Mobile Library and Banako Rural School

For over a month (it is hard to believe that I can say that now) I have been visiting a local rural school called Banako as part of the community service outreach projects that Haven of Peace Academy staff and students are participating in. On Thursday afternoons, a handful of teachers and about 40 students from grades 6-8 pile into two school buses, and we set off on the bumpiest and wildest school bus ride I have ever been on. The first time we drove out to Banako we actually lost the back fender of the bus, and the rains had washed giant holes into the dirt roads. Also, in Tanzania it is not the BACK of the bus that is the cool place to sit, but the very front, as there are backwards seats right against the windshield where you can sit and see everyone and everything (except the giant dips in the road coming up.)

The purpose of the weekly trips to Banako is to bring books to the rural school, as they do not have any books of thier own. It is like a weekly trip to the library, only the library comes to the students, but unfortunately the students are not able to keep the books at the end of the visit (and they are bashfully unloaded from desks at the end of the afternoon, sometimes 10 or 12 books hidden in one desk. It always amazes me, it must have been a jigsaw puzzle to make them all fit.) The hope is that eventually HOPAC will have enough materials to set up a permanent library at Banako, but for now it is a system on wheels. The students from HOPAC spend a few hours reading with the children, and teaching them about books (last week was about finding the title on a cover of a book, as well as the names and purpose of the author and illustrator. This may seem basic (and I believe is even in our kindergarten curriculum) but for children who have not been exposed to books as part of the learning process, or in any capacity, this is quite a challening feat.
We arrive at the 5-room school (with a student population of nearly 500 students and only 5 teachers) with arm loads of pencils and paper, a few color coded rubbermaid bins of picture books, easy readers and intermediate books, and ofcourse stickers for at the end of the lesson. I have never seen children get so excited about stickers (or even the sticky paper outline that surrounds each sticker. It makes me wish that I kept my sticker collection from my childhood to hand out. All of those stickers stored nicely in a photo album seems like such a waste compared to the creative uses and places they can find for just one sticker.

A typical 2 hour lesson looks like this: the class of 100 is divided into smaller groups of 6 or 7 students, and one HOPAC student (and or teacher) sits with each group, explaining the lesson in a mix of English and Swahili as best as possible, and then having students fill out their sheet. My favorite part is after the mini lesson. Free Read time. Students are able to pick books from the bins that are brought, and spend an hour reading, or just looking at the pictures, and learning new words in English (and me trying to learn the same words in Swahili).  All the books are donated to the mobile library project from all around the world (Netherlands, the U.S, Tanzania as well as other countries) and include many of my favorites, Little Critter series, Spot, Dick and Jane, all of the Disney classics, and even the Very Hungry Caterpillar. Part of what I am doing at HOPAC is inputting all of these books into a computer system (and color coded bin system) for the mobile library. It is encouraging as there are boxes and boxes of donated books, but the process is slow and steady to get them all sorted. I even enjoy the tedious inputting of books into the system, as Joel can probably tell you, I am a nerd when it comes to organizing and classifying things. I love order. :)

An interesting conversation arose as I was sorting and inputting books today.  I was commenting to one of the teachers that helps run the project that they must have had a huge donation of books from a little girl who LOVES bunnies. Almost every other story was about bunnies, and infact a lot of the books are about pets. Cats, Dogs, horses.. you name it. She was saying how it is interesting the conversations that can arise from those particular stories. The children cannot fathom why anyone would keep an animal as a pet. The first thought is, "is it edible, and how do I catch it?" (I happened to be holding a book of Clifford the BIG red dog at the moment, and thinking what a feast Clifford would make.) It is a challenge for most of those children to get enough food in the day, and the thought of keeping an animal around as a pet (and having to provide food, shelter and care for this pet) is absurd to them. It got me thinking about other books that we have in our Western culture, and how those would be percieved by the kids reading them at the Banako school. It is funny how something like a charitbale donation can turn into a puzzling (and possibly even sometimes offensive) gesture. I began to think of all the books I had sorted to do with Christmas, and though there were a few of the Christmas story, there were many with pictures of Santa Clause, piles of presents and stuffed stockings hanging over a lit fireplace in a plush house. Other books on Halloween can spark interesting conversation, when to us it is simply a fun holiday (with excess of candy and costumes), but in Tanzania which is a country where of whichcraft and supersticion are very real and present, books about ghosts and witches are unnerving and even taboo. I even ran into this at HOPAC during the final performance of the musical when I was helping a child put on her goat masked. I joked with her that she should keep the mask and dress as a Goat for Halloween. She turned to me with big eyes (partially hidden behind the googly goat eyes) and whispered that they don't celebrate "All Hallows Eve".

