Africa Hot

Summer has finally decided to show up in my part of Africa. After freezing for the first two months I was here, Africa has finally decided to live up tot he reputation we are taught our entire lives in school. Let me tell you living without AC or electricity for that matter to power a fan is becoming a problem. I love to be cold when i sleep and I am now stuck sweating constantly and looking like an all around hot mess daily.

The term is almost this is my last full week of teaching before testing starts and i cant believe have time has flown. The fact that it is already November blows my mind. Next week I am going to be leaving here and heading up to Dar Es Salaam to hang out and meet up with some of the other and actually be in a place that has electricity and fast Internet i cant wait.

Last weekend Gretchen, Nicole, Lisa and myself decided to go to Mbeya. It was Nicole's birthday weekend and we needed to go to the immigration office to get some endorsement stamp in our passport because we are all going to be traveling soon. The immigration office in Isongole assured us that the immigration office in Mbeya would be open on Saturday. With that knowledge Gretchen and I got up in the wee hours of the morning to take the one and only bus that leaves here which happens to be at 4 am and headed out. Most of you can probably guess that true to form things did not turn out the way they should. We got to Mbeya and found the immigration office only to be told that in fact they weren't open on Saturdays and to try again some other time. I was already coming to expect this but hey, a girl can hope right?

After that Nicole and i decided we were going to go back to Isongole for the night and celebrate her birthday by making a cake there. Everything else actually worked out and the cake turned out delish.

Halloween on the other hand was mildly depressing. I have tried to explain the concept of Halloween to all the people here and no one can understand the concept. On Monday i go to school ready to give my kids candy, for what they still don't get, only to find out 3/4 of the school had been sent home because they had not paid their school fees. I waited around for an hour at school and decided it wasn't worth it and i was going home to enjoy my cookies and lay out.

In other news there is now a huge bird living in the tree right outside my window. This may not sound like big news to you, but i swear it is taunting me. It only comes out at night and when it does it is constantly making noises and flapping its wings. Last night it started something new, there are little fruits on the tree and from time to time the bird will fly from the tree to our roof, well now it has decided to bring the fruits and drop them on our tin roof which sounds like softballs hitting our roof each time. I also have to sleep with my window open because it is so hot and this thing is making noise all night , its really starting to piss me off.

I will leave you with 5 things I learned this week

1. telling African kids to pose produces some of the funniest pictures

2. African ladies can officially carry almost anything on their heads

3. I was told by one of our friends he wants his son to marry me because it would be free because American girls don't expect a bride price, but that I would still have to do all the cooking and cleaning for the rest of my life because its Africa and that's what ladies do.

4. the concept of a swim suit is lost on the people in my village

5. my name is in fact not Lucas it is Rukasi, this was a legit conversation i have had multiple times lately. People tell me after i tell them my name which I only say is Lucas because Lindsay would be too far out of their reach to pronounce that Lucas is a boys name and that my parents are crazy for naming me this and that they really meant to name me Rukasi which is a perfectly acceptable girls name .