T.i.T. (This is Tanzania)...hurry up and wait!

I'm starting to think that my computer might not be the best at picking up wireless! I've tried and tried over the past few days to use the hostel's internet connection so that I could post to my blog, but to no avail I have failed and failed - until now!!! :) As Tanzanians say, "T.i.T" - or 'This is Tanzania.' By that they mean you should just take every little fluke with a grain of salt and realize that sometimes you do have to hurry up and wait. It's a different culture and you have to adjust!

So on to updates...I have been soooooooo busy lately!!! We had sessions all day Thursday for teacher training and in the evening we went to this awesome bar/pub/dance place called the Sweet Easy. It was super fun because there was a live band that was singing songs ranging from "I feel good" to Justin Bieber's song "Baby" and some local Swahili music which is lumped into one category of music know here as "Bongo (slang for "Tanzania") Flava. :) I danced and danced! We met some really cool Indian guys from Dubai and it was one of their birthday's. They are suuuuuuuper rich - like billionaires!!!!! Their family owns ALL the cotton farms in Tanzania and it also owns one of the two gold mines in Dubai. One of the three guys I was talking to had a diamond ring on his finger and also a white gold bracelet. They were looking to party and invited us on to their cousin's yacht for the night which was right near Sweet Easy. Although it was such a crazy idea, five of us volunteers went and had the time of our lives!!!! It was super fun!!! The yacht was crazy nice! I have pictures of it and hopefully I will be able to load them and post them soon! We had to take a small speed boat to get to the yacht and once we got there we danced and hung out in their private club on the boat! It was so surreal because I've never even been on a yacht before!!!!!! Haha...We had so much fun chatting and dancing that we didn't get back to our hostel until 6am! We had to be up by 9am Friday though (which was awful we were all so tired!) and we had Swahili language class and a bunch of training.

Our swahili teacher is the funniest and cutest man alive, I swear! :) Whenever we're in class (which is an hour and a half every day) and we accidentally pronounce something a little bit wrong, he will say "kidogo" (the swahili word for "a little bit") in a really high pitched sing songy voice, which is absolutely hilarious. We're laughing in that class more than anything! He's actually going to Morogoro where we'll all be by next Friday (less than a week from now!) to start a once week training course at our actual placements. We're going to see if we can continue lessons with him while he's there because we all like him so much. I'm learning A TON of Swahili!!!!! :D I am so happy about that! I was pretty nervous before I left about not knowing anything but the classes have been super helpful! I'm learning about the grammar too which helps to figure out what everyone is saying here!

Later on, on Friday, we went to a health clinic to see a doctor who told us all the scary medical stuff that can happen to us while we're here. She freaked the shit out of all of us, but she was still helpful. Don't worry - I know I can get very good preventative meds here to protect me from malaria and dengue fever and I can also get treatment very quickly if I need it, so please please don't worry I will be safe and keep healthy. I probably will get sick here at some point, but who doesn't get sick over a whole year? During the session with her I was so tired from lack of sleep I kept nodding off, but I heard everything she was saying so I'll be all set. She told us that we can even buy treatment pills for malaria now in case we ever feel like we've gotten it. She seemed like a real pessimist who assumed that all of us would get malaria, but who knows. Either way, I am going to buy a self-given test and a treatment pack of pills now so that if I ever feel weird or actually do get malaria I can treat it right away and get back to health as soon as possible.

Friday night we went to this BOMB Indian restaurant that's outside. It was full of Indian people (there's a big population of them here) and the food was absolutely stellar!!!!!! We were outside during our meal and we got to watch the Ghana versus Uruguay football (soccer) game. We left right before the first half ended and just as we were getting in taxis to go home Ghana scored!! It was soooo exciting! As we drove home we could see nearly 25 people crowded around teensie tiny T.V.'s trying to catch the game on practically every street we passed!!! It was so cool to see a whole community of people coming together to watch the game! When we got back to the hostel it was nearly 11:30 but I stayed up to watch the game even though I was incredibly tired!!!!! I was soooooo heartbroken when Ghana finally lost - the whole town went quiet and it was just awful!!!! In Swahili, whenever you ask someone how he or she is, he or she will NEVER say that he or she is bad....NEVER EVER. Even if a close relative of yours dies, you still respond that you are good when someone asks you - it is just the Tanzanian way. However, today (Saturday) when we were asking people how they were they were like "Not good" or "Bad" - so you can just imagine how horrible the loss was for everyone! :( Even though Ghana lost, I'm glad I was rooting for them the previous time when they beat the U.S. - that was a huuuuuge win for Ghana!

This morning we had Swahili class at 8:00am!!! It was tough to wake up for that time on a Saturday, especially since we've been so busy and sleep deprived, but it was a really good lesson. Benjamin, our Swahili teacher, taught us how to bargain in Swahili at the local markets. He says that in Tanzania there are three kinds of prices at the markets: the wazungu (white people/foreigner price - the highest) price, the rich price (for local Tanzanians and Africans whom venders can tell come from money because of the way they dress and act), and the normal price (for those who dress in normal clothes and who are African and/or Tanzanian). He taught us this phrase "Sina pesa hiyo" which means "I cannot pay that price" and he said that it would wow venders when we were trying to bargain down our wazungu price. I used it today at a market and I in fact shaved down the price! It was my first time bargaining in Swahili and it went quite well :). I got a dress and a skirt (each originally priced at 10,000 Tsh each) for 15,000 together - not so bad (that's like $7.50 an item). After Swahili class today we had a bunch of teaching sessions, went to lunch at the beach (like usual), and we rode on a daladala for an hour to get to the "Saba Saba" festival, which is an international trade fair. It was so cool to be on the daladala. I spoke the whole way over with a guy who was a lawyer in Dar es Salaam. He gave me his business card and told me whenever I am in trouble to give him a call. Tanzanians are very friendly and always willing to help you out. They love it if you ask questions to get to know them. Family is absolutely important to them, which is very different from the more individualistically-focused culture of the U.S. This guy was on his way to Saba Saba to see his Uncle who always has a stand there at his bar every weekend the fair goes on. It was neat talking with him the whole way. The actual fair was pretty cool and we got to watch most of the game between Germany and Argentina! I can't believe Argentina lost! Spain is playing Paraguay right now and it's tied at 0 to 0. I'm going to go into the living room right now and watch the second half of the game! I will check back with you later about what I'm up to! I'll be heading out of this hostel in Dar es Salaam (where there is semi-stable internet) next Friday, as I said, to go to Morogoro, where I will be living an hour away from internet access (which is in the main city). I will try my best to do often updates as time permits!

Oh - HAPPY 4th of July!!!!!!!! Tomorrow I'm going to Mbudya Island, which is a short boat ride away from the Dar es Salaam main coast. It's going to be absolutely beautiful! We're going there with a few of my Tanzanian friends for the day to celebrate the 4th of July since we can't all be home to celebrate it! I hope you enjoy your holiday and I certainly will as well! :) It'll be nice to finally go to the beach and swim in the ocean, since I haven't been able to do that yet since I got here! Much love to you all and I will be in touch soon! XO...cheers!