So the internet still takes forever but I thought it would be worth the ten minutes to upload 1 picture so that you could see the kids. Check out the 2 other new posts below!So this is inside the orphanage and is our dinner table. You can imagine the three of us sitting on these tiny seats eating dinner every night, it's quite the funny site. I'll try to name all the kids in the picture above starting with the guy in the red shirt with his hands up and working clockwise: Simon, Jackeline, Daniel, Clara, Mosess, Everest, Flora, Sofina, Vialeth, Catherine, Schola, Ester, Johnny, David

This is an on going record of all of the funniest and most absurd moments that have happened in the trip thus far.

-When Grimm and I first got into Africa, the very first person that we met was a girl named Stacy. She, believe it or not, was an F& M student.
-One day Spud, Grimm, and I decided that we wanted to go on a walk. Josephati said something to us about it, but none of us really understood what he was saying. So we ended up just leaving. We walked about thirty minutes up a mountain, taking at least 4 random turns at 4 intersections. We then paused at the top to take pictures of the scenery. We were there at least 5 minutes, and then turned around to retrace our steps. Right when we started walking back down the mountain we saw Josephati. He had been following our foot prints the whole way up the mountain. How he did this, was beyond me.
-We have had many tragic incidents with our misquito nets since we have been here. For those of you that have never encountered a misquito net before, it is a long 6-10 foot circular net that vaguely resembles the underlining of a tutu if it were camouflage green.
--The first incident was with spud’s net. There is a hoop that is connected to the top of the netting to make the net come out broader. For reasons unbeknownst to Spud (wow I have never used that word before… feels pretty good), this hoop just popped off. This doesn’t seem that bad, but it is literally the most frustrating thing to try to reattach it… especially when your friends (me and grimm) are just sitting back and laughing at you. Eventually the three of us got it back on.
--Later that night (I believe) the same thing happened to me, which Spud found absolutely histarical. Apparently its more funny when it doesn’t happen to you.
--The next night when we were getting ready to go to bed, my whole net fell down. I soon discovered that I could not put this back up by myself, so Spud, being the good friend that he was, tried to help me… all the while laughing histarically. While we were attempting to put it up, Spud lost his balance and fell into me while jerking the net down on top of us. This jerking force, caused my hoop to fall of yet again. After about several minutes we put the hoop on and the net up. It was getting late, so I started tucking the net into my bed to keep those skeeters out, when I felt the hoop hit my head. Since that time, I have put the hoop in time out for its misbehavior and it is currently, and permantly laying on the ground.
-While we are on the topic of myself, I will tell you about the ‘Hoss’ bad day’. This day started out rather ineventful. We ate breakfast and helped do some chores and then relaxed until lunch time, which has been typical of our stay. We then went into eat, and Josephati told us ‘welcome’ indicated that we can go eat. I was first to the service table to see three plates that were covered up. I knew right away that this would not be good. I uncovered the first plate to find a plate full of ‘egg and chips’. They basically made French fries, and put them in a frying pan, and added about 3 or 4 eggs and fried it into an egg and potato disc. I don’t know if you know this, but I hate eggs. It is one of the few things that I really can’t bring myself to eat. I looked back and grimm and spud trying to hide my face of disgust and horror only to see them trying to hide their laughter. In the hopes that not all of the plates would be the same, I gave the first one to Spud (making it appear that I was just being a good friend and giving it them first). I uncovered the second one and saw the same thing and gave it to grimm. I came to the last plate only to find that it to was eggs. Now normally they have other food out for you to choose from, but today, for some odd reason, this was the only thing on the table. So I, not wanting to be a bad guest, bit the bullet and decided to eat it. About 10 minutes later, after I had already eaten half of the plate, and after Spud and grimm had just about spit up half their food from laughing at my expense, the rest of the staff came to join us. They were each carrying a bowl full of food… none of which was eggs, and all of which I was dying to eat. And to top it all off, our host at the end came and gave us all bananas to eat that he opened for us. This brought a smile to my face because not only did I like bananas… but Spud hates fruit, and infact has never eaten it (to his knowledge) in his life. I was smelling revenge… and it was sweet. Little did I know that spuds respect and care for josephati was nothing compared to his determination not to ever eat fruit, so Spud never ate it. Later that day, we were walking with josephati to a market, and I had been wearing sandals that had been rubbing against my feet all day. This became so annoying that I took off my sandals and walked barefoot through the streets. This was going rather swimmingly until I stepped into the stickiest, squishiest poo. Then later that night after supper was over, we went back to our rooms. I was well over due for my visit to the bathroom and went right after spud to relieve myself. Lets just say that I felt like a lost a couple pounds while I was in there. Anyways I then flushed the toilet and nothing really happened. This is typical due to the bad toilets so I tried again and water barely trickled out. I thought for sure that I clogged the toilet. I then tried the sink and no water came out, and then I tried the shower and no water came out. I was convinced that I clogged the toilets so bad that somehow shut off all the water. I soon found out that I was infact wrong, and soon thereafter I was able to flush it down. The last thing that happened during this day was that my misquito netting fell down… infact I put it up and it fell down twice.
