Busy Week!

This past week has been amazing! We went to Lake Diluti on Saturday...it's in a volcano crater that's 700 meters deep and just 10 minutes away from our house. We saw 6-ft long monitor lizards, lots of monkeys, awesome plants and flowers, and some really gross bugs. It was nice to get away from the city! We also got to see the first American football game played on the continent of Africa. It was an Iowa team against a team from Mexico - who knew Mexico had an American Football team. It was pretty hilarious.

We also finally got an appointment with the regional medical commander and after an hour of listening to him tell us why he wasn't interested in students helping in his hospitals, Tyler convinced him to set up a meeting with us for next week with a bunch of doctors. I can't wait to start something there - it's such a needy place, but I think we'll be able to do some amazing work!

After that, Tyler, Lauren, and I visited with Macao - an HIV prevention group among a community of Maasai that live out past the Serengeti. Their work is awesome and really challenging trying to teach safe sex among people that are at high risk for getting HIV – they practice polygamy, female genital mutilation, and widow inheritance and don’t normally use modern medicine or contraceptive devices. We’re hoping to go out with them on one of their teaching trips to see what their biggest needs are and how receptive the people are to foreigners teaching them. If they will listen to us, Lauren, Elizabeth, and I hope to develop a better, more culturally appropriate teaching program for them. Many of them can't ready so we'll have to get creative (maybe I'm not very good for this project afterall..) It's pretty far away though so we might save our budget for a different project nearby.

We also started working on the pigpen this week - cutting down banana trees and leveling out the ground for a foundation in the rain. Yes, I got to use a shovel AND machete AND will be mixing cement next week. Legit. (And yes, in the two days we've worked there, I've been the only one to fall in the cow poop and in the mud pit. Whatever, it happens, we weren't all blessed with balance or hand-eye coordination.)

Yesterday I got to spend the day at Step-by-Step, Margaret's school for developmentally disabled children and young adults. I worked mostly with the autistic kids. Half of the students can't talk so we're developing graphic communication books for them to communicate with each other. I shouldn't have favorites, but I totally do. His name is Baracka, which means blessing. Margaret found him a few weeks ago I guess – she said he looked like an old man in a baby’s body because his family doesn’t have enough money to feed him. He’s 4 years old, but looks like a 2 year old. Not only has he been severely malnourished his whole life, but he also is HIV+. He has the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen. Seriously though, it takes up half his face and he has beautiful, white teeth and sparkly eyes. He just loves everyone! Since he has been so sick, he hasn’t learned how to talk or play. So he goes to Step by Step and just smiles and hugs everyone. I loved eating lunch with him...when he eats, he stuffs his face – literally. He gets food all over the place. Anyways, I really, really love him and want to adopt him. Thoughts, Mom and Dad?

I've been eating more Tanzanian food - fried green bananas with avocado (they taste like french fries..SO GOOD!), chips mayai (like a french-fry omelette), ndizi stew (banana soup - probably one of the best things I've eaten here yet), and rice and beans and chipati. The food is starting to grow on me, even though it's almost completely vegetarian. The only thing I would pay any amount of money for is cheese... 2 more months!

In a few hours, I get to start packing because guess what tomorrow is? SAFARI TIME! I'm so excited! That was pretty much the last of my savings soo I guess from here on out, life won't be very exotic, but oh well. I promise I'm taking my camera and will figure out how to get pictures on this dang thing.