What do swimming with dolphins, Koreans, coconut water and spiced coffee have in common?
- ZANZIBAR!!!! - On Monday evening, my ferry sailed me and my Korean friend, Upendo, back into the port of Dar es Salaam after an indescribable weekend in exotic Zanzibar, an island off the coast of Tanzania. It is the most beautiful place I’ve been in Africa – hands down. From Saturday morning to Monday afternoon, we swam in crystal clear water, ate homemade Japanese food (I mean Japanese, not Korean – it was a culturally mixed weekend!), lounged under straw umbrellas on the beach, snorkeled, spice toured, tried Zanzibar pizza, octopus (my favorite!) and fresh squeezed sugar cane juice. I could go on and on! I will say my favorite part, I can’t explain why, was drinking coconut water from a stand on the street. I also enjoyed spending time with Upendo and all of her Korean friends. We spoke a mix of Swahili and English – what a blast!
- Home Sweet Home – Two weeks ago, I moved into the orphanage for my last month. I love it! I’m getting a lot of work done and hanging out with the kids (though they make it more difficult to do work sometimes too!) I’m back to sleeping under a net, squatty potties and bucket showers. I will admit that the hygiene is…an experience, but it’s nothing that living in an old Gainesville house didn’t prepare me for – just your usual rats and roaches. In fact, I’ve become so used to it that when a baby roach climbed out of my hair during a bucket shower, I didn’t even flinch. I briefly wondered how long it had been there and if it had friends, but forgot about it soon after. Please do pray for good health as sickness travels like wildfire in this place. I’m still working on teaching them to cover their mouths when they cough.
- Pump it up! – I may have mentioned before that we recently installed a foot-operated water pump at the shamba. An NGO from Morogoro installed it for free, and it’s been such a help. We visited the shamba again today with one of their technicians and made plans to install two more – and one for free again. These catapult us into our irrigation project – a key step toward produce production and sustainability!
- Chickens! – speaking of sustainability, our chicken coop is well under way and today, we received our first batch of chickens! We’re not stopping any time soon either. On Monday, I received a phone call from NMB Bank, and they pledged $2,000 toward our coop! Yeah!!
- Lasagna – I’ve been craving my mom’s lasagna like you wouldn’t believe, and I just have to tell some people who understand. Thanks for being there for me!
- I believe St. Patty’s day is around the corner, do you have any plans? I think it will be pretty calm here – I don’t think Tanzania is that devoted to the holiday.
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Oh my gosh.
“I’ve become so used to it that when a baby roach climbed out of my hair during a bucket shower, I didn’t even flinch. I briefly wondered how long it had been there and if it had friends, but forgot about it soon after. ”
AMY TILLEY!!! That is NOT okay.