I am learning that as guests in Tanzania, and as Westerners here to provide "aid" it is so important to always be aware of the culture within which we are living. It is so easy to believe that our ways are right, our ideas are best, and that everything else is backwards. Though i cannot say that I have thought this way or arrived with this mindset, I can see how even the slightest ignorance of local customs and traditions can make it seem as if we do think this way, and instead of actually providing help, it can be easy to instead do harm. I think there is a fine balance to mission work, aid relief, or whatever it may be, but it has to look more like two people walking side by side, instead of one infront trying to lead the other. Cherie (Joel's professor) was speaking about this, saying that even in offering gifts or money it is important not to do it in a way that we are handing it down, but instead handing it across to the people (whether paying for taxi, buying something in the market or local shop). Even better would be the gesture of offering up the money to the hand recieving it.

IT'S SHOW TIME!

So, it is finally the weekend of the musical. Before arriving in Africa I had been emailing back and forth with the teachers at HOPAC involved in the production to arrange costumes.. Thanks to FVHCS, LCS, value village and my MOM :) I compiled almost all of what they needed.. Agnes has been wonderful on this end to do the rest. (see below.. thank God fod Agnes. She has even offered her guest room and tv for the 3 am canucks games)..  3 months ago I remember thinking, "wow.. when it is the weekend of the musical we will have already been in Tanzania for one month."... well, here it is.. it is SHOW TIME, and we have already been here for one month. Time is flying., It has been such a joy after 2 months of emailing from Canada to finally meet the teachers, students, parents, school gardeners and groundskeepers and even headmaster involved in the play. It is entirely a whole community event, I suppose even a global event as myself and another student from the UFV are helping with costumes and lighting.

The play they are doing is called "A Few of My Favorite Things"which they wrote based on both the movie "The Sound of Music" as well as the real life story of the Von Trapp Family singers.. the movie is actually QUITE different from the real story.. They proceeds are going towards paying for a playground that they built at the school.

Tonight was the final dress rehearsal, and tomorrow is the first performance. I am completely exhausted, so excited.. and loving every minute of it. Someone sponsored the school to use a theatre in town called "Little Theatre" which is quite neat, though as I quickly learned, big repellant is a must as mosquites swarm you while you sit and watch, there is a resident bat that likes to do circles above the performers, and there, as well as anywhere in Tanzania, the power can go out at ANYTIME for any LENGTH of time. (Generally we are without power for 6-12 hours a day.. and ofcourse it usually goes out right when it gets PITCH black out..)

Anyways, here are a few photos of the final dress rehearsal tonight.. I should have some more professional group shots in a week or two that were taken tonight from a photographer...

Zanzibared.

