I am finally really settling into my village. I really feel at home there now. I am now able to cook food that actually has flavor and therefore I am happy for that. Last week I was able to make some spaghetti and tomato sauce from scratch. It tasted so good that I was almost in tears since it was one of the first things that I had made that actually had a good taste to it. Now that I have the cooking problem resolved something else comes along. We haven’t had water in the well or tap for 5 days now. It rained a lot this past weekend but I guess it takes a while for the well to fill up. I had saved up buckets of water from the time when we had water last so all was well but I am starting to run out. My neighbors have started going down to the river to bathe and fetch water and have suggested that I do it too. Hopefully we will have water soon so I don ‘t have to do that.

I finally chased away the baby rat that was living with me. I found him in my living room and tried to get the neighbor’s cat to chase him out but the cat was just as scared of the rat as I was. After I let the cat go back home I couldn’t find the rat anymore so I figured she ate him or he left. The next night when I was going to the bathroom I saw something small run in front of me but didn’t think anything of it. The next day I found the little critter in my kitchen. After I chased him out the front door he waited by the front door for me to open it again so he could come back in! The neighbor kids later that day brought me some fruit and they saw him waiting there at my door and started screaming so the rat finally got scared enough and ran away!
I have lots of “visitors” ( lizards, scorpion like things etc ) like that but only the rats scare me. One of the tricks that I learned from this goat that was in my backyard is to stomp your foot really good and that will hopefully scare the critters away. The goat was doing it because it was mad that it was tied up but this trick has worked wonders for me!

I had a really awesome Christmas! Some of the other volunteers in my region came into town so there was about 7 of us total. My fellow volunteer that lives in Songea has a chef and so he had us over for Christmas dinner. His chef made all this really good food! For New Year’s I stayed in my village since I was invited to a wedding. The weddings here are quite an event that I will have to explain later. I will say that I was very surprised that at the wedding party since once the new year came everyone bowed their hands and the priest said a prayer then our policeman shot off his gun. This is the same police officer that is always inviting me to the pombe room (where they keep the local homemade brew).

Those are all the stories I have for now. I don’t know how much I will be able to write in my blog but I am going to shoot for at least once a month. School should be starting soon so I am looking forward to that. I hope all is well with you! =) Thanks for all of the emails and Christmas cards! I received all of my Christmas cards the day before Christmas so I was really happy about that!