Just another Tanzanian day...

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Hello to all! We've had a VERY eventful past few days after returning from Moshi. Wednesday and Thursday afternoons were packed full of bonding time with our beloved girls at the orphanage, and on Wednesday evening Tom and I actually bopped over to Popetlal Secondary School to check out what we heard was a pretty vibrant Ultimate Frisbee culture here in Tanga, and we weren't disappointed! Such good fun just chilling with the locals and internationals who came out to play, and I even went again last night!

Thursday and Friday mornings we volunteered at Burhani Primary School, a new private school that has only 50 students. We organized and catalogued the small library there, and taught the kids basic computer skills. The Toledo International Youth Orchestra had donated two violins to the school, and even though neither Tom nor I play violin, we were called upon to teach these kids about the instrument...so we improvised, and even managed to screech out the melody of "Twinkle-Twinkle-Little-Star"!

Today has been quite a day already. We missed our girls yesterday - we had plans to go to the beach with them but it rained and was too cold for swimming for them - so we spent most of the day with them today. It was another typical day of moderately organized chaos at the orphanage - some reading, some dancing, some games - with our first experience eating ugali, which is a very "African-esque" food. It's a bland rice/grain combination with the consistency of play-dough, and it's eaten in much the same way too! The girls would grab a handful and roll it up in between their fingers and dip it into an okra stew or spinach...not exactly the best-tasting meal we've had here, but we have DEFINITELY been spoiled with all of these amazing Rotarians cooking us such great food! All was as usual until about 4:30, when we told the girls we would have to leave. They've known for a while that we were leaving for good on Sunday, and that today would be our last day with them, but I don't think the reality of the situation really made sense to many of them (or even us, for that matter) until we started saying our goodbyes. Definitely one of the most emotionally-charged experiences of our lives...we all sat in a circle outside and they sang us a song once in Kiswahili and again in English: "We been together for so long, but now it's time to say goodbye..." The girls had a tough time once they realized we'd be leaving for good, and it was a lot harder than Tom or I could have imagined. This afternoon brought back hybrid memories of both our Senior year's Cabaret for FFE and each of our experiences with CISV (Children's International Summer Villages)...we'll miss these girls, to say the least.

Our blog entry has to be cut short because we just got a call saying our Rotarian friend is 5 minutes away!! Dinner at the Raskazone Swimming Club tonight - YUM! Tomorrow we are traveling to Dar es Salaam, and from there will be embarking to Zanzibar and home on Thursday night - AHHH!!

All our love,
Leah and Tom

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