So, we are spending this entire week pretty much at the schools we are interning at. I will be teaching my first lesson on Wednesday. I'm doing Form 1 English--I met the teacher in charge of that level today. He's very nice! His name is Jonas and he was excited to meet me. We also re-met a lot of the student teachers who will be interning with us. Most of them are humanities teachers (Swahili, English, Commerce, Geography etc.), and none of them are teaching science. Most of the teachers at the school also are humanities teachers--apparently science teachers are hard to come by. Makes me feel like I'm copping out as an English teacher/someone with a B.A in Government & Italian Studies. Oh well. We were asked by multiple people if we wanted Tanzanian husbands/what our relationship status was. I said I was engaged, and Michelle said she had a boyfriend. They applauded our faithfulness, but questioned it for sure. Then one of the guys started asking if I could hook him up with an American friend, but Sam told him that he didn't want an American wife because "they're too much work." I hadn't thought to say that, even though we have been told to use that argument when they ask to be hooked up, so I'm glad he remembered. In any case, three marriage proposals today was plenty for me. I guess I should expect more in the future according to other PCVs, so I might invest in an engagement ring. I was also asked to give out my number, but I failed to do so. They weren't very impressed by our lack of willingness to give out our digits, but I didn't want to send any false messages.
Anyway, about the Safari! It was a bit disappointing to be honest. Didn't see nearly as many animals as I would have liked....so I will have to go on another one and do it right next time. Mistakes we made:
1) Going via bus and not via safari car. Whoever gave us the advice that buses were great was VERY mistaken. Windows hardly opened, bus made crazy amounts of noise and scared off the animals, and we were not allowed to go on the bus roof as promised. I was not happy about the decision in retrospect.
2) Not paying less than a $1 per person for a tour guide. I saw no lions and barely any elephants. They were hiding in elephant grass. It made me sad. Maybe a guide would have helped.
3) Going late in the afternoon. We didn't really have time to see a lot of things/not all animals were out and about. I think we saw more things along the highway the next morning than we did in the park the afternoon before.
It was a lot of fun, however! A nice party/get-away/vacation of sorts. At night I got to dance and hang-out with people. It was great. One girl in our group did fall into a sewage pit, however. Like...fell literally up to her eyeballs in human feces. Slight mouth opening as well. Pretty horrifying, but she handled it amazingly well. Or so I was told--I missed out on the event because I was already asleep. Apparently the smell was beyond unbearable, and her clothes were pretty much destroyed in the process. But she was a super-trooper and laughed it off. I dunno if I would have been so good about the whole thing. I just hope she doesn't get horribly sick from the whole thing...I can only imagine what was in there....
In other news, my host bibi (grandma) is over, in addition to a bunch of cousins of different kinds. It's very busy in my house!!
More info later. Went out for Sam's birthday tonight at a bar in Kihonda. Good times.
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