Life back in America

I’m the sort of person that weird things just happen to.  Only they happen at a rate much slower in America than in Africa.  So instead of blogging daily, I’ll have to blog bi-monthly just to keep things interesting.

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The Friday I returned to America was a bittersweet day.  Sweet things like my fiancé waiting for me at the airport with sunflowers, Chuy’s Salsa, and figuring out stuff for school.

Bitter things like staring at my phone for 5 minutes trying to remember how I call someone.

It’s crazy what being away from your phone for 2 months will do to you.

I’d like to add that it only took me a few weeks to remember to take it with me everywhere.

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I jumped back into real life first thing Monday morning.  I was assigned to work at Pediatrics of Dallas which is in WAY south Dallas, where all the signs are in Spanish. 

I was looking for 201 W Saner avenue.  I looked for about 20 minutes before deciding to call and ask for directions.  It shouldn’t be that hard to find, right?

So I called the office.  The recording picked up.  “…You’ll find us at our new address 3201 W Saner avenue.  Right.   3201.  Not 201.  Somehow I dropped the 3.  And lost about 20 minutes of my life.  Good….

I finally made it.  I jumped right in following a PA around for the first day to figure out what was going on.  Why is American medicine so different?  It might have been easier to figure out if people weren’t speaking Spanish.  Only Spanish.

I went from speaking Swahili for survival to speaking Spanish.  Which I’m pretty pathetic at. 

I am good at smiling at the kids.  That crosses all languages.

I was waiting for my preceptor to finish looking over a UA (urinalysis) with her MA (medical assistant) when this little girl looked around the corner and smiled at me.  Then she quickly hid her head again.  Kids are shy.  She peaked out again.  I smiled again.  She said hi.  I said hi back.  She hid again.  She peaked out again.  She said hi, my name is “Princessa” (not her real name, HIPAA would hunt me down if I used her real name).  I said “Hi Princessa, my name is Shannon.”

And just like that, I had a new friend.

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So in Tanzania there was this mouse that ate my Oreos.  It was one of the many tragedies I faced over there.  (only it’s a bit more lighthearted)  We got really excited about a lot of little things-especially food- because we ate a lot of rice and beans.  So when I got a package of Oreos and so did Julia, we saw this as a golden opportunity.  We split one package then and saved one for later!

Only the mouse got into Julia’s suitcase and devoured it first.

And we know it was a mouse because it had the nerve to jump out of her suitcase at her.

Rude.

So anyway, because of this silly mouse, I bought packaged cookies (A tragedy, if you ask me) because I really just needed to eat 2 oreos.  And if you buy Oreos, you need to buy milk.  And then you need to dunk them in milk for precicely 11 seconds.

Thanks mouse.

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The first Monday I returned, we had Girls night at small group because half the girls weren’t able to make it.  We talked about some pretty funny/scandalous things.  Here’s a preview:  “Take me to bed or lose me forever.”

I’ll let you fill in the details….

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I realize I’m a champion at putting off paper re-writing.  I was running out of important things to do and blog about, so I resorted to waxing a test section of leg.

My roommate was thouroughly disgusted by the length of the hair on my legs.  I think she just needs to become a bit more feminist and be less conforming to society.  But it’s her life.  Anyway, after about a month of not shaving (because we wore floor length skirts every day---no need to impress anyone) I decided I would try to wax my legs when I got back to America.  After not shaving for 7 weeks, it’s pretty liberating and I wasn’t about to be tied down to shaving again right away.

The test run went well.  I waxed my left ankle.  One day later things were still golden, so I decided to wax my entire legs.

Before I realized just how big my legs are.

I did the bottom half of both legs, and I got pretty good at it.  But since the bottom half is smaller and it took me 2 hours, I decided to just shave the top half of my legs.

Just in case you’re curious, waxing is definitely worth it.

If you can stand the 2 seconds of pain every other minute.

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At my mentor’s request, I was charged with the task of removing the word “it” from my paper.  Half a million times.

I feel like “it” is a valid pronoun.  Sometimes you just need to use pronouns, right?  Like if I keep saying “the study was good.  The study was professionally done.  The study is going to get boring.  I need to say IT isn’t that exciting.”  Except I can’t use IT.

But I’m not bitter about IT or anything.

