Waka Waka Africa

I have been here alomost a week now and have learned a few important things to start off with:

1. the technology is stuck in 1980. I expected it to be bad but sometimes it is just insane how things are here. I bought a portable modem thing from Vodacom the first day that is suppoised to give you internet anywhere you can make a call in theory. In practice this is the farthest thing from the truth that happens. I am pretty much stuck at slower than dialup speed.
2. Tanzanians have no concept of time and are the most patient people i have ever met. There could be two reasons for this. One they have a really weird clock that i still cant understand which could throw alot of people off because they have their time and normal english time. The second thing is the traffic is INSANE! I have seen some pretty bad traffic, but here its nuts. The dali dali drivers (the little mini bus public transport that everyone uses, see picture in the first post to get an idea) have to be certifiably crazy the way they cut in and out of traffic. There are constantly jams for no apparent reason at all. These jams can make a 20 minute trip into a 2 hour trip in a heart beat.
3. I want to befriend a Masi person. The Masi are a tribe of nomadic people, o0ccasionally you will see them in the city. They always wear traditional dress which looks something like this

they are so cool and apparently if you befriend them you could get invited back to their village which would be an awesome experience.
4. I am apparently worth 20 cows. Today on the beach our new Masai friend Daniel as i was walking away said he wanted to buy me. The people i was with asked him how much he wanted for me, he responded with because i was a foreigner 20 cows, when he was told that was too low and 50 was more like it the deal was off that was clearly out of his price range. It was just a funny experience because that is the way they do business, cows can buy you anything.
5. Tanzanian people are the freindliest and happiest people around. All of the people here are constantly smiling and greeting you even when they do not know you on the street, its an amazing thing to be a part of.
6. cold showers are okay. I have come to terms with the idea of cold showers. Although i am never really sure if my hair gets clean at all and the shower is a kind of in and out in under five minutes kind of thing its starting to grow on me.
7. I could def become a huge fan of African dance clubs.


Finally, this past week has been the first of many eye opening experience that i am sure i will have in the next year. I did my laundry by hand today for the first time ever and managed not to mess anything up and get the clothes realitvely clean. The 15 people in the program are all amazing people that come from such different backgrounds adn experiences. I know that this year is going to be a blast.