Fourth week and the Moshi shule cha muziki.

---

This week is going great, My placement was very productive in the begining of the week , but becasue of examaniations I did not have to go to my placement yesterday, today or tommorow. So today I went to a different primary school. The one I ended up going to is called Kilimajawa, which means "winds from kilimanjaro". This school had the most amazing view of kili from its playground area. Ali, the volunteer that is usually at this school had a feild day planned for the students today, so I got to help out and meet knew kids and teachers. It was great expereince. These kids have a lot more energy, and are louder then my kids, but it was a nice change of pace. They loved playing the games he planned, and they surprisingly went off with out a hitch. Three-legged-race and sack races, it may seem like a short list of events but, thats about all they could handle, and certainly all we could handle as non- swahili speaking mzungus running it. Ali inspired me today to learn more of the swahili language though. Lately I havent really put enough effort into learning more becaue you get used to getting by with what you know, but you can accomplish so much more with the students if you can direct them in their own language. I found out that african kids are amazed by hair on men. As I sat with a group of them, a number of them couldnt help but stroke my hair in amazment. Then, later when I got over heated, I rolled my pants up, and they were blown away by leg hair.....So funny.

This afternoon, and this past tuesday I started doing some work at the "Moshi Shule cha Muziki" (moshi school of music). Before I sarted I pictued a big room with many kids sitting at pianos, and eager to learn from me. But what I got was a tiny, really hot room, with a couple of guys my age eager to learn guitar riffs, and US pop music from me. It was really nice to be able to hang out with locals my age. Luckily they spoke some english, so we were able to communicate on some level. A beautiful thing that I learned from this expericne is that music is completely universal. They understood all of the terminolgy that I use. Soo cooolll...and soo happy I brought my guitar. They were so appreciative and willing to listen to anything I said. I taught them some bob marley (which is like hugely popular here) and some excercies to strengthen their playing hand. When I came back today, I could tell that they practiced a lot, and that made me feel great knowing that I made a huge difference to them, even if it was only a couple of guys. But I look forward to going back next week to work on some more stuff, and hopefully befriend these guys. Un fortunately the school is in a tough part of town, so I cant venture over there on my own with my guitar.


This weekend a lot of the exsisting volunteers are leaving, the house is only going to have 8 volunteers for a week. It will be nice to have it quiet around here, but it might get a little boring. Next weekend we get a shipment of 5 newbies, and I look froward to showing them around, and having some new, different personalities in the house.

More later. Sorry for the poor spelling.

---