Fun Facts

I gave the family some VHS tapes I brought and they loved them!

Some fun facts and random observations:
• On the soap opera about HIV\AIDS yesterday, the boy in the show was wearing a Lakers jersey and a UNC hat!
• I saw a place with a sign for TechnoServe and also a place where they sell MoneyMaker Pumps!!!! I studied both of these NGO’s last semester. Check them out – they are really cool organizations.
• I found out two of my brothers, Stephan and Winston, speak a little Spanish. Winston apparently speaks Spanish better than English so I’ll have to try speaking to him.
• The power went out for a while today – it goes out sometimes and without warning or a good reason. Luckily I had brought a headlamp and two crank flashlights that don’t need batteries. My family loved them and used them for the rest of the night
• I have seen very few mosquitoes – they aren’t bad here at all, nothing compared to Zanzibar
• They call Zanzibar Zengi and Arusha A-town
• Zanzibar, Arusha, and Dar have different accents, but Zanzibar Swahili is apparently the original Swahili
• Some people here like country music! They said it is usually associated with older people. Baba and Clemens and I talked about it and they said they like artists like Kenny Rogers.

SUSTAIN FOUNDATION: I met with Emanueli and Irene to go over some of the plans for the summer. I gave them their business cards, which they were pretty excited about. They didn’t really know how to use them so I explained situations in which we should and should not use the business cards. I told them that we will have chances to practice.

I also met with all of the Sakina Scholars! It was so great to finally meet them. They all went to the same primary school together but now go to 6 different secondary schools between the 11 of them. Many of them were pretty shy, so I asked them lots of questions and used my limited Kiswahili, which made them laugh. They have different levels of English, but they took turns teaching me Kiswahili. One boy, Elias, taught me different animal names and said that he is going to give me a test the next time we meet. They range in age from 14 to 16. Most of them said their favorite food is ugali, which is a white, rice and corn based type of flavorless bread that you eat with stew and vegetables. In terms of music, they all like hip-hop, reggae, and bongo flavor. I memorized all of their names, which for anyone that knows me, is quite a feat. Hopefully I can post a picture soon!

Vocab word of the day:
Mbuzi – goat
Ngombe – cow