Where do I even begin...

So a week ago I moved out of my homestay house and moved to a training center for a few days. I will truely miss my mama and her family. Staying with them was an experience like no other. Weds was my swearing in day and everyones families made them their own Tanzanian outfit. So pretty much we all looked rediculously awesome. Pictures will be coming soon... I promise. So I am now settled into my new home at the bottom of Mnt. Hanang. I have the most amazing view from my little courtyard. my house is small but manages to squeeze 3 little rooms in it. It is also on a primary schools property so there are always cute little kids running around. It is very cute. For luxuries...the vol. before me installed electricity. But I am going to try to use candles and my lantern as much as possible too. I have a water pump in my courtyard but I still need to figure out the schedule of when its turned on. And here is the kicker....there is a small store here that sells CHEESE & HOT DOGS! No lie. It will be very expensive on my budget but I think I can afford a hotdog maybe once a month, we'll see.

So for the next few months I will be introducing myself to the village. This means I will be sitting with Mamas as they cook, talking with teachers, visiting the local health dispensary, talking with the local govn, talking with elders and children. Pretty much do everything i can to learn about my new home and at the same time build relationships. I am now a village person, ya know. For starters, I beleive there is a teacher that is very interested in starting a soccer league so I will deff. be on top of that....talk to you soon and please just buy a phone card people, i cant afford to call you.....asante

Nimefurahi sana.... (i am very happy)

So lets see...this past week has been a trip and they next few weeks are going to be even crazier. I went to the kilimanjaro region for my Shadow week. Which means I lived with another volunteer for a week and follow her around and she how she lives. She has the most amazing site in the Pare Mnts, pretty much in a banana jungle. One of the nights we climbed the mountain side ( i was in a skirt) and hung out on a climb that had the most perfect view of Mnt kilimanjaro. It was unbelievable. A few days later we took an 11 hour hike thru the mountains and came across a beautiful waterfall. We swam in the small pool of water at the waterfall and when we got out i was informed of all of the snakes in the water. sweet. it was absolutely gorgeous and hopefully ill get the pictures up soon.

Now every volunteer is back in Dar for our site announcements!! we were all so ecxited and ready to find out where we will be living and working for the next 2 years. I can not be specific online of my site (email me and i can tell you) but i am in the Manyara region, Hanang district. So look it up. It sounds like i will be living the life there too. The vol. before me installed electricity (tho i didnt want it) and i have a water pump in my courtyard. What more can a girl ask for? when we had our site interviews i deff. underlined the point that I have a brand new arm injury and that if i were to fall the idea of being 13 hours away from a hospital scares me. So now im a few miles from the nearest "hospital" so i can fall whenever i want. Although i am not in a remote village, i will be in a small town, i am very far away from most things. So the small town in itself is pretty remote. The majority of volunteers went to the southern highlands which is about a day of travel away.

We came to Tanzania 9 weeks as complete strangers, from all over the counrty, and we have become best friends. more like family. I mean i was away from these kids for 1 week and i was missing them and wondering what wierd, awkward, crazy things they were up to. i can only imagine being away for so long. super cheesy i know but i really like being with people and i am already away from family in the US and now we are getting seperated again. SOOO this means that all of you guys reading this in the States who have yet to purchase a phone card to call ( i know who you are) GET TO IT. I get paid about 160$ us dollars a month to live so putting 20$ on it to make 2 phone calls is not very possible. I am going to make a link of good phone cards to look into.... :)

So my next blog I will post after i get to my site and it will probably be all over the place because i can only imagine what ill be going thru. Im not gonna lie...im pretty scared. but that has never stopped me before so wish me luck and ill talk to you soon......