Morogoro, Tanzania

We've arrived! These past two days have been a blur of Swahili, dust roads and meeting new people. We woke up on the airplane Friday morning to stunning views of the sunrise over Nairobi, Kenya and Mt. Kilimanjaro. When we arrived in Dar es Salaam, the immigration process went smoothly and we found ourselves whisked away from the airport by Polly's driver, Abbas. Looking out the window, we saw the morning chaos of the city: bikes carrying huge stacks of egg cartons and bundles of grass, cars swerving into the oncoming lane, men waiting on the side of the street for the Dala Dala bus, and women wearing colorful kangas carrying huge buckets of water on their heads. We drifted in and out sleep as we passed through many small villages with tiny mud buildings and makeshift markets. In Mikumi national park, we awoke to the sight of a couple of baboons or Nyani lounging by the side of the highway. Morogoro is larger than we expected and has one main cement road going through the center, connecting a maze of smaller red dust roads. It is the dry season, so the dust manages to spread everywhere and everything- houses, plants, people- is covered in a layer of rust colored dust. When we went to the Sega Girl's School, we were greeted with a heartwarming welcome dance and were immediately surrounded by eager girls wanting to talk to us. We got a tour of the school, then spent a while getting to know some of the formal girls, who live at the school and speak English well. The non-formal girls are day students, wear red skirts and don't speak as much English. We sat in on a religion class, which is split into two- Muslim and Christian- as the school is 50 percent each. It was very different from any class we've ever been to because both the teachers and students were very passionate and kept chanting Amen! Later, we met with the staff of the school, who gave us our schedule, it looks they're planning on keeping us very busy! Our classes involve life skills, swimming, English, nutrition, music, drama and debate. Lol. It will definitely be a challenge, because we are not experienced teachers and we will be working mostly with the non-english speaking students, but we are ready to face it! Today we went back to the school and showed the girls many photos of our families and friends. They loved it, and many of them wanted to keep the photos, even though they don't know anybody in them! We're not sure what they are planning to do with them, but the girls seemed ecstatic to have them. They also gave us lessons in Swahili, which they plan to do every week and today's focus was body parts. We also learned a Swahili song, with a beautiful melody and these lyrics: "Wito wetu niukombozi, Elimutuipatayo itukomboe." This translated means "our motto is liberation, the education we get should liberate us."