Day 36- Just another manic Monday... Wish it was Sunday! Cause That's my fun day!!

Straight up coolest thing ever. Mole Rat. Naked. I did want to vomit when I saw it though... Enjoy!
Monday, June. 6th, 2011

The beginning to a new week! I could hear the lyrics to the song "Manic Monday" by The Bangles begin to quietly play as we drove to work in the morning. I would be lying if I told you I was happy the weekend was over. Each new day, though always full of joy, has a lingering sorrow that is quietly felt in the heart. 
My time here is flying by and often it feels like I have done nothing yet! I find myself spending more time in my room, alone, then I have in previous days. I am grateful for the time, as it helps me to reflect on this past month and attempt to plan my next... 26 days!
And so, another day comes and goes and I continue to feel comfortable. I do not know if it is the sunshine, the people I live with, or the amazing food, but something here makes it feel like home. As I examine my fingers on the keyboard, I note the number of bites scattered along my fingers. Three. Three small bits that cause a certain amount of frustrated attention each day. I would see it as an improvement because of the small number; However, as I glance at my calves I am reminded of the seventy fresh bites. I should probably consider using bug spray... Maybe...
I power went out today at home. Now, it is never a happy moment when your fan suddenly stops and the heat settles back down. If you sweat even with the fan and air conditioning on, then you can imagine the fear when the electricity goes out. It is no joke out here. It is a face that is a little too repetitive for my liking. But enough of the negativity, life out here is really amazing.
From early morning jogs on the beach with the sun rising in the distance, to fried bananas with beef and gravy... this place is where your outlook on life will inevitably expand and if need be, as most of ours are, changed.
Volunteering at WFT today was good. Mary has returned, finally, and she shared her chicken and fried bananas with us; a much appreciated peace offering! I was able to review Donald's proposal he gave me and it looks great! It sounds exciting and I think I will be able to be a part of the big event before I return to Canada. We are going to have a meeting soon to discuss the details! I'll tell you all about it soon! I just want to see what he has planned before I make any big announcements!
I also received a phone call form my grandfather, with contact numbers for family out here in Dar that I can visit! I was so excited to hear from my grandfather and his wife! Minutes after I got off the phone with them I received phone calls from family members out here in Dar and have plans to meet up with Michael [a brother of my grandfather's wife] on Friday! He wants to show me around which will be refreshing to experience Dar from a Tananian's point of view! 
Dinner tonight was breakfast style! Jesse and I made french toast and fruit, which was fantastic! I shall drift off to sleep early... so I can wake up at 3:00am to watch the Canucks game!

Beautiful Things I have purchased here!

Day 34-35 Do I talk to myself and then deny it? Naww!

Saturday, June. 4th, 2011-Sunday, June. 5th, 2011
Hello hello!

This past weekend consisted of little excitement. I am sad to say... life is not always glamorous out here! I mean... I am not ALWAYS spending time with orphans and volunteering at a NGO that empowers marginalized women... and I am most definitely not always being exposed to new cultural differences. It is just starting to feel like my life, my home, my place... Or it did this weekend.
Why we did not do anything of excitement or importance you ask? Opposition in all things! How can there be excitement without boredom? How can I enjoy the culture if I do not dislike it first! haha Okay, that is a joke. Sort of. A bit, at least... For the most part.
If I were to pick the highlight of my weekend, I would definitely say it was Mike's new bathing suit purchase. I helped him pick it out and even fronted him the dough for it! Well worth it!


