mzungus

hey hey hey. so we started our placements on tuesday. i'm working at AMAP- African Modern Arts Park. Sahidi, who runs it, is really cool. Here's how the morning goes....

I wake up at 6:30. Get dressed, eat breakfast. We either walk or get dropped off at our placement and arrive at 8am. Some of the kids are already there and they run and greet us. We just hang out while they play in the yard and make sure they don't get hurt. Other kids arrive. There's usually about 50 total. Then we make a circle. We sing songs like Hokey Pokey, If you're happy and you know it, Old McDonald, and some others that I learned here. They show us how they can count to 100. And they sing this precious song that goes "we need you, we love you, feel at home" and i'm sure they have no idea what they're saying but it's still cute. Then we split them into 2 groups: the older kids and younger kids. Freddy and Jen go with the older ones (Jen is leaving this weekend though), and I take the younger ones. Sahidi helps me usually. Things get chaotic usually. We just teach them basic things like ABC, 123, and squares, triangles, and circles. They know some English, but only a very little bit. Then their attention runs out so we play in the yard until the porridge is ready. It's actually more like milky looking water but i'm sure theres some sort of caloric value. They also got a donation of books so they like looking at those. I point to things and say the English word and they repeat it. I don't know if they actually learn anything but the older kids are pretty smart so I'd like to think AMAP helped them to learn those things. Also it's better than having them wandering the streets getting into trouble. They're so little! I wish I could communicate better with them but.... I can't. So we make do. 

Today at CCS we had game day. We went to a field and played some soccer. Actually I mostly just stood there and then decided I was useless to the team so I watched from the side with Hanna. BUT THEN we played chase the chicken. Didase introduced it as chase the kitchen at first which made me laugh for hours. But basically they let a live chicken go in the field and the volunteers chase it around like fools until it is caught. It's hilarious. Doug caught it and let it go and then I picked it up. The poor thing was probably so scared so I just cuddled it and told it I wouldn't eat it. 

This weekend a bunch of us are going to Zanzibar. We have to make the 2+ hour drive to Dar and then catch a ferry to Zanzibar. I hope to God we take the Kili ferry and not the Sea Boat. I can't deal with boats that rock too much, or people that vomit all over the place. I guess I'll let you guys know next week how it went!

Next week a bunch of us are going to help Sahidi clean up the new location for AMAP. He's moving to a new place and Pili's shop will be there as well as AMAP and their living quarters. The yard for the children is full of garbage and sharp things they can hurt themselves on so we're going to try to fix it up a bit. Hopefully our efforts are successful. 

I think that's about all that is going on... oh the flies here are ridiculous. Amanda and I decided that those children in the Feed the Children commercials don't have flies on them because theyre poor, it's just because they're in Africa. I wish I had brought a fly swatter because I would spend my free time killing those annoying little shits. Even though it probably wouldn't reduce the number by much it would still make me feel better to get revenge. 

I'll post again next week if I have news!

-M

ps- the title of this blog is mzungus which means white people. that's what the kids call us on the street. it's not a derogatory term, it's more just like theyre stating a fact. i still find it weird. i don't think it would go over well if i came back to the states and started shouting "black person!!!" everytime i saw one. or even "white person!!!" for that matter. even the adults here call us mzungus. thanks for stating the obvious! I've been white for 21 years now.