Things I learned this week:

1. Never underestimate how good having truly clean hair can make you feel.

2. You can meet some great characters riding in the front of a lorry (semi) for 5 hours.

3. cooked rice in a plastic bag is totally acceptable take out

4. plastic bags are called Rambos, after Rambo (some of them even have his picture on them) but pronounced lambos. I had been super confused by the whole concept until this week.

5. two grown men walking down the street holding hands...nothing gay about it, they are just friends, guys hold hands all the time here. I love it.

6. Calendars make perfect wall decorations. Pretty much all the houses/ establishments here have calendars covering the walls the most curious things about it is that none of them seem to be from 2011. Most are from 2005 and before but some go way back to the 80's, I still do not get why they think its cool.

7. showing dead bodies on TV is totes fine.

September has arrived and I am struck by how fast time is actually flying here. Yes some days I still end up questioning why they heck i got myself into this situation but more often than not the days present me with experiences that I know I will cherish the rest of my life. I still miss America and all my friends and family way to much but I am learning to deal/manage here in Tanzania. Case in point this past weekend i was trying to go to Mbeya to eat some pizza, take a warm shower with running water, put pictures on my blog, and watch TV. Of those things i only accomplished two of the things, and it took me ten hours to get there and ten hours to get home. Mbeya is only 100 kilometers from my town there is no reason it should have taken that long, but hey I had an experience. I got to meet the guy who drives the minibus, Georges (we are real tight now) family, AND i got to ride in the front of a lorry with two Tanzanian nuns who spoke Italian, i mean really where else can I have an experience like that?

This week was also the EID holiday, which is the end of Ramadan. In our village it is about 99% Christian but apparently it is a national holiday, so Monday at 3 pm our headmaster informed us that we may not have school the next two days depending on if the moon rises. That is how things work here you find out the day before if there will be a holiday. Incidentally i was also informed this week that the midterm break our students are supposed to get in two weeks we actually are not going to be getting until October...Awesome, but that's a different story. Anyway the moon did not rise Monday night and we went to school Tuesday to find only 40 students it was pretty much a worthless week.

The beginning of September also marks the end of the harvesting in Isoko which means a big celebration. Today I went to the celebration that entailed traditional dancing and drumming. It was really cool to see all the dancing and drumming but then one of the students who was standing by me informed me of the history of the event. He told me that all of the people who were doing the drumming were drunkards and all the ever did was bang their drums and drink all day. Tonight they will be drinking all night and the party will continue until tomorrow. The celebration is supposed to happen every Saturday until October, I guess it is their version of Oktoberfest? Oh and he also told me it was a pegan ritual, to go in and do the dancing, after my roommate was drug into the dancing area. Gotta love it.

Oh yeah and in honor of the first razorback game this weekend i taught my kids how to call the hogs..It was a sight that of course i got on video and they will be made to repeat every game week.