Nyumbani means house in Swahili, and that is what I drew today.
This is a mud hut. There are a lot of them in the poor villages, because they are cheap to build. They are made of sticks and mud. Sometimes they use leaves for the roof, and sometimes they use corrugated metal.
We went on a walk today to check out the construction site of a hotel being built.
This is where they were poring the cement. They were working on the foundation. The women get paid 4 dollars a day, and the men get paid 5 dollars a day.
Rather than using cement trucks, the women would take the cement in the buckets to the place where it needed to be pored. It was a very slow process.
I can't imagine how long this whole thing is going to take. They don't have any of the tools that we use on a construction site. They got rid of a pile of dirt with a shovel rather than a giant machine one. They transported things in buckets rather than using a truck.
But one day, it will be a hotel. That day will be far in the future...
We went to the market first thing this morning. First we went to the grocery store and got sugar and bread and all the other basics. We are going to make cookies on Saturday, so we got ingredients for that. Then we went outside and bought some fruits from the vendors. There was a man who came up to us and tried to sell us some really cool artwork but by habit, I just tuned him out. Everywhere, everyone tries to sell you everything. Now that I think about it later, I wish I would have gotten something! Well, we bought some mangos and pinnapple, and this very large avocado... They are HUGE here!
We gave a soccer ball to the little boys and played with them for a little bit, but we came back when an older boy came along and was making us uncomfortable. We tried unlocking the gate, but it wouldn't open! It was going to be another 3 hours until Carol came home to let us in! One of the little next door neighbor boys got over the huge wall somehow and he let us in.
With three hours stuck at home, we found some interesting things to do...
| | I made some shaker eggs, which are plastic eggs with rice inside. We are going to use them for the choir
And I made a refreshing cup of lemonade with paper! |
Our maid named Tina came over today. She washed the clothes and mopped the floor. It is interesting how she cleaned the floor.
| | I guess they don't use mops here.
She always worked bending down. My back would hurt so bad if I tried doing the same thing! |
First thing today, we went to an orphanage. We went to a special needs orphanage. Families that have kids with special needs can't take care of them because they have lots of work to do, so they send them to this orphanage. Every few months, the children go back home for a little bit and visit their families. We happened to go to the orphanage during this time, so their were only about 3 kids there. I brought my accordion and played music, and we sang some songs. We definitely want to go back there when there are more people.
I didn't take any photographs at the orphanage, so here is a totally unrelated picture:
At around 1:00 we went to the bus stop, and waited for our bus, the Shabiby Line.
We saw many interesting things there:
-A lady holding a plastic bag with a chicken inside
You can't really tell in the picture...
-A man wearing 30 hats on his head
We actually spoke to him for awhile, and he taught us how to say hat man in
Swahili. (Keofia Wanaume)
-Green oranges
How can you can something orange that is green??
Yeah, if I would give this day a name, it would be called "pretty alright"
Today, we woke up at 6:30 and left to go on a hike in the mountains in Morogoro.
We started out and walked along the road. There were a lot of village people walking down the mountain to bring bananas and other things into town. The women would balance a huge basket of bananas on their head. They let us lift one of them to feel how heavy they were, and they must have been at least 30 pounds... here are a few pictures. It was difficult to get any good ones because they didn't like pictures, so we had to be secret about it.
We hired a man from one of the villages to be our guide on the hike. His name was Clinton. We paid him 20,000 shillings, which is about 12 dollars. Most of them make around 5 dollars a day, so that was pretty good money for him.
We walked through many villages during the hike. The higher we got, the poorer the people got. (it's opposite in the united states)
I am finally safe in Tanzania! I was on the plane for 21 hours. It was very boring and I couldn't sleep. I accomplished at least something during the flight though... I finally watched Indiana Jones for the first time in my life!
We arrived here at 3:30 in the morning
Here are the fun things that I have done during my first day in Tanzania:
-I slept a lot (jet lag)
-I went on a walk around Dar es Salaam
We got lost on our walk. We didn't have a map, or any money, so we had to ask around if anybody knew where our hotel was, but nobody understood us. Finally, we met a nice man named Alex, and he helped us get back.
-We went to a museum
It showed the houses and tools that different tribes used.
There was also a band there with dancers
There was a bunch of children on a field trip at the museum
They loved it when we took pictures and showed it to them, and they all wanted to shake our hands
-We rode a bajagi home, which are three wheeled cars.
They are crazy drivers! They just weave in and out of traffic, and they drive along the side of the rode to maneuver around the slow cars. I wish I had a picture!
Anyways, it has been a fun day!
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