I blessed the rains down in Africa.....

Mom, I should have listened to you. Even though I was told it never rains in the non-rainy season, today it rained. Not hard, but it would have been nice to have the umbrella you suggested to bring. :)

The past 24 hours have been chesee kama disi (that's crazy like a banana for you non-Swahili speakers out there). Last night, I was talking with two of the three friends we made yesterday, Alexis and Jill, and Jill said that there were going to be fireworks at the American Embassy. About an hour later, we hear loud booms out side and ran down the main road and saw some fantastic fireworks over the palm trees. We were shouting and clapping like crazy muzungu's! It was great.

Jill had one more day at work in Dar so she invited Alexis and me to come with her. It was really fun. She works at an orphanage with about 30 kids. We played outside, counted to ten, practiced our ABC's, colored, etc. They taught me some fantastic Swahili words that I'm sure will come in handy in Bagamoyo.

We only worked a half day at the orphanage and went back to the hostel for lunch. Lunch was ....interesting. We had ugali which is a dish the consistency of dough but made out of porridge (I think)...its hard to explain. Anyway, its basically tasteless but there was a really great mixture of vegetables and chicken in a great sauce to pour over it along with cabbage. And just fyi, we eat with our hands so that goodness for hand sanitizer!

After lunch we headed to the carvers market by tuk-tuk!. Which was so so cool! Tons of carved wood products- really anything you could want and so beautiful. I'm getting better at bartering and asking for the rafiki (friend) price not the muzungu (traveler/white person) price. I even learned some Swahili bartering words.

A little about the hostel- its nice by Dar standards. Four bedrooms and two bathrooms, a nice living room and a fairly good sized dining room. We have someone who cooks our meals for us (the ugali and sauce today and chips myeye yesterday). The showers are cold water showers, as are all showers and it actually has sit down toilets! Its really luxurious.
Alexis stayed in the home that I will be staying in and she said that its a little more rugged in Bagamoyo. Most of the homes are mud huts and the house I am staying in has a squatter toilet and a bucket shower. All laundry is done by hand and one of the girls said she only washed her clothes once in the 6 weeks that she has been here. Its going to be an interesting 6 weeks but to be honest, its still a lot nicer than what many of the people have in Bagamoyo.I leave tomorrow (I think) for Bagamoyo and will start work on Monday. After talking with the girls today, I am so excited and (almost) not nervous.

So a little earlier, I mentioned the dala-dala's and the tuk-tuks. Dala dala's are minivans that they fill with so many people. Coming home from work today,I think we had 25 people in our dala dala. Its a little scary as they drive millions of miles per hour. But its a good, cheap and reliable way to travel around the city. Alexis said that in Bagamoyo everyone walks so I have to get my dala-dala experience in now. :) Tuk-tuks are motorized bikes with a cart in the back. Riding that today was maybe the scariest thing I have done in a while (other than flying halfway around the world by myself). They are so small and they feel like they are going to break at any point. But again, cheaper than a taxi and reliable, so what can you do.

All in all, the first day has been really good. I'm excited for whats to come and so thankful to be here.

Namaste, all!