That warm fuzzy feeling

Five days have passed, days that a week ago may have felt long and drawn out but now they have passed in an instant. I think I hit that stride that others have spoken of so often and I have turned my head stuck on the passing of the time until there was no time left.

Admittedly, I type as I watch the modern version of Romeo + Juliet which may have some affect on my writing. How fun it would be to be able to write a blog in old English, of course in a way that I could understand myself.

Last Friday evening after work I accepted a ride into town with the end of the day shuttle. William, Yusuph and Alphonce were all on their way to town in the van driven by Abel so I thought, why not save myself some time and energy? They dropped me off near the Barclays and I took my time wandering through a curio shop before deciding on a few post cards and falling slightly in love with some purses I dared not ask for their prices.

Not sure of exactly how I wanted to start my weekend, but knowing that I did not want to get stuck in another awkward evening with a coworker, I decided on the Tanzanian Coffee House, where I could eat and check my email, at the same time if I chose. I sat down at a cute little patio table in the back where it is open and garden like, but also where I could see through the café out into the street and watch the market packed up for the evening.

I had just ordered a tuna bagel sandwich and an iced coffee when I saw a woman stick her head out and look around. Thinking the mzungu was lost I asked if I could help her find something. She said that she had just noticed another mzungu and had to see what I was doing.

Elizabeth, and her husband Wes, joined me for dinner and we chatted about our own experiences in Tanzania and back home. They are an older couple, I dare not guess their ages, but they have grandchildren, and are here for the third time volunteering from Seattle. I found it was a really nice way to spend a Friday evening here and when we were told the café was closing, they offered to walk me to the other internet café that I frequent, since it was dark by this point and I shouldn't have been walking the streets alone. We exchanged numbers and they said they would be in touch with dinner plans and to let me know of any excursions they do in the area with their car (!).

The internet café was quite a disappointment, as the speed of the internet was painfully slow and the café was filled with locals who are not trained in how to gawk with discretion.

Saturday morning I woke up bright and early and went to the office to abuse, I mean use, the internet before my first support group was set to start. It was difficult to get the Askari's attention (the guard) to let me into the compound but I had my own key to the office so once he opened the gate I was good to go. About 15 minutes before the group was to start I headed down to the children's programs area to find out that Ezekiel had been looking for me. The group was to be postponed because the students were busy preparing for a show that occurs the last weekend of every month. *sigh* I think part of me was relieved that I would not have to lead the group, but I was also disappointed that I had stayed in town the extra day to find out I was not needed. But all things happen for a reason.

I hurried home to grab my packed bag and walked half way to the bus stop before accepting a 3,000 TSH taxi ride to the station. I found a bus right away and was on my way to Arusha before 11am. When I arrived in Arusha I text Anna and Katrijn and learned they were at the New Arusha hotel at the pool, so I found a taxi and headed straight there. Unfortunately, because I had not taken this taxi route before the driver totally ripped me off and charged me double what Anna and Katrijn had paid. Oh well, what can you do?

Walking into the New Arusha hotel is like walking into the luxurious African adventures you only read about (or live, if you are fortunate to have that kind of disposable income). Dark wood and marble fill the lobby and on the way to the pool you walk through lush greenery which is sparse in other parts of the area. Even the beautiful purple flowered trees line parts of the courtyard surrounding the pool and little purple blossoms are blown from the trees into the pool and onto the sun bathers throughout the afternoon.

I settled in quite smoothly onto my cushioned lounge chair and clean green towel. Finally in a space where covered knees and shoulders were not expected I slipped into my bathing suit and covered myself in SPF 45 sun tan lotion, lay back and relaxed. The afternoon stretched long but was peaceful. I ordered a fruit tray and a coke from the server, both overpriced, but hey! I was at a posh hotel. The pool felt amazing in the harsh afternoon sun. Even though I spent more time out of it than in it. Eventually the sun began to descend and it became cool out.

Anna was to catch her flight home so we all changed and headed up to the patio for one last drink before she had to leave. For some reason we settled on Pimms and lemonade, which really was just a shot of Pimms in a glass with a Sprite. Emma, a British volunteer who is living not far from Moshi, joined us, then Robert and another volunteer whose name escapes me, also joined us at our little table. Then it was time to say good-bye to Anna. By now she has already been home for a few days and had to start back at work right away because she works in the financial sector and will be quite busy with the crises that are going on right now in the world.

