June 15, 2010

Hey everyone! So I just want to apologize for being so out of touch. It has been really hard for me to have access to the internet. But I do now have a cell phone! So everyone get on buying those cheap phone cards/ sending me texts from skype. It’s so cheap to do that and it is free for me to receive them! It is also much less expensive for you to call me than for me to call you. All forms of communication are greatly appreciated. Thank you so much to all of you who have sent me letters. Seriously they are amazing! I have read them over and over again. Packages are great too! I know they are a little pricey to send though. If feel ambitious enough to send a package any food products would be greatly appreciated—dried fruit, cookies, gum, movies (I do have my laptop), cute things to decorate my house—other things that you may think I would want.
Okay so on to updates! Tanzania is amazing! I seriously love it here! The first week I spent in Dar at a hostel, it was pretty luxurious, my own room, my own bathroom! After the first week we drove about 5 hours North to a town called Muheza, which is where I have spent my last 3 ½ weeks. I live in a little village called Kibaoni Dilima. When I thought of Africa before I left home, Dillima is kind of what I pictured. That being said, this has still been a huge adjustment but I am not sure if there was much more I could have done to prepare myself at home, unless I had mastered Kiswahili in 6 weeks. That would have been helpful! Well these past weeks have pretty much been solely focused on learning Kiswahili and adjusting to Africa. My host family has been great. They are so patient with me and speak really pole pole (or slowly) which is great. Considering I am learning Kiswahili pole pole sana. I have 3 brothers and 3 sisters, one fo my sisters has the most adorable 7 month old baby you have ever seen and the rest of them are in school. Both my mama and baba (dad) are farmers. There farm is about an hour walk from our house. But the walk is the most beautiful walk I have ever been on. It takes you across a river where most of the village baths and gets water, then up a hillside through coconut, papaya, and orange trees. Their farm is on top of a hill with vies of this beautiful green plateau, green mountains, red roads, and scattered red huts. It is breathtaking. They grow corn, oranges, sweet potatoes, papaya, coconut, spinach, and a few other things. Most of the farming is subsistence farming, but I believe they do sell some of the food during the proper seasons. Our house is nice. It is brick with a concrete layer over top. It has a metal roof, with space between the walls and the roof (lots of bugs) and it is essentially like one room because none of the rooms have walls that go up to the roof, and I do not have my own ceiling. For those of you who do not know my room is right next to the room where the chickens sleep. Sweet. You know the first couple of weeks that I was here this really bothered me. But now not so much. The chickens are like the pets here, except not treated with tlc and occasionally they are dinner. They walk anywhere they want in the house and in result they poop anywhere they wish—talk about a new standard of free range. Besides that I have a myriad of crickets, spiders, and cockroaches who share my room. As you may guess I tuck my mosquito net in really tight every night.
The bathroom is separate from the house. It is a little hut with a door and a hole in the ground. This is also where I take my twice daily bucket bath. My mama gives my two buckets half way full, one with hot water and one with cold water. I have actually grown to really enjoy bucket baths. I use so much less water than I would with a shower. I highly recommend it to all those water conscious people out there! That being said water is a serious issue here. We have a well pretty close to our house but it does not always have water. Sometimes my sisters have to walk to another village to get water. Or to the river. But the river water is really not suitable to drink. All of my water has to be boiled, which means it tastes like smoke because it is boiled over , we call it “Smoke2O” and if your water does not taste like smoke then it is probably not safe. But Karibu Tanzania!

Ok that is all for now! Talk to you all soon. Sorry I am really rushed!