-Grimm one day was rather excited about his trip to the bathroom that he was about to take which caused him to pee a little too fast. He ended up peeing directly on himself.
-I (hoss) picked a little girl up named Flora. I was walking around with her for a little bit looking at all of the dirt and mud on her. She had just been playing in little puddle. She started crying a little bit, for reasons I couldn’t figure out. I noticed that my shirt started to get wet, but I attributed that to her puddle. I soon found out that she infact had just peed all over me.
-This actually happened:
Cow: Moooo
Spud: is that my cell phone?
Me: that’s a cow.
-So the other day we were sitting at the table with a couple of kids. We never really play with them inside because there isn’t much to do, so Spud asked us if we knew any games to play with the kids inside. Grimm quickly replied ‘spin the bottle.’
-I would like to report that while lightning does not typically strike twice, there are other things that do. In the same day, I was given a whole plate of eggs to eat for lunch (again), and I was peed on (again) by Flora… I guess that there could be worse things that could happen twice. For instance losing half of my memory or losing a kidney. Let me note however that yet again Spud showed me no sympathy as a scarfed down the eggs… thus the I will search all the more intently for a way of making him (knowingly or unknowingly) eat fruit.
-This may not be that funny or absurd, but it is noteworthy. I, Andrew Monroe Hostetter have swong Andrew something Grimm around off the ground by his legs completely under my own power. We have photo documentation of this. This great feat was one of my prouder moments in life.
-One of the funniest parts of everyday is our shower time. Now before your mind goes places it shouldn’t, none of us have ever so much been in the bathroom at the same time. But what makes taking a shower so interesting is that we have no hot water. Our water is frequently described as: fridged, cold, numbing, and life changing. This is basically how every shower goes… at least for me. We get up every morning and I yell I call shower last. Grimm takes his shower first, followed by Spud. The reason why I constantly choose to go last is the same reason that people would choose to delay their execution… when the time comes you are not sure you will make it out alive. Also, I enjoy hearing their moans and yelps when they muster the courage to finally go under the shower head. When it is my turn, I go in, strip down, and turn on the shower. I stand outside of the shower for a minute or two while I give myself a preshower pep talk. In never seems to really work. So I end up just putting my head under the water first figuring it would be less shocking then if my whole body was not immersed in the liquid ice. I then suds up and do the same with each limb and then splash it on my body. I then just jump completely under the shower and thrash around as quick and possible to try to get the water precisely on the areas of my body that still have soap. I usually can’t stop myself from uttering a ‘whoo’ or two. Then when I am done I turn it off. At the end it normally feels very refreshing… but it still doesn’t stop me from debating the next day whether I need one.
-I don’t know how funny you all will find this, but I certainly chuckled a bit when I saw it. Grimm, Spud and I got dropped off in town one day. We had to go to the bank and wanted to then go to an internet café to email all of you lovely people. We finished these objectives rather quick, and decided to walk around the town a bit until Josephati came to pick us up. Now something that you have to understand is that the people down here are relatively poor. I think I heard the unemployment rate was 70 percent. So when they see white people, they see big dollar signs above our heads. So everywhere we went we had people trying to sell us things using their limited English vocabulary. None of us were interested in buying anything because we still had three weeks left here and we didn’t feel like carrying things around with us, so we all did our best to communicate to them that we weren’t interested. Spud and I did a pretty good job at that. I had about one person try for about 5 minutes to get me to buy something. Grimm on the other hand was not quite as successful. For about the entire twenty we were walking, grimm had at least people around him thrusting things into his face and trying to talk him into buying it. I think that main problem was that grimm, being the nice guy his is, actually entertained them. In fact, not wanting to belittle them, he acted interested and even went as far as to hold many of their products for multiple minutes at a time all the while trying to talk their price down. It was so funny to turn around and see grimm completely surrounded by these people. This all also seemed very ironic to me because grimm has been a world traveler since birth and has been to dozens of countries, and yet he still hadn’t learned his lesson. As the saying goes, if you give a mouse a cookie… he’ll want some milk (I think that is a saying).
