Week Seven

I returned to my 3rd and 4th graders this week, after the school reopened from the Easter holidays. But sadly, it was only open for four days. The school is officially closed for the rainy season long break, so I will spend the rest of my time in Tanzania working at the Kili Kids orphanage. My last week at school was incredibly bittersweet, I was very heartbroken to leave my wonderful students, but thankful for the time I have had with them and touched by their sweet goodbyes.

I asked one of the teachers at the school to explain to the kids in Swahili that I would not be returning when they came back to school after rainy season, because I wanted to sure they all understood what was going on. I was glad I explained my departure to them, but it was hard to listen to their responses. I was flooded with questions of when I would return to Tanzania and if I would ever be their teacher again, on top of many of them flat out begging and pleading with me not to go. Despite their sadness, and my own sadness over saying goodbye, we enjoyed our last few days together and learned some "fun" English as well as played games and sang English songs.

On my last day I brought the kids lollipops, and you would have thought I was handing them a million dollars! We had a great celebration of our time together and most of them had made me precious goodbye cards with touching notes written in clever mixtures of Swahili and English. When I get home I plan to laminate everything they gave me and bind it together so I can always have something to remind me of just how wonderful and special my Tanzanian students were! My favorite notes were the ones where the kids made an obvious effort to include their favorite English words I taught them, such as eye and chicken!

My 4th graders sang to me for about ten minutes straight a traditional Swahili farewell song, it filled my eyes with tears, but I was able to pull myself together when they all cracked me up by asking for my autograph! I'm not sure why they wanted it, but I thought it was quite funny and it helped me laugh rather than cry as I left their class.

I actually just found a note one of my fourth graders hid in my book-bag as I was sitting down here at the internet cafe and rifling through to pull out my camera. It says verbatim:

"Thank teacha Elice fo teach me English. I lave you. - Eliwiza" I of course choked up again when I read it. I cant believe in such a short time how much these kids touched me! I hope they learned half as much from me as I learned from them. Here are some pictures from our celebration:

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Parsley

I have mentioned earlier in my posts that I have particularly bonded with one special little boy, Parsley, at the orphanage I visit. Parsley is HIV positive and since I have known him his health has been sadly declining. The week before Easter he had to be hospitalized because he had a very high fever, couldn't eat, and was losing weight rapidly. Because he was admitted so close to Easter, the doctors were not working and it was hard to get the tests and medical attention he needed. I was very worried I might not ever see the little guy again, but then on Easter morning I got a wonderful surprise! After all the rest in the hospital Parsley was well enough to come home! When I saw one of the orphanage workers walk in with Parsley in her arms on Easter my whole heart smiled!
Last week I got to play with Parsley several times and although he is much weaker than before (he can not stand anymore) he was in good spirits and as cute as always. After the kids saw the Lion King a few weeks ago, they play "Simba" all day long, and Parsley loves to craw on the floor after them making growling noises.
This Thursday however, when I went to visit him his whole body was covered in a rash, so he had to be taken back to the hospital. I have yet to hear his status, but please keep this precious boy in your prayers! He truly needs all the love and prayers he can get. Thank you.

Week Six

To begin with, I am so sorry it has been so long since I have updated this blog! I have suffered many obstacles in the past few weeks which prevented me from getting to the Internet. To begin with, Easter is a very important holiday here and so from Thursday to Tuesday of Easter weekend, EVERYTHING was closed in Tanzania. I know longer have Internet access at my house and even after the Internet cafes re-opened, because of rainy season the internet has become very unreliable and usually cuts out as soon as rain begins to fall (which is all the time!) Being cut off from my usual form of communication has been difficult, but nonetheless I am continuing to have a very wonderful time here in Tanzania.

I spent all of the days that my school was closed for Easter break working at the Kili kids orphanage, which was a blast and allowed me to get to know the older kids who were home from school. We threw an Easter carnival for everybody and had face-painting, three legged races, bean bag tosses, ect! The kids had never done anything like that so watching them enjoy these type of games for the first time was a real treat! Here is a picture of me and one of the older girls, Wittiness, she painted a heart on my cheek for me! And did quite a good job at it, I told her she should be an artist!

On Easter day I went with the orphanage to church. An African church on Easter is quite an amazing place to be! The music was so celebratory and exciting. The service consisted of nothing but singing and dancing with overwhelming joy, it was very different then what I am used to on Easter morning at First Presbyterian, but I cant imagine a more spirited atmosphere to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ. The kids were adorable too! Getting to church with 23 kids is a challenge, but it was worth it to watch them enjoy the service. I had a wonderful surprise too, but I will divulge that in my next post!

