Its Monday afternoon here in Moshi, Tanzania and we just finished our second day of orientation. This is also the first time I am making it to a internet cafe, which has proven to be harder than I thought. While we have a computer in the home base, I have yet to see or hear of anyone succesfully connecting to the internet.
So far the trip is going great. Very different from what I expected, but still amazing. In the past two days of orientation, we have mostly been going over guidelines, receiving cultural lessons, getting to know the town, and learning Swahili. Id say by now my vocabulary is up to 30 words, which I hope will expand on a lot. It seems when im studying the words by myself I understand everything, but as soon as im put on the spot its a different story. Hopefully, that will improve with time. The people working at our home base are so nice and are making the transition really easy. We have a program director who we call Mama Lillian as well as a Program Officer who we call Baba, which is father in Swahili. Our house is really nice and is about 7 km outside of town. In order to get to our home-base we have to drive down a tiny dirt road with lots of bumps which is always an adventure. At the house we have three cooks who have made us great meals so far. Its great because we are getting to try real authentic food. Everywhere on our property there are banana and avocado trees, which are two of my favorite foods and have also been served at every meal so far. I learned today that there are over 120 different kinds of bananas in Tanzania.
Tomorrow we begin our placement. I am working with two other volunteers at the local school which is located in the prison to help with the children. I am so excited because today I got to read over reviews of past volunteers who worked there and they made it sound like a blast. The children are ages 2 to 6 and are supposedly really eager to learn, which sounds promising. We met the teachers today who seem really nice but speak no English so that should be quite the experience. Hopefully, we can both teach each other. While I did not get my womens placement as I had originally planned I actually think this will be a lot better and I will get to work with womens groups in the afternoon so thats really nice. I think working with the kids will be even more fun and I can probably have more of an impact.
Additionaly so far my absolute favorite thing about Tanzania has been the children. It will be a struggle to not bring a little baby home with me at the end of the trip. Right outside of our homebase there are lots of families with little kids who love to play. I went out there today and brought my bubbles and they were in heaven. Theres this one girl who is probably 2 years old named Brenda who is the cutest child I have ever seen. She always has a smile on her face and will just follow you anywhere. I am so happy I will get to play with her the rest of the trip.
The people of the town are so nice as well. We were sent on a scavenger hunt today in groups and had to knock on families doors and introduce ourselves. Then we each had to bring either information or an object home, depending on our assignment. This was a great exercise, because it taught us 1) more swahili but also 2) how friendly people are here and how willing they are to invite us into our home. I am a little bit neervous when I meet people because there are so many rules as to how you are supposed to properly greet people of different ages but so far no one seems to mind if we mess up.
Ok I have to go my taxi is leaving. Hopefully I will make it to an internet cafe again soon. Kwaheri!
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