Katrijn and I caught a taxi and went to the Backpackers to find a bed for me, because the Coyote where she was staying only had double rooms left which would cost much more than a dorm bed at the Backpackers. I checked in for 2 nights at $16 US for the weekend and we agreed to meet up in about an hour to make dinner plans.

I discovered that my new "roommates" were a girl from New Zealand with her boyfriend who were travelling with her father. Her dad lives in the UK and every year they meet up somewhere in the middle and travel. So this year it is Tanzania for 5 weeks. Very cool! Although the whole travelling with your boyfriend and your dad thing, I'm not so sure about. I'd love to hear Erin's take on that :)

Katrijn met me at the Backpackers and we headed to Via Via for dinner. It is a nice restaurant on the other side of town. There was a huge wedding going on in the main area, and I mean huge. There were rows and rows of people in chairs. The music was very all inclusive resort and cheesy, but the restaurant area where we sat was nice and the food was good. I had Tilapia with a creamy dill sauce and chips on the side, with a glass of watermelon juice. Just after we ordered Corey text Katrijn asking what our plans were for dinner, which was funny because she had tried to get a hold of him before we left for the restaurant with no luck. Turns out he had headed to her hostel to pick her up after we had left, but it all worked out and he joined us for dinner.

After dinner and some drinks it was getting late and Corey dropped Katrijn and I off, with some vague plans for lunch the next day. I arrived at a good time since my new roommates were also preparing for bed and I didn't want to wake them up by arriving late. The beds at the backpackers are incredibly comfortable, or maybe my bed in my house isn't? but I felt as if I might as well have been on a Sheraton premium mattress with a special pillow. Granted, the noise of the city outside was almost unbearable and made it very difficult to sleep, but I almost didn't care because I was so comfy on my bunk.

In the morning Katrijn and I decided we would meet at Shoprite after breakfast for some grocery shopping then grab a coffee. I put on my dress that I bought before leaving Canada, but realized is slightly shorter than my knees and not quite work wearable, but Arusha wearable, and I headed to down the road. The good news was that Woolworths was open on Sunday morning, the bad news was that the prices were horrendous! I couldn't believe it. When I was in South Africa the prices at the Woolworths in Stellenbosch were totally affordable, but here in Tanzania the prices of pants were in the $60-70 range for pants of not great quality. So much for being able to buy a pair of pants easily.

I wandered into the Shoprite a bit early and took my time going up and down each aisle. Most of the food I was interested in, I could find in Moshi, but I did pick up a few items that I hadn't found in Moshi yet. Including some hand towels and soup. They had almost everything you could imagine in this giant store, including microwaves! So tempting, but no. I even found their kettles but for 23,000 I am ok with my leaky one that only cost 5,000.

I ran into Katrijn when I was almost through the store and wandered around with her while we talked about different ways to cook things here. I eventually wound up grabbing some candy to take to the kids at the support group.

We dragged our coffee out quite long at the café down the road then tried to find some open shops to kill time in. Not many stores are open on Sundays and the ones that were, carried odd things, like the furniture/clothing store that had a small area of clothes at the front and nice proper furniture filling the rest of the large space. We wound up at the backpackers and had just ordered cokes when Corey called and said he was on his way for lunch. I don’t think I've ever drank pop that fast before but we managed to finish and meet Corey when he was on his way up the stairs.

This is the most exciting part (not really, but still) We went for Sushi!!!!!!!!! They do have sushi in Tanzania. I was incredibly excited. I ordered a full roll of tuna California rolls that were filled with raw tuna, avocado and cooked marinated carrots. So yummy. I think I was still full from the coke though because I wasn't able to finish all eight rolls despite my excitement.

After lunch Katrijn headed back to Longido and Corey dropped me off at the Backpackers where I discovered I had been moved to a different dorm. This time I was sharing with 2 girls from Scotland, Susie and Jacci, and Chris who is from Colorado. I stayed long enough for introductions then headed back to the hotel for more swimming. This time the pool was less crowded but the groups of young travelers had been replaced by 4 very active and vocal kids in the pool. I finished my book early in the afternoon and spent most of the time just relaxing and doing some lengths of the pool to be somewhat active. After a while of relaxing, Robert, one of older the Mondo volunteers showed up and we chatted until the sun started going down and it was again time to head back to the hostel.

By this point I had learned some tricks and was able to convince a taxi driver to take me back for a lesser fare by tell him I paid much less to get there. Turns out this works, really well.

