three countries, one weekend

So sorry it has been a week since I last updated the generator at the school that we used to charge our computers over night has been broken and walking 45 minutes into town and 45 minutes back just hasn’t sounded like much fun. Where to start, well this past weekend was Nane Nane which is a big holiday for the farmers which basically meant we got Monday off of school. With the long weekend my roommate and I as well as our fellow volunteers 2 hours away were planning on going to Matema which is on Lake Malawi with my driver friend, but he had a death in the family and therefore we were stuck with public transportation and decided to go to Tunduma which is the Tanzanian boarder town with Zambia.

This fun adventured entailed another morning of walking up at 4 am and walking down the mountain to stand on the side of the road until a bus comes out of nowhere Harry Potter style to pick you up. The bus looked exactly like the one from my first post and was crowded with 17 people, luckily we got the front row and only had to sit next to a lady with a live chicken in a basket. When we arrived 4 hours later in Tunduma we met our friends and checked into our hotel the High Class hotel. Let me tell you this place was classy. There was crown molding around the ceiling and a television in our room that had English channels,a real toilet, needless to say I was happy.

In Tunduma because it is a boarder town there are so many Zambian people just hanging around. We were on hunt for pinapple because we heard you could get it there and ended up finding two Zambian guys who escorted us around town all day. At one point we asked about the internet and found out that in Tunduma the power had been cut all day so they suggested we go to Zambia because they had power. It sounded like a good idea so we went. This boarder crossing was like nothing I ahd experienced before in that there were no people with guns standing around nobody even questioned what we were doing, it was on the sketch side but hey its Africa. The rest of the time in Tunduma was spent getting charged a crazy amount by the venders because we were muzungu’s (literally translated it means white person, so very racist.The kids here shout it at me when I walk by, I am beginning to hate it) On Sunday we decided to go back to Isongole to stay with our friends and see what their town was like.
Nicole one of the volunteers has to bike to school everyday and suggested we go to town when we got to their house to see what was going on. Her and I got on the bikes and everything was going fine until my skirt got caught in the chain and literally almost ripped right off me. Two guys on a motorcycle had to stop and help me. I decided to ride the rest of the way into town and have Nicole buy me some fabric to wrap up in (thank god for kangas). I should have known it would happen I mean really that kind of stuff happens to me. In town I get to meet some of her fellow teachers one of which is deadest on coming to American and marrying a blonde girl from Tennessee, I told him to shoot for the moon with that one. He also wanted us to go to Malawi which we decided why not lets go it was only another 20 minute bike ride. At this boarder crossing they actually had men with guns but again we did not have to show any form of identification, I am still confused about it all.

This week also marks the two month mark I have been in Africa and at this point I feel like I
have really culturally assimilated because of the following reasons:

Today I spent an hour sweeping dirt in my compound

I have no problems dirnking warm/ hot beer

walking 45 mintues jsut to get said warm/ hot beer is something i look forward to

I have come to accept eating with my hands/prefer it because then washing the dishes takes less time

When I see other white people I freak out and refer to them as muzungu’s

I have almost successfully mastered the art of taking a bucket shower and getting all the shampoo out of my hair

Sitting on a bus that was made for 6 people max and craming 15-20 people, chickens, babies, and massive sacks of grain no longer bothers me

And lastly I may or may not have some fun parasite but am not even bothered by it

These are just a few of the things that I have decided make me truly African
Everything else is going great I now only teach 2 classes because of all the student teachers and this week in honor of work week at Arkansas I made the kids learn the lyrics to she was a top tri delt rushee and then filmed them….they loved it they also saw pictures from America on my camera and made fun of my nike shorts . I will post pictures soon I promise