So what can I say about the holidays? They were nearly perfect. I got to go home, take part in my cousin's wedding, see friends, and spend every second I could with my family. A little word of advice to any future or current Peace Corps Volunteer: if you have even the smallest thought of quitting, do not go home. If I did not feel that me job was unfinished, I'm not sure how I would have left me family again. My first few days back in Tanzania were just plain depressing. I missed my family more than I had the rest of my service. Luckily for me, I did not have to go straight back to my site and wallow in my self-pity. I hung around Dar and my entire class got together for our Mid-Service Conference, MSC. It is always amazing to see our class. I'm sure every group says it, but I'm almost positive that our training class is the best there is. For almost a week, we had medical check-ups, sessions, yummy food, and good friends. It really made for a nice transition back to country. At the end of it all, Peace Corps even flew us back down to Mtwara because the rains have turned the road into a muddy, soupy mess. Not to shabby. After a night in Mtwara Town, we loaded up onto a bus and about 7 hours later, VOI LA, I was home. Now I'm not the type of person to admit this face-to-face, but something about writing it seems so detached. When I got to my house, I sat on my floor and had myself a good cry. I sat there until Duck, my cat, started biting me, probably telling me to "shut the heck up," so then I transferred my little water works session into my bedroom. I was exhausted, my electricity was out, and I was just not too happy about being back. Luckily, the next day started to look up a little bit. I went to the market and visited with all of my favorites and handed out presents. Juice Man is now rockin' an Oklahoma State University keychain. I also gave Mr. Ubwabwa, a.k.a. the cutest little, old man alive, a pencil for his kiddo that is in school. He was ecstatic and started running around, showing everyone his cow print, Oklahoma pencil. Monday, we kicked off school. The first week was pretty much the same as always, no real classes happening and a lot of kids running around cleaning. I spent a lot of my week also reclaiming my house from the critters that had taken over. This included massacring about 200 cockroaches that had taken up residence in my shower room. My least pleasant houseguest I found at 9:30 at night. I was opening my door to let Duck out of my room for the night and I saw something long and black and thought, "My that's a large centipede." I then got the door open enough to see that it was in fact, a black snake about 2-feet-long. So of course I snatch Duck up and slam the door. Since I still did not have electricity, I grabbed my handy-dandy headlamp and then went to investigate. The snake, being the creepy crawler it is, had vanished. Lets just say I wasn't willing to be the "out of sight, out of mind" sort of girl, so I locked Duck in my room, grabbed my machete from the kitchen, and went hunting. It didn't take long to locate the sick-nasty creature my couch. I stood on my coffee table, hopefully out of striking distance, and used to machete to pry all the cushions off the couch. I was able to flush him out, but he was a quick little bugger and made it behind my bookshelf, no problem. I then scooted the coffee table over to the shelf and stood on it while I slid the shelf out. I got the table out far enough and threw a rock that I prop a window open with at the snake, making contact and slowing him down. I then went to town with my machete. Lesson learned: I need to get my machete sharpened. I did manage to kill the snake though in a blunt-force trauma sort of way. Now I'm not sure if this guy was a Black Mamba, but I think it’s safer to just assume that all black snakes around here are. The only way to really tell is to see inside of its mouth, its black with a Black Mamba, and I wasn't really to willing the explore that. Anyways, its dead and gone and I have my house back to myself. I showed the picture and told the story to all the staff at my school and I got told that it was dangerous and congrats on my kill.
In other news, my old club soccer coaches, Dee Friend and Chuck Lynn donated new soccer uniforms for my girls. We finally got some of the team together last week to model. I want to thank Dee and Chuck so much! The girls were so excited and I made them promise that they would not let any boys wear the new jerseys. No more shabby leftovers, they are lookin' sharp!
On a cute note...my favorite bug in Tanzania
