The network went out this past Saturday while I was at the internet café. That is why I have been late writing this.

This week went by really fast. Each week seems to go by faster and faster. This week we found out that we will be having Thanksgiving Dinner at the American Embassy in Dar es Salaam. I also found out that one of the teachers at the school that I am training at was Fulbright Scholar. I have been telling my host brothers that they should take advantage of that program or ones like it and then I meet someone that has already had the privilege.
The class that we have our language class in is a classroom that only has the cement bricks up and nothing else. For some time we will have kids that are done with one of their classes stand outside where the windows should be and listen for hours to our class. One day my teacher had them come in and we practiced talking with them. Another time he let them come in and ask us random questions. It really amazes me at how thirsty these kids are for knowledge! One time they beat us to class and had all of these science questions for us since they know that we are science teachers.
I finally got my haircut this week. My mama mentioned it and it has been a month so I decided to get it cut. It only cost 40 cents. I was expecting on at least paying $1 for it. They basically just buzzed all of my hair off. I don’t think there are places that I can go to get it cut with scissors since no one gets and education to cut hair here. I will just have to get used to the short style. My family really liked it after I got it cut.
They are up to 4 pieces of bread and sometimes these African sweet cakes and fruit for breakfast. This is way too much food for me so I have just been leaving most of the food there so my sister who cooks my food can hopefully get the hint.
They are almost done with the gas station in front of our house. It is weird because the gas station is building a mosque right next to it. Like I said earlier about 50% of the people here are Muslim. I have talked to some Tanzanians and I guess that is common for gas stations to do that.
At the place where we have training there are always all of these monkeys just randomly swinging from the trees there. The place is basically a part of the major mountain range that is here. Last week when I was walking to lunch I was able to see this really cute baby monkey and its mom really up close. There are actually a lot of animals that are just running around randomly. We get to see a lot of lizards and strange insects.
A few days ago I had the privilege of seeing them butcher a chicken. There are a few butchers but the meat is so expensive for them that they normally do it themselves. My brother, who killed it, couldn’t figure out why I was so grossed out by it.
Last week there was a chicken that climbed thru this one intentional hole in our fence. I tried to chase it off but my mom soon yelled at me that it was our chicken! I guess he leaves for most of the day to play with his friends or something and comes home at night.
They still use corporal punishment at the schools here so the other day I was able to see some students outside their class kneeling. They were there for a long time. Another time this teacher got really mad at like half of the class and beat each of them really hard. They normally do the beatings out in the courtyard that we have at the school. I guess that is something I am just going to have to get used to although the PC will not allow us to take part it in so I am glad about that!
I helped one of my host brothers with his physics homework since he couldn’t figure out how to do this problem. I asked to see his notes and the teacher really didn’t give them a good example as to how to do the problem. I found out from my brother that if the teachers don’t know how to do the problem the just make it up and act like they do so they don’t look stupid in front of the class. He was really happy that I knew how to do the problem. I threw away the paper that I worked the problem on after he left my room but the next day he wanted the paper. He ended up taking the torn up pieces of paper and putting them back together so he could show his friends how to do the problem.
Celtel, one of the cell phone companies here, is giving away this really nice Tanzanian Mansion set on 9 acres. I asked my teacher how much it would be for this house that would be for someone really rich and he said it would be 18 million shillings (or $18,000). He said that a basic house with electricity and plumbing here is $5,000 and a house as big as mine would be $10,000.
One of the volunteers said that last week almost everyday these girls students at here school would pay this other student to take pictures of them with the volunteer. She said that was fun the first few times but now it’s getting out of hand. It’s not hard for me to believe since we get so much attention here!
It finally rained a few nights ago at night. It woke me up since we have a tin roof but I was so happy that I didn’t mind. My Baba said the rainy season is coming and that I will be sick of rain when it gets here. It is just so dusty here and windy all the time. The day after it rained it was really windy but the dust wasn’t able to move!!
We watch a lot of English TV since we get this BBC sort of channel. One of the programs that we almost always watch is this Latin American Soap Opera called La Recheza that they dubbed over in English. My Baba really likes it and I have found out that a lot of the people here do. I wish they had sub titles and didn’t dub it so I could hear the Spanish! They also like a lot of the Nigerian movies here. Africa in this cool way is in its own country since they all share music and movies with each other. The Tanzanian national anthem, which I will have to post on here sometime, starts off with a blessing for the tribes and countries that makes up Africa and then later in the song talks about Tanzania. I was really impressed when I read the lyrics to it.
Last week we did a community mapping project with some kids at our school. It is the same project that I will have to do at my site so I can target what problems they have with their area and what resources they need etc. With this study we found that all of the students love to go to school and church! I was really surprised to find this out since so many kids back home resent school so much. I guess here if they don’t go to school they would have to do more work at home. The main things they wanted were their road to be paved and better access to a library since the nearest one is in town. I had a chance to go to the library in town this week since we got out really early from school. It is about half the size of my high school library. Most of the books that they had were donated from the World Book Fund and so they were really ancient.