Second Week!

 This week was a good week!! On Monday we visited Boma N’Gombe to the  Vocational Training Center they have there! It was so fun! All the girls greeted us on the street with an awesome song! Everyone here just makes us feel so welcome!! The down side is we won’t be able to start working there until July because they are going on summer vacation! I am excited to work with them though! They focus on tailoring there and they have the COOLEST sewing machines!! It will be great to help any way that I can!!

On Tuesday we went to a Masai village to visit a school they have there! The kids were fun and we had a blast taking pictures with them! We also taught them handshakes and games which was fun!! They loved it!!  They did keep trying to steal all of our watches! Haha I am not sure why they were so fascinated with them!!

Wednesday we met with a lady named Margret, who runs the Step by Step program for disabled kids here in Arusha! We were super excited to meet with her and the meeting was a success!! She had lots of projects and ideas for us!! We just need to get them approved now! I will write more about them later!!

This weekend was great!! Everyone left on safari except a few of us!! So we went shopping and had tons of yummy food! Including my new favorite! It is called chipote!! They are like tortillas and you eat them with beans and it is divine! I will for sure be making it when I get home!! Shopping was fun! The market is crazy though!! People are everywhere and as soon as they see a Mzungu(white person) they swarm you and try to get you to their shop! You also have to bargain a lot because they think all Americans are rich so they give you WAY WAY expensive prices!! We found some BEAUTIFUL fabric and some way cute bags! We have all decided that we are going to make a quilt of all the fabric that we find!!

Church was fun today!! We got to teach primary and it was soo fun!!! The kids are so well behaved too!! I think they are going to make us teach every week now! Haha  Well I think that is it for this week!  Hope everyone is doing well at home!! J

 We are getting our hair braided and this is the hair we bought.....what do ya think? hahaha

 Our favorite, passion fruit!!! :)

TANZANIA!

Well I made it safely to Tanzania!! We have been here for just over a week and it is wonderful!! We are living in a little community called Souye and it is so beautiful! It takes about 10 minutes to get into the city of arusha by dala-dala so it's not to bad!!

Our house is perfect!! It has such character! haha There are 6 girls in one room downstairs and then six more of us upstairs and then the two boys in one room and the married couple in another! So right now there is plenty of space, but when the second wave comes it is going to be crazy crowded! There is a little kitchen and then one big great room where we have a table and some couches and that's where we all mostly hang out!

We get around town on these bus type things called dala-dalas and they are fun to ride and super crazy sometimes! Each one has character and they decorate them different ways! Yesterday we rode on one that had cheetah print fabric on the ceiling! There is a driver and then the guy that takes the money and he also hangs our the window and yells where the dala-dala is going! We live on Moshono Road so we are always walking around yelling "Moshono Moshono Moshono!" It is pretty funny!!   They definitely think they own the road!! We also have a little market, the internet cafe and some restaurants that are close by to our house! Our favorite restaurant to go to is Family and Friends! I think we have pretty much eaten there every night! The food is good and they love us there! Last night they even set up karaoke for us and we all had a blast! Even some of the locals joined in!! I think some of them thought we were a little crazy though! We also got to the Waka Waka in Africa!! :)

On Monday we went and did a garden project with a man named GoodLuck. He runs the Utukufo Organization for people with HIV/AIDS. So we helped prepare the garden for them so they could plant the food they need for the group! There was a women there named Zion who had this long hook/machete thing and she was chopping down GIANT banana leaves to feed to the cows and she was pretty hard core! haha After we were done with the garden Goodluck took us to his school and then to an orphanage down the road! It was fun to play with all the kids and they are so smart!!

We also had a lot of meetings this week with different NGO's. We have been trying to decide who we want to work with and what projects we want to do! There have been a lot of promising meetings but nothing is set for sure yet! I will let you know when I decide on my final three projects! We met with Martha who runs  the Albino Peace Makers Organization and she is AMAZING!! I really hope that we can work something out to help her and all the good that she is doing!!

Friday we visited the Kitlizu orphanage. They have about 30 children there and we just played with them and spent some time there! There were also some other Mzungus(white people) there and its always fun to see other people that speak english! :) Yesterday we took a hike to some amazing waterfalls!! They were beautiful! Since we have been out of water for almost a week now we all decided to wash our hair in the waterfalls! It felt so nice!! Everyone thought it was soo funny to see all these Mzungus washing their hair!

We are having a man named Samuel teach us Swahili lessons three times a week and it is going pretty good! It is just a lot of memorization! Right now my vocabulary consists of Jambo(Hello), Habir(How are you), Nzuri(good) Jino lakonani( what is your name) Mambo(whats up) Poa(good) and thats about it! haha I hope that it  gets a lot better cuz it would be nice to be able to communicate with the people better!

SUGAR CANE!! :) It is kinda weird but yummy!! 

 Sorry this is sideways but is this the tree you were talking about Mom? 

SORRY that this has taken soo long!! I tired to post last Sunday but the internet stopped working so I had to wait! I will post again on Sunday with the things we have done this week!! Hope things are good at home!! :)

Leavin' on a Jet Plane

Well the time has come!! We leave tomorrow!!!! My friend Brittnee and I have been planning this adventure for over a year now! We have fund raised and scrimped and saved every penny that we could since we decided we wanted to go to Africa. We will be going with HELP International, a non-profit group in Provo. A friend of mine went with HELP a few years ago and Britt and I decided that we would go with them too!! 

We have lots of cool projects planned already! 

• first aid classes
• self defense classes 
• IOL teacher training:  http://iolinternational.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=63
• work in orphanages 
• and working with the albino peace makers 

Those are just a few of the projects. Once we get in country we plan on making more contacts and starting up more projects!! 

We leave tomorrow morning bright and early!! We first go to Dallas then on to London where we have a 12 hour layover! So we are leaving the airport to do a little sight seeing and then its back to the airport and on our way to Kenya and then TANZANIA!!! I am super excited to see where we will be living and meet the people and get started on the projects right away!! 

Thank again to all those who donated money, time. and stuff for our garage sale. Also thanks for all the help and support! I wouldn't be able to do this without you!! 

For more information on HELP visit their website:help-international.org