Done with orientation!

Habari za mchana marafiki?

The past few days have been very busy! We have been at the office everyday for a long while learning about how to teach our students about HIV/AIDS Prevention and Nutrition. Next week we will travel to a village about an hour away and conduct sessions. I will be teaching a community group, which will probably be women from the village. In the afternoon I will also get to teach primary school students which will be fun!

On Wednesday afternoon, we met our homestay families. My mama picked me up from the hostel we were staying at and we took a taxi to her house. Her name is Anna and she lives in a beautiful house enclosed by a gate. On the other side of the road is a big park. There is a beautiful view of Mount Meru from the park. Mama Anna went to vetrinary school, but she also has a side business as a florist. Her yard has many different types of plants from all over Tanzania. There are apple trees, banana trees, avocado trees, oranges trees, many different types of palms and many many others. It is beautiful. Mama has a housegirl named Eva and a houseboy named Eugene. They took and do a lot of the house work. They live in the compound and Mama treats them like her children. Two of her nephews are also staying with her. Bariki is 15 and in secondary school. His older brother David is 26 and in college studying computer science. Yesterday afternoon, they took me on a hike up a hill by our house. It was beautiful. They pointed out a huge mouse to me which was not so exciting. But we also saw an owl in the forest which was very neat. Both Bariki and David speak English very well, so I got to talk to them a lot about life in Tanzania. They both assured me that Tanzanians are the friendliest out of all East Africans, which is part of the reason why it is such a peaceful country. And, being me, I showed them pictures of my dogs. Dogs in Tanzania are not really pets, but they seemed to think that Griffin and Dillon were cute (I mean who wouldn't?!). Mama has four guard dogs, but they are pretty nice! They are named Simba, Giraffe, Zebra, and Cheetah, all in English except for Simba. She is so funny.

Tomorrow we are going to Arusha National Park, which is the park that Mount Meru is in. We will get to see monkeys, giraffes, and some other safari animals! On Sunday, I will get to meet Mama's two twin daughters who are in college and are twenty years old. And Monday we head out to the village! Hopefully I will be able to update this weekend sometime because I will definitely not have internet in the village.