Almost done

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Well its hard to believe but our time in Nyamuswa is almost over! The countdown is down to 5 days to safari time!!!

i can't remember what i wrote last time ut i don't want tow aste the time rereading it so just ignore if i repeat....

we had a nice visit to mwanza last time and weren't all that excite to be back in teh village. but at least we had soem things to do. we taught HIV/AIDS education at the two area high schools on monday, tuesday and wednesday this week. We had to walk to them from max's house, and it was no small feat. up before sunrise to eat soem bread and on the raod to makongoro secondary school. about 45 min walk each way. we taught from 8-9/930, then had a snack and then back on teh raod to walk home. after lunch, we had to get abck on teh road to ikizu secondary school, which is out the sme road as makongoro, except further! a little over an hour each way. needless to say we were POOPED and sweaty. but its clear that hiv education isn't taught that well. some of the questions were ludicrous.

i think the funniest moment was after we did a condom demonstration. one of the kids raised his hand and asked if he could come up and try to do it as well. so of course we said yes. up he comes, and when we handed him teh penis model, he shook his head and said he watned to put it on his own penis! hahaha in front of his whole class. i thought it was hilarious but didn't elt on and told him to sit down. completely inappropriate but i would have been interested to see if he would go ahead with it.

mostly though things went ok, even though the lower grades are a bit of a challenge with the language barrier, but the higher grades hda a pretty good handle on it all. the religious school was a bit odd to do it in thought (ikizu is seventh day adventist)... they had some funny questions and i have the sneaking suspicion they were fed some false info (ie condoms have holes, condoms are evil, americans knowingly infect africans, hiv was made by americans) lots of different stuff. hopefully we set some of them straight.

yesterday (thurs 19th) there was a big ceremony in teh village where zinduka (the organization we work for since malaika doesnt' erally exist) . it was like a press conference where all the different projects were presented and such. so of course tehre was about an hour of speaches in kiswahili that we had no clue what was going on until everyone was looking at us and max said our names and we had to stand and wave to the crowd. we were up in the front row perpendicular to everyone else. a spectical, as usual!

so anyways, at the ceremony, they presented teh manual pumps that aaron and mark (americans) had set up for some of the farmers, gave some malaria nets to people that alannah (american, gf of mark, brother of aaron) and the three brits had been working on, and clothes and school supplies for a big pile of kids. it was kinda nice actually b/c it made me feel like the project was really making a difference in the community. at the same time, it made me feel like we had done very little. but we did do a decent job at teh schools, and we are still looking at trying to get a testing and counselling center set up here for hiv/aids patients so its not all bad.

they fed EVERYONE grub at the ceremony, and it reminded me of a church grden party. the food was cold and it was highly suspect. and also, erin got a plate big enough to feed 4 people, and mine was only a bit smaller. aaron had various pieces of intestinal tract of which only some were identifiable. gross but hilarious. i took a picture of course.

yesterday before supper erin and i walked up to the main square in town to pick up a skirt she had made at the tailors. on the way up there was a crowd of kids and people making all kinds of noise. we didnt' pay much attention, btu they seemed to be heckling this one girl. on the way back, i saw a lady in her 30's lean back and SLAP full force the girl they were heckling. she looked about 20 and had some kind of mental delay or something. then all the kids started running after her and pushing her and sceraming at her. it was such a sin. we could only stand there and stare.

the people here are so polite and giev like 3 greetings adn a hundred welcomes and all kinds of thank yous and welcome agains. but they don't flinch when punching their kids or kicking the animals or anything liek that. its just so hard to get used to. oh yes colin also saw a kid at school getting whipped with a meter stick. crazy.

i was talkign to a few people at home this week. but so far mom, jeff and jacqueline have called me. anyone else? haha j/k but feel free as it breaks up teh long days.

well thats all for now, i'm sure we'll be back to the internet again befoer we leave mwanza. its friday faternoon now, and we leave on monday morning. a few nights at teh casino, and lots of FOOD.

oh right food. so the days we went to school we had only dry, crumbly bread with peanut butter and cold tea for breakfast. then we got fed at the first school (chipotes and tea). but every day for lunch and supper its the same foods. rice, beans, greens, potatoes, some stringy meat, cabbage. but only 2 or 3 of those for any one meal. every day we spend a LOT of time talking about food. i mean a lot. the first thing we did when we got to mwanza was go back to the pizza restaurant. i had a big bun of bread (god it was SOOO nice to have REAL bread again) stuffed with mozzarella cheese, onions, tomatoes and green peppers. the cheese i'd probably nver eat at home, but DAMN it tasted good after 2 weeks on short rations! hahah then ice cream for dessert. yes thats right, ice cream. HEAVEN. we already have our meals for the weekend planned out, thats how sad we are. hopefully on safari we'll eat well (i've been told we'll "eat like kings"). sweet.

so one night last week we had an earthquake!!! now before you get worried it was only a tiny one. but god was i ever excited. all my life i had wanted to experience one and we were lying in bed about 930 one night when the tin roof started making all this noise. since the walls in the house don't extend up to the roof, and there are no ceilings, we can all talk back and forth all the time. so we started discussing whether or not its rain, or someone outside throwing stuff around, when we discover that the beds are shaking slightly. an EARTHQUAKE!! I couldn't hardly get to sleep after that, but obviously i did b/c the british girls said they felt another, smaller one about an hour later. but to actually feel the ground move, i must say i was ecstatic. mariam told us the next day they have those once a year or so. very sweet.

so one night we're just hanging out, washing clothes, reading whatever. when i look at what mariam is cooking and there are feathers sticking out of a pot. then she grabs it and hauls out a full rooster!! haha she had just killed it, and was boiling the outside so she could pull out the feathers. hilarious! so we had FRESH chicken for supper. it was delicious. however, erin got sick that night, jane felt like crap the next day, and i had a little bit of runny bowels. but it was worth it, and to just think of how fresh it was made me happy.

os there is this kid gordie who lives in the house next door. hje's about 2 yeras old and he is hilarious. the first 2 weeks all we saw him do was cry. then eric and erin saw him happy for the first time. what was making him happy? i don't know,b ubt it might ahve had something to do with the big long machete he was carrying around!! hahaha anotehr day there were goatseating some of teh corn thats thrown in a big pile in the dirt outside the house. so one of the kids yells at gordie in kiswahili and he runs down and scares the goats away running and screaming with his arms up. so so funny!!! hahah

ok i gotta go, times just about up. gotta go back and enjoy A/C, television and a real bed with no mosquito net. just dial 011 255 786 589 647 and you can talk to us! haha 5.5 hrs AHEAD of newfoundland.

later!

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