Top 10 Ways People Try to Get Our Attention on the Street

10. "mzungu! mzungu!" - it just means foreigner but they yell it at us everywhere we go

9. "mwenda!" - a slang kind of work for girl but they only use it for white girls... that's the next least creative one.

8, "Hey... Mambo." - they throw the swahili greetings at us then if we dont answer they yell louder but if we do they go off our swahili script and then we have no idea what's going on.... perfect.


7. "Hello my friend!!" - can't even tell you how much i'm not your friend, weird old man....

6. "Ohh where are you going?? I will take you!" - anyone with any kind of mode of transportation at their disposal tries this. Half the time we're actually on the daladala or in a taxi or something too which makes it even more rediculous

5. "Ohhhhh my wife! my wife!!" - everyone wants a whitey for their wife... some of them just get right to the point

4. "Girl!... Girl look ! look!!" - I look over and the guy is dancing on his pikipiki to music he cranks up and then tries to get me to come for a ride with him.... nooooooooo

3. "MWENDAAA!! WUCHA GONA DO MAN WUCHA GONA DO!!" - this guy learned his englich from watching Cops or Bad Boys or something... he was yelling that at us from across the street until we were out of sight. I still don't know if he was drunk or just a little crazy or both. :P

2. "You have a husband... but you don't have a Tanzanian husband!" - a guy on a pikipiki drove beside me down the road and wanted to be my tanzanian husband and take me wherever i wanted to go for free. He probably followed me for about a block :P

1. Rando: "Can I have your signature?" ... Linda: "Umm.. Why?" ... Rando: "For LOVE!!!" - definitely the most creative one out of them all and completely unexpected. :P

Some Funny Stories about Funny Creatures

 We've had a lot of funny things happen with animals and bugs and such lately so I thought I'd post them.

This is my friend Herbert the Spider. He lives in our shower room on the door in a little hideout in the wood. One day I went in to shower and I notices he wasn't in his spot - I figured he was gone because he's been there for 2 months now and I really don't know how he's alive. I hung up my towel and stuff then went to grab my shampoo and when I looked up he was RIGHT in front of my face on the wall. I just about died (both of terror and from almost falling). He's like one of those Daddy-Long-Legs spiders at home but about twice the size and he's not even close to the biggest one I've seen. Creepy little bugger... he's safely back on the door now away from my face.

I was standing outside one day at work because I had nothing better to do. I was thinking about how I wanted to see some more cool bugs and this little spikey guy was crawling on the wall beside me. He ran into some ants (which are everywherrrrre and they bite like crazy if they get on you) and I watched him fight them all for about 20 minutes. :)

Ashi came into the house the other day when I was journaling and was holding something up to me to look at. I thought it was a clump of hair at first and just kind of shook my head and went back to writing. He then put it closer to my face and I realized it was a mosquito on steroids (all the bugs are twice the size as Canada here... did I mention that??). Him and his friends kept throwing it around then wanted me to take a picture of it. It was really creepy looking and I was pretty happy when they listened to me and took it back outside. Don't ask me how they caught it either... it was completely random :P

I was outside a few nights ago with Sophi and Ashi and his friends watching them play a game when this dragon fly came up to us and wouldn't leave. The kids were trying to catch it but we calmed them down and it eventually landed on Sophi's head - soo funny! By the time I got my camera it had moved to the tree in front of the house, but it was still pretty cool to see one up close. When he started to fly away all the kids chased it down the street until they got bored then everyone came back to our party--central house :p

This is one of the weirdest things that's ever happened at our house. Linda and I were sitting in the kitchen with Mama and Sophi when Robert and Nassoro came in with a big box. They were really excited and started pulling out coffee cans and we couldn't figure out what they were doing. Nassoro grabbed Linda's hand and tried to put it in the box but she wouldn't let him, then when she tried to do it herself they both stopped us. When we finally looked in the box we saw this little spikey ball at the bottom... a friggin hedgehog! Nassoro kept trying to pick it up but we didn't want them to hurt it. They were going to keep it in the box over night and sell it in the morning at the market for 5,000 tsh - apparently witch doctors use hedgehogs for things and they were going to make some money. We let him out on the floor to see if he would do anything but he was scared (obviously... they kept just dropping the coffee cans back in to keep it in place at the bottom and i'm sure that hurt). 

Good news is that he escaped during the night, but the whole situation was rediculous... he's too cute to be witch doctor ingredients!!!

Norbert's Story

Norbert Shayo is one of our local volunteers but before working with us he was a beneficiary of our partner organization Faraja. His mother died in 1999 and father in 2000 from AIDS infections, and sadly Norbert got his HIV from them. He has an older brother as well as a younger sister but at the time of his father’s death there wasn’t a way for them to stay in their home. They moved in with Norbert‘s uncle and aunt, but she was very discriminatory towards Norbert and his HIV. His older brother didn’t have education at the time after not scoring high enough to go on after 4th level. They were stuck living with their aunt and uncle for 2 years and a half.

Norbert started out going to Faraja after his Aunt introduced him to their programs to get resources for school. His older brother was able to be sent to school through Faraja and eventually went on to attend teacher’s college. He is now finishing his first degree in Arusha and comes down to Morogoro to visit. Norbert was a part of Faraja’s programs with other youth attending their workshops and education sessions before being introduced to YCI.

He wanted to join with us to start giving back to the community. The work the Faraja staff do was inspiring and made him want to work in NGOs, and he is now one of our local volunteers. He is an excellent translator and asset to our team. I didn't actually know Norbert even had HIV for the first few weeks we worked here and he never lets it hold him back. Even when he has been sick and not feeling well he presses on until he literally has to rest for a day and it's really inspiring, especially as someone with limitations myself. With our HBC ambassadors especially Norbert has been a fantastic help simply because he already knew most of our members and was able to communicate that much better with them I don’t know what we would have done without him and I can’t wait to see what else he will accomplish in the future.

