Day 2

Today was an orientation day. We had a session where we learned some Swahili, learned a catchy Tanzanian song, sessions learning about the Tanzanian culture, and they had a minature scavenger hunt for us. My group's task was to leave the base, walk down a trail along this beautiful river and find some local people and ask them in Swahili what the name of the river was. As we walked along the river there was a village on the other side...there was a lady washing her clothes in the river and several villagers...as soon as they saw the 3 of us they started waving and shouting "Mambo" which means "How's it going?" so we yelled "Poa" which means "all is well" The people here are so friendly. Once we got to the river there was a teenage boy talking to people in the "dalladalla" which is a small van used as public transport. As we had made our way down to the bridge we had come up with what we thought was the perfect question "Jina mto ni nini?" As we spoke it the boy turned to the vehicle and started speaking in Swahili...then the people on the bus talked to each other...we thought we messed up the question. Turns out we had the perfect sentence....they were asking each other for the name of the river. Mission accomplished.
In the afternoon we met the people from our placement. 4 of us will be working at a school with 100 kids aged 2-6. Should be a lot of fun.
Before supper 3 of us walked about 3km to the market...I was suprised to see that you could buy pop, ice cream, cookies, soap, etc there. A few buildings down we stopped at a bar for a beverage and practiced our Swahili. On the way there and back we passed many people and would say hello in Swahili. The kids were just getting out of school. They would smile and say hello. A few even fist bumped me...others said Good E-ven-ing! I would say Good Afternoon and they would get it right away. Everyone is so friendly and happy. It never ceases to amaze me how people with so little can be so happy having so little...really makes you think about what matters.
When we got back to homebase a little girl about 3 came running out onto the dirt road all smiles. It was Brenda...the cute little girl we had been playing with the day before. She high fived me again :-)
Tomorrow is a holiday here so we have an educational tour, going to visit some waterfalls, etc. Sounds like a great day.
-J