Jacaranda trees are BEAUTIFUL

While much has happened since I've last posted, that's the thing I want to stress most. Walking down city roads and seeing purple trees is amazing. Today we went to the Arusha Declaration museum. Tanzania used to be under German control. It makes me sad that when we learn about WWI we never talk about the German colonies like Tanzania so we don't think about the consequences and fatalities that occurred here. I've been reading The Legacies of Julius Nyerere, which is a fantastic book with so many different viewpoints, so it was cool to see in the museum pics and a bio of the man I've been reading about. The museum also had BEAUTIFUL original paintings that in the US would sell for 1,000 and here were only 100 so i may indulge! The white walls in my house are especially in favor! 100 for a piece of artwork I can have forever I think is a good investment!
Teaching is going well. Not really a lot of news there except that the new teacher at ISM is a Luther grad named Chelsea. That's all I know! SMALL WORLD! And the music director is from Lacrosse. Liza's goodbye party was good, so weird and sad to see her go, but I am so independent now.
Since she has left:
I have arranged a CS meeting and gone out with them (tonight) to the International Diversity Festival involving African acrobats, traditional dancing/drumming, hiphop which was HILARIOUS to watch them dance (NOT hiphop dancing like the States), and, get this-inside the bar they'd hand you headphones that had disco music on them. SO people would sit solitarily listening to disco music!
I went to the other TZ school on Thurs. that was a Maasai school out in the middle of nowhere and a huge maze quite literally to find! But a gorgeous school, really quite comparable to a US school with complex grammar lessons, posters, desks, and computers. I'm SO excited for Umoja ensemble to start!
And I rode a bike from the gym back home by myself. People made this sound much scarier than it is-there are plenty of sidewalks here, quite honestly more here than MN, and people go very slowly since there is basically almost always traffic. I really feel like I can say I feel like I live here and this wknd is already loads of improvement with knowing the city. Walking helps so much!

I bought a kitenge, an African dress, but despite the fact that they measured me, it is still WAY too big so I need to bring it back to get altered. But aside from that, it actually looks really cool and I actually look decent in it ;) We played at a baptism before Liza left and it was really fun to all play together. We also went to a Tanzanian's house for the most delicious chai tea i've had yet (w/ ginger) and butter sandwiches. He's invited us back to cook African food.

Well my eyelids are beginning to close so I'm going to tuck in. First Outreach lessons tmrw (meaning piano in Swahili which will more than likely be Swanglish as they call it here).

Cheers,
S