-One of the funniest things that have happened to us thus far is our epic pursuit of Lindsey Winiefred Cook via our international cell phone. Lindsey is volunteering in Tanzania at the same time as we are, and being that she is a good friend of ours we wanted to meet up with her at some point during our free time. Lindsey gave us her cell number to call her. Now our pursuit started out rather well. A day or two into the trip we decided to call her so we could reserve a day to see her… and we were successful… somewhat. We got her voice mail. So Spud left her a message telling her to call us back on this number to figure out when we could all get together. After a couple more days, she still hadn’t called us back, so we decided to call her again. When Lindsay gave spud the number via the internet, he immediately programmed it into the phone as her cell number, and allegedly had checked her number twice. When we called her the second time, Spud found her number under dialed numbers and called it. Here again we had a bit of success, our call was actually connected!... but instead of hearing lindsay’s perky voice we heard a man saying something in Swahili. This confused us all a bit because we had dialed the exact same number as before. A couple days later we decided to call again. This time they made me do it. So I found her number again under recently dialed numbers, and it was labeled lindsay’s cell as before, and clicked the call button. It rang and yet again I got the answering machine…. But it wasn’t Lindsay’s answering machine, it was my father’s Phil Hostetter. None of the guys believed me when I told them it, so I went back and looked at the number I had just ‘dialed’ and saw infact that what spud put under lindsay’s cell phone number was the exact same cell number that my father had. So as of now, none of us are quite sure how we will get a hold of Lindsay… if there even is a real Lindsay Cook.
-There were a lot of funny things that happened while we were on the safari. There was our incredibly slow driver, the Germans who we ran into all the time at random places, having to get out and push our jeep while standing feet from lions… yes lions plural, sleeping with zebras and trying to herd them (I could have probably touched one if I had sprinted at it), but the funniest (unfortunately) was my toilet experience. Unlike grimm who can hold it til christimas, I am unable to hold it for several days. So by the end of the safari, I was getting ready to burst. Thankfully we had made it back to our camp site, which had bathrooms. So I eagerly ran into the bathroom and encountered my first problem… there was no lights. Luckily it was dark already so I had my trusty wind-up flashlight (thanks mom), so I propped that bad boy up and got ready to do what I do best. Then I turned and looked at the toilet… if you can call it that. It was a hole in the ground with two little rumble strips on the side. They looked like the imprint of the astronauts boot on the moon. Having never encountered anything like this in the bathroom, I was kind of unsure exactly the physics of the device. I figured it was a squatter, but when I went down for a test flight I ascertained that if I tried to take care of #1 and 2 at the same time, I would either end up with one of those two on the ground. I also knew that it would not be possible to do only one at a time do to the urgency of the moment. So after much debating, I decided just to sit on the ground. The moment I sat down I felt my whole leg get soaked in what I can only hope to be muddy water. To further worsen the occasion, I ended up getting bitten by some kind of bug which I never found in an area where no bug belongs. To top it off, I went to the sinks to find that not only was there no water except for one faucet that had a constant trickle, but there was no soap which was an absolute necessity after this occasion. I looked up to find two promising bottles, one was windex and the other toilet bowl cleaner. I knew that it would be inhumane for me to leave the bathroom without attempting some form of the biohazard cleanup that was needed after this experience, so I again weighed my options. I ended up washing my hands in windex because I figured I would be dumb for me to wash my hands with something that went into the toilet. This traumatic event did end on a higher note. I went back to my tent and found some handy wipes (again thank you mom), so I was able to pretty thoroughly clean myself up. So the lesson here boys and girls is that adult diapers are underrated.