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At the request of my fiancé, I agreed to watch both Harry Potter #7 movies back to back with him.  I made the stipulation that I needed popcorn.

And Cherry Garcia Fro Yo.

And pizza.

It was actually a really good movie and we had a lot of fun.  And I fulfilled my need to eat food like a crazy American again.

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One night we met Chris and Diana at Olive Garden, which I love (because of the salad) and I hadn’t eaten at in FOREVER since I’ve been gone.   That night I ate an entire bowl of salad by myself and we celebrating a birthday of my good friend who also happens to be an excellent English teacher.

She politely helped me edit my paper.  Since I hadn’t done such a good job by myself.

I got a “Much Better!!” (with 2 exclamation points) from my mentor, so I take it the editing job and painstakingly removing the word IT was worth IT.

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Tuesday I received edited paper #2 from Jessica who also helped me edit.   The only thing she said in the body of her email was “Don’t freak out!”  That’s what you tell your parents when you get into a car accident, only you’re ok and everything, but it’s pretty bad news anyway.  What did she mean when she said “don’t freak out?!”  I’m pretty sure whenever anyone says that it only means the opposite.

Then, at work I saw a girl with Pinworms.  Eeew!

Pinworms are notorious for making your anus itch at night.  It’s because you’re all relaxed so they can crawl out and make you itch.  They can’t crawl out during the day because your muscles are too tense to let them crawl out.  But at night you relax a bit and so does your external anal sphincter and then the worms get to play.  We examined this poor girl and she had them crawling out during the day.  Meaning she was WAY overinfested with worms. 

It’s funny, I never saw pinworms in Africa, where they routinely de-worm the kids every 6 months because worms are so prevalent.  I waited till I came back to America and started working in a clinic in south Dallas.  That’s my life.

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At work one day there was a young girl with Type 2 Diabetes.  She was at least 150 pounds overweight for her age.  She had been warned in the past that she was severely obese and needed to lose weight for her health.  She had assured the doctor she would lose weight because she didn’t want to have to take medicine for diabetes.   

She had gained 10 more pounds in the past month and the doctor had decided to start her on diabetes medicine.  The doctor was explaining everything to her mother and she just started to cry.

Big. Fat. Tears. Rolling down her cheek.

I felt so sorry for her, I just wanted to reach out and hold her hand.  But she was across the room, and there was a lot of tension already.

Sometimes medicine is really hard.

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Finally, all 3 roommates were back in town.  We celebrated by eating Chuy’s and Fro Yo.  Classic American food. 

I was super excited about Chuy’s salsa and creamy jalapeno sauce.  Yum!

Howard was more excited about the Fro Yo.  Green Apple Tart Fro Yo.

She said “green apple tart is amazing” at least 100 times.  I’m not even exaggerating on this one.

How was I supposed to know she was obsessed with green apple?  Good to know.

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No more than one week into working with the kids, I got sniffles.

Then came the sneezing and coughing. Just enough to be annoying, but not enough to give me a fever and excuse me from work. How lame.  If I’m going to be sick, I at least want to be really sick.

I guess it only takes gagging kids with a strep throat swab for 7 days before I catch their yucky germs.

And now I’m thanking God for NyQuil!!

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The day of the last African Sunset.

Thursday/Friday

I awoke and took a sweet smelling shower with a showerhead that was on the ceiling.  Odd, hard to keep my hair dry, but kinda fun.

I waited until I HAD to check out to go to the airport.  I was dropped off at the OR Tambo airport in Johannesburg at 11 am, and had 8 more hours to kill before getting on my flight to America.

No one was awake in America yet, so it made no sense to get on the internet.  I just ate, so I couldn’t eat at any of the restaurants.  I decided to spend the last of the rand I had, since it wasn’t enough money to take back to America.  (only about 15 dollars)  I spent it on some neat things including a cool bracelet that gave a dollar to anti-malaria efforts. 

Which I promptly put on and found highly amusing since I was currently fighting off malaria.

I spent the rest of my money and still had WAY too much time to kill, so I walked around.

Which was great because there was a high school choir singing in front of a light up reindeer.  It was precious.  I watched them sing and dance to a few Christmas songs and instantly missed my good friend Diana.  I usually share the first Christmas song of the season with her.  No problems.