After church I was invited to the home of the John, who drives me to my school every morning. I loved getting to see his home, it was very humble but a very happy place. All six of his adult children live with him in the small space with their children. The meal was absolutely fabulous, and I felt honored to have the opportunity to experience a true Tanzanian Easter feast!

My Birthday!

I was lucky enough to spend my 22nd birthday here in Tanzania! I wanted to post a picture of my cake, it was shaped like Africa!!! Also, it snowed on Kili last night, so I had the joy of waking up on my birthday to one of the most breathtaking views of the mountain yet!

My 22nd Birthday Cake!

Kili on 3/17/2008!

Palm Sunday

On Palm Sunday I attended a service at Moshi Antioch Presbyterian Church. It was such a beautiful service, although I could not understand much because it was in Swahili. The church was founded by a husband and wife from Korea, who were so nice and welcoming! The whole congregation was overwhelmingly kind. During the service the children stared at my pew the whole time, and eventually one little girl came and sat in my lap. My favorite part was singing "I have a friend in Jesus" in Swahili! At the end the whole congregation left the sanctuary together to the beat of an African drum and then shook every single person's hand as they formed a big circle and sang a traditional African hymn, it was just beautiful!

The kids watching me from their pewThe Sanctuary

The outside of Moshi Antioch Presbyterian Church

The Lion King

On Sunday we had a special treat at Kili Kids Orphanage. We showed the kids there the movie The Lion King. For those of you who dont remember, not only does the Lion King take place with Mt. Kilimanjaro in the background, but there is a lot of Swahili throughout the movie, such as Simba (lion) Rafiki (friend) Hakuna Matata (no worries) Asante Sena (thanks).
Most of these kids had never seen a movie, so that was a treat to begin with, but to see a movie that takes place right in their own backyard with bits of their own language was such a neat experience for the kids! And all the volunteers

Nema Orphange

Last Saturday I went on an adventure with one ohter volunteer, Nicki, to a new orphanage called Nema. The orphanage is about 17 Ks away from where we live, so we had to travel by dala dala to get there. The dala dala is a size of a mini van, only with about 25 people in it, needless to say it was a bit of a tight ride. We went all the way up a mountain before we finally got out at our stop. The only problem was, we werent sure what to do from there, so we wandered down the mountain until some nice people finally understood our botched Swahili and were able to point us in the right direction. It was worthe the logn journey to get to Nema though because our help was much appreciated. The orphange has 30 babies, all under the age of three and only about five nuns on staff. So we spent the day holding the smaller babies and giving them some one on one attention that they never recieve. I even got to hold a baby that was only a few days old! Here are some pictures:

Pictures of me with Students

All about da U

The only American television that makes it all the way to Tanzania is the WWF (wrestling). So, all of my kids in school love the wrestlers of the WWF (or WWE). They are constantly running around doing the "moves" of the different wrestlers. They do the move and then shout the name of whatever wrestler. Their favorite is to make a claw in front of their face and shout John Seina, and their second favorite is to run their thumb across their necks like a knife and shout "The Undertaker"

At the beginning of this week, I decided I was tired of the wrestlers, so I told my kids if they absaloutly must do a gesture and shout something, then they can make a University of Miami 'U' and shout "its all about da U." They absaloutly loved this, and free time the rest of the week was spent with them chanting its all about da U. Its the cutest thing in the whole world!

A note to Mountain TOP friends

The orphanage that I visit often, Kili Kids, asked me and a few other volunteers yesterday to come out back of the orphanage when we arrived. We all walked out back and the leader of the orphanage showed us a spot in the yard and asked if we thought it would be possible to build a sand box. My honest first response was to reach in my back pocket and look for a flippy to right down measurements!! My next brain process was thinking how a sand box is really just an an 8 x 8 porch with really short sides. It made me miss the mountain and it made me want to move here and start a Mountains of Tanzania Outreach Project =)

A good day!