By the time I got back to the hostel I was pretty hungry and went upstairs to order dinner. The restaurant was very quiet but the setting sun made for excellent photo ops. After eating some chicken curry with mango juice I thought I would take advantage of the free internet, but just after signing on, Chris (my new roommate) came up and invited me to join him and the girls for a dinner out. I figured, it was either go with them for some drinks, or stay in the hostel all night, so I accepted his invitation.

It turned out they were heading to L'Oasis Lounge, a restaurant at a hotel just outside of town, down a crazy dirt bumpy road that lead to another dirty bumpier road to a fortress of sorts. The hotel is a number of small huts and a little house on stilts out in the middle of what appears to be nowhere by the base of Mount Meru. When we walked in the power was out and there were a few people from an overland tour sitting in small groups around the restaurant. The atmosphere was so peaceful and inviting, huge padded chairs and couches with small tables and lanterns. We made ourselves comfortable and settled in with the menu. I started with a Kili beer and checked out the dessert menu. The others ordered what looked amazing (prawns & rice in banana leaves, etc) and tasted yummy (Jacci's Kilimanjaro nachos). I decided on the Chocolate bowl, which was melted chocolate infused with rum and some nuts warmed with a scoop of Mango ice cream on top. It was amazing. This tiny little bowl with so much flavour! After dinner we ordered some coffees and I have since learned that in Tanzania if you want a real coffee you have to order an espresso or some other fancy coffee because otherwise they serve you instant. The real coffee is too valuable an export that it is too expensive to buy here! Such a shame.

We called our taxi driver to come and pick us up then wandered the grounds of the oasis. Definitely a pick for someone honeymooning there, or just looking for a relaxing enchanted escape. Maybe I'll treat myself in the coming months!

Back at the hostel I thought this would be a great time to find family and friends online, but Chris beat me to the computer. He said he wouldn’t be long, so I went downstairs to get my things packed up a bit to save time in the morning. When I went back up to the restaurant/bar where the computer is, I sat down beside Chris, and a girl came over, flicked her cigarette in the ash tray on the table and said "I hope you know I’m waiting for the internet". I was successful at not laughing at her. She looked like she was trying so hard to be tough. I said OK and then turned to Chris and smiled. He said he was almost done, but I decided that since I wanted to go on msn and chat, not just check my email, it would be better to do that without a snarky girl breathing down my neck. I passed Jacci on my way downstairs and warned her about the "lineup" she laughed and said she would tell the girl to hurry up, because she needed to check her email. That made me feel better. After only a few hours I knew Jacci would be able to get the girl to buzz off without a fight breaking out.

That night it was surprisingly quiet in the hostel but I was again enjoying my comfy mattress and 7am came way too soon. I was to meet Corey at 8:30 for supervision.

After booking a single room for next weekend (tiny bit of luxury and security! No lockers are in the dorm rooms, you really have to trust your roommates), I went to the post office to mail a couple post cards and my election ballot! Democracy in action at the Meru Post office! While in line, Corey called to say he was running late, so I walked back to the hostel and relaxed on one of the couches with some tea, Chris and a girl who had just arrived and would be volunteering out Serengeti way for a few months.

Chris was going to head to the Rwanda war crimes hearings for the day and I was incredibly jealous and disappointed that I didn't bring my passport so I could go along with him. I mentioned this to Corey over breakfast and he seemed interested in organizing a day out of it, so hopefully that works out or I will just have to head there myself on my next free day in town.

After my supervision meeting with Corey, over an eggs and toast at McMoody's (yes, it is a McD's clone), I headed to the bus station to start my journey back to Moshi. I found the bus station very quiet and relaxed, which seemed incredibly odd, and the boy I stopped to confirm which bus I should be heading to was so polite and didn't harass me to buy anything. Granted, while waiting the 20 minutes for the bus to leave, probably 7 or 8 guys came and knocked on my window shoving things in my face. I finally gave in and bought time for my phone, which I needed anyway, but generally spent my time saying "Hapana asante" "Hapana" and "NO" when my Swahili didn't work.

The man beside me on the bus was very nice and we chatted a bit about the long slow bus ride and he attempted to teach me some new words in Swahili. Finally I arrived in Moshi, incredibly hot in my rain coat which I had put on for protection from the light rains in Arusha.

I took advantage of being in town and went to Aleems, a popular supermarket and bought some pasta sauce and wafer cookies. I noticed they even sell tampons there, which I had been told was unheard of in Tanzania. Then I headed across the road to the bakery and bought a loaf of fresh bread and an apple turnover. They had some huge Challah looking bread but it was labeled "ABA", I was tempted to buy some as a small Rosh Hashana gift to myself but I knew I could never finish the loaf myself before it would go bad.

