Saying Goodbye is no fun

Well sorry its been so long since I have done a real post, but this one isn't going to be a real post either just a quick update.

We went on safari this week and it was amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We had so much fun and it one of the coolest experiences I have ever had!! We left on Sunday right after Brittnee's brother Brenton got here. We first went to Lake Manyra and then spent the night there. The next morning we woke up and drove to the Serengeti and we spent about 1 and a half days there and then ended in Ngorongoro Crater! To many stories to tell and pictures to show so that update will have to wait until I get home! Which by the way is only in one week!!!!

Brittnee left to hike Kili today and I only have one week left! I just can't believe it!! The summer has flown by! I am so grateful for this experience and that I was able to spend the summer here with all these wonderful people!!

My lovely family sent some really cute stuffed animals with Brenton and we were able to deliver them to Kitulezo this morning and see the kids one last time! They LOVED their new stuffed animals and it as so cute to see them play with them!!! Those kids are just the sweetest and cutest and saying goodbye was not fun!! I am going to miss all the little tikes! We were able to hear them sing all of our favorite songs and it was just a good day!

Well  I think that is about it! Only one more week and I get to see all of you beautiful people! It is definitely bittersweet!

Badai!! 

Africa knows how to bring it!

Well it has been a crazy few weeks!! Here are a few pictures and if you want a good update you can look at Brittnee's blog and see the details! :) Oh and sorry for the sideways pictures they were not turning for me!

The biggest piece of underwear i have ever seen! 

Widson loves to help me carry my backpack home from school everyday! what a sweetie! 

The kids working on their alphabet letter sheets! they are actually doing pretty well! 

YAY!! We finally got out hair braided!! It is so nice not to have to do anything to get ready!! haha

Here is Britt's blog address  http://brittneeintanzania.blogspot.com/

Have a good week everyone! :) 

Workin' Hard and Playin' Hard

Well this is going to be a long one. Sorry there was no update last week. We got home on Sunday night from our beach adventure and then left Monday morning for our water project so we didn’t have a chance to go to the internet café.

Last week on Tuesday we got to go with our friend Goodluck to Mkono, a Maasai village that is about 2 hours away. Goodluck runs a support group for HIV positive people and some of them make and sell jewelry to earn money for the group. We got to spend the day with them and learn how they make the jewelry! It was really cool and really fun! We left bright and early and took a dala-dala outside of town and went on this really cool walk/hike! It was soo beautiful! We hiked down into this valley and walked down this river to find some monkeys. They ended up being baboons and there were a lot of them up on a ridge and they were peeking at us through the bushes and the trees. It was pretty cool! We hiked up the other side of the valley and then to the village. We spent the next few hours learning how to put the beads on the wire and listening to them sing and we sang a little bit and it was just a good time! They fed us yummy corn, this really good juice, and ugali and beans! It was really nice of them! Oh and they gave us come bracelets and let us try on these really cool fabrics! After we were done beading they sang us this song and we all did a dance with it and then said goodbye and then we walked with the pastor so he could show us his church. We got to the church and had a weird and awkward church meeting! Haha I will say I am so impressed at how religious Africans are. It’s really cool that they all just show their religion and love of God and they don’t care to show what they believe in and stand for! It is a good example!

