Hey guys! Thanks for all the comments you've been leaving me. It's so great to hear from you cuz I miss you all soooo much!!!
The skirts are pretty much just like normal skirts that people wear back home; they just have to cover our knees when we sit down so don't get too excited. The fabrics here are super cool though so you can get excited about that haha
For those of you who have said you want to learn Swahili, I am so down to teach you when I get back. I actually like the language a lot and I feel like I'm picking it up pretty fast now that I'm exposed to it like 24/7. It's just 3 of us American girls living in our homestay so we had to pick things up fast if we wanted to communicate with our families haha
Speaking of homestays, we got our groups and mine is great. I'm with Jen and then if any of you know Becca Lynch who's also from USC. I don't know why they put three USC people together but I'm certainly not complaining. Me and Jen share a room and then Becca has her own. Our family is so nice and really patient and really helpful. We have a mom and a dad and a 19 year old brother (kaka in Swahili) Afith, a 17 year old sister(dada) Alima, a 15 year old sister also Alima haha, a 12 year old sister Shaam, and a 9 year old brother Abudina. They're all so awesome.
The rest of our group is made up of Joseph, a 22 year old Tanzanian teaching partner who's just a big goof and a really good teacher and Gerald, a 27 year old teaching partner who we call Baba Bear (Baba means dad) He's the dad of the group and so nice and a really good teacher. They live at another homestay. I'm super happy with my group; we all get along really well :)
We've been really busy in the villages. We teach primary school everyday from 8:40-10. This week we taught secondary school everyday from 11:25-12:45 but starting next week it'll just be Monday Wednesday and maybe another day. We will also be training the best and the brightest from the secondary school to be peer educators so we'll be meeting with them Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 3. Apart from the school teachings we have to do community teachings. The first day we were there we were hanging out at this duka (store) that we always go to now and randomly ended up teaching like 50 people. The next day we went to watch Qash secondary school play the villagers in soccer and taught like another 150 people. We also taught 80 people in one of our subvillages last Tuesday and randomly teach small groups of people that we pass by when we have some time. So pretty much we're rockstars haha. We're started a little competition between the villages to see who teaches the most people and we definitely won the first week haha
We're having a free testing day in our village on October 27th and then there's this big community day (or really community weekend) on the 7th and 8th where all the villages will come together and have this big free testing campain. So hopefully we'll get lots of people tested.
Just to give you an idea of village life, our bathroom is a little brick thing with a hole in the center that leads to a like 30 feet deep hole (except ours is really full so it's like 7 feet away- gross! they're building another one) Think porter potty. Our shower is water in a bucket that's heated on coals and we pour it over ourselves with a bowl. Our homestay is a 45 minute walk to Joseph and Gerald's homestay and then everything is near them so we try to limit that to just walking there in the morning and back at night. We're also looking into getting some bikes but Becca doesn't know how to ride one so she'll have to ride on the back haha The food is a lot of carbs like rice and rice and rice and this thing called ugali that I can't even explain. There's also lots of beans and spinach and we buy ourselves a lot of fruit to subsidize. The thing I miss most is cheese. The only calcium I get is from my power bars.
So things in the village have been super awesome. I feel like we're really accomplishing a lot and my group has so much fun hanging out together. We want to try to find a soccer ball and a deck of cards while we're here though.
Guess that's it for now. Hope everything is great on your side of the road. Can't wait to hear all about all your lives :) I'll be back in Babati in two weeks so that's when I'll have internet again.
Asante sana squashed banana!
PS Fight on SC for beating Notre Dame!!! Fuck ya!!!
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It sounds like you're really accomplishing a lot and immersing yourself into the culture, that's so cool!
ReplyDeleteND game was way more dramatic than it needed to be, but was great to get the W. We're #7 in the BCS standings :( Would have loved to see Florida and Texas lose, but that wasn't in the cards.
On my end, I was assigned to my first client this week! It went well I think, although it was all the way in Pleasanton (about 35 miles from SF). On Wednesday afternoon a Safeway truck tipped over on the Bay Bridge so it took me 3.5 hours to get home, fun times! You know how much I love traffic hahah Been studying for the CPA, gonna take part II in Nov, part III in January. Did I tell you I passed the first part? That was a huge relief :)
Anyway, keep the updates coming! They aid in my procrasitnation! Miss you!
Spanks!
ReplyDeleteI am so proud of you already!
You have just been thrown into a completely different culture/language/life and you don't seem to be discouraged at all. Props to you.
It's awesome that you are learning another language and learning a whole new lifestyle. So many brothers and sisters! Such long walks! Which by the way, what is women-safety like there? Is it OK for you three to walk home together when its dark out at night time? or do you have to get back before dark?
Everything sounds so amazing and I would love to see pictures of your house and your family if you can. But be careful, because I remember when I was in village life in Uganda, digital cameras scared a lot of people because they didn't understand how they could be on the screen. But some people though it was exciting.
I love you and miss you!
Tutaonana,
Sonic
So excited to hear everything is awesome! Im glad youre with Jen, even though it is strange that they put the trojans together - i guess it really is a fam though!
ReplyDeleteI miss you! I cant wait until you are back!
Sounds like your village life is awesome! I think Gerald was a teaching partner for my VP also. Ask if he remembers Nass, Jesse, and Chelsea! Totally Papa Bear.
ReplyDeleteOh I miss Babati... Eat some chapati for me! Have you found they sell Nutella in the market across from First and Last? That plus some ndizi makes it feel almost like you're eating crepes in Paris. Give Mama Cia a huge hug for me!