From the Internet Cafe in Moshi

Ok, I'm trying to upload pictures today but the Internet cafe here in Moshi is very full right now and the connection is slow. I've tried twice so far to upload a single picture of Mt. Kilimanjaro that I took yesterday morning from just outside my room. I may have to come back some other day when there are less people here. I know everyone wants to see pictures, and I've got some good one's to share, but in Tanzania you never know what will happen. Ha! Victory! I think that took about 5 minutes to upload. If I get ambitious later I'll try another one.

I've started to get into a rhythm here after my second week, now that I'm used to the heat. My day starts at around 6:30 in the morning, I wake up when the sun comes up. I take a quick shower and get dressed for my placement. Breakfast for all the volunteer's is down stairs and outside in the garden under a large tin roof. Usually I have some oatmeal with brown sugar, egg's if there are any that morning, and a cup of instant coffee. Even thinking about hot coffee right now is making me sweat a little, but in the morning before the sun gets too high the coffee is nice.

At about 7:30 we all get on one of the two van's that CCS uses for transporting their volunteer's. Usually there are around 10 people per van, some people are close enough to walk from home base. The drive for the most part feels like a Disney ride, with the van going over uneven and rock filled dirt roads. Most of the roads in Tanzania are made of a very hard dirt and rock mixture, only in Moshi and on the "highway" is there any pavement.

Volunteer's are dropped off in one's and two's at their various placements, schools and nursery's mostly, and those remaining bounce along and stare out the windows. Mine is one of the last stops, and we arrive around 8:20 or so. There is one other CCS volunteers with me, a girl named Haley, who has been working in the pre-school class. We teach until 10:00 when there is a break for the kids to have a snack and the teachers have tea. Around 12:00 the CCS van picks us up and brings us back to home base for lunch at 1:00.

For the last couple weeks we have had various programs in the after noon, from cultural lectures on health or gender issues in Tanzania, to Swahili lessons, and some feed back meetings. Next week is my last with such busy schedules, then I will have much more free time, and I will hopefully be able to come to town and post more pictures here.

At 6:30 we have dinner, and after dinner most of us hang around, play cards and other games, and read before bed. Most of the volunteer's go to bed early, between 8:30 and 10:00. It sounds early, but we get up early, and once the sun goes down here there isn't much to do. Lately we have been watching movies on various people's laptops, street vender's in Moshi sell bootleg compilation dvd's with up to 20 movies on each. Since I've been here I don't believe I have been up later than 11:00pm more than once. Being here takes allot out of you.

Alright, I'm going to try to upload one more picture, then call it a day for this post. Humm.... nope, it doesn't want to, oh well. Talk to you later.