Catching up...

So my internet decided to poop out for almost three weeks now, so that's why I haven't updated.  So since last time, I've done a bit of traveling.  I went and checked out Kathryn's site.  I showed up with a water bottle of my mango wine and we made eggplant spaghetti, and hung out.  That night, after our showers, we had a couple run-ins with her rat infestation and watched a bit of a movie.  The next morning, we got up bright and early and headed to Mtwara for some volunteer birthdays.  4 1/2 hours later, we made it.  It really is pretty remarkable how insignificant a 4-hour bus ride seems these days.  That night, we all went to a resort on the Indian Ocean.  Kathryn and I split the chili prawns and the chicken sandwich.  I thought I might have died and gone to heaven, but that's not saying much since my diet consists mostly of beans.  We hung out for most of the next day, playing Bananagrams and listening to music.  We went into town and walked around and then went back to the beach despite the rainy weather.  For dinner that night, I had a fish that was the size of my face and that tasted a lot better than I imagine my face would taste.  Then we had bajaji races back home.  For those of you that don't know, bajaji are those funny, three-wheeled vehicles that my brain always associated with India.  They are quite possibly my favorite mode of transportation here in Tanzania.  The bajaji drivers thought we were crazy, but really got into the competition, even taking "short-cuts" through areas that were definitely not meant for vehicles and flying over speed bumps.  After getting home, a few of us decided to go for a nightcap at a near-by bar.  While there, we had an extremely entertaining conversation with some schmammered locals.  The lady told me I looked like I had come from the "shamba," or farm, and proceeded to button my dress the rest of the way.  She then showered me, awkwardly, with "you're beautiful's" and "I love you's" for the rest of the night.  Not gonna lie, it was creepy.  The next morning, Kathryn, Tony, and I caught a bus out of town.  Well after an hour stop to fix the bus we were out of town.  Kathryn and I hopped off about halfway to stop for a visit at Leslie's site.  We stopped for lunch and then proceeded to get caught in the hardest rainstorm ever.  There were literally Tanzanian children swimming down the street.  After visiting for a while, Kathryn and I got a liftie, the Tanzanian form of hitchhiking essentially.  Guess I can cross that one off the bucket list now.  It was pretty uneventful.  It was a couple truckers who smelt funny and I called Grease Monkey 1, 2, and 3.  We made it home in one piece, Mom, don't flip.  That next week I went and picked up my kitten!! I had been told that she was "special," but had no idea what exactly that entailed.  It turns out she is a bit physically handicapped.  Basically, she has a club-foot.  This deformity looks a bit like a flipper and makes her waddle so she has been named Duck.  It really doesn't seem to hinder her much; she can still chase lizards and kill cockroaches just fine.  We have become fast friends, which if you know me at all, you know my feelings on cats, and this is a shocking revelation.  I started teaching the Monday before last, or I should say school opened.  The first week, the small percentage of students that showed up spent the week cleaning the school.  On Friday, we had a group trip to the school shamba, or farm.  I showed up to school, not really knowing what to expect.  Well it turns out on these days, the students wear street clothes instead of their uniforms; and instead of backpacks everyone brings their own machete.  It was definitely a weird experience talking to a group of your students while they are all armed with 3-foot blades.    So we all made the 2-K hike to the school farm and the other teachers lined all the students up and let 'em at it.  I really wished I had my video camera.  Just imagine 300 students, ages 13 to 18, all swinging their machetes at the same time.  At one point a teacher even sent a boy up a tree to chop off some branches that were lying too low.  Cause why wouldn't you send a child up a tree with a machete in his hand?  This last Monday, January 24th, marked our 4-month anniversary of being in Tanzania.  Weird.  It doesn't seem like that long, but at the same time feels like forever since getting here.  This last weekend, a bunch of volunteers came to my 'ville and stayed Saturday night.  We just hung out, reading and playing our favorite game of Bananagrams.  A volunteer told us just about one of the funniest stories ever.  He said that his villagers love turning his kindle on and off of stand-by.  This is because, when you turn a kindle on stand-by, a picture of famous writers, for example Alexander Dumas or Jules Verne, pops up.  His villagers love these pictures because they truly believe that these are pictures of his close, personal friends.  Well one time, this volunteer's VEO (village executive officer) was playing this fun game and when the picture of Virginia Woolf popped up he exclaimed, "AH! I love you!" So essentially, this village's leader has fallen madly in love with this volunteer's close, personal friend Virginia Woolf.   I've even recently become well acquainted with a couple new Newala crazies.  One I shall call crazy, hat man.  This man followed me around town wearing a 3-gallon jug as a hat and was trying desperately to get me to buy another similar hat.  It just really didn't match my outfit to say the least.  Another one I call crazy, homeless man.  So for a long time, crazy, homeless man lived on the basketball court next to my house at night and during the day spent his time doing moves that would lead you to believe he is an aspiring break dancer.  I even had to stop opening my windows when he yelled "NIPE CHAI," "Give me tea," at me through the window.  Well for a long time, it appeared that crazy, homeless man had moved his plastic-bag bed to greener pastures.   What I didn't realize was that these greener pastures were situated on the porch of the other duplex connected to mine.  I realized this when I got a knock on my door at 6:45 in the morning, and not having a peep-hole answered it.  I pretty much told him to leave and shut the door in his face and he stood outside yelling "MCHUMBA!"  This is Kiswahili for fiancé.  So apparently crazy, homeless man believes that we are betrothed.  Congrats to me (enter sarcasm here).  So that is my life pretty much up till now.  Never a dull moment here in the bush.  Maybe internet will start working so I can post without 4 hours round trip to the nearest internet cafe.  Peace out!