Making jewelry with the Maasai 

They let us try on this cool blanket. Zion, Goodluck, Me and the Pastor 

Thursday we left for our beach adventure! So we didn’t plan anything really other than the two cities that we were going to visit and then we decided to just wing it the rest of the time! Which actually worked out really well!! We left bright and early to catch our bus to Tanga. Surprisingly the bus left right on time and we  were all prepared for a four hour bus ride but………it turned into ten and a half and it was sooooooooooo long!!!! We had suitcases falling on us, butts hitting us in the face, lots of people leaning over us! It was quite the experience! At one point we stopped for a bathroom break and we got off the bus and looked down at our feet and they were soooo swollen! It was funny but gross! Haha We FINALLY got to Tanga and we were soooo excited! We found some helpful people who pointed us in the right direction for a good hotel and it actually was! It was only a couple of dollars per person and they served us dinner for really cheap! Tanga ended up being really quite and there was really nothing there! But we got a comfy bed and a meal and we were very content! We left the next morning to Peponi Beach Resort. We weren’t quite sure where it was or what it was going to be like and when they dropped us off in the middle of nowhere we all thought “oh crap”. We walked down this little path way and came to a creepy gate, we walked through the gate and found these little huts……we kept walking and this lady came out of an office and told us to come on in……..we walked through the office and we were in PARADISE!!! It was sooo beautiful and cute!! We stayed in a little banda with wonderfully comfy beds and a beach view! We spend that whole day on the beach looking for seashells and  just hanging out! We had such good food and our favorite was a bacon and banana sandwich, sounds weird right?....but it was sooooo good!!! The next day we woke up and watched the sunrise. It was pretty cloudy but still beautiful! We ate our “light” breakfast and then headed off to get our snorkeling equipment. We walked down to the beach and then out to our Dhow. We sailed on a legit handmade sail boat like pirates and it was really cool! We got to the reef and hopped in the water! I soon found out that sailing and snorkeling do not go over well with me. I got real sea sick and then swallowed lots of sea water and then had to just sit on the boat while everyone else snorkeled…..after sitting for a little bit Brittnee came to see how I was doing and I just leaned over the boat and threw up….right on poor Britt…..what a good friend she is!! I felt better after that but had to lay down for all the rest of the sailing. After we were done snorkeling we went to Sand Island! It was soooooo gorgeous!!! When the tide is high the island disappears but when it is low there is a huge island sticking out of the water! We hung out there for a while, took some pictures, did some flips and acro yoga, and then got back on our little Dhow to go back to the main land! Besides getting sick and not being able to do much snorkeling it was a really fun day!!! That afternoon we went back to Tanga to the Maua Inn! It wasn’t quite dark so we walked around for a little bit and tried  to find blonde hair which we still have never found L. Then we took a ride on a Baje(spelling ?) we just took it around the block because we have been wanting to ride one! It was pretty funny! The next morning we took another long, but not quite as long thank goodness, bus ride back to Arusha!

Peponi!! We werent quite sure what we were going to find! haha 

our cute little banda 

always gotta take a cheesey beach picture

sunrise and the Dhow on the horizon 

Sand Island and our Dhow! :) 

our chaco tans are looking great!!!

Acro Yoga!!!

Our bajeje (spelling?)

This week was the week of our water project that we have been planning for so long! Five of us left Monday morning and then the rest of the team came Wednesday. Brittnee, Kate, Me, Landon, Jen and Spear all went on Monday in a rented out dala-dala! It was nice to  have so much space for once! Haha We got to Magara in the afternoon and went straight to the school where we would be staying. They have dorms for the teachers but they don’t use all the rooms so that is where we stayed for the week.There were bats that living in the ceiling and every night at dusk they would come shooting out....and i missed it every time! haha but it was good they were there because they ate all the mosquitos. It was bad because they whole place smelled like pee....yum. Monday after we got our rooms all set we went to check out the drill site and set up the village drill. It is a pretty cool contraption and I wish I would have gotten a better picture but it is a crane with a drill/pipe on it and one person would turn the drill while  the other people would spin the drill and then another person would switch the pipes out. Each of the pipes were 3ft. long so we would spin and drill for 3ft, unscrew the pipe, pull the drill up as fast as possible and then put on another pipe all the while water is shooting out of it....i think that was a pretty crappy description....but we have movies so ask me when i get home! haha Man oh man was it hard work!! We had some of the people from the village helping...but it was kind of annoying beacuse whenever me and kate would be spinning the wheel the boys would barely do anything so we would be working so hard and then we would move and they would start going at turbo speed! haha It was fun though.....especially when they would change the pipes and water would shoot EVERYWHERE! All the locals would run away cuz they didnt want to get wet and we were stuck doing it alone! Needless to say we got really dirty!! haha So we drilled for three days and hit the bottom and we were all so excited! But when we woke up on Thursday morning we were told that 50 ft of the whole had caved in and Spear(the guy in charge and our branch president here) and the local volunteers and redrill for that whole day! it was pretty rotten! All of our team went and hiked up some waterfalls though and that was really fun!! I hiked up pretty high but then got scared so Marrianne and I hiked back down and hung out in the pool at the bottom but lots of people went pretty high up and we all had a good time! It was a nice relaxing break! Since we were drilling in sand there was the worry of it caving in and on thursday night after they had redrilled half the well all over again they went to put the pipe down and it only went half way....so that caused the some problems! But they have it all put together now and in two weeks we are going back to  make sure it is all working correctly and then we will have a little opening ceremonies!  Hopefully it all works out! If everything goes as planned then like 1000 people will have clean water! Which is soo cool!! :) 

Brittnee:Aka Cranky 

Me: aka Spinster and Kate:Aka the hoser! The wheel we have to spin  that gave us way to many bruises and sore arms!

