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!!

The Ants Go Marching......

This week was probably one of the most successful weeks we have had yet!  We actually quite a few projects to do that kept us busy!

On Tuesday we had our first day at Kitulezu Orphanage. It was started by Mama Anna and Ernesto, two HIV positive people in the community. They started it to change the stigma that HIV positive people can’t do anything. All the orphans are older and go to primary or secondary school, but they started a pre-school in Mama Anna’s home for the community kids to be able to come to for a very small price. So that is where we help out! We will be going every morning from 8 until 11:30 to help the other teacher teach. On Tuesday though, it was the last day for some of the other volunteers that were working there from a different organization so we just kind of had a free day. It was a lot of fun!! We played with play dough, painted nails, sang songs, and blew bubbles!! The kids also go candy, or pepe, in Swahili, so they were pretty hyper!! HahaWhen it was time to go some of the kids walked us almost all the way home!! It was cute, every time a car(garri), or a piki-piki(motorcycle) would come they would yell and pull us to the side! They are stinkin cute and I am really excited to work there every day!! 

Here is a dala-dala for all of those who were curious

So there is another volunteer from a different organization that teaches at Kitulezu and she got us the contact information for some girls that she lives who work at Cradle of Love. It is an orphanage for infants and toddlers!! On Wednesday we got to go visit and see what we could do to help! So this orphanage is pretty car from our house, maybe 45 minutes on a dala-dala and we had no idea where it was or how to get there! So we left a bit earlier than usual and after taking 2 dala-dalas we made it there all by ourselves! We were super excited about that! When we got there it was just like being in Ecuador!! The orphanage didn’t really look the same but it was set up the same and had the same feel and it even kinda smelled the same!! It was lovely and I felt right at home!! The kids were so sweet and so cute!! The orphanage is run by a husband and wife from America and right now they have about 30 kids under the age of 3! It was pretty hectic! Haha but she said that we could come any day we wanted to help out, so I think we are going to go 2 times a week in the afternoon!! I am super excited!!! We also had a fun birthday dinner at Loth’s(our driver/rescuer) house for his birthday and it was soo fun and the good was delicious!! 

 Also this week we had our first Inside Out Learning training session! We went to a school that HELP built last year in Namanga, which is about 2 hours from Arusha. So we left on Thursday morning and once again made it successfully there all by ourselves!! Emmanuel runs the school, Green Eden. It is a preschool for community kids who have little to no income and for orphans. We met Emmanuel at the bus stop and then he walked us to this cute little hostel type place where we would be staying the night! We dropped off our luggage and walked to the school where the kids met us and welcomed us with a song!! I love it when they do that!! Little did we know they were expecting us to teach that day haha so we through together an impromptu lesson that turned out pretty good!! After school was over the teacher from the preschool and the teachers from the community came for IOL training. Boy was it exhausting to teach for that long!! The first day went pretty well but was a little bit confusing and frustrating because they didn’t really respond to some things so it was hard to know if they understood what was being taught. They seemed to enjoy our activities and ideas so that was good. We had a very eventful night that night in our little hostel, which included porcelain squat toilets, VERY loud and strange snoring from our neighbor, banging on the gate all night long, people shuffling past our room to use the bathroom, and loud talking/singing/pumpin music from the club down the road! Haha We woke up bright and early the next morning and started all over again! We helped “teach” again at the pre-school, which really meant us doing everything and if we didn’t the kids sat and copied letters and numbers in a notebook. Finally after watching the kids be bored to death we decided to teach them a song before they went home! It was pretty difficult but I think they at least enjoyed watching us acting like idiots! Haha We had our next and final session IOL and it went a lot better this time! I think it was because we had more activities and moving and working in groups! It was a lot of fun and teachers were all really great! We set up two times for them to meet by themselves and discuss goals, and  how things were going and then we are going back next Monday to see how it went and how well they were able to implement the ideas we taught them and then we will have a little party and give them their certificates!

Our very stinky bus to Namanga.....kate couldn't handle it!

Britt and Jess teachin the chillins

this little guys was teaching us karate and it was sooo funny!

Emmanuel loved getting his picture takin!

Green Eden...the school HELP built last summer

our IOL teachings in progress

Our new puppy NaeNae! she is soo sweet!!

Yesterday Britt and I went on an adventure in the city and found some really great shops and met some funny people!! Our new nicknames are Shakira and Byonce! haha  We also think we may have found blonde hair for our braids!! We were excited!!

I can’t believe we have been here a month!! The second wavers come this week which will be weird but I am excited for them to come to add some change to the house!! I am also excited that we have actually projects to work on this week and that things are finally progressing!!