When I was younger the coolest thing there was to see at the Texas Zoo were the bears.  Needless to say, it wasn't that much fun, but hopefully they were doing something interesting, and if not we'd yell their name, wave our arms, snap our fingers or whatever to try and get their attention and apparantly that was entertainment enough.  Well, the tables have turned and I am now the animal at the zoo that everyone comes to watch.

At first it was expected, and it has certainly died down a lot since then, but after being here for 10 months I don't understand the intrigue of watching me wash clothes or dishes, or sweep my porch.  Having people stand outside my fence commenting, pointing and giggling is just bizarre.  Or in town people, mostly kids, will yell my name until I turn around and then have nothing to say.  While that stuff is annoying at times, the one entertaining aspect for me is terrifying children to the point of tears just by being white.  It happens at least once a week.  I was walking home from school recently when a little girl dressed all in pink came singing and skipping along from behind her house, and when she saw me, stopped dead in her tracks, screamed, and ran back to her house crying.  You really can't do anything but laugh at that because there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

I went up to Chidya this weekend with 8 other PCVs to visit our friend Justin at his site.  The night before, about 6 of us were in Masasi and went to a Tanzanian party we think was put on by the hospital.  Maybe it was International Nurses Day, I'm not sure, but the theme of the party was Florence Nightengale.  It was the strangest party I’ve ever been to for sure.  When we arrived we walked into the hall where there were rows and rows of plastic chairs set up like there was going to be an assembly, and everyone was sitting facing forward and not talking.  After about an hour of being a spectacle because we had moved our chairs into a circle so we could talk, someone announced on a scratchy microphone that food was ready so we got in line to get our dinner of chicken ( I got the neck) and chipsi and 3 beers.  You get all your drinks at once, and after about an hour everyone is drunk and up dancing.  It was a good time.  The next afternoon all 9 of us got to the bus stand to see that the regular lorry that goes up to Chidya wasn’t running and it was just an open back extended jeep that was already half filled with tomatoes and bicycles and there were about 9 people already waiting.  It was quite possibly the most uncomfortable and most dangerous ride I’ve gotten since being here.  When we finally got to Chidya, Justin and Steph had prepared a ton of delicious food and even banana cake and chocolate donuts for desert!  We all went out to the cell phone service spot that evening to check to see if we had any messages and on the way back ran into a huge group of boys playing soccer and decided that making a human pyramid with them would be a good idea.  It provided a lot of laughs, some great pictures and the kids of course loved having their picture taken.  The next morning everyone but Josh and I left, and on the way back the car was, of course overloaded, and tipped.  No one was hurt and it ended up being another good photo op.  Josh, Justin and I hiked about 2 hours to the Mwiti River and then waded a few kilometers up the river just to explore.  When we got back, sunburned and exhausted, we played guitar, exchanged tabs and made bagels w/ cream cheese for dinner.  Awesome day all in all.

I’ll be heading up to Kilosa for a training soon.  I get to be PCV of the week during training for the new group that’s coming in June, and I’m pretty excited about it!  June and July are going to be a busy two months with a whole lot of traveling coming up but it’s all going a ton of fun!  I’ll keep you posted as best I can.  Hope everyone is doing well and having as much fun as I am!