I was very worried about teaching school today because I have been sick for the past few days and my voice is completley gone. When I arrived this morning I used a mix between Swahili and English (swinglish) to try my best and explain to the kids that my voice was hurting today and I needed them to be extra quiet so everybody can hear me. I really didn't expect this to work, but boy did my kids surprise me! They were the most well behaved groups of third and fourth graders on earth today. I was shocked!!!
And, as I was checking my third grade classes' papers today they would all kiss my throat as I leaned over their desks, and say "pole mwalimu" Which means sorry teacher (for my sore throat). It was so kind how much they wanted me to feel better; all I have is a simple sore throat, while many of them suffer from TB, malaria, and HIV among other things. These kids never cease to amaze me!

Week Four

Week four of teaching has flown by! It is amazing how every week goes faster and faster. As I was leaving class today I was having my students repeat "see you tomorrow." About a minute after I walked out I realized today is Friday so I wont actually see them tomorrow! I hope I didn't confuse their English too much!! I recieved some good news this week as well. I was accepted to Teach For America, so I will be teaching middle school language arts in St. Louis next fall! I am very excited about this oppurtunity and everyday with my kids in Africa gives me more passion for teaching.
This week my third graders have been working on the difference between present tense and past tense. Its very hard to teach, I'm not sure how much they understand yet, but we are going to continue working it with it next week. I've done so many concepts with this class I think I am going to prepare a test of some sort for Monday just to see what has stuck and what I still need to return to and review while I'm still here. There are no tests or reviewing in Tanzanian schools so I think the kids are going to super confused when they see questions from two or three weeks ago in front of them, but I hope it will ultimately help me more effectively teach them.
I've been doing some vocab with the fourth graders, which is so much fun! Most of our words are verbs so the kids have a great time acting everything out. I gave them a word search with their vocab words in it, and I was very nervous about how it would go over, but they loved it! They want more of it, so I think I'm going to start making word searches for both my classes.
Today at recess the kids taught me a really fun Tanzanian game. We stood in a circle and skipped around trying to keep a ball in their air. The kids had a song that went with the game, I wish I knew what the words to it meant!!

The best part of the week was my visit to Kili Kids Orphanage. There is a child at the orphange that I have formed a special bond with named Parsley. He is 18 months old, but looks more like six month old because he is HIV positive. He is very developmentally behind where he should be, he can not walk or talk yet. But he loves to laugh and mimick noises like "woohooo"
Every time I go I hold him up by his hands and try and get him to walk, he is getting so close! In fact last week he took about half a step on his own. Watching him do this was one of the happiest split seconds I've ever experienced. I visited the orphanage on Tuesday, and he was not up to trying to walk because he had some sort of ear infection. But I really hope to see him toddling around the yard at the orphange before I leave!

Here are some pictures of Parsley and another boy who makes me heart melt, Andre who is 2.
Me and Parsley, isnt he adorable?My friend Joe holding Andre while he kicks everybody else! I love this picture though because you can see Parsley's floral print pants, he is so cute with his flowery ensemble.Andre reading a book upside down =)

Parelsey LOVES to stick his head through anything it will fit through.

Safari

I am home safely from my three day safari! It was such an incredible experience, I felt like I was in a movie the whole time. From the moment you begin to enter the outskirts of Africa all you see for miles and miles is rolling hills with picture-esq trees on top. Before we even arrived at the national park to begin the safari, we saw a giraffe on the side of the highway! The first park we went to on Friday evening was Lake Maranyara. At this park we saw a lot of giraffes, zebras, baboons, and few elephants in the middle of the road! Friday night we set up tents at a camp ground and had a blast camping (despite the lack of showers) The stars were my favorite part of camping, the night sky was so clear and lit up with stars! Because we are in the southern hemisphere it was a whole new set of conselations too!

Saturday morning we got up early to go to Ngorongnoro crater. The drive to Ngorongonoro was straight up a side of a mountain and then down into the crater. The crater was full of zebras and wildabeast everywhere you looked. We also saw one lion, a rhino and a baby rhino, a hippo out of water (very rare) and Egyptian Ibis (my favorite of course) Sunday we went to Terangarie National Park which is an elephant sanctuary. We saw so many elephants!! My favorite was a baby elephant we saw that our guide said was probably about two weeks old. It was the cutest animal on the planet. We also saw elephants fighting with their tusks, which was very exciting and a bit scary because of how loud they got. And an elephant charged our jeep! We got away in time, thank goodness! I took more than 200 pictures over the three days, here are a few of my favorites!!

Me with a Lion behind me!

