contagious.

Yesterday was our first venture out. First, during the day, we walked around the area by our home base. This area is full of houses made of mud brink and tin...but the people within the walls and area are so incredible. We walked around and I felt so safe. Every person we passed by would say "Karibu" which means welcome! The children around the rural area of Karanga are just adorable, I mean I cannot even describe it. There is a family that lives across the street from CCS and their little girl comes running out dancing with a HUGE smile on her face when she says that we are coming out of our gated community. She will follow us down the road singing and giving us "tano's" which is a fist pound or high five.

Around the corner is a small store and another amazing family. They talked to us for a while and there were too 12 year old boys that were interested in Kasey and I asking us our age, where we are from, if we had siblings, and what our mothers names were. We asked them all the same questions. Another young girl living there, Anita, was beautiful. Her smile made me melt as she picked up her little sister and showed her to me, trying her best to get the little one to interact but she was very shy. Their store sells drinks, and kangas (which are the traditional wraps worn by tanzanian women), spices, other miscellanious items, and Obama gum.

This brings me to my point..I am pretty sure Tanzanianas love Obama more than Americans! Just now I was in the van when a boy named Sam approached me. He spoke English really well. He greeted me by saying Mambo (whats up!) and then asking, are you from Obamas country too? haha. He was very smart, he told me about his town and the waterfalls there and then about a bar near the Moshi CCS location called the Mzunja (foreigner) bar. That made me laugh and he said hed hope to see us there.

The people here are so genuine. They make you feel welcome and safe. Sometimes they will approach you and say, salama, which means peaceful or safe.

We also ventured out into the night last night with some of the men volunteers. We went to a local bar called Kili View. The CCS directors have a network of taxis that they trust and so we can call those taxi drivers who pick us up right at the gate and then will either wait with you or come back at the time you tell them. Our taxi driver last night, Imma, had such a good heart. The whole way there he taught us fun things to say in Swahili..for instance, akunah matatah is considered slang here. Instead you should say akunah sediah. He was 24 years old and had a fiance. I joked with him a lot and while there was a language barrier we definitely understood much of what we were both trying to get at. I drank an African beer, Kilimajaro, and it was good. We paid in tanzanian shilings and it was confusing but we got it covered.

The staff at CCS is incredible. I love them all already. Mama Lilian is wonderful. The first night there she walked us outside and showed us the tanzanian stars and told us that this is our home for now and that she was our mama.

Baba Flugence is hilarious. From the start he got along with Kasey and I and our oh so hilarious humor. He pronunciates all his words very clearly and is really animated in the way he talks. He does the Swahili lessons and today was our first. He directed the lessons like a choir director and I laughed the whole time.

When Kasey and I first got there we got to spend 6 hours with them alone and the conversation was awesome. We all sat around the patio tables and just laughed and laughed. They made me feel at home immediately.

The rest of the staff are the guards (three walking around from 6-6) and then the kitchen staff. They are a bit shy but always greet us and are happy to serve us.

The accomadations are really nice. Kasey and I have our own room for now until the next group of volunteers arrive (we will be here long enough to see the transition) we have very comfy beds with treated mosquito nets and our own toilet and shower. We also have wardrobes and drawers where we can lock up our valuables.

We start our placements tomorrow. We are both at Bridge school right outside of Moshi. We will work from 8-1230 monday-friday. We met our director from the school today. She said the school was started in 2008. There are 60 children ages 2-5 and she said we can get there and decide where we think we should fit ourselves in. She was very sweet and we are both excited to meet the kids. A lot of them want to touch our hair and while they wont understand english phrases they know some words and I believe communication will be alright.

Sorry for the broken thoughts but it is crazy here! Lots of people in the internet cafe and I have so much to tell! It is hard to keep everything straight and remember all the great stories to tell. As the people here say often, "this is life" haha. They say that phrase for everything.

Well my time is running up. I hope that this fills you in more and hopefully I can get back to a computer sooner than later.

Missing you all and NiNaKuPenda (I love you!)

--Amy and Kasey

In Africa and safe!

Jambo! We arrived after a grueling some two days of traveling through crazy airports and countless time zones. When we got to the airport a cute little man had a "KIA lodge" sign. We went with him and it seemed relatively safe...dont freak out parents...this is us typing...we are alive!
The lodge is adorable and as Kasey describes it, "african" lol. Kasey slept the whole night through with a make shift blanket...wait she did wake up once to have a small snack, thanks Grandma Jan! The bed was a huge king size bed with flowers waiting for us..how romantic! haha.
I however, did not sleep because oddly I was feeling scared. Usually I am so brave because I know I always have my ninja skills but last night lying in the hot in a little lodge hut in the middle of Africa just didnt settle well. I finally fell asleep around 6 am African time and when I woke up everything seemd much better!
We went to the cute cafe where we hesitantly chose food that fit the sayings criteria, "hot food or fruit peeled by you". We had our first banana too! If you dont already know, apparently there are 120 different kinds of bananas in Tanzania and we plan to try all of them, also we both do not like bananas that much, but hey it makes for interesting blog updates.
So, banana number one conquered: Sugar banana!
We have no idea how to treat the people or how much to tip them but they are all extremely nice and either think we are too or that we are rich dumb americans...either way they are treating us well.
We are about to go sit in the lobby to wait for the CCS people to come get us, we are exctied to meet the other volunteers and get aquainted with our "home away from home"
Writing with tons of love and excitment!

-Amy and Kasey

The 411...as they call it

Just a short introduction to what is going on with my trip to Africa! I am going to be leaving from Tampa, Florida on May 13th to fly to Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. We are staying in a village, Karanga. The village is right outside the city of Moshi.

Both Kasey and I will be living with 13 other volunteers from around the world. We will be staying for 7 weeks and will be traveling through an organization known as CCS or Cross Cultural Solutions.

We will be working everyday at a specialized placement site. They are supposed to be sending us our placements today so I will post soon on what exactly I will be doing during my 6 weeks with CCS.

Here is a photo of the CCS home base that I will be staying at. There is more information about the program and where we will be staying at,

http://www.crossculturalsolutions.org/countries/africa/volunteer-tanzania/kilimanjaro.aspx

I hope this is a good start to get everyone on board with exactly what is happening. I will be trying to post at least once a week, and hopefully more than that, so keep checking back!