Epic Battles and Birthday Parties.

Hello All! As usual, things are great on my side of the world. I honestly think I love my village a little more with every passing week.
This last week at school, I was Teacher On Duty. This is my least favorite job at school, but at least its on rotation. In this role, you have to make morning announcements, record all school attendance, and give sick students permission to leave. Its really not that bad, its just incredibly dull. Also, I don't know how its even possible, but I'm not very good at this duty. Let me begin by saying that Tanzanians are especially careful record takers. If there is a record to take, all lines are perfectly spaced and straight. Also, the DO NOT have mess-ups and if they do, will start over instead of crossing out these mistakes. I am just not up to their standards. Most of my lines are all over the place and you would be hard pressed to find a page that I did not have a mistake that I just scratched out. Whenever I hand over the book, I am waiting for someone to ask what 3-year-old I let record attendance. They have all been very gracious so far though.
This last weekend, a bunch of volunteers came to town to celebrate Toni's birthday. Friday, we hung out at the bar/restaurant for about 6 hours and just caught up on everyones' lives. Saturday morning, everyone converged on casa de Katie for pancakes. I also took one over to my neightbors for them to try. They liked it so much, I agreed to have a pancake making lesson on Sunday afternoon (P.S. I can not even tell you how tempted I was to teach them the word flapjack instead of pancake). After everyone had their fill, we went to tour the old German fort that police use for extra office space. They originally said no picture taking, but then the police man showing us around said we were able to take pictures if we could reach an "agreement" with money or phone voucher. No thank you, sir. We really don't want pictures that bad. After that, we went to the market for some shopping. Kristi, another volunteer, is about to go back to the states and wants a new Tanzalicious outfit to wear while giving talks in Elementary schools. So we were on a mission for some rockin' fabric. While shopping, we witnessed the epic "Battle of the Crazies 2011." So if you refer to my previous catalogue of colorful people in my ville, "Wewe," plays a key role in the tale. There is another man who walks around rather quickly, yelling at no one in particular, and occasionally making barking noises. Well, apparently he encroached on "Wewe's" turf. So, in response, "Wewe" chased "crazy, barking man" with a huge bucket of dirty water, finally catching him and soaking him. "Crazy, barking man" then picked up a brick and chases "Wewe" a short way with his weapon overhead, but was unable to catch him. Fortunately, no one was injured in this skuffle and everyone went their crazy, little ways. After the show, we went for a refreshing glass of juice at Juice'man's and then grabbed lunch. Then it was time for my all-time favorite activity, napping. After my nap, I cut Kathryn's hair and then we did dinner and beers with the group.
Sunday, we went for chai and then partook in our normal Sunday shopping. After everyone left, I took another nap, made a tuna sandwich, cleaned, and just piddled around, being very productive. I went into town to give some stuff to Claire as she passed through on the way to her ville. She had been in Mtwara picking up her visiting boyfriend. Let me tell you though, nothing puts a smile on my face like hearing "Madame Katie, What's up?" from a student on the way to town. It was one particular Form III girl who loves that term and uses it every chance she gets since I taught it to my class. When I got back to my house, I brought my neighbors over to my house to learn how to make pancakes. Joyce, my neighbor and pancaking pupil, wants to perfect this American dish so she can make it for her husband. So that's pretty much my updates in a nut shell. Until next time! Peace out!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!!