I made my way through security and too my gate as soon as I could.  No sense in not getting there early.  When I got to my gate there was an EXTRA search for all the people flying to America.  Everyone received a pat down and a bag search.  Which was the first time I had ever gotten a pat down.  Ever.

They also gave “extra” bag checks to random people as we boarded the plane.  I guess we can’t be too safe.  I watched my last African sunset for the year from the airport terminal.  It was breathtaking, like they all are.  Not too many other travelers noticed it.

It made me instantly miss the kids in Tanzania.  And my nightly walks in Zambia.  And the precious “simpleness” that life has in rural Africa.  No one is in a hurry.  No one needs more stuff.  People work hard.  People take long lunch breaks.  People enjoy the simple things in life. 

They don’t take things for granted.  They love deeply.

God, help me be more like that when I return to America. 

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I took my last malaria pill.  I felt SO much better than I did 3 days ago when I started the pills.  I’m thankful God cured me before my 16 hour flight to Atlanta.  I really wanted to be able to sleep and eat on the plane.  I thought about the 24 mosquito bites I received 2 Sunday nights ago when I stayed out past dark to watch the girls sing.  I wished I had run back up to my room to put on bug spray.  I wished I had enjoyed their singing AND kept myself protected from mosquitos.  But all I could think about at the time was watching the girls and telling them how beautifully they sang and how precious they were.

Because I had a mom and dad who told me that when I was a little girl.  They loved me, encouraged me, and watched me when I sang and danced.  They made me feel beautiful and precious.  I want that for every little girl.

How is a girl supposed to know how much our Father in Heaven loves us if she’s never felt important and special to someone on earth?  How do they even to begin to comprehend that feeling.

If I had to return and do life all over again, I’d have put on bug spray before dinner.  I wouldn’t have left while they were singing.  It was too captivating to leave. 

I just want all children to know how much God loves them.  To know how important and special they really are. 

To be able to be loved and show love for His glory.

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I watched a few hundred (well, 3) movies on the plane.  I slept too.  I was against the window and there was a girl in the aisle seat.  No one was in the middle, which was wonderful.  Such a blessing.

We landed in Atlanta finally and I took my trash to throw it away in one of the flight attendant bags.  They didn’t have one, so I figured I’d throw it away in one of the trash cans on the way to customs. 

There wasn’t one so I threw it away just outside customs.

Which got me yelled at.  I wasn’t allowed to throw food away in their trash can.  I explained that it came from the plane, it was just empty wrappers and a still-wrapped muffin.  The lady wanted me to fish it out of the trash can, declare it on my customs forms, and throw it away after customs.  I looked at her like she was crazy.  Really?? Declare my airplane muffin on the customs forms?  She told me the ham in my muffin couldn’t be disposed of there.  I told her my muffin didn’t have ham.  It was a chocolate muffin. 

Last. Time. I. Ever. Throw. Airplane. Trash. Away.

Ever.

She let me go through customs.  I got asked what I did in Zambia and Tanzania and South Africa.  I explained what I did.  The customs guy let me through.  Finally.

if you look really close you can see another airplane

I made the short trip from Atlanta to Dallas.  I was greeted at the airport by Ryan and some beautiful Sunflowers, my fall favorite flower!  They were beautiful.  It is SO good to be home!

Everything is so soft and so cold and so loud and so fast.

I stared at my phone for 5 minutes trying to remember what all the buttons did and why I was ever so attached to it.

My life is boring again now.  I’ll try to keep blogging though.  Something exciting is bound to happen.

The day of Shida (Problems).

Wednesday

I awoke groggy on Wednesday.  I took about 5 pills to get me going: one routine pill, 2 to stop my body from aching ALL over, and 2 more to slow down my intestines…

I slowly started to pack.  It was the easiest packing job of my life:  I was only taking home 3 dresses and a skirt.  And my new T-Stars Jersey.

I left everything else for the kids.

I only wish I could have brought more to leave.

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What started out as a trip of 3 girls going to town to have a nice lunch and drop me off at the airport quickly turned into a huge trip of 10 people going to town for various reasons: 2 for the hospital, one to visit his sick wife (people tend to get really sick in rainy season), 1 driver, 1 guy to fix a tire, 1 lady to direct everything, and 3 girls going to town.

I was ok with lunch probably not happening as I felt too nauseous to eat breakfast anyway.

