I’m back!  It only took me two weeks this time.  I’m making progress!  Before you know it, I’ll be on a weekly schedule like Kerri.

We’ve been pretty busy over the last two weeks and have made some progress on our projects.  Here is a brief run-down of the main events:

On a totally non-work related note, we went camping!  Andrea, a volunteer from Cross Cultural Solutions, was living with us for about two weeks and to celebrate her departure, we decided to take a camping trip to the hot springs (pictured to the right).  They are located about an hour drive from Moshi and seem to be placed in the middle of absolutely nowhere.  To get there, you drive for about twenty minutes out of Moshi on the paved road, turn onto a dirt road that eventually morphs into what appears to be a giant field that you are meant to drive through the reach your destination.  We navigated the bumps and potholes and eventually made it to the hot springs.  We spent the evening sitting around the fire and slept in our tents while it poured overnight.  We swam in the springs all morning and had quite an exciting ride back.  Our friend Kristen, who drove us all in her van, had to leave early in the morning.  So the remaining 9 of us, all of our tents, mats, sleeping bags and luggage were meant to get back to Moshi in a pickup truck.  A singular pickup truck.  In truly African style the boys managed to secure all of our belongings in the back of the truck and we all made it back to Moshi in one piece.  Imagine nine people riding in the back of the truck below.

As you may have seen on Facebook, our friend Paul came to the after-school group at Kilimahewa last week.  Paul has faced a lot of challenges throughout his life and talked with the kids about the importance of perseverance and working hard to reach your goals.  Paul also happens to be a fabulous dancer and ended the day teaching the kids some of his dance moves.  The kids loved every minute of Paul’s visit and are constantly asking us when he’s coming back.  We switched gears from “getting to know you” activities this week and have been working with the kids on goal planning.  The picture below is from our “trust walk” activity on Thursday where the kids worked on planning, communication, and cooperation.

If you check out Kerri’s blog post from last week, you can read more about her involvement with the Rotary in the United States and our experience with the Rotary Club here in Moshi.  We went to a meeting on Thursday and found ourselves at a fancy Rotary dinner on a Friday.  The Lieutenant Governor of the East African Rotaries had flown in for the dinner and gave a pretty inspiring speech.  Check out the picture to see Kerri and I with him and his wife.  It was a pretty cool experience and we are looking forward to networking further with the Moshi Rotary Club.

One of the most exciting parts of this week was our visit to the Sambarai Ward office to distribute information about EdPowerment’s Discovery Scholarship and inform the village leader that we would be providing funds to finish building a primary school in the area.  The scholarship contest is seeking to find a student from the Sambarai Ward to sponsor throughout secondary school.  In order to be considered for the sponsorship, students have to fill out an application form, provide a teacher recommendation, and come to Kilimahewa in early November to write two essays.  As the applications come in, I’ll update you on the process.  We’ll also be posting pictures of the building project at the Sambarai Primary School.

As with many things in Tanzania, progress on our residency permits has been slow and complicated.  The government here tends to be pretty corrupt and officials are always trying to charge corruption fees to get work done.  Our in-country director, Mama Grace, went to the immigration office two weeks ago to try and sort our permits (which already cost $550 a piece for a year) and the immigration officer tried to charge her an additional $300 each to process the applications.  Knowing what we know about corruption, we decided to seek the help of some friends with connections.  Luckily, we found someone with an in and are getting our permits sorted this week for the regular, insanely high price of $550.  I guess it all goes back to who you know…

I’ll end with a story from yesterday.  Probably my worst nightmare realized J.  I was about to take a shower and found our roommate Swaleh in the bathroom about to clean.  He asked if I wanted him to clean later and I said I would shower when he was finished…and I’m glad I did.  About five minutes after he started cleaning, Swaleh moved our shampoo to clean the floor and found a GIGANTIC tarantula hanging out on the floor.  He, of course, thought it would be hilarious to put the spider on the broom and chase us around the house.  As a person with major arachnophobia, I did not find this so humorous.  I ran into my room and slammed my door until the spider was safely outside.  If I were not experiencing sheer panic, I probably would have taken a picture and posted it.  I've found a picture on the internet that I think does that spider justice.  I’m praying this was the first and last time I see a tarantula in person.  

Oh! I was also burned by a Nairobi fly, which is a bug that leaves a nasty burn on your skin if it touches you.  It is totally harmless, but looks absolutely disgusting.  The bugs are common this time of year and I was lucky enough to come in contact with one!  Sorry for those who are faint of heart, but I attached a picture so you could share my pain ;). 