So life around the ville this weekend was pretty awesome! My students are getting pretty ansty in school since we are almost done, and this is making me ansty, so I was especially grateful for the weekend. Thursday night, I met up with some of the local doctors, the bishop to send off the British medical students. Their time down here is done and now they are going up north to travel. Friday, Kathryn came into town a day earlier than usual. This is because another volunteer, Tyler, was coming with his secondary school for a day of competition against my school. This day of competition was cut extremely short when their bus was about 4 hours late. By the time they arrived, there was only time for the boys to play soccer and the girls to play netball. Netball looked a lot like basketball, except you are not allowed to dribble or run once you have the ball. Our girls got creamed. At least it was entertaining, because many of the students and village children that were watching did marching/dances and chants around the field. My favorite was started by a bunch of my girls. It went a little like this, "Sambusas (stomp, stomp) Sambusas (stomp) Sambusas (stomp stomp)" and so on. We were losing, but they still loved their yummy fried food gosh darnit! While we were clobbered in netball, our boys managed to dominate and bring home a win for Newala Secondary in soccer. They rocked it. And after the netball game ended, the girls kindly brought their entertainment over to the soccer field and were chanting and marching the rest of the game.
Saturday morning, Claire came into town early and we commenced our plans to celebrate Cinco de Mayo in Africa. We started the beans and then made rounds around the market for the rest of the food. We even picked up a little something extra when we all bought matching tie-dye moo-moos. Its not as bad as it sounds though, we are having them altered into not matching styles, because that would be totally uncool. Around this time, Ghee rolled into town and our fiesta participants were all gathered. We made beans, queso, fish tacos with tuna bought from a momma off the street, salsa, and chimichangas (which are actually a lot easier to make than I thought they would be). We all gathered around the table with a bottle of my homemade wine and had a legit Mexican feast. The one disappointment was our intended dessert of brownies. I just got a new solar cooker that was supposed to be amazing. Well, apparently I do not know how to use it because after 3'ish hours it remained a gooey mush. So then, we stuck it on the kerosene jiko (which is not the best for baking) and it all burnt.
The feasting did not stop there though. The next morning, was had a good ol' American breakfast. We made syrup, pancakes, coffee, and had juice. Then after breakfast, we had our normal trip to the market. I have been really wanted to show off my posse of little old men though so I actually took pictures. Lucky I had my camera though because my friend Dudu had his brand new baby (2 months old) at his store! One of my favorite old men though that sells degaa wasn't there, but never fear! Picture to come soon! We then went to talk to Mr. Jaffer. His store sells only in bulk so normally he has nothing that interests me. But then I saw he carried toilet paper in bulk!! Holler!! I bought a 40 pack of toilet paper for 12,000 shillings. That means I paid 30 shillingi per roll instead of 300!! I was pleased as punch!! After that, everyone left and I went home to clean my house, nap, and talk to my mom for Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers of the world, but especially my Momma!! You are the best mother I could ever ask for and put up with way more than you should ever have too!! I love you so much! So everyone give their moms an extra big hug. And if you see my Momma, give her a hug for me! Peace out!

I kinda like my life...

Well howdy doody everyone! I cannot believe that May is already here. It is amazing looking back on the time I have already spent here and looking forward at my remaining time left. It really seems like it will all be over before I know it. So after our long Easter Break, it was back to the grindstone of trying to inspire my students to care about science and learning English. Some days, it really feels hopeless, but then just when you are about to lose all hope, a student will do something amazing. I have always had respect for teachers, but after this 2-year stunt, my respect is out of this world. To all those teachers out there, you are amazing (and a little bit crazy).
So during last week, Claire and I set up a soccer game between our school's girls' teams. It started out all right. My girls were there on time. They even had a ball. But then stuff got crazy. I ran around for about an hour and a half trying to track down the game ball, my whistle, and jerseys. Finally, all was sorted out and we got the game going. Claire even bribed some of my male students to ref the games so we could yell from the sidelines. I was ready for pandemonium. My girls had never played a real game and really hadn't even been practicing for that long, but I was oh so pleasantly surprised. A couple minutes in, my girls find the back of the net! They weren't the Premier League by any means, but they kept the ball at their feet, connected some passes, and for the most part played their positions. There were even some honest to goodness crosses. So at half, we were winning 1-0. Then in the second half, they scored again and we ended up winning the game 2-0. After the game, I got everything put up and then went to the market to see Claire and her girls off. I meandered my way back home, stopping to get degaa, dried sardine like fish, for my cat and a to-go bottle of juice from the one and only juice man. He even had made a debut flavor, stakafelli (actually have no idea how it is spelt). I do not know what this might be called in English, but I've been told it might be related to breadfruit. All I know is that when you mix it with Passion fruit juice, it results in an explosion of deliciousness in your mouth. So after these stops, I slowly made my way home. As I was about to walk up my front steps, I saw a very strange sight, a whole car full of wazungu (whities). They waved, so I waved back, and then crazy enough, they stopped and got out. It turns out that they were five medical students from England accompanied by the Anglican Bishop. There had been in Masasi for 4 1/2 weeks working in the hospital and were now going to be in Newala for around 10 days doing more clinical work. The Bishop invited me to meet them for lunch, and despite the temptation to just stay home and take a nap, I agreed and joined. Then they jetted off to visit a nearby hospital, but then I met up with them when they returned for some beers. They even wrangled me into attending church. Now its not that I am some horrible person, I just don't particularly enjoy church here. I have yet to go to a service that is under 3 hours long, I really don't understand most of what is being said, and they always, and I mean always, make the whitie, i.e. me, get up and give a speech. And this service was no exception. While the med students got to politely wave while being introduced by the Bishop, I was forced to go to the front and had a microphone thrust into my face for a speech. But overall it was all right. I do love the music here. This service had about 4 small choirs who each got their turn to stand and sing, always with an accompanying dance. I love it. And to make things even more entertaining, "Wewe," remember him from my catalogue of Newala crazies, tracked me down and followed me into church that oh so fine Sunday morning. He then proceeded to join in every song with his own rendition of the dance. It was great.
P.S. The Bishop called me to make sure I knew Osama Bin Laden was dead (glad he's got my back and I have now apparently have friends in high places)
P.P.S. If my neighbors don's slaughter their new chicken soon, I'm gonna go over there and do it for them