-The other really funny experience that happened on the safari was occurred during the last hour of our safari. We were getting eating a packed lunch inside of the Ngoragora Crater which is a huge wildlife reserve that is inside of an inactive volcanoes crater. When we got out of the jeep our guide warned us of the monkeys that were around here; he told us that there are a certain bad group of monkeys which frequently harass the tourists. Having looked around and not seeing or hearing any monkeys we all quickly (too quickly that is) dismissed his comment. We decided to eat our lunch in a patch of grass next to huge bushes which easily could have concealed a host of animals, and a path leading to the bathroom. We were having just a jolly good time talking about the animals we saw, when out of the corner of my eye I saw this grey animal come sprinting directly toward the back of Spud and Grimm. At first glance I thought that this was a rabbit, but I soon realized that this was in fact the monkey that we had been warned about. By the time I got out “O my God, there’s a…” the monkey had literally tackled Grimm’s lunch box. Considering Grimm had no idea this feller was coming, he was startled quite a bit, and jumped back. But when he realized that his lunch was in peril, he sprang back on his lunch box and actually physically his the monkey away. The monkey, not wanting to go away empty handed sprang back and got his hands on Grimm’s banana and sprinted off. Spud later decided that it would be fun to try to lure him in again with his banana so that he would conveniently not have a banana to eat. So he placed it about a foot away from himself. After the monkey finished grimm’s banana he came back for seconds, and slowly crept his way towards us. We all watched him come, and yet Spud was unable to even put a hand on the monkey. I am convinced that he never really wanted to try and that it was all a ploy to not have to eat is fruit.
-The first day that we got back from the safari we were playing with the kids out on the patio because of it had rained that day. This is where I saw Spud doing what could have been interpreted in the wrong way. Spud interrupted my play with one of the kids to ask ‘Hoss you want to come to bed with us?’ You should know that there is a girl named Sophina who loves playing house with Spud, and has done so on most of the days that we have been here. On this particular occasion, she decided that it was bed time. So she and Spud took these big mats that they use to fold laundry on and used it as a bed and covers and were laying on/in. This situation continued to look more funny because next Spud asked a really little girl Flora who had been watching them if she wanted to join them… all the while reading a Tickle-Me-Elmo book. Its nice having a funny/awkward situation about someone else to write about for a change… so thank you Spud.
-The other day we were helping this guy Venice build a cooking shack for the orphanage, when for some reason I don’t remember we started talking about money. Grimm mistakenly slipped in his speech, and instead of saying ‘Shekels’ said ‘shingles’. This in itself was not that funny, but then we started talking about how ridiculous it would be if that really was a countries currency. A Shingle would be worth more than any other countries currency… wallets would reach record high sizes… chiropractors would have a ton of new business due to people having to carry them around… and bank robbery would be all but eliminated do to how heavy multiple thousands dollars of shingles would weigh. I realize that this may not be the funniest to you, but we had hoot talking about it.
-Did you know that Chuck Norris counted to infinity… twice, or that he invented C-section when he round house kicked his way out of his mother’s womb, or that he makes onions cry?
-Grimm’s new nickname is John Henry. I gave him this name while we were digging a huge whole in the ground. I realize that this was not exactly what the real John Henry did, but the name stuck.
-One of the coolest things that we have seen is Venice work on the shed. For you engineers, carpenters and basically anyone who has swung a hammer, you know how crucial measurements and blueprints are to producing a good final product. Thus far in our quest of shack building, he has only measured twice. Just about everything that we did, he eyeballed. Infact, all of his precise measurements have been done with basically only twine. The only tools he brought was string, a hammer, machete, shovels, hoes, and two cementing tools which I can’t think of the name of but basically are just flat objects. What he had he used in ways I couldn’t imagine. He used his machete to make one end of his sticks sharp so it would go into the ground easier, which was a cool thing to begin with, but he also used it to cut through cement blocks. When I figured out that he was about to do that, I almost laughed. To think that a machete that was just a metal blade that was less than 1/8th of an inch thick was capable of cutting through a huge cement block was not something my brain was prepared to grasp. But sure enough, it did it… with great speed too. Several times they cut these blocks… and every time it was done in less than 20 seconds, and it worked every time. And the craziest thing was that the machete wasn’t even dull afterwards! So because of these experiences I have concluded that as far as cutting devices go… the best goes to the machete, closely followed by grimms leatherman which has come in handy on several occasions, and then Chuck Norris’s fists.

