Ok, where to start. It's been an action packed couple of days!

We've been preparing all week for our second lesson which we taught today and it was about Gender Equality, emphasising that girls can do everything boys can do! It was a really fun lesson and even though one of our group members (Sam) was sick (diseases come in waves) Elysia and I handled the lesson pretty well on our own and even ventured from our prepared swahili. The kids were really great and got into all the activities and also asked us some cool questions and some hard ones like "We've heard there is war in America and Australia, how do you live?"

On Wednesday we had a big Valentines Day Party at Vicky's homestay with her sister Mganga (who's our age and such a champ!) and Vicky, Emily, Nathan, Josh and Mganga prepared a magnificent feast and we also exchanged our Stupid Cupid (secret santa valentines) gifts which was lots of fun! I got a Ninja Turtles cap, Tiny Tims t-shirt and some sexy tanzanian lacy underwear from Emily! We ate until our stomachs protested, danced, laughed and sung and just generally had an awesome time together and im really looking forward to living in a hostel with all the other volunteers (including the 15 Tanzanian volunteers) so we can have more fun times like this.

Earlier in the day we had a quick program training orientation with Clare and it has made me really excited for placement. Some of the placements are extremely isolated, even more so than I had thought and they sound absolutely beautiful. We have been told (quit strictly) that we are only really allowed to come into town once a month for an official meeting or during emergencies. This means you wont be able to get nearly as much news after April 2nd (the date we head into placement) but it will be even more exciting when you do get it!! Please keep sending letters though because they seriously are the most exciting thing in the world!!!

After orientation we went to the youth centre to learn how to dance Tanzanian style and ive never laughed so much. We ended up having a huge audience of Tanzanian children and older women aswell as some people from SPW who all thought we were extremely funny. We're organising a little show to put on for the Tanzanian volunteers when we arrive involving slapstick comedy, serious musical pieces, stupid musical pieces, acting and dancing. I'm sure the entertainment factor will be high!

On Saturday we also had a little birthday party for two of the volunteers, Sam and Valerie who are February birthdays. We organised for Neema to make us an entire chocolate cake and it was hugeeeee and sooooo tasty!! I feel a bit spoilt. Today I had fruit and nut chocolate and a ice cream with chocolate sauce. What am I going to do in placement when I have to live on ugali and beans!!!

thats all for now folks,
xx

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