The Lion napping

Some Egyptian Ibis and Zebera

African children playing amongst the wild animals, I was fascinated by this

Me in front of Ngorangoro Crater

Elephants fightingThe elephant that charged our jeep, I took a picture as I ducked into the car!Laughing Hyenas, they really did look like the Lion King cartoon characters

A lion, after he woke up from his nap Me with a big group of elephants under the tree behind me

The two week old baby elephant, walking behind its mom

I didnt have time to put up all the pictures I wanted to put up, but hopefully later this week I can finish!

More Pictures

Pendo from the Kili Kids orphanage, trying to steal my camera!
Happiness from Kili Kids coloring

Me and my student Gloria

Week Three

I had a week full of ups and downs this week. I decided to introduce both worksheets and the concept of reading comprehension into both of my classes, starting on Monday. The class has workbooks with stories in English in them. Usually their assignment is to copy the story line for line, and thats it. (in my fourth grade class the story was about buying groceries and in my third grade class the story was just a dialogue between two boys who point out birds, and students, and children, and dogs) I had them read the story together and then answer questions on the worksheet about the content of the story. It bombed, nobody understood a word they had just read in either class...so we we spent the rest of the week going line by line and working together to get the meaning of the story across. We've made some progress, but its still a challenge. I hope if I just keep doing a little reading comprehension everyday for the next two months, maybe at some point they will start to understand how to read and then answer questions about it. In both classes though, I have one or two students who want to learn so badly and are really excited about trying new things, so they keep me going when it gets tough.
Outside of school, I have had a lot more free time this week, which has been a wonderful treat because I got to visit two orphanages, as well as the United Nation's Rwanda Tribunal.

The first orphanage I visited is called the Upenda Orphanage and is only for very young children. During the rainy season (which is fastly approaching) the kids must spend all their time in a play room inside. This play room was disgusting and the floors, walls, chairs, and toys were all covered in urine and feces. So me and a few other volunteers spent several hours bleaching and disinfecting every inch of the room. The kids at this orphanage were so sweet, I really hope the disinfecting helps them have a healthier rainy season! The second orphanage was called Kili Kids, I had so much fun just playing and rough housing with all the kids there. They were wonderful and enjoyed getting a chance to play with adults, I am going back after school today to visit them again, and I hope to start going regularly. (I cant wait to put pictures up of them too, they are so cute and love to cheese it up for the camera)
The UN Rwanda Tribunal was a powerful experience. It made the genocides that happened in Rwanda seem much more real to me. I sat in on a trial of a man named Prosper Mungiya (I'm not sure of the spelling of the last name). Unfortunately, it was hard to follow a lot of what was going on (although my Model UN experience from high school helped a lot). What was clear though was that the UN is truly trying to bring a sense of justice to the war in Rwanda.

Tomorrow I am leaving for a Safari after school! Those of you who know me well might be surprised that I am choosing to spend three days among wild animals like lions, but after seeing how beatiful the nature in Africa is, I am really anxious to get out and spend time in the National Parks. Next week I will put up pictures of my adventure!

Picutres!

It takes about three minutes a picture to upload, so these are just a few of my favorites! Enjoy!! My students after I gave them popcicles. They love the camera, and all fight to get to the front of the picture!

Playing at recess in the school yard.

Me with a lizzard on a stick!

This is swimming in a waterfall with another volunteer.

This is in the market place

These are two of my favorite students! On the right is Fatuma and on the left is Debeakia (im not sure of that spelling!)

This is my class, they go crazy when I get my camera out!

Mt. Kili

It was a beautiful day out today, and I got my first really good picture of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Usually the snow covered top is above the clouds, so you cant see it, but today you could! Hope you enjoy!

Jogging

I went for a jog this morning, and it was by far the best experience I have had in Africa so far! As I was running down my small dirt road children walking home from church joined me! The further I went the more kids started following me, all in their Sunday clothes and barefoot. I must have had fifteen kids by the time I was ready to turn around and head home, all jogging along side me.
My favorite part was that I would take breathers every once in a while and walk for a minute, the first time I did this I said "one two three" before I started running again. So the next time I slowed down to walk, the kids all started shouting "one two three" because they wanted me to start running again.
Some of them followed me all the way home, and when I started nearing my house I missed the turn onto the small path that leads to our gate. The three girls who were still with me at this point stopped and started shouting "mzunga" (what children call white people) I was confused at what they were doing and kept running. I finally got to a landmark that made me realize I had gone too far, I turned around to find the girls still standing by the path, pointing me in the right direction! I'm sure they were discussing what a silly mzunga I was the whole time they waited patiently for me to return so they could make sure I found home okay! It was a wonderful way to start my Sunday.