But Stephanie reminded me I had yet to throw up, which I was quite thankful for.

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I realized I never got to say goodbye to the girls the night before.  I was too sick to move from bed and I fell asleep around 7 pm.  They were already in school by the time I drug myself out of bed and drank the tea Julia ever-so-sweetly made for me.

I hate saying goodbye anyway.

I think God knocked me out because he didn’t want to see my heart break into 1,000 pieces.

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We got near town and hit a lot of traffic.

Which is funny because not that many people actually own vehicles, so traffic isn’t a normal thing.  But neither is police walking around with machine guns on their backs.  They explained that there were some riots in town and no one could get in or out.

Not that I really wanted to leave, but I really didn’t want to buy another plane ticket.  I wonder if “riots in the town you’re flying out of” is an excusable reason to miss a plane flight?

Thankfully, our driver knew the back way around town.  We made it to the airport and I was beginning to feel much better.  Stephanie made a beeline for samosas, yummy meat filled pastries.  I went to see if I could get my boarding pass printed.

I was able to get a boarding pass, but I was forced to enter through security and passport control before I could eat a samosa.

Or say goodbye.  I even had the security guard call out “goodbye Julia!” for me, but he said no one answered him.  I hoped Julia knew it was ok to leave the airport.

I made it through all security checkpoints before I realized I had no water to take my next round of malaria pills with.  I could buy water, except I left the last of my money with Julia to use.  Hmmm. 

I dug through my bag and found fruit snacks. I thought possibly they would make me salivate enough to swallow the pills.  But actually, I discovered if I chewed one up really well then I could throw a pill in my mouth and swallow it all.  It was brilliant.  Delicious.  I highly recommend it if you find yourself in a similar situation.

I looked out the window and saw Logos, our vehicle!  Julia and friends must still be at the airport!  I got squishy close to the man sitting near the window so I could look out and try to see any of my friends from JBFC so I could wave bye.  I just really needed to say goodbye before I left.  I felt like I might cry if I didn’t.

I saw Cha Cha and Rachel and the Driver.  I knocked on the window and waved my arms around violently, which elicited more than one crazy look from the airport lounge occupiers. 

Finally they saw me and motioned for Julia and Stephanie to wave goodbye too.  They were still waiting outside the security checkpoint hoping to pass me a samosa.  No luck on the samosa, but I got to wave goodbye with minimal tears in my eyes!  I was so thankful for the chance to wave!

I was fed gourmet food on the plane.  A coke and a “beef” sandwich with a cucumber and cheese spread on it.  Better than nothing.

I have always looked through the seat pockets in planes, glancing at the airplane safety card, the sky mall magazine, the airplane sickness bag, and the airline magazine.  I always wondered if anyone really had good enough aim to actually make it in the airplane sickness bag.  I mean, honestly, I sometimes have problems hitting the toilet when I’m sick, and it’s at least 4 times the size of the airplane sickness bags.

But good news friends, I can aim.

We’ll just say that I am now able to cross off one of the unofficial goals on my life “to-do” list.  I felt really terrible handing my used baggie to the flight attendant.  I sealed it up for him all nicely.  I don’t think he was really happy to grab it.  But probably he was happier than if I had missed the bag entirely.

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I made it to Dar Es Salaam, which used to be the capitol, but now it’s Dodoma.  I walked through the airport, dragging myself because I felt yucky.  And exhausted.  I took notice of all the trash cans along the way just in case.  Now that I know I can aim, I need to know where my closest target is.

I was fine and made it onto the second plane.  I was served a meal of fish-on-the-bone.  I wasn’t feeling up to eating it anyway, but I spooned myself a scoop of orange juice every minute.  I didn’t want to hydrate myself too quickly and end up tasting my food again. 

I made it to Johannesburg around 11 pm and grabbed a cab for my hotel.  I got to the hotel and loved it.  Soft bed.  Cute room.  Free internet.

I fell asleep soundly and didn’t wake up until the wakeup call the next morning.  Fabulous.

I highly recommend Life Hotel in Johannesburg.  It’s close to the airport and has a free airport shuttle, which saves you about 60 dollars.  It also has free breakfast.

Which I was able to eat the next day after 2 more rounds of malaria medicine.  I had fresh fruit and granola, taking it easy because my stomach was still a bit uneasy.