This past weekend we had the opportunity to go to Zanzibar. I was very excited, mainly for the opportunity to use "Zanzibar" and variations of it in a sentence ie: "Let's go drink some Zanzibeers at the Zanzibar." Needless to say the group was pretty sick of me after roughly 27 minutes. I guess you could say I was Zanzibarred from making anymore hilarious play on words.
The flight from Dar to Zanzibar was only 15 minutes. You might think this is such a short flight that Jennifer wouldn't even have time to be scared. Wrong. We had been flying for all of 7 minutes when the plane seemed to lose all power. Or so we thought. Little did we know we were actually starting our descent after barely reaching our cruising altitude of 5,000 feet. Jennifer was feeling sick before we left for the airport. A sick Jennifer combined with a flying Jennifer does not make for a very fun flight. Luckily Jennifer is tougher (and a little less dramatic) than I am so she was able to put on a brave face and make the most of our time in Zanzibar. I was worried that I was going to get sick from her so I took a lot of the pills that we got from the travel clinic, so I had a REALLY good time.
We stayed in a hostel in the middle of Stone Town. The town is very rich in history (mostly bad history) and the buildings all have so much character. The beaches are also very beautiful. For some reason I was expecting that it would be a very clean, tropical paradise but was quickly reminded that although it is a tropical island, Zanzibar is still part of Tanzania. There was still lots of garbage and people asking for money and selling stuff everywhere we went. The people are extremely persistent and will walk for 15 or 20 minutes beside you just trying to sell something. I felt bad for most of these people as this is how they make a living and a lot of how they are is the result of westerners. The first evening we were there the group went for a tour of Stone Town but Jennifer was not up for it so we just went for a little dinner at Freddie Mercury's bar and then to bed at 7:00pm. The view from the bar was amazing as it was right on the beach. Kids were playing soccer and swimming in the water all along the beach which was fun to watch. After logging close to 12 hours of sleep we were ready for a big day on Saturday. We woke up early and went with the group to Prison Island. We fed the giant (and very old) tortoises and were even lucky enough to see and hear two tortoises acting out the circle of life. Even with those huge shells love still found a way. We went snorkeling after that and saw lots of fish and a school of baby squid. After the boat ride back to the main island we went on a spice tour. The tour was very interesting and we saw what life was like in the country side of Zanzibar. Each time we came across a kind of plant, tree or bush that was a type of spice we were asked to guess what we thought it was based on the smell. Now I like to fancy myself as a bit of a spice connoisseur but it was tough! After a while I just started guessing pepper every time. I was never right.
We saw a lot of amazing sights and it was nice to feel like we had a bit of a "holiday" after everything we have been up to for the past month.

Today I officially started my internship at Ardhi, though I have been working on it for some time outside of the university already. I will be working with a couple of PhD students. The big project we are working on is trying to map out the informal settlements (slums) that are in the most vulnerable areas. Vulnerability in our case is vulnerability to flooding. Today it rained again for about 15 minutes. In those 15 minutes most of the roads were flooded so you can imagine what it does to poorly constructed homes that are built in flood prone areas. The poorest people get pushed to these flood prone areas where they build homes out of clay, mud and wood. By finding which areas are the most prone to flooding we will hopefully be able to see the effects that climate change (which will bring more tropical storms here) will have on informal settlements. This will allow us, or others who come later on, to try find the most sustainable, durable and affordable building material that can be used to construct these informal homes. Today me and Kihila (PhD student I am working with) were supposed to go downtown to the visit the water, sewage and sanitation company. We were backing out of the parking lot so I asked Kihila where the company was located. He turned to me and told me we had to go to the city centre. Just as he finished saying this we hit a truck. Oops. Kihila said something in Swahili (some things never get lost in translation) then got out of his car and had a yelling match with the other driver. We had to post pone our visit down town as his bumper was about to fall off. I went back to the office and got started on some computer mapping. Kihila came to check up on me a little while later and told me his "car technologist" told him it would be $300 USD to fix his car. He said he could not afford this and I felt so bad. We thought that it would be best to go to the outdoor cafeteria and just eat some goat. That seemed to lift Kihelas spirits and we got back to work. Having never ate goat before I needed a bathroom break after finishing the last bit of meat. The bathrooms are in very poor condition and is just a hole in the ground... with no toilet paper. After coming back to the office Kihila explained that, "You were gone for some time. We only use that bathroom for short calls." It turns out that there is one bathroom that the professors and PhD students have access to that is in a little better condition, and also has toilet paper. By that time it was too late for me. Doing all our laundry by hand is really gonna come back to bite me next week.

