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!
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