"The gods must be crazy"

Mmmm, Africa. Africa is everything everyone said it would be, everything I ever imagined it to be, and nothing that I've ever experienced before.

I've been in country for just about a week now, here is a small recap of my time so far:
Left home and traveled for 28 hours, arrived in Dar es Salaam exhausted and alone, put my life in the hands of a taxi driver I'd never met before, took a crazy taxi ride across town, stayed in an amazing home with amazing family at embassy, took a walk on the beach, met my leader Brook for the first time, traveled back to airport to meet rest of the team for the first time, stayed the night in a church guest house under my first mosquito net, woke up at 3 am to travel to, I think, the scariest place I've ever been; the down town Dar bus depot, boarded a bus packed like a bunch of bananas smelling like B.O. for 13 hours, ate baboon, used squatty potty for first time in country, saw an elephant, arrived in Mbeya in the evening, stayed in local missionary home, woke up at 5 to board illegal bus (soooo sketchy, good story though, Brook knows the owner of the bus company and he knew we were traveling so he called us and told us he had an entire bus for us that wasn't registered yet so couldn't hold regular passengers but he got his team together to take us the rest of the way to Mumba on this bus. Sketch=awesome), arrived in Mumba 6 hours later, climbed on top of luggage on top of Landcruiser to travel through the village to the campus, met the missionaries, slept like a baby, stood and stared for a long time still not believing that I was here, traveled to town to get supplies (huge market with everything you could imagine to buy), started to learn some Swahili (hodi hodi!), took a ton of photos, went to local traveling market (goodwill on wheels), almost bought a shirt that said "Obama, change has came" ha someone wasn't proof reading, ate some local food (ogali, greens and beans), unpacked everything, and have been working on camp stuff every since. Phew, what a first week.

I was awoken the other day by my little friend Luka with some of the greatest wisdom I've ever heard. He bounded onto my bed and said in his little accent, "Hannah, today is a new day!" What a wise little man he is. Today indeed is a new day. Each day is a new day here full of new experiences, a lot of "firsts," and many new friends. There is so much that I've never experienced before, I feel myself changing each and every day.

Something that has struck me is just how much we take for granted in America. Here, we don't have electricity, we have a generator that runs for two hours every night, there is no hot water, you have to start a fire to heat the water, we cook off of a wood stove (heats the water at the same time), you have to remember to fill the water filter WITH water in order for there to be clean water, our clothes are all hand washed, hand beaten more like it, and hung out to dry, and I constantly have to remind myself to keep my mouth closed in the shower (nobody wants to go home with an amoeba, they may be cute under the microscope but out here they're wreck you). This is not exactly the Hilton, but I love it.

Went to the local traveling market today (Goodwill on wheels) and it was hilarious to see tags that said things like "Savers" and "Goodwill." Row upon row of used clothes. Now, I know what you all are thinking, "USED clothes coming from Africa? Don't we send out used clothes to them?" That's exactly what I thought, and it's exactly what it was. I got to see where all of our used clothes go! Now I have to admit, I did buy something. I found a Patagonia Jacket for 2,500 shillings which comes out to be about $2.00. Come on people how could I have resisted that?! Plus, it's super cold here and I didn't pack enough cold weather gear. Can you imagine that? Cold in Africa. All in all, very cool market.

I'm getting used to being stared at. It makes you kinda feel like a super star actually ha ha. I've likened it to this: if a group of Mesi tribal warriors walked down the street in New York City, we all would stare, hard. That is what we look like to them. I've started to stare back actually. If you stare at me then I'm going to stare back at you and if you are a kid I'm going to make a funny face at you! Oh I don't know if I'll ever understand it here : ).

That is all for now my rafiki. Thank you for your prayers, they are greatly coveted and completely felt.

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