8 days later

Well, we have made it through a week and a day of language school. Since we are still here and our brains have not exploded, I'm gonna call it a success. I joke with Tim that school appears to be making me dumber. The other night he had to explain to me why when it is light here it is dark in the US. I guess new Swahili words are just taking up too much space in the brain.

A typical day for us is to eat breakfast and begin class at 8:30 a.m. We have a wonderful teacher named Godson and there are only two other people in our class. One girl is from Italy and the other is from Sweden. Both work for NGOs or non-for-profit type organizations here in Tanzania. We are learning a lot of grammar as well as vocabulary. Some days it feels as though we are back in grade school learning language rules, changing sentences from positive to negative, changing statements into questions, etc. We take tea from 10-10:30a.m and then we are back in class until 12:30 p.m. when we break for lunch. In the afternoon we have class from 2-4 p.m. We usually only learn new things in the mornings and in the afternoons we play games using things we have learned that day or on previous days.

The place we are staying at is very nice. We have a little cottage all to ourselves. It has 2 beds and a bathroom complete with a hot shower. It is a bit rustic as we have shared our bathroom with geckos and have killed a lot of crickets. It is beautiful here and the nature that we are surrounded by is very loud! All night we can hear crickets, frogs, birds, and monkeys. Despite all those things, we are getting our much needed rest. The food is delicious and plentiful, but there are days where I would just love a cheeseburger or a pizza. We can have all those things when we get back to Nairobi so until then we wait. And eat rice. And yummy fruit.

We leave here on April 7 and return to Kenya by bus. The bus ride here was nice and it allowed us to see a part of Kenya we had never seen before. Tanzania is beautiful. It is very green and lush. We are located near Mt. Meru and Arusha National Park. On a clear day, you can see Mt. Kilimanjaro from here, but sadly we have yet to see it.

In the picture (which Tim took, doesn't he do a great job?!) You can see Mt. Meru and a giraffe. This was taken while we were on a walking safari. It was so incredible as we were able to get super close to giraffes and water buffalo.

Once we return to Nairobi, we should move into our apartment and start working. We are so thankful to be here. Although there were some days for me especially that were a little rough, we have never questioned our desire to be here. We belong here and we love it.

Until next time, tutaonana baadye!! (See you later!)