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