We made it to Taraeka!

After a long flight, we landed in Arusha and were able to tour the area a bit before we drove to have lunch in Moshi (great pizza!) and then 2 hours more to our little village of Tarakea.

Our host family owns what they call a compound, which is made up of one main house with attached little huts/cottages. We are staying in our own cottage which they just renovated for the volunteers....it is very nice. The main kitchen is outside. And they raise their own cows, chickens, goats and garden. It seems that each family here is self-sustaining. Not what we are used to! They even produce their own milk.

There are many family and friends that live on the compound. It is hard to tell family from friends! But, they are all so welcoming and make us eat all the time! There is also another volunteer, Lisa, staying here for the rest of the week. Lisa is much more fluent in Swahili than we are. We will be taking some lessons this week and hopefully will get better. Many people do speak English, but it would be nice to learn about their culture more. We will also take some cooking lessons.

Our first night in Tarakea was exciting because there was a memorial service for a village member - with hundreds of people there. In fact, we were able to meet a member of Parliament because Fratern, our volunteer organizer, is very popular and well respected for all his good works. He even graduated from the University of Delaware with a Master's in International/Non-profit Organization (hence, Volunteer Kilimanjaro). His full-time job is working for an organization that helps raise money to place orphans in local schools. He is really a wonderful person!

Our favorite part so far was visiting an orphanage yesterday. The kids were as old as 3 and just wanted so many hugs. It was so much fun to play with them. They loved our sunglasses and seeing pictures of themselves on our cameras. We were also able to visit Mawenzi, our school, and the students were eager to meet us. Each time we visited a classroom the kids stood and sang to us. One song was about how important it is to be educated and work hard. We loved it and can't wait to start teaching tomorrow.

And good news: since it is the winter here and the dry season....there are NO bugs! Everybody here thinks it is so cold now in July; they wear sweaters and wool hats! We are in T-shirts because we think 70s are perfect! It can get a bit colder at night, but nothing like a New England winter.....more like our fall.

We love it here! Off to find an American-like toilet ....we might have to walk all the way home!