Jennifer is at rehearsal for the big musical which is this weekend and I am just surfing the web while we have power. This week the electricity supplier here is doing 16 hour a day power cuts to the region to save some money. Hopefully the power stays on until bed time as trying to sleep with out the fan makes me grumpy/sweaty. Time to go read the Canucks and Sharks game sheet from last night and imagine how the goals may have looked as trying to watch highlights takes hours to load.

Thank the Lord for Agnes

Last week I met Agnes.

Thank the Lord for Agnes.

She is one of the nuns in the school musical, and a mom of 2 HOPAC students, ( her second daughter Amy is also in the play). Aside from getting to know Agnes through the rehearsals for the play (which are now every week day evening 5pm-7pm and Saturday afternoon, which makes for 12 hour days at the school.. I am busier here than i was at home!) I have also been getting to know her as she has been driving me home from the rehearsals.
...side note, she drives a car that is called a "picnic".. it is so cool!...
Agnes started driving me home last week one day when Joel was on his way from a late meeting at the University (only about 4 or 5 km away) when they hit traffic and would be stuck for forty five minutes.. another side note...traffic has a WHOLE new meaning in Dar. a 200 meter stretch can take up to an hour in really bad traffic.. Joel called me to tell me he was going to be late, and when I said everyone was leaving the school grounds and it was pitch black out (nightfall is at 7pm and there is no such thing as street lamps) Joel started getting worried (ok, I did too).. As the crowd was quickly dispersing, and hopping into vehicles I knew I had to ask someone for a ride.. if I was able to get a hold of a taxi I would have had to wait atleast 15 minutes, alone.. in the dark. I was still just getting to know Agnes, and did not know where she lived but I thought I would be bold and ask her for a ride home. She (being one of the worlds most friendly people) said OF COURSE, and it turns out she lives less than a block away from where we are staying. We are pretty much neighbors..

So, with Agnes to the rescue, and me safely in the picnic, we headed home for the evening. Catching a ride with someone (versus taxi) has also made me start to feel at home here, and less of a visitor. I am starting to feel connected, and a sense of community.. I have been enjoying my rides home from the rehearsals with Agnes, and getting to know her. She is a total combination of Joel and I, but packed into a boisterous, friendly and hilarious African woman. She is considering a PHd in Urban and rural planning (already has 2 masters, and they will not let her get a 3rd, so she will  have to do a PHd instead, and she is even considering some of the Universities in Canada that Joel has looked at for his masters.) Her sister in law (also named Agnes) is actually a lecturer at the University here where Joel is doing his internship..
Agnes just completed a language certificate, just for the fun, (in French though, not Spanish).. which is an interest that we share in common.. In her spare time she has decided to open up a wedding dress online store, as good inexpensive dresses are hard to come by here in Dar, and so I told her how I always talk about how fun it would be to run a consignment wedding dress store.. I had to explain consignment though, as I guess that is not something they do here! For wedding dresses anyways... She has also lived in Scotland for many years, (though she was never a Highland dancer..) Needless to say, Anges is someone that Joel and I would both enjoy talking to.

She has invited us over for a traditional Tanzanian meal, which I am looking forward to!

We are just back from Zanzibar, the whole weekend which I spent very ill - not sure from what. the food? the water? it is always hard to tell.. but it was still a good trip, and I believe Joel is going to blog on that tomorrow..

This is the week of the musical.. it is going to be a busy one, with last minute set construction and dress rehearsals, and I am starting to help out the HOPAC grade 5 students choreograph a worship dance for their "graduation" assembly.. One month ago I was sad to leave BC, as the end of the school year is always such an exciting time to be teaching and working with students, but needless to say I ended up in the thick of the end of the school year activities here.. :) I will bring out camera to the dress rehearsal at the theater on Wednesday and try to take some pictures..

Badai! (Later in Kiswahili)

Kick it.

