Basketball is underway!

Basketball season has officially started. It is already looking much different from last year, being that I will only have 8 players on my team rather than the 14 I had last year. I am excited! I don't have any post however, which could make things interesting! I am looking at options for what i want to do next year and some interesting ideas are coming forward, so we'll see what ends up happening! I can't believe how quickly the year is going, Thanksgiving is next week! I have so much that I am thankful for this year. It was been a great year with some ups and downs of course, but overall it has been great!

It starts again!

Hello,
I doubt anyone looks at this now, but I just feel like updating it! Volleyball practice started last week and we are looking much improved from last year! It's great because I have more girls on my team too, so that's exciting. We started in-service this week and the kids come a week from today. I am excited to have a routine back but not so sure I am ready to be back at work. I have been looking at apartments in Hopkins too. The drive is just getting to be too much for me! I hope everyone has been well and been enjoying the rain!

Home sweet home

Well I am back ini good old Minnesota! It's crazy the weather is nicer here than it was there. I am trying to get myself back on the time schedule for here. I actually stayed up until 10 PM last night, which would have been 6 Am there. So I thought that was good, but I didn't sleep great last night. Jeff picked me up from the airport and my plane was actually about an hour early so that was nice and I made it through customs realitively quickly. I am going to be spending the weekend at the cabin and then I am taking a class next week at Blake. So I am back the the busy life of the USA, not the pole pole additude of the Africans! The picture is from the Maasia girls school. These are the girls that took us on a tour of the school.

Heading home!

Well today is my last day in Tanzania! It has gone so fast. I still have yet to see Kilimanjaro, kind of sad, hopefully it will clear up a little today so I can at least say I saw Kili even if I didn't climb it! I am going to try and go out to the Amani house today which is an orphange here in Moshi. I am not very excited about the long flight home or trying to get my sleeping pattern switched again. I have started to try, but it will be easier when i am home where the daylight has switched. If you have not checked out the teacher blog, Karen has added some pictures... www.phfteachers.blogspot.com Give me a call sometime soon, I would love to tell you all about what we did here and what the country is like. it was amazing! I am hoping ot scrapbook about my trip, but we'll see how long that takes, maybe Kathy would be willing to give me a hand, she is fast and her books look amazing! Take care!

Moshi!

Well my time is quickly endning here. I am now in MOshi, which is near Kilimanjaro. Hopefully I will actually be able to see it! I am now traveling by myslef for a couple of days. I am leaving on Wednesday, the time has gone so fast but yet I feel like I have been gone for so long. It was been wonderful and eye opening. Exciting and sad. Hopefully and discouraging!

Zanzibar was wonderful, but very different from the first part of the trip. It was nice a relaxing. We did some snorkeling and the beaches were beautiful. We also meet some great people, so that has been fun. I hope everyone is doing well and see you shortly!

Still sunny!

Well we are still in zanzibar right now, it has been beautiful! We went snorkeling yesterday, it was great! The water is a beautiful color. We are thinking about going back to Stone Town today and I am going to be heading to Moshi tomorrow, hopefully! I have not booked my flight yet, but I am going to do that now! The time here has been so great, we have actually had some time since ending our time with Peace house. that experience was great though because we actually got to live a day in the life of a Tanzanian rather than just being a tourist and seeing only other tourists like we are now.

Yesterday was my niece Abbey's 5th birthday! I am excited that I will get to celebrate that when I get home next week! Have a super day! i sure am!

The Beaches of Zanzibar

Hello,
we are finally on the relaxing part of our trip. Jessica and Rob left this morning to head to Amsterdam, so now we are down to three. We were in Peja or Jamibanee the last two nights, we were right between the too. It was a beautiful beach. We stayed at a little bungalow place without many other people there. We went snorkeling on a little boat that looked like it was about to fall apart! It was good though, we didn't see too many brightly colored fish. It was nice to relax on the beach. We had a hge dog fight on our porch one night and also a storm that came through so we didn't sleep too much that night, or at least I did not. I am going to be on ZAnaibar until Sunday I think and then I am going to go up to MOshi and go to Kilimanjaro national park, not to climb the whole mountain, but jst to see it. We have not even see the mountian yet! Sorry the u key is not really working on this compuuter. Hope everyone has been enjoying the hot weather!