A holiday season like none before...

So the inevitable happened.  About a week ago, the full wrath of Africa struck and I actually pooped my pants.  Awesome.  I had been having stomach problems for about a week and I though i was on the mend.  I went into to town to run some errands when I got a peculiar feeling in my stomach and knew immediately I needed to high-tail it home. Well on the way home, I was stopped by a man wanting to strike up a untimely casual conversation.  I made that conversation as short as possible and then half sprinted, half hopped home.  I successfully made it all the way to my front door and was fumbling with the key when my stomach made the executive decision that it could no longer wait.  These stomach issues continued for about another half a week when finally we reached the day before I was supposed to travel to Christmas in Ndanda.  Katherine came and spent the night before we traveled the next morning so I stopped my issues dead in their tracks by loading up on Immodium. 

On Christmas Eve, most of the volunteers in the "deep south" met in Ndanda at a volunteer’s house.  We rolled into town, had lunch, went swimming, ate dinner, and decorated our tiny Christmas tree that a volunteer's mom had shipped her.  Then next morning, Kathryn and I got up early and made biscuits and gravy for everyone.  It wasn't my mom's coffee cake, but it was pretty good all the same. After that, we had a Dirty Santa Christmas exchange.  We each brought the most ridiculous present we could find.  I ended up locating a belt that said Bruce Lee on it and was even adorned with a holographic picture of him on the belt buckle.  For dinner, we made fajitas and tortillas.  It was pretty delicious.   I got maybe the best Christmas present ever and got to skype with some of my family and then talk to the rest on the phone.  While I was skyping, I was even joined my 2 Tanzanian kiddos wanting to observe the "magic" of video chatting with a bunch of American whities.  We finished off Christmas day with a lively game of spotlight (because the power went out) charades.  The next morning, we got up and caught a bus to travel to Lindi region.  We had plans to visit some Arab ruins on the coast.  The others had an energetic bartering session with the boat people; I proved very helpful during the whole process and slept against a tree.  The ruins were cool, but my favorite part of the trip was possibly this incredibly nice hotel we found.  No way could be afford it, but that didn't stop us from drinking some beers on their white sand beach and swimming in the Indian Ocean.  After our trip, Ghee, Kathryn, and I headed on home.  They both joined me in Newala.  We just hung out for a couple days and then Leslie, one the other volunteers from our training class joined us on New Years Eve.  It was really nice it being just our training class celebrating together.  We made chili and broke open the mango wine that I made in a bucket a couple weeks ago.  We really welcomed the New Years in with style, bucket wine and dance party to Sheryl Crow.  Well if I didn't get to talk to you, HAPPY NEW YEAR! I have a feeling this is going to be one heck of a year!