Next days stuff. Sorry its kind of frantically written!!! I will have more free time later this week!

Hujambo!

I have a little bit more time now to write and post pictures now that it’s the weekend. I will start at the beginning ( from when I got here)  and work my way through the past week.

I arrived in Arusha (the third largest city in TZ) around midnight, on the night of Saturday the 2; I left Ohio on Thursday the and hanging out in airports since then. The traveling wasn’t that bad, I found lots of things to do. I read, wrote some papers that I needed to get done, and watched movies on my laptop.

Due to a switched flight time, I had a 15 hour layover in Nairobi. Since I 1) didn’t know the language at all and couldn’t figure out what to do/where to go, and 2) wasn’t supposed to leave the airport because I didn’t go through customs, I just hung out at the airport the whole time. It wasn’t too awful. Jomo International looks like a giant indoor strip mall with very few places to sit (picture to the right). They did though, have lots of little nooks in the walls on ledges about 4 inches high, so that people could sit or sleep on them and be out of the walkway. I ended up sleeping in one of these nooks for about 3 hours. They also had a café with free wireless. This was the most exciting part, I got to facebook and email people for a very long time.

I was picked up at the airport in Kilimanjaro and driven to Arusha to stay in the Center House Hostel. It is a relatively cheap hostel (and also fairly clean), run by the Catholic diocese.  I have included a picture of my room. The bed with the mosquito netting covering it is mine. The hostel also gives free breakfast every morning: three slices of white toast with butter and mango jelly, half of a banana, tea, and a fried egg. The eggs in TZ are very strange. I’ll include a picture later on. They don’t have  orange yolks. They are just white.  I haven’t figured out yet if the yolk is just really small and white and we can’t see it, or if it just isn’t there.  But ALL eggs in TZ are like that. (they still taste the same).

Most organized or nice- ish things in Arusha are run by either The Catholic diocese or the Lutheran Church. 

Anyway, that first day no one else had arrived yet so I just wandered around the city. I met a nice man who showed me where the market was, and some major landmarks. He then tried to sell me a picture that he had painted for $45 (and he wanted paid in American money). But after I refused, he very politely told me I could still be his “rafiki” even if I wouldn’t help support his career. He also helped me find the street that the hostel was on, after I was done walking around. I have included a picture of him, his name was Stephen (and turns out, someone I now work with knows him and is friends with him. I’m glad I didn’t make friends with any crazy people).

That evening Kristy arrived. We shared a room at the hostel. She will be here until May with me. We have now moved into houses with our host families and conveniently we are living in homes very close to one another. About 12 other students are here, but they are only here for two weeks, doing a service/tourism trip. They will be working in the schools with us next week and then they will leave. Most of the students are nursing students from Salisbury, which is a university on the
eastern shore of Maryland.

For the last couple of days, we have been having orientation, getting used to the country and meeting the people. There are three people that are here already (they have been here since last fall) and will be working with me and Kristy this spring.  The cars here drive on the left side of the road. This was the first thing I noticed and it is so strange.  I keep expecting the dalla-dallas (the bus system) to crash as I see them turn into what I think should be oncoming traffic. But its always alright.  My Swahili is coming along, I now know yes (ndiyo) and no (hapana) and some other useful phrases (how much is bei gani).
My family is nice but really small. They live in a wood and mud house, with a concret block base. There isn’t any running water, but they do have electricity (although it goes out frequently). The toilet is a hole in the ground that sometimes has toilet paper (outside of the house). To take baths, they heat up a bucket of water and you pour cups of it over your body (they have a small shack to do this in outside).  Kristy and I have about a 45 walk every morning to get to work. Its not bad though, its very green and we walk past the Kilimanjaro brewery ( a Tanzanian beer) so that is exciting  (picture to the right).

We have met with many HIV positive people and learned how to lead classes on teaching people.  Next week we will go to a small village about an hour and a half drive from Arusha and lead classes there all week. (We will camp out in the yard of the village leader).