asante sana squashed banana

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hey everybody!

The last few days here have been pretty low key for the most part. Yesterday, the whole group of us had a batik-making class back at the homebase. Batiks are sort of like paintings, only they use wax to create layers, then iron the wax off and paint. It took me FOUR hours to create a 12"by12" batik. Don't worry though, I won't give that one as a present to any of you, I bought nicer ones.

after the batik class, we had a dinner and cultural dance at a local school in moshi. We all sat in this circle and these 4 Tanzanian dancers came out and performed traditional african dances. It was pretty much what one expects from african dancing, it was all drums and lots of jumping and clapping, it was really neat though! Then they had an "acrobat" come out, and put fire in his mouth, spin a burning wheel on his head- the usual. 😊 I took some great pictures though! After they finished "their" cultural show, they told us it was time for ours and turned out some American music. We all got up and danced for about 30 minutes, and they all danced with us, it was a blast! There were a bunch of Tanzanian kids watching us from the back of the room- laughing at the white people trying to dance 😊

On Sunday we went on the kili day hike, and a group of 7 of us climbed 2600 meters high in the mountain, let's just say it was a giant mud slide. EVERY single one of us fell on our behinds atleast once during the 5 hour hike, we were sliding all over the place, but it was hilarious. We got to a beautiful water fall and went to the top of it! If we had taken one more step, we would have fallen over it, it was amazing. We then went to our tour guide's house and he made us some home-grown Tanzanian coffee. It was delicious, and very strong. I've got lots of pictures so you all will know where your morning cup o'jobe comes from.

Today I'm going to Upendo orphanage for a few hours after lunch. They try to take us to different orphanages each week.

Since the school I teach at is in a Catholic Parish, there is an ordination for a new priest at the church, and I was invited to attend the ceremony and the celebration tomorrow since the kids won't be going to school tomorrow. I got a really nice invitation ensuring me that "my presence will adorn the occasion colourfully!". I'm looking forward to it, I've never been to an ordination ceremony/part- certaintly not one in Africa.

Hope everyone is doing well and I love getting emails and messages from everyone! I'll update the blog on Friday! The internet here is 2000 shillings for one hour, or roughly $2, so it's very cheap. I'm definitely getting used to town now, can keep a conversation in Swahili so long as it doesn't go too far past the basics.

Tommy, this is for you. EVERYONE here loves Obama- When they ask you where you are from and you say "America", they go, "oh!! Obama!" I've met only one Tanzanian that prefers McCain. I saw the local "obama-mobile" a few days ago on the way to Arusha, took a good picture.

Tutaonana!
K

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