The big recap

So I have had many complaints that people cant imagine where I live and what im doing. So here is a “day in the life of Meredith” email. Karibu maishi sana. (welcome my life very… but that’s the direct translation. Basically everyone says Karibu to everything… like welcome to my life, welcome to my house, welcome to the day, welcome to the “insert whatever word you want to put here”).

And many people don’t know that I still haven’t started teaching yet. In fact, I don’t start teaching until the 19th. Maybe. Hopefully that’s when I will start! And by hopefully I mean, IM REALLY NERVOUS. But I want something today all day, so yeah having students around would be fun!

But now that I think about it, lets start from the beginning, shall we? We first flew into dar, hung out there for a few days, and then headed to morogoro for training. PICTURES HERE

Then we lived in this wonderful world called Mji Mpya (PICTURES HERE) and I lived with a wonderful host family called the Nyaki’s (PICTURES). They were neat. And every week I got to hang out with a wonderful/crazy group of people called my training class (Pictures… at your own risk! Hahaha just kidding!).

Half way through our training we went on a safari to makumi national park. We got to see lots of animals running around… yeah like Twiga (giraffe. But its one of my most favorite words in Swahili!) and zebras just chillin together. It was really cool. But no lions, that was a sad day. (Pictures)

Right before we left for our sites we went to hang out with a volunteer and to see how they lived. Stephanie, Emily and I all went to the big land of Kilimajaro (which actually means the blessed mountain. I thought that was neat when I found that out!). We walked to a waterfall. It was beautiful. (Pictures here!)

The mountains in the background of this is Kenya!!!!

and the big giant itself!

Then we went to dar for our site announcements. To look at everyones fear click here! And then back to morogoro to hang out with our host families again for the last time and to be Sworn in as official Peace Corps Volunteers! Yippee! (pictures here!)

And that now leads us to my life in Mufindi. Now for the day in my life right this second… Well here it goes:
6:45 wake up to chickens, people walking around outside my house, or just because I cant sleep anymore.
7:30 I get out of bed. The first few weeks I had people hodi at my door (that’s basically the knock of Tanzania. You just stand outside the house and yell “HODI” so that they know your there) at like 6:30. and I refused to get up before 7:30. I thought I was setting a good standard. Jenny has people hodi her at like 5 in the morning. CRAZINESS.
7:30-8:30 or 9ish. Eat breakfast/read my book
9-12ish I read, clean the house, wash clothes… yeah pretty much try to do things around the house at this point
12-1:30 cook lunch and eat lunch
afternoon time: read my book again, walk around the school, talk to the neighbors, walk to the mission, walk to the dukas (which a bascically stores where you can buy things… but don’t think walmart… lets think more like gas station? Yeah but sometimes the gas stations might be better than the dukas here. But still the dukas are nice J )
5ish start to cook dinner!!!
Eat dinner around 8
8-until im tired: read, write, chill, watch a movie, listen to music

and then my day starts all over again at around 6:45ish the next morning.

Now that’s what you call a “normal” day. But to be honest I have been on the go so much lately that it doesn’t feel like that’s a normal day. My “abnormal” days normally consist of walking to peters house (7 miles away) walking to jenny and geoffs (4 miles away) and hanging out with them. When I go to peters we normally just talk and hang out. The walk to his house is very pretty…. Long but pretty! Jenny and Geoff’s is normally a different story. We hang out with the orphans, play with the monkey, walk around fox farms, visit people around the community. Yeah very random things!

So I have some pictures so that people will know what everything looks like!!! Here it goes! Click here!

In this picture if you look carefully you can see both my school and the mission. The mission is the top hill with red roofs. my school is on the lower hill with the white buildings. Ah home sweet home!

Well I actually hope that this works… because last time I tried to do this it didn’t work. Sadly! So wish me luck!!!!

Well im going to go now but I love all of you very very very much. I miss you.

Love mere