this weekend, we headed out to Moshi, a little town at the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro, where backpackers stay before they climb up the thing. I finally managed to see Kili this week, and it's pretty amazing. For some reason, I had it in my head that Kili is the world's 4th tallest mountain. I'm completely wrong. It is Africa's tallest, but it's also one of the easiest to climb. In fact, one of the three main routes is nick-named the "coke hike" because you can apparently buy cokes from little stores almost all the way up to the summit. I still think it's a pretty cool mountain, even if it is easy to climb.

Yesterday we went out to a little place outside of Moshi, and hiked to a waterfall further inland. Upon arriving at the waterfall, we bumped into a bunch of local teenagers who were "having their fun" while we were there...keep in mind that showing skin here is pretty risque in the first place, so we were kinda shocked to see these dudes running around in their nunders. but it was fun none-the-less. i'll post pics later.

teaching's been really good...it's been quite a different experience going from teaching secondary students to teaching primary school kids, but they are really something. incredibly smart, attentive and they take notes like i've never seen before. their classrooms are sparse (like almost every school here) with dirt floors, holes in the wall for windows, too many kids per desk, worn and tearing uniforms, but they're students when it comes down to it, and they are really great kids. we get to start doing some more community teaching in our village this week, and i'm very much looking forward to that.

you can also feel that summer's on its way. it's hot as heck out here, and i get drenched in sweat if i walk from my room to the choo. nights aren't much cooler, and i spend many hours trying to comfortably adjust myself under my mosquito net, so as to not touch the darn thing but be able to spread out as well. it's tricky, i tell ya!

i can't believe we're already winding down to our last three weeks in the program. not that we won't be busy...i think we're booked from now until that last friday, but that will only make the time fly that much faster. it's been really awesome here though, and i hope that the next three weeks will prove to be just as amazing as the first 7. I probably won't be too unhappy to leave the ugali behind (the flour-based-mush-type food that serves as a staple of tanzanian's diets) but the atmosphere and people will be hard to leave.

emabarrasing story of the week: so a few of us in the program decided to invest in some nailpolish as to look a little more "girly" (but really to cover up the dirt). i showed my mama, and she let me know that she was interested in also putting on some nail polish. so one afternoon, i was laying on my bed and she came to my door. i got up to open it, only to see my mama standing there with her shirt up, boobs fully in view. she quickly put her shirt down, but there was the passage of what seemed like an immense amount of time while i fetched the polish and was able to give it to her. we haven't ever talked about the event, but i'm still thouroughly confused as to why it happened. oh well i guess, hamna cheetah.

I'm really looking forward to next weekend: we're going to Uganda to the source of the nile to go on a rafting trip. I may even bungie jump over the nile river (sweet!!) so look forward to hearing about that.

That's all for now! Badaaye!