The day I read to the preschool while fighting malaria.

Tuesday

“Good morning Julius”

I went down to watch morning announcements since I haven’t seen them yet and Julia has told me such fun things about them. 

I can’t believe I missed singing the national anthem, school song, and doing stretches with the school every morning.  Precious.

There’s something special about watching a child stand tall and proud singing their own national anthem.

I went back up to begin packing for my trip home.  I got as far as separating my clothes I’m taking home from my clean clothes I’m leaving here from my dirty clothes I’m leaving here.

And then I felt really nauseous, reminding me I forgot to take my malaria pill last night.  Eeeh, no good.  But Dr. Laura gave me some coartem, so I’m covered just in case I DO get malaria. 

Having finished my project and my 800 essays for INMED, I decided to begin writing my blog for the past 4 days.

I was still feeling sick so I decided to take a quick nap before lunch.  Julia came to wake me up for lunch but I still didn’t feel good so I slept.  Yuck.  I hope I don’t throw up.  I don’t want to be sick.  Dear Lord, please heal me!  I know you can.

Julia came to get me after lunch, and I didn’t feel much better, but I promised to read to the preschool kids today, so I got up. 

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At one time in my life I wanted to be a preschool teacher.  Now is my chance!!

Ryan’s Mom found me this awesome book about going on a Safari in Tanzania.  It has all the numbers in Swahili as well as animal names and Swahili kids names.  It’s the coolest book, and she found it even before she knew (and I knew) I was coming to Tanzania.  God new though.

[look how well they're paying attention!!]

I probably butchered half of the names in Swahili, but I know I got all the numbers right.  Julia took some pictures, and then I gave the book to the pre-school teachers so they could teach the animal names and numbers in English and Swahili and have a really cool book about Tanzania to read.

And it has a map of Tanzania in the back.  And the preschool teacher pronounced it “Tanz-ania” with the “an” sounding like the word “an” in the word animal instead of the way we pronounce it in English, which I thought was way cool.

We got the power turned on so I could contact the outside world and call my dad for his birthday, which was yesterday, check on my plane flight times because it might have changed for the 8^th time, send my completed project to my teacher, and post blogs.

But there was no internet again.  Bummer.

I decided to take another nap since I still felt terrible and I was exhausted!

I slept until the children got out of school.

I only got up because it’s really hard to sleep through 200 children running around outside.

Julia was making what sounded like a delicious dish: chicken and banana curry.  I was looking forward to it. 

Before I felt nauseous all day.

But, as I hadn’t eaten anything all day, I walked up to the big yellow house with the intention of helping her.  Really all I did was eat a fresh-baked piece of bread and lay down on the couch.

I decided I should just go to sleep.  And that I should just take the malaria medicine I have.  It feels like malaria.  Probably.

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I asked Julia to wake me up in 8 hours because that’s how you take all 8 pills on the first day: 4 now and 4 in 8 hours.

I vaguely heard a movie playing in the other room.  I didn’t think that was a symptom of malaria…

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I woke up in a panic at 1 am because I thought I had overslept and not taken the medicine.  Really, I didn’t need to take it until 4 am.  I went back to bed.

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I heard Julia’s phone alarm go off so I grabbed the medicine and started popping the 4 pills out of the foil packaging. 

Julia told me it was only 3:15, that she had just gotten a text message from Chris, the director of JBFC who is currently in America.  Likely he sent it earlier and it just took that long to get to Africa because he’s not super rude.

But he woke me up anyway.

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Finally, after what feels like forever Julia’s phone alarm went off.  I took the medicine and had trouble going back to bed.

The day we all dressed up our faces for Halloween!

Monday

Julia was all bright and perky this morning.  I was grumpy which I blame on getting woken up by the tortured donkey this morning and sleeping in a regular bed again.

She brought me coffee before she left for school which put me back in a better mood.  I wasn’t sure what to wear, so I decided I’d go to the bathroom and put off my clothing decision making.

I ran into Stephanie in the bathroom who was painting her face in the mirror.  She was dressed in a black tank top, orange undershirt, and green and orange skirt.  Very appropriate for Halloween!

Why didn’t I think about packing a Halloween outfit a month and a half ago when I was packing?

