i forgot my... Check Out My Trip to Tanzania

Week seven is almost entirely lost from memory. I spent the last two full weeks of the program in the village and looking back the main events all occured in the last week. With one week to go I was notified (or not notified) that I lost my teaching partner/roommate/translator/connection to everyone who spoke swahili. He quit for reasons which are still not too clear to me, so I had about seven days of living in the homestay alone and trying to make conversation however I could. On the last sunday our village held free HIV testing for 5 hours and I was really excited because I felt this was one of the main goals of the program. We set up outside of a soccer game and although there were hundreds of people around, we managed to only test 4 people. The last week of teaching I finished up using three different translators. Losing my roommate and the poor testing turnout was another frustrating roadblock to the program. On the last tuesday we held a 'community day' in which we tried to get all five of the villages that we were teaching in to come together and hang out. We brought in a DJ and had free HIV testing all day. It was a very good turnout and the testing itself was fairly successful with 53 people tested. At the end of the day, the volunteers challenged the local village soccer team to a match and needless to say, we won (1-0). The program was filled with frustrations and numerous setbacks. Overall we put tons of energy into the villages and saw some results mostly in the kids that we all taught. Leaving all the teaching partners on the last day of the program was more difficult than I expected. These were the people that had made it possible for us to survive as well as our teammates in the teaching process. For them, maybe on to another program or school and for most of us we will never see them again. Is this really over? After the program I flew to the island of Zanzibar for some rest in the sun. Of course nothing is ever what you expect it to be. Zanzibar is very touristy, so for us it was something new and with our minimal swahili we suprised almost everyone after replying in swahili when greeted. Along with being touristy comes the idea that everyone trys to get the most money out of you as possible so at every turn we had to bargain for the real price. The island was beautiful, but I was ready to go home. I did successfully trade a pair of shoes for some gifts at a shop (something I am more proud of than I should be). The trip to Zanzibar was capped off with a snorkeling trip which had us caught in a bit of a tropical rain storm in a boat that...I won't complain I guess we did eventually make it back. On wednesday I had a hour taxi ride, a two hour ferry ride back to the coast, a 30 min taxi ride, four hours of book reading and a flight to Europe. Before coming home I was in Germany for two days visiting family. We spent the majority of the time on the autoban, but we made it to Cologne (Koln) and into Paris for half a day. It was a tiring two days, but I saw tons of things and even had some American food. I made it home on Saturday night. Overall the trip was an experience, the setbacks and frustrations of the trip were more than necessary. I feel an impact was made, but a smaller one that I had hoped for. The area that we focused on was very challenging and sometimes I wonder whether these obstacles outweighed the work that was taking place. Either way it is over and I had a chance to see some things that I may never see again. Thanks to all who followed along. I am excited to see each and everyone of you soon.