Pole sana, but this will be a rather disjointed update. I will try to organize it as best I can!
First, some updates on my volunteer placement. We spent last week in the "intellectually impaired" wing of Patandi. It was okay... the kids are great but we don't necessarily feel needed. Emily works with the younger kids and I'm with the older kids, and we both have only about 5 kids in our class. The teachers leave us alone to teach all day, which is a tad difficult considering we speak very limited Swahili. Then when student teachers from a local university showed up in our classroom, we really felt like the teachers and student teachers would be better for the students (as they can actually communicate with them). I had my difficulties teaching my kids how to read in Swahili (it was an experience!) and Emily had her difficulties with a particularly rowdy kid. However, due to immigration laws, we cannot completely change our placement, so we will still be going to Patandi on Mondays and Thursdays. I will be mostly teaching English on Mondays, and then most of Thursday is their "play day" which is fun. We're really glad with how it's working out because we didn't want to desert the kids, but teaching there every day was a bit stressful.
On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Fridays we will be going with a couple other people in our house to Glorius Orphanage, where we are certainly needed. Orphanages in Tanzania are more places for kids to go during the day, because they are most often taken in by their extended family instead of going to a Western-style orphanage. Many of the kids in our orphanage lost their parents to AIDS, but they are some of the sweetest kids ever. We help out with the younger kids (from age 3-6), and there are about 40 of them in one small room. They recite many things in English and are so darling! We also get to see more of Arusha with our two different placements, which is cool.
I guess I'll have to update more in-depth later, as my internet time is running out. A brief recap of this weekend --- on Saturday we went on a "vacation" to the touristy part of town. It took us a while to get there but it was worth it. It was like a whole different country! So nice! We treated ourselves to a delicious lunch (food at our home has been a bit sub-par) and an afternoon at the pool at a really nice hotel. Then on Sunday we went to Marangu and hiked to waterfalls (I couldn't resist swimming in them after our brutal hike... so refreshing!), hiked to the base of Kilimanjaro (very strenuous but cool to see, although it was cloudy so we couldn't really see much), met some guy who grew Kilimanjaro coffee in his backyard or something, held a wild chameleon we saw on the side of the road, tried banana beer (interesting), and saw a Chagga house/caves. It was fun but we were all very tired. Today Emily and I tried to go to the AICC Rwanda Tribunals but unfortunately they are on break until late August. We were pretty bummed, as they would have been really cool to see.
Sorry this update was all over the place, but I guess it's better than nothing, right? Tutaonana upesi!!!