She told me I could wear her Saints Jersey for the day, which made me happy.  Then she painted my face and put gold glitter on it, which made me even happier.

I looked a bit silly in my oversized Jersey and skirt.  I’m not sure the NFL designed their jerseys to be worn with huge skirts.

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Being 2 paragraphs away from completing my master’s project, I was looking for a way to put it off again, which was perfect because Stephanie was looking for an art assistant!

She had a lofty goal: paint all 200 faces at JBFC School for Halloween!

And hand each kid a piece of candy.

We painted half a million butterflies.  And a handful of stars and hearts (or “love” as they call the shape) and flowers.

The kids LOVED it!

We took lots of pictures:

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For dinner tonight, we decided to make pizza.  Our cookbook, the Joy of Cooking, had a good recipe for pizza crust.

Unfortunately, we’re out of yeast, and didn’t have an hour to wait, so we returned to our old favorite: tortilla crust!

We made 3 portions and rolled them out twice as thick as a tortilla.  Then we cooked it for about 13 minutes.  Then we added Julia’s homemade tomato sauce, then freshly grated cheese.

Cook for another 10 minutes….and Perfection!!  To make the meal worthy of Halloween, we tried to add our onion and garlic topping in the shape of a bat.  Ryan would be so proud!

The internet didn’t work, so I couldn’t call my dad and wish him a Happy Birthday :( Big bummer.  So, happy belated birthday Dad!!

I also couldn’t send in my now-completed rough draft of my master’s project.  Less sad.

The day we weren’t woken up by a donkey or children.

Sunday

I awoke to glitter surrounding my pillow.  I vaguely remembered being promised a bonfire last night, but we all fell asleep before that happened.  Which was probably more necessary.

I felt incredibly well rested and remember praising the Lord for soft pillows and a large king-sized bed.

And for no donkeys at Tunza.

I looked at my clock, since I was the first person up. I love waking up and then realizing it’s not time to wake up and then getting to go back to sleep.

I decided since it was 10:30, I should get up for the day.  I got dressed and left Julia and Stephanie a note.  I took my camera and went for a walk on the beach.

[beach in the morning]

I stopped by the bar for some coffee.  I specifically asked for non-instant coffee and the man looked at me like I was crazy and walked me to the coffee bar.  He heated up the water, and I mixed myself instant coffee.  At least they had sugar and drinking chocolate and cold milk to add to it.

I can’t wait to drink real coffee on a consistent basis.

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[The rain that almost spoiled our beach party]

[tree house climbing!]

Beach party. With our new friends and Dr. Laura.  She’s not really a doctor, she’s actually a PA spending a year abroad doing medical mission work, because she was tired of living in New York and working in Neurosurgery and she wanted a change.  She was working in Sudan for the first six months before the violence got bad and they evacuated her, so now she’s just traveling around East Africa.  Stephanie’s got lots of crazy stories about Dr. Laura because she spent the night out on the farm at Buhongwa last weekend before we got out to the farm.  She’s quite the character, but she earned the nickname Dr. and I guess I have too.

[Dr. Laura, Major, Jacques, and Julia.  Notice the slip and slide behind them]

We finally left Tunza because our bus driver arrived 3 hours after we called him.  Which wasn’t bad, I guess considering, it’s an hour drive to Tunza from JBFC and Jacques offered to buy us all drinks.

[Swarms of bugs]

On the way home Cha Cha (the snake killer) bought us some corn that was cooked over coals.  It was delicious.

[eating roadside corn that tasted like popcorn]

[Sprite, Desani, Coke, Pepsi, and Fanta are all over the place here]

I love that there are rocks all along the side of the road that look like they would have fallen from a huge mountain, but there aren’t any huge mountains here.  Chris said some geologist came one time and told him that there used to be huge mountains here before the Earth’s plates shifted and now there are no mountains.

Which I take to be true because the “We all went on Safari” Tanzania book said there used to be volcanoes here bigger than Mount Kilimanjaro but they fell down and now there are craters.

[Rocks along the road]

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[Eating pillou for dinner with Setti and Salome]

[What I found on my arm after dinner.  From my bug spray mixing with the paint of my water bottle.  Classy]

The day we were Peace, Love, and Ninjas.

Saturday

We awoke at 8 because we planned to leave at 9.  We really knew that meant we wouldn’t leave until after 10, but we were ready to leave on time, and that’s what counts. 

