Wow, so I had quite the interesting first day here in Tanzania. First of all, I got here safe and finally met the one and only Paradise. Well, I guess I’ll start at the beginning. After Lindsay and I landed in Kilimanjaro, she left with her group and I jumped on a bus which was headed for Arusha. It was about a 45 minute drive and I was supposed to get off at some hotel to meet Paradise, however I forgot the name of the hotel so I just stayed on the bus until one of the hotel’s sounded familiar. When we got to the Impala hotel, I remembered that was it. So I got off and went to the reception desk to call Paradise, 10 minutes later Paradise was there with 3 other men and they helped me get my stuff in the Land Cruiser. One of the men was another volunteer from Chicago and we have been hanging out for the past two nights. After we got in the car, they took me to my hotel that I was staying at which is very nice but not exactly on one of the more popular roads. So I took my stuff in, got a shower, and then met them for dinner. We went to a little local place and I had chicken and chippati. It is essentially flat bread, lots and lots of flat bread! It was really good but the meal definitely introduced me to the laid back life style of Africa. It took us two and a half hours to eat. So after dinner I was quite exhausted and I think it would be fair to say that I slept very good that night. The next day Paradise, who by the way is very nice and is living up to his name, arranged for me to visit the Masai people. So that morning I went down and had breakfast, which I have to talk about breakfast first. The waitress did not speak the best English, and I was completely on my own with no one else, so I had no idea what she said. So every time she said something or asked me something, I would just nod my head and smile. Well it turns out that I ended up ordering toast, eggs, and bacon for breakfast, I was impressed with myself. The whole time I kept thinking, darn, I might have just ordered fruit or something. So that was fun and Paradise then came and met me while I ate. From there he took me on a long drive to reach the Masai camp, which is at the foothills of Mt. Meru. There I met up with a Masai man named Jeremiah who would be my tour guide for the day. Now they told me that it was a walking tour but I didn’t realize what they meant when they said walking. For four hours, him and I walked the entire jungle/farm area of Mt. Meru, going from boma to boma. And for those who are new to the Swahili thing, a boma is a house or collection of homes. So the entire day we spent walking down small dirt paths and hanging out with the Masai people. I can’t think of a better way to get exposed to the culture, it was just me and hundreds of Masai people, yeah it was pretty cool. At the one boma, I spent some time with the kids and they were fascinated by my camera, so I got some fun pictures with them and of them making silly faces at me. Then around 1:00, we arrived at his boma and he invited me inside with his kids. There I ate my lunch (which happened to be chicken and chippati once again) and he changed in to his traditional Masai clothes. When we were done there, we kept walking (and at this point I was so lost it was even funny, I felt like I was lost in the amazon). An hour later we came upon a small Masai market where they were selling vegetables and other stuff. There wasn’t too much to see there so we quickly got on a daladala. A daladala is what you are told not to get on as a tourist because of theft and stuff, but I really had no other option so I gladly jumped on with Jeremiah. For those of you that don’t know what a daladala is, it is a small van probably smaller than the size of our 15 person vans, and they cram over 30 people into them; hence the problem with theft and pick pocketing. Well, I figured I was with a Masai guy (although they all were) and he had a huge knife with him, I had to be safe. Well I made it off alive and with all my stuff, but it was quite an interesting ride, the whole time people are yelling and handing money around and people hanging out of windows and doors. It was pretty cool, I think they would work well at Penn State. So we took that and then stopped on the side of the road in what looked to me like the middle of no where. Literally there was nothing around. However, that didn’t stop us from walking, so we just started walking off into the middle of a field on a tiny dirt path. Eventually we came across a home where some other volunteers were living. We met them later but they weren’t the friendliest. So both of them, me and my Masai buddy jumped in their car and went to the big Masai market. And this thing was crazy. Imagine a bunch of people in blue, purple, and red robes gathered along the side of a sole road with huge mountains surrounding them everywhere. It was awesome, but I had to be careful when taking pictures because some of them get really upset apparently. I had already got scolded in Swahili I think from an older lady in one of the bomas so I didn’t want to upset an entire crowd, otherwise I would have had to run away from an angry mob in the middle of no where, and that didn’t seem like a wise choice. So we stayed there for a bit and then I got a ride home with two grumpy volunteers, who I think had road rage because they were driving like maniacs. Then again everyone is Tanzania drives crazy. Once back in Arusha I met up with Paradise and the others and we watched the soccer championship between Chelsea and Manchester, which was awesome sitting around a tiny TV with a bunch of Africans yelling stuff that I couldn’t understand. After that we went and got dinner and I sat around with a bunch of drunk Africans who kept making jokes in English that I couldn’t understand, but it was still a lot of fun. So that’s been the start of the trip and I’m sure the stories will keep coming. There is internet access in Arusha but I’m not sure how often I can get here once I’m at the orphanage, I think I will probably be able to do it once a week, I will try my best. I hope things are going well back home, miss everyone!!