Jambo! After three and a half days of travel, four flights, and a drive, I finally made it to our camp near Karatu, Tanzania. It’s very cool here. SFS recently leased the land for like 15 years, and all the buildings were just recently built and finished. We’ve been kept busy so far. We’ve gone through some orientation and learned some Swahili (habari=how are you?, kwaheri=goodbye, mambo=’sup? Etc…). Today we went into the village to break up into small groups and test our greetings with the locals. My group followed a road until we heard some drumming music, which we followed until we found a group of people drumming and dancing. I got to dance with them. That was pretty exciting. Then we walked through the clinic and saw some sick people, then came back to camp and played volley ball.
The group of kids that I’m with is great. They’re from all over, from Maine to Texas to Washington. I think we’re going to get quite close over the next few months.
The internet here is painfully slow. Skyping and other online chatting probably won’t be possible. We might get some cell phones, but I don’t know when we’ll get around to figuring that out.
Until next post! Kwaheri!
Jambo Devin! Dad and I are thrilled to read your first post from Tanzania! The visual of you following drumming music to meet new friends, then dancing with them is just incredible. Happy to hear you are liking your camp and your fellow students. Sending my love to you!!
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Exciting to hear from you! Anything outside of these cubical walls is exciting comparatively but your blog is exceptionally so. I can’t believe you are in freaking Africa. I swear to God you have to find a group of epic African singers and record an album that highlights the differences between your experiences there and your homeland.
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