On our own!

Hello, well we are officially done with our Peace house trip. There are five of us that are continuing on though. We stayed in Arusha for two extra days and now we are in Dar seSalaam. It was a long 10 hour bus ride toget here yesterday. We stayed in a roach motel! we had lots of bugs to keep us company and cement walls, so it felt like we were in a jail cell. We are all thankful we are only staying here one night! We are off to zanaibar this afternoon. It's hot, but soon enough we will be sitting on the beaches of tanzania. We had a bit of a rough start here, we got way over charged for a cab but that's ok. The night everyone else left, we went to Theo's house, she is the head mistriss for Peace HOuse. She had dinner for us, it was lovely. It was nice to be in a house eating real food. It was very good she was stressed about what we would eat but we ate lots and it was typically tanzanian food! That was so wonderful. we also had a surprise visitor before everyone departed for home, Mama Tesha came to say farwell. She is the head mistress at a school that many of us visited and also came to the conferenece. she brought little betiks for all of us, that was so nice! A great way to end our time together! I hope everyone had a good fourth of july. We had 'fireworks' in our tents, using flashlights! It was great, but about the best we could do! I hope the ferry is better than everyone says, they say it is very rough and crowded! but this whole trip is an adventure. Sorry have not been able to upload pictures, you will have to check when I get back home, then I can put some on here. Have a super day!

We're back!

We made it back from safari! It was fun but very tiring! I was really surprised that it tired you out so much! All we did was drvie around standing up looking for animals, but it was fun, we saw elephants, lions, zebra, impala, leopard, hippos, rhinos, lots of birds, wildabeasts, hyenas, dik-diks, monkeys, chimpanzees, monitor lizaeds, and I am sure I am missing some. We had a great driver. Last night we stayed in permenent tents, with monkeys, and dik-diks all around. we also saw a family of elephants going past, which was great. we had wonderful food. Tomorrow we all split up, which will be a little sad, I have met some amazing people but hopefully we will be able to stay in to stay in touch! I hope you all had a great fourth of July! love you lots!

What an mess!

Update Update! OK so now it is the next day I have I spent all my time on here getting to this page, what an mess getting on the internet, I will never complain about speed again! But as they say here we are on Africa time! We are leaving shortly for our safari!


UPDATE: I have been sitting at a computer for 30 minutes now trying to get to my blog, but it has not been working, the computers are really slow! Ever slower than our dial up at home! So I am going to post this a little later hopefully!

Well we are back from the Maasae village. IT WAS A VERY INTERESTING EXPERIENCE! What a different world it is there. They live in huts with there family, men have more than one wife, the kids run around and herd goats, the women made beaded jewelry, they dances for us, which was amazing! We also learned about some of their costumes like circumcision and female circumcision. It is a very big topic hear for the females. There tribe still practices is, somewhat, many of the families do not and it is actually against the law. Today I went with the warriors, who are the men and older boys, like between 15 and 40, but there where two elders there that were in their 60’s! They killed a goat and we got to see how they eat it. I ate some of the blood and some part of the meat, I am not sure what it was though, it was OK, not great but I had to try it! We also had a bracelet made out of goat fur. Today we have our last meal with the teachers from PHF, it will be a little sad to say goodbye to them! We leave for safari tomorrow. We finally had a couple of nice days too, so that was great. We haven’t had much sunshine, so hopefully that will be changing. I am going to stay in Arusha a few days and then we are going to head down the west coast. I think there are five of us going to go down there. So it should be fun! We have had a great time on this trip, met some wonderful people and I am learning so much! It’s amazing! I hope everything is well at home. Have a happy fourth if I am not able to get on here while on safari! Much love to all!

Jambo!

Hello, good morning! Jambo!
We finished our conference and it went so well! Everyone wanted it to go for 5 days not just two! They were very willing to try things and have some fun. It was great!

Today we are going to the Maasae village. I am not sure what to expect, but Iknow they are going to show us basket weaving and a dance. We are going to eat there traditional food, which is like beans and rice, so it's not too bad, at least you can always eat rice! We have our big farewell dinner tomorrow night and on Tuesday morning we are going on Safari! I think I am going to go with the other group that is staying for the first week, so going to Zanzibar and down the west coast! So hopefully it will be fun! after that I am not sure exactly what I will be doing though! Have a great day, I heard the weather is supposed to be wonderful!
Love to all!