I veered from the path of familiarity yesterday and bought some "Kick It" beer from the store instead of the usual Kilimanjaros. With a soccer ball for a logo and "Kick It!" as a name, it just made sense. I am happy to report that Kick It! is a great beer.
Today was a relaxing day. After a busy weekend it was nice to have a day where we did not have to be or go anywhere (sorry Oma if you're reading this, I know we should have gone to church).Yesterday while Jen was helping out at HOPAC, I went on an "Investour." Investours was started by a Harvard student in Mexico and was recently started up here in Dar. The person who started it was fed up with the high interest rates which made the pay back of microloans impossible for many people. The basic idea is that a group of people go on a tour of an area where people have little shops or businesses and then decide which place they want to give money (the tour fee) to. The people at Investours identify people who they know need the money and would benefit from a microloan.  

Yesterday we visited a woman with 8 kids who had a little stand where her and a friend sold charcoal. Charcoal is very important here as over 90% of the people living in Tanzania use it to cook. We sat in her little home/shop on plastic buckets and asked her questions through a translator about her business. We then went for lunch in the market. I had some Tanzanian food that I don't know how to spell but it was very good. After lunch we went to visit a lady who sold peanuts and had a little shop where she sold soap, water and other small things. Each of the woman we met made between 5,000 and 10,000 TSH a day (1,500 TSH = $1 Canadian).

It felt very strange in the meetings as the ladies we were talking with both knew that it was up to a group of people from Canada to decide who would get the microloan. Who am I to decide which lady would receive money? They both work so hard every day and have families to support. Each of them was asking for 300,000TSH which they would pay back in 3 months. The program is amazing, however, having to choose a "winner" is very hard and made me want to go back to both of the women and tell them they both get the money. Our group chose the peanut lady as the charcoal lady had already received a loan recently. The person who does not get the loan is given a class by the Investour people on how to improve business, and if the same person is not "chosen" after 2 tours, they automatically receive a loan. It was great to give the peanut lady her money but as I said earlier, it felt strange to be the one to "choose" and decide which person should get the loan. A cool thing is that we are allowed to stay in touch with the person we chose to give the money too through the Investours office. They said we can even skype with the peanut lady in the future if we want. The tour took us to some very poor areas. A lot of people get sad when they see so many people living in poverty. I just get very angry. Poverty can go suck an egg.
It made it very clear, once again, that Africa is going to impact me a lot more than I am going to impact Africa. Going into the trip I had some big ideas and was confident I would solve world hunger, at least in Africa. Move over, Ghandi. Joel is here to save the day! As it turns out I will not be solving world hunger. Not this week anyways. With so many challenges it is hard to know where to even begin to try help. One thing is for sure: Me and Africa are now officially invested in each other.

A Few Pictures of our House

 This is the side guest house (above), where most of our group is staying. It has a kitchen where we can cook communal dinners (Joel and I made some mean tacos last week), and many nice sun decks (see roof deck in photo!) where we have swahili lessons and study sessions in the sun.

This is the building that Joel and I are in. The room on the second floor (left of the house) was our room for the last two weeks, but we just moved into the brand new wing this morning, which is where the picture is taken from. We now have a cieling fan (such a luxury..!) and an A.C unit, though we have not figured out how to work it yet.

 This is where we eat breakfast, lots of natural foods prepared by the passionist fathers and the nuns.

 A delicious traditional Tanzanian meal. Rice, bananas with beans, spinach and tomatoes. mmmm :)

Sisi Tulisoma Kiswahili Leo. (Today we studied Swahili)

We are in the midst of our Swahili lessons. It is actually a very simple language to learn. Joel is satisfied having learned the sentence "Mimi nitakunwya Kilimanjero" which means I am going to drink a beer, and is literally one letter away from saying I am going to shit a beer "mimi nitakunya Kilimanjero" .. we have quickly learned to be very careful in what we say.
Anyways, me being the language nerd am excited to learn more in next few days.  He also likes the word Kechapu (Ketchup) and the phrase "WataKula" (not watercooler as you may have guessed, but it actually "They are going to eat"... it is just fun to say).
For those other language nerds reading this blog, here is a run down on Kiswahili.  It has verbs, but no cojugations (SOO unlike French and Spanish, and Enligsh). If you speak in the present you ad the prefix "na" to the verb, (no matter 1st person, second, 3rd, pluaral etc.), "li" for past tense, and the prefix "ta" for future tense. For examples,