So we just got back from our 4 day safari and all I can say is that it was quite the experience. It was just the three of us plus our driver/guide and personal chef, how much better could it get! So Sunday morning we packed up our Land Cruiser and head off to Lake Manyara. It was about an hour and a half drive. We stopped at our lodge so we could drop off all of our gear and luggage into our room. Our chef also stayed behind and began cooking us dinner for that night. After things were in our room, we got in the car with our guide and started for the lake.
Basically Lake Manyara can be summed up in a few words: baboons, trees, impalas, and more trees. The drive into the park goes through a heavily forested area where it feels like you are in the middle of an endless jungle, along the way you come across many baboons that are sitting along the road cleaning one another. After a little bit, you start to drive into fields of grass where lots of impala graze. We got a kick out of the impala at first, but by the 200th impala, they start to blend in with the trees. Our first stop was at a hippo pool located right near the lake, by this time we were out of the jungle part and in the open planes. We saw a bunch of hippos there along with some flamingos and one random wildebeest. As we kept driving we came across giraffe, elephants, a few zebra, and eventually we saw two tree-climbing lions. They are apparently hard to see so we were quite lucky. However along our way to the lions, we came across another group that seamed like they needed help. We were driving along the road when we looked to our right and noticed a group stuck pretty good in the sand quite a distance off the road. So we decided to off-road it to go help them. We got out there and introduced ourselves to the group. They were from Germany and it turns out that the one guy was supposed to be our fourth member but dropped out at the last minute. Looking back on it, we realized that the 3 of us really weren’t much help to get the car unstuck, basically we took pictures of the whole thing and laughed as everyone else pushed. But they eventually got the car out and we were back on the road. So we got back in our Land Cruiser and headed back to the lodge. (which I never mentioned how much fun it is to drive in the car, they remove the roofs and you get to stand up the whole time. By the end of the trip you have some pretty crazy hair and a few bugs plastered to your face every so often.) When we got back to the lodge, our dinner was waiting and we couldn’t have been more happy, and this wasn’t the food you would think of while you are camping, we had the full deal. It started with popcorn and biscuits (which I’m a huge fan of the biscuits), then we had soup, then the main meal, and then dessert. It was some of the best food I’ve had in a very long time, by the end of the trip we were all quite fond of the soups! After dinner we went to our room and rested up for the next day.
The next morning we woke up and went and had breakfast. By this time we were beginning to realize what the food was going to be like for most of the trip so we made a pact. It turns out that I don’t like fruit, Hoss doesn’t like eggs and fish, and Grim doesn’t like vegetables, so we decided that if any of those foods come up, the other people would cover for the person that didn’t like it. Well it turns out that most of our meals either had eggs or vegetables. The fruit is always a side thing so I never have a problem, looks like I’m gonna get out of Africa without having to eat fruit J After breakfast we got back in the car and headed off for the Serengeti. When we got to the Serengeti, we stopped at a rest stop to eat lunch and take the tops of the roof. While at the stop, we hiked to the top of a lookout where we came across numerous lizards, the best one was about a foot long and purple and pink, I don’t really get how the camouflage worked but it looked pretty cool. At one point Hoss decided that he could try to catch one and he surprisingly came very close, he have it all on video too. So after the stop, we got in the car, stood up, and got ready to experience the Serengeti. Basically the first hour in the Serengeti is pretty easy to sum up, an endless plane. For as far as you can see there is simply grass, with gazelle grazing every little bit. By the end of the trip, the gazelle became more annoying than the impala of Lake Manyara. Once the endless planes start to end you get into the part of the Serengeti that most people would recognize from pictures. There is still grass in every direction, but now there were trees scattered across the plane and the animals become visible. Here’s a quick list of all the animals that we saw over the next two days: gazelle, zebra, baboons, vervet monkeys, hyrax, mongoose, wildebeest, hartebeest, elephant, giraffe, hyena, hippo, lots of random birds, ostrich, cheetah, leopard, and lion. Overall, our experience in the Serengeti was absolutely incredible. We were there during the wildebeest migration where 1.6 million wildebeest and 400,000 zebra migrate around the Serengeti searching for food. It was one of the craziest thing, we would be driving and it would appear as if nothing was around, then all of the sudden thousands of wildebeest and zebra are around you. And for those of you don’t know, wildebeest make one of the oddest sounds, it sounds like a mixture of a cow and a duck. The other cool animal to see was the cheetah, we came across four of them on a hill side along with a few other vehicles. As we were watching them, one of the cheetahs came down and sat beside the tire of the car right in front of us, so we were probably 10 feet from it and got some awesome pictured!. But by far, the best part of the Serengeti was the camping experience. We set up camp 60km into the Serengeti, which is almost the dead center. We made sure our tent was the farthest away it