I wound up walking the whole way home with my stuffed backpack and bags of groceries from Arusha and Moshi because I didn’t come across any taxis with drivers in them. Perhaps this is normal for midday, but there were many taxis parked along the road looking lonely with no owners. The walk was incredibly hot and by the time I got home I was very sweaty and excited to get out of my rain coat and drink a ton of water. I gave myself an hour to relax and read one of the books Corey loaned me while unwinding before heading into work.

By the time I got to work it was after 3pm and I realized when I got there that I had forgotten the adaptor for my laptop. Since the others from my office were spending Monday and Tuesday in Arusha I used my brief computer time to catch up on emails and prepare for Tuesday's group. I was home before 4:30. Took a nice nap (the hot walk home from the bus station wiped me out) and made some chicken soup, Mr. Noodle style thinking of the yummy dinner my dad was preparing back home for Rosh Hashana (thanks for the detailed text dad :)

This morning (Tuesday) my plan was to get up early to do laundry before work, yes you can laugh, but decided sleep was more important and I showed up a few minutes late for the morning meeting, but as usual, my late is never late enough to be last.

Again I used the empty office to catch up on emails and even decided to finally get the virus protection this computer was waiting for. Lunch today at the centre was Ugali with baked beans and cabbage. But the beans were cooked with other vegetables today and actually had a bit more flavour than usual.

Hilda came to tell me that tomorrow is Eid so it is a holiday! I'm definitely not used to finding out that public holidays are occurring the day before they happen and have no idea what I'll use this random free time for, but I imagine I'll end up in the office using the internet to post this :) after I finish my laundry of course!

This afternoon was great. Super great. I was nervous about my first support group but had no reason to be, even though my expectations were way off. Ezekiel had to go into town last minute and said there would be someone else to replace him. I was a bit irritated only because I had shown him my plan and discussed what I thought would happen so he would have an idea and be able to help, but not having any control over the situation, I decided to go with it. Oh and I forgot that when I hunted him down earlier to ask how many boys had confirmed he said 9 had but he thought 15 might show up!!! 15!!! I had earlier suggested 8-10 would be the perfect number. I had to put my foot down, a group of 15 would be like a class, this was supposed to be a supportive group, max 10. He agreed.

At ten to five (five was our decided start time) I went down to the children's program area to greet Respit (I think that is how he might spell his name…sorry!). He went around gathering the kids and sending them to the dining hall. I joined them then asked them to sit around one of the tables with me. I think they were nervous too! One of them said he was going to get a teacher, which made me a bit concerned but he came back with Daddy (one of the assistant social workers) and he joined us at the table. It turned out that 6 boys came to the first group but a few others wanted to come and weren't able today. The boys ranged from 15 to 17 in age, which was much older than I expected but I was amazed by how great they were. I generally have experience working with kids under the age of 11 so this was entirely new, but so great. 5 of the boys speak a fair bit of English but they were all eager to help the one boy who doesn't speak English well, or Daddy was patient explaining things to him in Swahili and to me in English.

I know I'm biased, but I felt it was a very comfortable relaxed environment. We wound up using most of the time going over confidentiality and group guidelines, but I could feel the group coming together. We decided as a group that we would meet on Saturday mornings from 9-10am but this week they all wanted to attend an international rugby match that is happening at the International school, and I had already booked into the hostel in Arusha, so we agreed to meet a week from Saturday.

I really hope that Daddy can join us again for the other groups because from what I saw today, he is incredibly talented at working with the boys. They obviously respect him and he sets a very encouraging and welcoming tone for both the group work and the translating. I'm very excited to start more work with this group. They are also very eager to learn English so I am going to look into buying them notebooks to help them learn the new words we go over. My main goal is to provide a safe space for them to talk about their experiences and learn problem solving, emotions management and some life skills, but if I can work out a way to do this so they can learn English too, even better for all of us.

On a side note, there is the cheesiest soap opera on tv right now. I think it was originally filmed in Spanish (based on any writing that has shown up on screen) but is dubbed over in English with voices that do not suit the actors. All these women keep hitting on this really dark handsome man but he has just confessed to his best friend that he has a crush on another man! The blond girl is really annoying. Oh wait. Um, the blond girl just had a "thought moment " where we could hear her thinking that this was the first time she had fallen in love with some one who's sex had been changed. Now there is a man mocking a woman for having a bruise on her face…but wait! His wife punched her, it wasn’t the door knob. Seriously. This is on tv. I must find out what it is called so I won't miss episodes when I go back to Canada.