Thanks again for all of you who are keeping up to date on our adventures.  Leave a message and let me know what is happening with you all, it’s great to know that people from home are out there!

Until next time….

By now, you may know that Kerri and I have arrived in Tanzania in one piece.  We’ve been here for about four weeks and are getting back into the swing of things.  I have to admit, I am a terrible blogger.  While it was my goal to try and update this on a weekly basis, I have already failed miserably, and it’s only the first month.  Hopefully in the coming weeks, I will take after Kerri and be better about updating my blog.  For now, bear with me.
The bad thing about being blog-challenged is that by the time you face your procrastination, you have so much to catch up on that it’s almost overwhelming to record in words.  I am taking on the challenge today, but am warning that this may be an extremely long entry.  Here we go…
Since arriving, Kerri and I have been busy re-adjusting to life in Tanzania, getting our feet wet with EdPowerment work, and trying our best to brush up on our Swahili.  Adjusting to life here has been surprisingly easy and it felt like home as soon as we got off of the airplane.  For a detailed record of what we’ve been up to, I suggest checking out Kerri’s blog.  Since I’m way behind, here’s a brief update of our trip thus far:

The Kilimahewa water project has officially been opened!  The Kilimahewa community and school are now receiving clean water via solar power for the first time in the history of the community.  It was amazing to attend the ribbon cutting ceremony and see the results of two years of work.  Kerri and I met with the same community members two years prior to discuss the village’s need for clean water.  The process came full circle when they spoke of that meeting and thanked us for keeping our word to help.  As we check in with families, we’ll post more pictures and videos about how the project is progressing.

Kerri and I started our after-school program with the kids at Kilimahewa.  The goal of the group is to teach students leadership skills, help students with goal planning and provide a fun after-school experience for the kids.  When we told them that the group wasn’t going to be like school and that they would have fun, you could see all of the students breathe a collective sigh of relief. We’ve been meeting for about three weeks now and are having a great time.  We’ve been working to get to know the kids this first month and will move into leadership skills next week.  We just finished our first art project, so I’ll post more pictures soon.

We’ve been spending Mondays and Tuesdays in Arusha meeting with a variety of individuals and organizations about special needs services in the area.  We’ve been able to connect with some great people and are planning to host a big teacher training for the special needs units in the area this summer.  There is so much potential for growth in special needs education and we are excited to be helping with this part of the project.  Updates to follow.

We moved! That’s right, we’ve moved houses already and it’s only been a month!  After about two weeks in our first house, we received a letter from the owners informing us that they needed the house to board students starting in November and that we needed to move out.  We did a quick search around Moshi and were able to find a great house not far from where we were previously living.  Before moving in, we came to clean it up.  Kerri and I started in our bathroom with a little bucket of bleach and two sponges.  We soon realized that we were going about cleaning the absolute wrong way as we observed our Tanzanian friends in the other bathroom.  Apparently the best way to clean a house in Tanzania is to treat it like a big car.  We proceeded to throw buckets of soapy water everywhere, followed by a clean water rinse.  When the whole house had been sufficiently soaked, we pushed the water out into the yard with squeegees.  The result: super clean house!  Kerri and I went to work in the afternoon and came home to see that all of our stuff had made it to the new house without us.  Best way to move :).  We have only lived here for a few nights, but already love it. 

As you may have seen on Facebook, Kerri and I took a trip to Dar es Salaam for Mussa’s neice’s wedding.  Check out Kerri’s blog for a re-cap of the event.  The pictures really speak for themselves.  We drove to Dar for the wedding, and it was great to see more of the country.  We’ve always stayed around the Moshi-Arusha area for work so having the time to travel a bit has been great.  Dar is insanely busy and crowded, but it has a number of beautiful beaches that make up for the insanity of the city. 

We just signed up for a Swahili language course in Dar starting at the end of November.  While we know the basics of the language and can get around (a little) we really want to have a better command of it to help us with work in the future.  The course is a two-week intensive program that meets for about five hours each day.  We are very fortunate to have a friend to stay with in the city and are really looking forward to the fact that classes meet across the street from the beach.  I think we’ll be practicing by the ocean after class ;).

While much more has happened in the day-to-day, I think that is a pretty good re-cap of the first few weeks of our trip. Kerri and I feel extremely fortunate to have this opportunity and are so appreciative of all of the support we receive from people back home.  We couldn’t do the work that we do without it, so thank you to everyone who have helped us along the way.  I promise to update this blog more than once a month, for my sake and yours J.  So check back for updates! 

This mzungu is heading to the market to get supplies for the week, so I’m signing off.  Thanks for reading and please keep in touch!