Day one down of conference!

Hello all!
today was our first day of our conference. I was a little nervous just because their schools oporate much differenty than our, but it went very well. They all had fun and participated. Which I was worried about. I didn't know if Tanzanians would thing playing could still be learning.They would have some challenges though because their classes are so massive! They are at least in the 40's some into the 50's and 100's! It's is crazy to think og teaching that many kids at once! And little kids too!

Yesterday we some of us went on a hike with Mark Hillman. We climbed part of mt. Meru which is the second highest peak in Tanzania. The went to a huge 200 ft. waterfall which is the water source for Arusha, the town we are staying in. Mark thought it would be about 4-5 hours, but it was about 8 hours! It was great, we went through all these little villages, we sang songs with some little 11-12 year old girls, but then they asked for money. They thought we should pay them for teaching them a song and showing them how to do cartwheels! You would take apicture of the little kids and show them it, and they would run away because many of them have never seen themself before! it was amazing and beautiful to see the way people still live. We also walked by the shell of a lutheran church, no windows or doors yet, and the furniture was wooden planks, but they were having choir practice and it was beautiful! They were singing with out any music, piano, or instruments, but all we could do is stand there an listen! It was awe inspiring! We also had alittle old lady chase us with a stick saying we needed to pay to go through her village. She was shaking her stick at use and I am pretty sure she was cursing at us in Swahili. It was funny though. these kids would also run around chopping grass and brush on the paths, so 7 or 8 year olds were running around with mashetes. I didn't spell that right, but the big long knives.) The women here have amazing balance. They can walk, even run with big bundles on there head. I should start doing that, I think it would help my posture! All the little kids would practice the English they knew on us, so they would keep saying how are you? or Good Morning, when itwas 5 in the evening! It was very cute though. Sorry that was random thoughts, but it was been great!

I hope everyone has a wonderful 4th! I don't know if I will get on here much in the next week because we are busy!!! But Megan have a super birthday! Much love to all!

What the story is for today!

Today was a great day! The group that met with Theo yesterday went on student verification visits today and those of us that did that yesterday met with Theo today. We also went to a school, what a stark contrast compared to the school we came from. The walls are bare, there is no colors, no maps, no computers, no internet, no books (text books or reading books) and lots of kids. I was in a class 4. They were learning about maps, but without a map in the classroom. There were forty kids, the teacher really did have a great relationship with his students, but there is just so many of them. The school was run by Mama Tesha as Taryn had said yesterday, I am guessing she gave background information about the school, so I am not going to do that again.

We also discussed with Theo (the head mistress at PHF) the downfalls of Tanzanian education. The huge positive though is there are teachers who are hungry to learn, so hopefully we will be able to give them things they can take back with them, and if not implement them, at least start thinking about different ways to teacher their students. They mainly use lectures now, the teacher talks and the students copy! It was interesting though because as much as we talked about areas of improvement they can make, it also made us much more aware of our shortcomings in the US in education! So much for us to learn from each other! I am excited to see what the rest of this experience has in store for us!

That part was copied from the blog at www.phfteachers.blogspot.com you should check that out some people can tell you what has been going on much more eliquently than I can.

But I did forget to put in that we went to rugby game tonight. It was a great night and Tanzania won! We alos played some frisbee with some little kids that were there. Not many of us knew muchabout rugby, but Mark plays rugby here so he was filling us in. I decided that was a sport I really didn't need to try, it looked painful. I am feeling better but still not great, but what you would expect when you are traveling here! Have a super day!

What we have been doing!

Yesterday was an interesting day. PHR has to go out and find all the students that they are accepting into the school to make sure theyhave not lied on their entrance. sounds easy enough, but these kids often do not have a "home" or family. So they drive out to the location they are supposed to be at and start asking if anyone knows where they can find that child. If someone says they know them, the person will get in the car and lead us to the location they know of, then you get out and ask again, they may say they have moved or are out doing something right now. So you go track them down. After you find them you have them take you back to where they live and they talk with the family, relatives, neighbors, anyone who can help varify the story. Then if they are poor enough, and the story is true, they will get an exceptance letter there on the spot. So yesterday we go to ride only as they did this. Two of the teachers from the PHF where with us, they are local Tanzanians, so they speak both English and Swahili very well. We were out in a village, it was interesting and amazing to see where these people lived and what their life looked like. I think they were as interested in seeing us as we were in seeing them. TOday we are going to a school, and to a rubgy game tonight. I was not feeling too well last night, so hopefully it gets better today, nothing serious though! So don't worry mom! :-)

I made it!