We did find a new restaurant to eat that. It is in the shape of an ark, no joke! And it has delicious pizza [...hmm this is new]! When we first entered the restaurant, I wondered if they would have enough tables for us. We were a group of fourteen at the time and though the restaurant was empty... the available tables were few. We did manage to get us all around the table though. Up until my pizza arrived I had been feeling quite nauseous and water was not making it any better. Pizza made me feel better, go figure!
After our dinner we walked next door to Shooters Bar or something along those lines and found ourselves a little karaoke machine! Remember the last karaoke we went to where I was mistaken when believing we would BE the party? Well... on this night we really were THE party. After our first song, people starting getting up and leaving. I was not sure if it was because of how good we[by "we" I mean Alex] were singing or if they were honestly just ready to leave. Either way, after eight minutes there we quickly became the majority. It was a pleasant change from being the minority for the last month! I never knew what it felt like to be a constant minority and with such a large gap that seeing another mazungu on the street actually made me want to dance over to them and greet them. That is right, I have fallen victim to this embarrassing display of excitement. Ashamed? Yes. Still excited? Unfortunately.
Moving on... I am happy to say there have been no more random old men displaying themselves in public! Or at least not anywhere I was. However, there is a guy who runs the street that has been talking to us and walking with us for the last two mornings. The other Tanzanians give him some weird looks, most with huge grins. He is polite and so we do not fear bumping into him. We saw our policeman today! He is no long positioned by the bridge, but just past it on the other side of the street. I was happy to see him and I like to think he was happy to see us too!
A contributor to the bland weekend was the departure of Jodi and Andrew early Sunday morning. I miss them already. I called her tonight and pretended I was returning her "missed call" just so I could hear her voice! haha Jest! I actually did think I had missed her call. The time stamp matched up and I had missed a total of four calls. The only thing not matching up was the date and the fact that the four missed calls were from the one number. Oh well! Got to talk and hear about her first day on her safari!
There is not much else to say. Interesting weekend? Meh... it was a weekend.

OOPS!! CANUCKS WON WITH AN OT GOAL BY BURROWS!!! WHO AM I KIDDING! THIS MADE MY WEEKEND!!!!
Gnight!

Day 33- Why did that man have to ruin my beautiful sunrise beach run... why? *burn my eyeballs*

This morning was a good morning. Cali boy, Daniel, joined us for a run on the beach! It started off quite nice, until we were stopped by a river like body of water. Knowing the likelihood of unspeakable amounts of waste sitting at the bottom, we declined Daniel's naive request to walk through it. Unfortunately, the alternate option he had in mind was walking along side this water until there was a narrow enough section where we could jump over. We agreed, thinking it would not hurt to check it out. Well a good 10 seconds into the adventure and we were regretting our agreement. We were knee deep in mud! KNEE DEEP! Okay, not quite. More like a good inch, but it sure was disgusting. Daniel did not seem too bothered by the mud, typical boy, and so with each new step we took a chunk of mud added to our runners, making the walk that much more difficult.
Four minutes in and Karisa and I had had enough. We petitioned our pleases by stopping. Bad choice. Wrong choice. The only thing worse than walking in this mud was NOT walking in this mud. We sunk and it was not very pretty. All sides of my runners were covered in mud... all the way up. In the end our petition paid off! We turned around and returned to the normal beach area and started our way back. The ocean water and a random stick helped to eliminate about 70% of the mud suctioned to my runners. The rest just tagged along for the remainder of the run!
The run back was beautiful, refreshing and it almost seemed pleasant... until the unthinkable happened. I do not even want to talk about it. So.. just know it ruined the run and probably the rest of my trip!
---------CAUTION! DISTURBING CONTENT TO FOLLOW----------
Alright, fine... you want to know? ICK. Alright, so there was a particular OLD gentleman that felt the need to take off his pants right in front of us on the beach... and I guess commando is the usual because I was ready to vomit. Got it? Yeah, not the way I wanted to end my run. Thankfully we still had a good 10 min stretch to go and we booked it past him. THE END!
=============================
Not really. After our run, Karisa and I walked down to the local market and picked up some fresh fruits and cucumber to make a lunch and bring to the beach with us. We had pancakes for breakfast! They are like crepes... a bit thicker. SO GOOD.
The beach was good. We swam laps at the pool and then spent most of our day in the shade. Our food was so delicious we had to talk about it for five minute intervals all day! haha That could be a stretched truth...
We made time to read and then, sleep. Heat sleep is never satisfying. Just inevitable.
Now for dinner from Andrew and Jodi... YUM!
Kwaheri!

