Tanzania: Our first weekend:)

On Friday, May 2nd we had our orientation. The group was so big with new volunteers they had to divide us into two groups. (35 people starting that day) Our orientation was done at our house, another volunteer house joined us, it was nice because we got to sleep in a little:)

In the morning we went over a lot of paper work, the history of TVE (Tanzania Volunteer Experience), which is the organization we are with while we are staying here in Arusha. They also had us fill out our form for the work permit and took our Passports, we won't get them back until Wednesday which is a little unsettling (we haven't heard anyone else have any problems with it so hopefully we get them back in one piece) :)! We also signed up for our Safari, we can't wait! We will we gone from Friday May 9th- Monday May 12th :)

They also gave us a a mini Swahili lesson, which Mom and I were terrible at! We maybe should have studied a little before we left, oops. Some of the other volunteers caught onto the Swahili words so easily, they definitely must have studied a little before them came (also quite a few are bilingual or trilingual which I am sure helped them a little). So far we know how to say, thank you, thanks a lot, no, and no thank you, as well as hello. Lets just say I speak Swahili about as well as I speak french. . .

After lunch they took us on a tour of town so that we will be able to find our way around. We took the Dala Dala into Mzungu square, and to the bank so some of the other volunteers could switch their money into Shillings or take out US money for the Safari.

Next we started the walk to the Vodocom store, which is were all of the volunteers could get cell phones and sim cards. Mom and I already had our phone and sim card because Aleisha and Tracey sent their stuff with us from November (thanks guys!). We waited at the Vodocom store for forever, probably close to 2 hours. There was about 35 of us standing on the sidewalk waiting, and a motorcycle (Boda boda) decided he was going to drive right through us. (Yes on a sidewalk) They have absolutely no sense of pedestrian first here in Tanzania, you have to be watching all of the time to make sure a car, bus or motorcycle doesn't hit you, they come from all directions!

Finally they took us to the Maasai Market, which is a tourist kind of market (sort of similar to what you might see down south in Cuba or Dominican). They sell local crafts and clothing. We took a little while to look around and I bought a pair of "African pants". They are light cotton material, high waisted and very loose, probably the most comfortable thing I have ever warren:) The ones I bought are bight peacock colours, they have some elephant ones so I will definitely be buying some of those:)

Here are some pictures from around town that we have taken so far :)