We wanted to pack light because we had a lot of stops to make.  We packed for a Halloween party, an overnight stay, and a swim on the beach.

We ate a breakfast burrito and had real coffee for breakfast.  Which is my favorite way to start a Saturday.  We were pretending that tomatoes and onions and “hot sauce flavoring” counted as salsa and that the eggs here taste normal.  And that our tortillas weren’t reheated.

All things considered, breakfast was delicious.

We wrote post cards while we waited for the bus driver to pick us up for the day.

He was only an hour and a half late, so judging by last Saturday when he was 3 hours late, we call that a success.

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First stop in town was U turn.  We had very important items to purchace such as raisins, chicken, cheese, and Skyy.

I was in charge of getting us from U turn to the Post office even though I’ve only spent one day in Mwanza before, and I was on the verge of sleep-loss induced delirium at that point.

I almost got us there, but made one crucial mis-turn at the stoplight.  Thankfully, our driver found someone on the street to give us directions.

Twice.

And finally we found it!  I was in charge of putting the mail in the slot while Julia walked over to buy us burgers.  They were delicious and came with chips for only 2 USD!

I’m not sure if the chips were good because some boys on the street asked for money and food and saw us eating our burgers.  Julia gave up her chips but they wanted ours too.  So Stephanie and I followed her lead.

It was for the best, they would have gone straight to our hips anyway.

Julia said that she can’t give everything she has to everyone, but God told her to give up her possessions if possible when people ask.  Which was a good way to think about our food.

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We made it to the market with no problems.  Julia, in broken Swahili, told our driver that we would be at the market a long time so he should go home.  We would find a cab ride from the market to Tunza because we were told it would only cost 5 USD, and I’m pretty skilled at catching cab now.

We bought plenty of crafts, some new jeans for Julia, and fresh, delicious fruit at the market!

Our driver, that we thought we sent home 2 hours ago, found us just as we finished purchasing everything.

Good thing we didn’t hire a piki-piki (motorcycle) to take us to Tunza yet!

We’re thankful God led him to us before we left the market!

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We made our way on a bumpy dirt road to Tunza, which is Swahhili for “a place to stay.”

We got to our room and changed into bathing suits and cover-ups.  We found yet another use for the konga/chitengue fabric.  We got some delicious (cold!) drinks at the bar: PINEAPPLE FANTA!!  Mega good.  And some other pineapple coconut soda that was equally as good. 

[our bungalow and our cold sodas!]

We walked out to the lake and walked out onto the dock, being careful to avoid all the broken boards.  On the way to the end of the dock, tons of Tanzanian guys offered to swim with us.  No, thanks.  I just straightened my hair for my costume, and there’s no way I’m getting it wet on purpose.

And Stephanie pretended to be afraid of the water.  Who knows, there could have been sharks in the lake. 

Julia decided to go for a swim.  Stephanie and I just soaked our feet. It was fabulous!

We walked by the bar on our way back and got more soda.  After not drinking anything cold for 2 weeks we were really excited about drinking chilled soda!

We also ordered samosas: beef and vegetable filled fried tortillas in a triangle shape.  They’re amazing. 

We sat on the porch of our bungalow sipping cold sodas, waiting for our samosas, and watching the sunset!

[the porch of our bungalow]

[the sunset on the beach of Lake Victoria]

After watching the sun set we decided to check on our samosas, which were supposed to be brought to our room.  We found our waiter and decided to go ahead and order dinner.  We each got something different, and we were excited about food we didn’t have to cook and that wasn’t rice and beans!

Our samosas finally showed up about an hour after ordering them.  We sat on the side of the beach watching the waves roll in until big wolf-like dogs encouraged us to move under the protection of the bar’s roof.  We sat at a tall table for another hour waiting on our food.  It was getting close to 8pm at this point, which is pretty late for dinner.

Especially if you know how grumpy I get without food. 

Apparently Julia does too.

Which left Stephanie, who wasn’t grumpy, to tell us stories of her young adult-hood. 

Even her hilarious stories weren’t enough to put us back in a good mood.