Day 32- "True love is almost as rare as tanzanite"

Thursday, June. 2nd, 2011

I woke up late today. It never feels good getting up late. 8:22am I jumped out of bed and went for breakfast. Watermelon and a piece of toast never tasted so good! Oatmeal sealed the deal- I was set for the morning.
A group of us went to slipway to check out the shops again and show Andrew them.
Did not stay long, but we did have enough time to grab some good ice cream. Before we left we stopped in a gem store to look at tanzanite and as we were leaving the gentleman handed us their promotional leaflet. Across the top read " True love is almost as rare as tanzanite"! What a beauty! Good sales pitch, no?
We made our way to Sea cliff; Sienna and I helped Jodi pick out her tanzanite stone and custom made ring that Andrew was getting her. It was exciting! Again... another thing I wished I was experiencing! haha jokes! sort of!... ok it was not a joke. What girl does not want a ring from a boy they love?
Before returning back to the guesthouse we had lunch at one of the hotel restaurants. It was a delicious avocado and prawn salad which was fantastic!

The view was beautiful from our balcony seating, with white cap waves lining the ocean view!

Came home and I caught up on blogs and changed my rooms from a shared room with Deanna to my very own.

Had dinner with two American volunteer guys at Boona Banna who just showed up in the last few days from Georgia. Good fun! Yona, who is one of our drivers, showed Mike and Karisa how to make traditional Tanzania pilou rice and some yummy shrimp and then stayed and ate with us. It is always enjoyable having guests for dinner.
That pretty much sums up my day!
My peach of the day: catching up on my blogs!
My pit of the day: waking up late... ick!

See you all later!

Day 31- white caps make for a beautiful day!

Wednesday, June.1st, 2011

Unfortunately, we had to cancel our trip to the KidzCare orphanage for a few reasons. Although I was disappointed that I would not be able to spend time with them... it was still a really good day. Probably one of my best moments out here... selfishly, that is.
Early in the morning I got my business done... serious business! haha And then for the first time in quite awhile, a large group of us went to the beach. We went to a nice resort and it was refreshing. We all have been running around with our internships and sometimes the only time we get to see each other is at dinner before people start to collapse into bed. There were a few that still have to go to their internship, which was unfortunate, but it still was a great day full of sunshine, a nice breeze, a beautiful beach... and for Mike and I, white capped waves!
Another particularly exciting part of today was Andrew [Jodi's boyfriend/our new babysitter] arriving in the morning and joining us at the beach. It was cute to see how excited Jodi was to see her man who she has not seen for a month. For a moment it made me wish I had someone to come visit me! Who am I kidding, I've been wishing that this whole time! Feel free to book a flight and come see me... anytime... honest! <3
So, Andrew is great. He fits right in with our group and I hardly notice the awkward moments when he has to change all our diapers....


Sorry, bit of a joke... hahaha I made a funny! So yeah, we are getting babysat, but it really is not that bad. It is just an addition to our group.
We ate lunch at the restaurant in the resort and there were a few complications with the waiter forgetting things ordered, mixing up orders, etc. With my order he told me I had to choose something to go with my Indian dish, which I chose rice... thinking that it would come with it. Apparently not. An extra 3500 tsh was on my bill and as I was discussing the bill with him I found myself annoyed and frustrated, as I was not the only one who had mix ups. He ended up telling me he did not want me unhappy and so he would take it off. The manager had already been over to our table earlier for one of the other interns, requesting they fill out an evaluation card in regards to our waiters service so I could tell he was on thin ice.
Amongst my frustration, I stopped and realized the guy was trying hard and was just not succeeding. In my self-righteous smug moment I was arguing over a miscommunication due to a language barrier. I was retracting my desire to give him a tip because, through some unfortunate series of events, I had to pay an extra 3500 tsh. Seemed petty and so I paid my bill without mentioning a word to the manager who took my money. And then, I returned to our table and gave our waiter a tip and thanked him for his service. Who am I to not thank someone for their hard work just because it did not work out the way it is expected to? Life is not always about rewarding the people who do things perfectly. People may fail by our standards, but that does not mean they failed. Remember that Albert Einstein quote? It does not fit perfectly, but it makes you think.