Arusha

On Saturday, I travled with several other volunteer friends to the near by city of Arusha. It was about an hour and a half bus ride away, and quite an adventure. The people in Arusha were very eager to have English conversations with Americans, especially because George W. Bush is currently visiting Tanzania. My favorite converstion was with a man who told us his name was Happana Asante, he was surprised to learn we all know enough Swahili to know Happana Asante means No Thank You. While in town we visited a market place of arts and crafts made by the Messi, the native people of Kilimanjaro.
The best part of the trip came on the way home though. We took the last bus of the day from Arusha to Moshi, and it was a bus made for about 50 people, they was packed with more than 100 people!! As we drove down the road in between the two towns, the door to the bus stayed open and people jumped on and off the bus without it ever stopping! To put the cherry on top of the experience, because Bush is in the country right now, the radio played the Star Spangled Banner most of the way home! It was quite a funny scene as we made our way along the bumpy trail, all with tanzanian men sitting in our laps.
When we finally arrived back in Moshi, we still had a long walk back to our home. We learned quickly that it had rained all day in Moshi, because the road to our home was nothing but mud! By the time we finally reached the door I had lost a shoe in the mud, and had mud all the way up to my knees!! It sounds bad, but it was a great time, and we all laughed the whole way.

Visit to HIV Colony

In Tanzania, most people who test positive for HIV are excommunicated from their families and villages. Because of this many there are many villages on the outskirts of town set up for ostricized people with HIV. I went with some other volunteers a few days ago to visit one of these villages. The drive there was breathtaking, but when we arrived we saw a town that was very hard to take in.
The children there were so starved for attention from adults. Many of them are HIV positive and all of their parents are either living with HIV or dead, so there are not adults in their live with extra time and energy to play with them. We spent most of the time there just holding hands and wiping built up snot from their noses. It was very hard to leave because they clinged to us as we got in the van and then chased our van as we drove through the town on our way out.
We met one HIV patient who particuarly made an impression on me. She was a young girl who I guessed was about five or six when I met her, but after talking to her I learned she was 15, but her growth was severly stunted because she has had HIV since she was born. She was very smart and spoke good English and was a living miracle to still be alive after such a difficult life.
The HIV colony truly made me realize just how important HIV education is in Africa. It is important to help stop the spread of HIV as well as to encourage the people of Africa not to ostricize people with HIV, so that less people are afraid to get tested, and so that those who do test positive are not forced to live the rest of their lives on the fringes of society in isolated colonies.

My First Week at School

My first week at school went very well. I worked on comparison words with the third graders, such as too, also, more, less, ect. And I worked on pronouns with the fourth graders.
The best part of the week with the third graders was on friday when I read to them from an American children's book about dogs. I found the book on the shelves at our house and it had many words comparign the dogs. I think a good portion of the class were able to follow the book, and most of them had never seen a brightly colored children's book before, so they all loved it, and begged me to bring it back on Monday.
The fourth graders are a bit more challengining to work with, but I think they are ready to start adding possesive pronouns into the mix next week.
Reccess with the kids has been a very interesting experience. There is a big open field of dust and mud and rocks with no play equipment, where all 700 kids have reccess at the same time. There is no adult superivision, and the other teachers think I am absaloutly crazy for going to play with the kids at recess. I finally figured out a game that could be played that both broke the language barrier and didnt require any balls. I picked up a rock and had the kids around me guess which hand it was in. Then they all picked up rocks and played it with each other! It was very cute, I dont think they had seen that game before. I saw a lot of rope in the back of the lot, I might try next week to see if it will work as jump ropes. Another interesting part of recess is watching how fast the kids run. The girls have on skirts and are barefoot and they run across the field of rocks like lightening!
The kids always copy everything I write on the board into their excercise books, but appearently the teachers do not usually ever look at what the kids write. I went around at the end of class one day and wrote with a pink pen "good job" by all of their writing, and they loved it. They begged me to do it the next day, but its impossible to do everyday with more than 60 kids in a class, so I need to figure out a way to check their work without mass chaos. Although everything is mass chaos when you have six kids sitting a bench made for three kids!
One of the funniest parts of teaching is that the kids pronounce teacher, teachaah, with a sort of british accent, it makes me smile every time they say it!

