Home-Stay!

Well its been three weeks since I arrived in Tanzania and I am still loving it more than anything. This week has been more paper writing (surprise surprise) We went around and talked to local farmers in Rhotia about there main concerns about the farming season and they said that they are supposed to start planting in January but we haven’t gotten any rain so they havent been able to. So all of the elders in the village got together and prayed for rain, and long behold its been raining almost all day today! I think thats really amazing.

The other day one of the girls found a worm in her water, so we are all on high alert for parasites and none of us are sick yet, so hopefully that keeps up. We made a joke about having a hair in your water, first world problems... having a parasite in your water, third world problems, I guess its Africa, Hakuna Matata. 

Today we did our home-stay, it was an experience. We were paired together and dropped off at a house for about 10 hours. Ashley and I arrived and shortly found out that long behold we were at the house of a guy who helped with the tours, so he spoke English, we really lucked out since we have only been learning swahili for about a week and a half now. First they had us sit in the room, alone for a while. Then it was tea time, the only problem is I do not like hot drinks, so I tried my hardest to drink it and as soon as I was done, they refilled my glass. 

He then got on the subject of swahili words we knew, one being eggs, so they asked if we like hard boiled eggs, and Ashley said yes, next thing we know there are hard boiled eggs on the table, again something I don’t eat. Then we were sitting and there was a chicken trying to get under the door. The father asked if he ate chicken in America and we said yes... big mistake. The next thing we know is out Mama has the chicken and then the son grabs a knife, five minutes later, dead chicken.

We then went into the “kitchen” to help with lunch. By helping, I held the baby for an hour. You can imagine how awkward that made me feel. They also had baby kittens, which I had to pet. I assumed that if they had fleas I would already have them from sitting on the bed so I went for it. We had cabbage, chicken, soup, and a Tanzanian dish which is just corn starch and water. Since I am a very very picky eater, I ate bits of each and then claimed I was full. 

After lunch we went for a walk and then played with the kids for a couple hours. andthe kids just pretty much took pictures the whole time and we did clapping games, it was pretty fun. The family wants us to come back on Sunday to bring them printouts of the pictures. 

          We had a ton of laughs throughout the day. One being the chicken situation and while we were in the kitchen a child, probably 2, had a knife, and he was putting it in his mouth, and no one around us seemed to car. Then all of the sudden a cow walked into the kitchen and started licking used dishes, just normal things occurring. We just had to go with the flow and let things happen, it was a great time. We started to really get along with the family toward the end which was good. We had a lot of fun and it was an awesome experience to have. We had so much fun and I’m really excited to do my next home-stay in Kenya! Now we have more papers to write and I am very, very ready for dinner