After lunch we returned to the beach area, noting the tide had come in. The water was warm like a swimming pool and even in some spots almost as warm as a bath at home! Mike and I took to the water and started to jump waves! Where we were walking was a pretty cool spot, with waves coming at you from left and right and exploding in the middle. It was one of the best times out here as of yet, diving into the waves and letting them pull us with them. It was exciting to feel the power from the waves tossing you around like a little rag doll as you try to not gulp salt water. At one point, the waves pulled me out past where I could stand and the waves were pretty big, making it difficult to make it back to the shallow area. Mike had to pull a David Hasslehoff and rescue me! We continued jumping waves and caught a really great wave that hit us pretty hard, knocking Mike's shades into the ocean never to be seen again. haha He was pretty bummed, so we spend a good 10 minutes looking for them before we continued our wave crashing adventures!
Ever had a sand fight? Makes for a big mess! As if we did not already have enough sand on us!
The beach day ended shortly after. We returned home and ate hamburgers and salad made by Joel and Jennifer. Delicious!
After dinner we meet up with swissie at the Irish pub for karaoke night, bringing along our new intern friend who is from Cali. We call him jewie. He is out here doing an internship with a company and is staying where we are too. Swissie is on a year contract out here in construction, and we met him because he was staying here for awhile too. He has his own flat now one minute away. We meet a lot of cool people!
Karaoke was great, and when we first arrived it looked like we were going to be the party, but by 10:30 the wazungus piled in and we had a great night!

Day 25-Day 30th

May 26-May 31

I am going to have to sum up these days all together. Unfortunately, this lifestyle does not make for enough time to write each day... or if it does, I have yet to master the skill.

So... Thursday we had all of the Boona Banna kids over for mac n cheese and to watch "The Lion King". It was a lot of fun and they loved the movie. We taught them peaches and pits and it was so cute for them all to tell us their peach was to have dinner with us all. Cool kids! Near the end of the movie our Massai guard came in and watched a bit of the movie!! Anyone know about the Massai tribe? They are a nomadic tribe... so it was pretty funny to see one watching our movie that we projected on the wall. I also had a great talk with Cherie that I think I needed.
Friday was... great! Everyone went to the beach and I stayed home all alone and spent some time on the roof, read and tried to catch up on some course work. It was nice to be alone. That is one thing I miss out here! Having time to yourself is a rarity and usually does not last very long. In the evening we attended a play put on by HOPAC kids and faculty as a fundraiser for a playground(its a school). It was the sound of music and was so well done! For a moment, I forgot I was in Africa... lol It also reminded me how much I appreciate theatre and miss going to plays. That is on my list of things to do when I get home!
Saturday we went to slipway and spent a little time with Cherie before she left for Canada. Not all of us went, which is good cause I did not want to share my ice cream with everyone. :) Just kidding. The second half of the interns when to the play today while we were out and then in the evening everyone went out to watch the football game. I again stayed home and tried to work on course work.
Sunday was a good relaxing day. Again, course stuff... tried to take it easy and catch up on stuff I could not do during the week.
Monday was a good day. We showed up to volunteer at WFT and found ourselves locked out. We rang the bell, knocked on the door loudly with no response. After 10 minutes we decided we could call our driver back and go to meet up with the girls to do some work at slipway. Well, our driver was almost there when suddenly the guy opened the gate for us and so we had to go to work. Net sticks sucked. No one was there all morning. Brian did show up around lunch time and took us to the Bonjour gas station where there is this little red box burger joint and the burgers and fries were soo good. *note* They have these "line ups", if you can call them that, that to the blind eye would look like a disaster with no order whatsoever... and yet somehow there is order and it is fair. No idea how they do it! But koodos to them!
Tuesday we went to work again. This time we were only locked out for 5 minutes. Net sucked. Uber bad! We could not do ANYTHING. It was a not so successful day... in comparison to our "productive" days...:) but thats okay. It was all good. Orphanage day tomorrow! :) good thing too! I miss them

There we go. Summed up!