We made it to Africa!!!!

 We arrived late Friday night and were greeted by Fred at the airport. The drive from Dar to Morogoro was a little crazy. Imagine driving in NY times 1000. They don't have many traffic signals and people are weaving in and out of traffic on foot and on motorcycles. I closed my eyes a lot of the way and prayed an imaginary rosary.

After driving for about three hours we arrived in Morogoro and were dropped off at the St. Thomas Center. It is beautiful, tropical and we have a view of Mt Uluguru. The people here are so friendly. They make us breakfast and dinner. We have basically ate the same thing. Rice, vegetables and more rice. It's all healthy and the fruit is amazing!!

Saturday we walked to a Rock Garden with Fred's brother in law. He is in secondary school and speaks pretty good English. We rested most of the day and went to bed early.

Sunday was our first real day exploring Morogoro. We went into town around 9 and walked around. We are definitely the only white people in the town. Actually, we saw one European girl this morning. Anyways, Sunday we went to church with Fred. It was three hours long, but was a beautiful service. Fred sat next to me and translated most of it. Then he had us come to the front and introduced us. He asked Laren to play a song on the keyboard and sing. There was about 200 people at church. At first they laughed a little. They may not have heard music like Laren's before. By the end of the song they were cheering and clapping. Don't worry I got it all recorded on my camera!!! Best purchase for sure! After church we walked around town and took Fred to lunch. I was excited to try different food. Nope, rice and greens again with a mystery meat on top. I think it's goat sometimes. I just keep telling myself it's chicken, it's chicken! We were really tired after church and walking around so we went back to the St.Thomas Center and rested.

Monday we woke up really early and went to pick up Nico (Fred's brother in law). We have  driver that Fred uses to take his children to school. He's nice and knows some English. We met a woman who lived on the mountain that Fred knows and she took us up the mountain. I can't believe these people live way up in the mountains. I don't think they have had visitors like us in years. Everyone smiled and welcomed us as we hiked up the mountain. Nico has jeans and sandals like it was no big deal hiking this mountain. I was packed for any disasters with my first aid kit and all. They didn't even break a sweat. Some women laughed at my tennis shoes. No one wears tennis shoes here and everyone is always dressed to the nines no matter where they are going. After the hike we went to the pool at the Morgoro Hotel. We took Nico with us. He didn't know how to swim so I tried to teach him with a piece of a paddle board. He wasn't having it and stayed in the shallow. We went home, took naps, ate dinner and watched a DVD we bought from a guy at church. It had english subtitles, but was rather strange.

Today we met Fred and are now at the internet cafe in town. It's next to a huge soccer (futbol) stadium and I can hear people cheering on a game!! Not exactly sure what we are doing the rest of the week. We are leaving to go to Kibaya on Saturday. I will come back here this week and check my email again!! Look forward to hearing from everyone in the states! Don't worry about us! We are safe, well fed, well rested and happy!! I probably won't be able to upload or send pictures from here.... maybe in Kibaya!!!

Love you all!
Aimee and Laren

                                                  Mt. Uluguru where we hiked

10 days and counting!

So, we're down to 10 days until we leave for Tanzania! The past 7 months have flown by with grad school and teaching. This weekend I started to pack. Laren will be fine. He will just take some clothes out of the closet and put them in a bag. As high maintenance as he appears, he really only needs hair gel and a toothbrush. I on the other hand have the fear that I need to be prepared for absolutely anything. Any other time I've traveled there's always a store within a few miles that I can get the necessities from. Well, that's not happening here which means I'm going to be prepared for any possible thing I can think of. Crazy? Maybe.. But it's the teacher in me and I just can't help it.

We've gotten almost everything accomplished on our "before we leave "
packing list except a few things. I'm so thankful my friend Becky is going to stay at our house most of the month. Our fur babies will be so happy to have her here, but I'm sure going to miss them.

My grad school semester ended way earlier than planned so I'm just coasting through the rest of the school year. We had two snow days this year which pushed the last day of school back to the day we leave.

I feel bad not spending the last day of school with my students, so we're going to celebrate the day before. They have so many questions about where I'm going and what I'm going to be doing there. I showed them some videos I found on YouTube and pictures of Tanzania. After the video was over I knew they'd have lots of questions and I was so excited to tell them all about my trip. I teach 4th grade and I what I love about that age is their sense of humor and the fact that most of them have no filter and say whatever is on their minds. Of course they wanted me to bring them elephant poop ( we read about the different things people in Africa ha used it for). Something about the word poop is just so funny when your teacher says it.

What we talked about the most was how the schools are so different and how lucky we are to have the things we need in order to learn. As a teacher I feel frustrated when we don't have the latest technology in our schools. I know this trip will really resonate with the teacher in me more than anything.