could be from anything and we essentially slept in the middle of the Serengeti with nothing around us except for thousands of wildebeest and zebra, talk about cool!! I got up at 4:45 in the morning and went outside to look at the stars, it was the coolest experience yet. Looking up I could see every star clearer than I ever have, and the milky way was so clear that it looked like it was from a picture in a book. I just sat there and stared for the longest time until I heard a pack of hyena run by me barking, that made me realize that I was standing in the middle of the Serengeti by myself in the middle of the night. But regardless, I decided to stay outside until the sun rose. I sat and listened to the wildebeest grazing just feet from where I was sitting. There was no boundary surrounding our campsite so I was sitting in the bush alongside them. Grim and Hoss woke up a little bit later and we decided that we were going to climb the rock formation thing beside our campsite so that we could see the sunrise better. Now most people would not have made that decision, expecially after reading the sign beside our tent that said: “Do NOT leave campsite. Animals will attack human beings!!” But that didn’t stop us and we climbed on. Once we reached the rock we were planning on climbing to, Grim and I decided that it was good enough, so we climbed completely to the top, which was a little more difficult than we expected, but once we reached the top it was all worth it. We sat there and were able to see the entire horizon as the sun rose, it was amazing. To think that the same sun that was rising there also rises in Pennsylvania was a little hard to believe. After the sun rose, one of the tour guides spotted us and immediately flagged us down and told us to climb back to the campsite. We later found out that those rocks are where lions, cheetahs, and leopards like to keep their cubs; that would have made for an interesting story if we came across a baby lion. But luckily, or unluckily, we didn’t so we came back. That morning we went back out for another game drive and then that afternoon we left the Serengeti. That night we arrived at our campsite which overlooked the Ngorongoro Crater.
Now we thought that after our night at the Serengeti we couldn’t top our campsite, but this one came pretty close. We stayed at a place called Simba Campsite and it sat on the rim of the crater overlooking the entire crater. That alone was pretty cool, but to make it better, as we were waiting for our dinner, a pack of around 15 zebra wandered into our campsite to graze. Immediately our first thought was “let’s try to catch one.” So we all grabbed our camera and took off. Hoss and Grim got quite close as they tried to corral the zebra back to the site. However the zebra outwitted them and managed to escape back into the bushes. We were a little upset, as I’m sure the rest of the campers were because we had just chased off the zebra, but it was worth it because we got some cool pictures and videos. Luckily, ten minutes later the zebra were back and this time we had learned our lesson and stayed on the side and watched them come in. They walked right up the Germans tent and stayed there for most of the night. After dinner I went back to our tent to get my malaria pill and as I came out, I came face to face with the entire pack. They had moved down the hill while I was in the tent. So I quietly sat down and watched them. Two of them started playing with each other and then started chasing after one another, they came running right past me and if I would have stuck my arm out, I would have probably tripped the zebra, but I used my better judgement and just watched. So that night we slept just a couple feet from the zebra, not too bad. The next day we found out that there were wildebeest beside us as well as some wild pigs. So we were pretty excited and ready for our last day which we spent in the crater. In the crater we saw lots of the same animals, especially the wildebeest and zebra again, but we also saw one new animal, the black rhino. Currently there are only about 50 of them left in the world and they are extremely hard to find, so we were quite fortunate to come across one. Oh, and I can’t forget to tell about our lunch experience, probably one of the funniest things that has happened yet. So we were sitting on the ground in the middle of a small forested area eating our lunch. We each had a tubberware box with a bunch of items in it. We were sitting there minding our own business when out of no where, a vervet monkey comes flying around the corner, tackles the box out of Grim’s hands, searched through all the food, comes out holding the banana, and runs up into a nearby tree. The whole thing happened so fast that none of us knew what to do. Grim grabbed the monkey as it essentially sat on his lap and Hoss and I couldn’t keep from laughing during the whole ordeal. To make it even funnier, the monkey’s private parts were the most vivid blue and bright red I have ever seen. We then set my banana out as bait to try to catch it but it didn’t work. I wasn’t exactly quick enough to catch the monkey when he came for it because the whole time I was thinking about the fact that monkey might have rabies. And after the squirrel incident, I didn’t want to test my luck again J After lunch we then went back to our campsite and headed back for Arusha to our orphanage. It was by far one of the coolest trips I have taken and I expect that I will be back at some point. But until then, the nearly 3000 photos that we took should last me! Well that was briefly what happened, there were many funny things but those were definitely the highlights. Well I’m getting tired and think I’m going to head to bed, I’m at the orphanage right now writing this on my laptop. The kids here tire you out pretty quickly, and I’ve only been back one day! Well got to go, talk to everyone soon!!