Spear getting ready to change the pipe

Our friends Joshua and Cartoon Face(we didnt know his name) They stuck with us the whole time! 

All the kids would watch us drill everyday! 

Water tree....when you find one of these you know you can drill cuz there will be lots of water

Our hand prints in the cement at the well 

This was the well where we stayed that Spear drilled awhile ago and the goats were stillin water!! haha 

This week we are cracking down on our jewelry business. We have design and Britt's brother is working on a logo so things are going well!! We are really excited!! We are also making 24 little chalk boards for the kids at Kitulezo so they can each have there own and then a big one to use when we split the class! It is going to be a good week! Hope all of you have a good one too!! :)

This time for Africa!

We started off our week with a visit to Green Eden in Namanga. It has been a week since we went and taught IOL there so we went back to check on the teachers and award the teachers their certificates! Emmanuel had asked Brittnee to make a giant sign for the school and so we had figure out a way to get the sign there without it getting ruined. Lucky for us Loth saved us and gave us to the bus station. Of course when we got there everyone was very helpful and we found a mini bus that we could squish our sign into and then followed the most uncomfortable ride of my life!! For the next hour and a half I was hunched of next to this sign and both my legs fell asleep! Haha always an adventure traveling in Africa! We got there safely and met Emmanuel at the bus station and he led us to what we thought was a short cut but really he took us to his house and his wife and prepared us japati and spinach and warm milk! It was really delicious and so sweet of them!! After that we went to the school and talked to the teachers about how their week! It was really cool to hear the teachers talk about their classes and how they implemented the things we taught them and how much their students loved it! We were all really glad to hear that especially since we weren’t sure how much they had actually learned from us! We then awarded them their certificates and ate cookies!! The gorilla poops were a huge success and everyone loved them!!  I am so glad I got to meet these teachers and get to know them! They are so sweet and were able to teach us so much! I am glad that we were able to teach them something so that they can make a difference in their students’ lives and help break the mold of how it is now in the schools!

Journey to Namanga

the worst car ride ever!

Emmanuel's sweet wife and our yummy lunch!

Britt and Emmanuel and her awesome sign! she did such a great job!!

All of our teachers!

eating our gorilla poops!

they gave us corn right off the stalk as a thank you! we were really excited!

We went to Kitulezo as much we could this week and I just really love these kids!!  The kids did really well with the alphabet papers that we made and I was soo excited!! We finally got some of the little ones that have never talked before to interact and participate! It was so great!!  One day when they were drinking their porridge all the kids started to play dala-dala and it was the FUNNIEST thing I have ever seen!! One of the little boys named Venance was the “door man” and he was banging on the table and yelling our the places and acting just like the real dala-dala door men act! He was pulling the kids in and pretending to take their money and it was just soo funny to watch!!! The kids are finally kind of starting to listen to us!! I hope that it continues to get better!! 

Walking home from school with little Widson!

Miri and Happyness

This little cutie is Lightness

Neema looking like a boss

VIVI!

 This week was the last week for the people that were only here for first wave and it was sad to see them go!! Kate and I made slideshow of all our pictures and our funny quotes and put it to music and then had a little party on Tuesday night and ate gorilla poops and popcorn and played some awesome games of Mafia! We took Des to chocolate tempations(a really yummy desert place) one last time and then we went to the Maasai market to get her some last things. It was good to spend time with her! I am going to miss her and Heather and Kiley! Our team is all different now and it is weird but still good!! 

Chocolate Temptaions

ridin on the dala-dala

So Brittnee and I had this idea to start a jewelry business with the Albino Peacemakers group. When we first met Martha we really wanted to do something to help her and her organization so we thought jewelry would be a good idea because they can’t outside and making jewelry would be perfect for them! Our idea is to have them make the jewelry and then mail it to us in the states and we will run an online business where we sell the jewelry and then send all the money back to Martha here for the organization. So we had a meeting this week with Martha and the project is a go!! We are really excited and she seems really excited too! We have a lot of work to do now and a lot of business planning and design planning and all that stuff I don’t understand and that is what Brittneeis perfect at so this is going to work out great! And we have Brenton working his magic on the website! I cant wait till that is ready!! 

The month of July is going to be so busy and we have so many awesome pojects planned and I cant wait to finally start working hard and getting things done!! 

