Another Beautiful Day in Tanzania

ah, i'm enjoying my freedom at the base! each day i try to do something that will be a 'first' for me. today's first was that i slept in until 7.22 am. that's so stinking late. most of the student went home, so the girls dorm only had 4 people in it. i heard someone leave about 6.30 but i fell back to sleep. it was a beautiful thing! then about 7.22 the breakfast bell rung. how pleasant and splendid it was!

another first was eating at the local pizzeria from lunch. the pizza was actually pretty good - made with chicken and cheese. i'm sure that if i compared it to an american pizza it would fall miserably short, but since i've not had pizza in a very long time - it was pretty good.

tonight i've been catching up on some news from friends. some friends are traveling - laura and paul, some friend has a birthday today - kimberly, one friend is taking summer classes - janice, one friend is recently returned from family reunion - cheryl, one friend is living on faith that he is healed - dave, etc. oh it's good to hear news of my motherland.

my dts leader, gemma, delivered her baby boy on friday. he's a precious little child called joel. it will be great to see how he changes in the next 5 weeks. (that's how long i have left in tanzania.)

i've highly enjoyed my 2 days of freedom. taking little trips away from base and adventuring to moshi and boma has been great fun. i'm always up for a new adventure.

in the background i hear japheth giving a computer lesson to 2 of the other students. he is showing them how to use email. it's quite the treat listening to them, even tho i only understand a bit of what they are saying cuz it's mostly in swahili. teaching a lesson on how to use email is challenging, b/c the email programs use english and these people speak mostly swahili (with the exception of a few words.) that's a challenge i'm highly respecting japheth for taking!

i'm sitting outside on this beautiful africa night. it's abit cloudy this evening so the stars are not out, but the temp is just amazing. it's about 70 i would guess. there are still a ton of mosquitos, but i've used some strong bug spray, so they are not attack me quite as viciously as normal. and i've not seen an scorpions crawling along the ground.

tomorrow is wednesday, july 11th. that's crazy for me to think. i will return to america at the end of summer break. i'll have missed all of spring and most of summer. i've missed the changing of the trees, with they emission of yellow pollen. i'll have missed the summer trip with the youth group. i'll have missed many of the stories at work. i'll have missed so much more that i don't even know cuz i've not been there. but let me tell you, i'm certainly looking forward to hearing all about it when i return. it will be great! so be ready for me to ask many questions about what i've missed.

many of you keep asking me what i will do after i return to the States. right now i'm really looking forward to getting back to the normal life. i would like to take some night classes, maybe at tech school in woodstock or jasper. and i would really like to get an apartment closer to work, if thing work out. we'll see when i return what the status is. so that's i'm hoping for when i return.... but i'm also curious to know what i'm going to miss from africa. i'm wondering how my thoughts will change as time progresses. i'm wondering if i'm going to miss the people in the dorm who are constantly singing - or if i'm going to miss sleeping on the floor next to 10 other women - or if i'm going to miss my crummy, foam mattress - or if i'm going to miss cold showers (not gonna miss bathing in the river!) - or miss the food - or if i'm going to miss the swahili lesson (if you want to call them that!) - or if i'm going to miss not ever having to drive anywhere - or if i'm going to miss the cost of things here. oh so many questions. guess i'll have to wait and see.