Ah, so the laid back life style down here is pretty nice and it hasn't bugged me yet, except for one aspect, the internet! I have been on for 55 minutes right now and still am attempting to load my emails. It just showed me that I have 232 new messages because of facebook birthday messages, so I'm sure that can't help. But I have been trying to upload photos and the computer doesn't like me. Hopefully I can find a faster internet cafe for next week so that I can post a few photos. And if anyone has sent emails recently, I probably won't respond too quickly. Right now facebook is the only thing that works at all for me, oh well, welcome to africa!

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!!

Well we made it!!! We are currently in Dar es Salaam. We got in at 7 this morning, which I think was 11 at night for you guys. Things surprisngly went very smoothly. We walked outside and I was greeted by a buy with my name on his sign. We shook hands and then he turned and started walking, so Lindsay and I followed behind. Then he quickly turned around and handed me a phone, on the other end was Yotam, the coordinator of my program in Tanzania. So I talked with him and he told me that he was in Arusha and would meet me there. He offered us a quick tour of Dar with a friend of his but we decided to stay at the airport instead. So we now have until 2 until our flight leaves so we have spent the morning doing a lot of people watching. It's awesome here, the people are very friendly and everything is so laid back. I haven't figured out yet whether or not 5000 Tanzanian shillings is a lot or a little, so I kind of just guess and barter with people for water and stuff. It makes it more fun that way. I think I even bartered the price of my airline ticket, I'm not quite sure. Oh, and I saw a guy with pants that looked exactly like Vaughn's, it made me laugh. A few minutes ago we were sitting on a bench and a lady sat beside us and opened up a bunch of bags. Within seconds a crowd swarmed her and they were getting there lunch, it was really neat to see. So they had a bunch of fruit and breads, and I think fish and chicken, it was pretty impresive. I then went and brushed my teeth, which felt good since I haven't done that since Wednesday morning. So things are going surprisingly well. Once we fly into Kilimanjaro, Lindsay will be leaving with her group and then I'll be on my own, let the fun begin! I'm not sure the next time I'll be able to update but I wanted to let everyone know that we got in safely and that things are going well. Talk to everyone soon!

I know that many of you have been longing in anticipation over this, so here it is. Now if all goes according to plan (which it rarely does, but we'll give it a shot) I will try to keep this updated as often as I can over the summer. I will try to do it weekly if possible but I am not quite sure how much access I will have to the internet. But here is master plan for the summer:

May 16th: Leave Philly
May 18th: Arrive in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
May 21st: Start working in the orphanage and local school in Arusha, Tanzania
June 8th: End Tanzania program
June 9th - 15th: Wandering around Tanzania
June 15th: Fly out of Tanzania and head for Australia
June 16th: Arrive in Darwin, Australia
June 17th: Start Alternative Energy Class in Australia
June 17th - July 30th: All over Australia doing a variety of random things
August 1st: Arrive back in Philly

So that's the idea, I'll see how close I can stick to the plan. I will also try to post pictures from the trips up here on the blog as well. I am also going to set-up a Skype account so I will be able to stay in contact through that as well. In Australia I will have access to the internet much more than I will in Tanzania, so that's when you have a better shot of getting a hold of me. Well that's all I have for now. The next post should be from Tanzania!

Some other useful links:
Tanzania: http://www.ifrevolunteers.org/
Australia: http://www.studyabroad.unsw.edu.au/index.cfm?page=110