Norbert at the office with us

Franki and Norbert - our awesome team mates!

My House

This is my house and my neighbourhood. We're just a little bit off of the main road (Kilakala) - we walk  through a little alley way and then our house is right infront of us. It's a quiet little street and all the kids  always seems to be at our house hanging out with Ashi. Robert's friends live all around us too .. Nassoro is across the street to the left, and Michael and Said live behind us. At least one f them is usually over too.. our house is the party house :P

Part of the alley we walk through

I always almost fall here everyyy day... you'd think I'd be used to it now :P

My house! :) we have a neat little tree wall infront of it :P 

Sophia doing laundry and Alphonse playing with a tire :P

Our clothes line and water tap :)

Going to the Club

Me and the boys decided to go to a club on Saturday night to go dancing and we had a BLAST! It's called 4 Star and we all hung out at the house for a bit before then took off there for the night. I had thought we danced for about an hour but when I looked at my phone it was 4 in the morning... Danced  solid for at least 3 and a half hours!!! I'm definitely feeling the soreness today :P. The guys protected me from all the creeps too which was nice - especially Michael. I love these guys! :)

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Me and Michael - He's a sweetheart ... He always keeps me and Linda safe!

Michael and Robert in their club clothes :P

Robert, Nassoro and Said (who randomly turned the wrong way...) before we left

Robert and Said... He realized where the camera was :)

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Me and Nassa... my "husband" is the running joke

Q&A Part 3

What is the plumbing like - do you have running water in the houses?

We have a tap that we get water from outside and a ton of buckets full of water in the house that everyone uses for cooking and washing and drinking. Every few days our dada fills them all up again after the water has been used. I'll grab pictures of it for the next post :) Our toilet doesnt have running water and neither does the house itself. I'm pretty sure there's no septic tank so it's a little bit of a mystery but i'm happy with it being that way :P

Do they drink it or is it just for bathing?

Yea they drink the water from our tap outside but we dont - we buy bottled water because theres no way we have enough time to get used to it here. Their water isnt filtered nearly as much as ours is .. In the villages they just drink water right out of the streams coming from the mountains which is pretty neat to see

Are there septic tanks where there are toilets?, like in the restaurants you go to?

Restaurants all usually have sit-down luxury toilets and running water and all that jazz but anywhere average doesnt have anything like that... Again, the plumbing is kinda a mystical entity and i'm keeping it that way :P

Will you get a chance to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro…is there snow on the peak this time of year?

We didn't climb Kili but we were in Moshi town what's about 20 km from the gate to Kilimanjaro National Park. Sadly because it's winter its reeeally cloudy a lot of the time especially around the mountains so we didnt get to see it. Because it's the middle of winter here I would imagine there is snow on the top right now, but climbs take a minimum of 5 days up Kili and they're also very expensive.

As a side note, Kilimanjaro means something like "little hill up to the top" because it's such a gradual climb. We learned that a while ago :)

Explain the kitchen!!

Everyone was asking me a lot to explain what all that was in the post before hahah. Basically there's a big can that's "the stove" and they light coal fires in it for cooking. The pots and pans are just stored against the wall and food is always bought fresh every day. We have a fridge but it's just used to keep their drinking water cold most of the time or for cooling down fresh cut fruit for desserts on occasion. All the utensils they use are just hung on the wall or stored behind our Dada's bed. They really don't use anything else. It's very basic but the food is 10000x better than in Canada.

How do you do your laundry?

One bucket has soapy water, one has normal water, and a clothes line hangs up beside me :) haha.. That's pretty much it! I brought a brush that I use to clean our any stains but that's pretty much the whole process. I'm also not very good at it so everything I own here (which is all too big for me now anyways....) will need a few cycles in a washing machine when I get home I'm sure :P

Safari Part Three: Prey

I think one of my favourite parts about this safari was there was never a point where we weren't seeing animals and these are about 1/16th of the pictures I took... I painstakingly found the best ones out of about 650 :P. There were also a LOT of animals... herds and herds of them were everywhere and all mingling with each other. There were a few points where I had to remind myself that this is a real place and not just made by people to get money. The only thing made is the roads and everything else is natural but it looks like someone picked up animals from all over and stuck them in one spot. It was the most surreal experience of my life!!

These birds made the trees look white from a distance and it was really cool :) 

Giraffe (Twiga) :) right next to the road on the way to Oldupai.

BABY giraffe.... there were about 4 of them i think and later we seen a second family of them.

All by his lonesome... such a pretty picture :)

Some zebras (Pundamilia)  

Wildabeast and Zebras eeeeverywhere

Flamingos!! Thousands and thousands of them!! from a distance the water had a pink haze all the way around the edges on all sides.

Hippos laughing?? :P

Look closely in the background.... at the time i never noticed :P

Hippo butt!!

Black Rhino! They're really edangered and Ngorogoro is one of the last places in the world with rhinos in it.

Buffalo and Zebra

Zebras and a Bustard (we definitely thought our guide was saying Bastard at first)

This poor guy looked like he got attacked by a lion :( made us realize the lions aren't so cuddly

Ostrich ... wasn't expecting to see as many as we did

Judgmental Buffalo is judgmental

Ostrich running across the road... they're soooooo silly looking with their naked legs

Crown Cranes ... really pretty birds :) (and a warthog... they're everywhere)

Imalas ... it made me miss my car lmaoo

Warthog ... they run reeeeally silly and derpy. Whenever we seen one it was a comic relief moment.

FINALLY Got pictures of baboons!!! it made me so happy :D