My job placement

I am teaching 8-10 year olds at Mawenzi Primary school in Karanga. Today was my first day in front of the classroom by myself, and it wasn't perfect, but I think it was a good start.
Schools in Tanzania are very different than in the states. To begin with, I am teaching two different classes English, one class has 60 students and the other has almost 80. Becasue there are so many students to one teacher they are not taught anything ever. Rather, the teachers says something and they all repeat it over and over. However, they dont really udnerstand what they are saying. Needless to say my approach was very different than what the kids are used to.
I got into a little trouble from the head master today becasue I taught the kids Simon Says, in order to work on body parts vocabulary. The head master thought we were having too much fun, and in Tanzania the classroom is not an appropriate place for fun. I am not going to give up though on my lesson plans, which all involve fun =)
Unfortunatly, they use sticks in order to discipline the children at my school. Becasue I am not willing to beat the kids, I am afraid discipline will be a problem becasuse they already have realized I didnt carry a stick into the classroom.
Overall, the kids are just adorable, and I am so excited for the oppurtunity to introduce them to a different style of education!
Perhaps the best part of my day came at the end. I was done with my four hours of teachign two classes and went into teh teacher's office to work on my stuff for the rest of the week. One of the teachers asked me my religion, when I said Christian she asked if I knew any Christian songs to teach the children in English! I was so excited, so tomorrow after my second class I am going to the Bible Class to teach songs!! I think I will start with Jesus Love Me and work my way up from there...

A note on Religion: In Tanzania everybody is very religious, however there is across the board religious tolerence. At my school there are Christian children and Muslim children and when it comes time for religion class they simply split up and then come back together. Christians and Muslims marry all the time, and there is no problem at all. I respect this so much!! It is my favorite part of Tanzania so far.

More to come soon, and hopefully some pictures soon too!!!

Arriving in Kili

When I stepped off the plane in Kilimanjaro, (onto the runway) I could not believe the view. The mountain was straight in front of me, it is indescribably beautiful and magestic. The air is amazingly clean which adds to the country's beauty.
However, the extreme poverty blew away any of my expectations. The people in my community (Karanga) are so kind and spirited, but they lead hard lives. The drive to my house is a dirt road with pot holes and dirt mounds that make it seem more like a hiking trail. The road is filled with people walking to market (women carrying baskets on their heads) and children playing with the dirt.
My first day that I went for a walk through the area, I was attacked by dozens of children who just wanted to touch my skin and my hair and get a hug. There is one little boy who I have gotten the pleasure of recieving surprise attacks hugs from multiple time, and he loves to dig in my bag. He discovered my chapstick, and I had to give it to him because I have never seen a child more fascinated with anything in my whole life.
In addition to the adorable children, there are also monkeys on my street! There are wild monkeys as well as pet monkeys who go for walks on leashes! I also saw a lizzard that's tail was green, body yellow, and head purple. When I saw this, I knew I was truly in Africa!
From the upstairs of my house you can see Kili every morning, the peak of the mountain still takes my breath away every time I look at it.
I have been practicing my Swahili, and am getting better everyday. The most helpful practice I have recieved thus far was a conversation with a toddler on the street. She talked slow enough for me to understand!
The food is surprisingly good, I never knew bannanas could be cooked in so many ways! And I have yet to get sick from it, knock on wood.
One of my big fears that has arisen since I arrived is malaria. Although I am taking malaria pills, they only help prevent it, and many volunteers have been ill with maleria in the past few weeks, so pray for the mosquitos to stay away from me!

Ethiopia

On my way to Kili, I missed a connecting flight in Addis Abba, Ehtiopia and unexpectedly had to spend the night in the city! At first I was in tears because the prospect of staying alone in a hotel in Ethiopia scared me to death, but God provided. There was another girl from my flight who was also stranded and so we set out to experience Addis Abba together. (she happened to be from Boca!)
Our first task was to exchange money. We asked around the town and quickly learned that all the banks were closed, however, we did find a hotel that would switch out our money and in the process we discovered that Ethiopians are very friendly and helpful. Next we found a place to eat, I decided I wasnt up for trying Ethiopian cuisine so I ordered a cheeseburger. When the cheeseburger came out it was raw meat! (I didnt eat it)
After this we walked to the center of town, it was incredilbe. The building were five stories tall, but not like they are in the states, it was more like five different one story building all stacked on top of each other.
The hardest part of being in Ethiopia was not the hose for a shower, or the smelly hotel room, it was the children on the street. The kids were all wrapped in blankets and surrounded us wherever we went asking for water and food. It was very hard to watch.