Nikula - Am eating
Likula - ate
Takula - will eat

 Kiswahili is a very phonetic language. It is spelled exactly how it sounds. They also have a lot less words than other languages, so words they have borrowed, they just add an 'i' at the end to make it their own. For example
chipsi = chips
benki = bank
tiketi = ticket
rocketi = rocket
husbandi = husband.. and so on. It's not rocket science (rocketi scienci) .. ok that was an exaggeration.

Well, that is all for now.
Mimi Nitaandika Kesho (I will write again tomorrow)

Ellos Hablan Espanol en Africa! (They speak Spanish in Africa!)

wow...Two posts in one day, though mine is not after a nutritous breakfast of pringles and nutella, but a desert of delicious local pinapple and avacado (apparently considered a fruit here? .. or is that universal and I am just unaware?)

Anyways, today was a neat day. I piled into the taxi with 2 other girls volunteering at HOPAC, for what we througt would be a half hour meeting with Anja (an amazing, inspiring lady who is originally from Holland, but has been living here for 13 years with her family). She is a teacher at HOPAC and helping to coordinate what our time there will look like..on top of the million other thigns she does around and outside of the school. Our half hour meeting of talking about involvement turned into a 9 hour day of actually GETTING involved. Anja brought us around the entire school to talk to all of the teachers, and set us up with classrooms to begin helping in, teaching in and observing in. Part of what I will be doing is the musical, another part is helping with exam scribing for sutdents with learning needs (they have a 5 week long exam period for grades 10, 11 and 12 beginning this week.) and I will also be helping in History and Socials calssrooms, and even helping man the "Canteen" or snack bar, which we did for three hours today and was a lot of fun. It is a lot like Cafe for Kids, in that some proceeds go towards athletics and other in-school projects, but the majority of the proceeds go towards the community service projects the school has.  Community service is another thing I will be involved in, and today I visited a place where I would love to spend time at this summer. There is a family from Spain that runs a rehabilitation centre for recovering addicts (young boys men mostly) right behind HOPAC property. Louis and his wife and 4 other women from Spain run a house, and rehabilitation centre for these men, meanwhile teaching them employable skills (such as carpentry, mechanics) and introducing them to Christ in hopes of getting them back on their feet. There are currently 45 men staying at the centre, and the centre is one of a kind, as these support systems do not exist in Tanzania. It was a unique visit, as Louis and his family only speak Spanish and a bit of Swahili, and Anja (who speaks Dutch and English does not speak any Spanish but a bit of Swahili) so we had a bit of a triangular converstaion of swahili-spanish-english as he toured us around and explained the work they are doing. I was invited in to the ladies home afterwards, and over a cup of tea (hard to drink something hot in this weather) was able to tlak to them and begin getting to know them. They don't speak any English, and my swahili is still limited to "hello" and "thank you", so it was a good chance for me to get to use some of my Spanish. I had been chiding Joel that this year we can go to Africa for the summer, but next year I want to go to Spain because I want to be able to practice my Spanish, but it seems that Africa has brought a little piece of Spain to me. I am looking forward to getting to know the women more, and doing what I can to help them cook, clean, and spend time in the little store they run where they sell the goods that the men make.

Fact: I'm sweating.

