Finally in Tanzania

7/31/07 9:15 p.m. Morogoro, Tanzania

I flew out of England after spending time with my godparents, great aunts and uncle and cousins and met Lacy for our long 8.5 hour flight to Dar Es Salaam. It finally hit me, there’s no turning back now, especially after taking out tons of my life savings for this trip. As we were approaching the run way I noticed how the scenery looked nothing like any other place I had flown over this summer or in my lifetime. The area was flat, dry and showed very little signs of human existence.
The plane landed at Dar Es Salaam airport and we pulled into one of three gates; this was quite a change from hustle and bustle of Hartsfield and Heathrow’s many terminals I had been experiencing. It was there we met Rev. Sandra McCann and her husband Martin. The greeted us with smiles and helped get our luggage in their Land Cruiser, a manual 4-wheel drive with the steering wheel on the right. As we were about to leave one of their former students, Darrius, came running up to the car for a ride back to Dodoma. So, the five of us drive through the crazy, wild, chaotic streets of Dar Es Salaam dodging Daladalas, taxis, bikes, bikes with loads of fruits and sorts and tons of people. I now understand what people are talking about when then describe the driving situation in Tanzania.
Sandy had us stop at the bank to withdrawal Tanzanian Shillings. After that we went to the South African Wal-Mart type chain of stores called Shoprite, a western type of store containing everything from produce to clothes. Lacy and I convinced Darrius to try red bull, explaining to him that “red bull gives you wings,” and we stocked up on WATER! When checking out in the line we quickly learned that the 10,000 notes we had is the highest note and NOBODY has change.
After the store we began the scenic route to Morogoro which is about three hours from Dar Es Salaam. The road we much nicer than inside of Dar, but this didn’t mean we were free from large potholes or random speed bums. Every village we passed through I noticed children in white shirts and purple/blue pants or skirts walking along the road from school bringing back buckets of water. The homes were usually made of mud with straw roofs, some of them tin. Every once in a while we would see members from the famous Maasai tribe. After a while we saw Baboons run across the ride, finally an animal other than a cow.
After a nap in the car I woke up to us pulling into the Lutheran Language School where I am living now for 1-2 weeks to learn Kiswahili. This area is really beautiful and modern. Lacy and I have connecting rooms, furnished (with mosquito nets) and showers with hot water!!!!! The school has internet and TVs. with some channels (most fuzzy). There is a dining area where we are fed, football (soccer) fields and basketball courts. Not to mention we have private language courses under a gazebo type hut at the bottom of the Uluguro Mountains.
Paradise, well maybe it sounds like it? It is Africa and we are lucky to be in such a nice modern place. Most villages we drove by were without power, water, and sewage. Honestly, Lacy and I were in a bit of culture shock when we arrived. The mosquito nets, heath warnings, and unfamiliar language was enough to make me wonder, “why did I leave my cozy life in Atlanta, I had a nice bed, malaria free mosquitoes, and reliable roads,” but after a cup of tea and a nice nap I was ready to face the adventure. By dinner I had met most people taking class at the school; they are from all over: Germany, Denmark, Poland, Italy, India, South America, and there is only one American. Her name is Jill, she has been such a great help here, showing us around and answering my 10 million questions. This girl is so interesting and I really admire her: she sings opera, lived in Argentina for 4 years and Kenya now for almost a year, speaks English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Swahili. The people here are taking classes for 10 weeks.
Tomorrow we start our day of classes. We begin with breakfast at 7:00 a.m., class until 12:00 with a tea break at 10:00, rest until 2:00 when class starts again until tea at 4:00 and then dinner at 6:00. This place I feel will be a transition place, exactly what I need to prepare me for Dodoma.

8/1/07 5:40 p.m.

It is my second day in Morogoro, Tanzania. I am going to try and write and post everyday, but as you can see I didn’t even post my entry last night. Oh and also I will probably talk a lot about food.
Today was my first day of Class. We woke up to no electricity and ate our breakfast by candlelight. For breakfast we had some kind of French toast tasting stuff which I put orange marmalade on, along with yogurt and nuts (not sure though) and this purple looking stuff that tasted gross. Most of the food is really good here and very similar to what we eat at home.
We began our day after that with morning devotion. We sang in Kiswahili, heard a few parables and finished with the lords prayer in Kiswahili (I want to memorize this, it think it is so cool)
Our lessons were really very interesting. Today I learned Greetings:

Habari gain, ndugu? (what it the news, friend)
Nzuri. Hujambo? (good, how are you)
Sijambo. (I’m ok)
Asante, Ndugu. (Thank you, friend)

This was our first dialogue!!!!

We learned a lot today. Mostly basic words and grammar, but at times I would blurt out a word with my American accent that sounded more like a mix between Swahili and Spanish. Oh, this really confused me at first---Si means yes in Spanish, but it means “is not” in Kiswahili. I really like our teacher she laughs with us a lot and we hope to teach her some slang English words, hehe.
Tea and lunch was very good today. We had chips at tea (so much for that diet). At lunch we had this potsticker looking thing filled with beef, rice and veggies, that spinach stuff again and tomato and cucumber salad.
I’ve really enjoyed this day and I feel less and less anxiety about being in AFRICA! The culture shock is wearing off and I am making friends with the other students from around the world. Lacy and I are even going hiking with the some students on Saturday through the Uluguro Mountains. Everyone here has such an amazing story to tell about where they’ve been and where they are going! The world feels much smaller here and globalization is very apparent. It amazes me how small the world is getting due to technology, and I felt right at home when I saw an ACON music video on TV this afternoon. Soon after, reality settled in when I counted my money and discovered that when I pushed the button to get out 400,000 TSH (the max you can get out of the ATM) it only gave me 200,000 TSH, ahh only in Africa!