Tuesday-Wednesday

We went to the Shukurani Children's home again on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Tuesday we played a ton of active games like friendship tag. It is so cool to see how the kids can catch on to what I am teaching them even though we only speak a couple words of each other's language. We played the monkey in the tree game and Shafri obviously was my partner again. There was another girl named Suzy who wanted to be my partner too so I just ended up carrying them both. I am so sore now!

My friend Shafri.  What a character. I got some pictures off of their facebook page.

On Wednesday we split into two groups. Carol's group did rhythm games and mine and Kirsten's group colored pictures. I had initially planned for them to color pictures of themselves with their names so I could learn them, but I don't think the message got across.

I made the mistake of drawing a picture of Superman for Shafri. After that I was coloring a picture of an elephant and this girl watched me the whole time. When I was done she picked it up and walked away with it. After that I was drawing pictures for everyone. It was fun though.

Shukurani Arts Group - Acrobatics Performance

These are the kids we are working with. The balancing routine starts at about 3:30. Don't miss it!

Monday 7/1/13

We went to the orphanage today. It was so awesome! We started with the cup game. It was slow going at first, but they got it and we did it all together and it sounded so cool.

After that we did some square dancing and do-si-do-ing. We all had partners. Mine was a boy named Shafri. He was about 10 or 12 and he was so funny! He would get a serious look on his face when he bowed and do-si-doed and then he would go crazy when we did the swinging. We were supposed to change partners but he never let me.

We did another game after that with partners. Shafri was obviously my partner again. It was monkey in a tree, bird on a perch, baby in a cradle. I don't know if you know that game. The last partnership to do the action is out. Shafri and I lost in the final round.

We did a hand slapping game but the kids didn't catch on very fast and they got kinda frustrated. A couple of people got it but everyone else gave up. After that we made rain. It was pretty cool. We had to go through it twice because they weren't quiet the first time through.

We were getting ready to leave and I saw this kid shuffling cards in this weird way. I showed him how I shuffle with the bridge and all of the kids were amazed! I tried to teach them, but their cards were so beat up it was pretty difficult even for me. Tomorrow I am going to bring some of our cards and we'll try again. They all wanted to learn.

They all walked us out to our taxi and said goodbye. I can't wait to go back tomorrow!

Sunday 6/30/13

We had church today at our house. Kirsten and I made some tacos for lunch because they had never had Mexican food before. No one knew what to do with the shells and they didn't eat much. Baptist told us that taco means bum in Swahili, so that's probably why.

We had a meeting with an Italian girl named Franchesca. She has contacts with schools and orphanages here and so she was able to get us in to volunteer at an orphanage here. We met her at a bar; it was weird to be in a bar, especially on Sunday.

After our meeting we went to the orphanage. When we walked in some kids ran over and gave us hugs. They were all so excited to see us. They got some chairs and set them up for us and then they did a performance. It was a traditional African dance and it was so cool! Part way through the boys did some acrobatics and they balanced 7 people on one person. It was craziness. Then they did more dancing and singing.

Afterwards they all introduced themselves to us. Franchesca knows Swahili so she told them that we would be coming for the next week and they were all so excited. They don't know any English so it will be interesting to try and communicate with them.

We have two hours to fill on Monday and who knows how much for the rest of the week. There are about 40 kids ages 3-18 so if you have any ideas of activities we can do with them we would greatly appreciate it. They are an arts based school so they do a lot with theater, music, dancing and art but they would probably enjoy anything. I am so excited to work with them!

Oh and sorry for the lack of pictures, they won't let us take any at the orphanage without permission.

Saturday 6/29/13

This morning we got to do a service project! We went to a village and helped them clean up their garbage. There is no dump or garbage system so people will just throw their garbage on the ground. Their only way of managing it is to burn it.

We handed out dust masks to everyone. The kids loved them and they all wanted one.

The service project was through the radio station that Baptist and Lela own. They were broadcasting people talking about the project over the radio. I got to talk about it, so I was on the radio! It was quite possibly one of their most awkward interviews because I had no idea what to say. He just handed me the phone and said to start talking about what we were doing. There really wasn't much to say. "We're cleaning up garbage..." So awkward, so funny.

There were so many kids in the village and they just stood and stared at Kirsten and me. I started talking to them and asking their names. Once they saw I wasn't scary they really warmed up to me. They were so cute.

When we left they all wanted to shake my hand but there were so many of them so then they just started grabbing my arm. It was pretty funny.

Friday 6/28/13

What an adventure we had today! In the morning we went to the Maasai market. The Maasai are an African tribe here in Tanzania. They are the only tribe that I know of that still dresses in their traditional clothing as well as practices their beliefs. For the other tribes from what I can tell, they more tell what region you are from and other than that have no real bearing on how you live your life.

 The Maasai wear really cool clothes. The men carry around sticks and knives. Everyone has their ears gaged and they wear all sorts of cool jewelry through the holes.

Some men do their hair in the strangest fashion, it looks a lot like crazy hair day in elementary school. At their market they sell really cool cloths so I got some and I may make a skirt or something out of it.

 We left Morogoro today to go back to Dodoma. We went to catch our bus at 2:00 and then got on at 2:30. The busses here are sort of on a schedule but they won't leave until they are full. Our bus, the Al Mashoom, was one of the bummiest busses around so it did not fill up very fast. We didn't leave until 5:30!

While we waited on the bus the people at the station kept coming on and trying to sell us bread and bananas and perfume and shoes and all sorts of crazy things. It gets really annoying after 3 hours.

Finally after all the seats were full we started moving but then we just stopped at a gas station and about 10 more people got on and stood in the aisles! The bus made a million stops on the way so a 3-3.5 hour trip turned in to 4 hours.

 The sun goes down at 7 pm every night and as a white person it is not safe to be out after that. We knew we were going to be getting in well past 7 so we started getting nervous about getting off the bus at the bus station. We were thinking about this when all of the sudden this guy two rows up from us yells up to the bus attendants. They come back and he starts talking to them. This was all in Swahili so I just kinda had to guess what was going on. The guy sitting next to the guy who yelled for the attendants was super drunk. I think he was passed out on his seat. The attendants force him to stand up and then take off his back pack and start searching through it. Then they start patting him down. One guy gets out a flash light and starts looking at all of the seats around him. One of the guys finds what they were looking for, and from what I could tell it was a cell phone. I'm pretty sure the drunk guy stole it. All of the sudden on of the attendants slaps the drunk guy super hard. Then the other attendant and the guy who's phone was stolen just start punching the drunk guy and beating him up. The cell phone guy gets up in his seat and starts kicking him and jumping on him. It was so scary! When they felt they had done enough the attendants brought him up to the front of the bus and kept him there until they could turn him into the police.

We were all on edge after that so Boyd called a friend to come pick us up at the station so we didn't have to get a taxi. I was so glad to see him and get safely into his car when we finally arrived in. Dodoma.

Wednesday-Thursday 6/26-27

Boyd was needed in Morogoro at the Nashera hotel so we loaded up in the bus and we went on our way on Wednesday. Its about a 3 hour bus ride.

Thursday morning Kirsten and I helped out by measuring a few things that they have around the hotel. After that we went to town and looked around a bit. We were going to go to a place to get a monkey for the hotel but it was closed.

Kirsten and I saw an albino black person today. Apparently some people have thought we are albinos because we are so white. So funny.