Hello, I tried to post yesterday but it didn't go through, hopefully it will this time. We went out to the school sight today, it was quite interesting. It was much bigger than i had imagined. Tomorrow I am going with when they are varifying student statues which will be intereing, they will be out in the villages when not many white people have been before! Also my plans have changed a little for after the part with the Peace House. I am going to go with a couple of other people from here. I don't think I am going to climb Kilimanjaro, which I know some people will be happy about! But I think we are going to go chimpanzee tracking and to Zanzibar. It should be good! Hope all is well. I am going to bed, I have quite gotten myself switched to the new time!

Today is the day!

Well it's finally here. I am heading to the airport in a couple of hours and my journey begins! Thanks for all the support and well wishes I have recieved from family and friends. I am sure this will be a very memorable, rewarding trip! I know we will have some internet axcess as the hotel we are at, so hopefully I can have some updates at least for the first half, then after that it might get a little harder! See you in a month!

One week and counting!

Well it's getting to the end! Less than a week to go! I am getting a little nervous, but very excited! I have been trying to get all the last minute things done...shopping, organizing, cleaning, running a half marathon! Yup I am running Grandma's half marathon this weekend. It should be fun, hopefully not quite as hot as it has been this week. Mark is running the full. Megan, Matt, Kathy, and Jeff are going to be coming to cheer us on! So will my friend's Andrea and Matt. You can also check out the blog we are going to be keeping as a group of teachers at www.phfteachers.blogspot.com :-)

It's finished!

Well the school year has come to a close! The kids are done, but we are here until the end of the week! My trip is coming up very quickly, two weeks from tomorrow! I have so much going on between then and now that it does not seem like it could possibly be only 2 weeks! I am playing in a volleyball tournament this weekend, watching my niece and nephew for two days next week, I have Grandma's half marathon the next weekend, working at a volleyball camp, and then I leave! I hope everything is going well with you!

Did you know?

90% of the orphans left by the AIDS epidemic are children living in sub-Saharan Africa. (Source: UNAIDS/WHO, Dec 2003)
By 2010, HIV/AIDS will have robbed an estimated 20 million children under the age of 15 of one or both parents. (Source: UNICEF, Nov. 2003)

Survey data shows that many Tanzania households with orphans cannot cover even basic expenses. The most common difficulty is paying for school fees. (Source: UNICEF, 2003)

In Tanzania, 980,000 children have lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS. (UNAIDS)
22% of Tanzanian children under 15 years of age are AIDS orphans.

By 2010, AIDS is expected to increase the death rate in Tanzania by more than one half, and life expectancy will drop from 56 years to 47 years. (World Bank)

I got this information from the Peace House Foundation website!

I kind of figured it out!

Ok so I can't get the Peace House Foundation video on here exactly, but it is as a link now, the Colors of Hope video. I also have a picture up, hopefully I will get a few more of my family and friends before I leave, and hopefully I can add to it while I am gone! Thanks so much for your support!
The school year is quickly coming to an end, so things are a little hectic around here! Have a good memorial weekend, hopefully the weather will be better than they anticipate!

one month and counting!

It is one month from today that I am leaving for Tanzania! I can't believe how quickly it is coming, I keep thinking about all the things that are happening between now and when I leave. I am also working on the games I am going to be doing when I am there. We are doing a little workshop for area teachers and I am going to present educational games and cooperative learning through games.
I am still trying to figure out how this blogging thing works, I have been trying to get the Peace House Foundation video up on here but it hasn't been working, hopefully I will be able to figure it out! :-)

Good news

I recieved some fantastic news this week. The school has decided to help me pay for part of my plane ticket! I am so very grateful that they think what I am doing is a worthy cause! It really is something that means a lot to me, so having the school agree is wonderful! A month and four days and I will be on my way!