Well my phone officially works at site! It's no iphone and the
interndt service is pretty sporadic inside. Nonetheless, its daily
access to email! Get ready to hear from me all the time! So this past
weekend I was the first one to arrive at our hotel. I talked to the
people who run the place for a little and then i went out to do some
errands. When I returned the woman who does the cleaning started
knocking on my door and saying my friend was here. I was pretty confused because I thought my friends were not coming
until later. But I go outside and there was another white girl who
looked about my age. Her name was Bella and she was actually from
Brazil. She had been travelling all over Africa since June. She had
just arrived in Tanzania the day before from Malawi. She was travelling by herself and on her way to Uganda, sort of just
drifting along, meeting people as she went, staying at random houses
for as long as she wished. I was pretty shocked by this because I
personally would not want to cross international borders here by
myself. But it was funny because she was almost just as shocked as I
was about my situation. She could not believe I was living in a
village without electricity that was so far away. So it was kind of funny as we both sat with our jaws dropped listening
to each other's stories. Im envious of her travelling and her free
spirit. But I would not feel totally safe doing what she is doing,
especially without knowing the language and not even having a cell
phone! "Nimeshangaa!" a common phrase around here meaning "I am
shocked!"
Anyway life here is improving. It did take me 5 hours to get
home on Monday. All the passengers had to get off and walk twice
because the bus could not make it up the hill. And then the bus stops
at the top of the hill and everyone shuffles back on. Its quite an
experience. Some people just jump out of the windows because it takes
so long to wait to get out the door. At one point, after I had
disembarked a mama hands me her baby through the window and then jumps
out herself.There's really no order to the whole process. Anyway we all arrived
safely as we always do! More to come soon!