In the Groove

---

This week has gone so fast. We have fallen into the routine of life over here so naturally and I feel like I've been here forever. I can't believe that 15 days ago we were in London.

It's the end of the minimum two week stay here so we have been saying bye to a few people yesterday and today - I'm most sad to see Lori & Jennifer go - they are a mother and daughter from Hawaii and California and they were great fun. I would have loved to have found out more about Jenny's late teens and twenties..... lets just say that it was spent in the company of one of the biggest rock bands of the late 80's.... awesome!

Our days, our food and the weather have all settled into a routine. I'm up at 7.30 for breakfast (Boon sleeps til 8 - 8.30... I need the extra time to learn to function all over again) - breakfast is toast with peanut butter.. the alternative being radioactive jam... fruit and tea with powered milk...it's pretty yucky but it hits the caffeine spot. Out the door at 9am for our hour walk to morning project, finish that at 11.30 and then walk into town for lunch which is either western food or tanzanian depending on budget, time and taste. I head back out to my afternoon project at 2.30 and that is finshed by 4.30 - I'm usually back at the house by 5.30. The dinner menu is the same every week - my favourite night is Tuesday - Chappati and beans with cabbage.... local food is mostly beans, rice, ugali (kind of polenta made from maize), barbeque beef, chicken and goat. Its funny to realise what normal, non broiler chicken actually looks and tastes like - there isn't much meat and for the most part it's not white and I think it actually tastes better. Lack of food here isn't definitely not a problem for tourists and locals with money - Indian, Chinese, Italian, Japanese... even Austrian restaurants are everywhere, alongside the more local barbeques and restaurants. We have learnt really quickly to add up the bill for ourselves though as there is a local custom of charging 'Mazungu' prices which can be anything up to 5,000 shillings ($5) more than the actual price - tourists must either not notice or not care because nearly every local restaurant has done it too us. Oh well, just part of the fun of being a traveller here!

We are also getting used to the daily weather patterns created by the mass object that is Mt Kilimanjaro. It starts out cloudy in the morning and quite cool - just cool enough to almost but not quite need a jersey in the morning. By 12ish the cloud has all burnt off and it's hot - high twenties maybe. We have been pretty spoilt as Mt Kilimanjaro has been visible for at least an hour or two everyday for the past week - something that is apparently pretty rare.

My afternoon project has been going really well - the ladies are so keen to learn and you can tell that they practice. Everday they suprise me with how much they take onboard - I spent ages trying to get my head around the difference between simple and continous tenses and they managed to understand it in an afternoon! Yesterday they suprised me again with an invitation to join them for lunch this coming Monday - which is a public holiday and a time when families get together. I feel very priviledged.

My morning project isn't quite so on track. I realised during the week that perhaps being taught basic English wasn't the best use of the group's time. I felt that I wasn't getting anywhere with them and with people coming and going and turning up halfway through etc that the learning wasn't sticking. I spoke with the people who coordinate the projects for us and we agreed that the strategy needs to be revisited next week so in the meantime it looks the project is going to be put on hold and I'm out of a morning job (I think I will go and help at either a local orphange or nursery school - I'll find out later today). I feel really bad that I won't be able to take the class next week but I also can see the bigger picture and that what these guys need is health education, support and skills to live in their own communities which unfortunately non-swahili speaking volunteers can't provide.

Today is arrival day for the next batch of volunteers so we are trying to stay out of the house as much of the day as we can to give them some space to settle. We had planned to go to the pool today at a local hotel but haven't made it there yet. We went there last sunday with quite a few of the people from the house and it was great to sit in the sun and relax. We also saw monkeys on sunday which was pretty exciting for me.. Moshi forest starts on the other side of town about 10 mins walk away from my morning project. We were taken there by Chris, a local who has befriended us through Boon's placement. I didn't expect to see many monkeys but there were HEAPS, monkeys are pretty awesome.

Boon (of course) has landed on his feet with his project - it mostly involves him drinking banana beer with the man (Mr Urio) who runs the tree nursery and discussing African politics, whilst occasionally planting or watering a tree or two. The tree nursery and what Mr Urio wants to achieve sounds really interesting and hopefully something that we can support moving forward. At the moment he is forced to sell the trees that he grows for profit to fund what he is doing but ultimately he'd like to be able to donate the trees to local communities and educate them on the importance of sustainability and the environment. He is a very interesting person to talk to.

I'm sure that there are 101 things that I meant to say in my blog this week but I'm running out of time and I bet that you are running low on concentration ... it's a bit of a novel I know.

I will be better with updates this week I promise.

take care.

---