We finally got dinner and ate in record time.  Even I finished quickly because I was so hungry.  Stephanie spoke with Jan, the owner of Tunza, and he told us we only had 15 minutes to get ready before we left for the Halloween party.  Stephanie negotiated for 20 minutes and we ran to our bungalow to get ready!

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[Dressing up]

Peace. Love. Ninjas? Now.

We were going to be Peace. Love. Tunza (which has a really nice ring to it if you ask me) when the party was at Tunza, but the party got relocated to the Yacht Club because Jan didn’t want to have a party that competed with them and we couldn’t come up with anything cooler than Ninjas.

[the finished costumes, which are decently appropriate in American culture]

Where did you get those colorful tank tops underneath your black ones? Honalie asked.

“Oh, they’re just bras.”  Thanks Julia.

[Our new friend Chad, Honalie’s son, who’s about 8 years old]

I feel like every kid wanted to cut holes in a white sheet and be a ghost when they were little.

We didn’t get a picture of Dr. Laura and her friend, but they decided to be Greek Godesses…and we were super thankful we had a last minute change of costume. 

Maybe they don’t live with any Masai.

…………………………………………………………..

We left Tunza as a big group.  We walked by some ladies that said “Happy Halloween” and then “Oh My God” before we were out of earshot.

And we thought our costumes weren’t that ridiculous.

Maybe not.

We hopped in the back of Jan’s truck with Chad for the ride across town. 

[Riding across town in the back of a pickup truck]

We arrived to a huge display of tents and lights and decorations.  We thought it was our Halloween party, but when we kept walking through we realized we were really just walking through a wedding party.

Uninvited.

Then we entered the Mwanza Yacht Club.

Which was having a Halloween fundraising event.  Good thing we’re still supporting things with our partying.  We found out the money was going to support the Yacht Club because they only have 2 boats.  Interesting.  Lame.

Tunza has New Moon parties every other month and they give all the money to JBFC Children’s Home and School!  Way cooler.  Jan, who I realize I talk about a lot in this blog post, is a legit South African.  He was trained to be a tracker in the Apartheid movement, which means he can look at your feet and decide exactly where you are.  Which is decently frightening.

Somehow, he moved to Mwanza and opened up a beach resort called Tunza.  And somehow he became friends with Chris, the founder of JBFC, so we’re treated like celebrities when we go to Tunza, which is pretty cool.  Well, not celebrities exactly, but the management is super nice to us.

We were one of the 10 people dressed up.  Chad and the Greek Godesses that came with us were also dressed up.  There were a few others, but most people just looked boring.  There was a group of nurses and doctors wearing their uniforms, and there were about 20 of them.

They ended up winning the costume contest.  Wearing your work uniform is not a costume.  Way lame.

So, we lost a rigged costume contest.  And then raffle.

And there was no dancing.  The party was starting to get really lame.

And then we went to the bathroom.

[Using the squatty potties we look different sizes, but that’s just an optical illusion]

I gotta get better at aiming.

………………………………………………………..

Dr. Laura complained to the management about us not even being considered for the costume contest, even though we were legitimately wearing costumes and they weren’t. 

She was able to swing us all free shots of Tequila as a consolation prize.

Why do we keep thinking Tequila in Africa is decent?  Because they were out of rum.

Which was still a respectable consolation prize.

……………………………………………………..

The manager was a guy from Ireland, and he knew Jan pretty well (who decided on a shot of Jack Daniel’s instead of Tequila, very smart move)

Somehow, Jan got the Irish guy to sing.

So now I can say we got serenaded by an Irish man.

Which was pretty legit. Very similar to the movie P.S. I love You if you’ve seen it.

……………………………………………………………..

Honalie decided it was time for her and Chad to go home around midnight, and even though Dr. Laura was trying to convince us to stay out, we thought it was a good idea to stick with Jan.

Plus, Jan promised us a beach bonfire for an after-party, which we thought would be way more fun then drinking more at the Yacht club.

When we got back to Tunza and we were bought drinks by Major’s Dad, which Jan convinced us we needed.

I’m not too sure who Major is, but Julia and Stephanie tell me he is legit, and Jan tells us his dad is a talker, so Jan promised to escort us to our room shortly after finishing our drinks.

And I’m about to do anything Jan says because if I don’t, he can track my feet and kill me.

Jan told us to wait about 10 minutes for Major’s Dad to go to bed before we start a beach bonfire after party.