I'm Home!!!

Hey guys!

After 12 weeks that flew by way too fast, I am back home in the States. It's nice to be back but I miss Tanzania and all my friends there SO much. It was really hard to leave them so I'm hoping to make my way back there as soon as possible. Despite all the "roughing it," I felt so at home there and loved every minute of it.

Our last week in Babati went really well. After World AIDS day and the testings surrounging it, our testing number skyrocketed. For the overall program, we tested over 3000 people which is appartently an amazing amount. I think we had a really strong program and we accomplished a lot in our short time there.

After that, I had to say goodbye to my Tanzanian friends. It was particularly hard saying goodbye to Mershil, Joseph, Gerald, and Waziri. I hope that we will stay in touch because we grew to be very close and I can now truly say that they are all my brothers. It didn't help that I had to say goodbye to Jen at the same time since she didn't come to Zanzibar with us cuz that meant that I lost my strongest support system. I felt very alone on the bus ride from Arusha to Dar and the few days in Zanzibar kind of felt like an awkward limbo where I had already said goodbye to everyone but wasn't at home yet.

Despite that, Zanzibar was amazing! It was absolutely gorgeous. We spent most of our time on the beach and also went on a one day snorkeling trip where we saw such a variety of fish, it was amazing! One night we were true locals and bought some fresh fish off a guy and then had some other random local cook it for us. We had tuna and red snapper and it was DELICIOUS. I ate a lot of fish and calamari over the weekend cuz that's what they're famous for and it was all amazing. Unfortunately, there was no elecricity on the island (some government thing) so things were run off generators that were only turned on at night. We're pretty used to that at this point though so it was no big deal except for that it was super hot and humid and it would have been nice to have the fan working the whole night.

After a couple days in paradise, I had to say goodbye to my American friends and head home. It wasn't as hard to say goodbye to them since I know we'll see eachother again. I mean we already have a Vegas trip planned for March and Kalen and Marissa have both already planned trips down to San Diego before the end of the year so I'm not too worried about that. It was still weird to leave the people that I've lived everyday with for the past 3 months though. It's definitely been an adjustment being away from them and it's also quite a culture shock being in the states. Right now I mostly just want to go back but I know that feeling will fade with time, especially if me and the Tanzanians do a good job of staying in touch. It's nice to be back with my mom and I can't wait to talk to all of you and tell you more detail about my trip and show you pictures.

I hope you've enjoyed reading my blog. Thank you to everyone who's followed my progress the last three months. To everyone who has really liked what they've read about what SIC does overseas, feel free to contact me about ways to donate. Or for those of you still in college or almost finished, contact me about potentially participating on the program. I really feel like they make a difference in the lives of Tanzanians and hope you've all gotten a sense of that through my entries.

Thanks again for reading! Asante sana squashed banana!
Ilana

Week 2 in Babati

Things in Babati are going super well!!! We've already tested over 800 people in less than a week! World AIDS day was on Tuesday and it was awesome. We had testings, teachings, art projects, middle school-like facts posters, performances, a soccer tournament, and a net ball tournament (for those of you who don't know net ball is like messed up basketball haha). It was great and we tested over 200 people that day!!!

Our group's project has been going well too. We've been going around to all the bars, restaurants, and guest houses to see who wants to get taught and who is willing to put up fliers that we made advertising the importance of using condoms and getting tested. We have our work cut out for us cuz there's over 50 bars and restaurants and more than 20 guest houses. We might inlist the help of some of the other groups cuz the group in charge of testing and educating the prison doesn't have as much to do now that the prison is being super uncooperative.

Other than that, I'm trying to hang out with the Tanzanians as much as possible since we only have like 9 more days together (insert bbm smiley that's crying uncontrollably here). I'm not as worried about leaving my American friends cuz we still have Zanzibar together after the program is over plus we've already planned a Vegas trip for March. Ya that's how we roll haha!

That's all that's really going on right now. Nothing too exciting. For those of you who asked, I get back to the states December 16th and have no fear I have already told my mom what I want my first meal to be and I plan on going though all the foods I have missed that first week and getting incredible sick haha

Also, I promised to get you guys the final numbers for our time in Qash and here it is: We tested 1237 and taught 6594!!! Yay!!! I'd say testing in Babati is definitely easier but getting people to sit down and be taught is harder since everyone's so much busier. I guess we'll see how it goes.

Bye for now! Asante sana squashed banana! Can't wait to have real phone conversations with you guys in less than two weeks! Love you all!

Ilana