It is 8:30 in the morning here in Dar and I am already sweating. The air conditioner in our room is on but is I think it is actually blowing warm air. But it is tough to complain in a place where so many others live with so little.
The last few days have been pretty busy. Yesterday we went to visit an orphanage that was in a rural area. It was nice to go out into the country. The air was fresher compared to the city. The orphanage is run by two American missionaries who have lived all over the world and have 9 children of their own. There are 17 children living permanently at the orphanage we visited. They also have children who are recovering from surgeries stay with them while they recover. As soon as we arrived at the orphanage all the children came running up to us and each one gave us a hug. I felt like I should have been wearing a Superman cape. Here I am to save the day! I say this in a self-mocking manner. The "white person to the rescue" issue has been a struggle. More on that later. We then went and sat on some benches while the children sang and did a dance for us. I was a little embarassed that these young children were much better dancers than me and had a lot more rhythm than me. If you've ever seen me dance this should not come as a surprise though.
We also played some games with all the kids.I worked up a sweat (which is not hard to do here) by trying to outrun some of the kids while playing duck duck goose. My pride took a real hit after losing a race to a 7 year old girl. I blame it on the altitude and the thin air. (Note: In 2002 I broke my own record in the LCS parking lot by cracking the one minute mark in the 100m dash)
Before we went to the orphanage I was worried that I would have a hard time seeing a bunch of sad children who have already been through more than most of us go through in an entire life time. I was surprised and happy to see how full of life and excitment all the kids there were. I know it is not always easy, but yesterday they were all laughing and smiling almost the entire time we were there. On the drive home, Robert, the husband who runs the orphanage, told us some of the stories of the children and how they ended up there. Many of them lost their parents to HIV/AIDS, others were being abused before someone brought them there. It is hard to hear the stories. I just kept thinking "They are just kids." It also made me feel insignificant. I have been struggling with the "short term" work that many western people and organizations do in places such as this. We come here for a few weeks or months, visit some poor kids, feel like we made a difference then go home and nothing really changes. One thing Jen and I are hoping to do is build one or several permanent, long term relationships with a person or group here who we can help from back home. Being here has given me a new appreciation for people who come and live here permanently and spend their life with the people here.
This week we are also starting our Swahili lessons. The first thing I learned about Swahili is that it's actually spelled "Kiswahili." If you say "I knew that" I don't believe you. A silent "K" is one thing, but TWO silent letters to start a word? Fascinating...
I have been trying to learn the language from some of our taxi drivers. So far I've learned that characters from The Lion King are actually Swahili words, ie: Simba means "Lion" in Swahili. Rafiki means "friend." Still no word on what the literal translation for "Scar" is.
Jennifer has gone to eat breakfast and I think I may have missed it. Thankfully there is still some nutella left in my little stash of food. I think I also have some pringles. Time to get this day started on the right foot with some pringles dipped in nutella.

Students are "students" everywhere.

My turn to post. I will warn you now that it will not have the creative genius or wit that Joel writes with, but I will provide you with the facts, and hopefully keep you interested in the mean time.
This week I have been able to start visitng and working with the teachers at Haven of Peace Academy. For those who don't know yet, one of my main roles while I am at the school is to help with their first ever musical production. The school had just purchased a playground for their students (with a merry-go-round, havn't seen one of those in ages... and pretty sure there are some sort of laws against them in Canada?) and the musical is an attempt to raise funds to pay off their playground. When I sent the school my resume months ago, I guess the school was in the process of deciding whether or not they were able to do the performance.The teacher leading the production explained to me this week that there were a few things that were making it seem impossible to do so, and a lack of any sort of costumes was a major dilemma. Organizing costumes for a school production is something that I had on my resume (though I in no way claim to be expert at it!) Needless to say, they took it as a sign from God that the play should go ahead, and the few months leading up to our trip was a lot of fun in finding costumes (thanks to the schools who lent them), sewing some costumes (thanks mom) and even glue gunning hand made goat masks (of which i am kind of proud..) For Joel and I it has really been our prayer that God uses our time here for his purposes, and to do His work, whatever that may be. It is just funny how such a silly seeming thing, like costumes,  is so appreciated over here and the way that the Lord has used me so far. The other day I went to watch their first rehersal and they were praying before hand, and giving thanks over and over for me being able to come wtih the costumes. It was overwhelming to say the least. I am so excited to be here, and the teachers and staff at the school are inspiring. I am already cherishing the connections that I have made.

