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

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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!