Paradise Found

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I have some good news - I got my luggage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Extremely happy about this! June 9th has been declared national bag day. We had a lot of help from Paradise. We actually met Paradise the night I arrived. An American girl, Liz, arrived on the same flight as me. She was going to be doing a similar volunteer project (but through a different company), and had not been met at the airport. We ended up taking her with our group, and dropping her off at a hotel in town, where she was met by her project leader, Paradise. He made quite an impression on us straight away as he made a big deal of thanking the British for the things that we have done for Tanzania - roads, hospitals, schools etc. I'd better not go into that! We happened to bump into Paradise again yesterday, and he helped us so much with the bag situation. What a happy day! Last night there was much celebration with my fellow housemates and our Maasai guard Paul and his friend Sammy. Paul and Sammy can often be found sitting on our front steps playing drafts on a homemade board using bottle tops as the pieces (one plays coca-cola the other plays fanta). They don't sleep, or they sleep very very little. Somehow we ended up dancing around my bag with Paul and Sammy doing Maasai chanting/singing (whatever it is it sounds beautiful) and trying to teach Patrick and myself how to jump! I have now decided I need to learn some Maa as well as some Swahili as Paul and Sammy only speak Maa. I also tried some random drink they made last night (after quite a bit of pointing and waving from each side). I still don't really know what it was but it tasted good. Kind of like coffee. We also had a traditional Maasai flu remedy simmering away in the kitchen all night. Also no idea what's in that but we're trying that out later today once it has 'sat' for a while. I feel quite safe with them guarding our house as we discovered that the sword that Sammy carries by his side really is no decoration. That thing is sharp, and apparently he would have no second thoughts about using it should he need to. Better not get on their bad side. I feel so much better now that I have my things. I can concentrate on the things I came here for. Back to school tomorrow. I've started working on getting them a blackboard and a cupboard that locks (right now they have nowhere secure to store anything that I could bring in). I took in toothbrushes the other day (followed by jelly babies) and we ended up singing 'this is how we brush our teeth, brush our teeth, brush our teeth'....very cute! Gotta go for now. Hope everyone is well. Thanks for your emails and sorry if I don't reply (it's very slow). I am reading them though and it's great to hear from you all. Oh - I added more pics to my previous post if you would like to check them out.

Sere (bye in Maa) for now

Joanna x

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Comments

[Dad]

Hooray
Soooooooooooooo glad you got your bag, as I know how much time / effort went in to selecting the contents. BA sent me an e mail admitting that they need to improve their baggage handling at Heathrow! Hopefully you can now get on with the job you went to do

[Gillian]

Glad you got your bag cuz. Your Mum and Dad and I were discussing all sorts of retrieval methods yesterday. Love the photos too and am looking forward to trying out this new dance youve been learning at the Brodick Bar when you return. Proclaimers gig next week on Arran. Will let you know how it goes xxx

[Kim]

Languages
Hi babe!! Thinkig about you tons and love all the pics!! If you come back fluent 2 African languages you are my hero :) Glad you have your luggage finally only took a week eh? Hope your 2nd week in Tanz is looking up!! Miss you and you are in my thoughts and prayers!