Another part of what I will be doing at the school is working with students who are currently completing community service projects. Today I was able to sit in on grade 12 presentations about their year long service projects, in which students helped to advocate for women and children in poverty, help women with Aids generate income by starting up small buisnesses (whether that be fixing their refridgerator so that they can sell water and other drinks out of their home, or teaching them to roll paper beads to sell both locally and abroad), bring toilets to local schools that do not have any (only recently has a law been passed that every school must have a "washroom".. I say that term very loosely). It was inspiring to see the dedication and work of their senior students. Throughout the presentations I had to laugh as I began to see that students are students everywhere around the world. There was the dynmaic, class clown who delivered an amazing presentation on dynamite fishing, but had the class in stitches, and on the edge of their seats, there were the strong leaders of the class, who took on the leadership roles, and there were the students who just could not stop talking during the presentations of others. Yes, students are students everywhere. It is a universal thing.

In the afternoon I was able to tag along on the middle school community service projects, in which the Middle school has started a program called "Mobile Library", where they take books to a local rural school, and teach the young children how to read in English.

The rural school was something of an inspiring moment for me. I felt pretty secure in my classroom management, until I pulled up in the school "bus" (another adventure initself, inwhich the bumper was half way detached by the time we arrived). Outside the school building (of about 3 classrooms) I saw one of the schools 4 teachers, with her class of 100 students (that's NOT an exaggeration) all sitting criss-cross apple sauce in the dirt, about 50 hands politely raised, in hopes of answering a question. The teacher had her hand on her hips and a look that intimiated even me, yet you could tell that she was warm and loved what she was doing. I do not know if I could EVER manage a class of 100 students with the grace that she seemed to have. The school has 500 students, about 3 classrooms, and a handful of teachers. We are learning and reading that in Tanzania teaching is not a respected occupation. Teachers are paid 300,000 TSH a year, which looks amazing, but is only about $200.00 U.S. The cost of living, food, gas out here is NOT lower than we we have at home.. so that 300,000 does NOT go far at all. I am excited to learn more about the education system both in the international schools (in the case of HOPAC) as well as the local schools such as the one we visited today, and will continue to visit.

Burnzania

You've probably caught on to the fact that the title of today's entry is a clever play on words. Yesterday I thought it would be a good idea to combat the intense heat by removing items of clothing. Boy was I wrong. My skin is bright red and feels like it's on fire. Instead of getting TANzania, I got BURNzaniaed.
We have settled in over the past couple days and are starting to feel more relaxed here. It is not always easy but we are accepting the fact that things are just very, very different here! Some stuff is different in a good way and other stuff is just hard to get used to.
A great development is that I have found a great beer and pizza place to go to for good, cheap food. It looks like my diet will consist of samosas, pizza, eggs, beer and water over the next 3 months. No, I am NOT complaining in the least. I've been trying to get away with this kind of diet for years at home but the crazy western media is shoving crazy propganda like "Fruits and vegetabables are good for you" down my throat. It's been nice to get away from that kind of bias reporting out here. A large pizza that feeds me and Jennifer is about $5 and a 500ml beer is about $1.50. My favorite beer is Kilimanjaro Lager. Their slogan is "It's Kili time." I'm trying to imerse myself in the local culture and make that local business slogan my mantra while I am here. 7:00am? It's Kili time. Up at 2:00am to go to the bathroom? Kili time. It's 1:00 in the aftern- Kili time.
We have been meeting some amazing people over the last few days who have organized local groups. One lady we met with has an orphanage about an hour from where we are staying. This comign Sunday we are going to visit them and we are going to try arrange some 2 or 3 day trips we can do to stay with her. The stories about the children that she has there are unbelievable. When you first hear about kids that are abandoned you want to get angry with the parents. But after thinking about it, their reasons for leaving their children are a result of the place which they live and other cultural factors that are results of life here.
The power is out again here so the battery on the computer is almost dead. It is not polite to take pictures of people here and we have heard about people being arrested for taking pictures of local structures as they are suspected of being terrorists who are scouting out buildings. This week I am hoping to get some pictures and upload them here.
Thanks for all the comments, we love hearing from everyone back at home.Go Canucks.