This weekend we have so many plans – a sign that we’re really settling in! Today we went to the sokoni and bought some animal print material for our Halloween costumes. We plan on sewing some skirts and headbands and showing them off at the Halloween Party on Saturday. We have also bought three boxes of jelly to take to the girls on the 31st to celebrate Halloween, which none of them have ever heard of. The thirty-first is also election day here although it is pretty much guaranteed that the CCM Party will win due to corruption. People around here are going election-crazy though, and are wearing bright yellow and green kangas, headscarves and banners to represent CCM. The president at the moment is Kikwete, and everyday there are articles in the newspapers about his questionable campaigning (they found a huge box full of CCM ballots already filled out in Arusha!) On a side note, talking about newspapers, we also read that Fiji had lost its declaration of independence and had to ask England for a photocopy (we laughed for about half an hour with Peter, the school driver). Imagine!
We’ve been cooking up a storm here as we’re tiring slightly of the daily ugali, beans, and rice. We made jam sandwiches and dipped them in batter to make doughnuts, we’ve attempted chapati, and we made a tuna and mosquito quiche (a delicacy in Tanzania…just kidding!) As we were sprinkling cheese on it we accidentally hit one of the many mosquitoes buzzing around, and it fell and sunk beneath the egg, but we ate it anyway. We were introduced to Mrs Fusi, our landlords wife and made the mistake of telling her that we liked to eat samahaki (fish) because we do – when its already prepared. We knew it was a big mistake as soon as we said it, and sure enough, the next day she brought us an entire frozen fish which we now have to thaw, gut, and de-eye. Ew.
We had a really good day yesterday with the girls and were helping them to write letters. Their English is coming along, but we always get some good laughs helping them to correct their writing. Our funniest yesterday was “I know school is liberation in my wife”. We had to explain the difference between ‘wife’ and ‘life’. We also got really cute messages like “I promise to always work hard in my studies.” There’s no doubt that these girls are dedicated to their futures and it is so rewarding to teach students who work so hard, and love to learn. ALSO big news: we both got a 96% on our Kiswahili exams! Yay! The girls were very proud of our studying!
Times have also been scary. For Camilla – the weekly spider eradication of our house, for Elena, the neighbours dog which sometimes gets locked in our garden and was rumoured to have attacked Mustafa. For both of us – the appearance of a meter and a half long (possible Cobra) snake at the school. Sytote, the Maasai guard, killed it with his special Maasai stick (which Elena loves) and brought it up to us to show. First, the girls poured kerosene on it which made it wriggle and seem alive (we don’t know how that works) and we could also see the mice it had eaten as lumps in it’s body! We then picked it up and held it by it’s tail before Babu Yona started chasing the shrieking girls around with it, turning it into a game.
So who won the election? I heard that the current president vowed to build a highway through Serengeti National Park if he was re-elected. But it has a lot of people around the world upset because of its impact on the ecosystem. We'd better get over there and see the animals before they are all gone!
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