On Saturday we went into town to the Cultural Heritage Center and looked at some really cool paintings and some tanzanite stones and took random pictures and just had a blast! We then went and found fabric to have some African dresses made!! I am soo excited for it to be done and then i can wear it to church!!! :)

us acting our the paintings in the art museum.....pretty good eh?

we found a lovely obama khanga......people love him here! his face is everywhere!!! hahaha

 HAVE A LOVELY WEEK! :)

Tanzania=Wonderful

Sorry this post is late....i did write it on sunday but couldnt get to the internet cafe until today!! 

 

I can’t believe that I have been here for over a month! Time is going by so fast!! This week was a really good one!! 

We went to Kitulezu every morning from 8:30 till 11:00. The kids are getting used to us being there and so they have been acting pretty crazy!! It has been hard to get them to listen to us because we don’t speak Swahili and I don’t think they know us enough to know that we are being serious so they all just kind of laugh at us even if we are talking in Swahili! We had our friend Adalaida translate some phrases to use with the kids and I think if we can actually learn how to say them it will help the kids listen to us better! On Thursday and Friday Verity wasn’t there and she has all the school supplies and stuff that the kids use so Kate, Britt, and I were just kind of winging it for two days with an itty bitty piece of chalk! Haha Thursday was actually pretty good and the kids listened and did a good job and sitting in their chairs but Friday was a different story! They were really grumpy from the start and they love to just beat each other up! So it was a little rough to get anything done but we did play a math game that kept them entertained for a while which was good!  Hopefully Verity is back tomorrow because then we can put our plan into place! We are wanting to split  the kids up into two groups and have the older kids go in one room and help them with adding and subtracting and then we will take the little kids in the other room and focus on the alphabet. Kate and I have been making little alphabet papers to help them trace the letters so they can get a feel of how you from the letter and the correct way to write it! We think it will help a lot because a lot of the younger kids don’t know how to write their letters and so they just don’t participate in class but splitting them up will give us a chance to give them one on one time and get them caught up with the rest of the kids! 

my favorite little twins meshack and shadrack

Thursday we welcomed all the second wavers and all the first wavers leave on Wednesday! It is going to be weird to pretty much have a completely new group of people and I’m going to be sad to see everyone go! It will be good though to change things up a bit and it looks like things are really going to be taking off and we are going to be super busy the rest of the summer and that will be great!!! Chanel is meeting with Martha from the Albino Peacemakers Group on Monday and she is going to set up a meeting with her for Brittnee and I and then we can talk to her about starting up our jewelry business idea! Hopefully we can get that started soon cuz both of us are super excited!!!! 

Yesterday on our day off Me, Kate, Britt, and Lindsey went to the Snake Park!! It was actually really cool and we had a lot of fun!! They had a lot of the snakes behind glass windows cuz they are super poisonous! So we walked around and looked at those than they had a vulture like from Lion King!! That was pretty sweet but really ugly!! Haha We also saw some owls and a baboon!! Some people there were feeding the baboon candy and it was sooo funny to see him eat! Also who knew that baboon butts were soo ugly?! Not me!! They are creepy and gross!! Haha We also got to see A LOT of crocodiles!! From baby ones to HUGE ones!! They give me the heebeegeebees!! But it was cool to see the big ones crawl out of the water! They have the baby ones in a small cage where you can touch them so Lindsey touched them and then kate was to scared so she threw a rock instead and they started hissing! It was so scary!! Umm…after we saw all of the animals this guy helped us hold a snake!! It wasn’t a very big one but it was still creepy and gross! But I had to do it!! He even wrapped it around our necks like a necklace!! Crazy crazy! After we were done freaking ourselves out we went and looked at the Maasai  Museum and then we rode a camel!!! Yep, a camel!! Haha it was so random and hilarious!! They had two camels so we all got on at the same time and the second camel kept sticking its nose Britts back and all of us were just laughing and screaming and the guys running the rides were getting a big kick out of us! Haha

kate lookin like a model! ANTM for sure!

yea.....i was really creeped out!

so was Britt

forced a smile! haha

these guys kept hissin at us! YIKES!!

Maasai statues at the museum

baboon!!

a Maasai hut!

Yep! We rode a camel in Africa!

Kate and Lindsay

our friends that sold us our lovely jersies. we had to bride them with candy and gum! haha

Well hope all of you are doing well and that this blog isn’t to scatter brained to follow! Haha Oh and a shout out to my Papa on Father’s Day! Hope you are having a good one!! LOVE YA!!