Next stop: Malula

Just when I was starting to get the hang of my village, our five weeks is now up, and it's off to a new ward, a new family and a new village. I'm not going to lie...I don't know if my next family can live up to my Ilkiding'a family...they were pretty awesome and it was hard to leave. In fact, when the SIC truck came to pick us up, both Mama and Jaclin (one of the kids) stood up, grabbed us and started shouting, HAKUNA KWENDA! HAKUNA KWENDA! (they're not going!!) and they tried to convince the drivers to come back tomorrow to pick us up. In the end though, we caught a ride down to town with all of our stuff in tow, marking the end of the first half of the program. We did, however, have a pretty sweet photo-sesh right before I left, so here are a few pictures of the fam and the house:


From right to left: Baba, Emanuel, Jaclin, our house boy (i still never figured out his name), Mama above Jaclin, Elias, Olarivan (behind Elias) and Esuvat in the UCLA sweatshirt.



Me with the Fam



Chloe and I with our Mama

Ola and our house boy...they were wonderfully awkward teenaged boys. They thought it was funny to Shikamoo me (you say shikamoo as a respectful greeting to your elders...I'm not elder enough to be shikamoo'd yet)


Our kitchen...Mama set up the shot so it looks like she's teaching us how to cook...when really, all we were doing was taking pictures...



Our family (and lots of families, i've discovered) had a lot of these little posters around with pick-me-up slogans...the one I"m posing with here says, "A smile is an inexpensive way to improve your looks" The other wall has a picture of two of the whitest kids I've ever seen...who sells these things? (I also looked freakishly like the girl in the picture when I was younger.


This is the road I walked on to school everyday. I managed to sneak a picture of these three Masai women with their branches on their heads...I'm still amazed at the amount of things people can carry on their heads...I can't even carry my water bottle.



Our shower/choo. Pretty standard really.



The inside of the Choo...I'm not joking around here.



Some of the cutest kids ever: Beatrice (the next door neighbor) and Emanuel.



More cute kids (they're everywhere, i swear!)



My teaching group with one of my students. (his name is mike and he gave me a cool rasta bracelet as a gift)



Beatrice and Jaclin.


The boys; they were always up to something...



and...another shot with the kids. they were so cute, i really wanted to bring one home with me. (don't worry, i'm not)


Ilkiding'a really was a wonderful place...I don't know how my next family will be able to live up to my experience thus far, but I'm still excited for the adventure.

I leave this afternoon for Malula (my new village) in the King'ore Ward. It's about 2 hours outside of Arusha, so i don't know if I'll make it to town as often as I have here. I'm living by myself this time (yikes!), so hopefully my Swahili will take a turn for the better, or I'll just get even better at gesturing. Instead of teaching secondary school, we'll be teaching primary students at two different schools. We'll be about twice as busy with about twice as much ground to cover (this new ward is supposedly HUGE). I apparently have only one kid this time, but we also have a kitten (yay!). I'll write more about the village when I have more to say about it!

Other than that, it's been a relatively relaxing weekend in Arusha...as a celebration for the completion of the first half of our program, we had a BBQ...which ended up turning into a SWEET Burrito Bar...omg, the food was so good. Then we went to Tripple A club to see East Africa's finest bands...it was really fun, and I liked getting a chance to hear what music's all about around here.

That's all for now...I'll post more when I get a chance!

-Baadye!