Saturday Progress

Our night out was a huge success. We went to a beautiful hotel in town and had food that was called "hamburgers" and "pizza," even if it didn't look or taste quite like we thought it would.  Some of us had steaks or chicken and we also enjoyed Cokes in bottles and fancy coffees like lattes and mochas. We learned too late that they also had milkshakes, but we didn't suffer too much over missing those.  The music included some African music and some covers of popular U.S. American songs, so our needs were pretty well covered. We got to dance a lot (mostly with each other) and learned that Max in particular has some pretty solid dance moves.  We came home just after 11, knowing that the morning was going to come early, as we had to get to the worksite by 8am.

We barely got out in time to make the 8am arrangement, but our contractors weren't there at 8 anyway.  Today was the day to put down the floor in the kitchen, which meant more bucket lines, this time moving rocks.  Once we leveled and filled the floor with rocks, we poured concrete over it to make it smooth.  Between last night's skeleton crew that helped put up the lenta (ring around the brick top made of concrete and rebar) and this morning's floor crew, we have probably felt our greatest impact on the building itself in the last 24 hours.

We are only working a half day today, as our contractors would normally be off work on Saturdays.  We hope to get some organizing done in our camp and to work on getting our laundry dry (it rained last night on our somewhat clean clothes hanging on the line).  The second group will do Simon's permaculture tour and we will get ready for a hike tomorrow nearby.  We are also going to have a barbecue here tomorrow, including roasting a goat Tanzanian-style.  We don't really know what that means but we are ready to find out.

We'll report in again a little later to catch you up on the events of the day . . .

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Our afternoon turned eventful in that we got a van and went back into Moshi, this time in pursuit of souvenirs!  Perhaps some of the things we bought are for YOU!  We went to a local artists' collective where we found lots of paintings, carvings, jewelry, and figurines that definitely caught our eyes.  And we, of course, had the full attention of the vendors, as things were pretty slow out there today.  They were all beckoning us into their booths to look at their wares and got very cooperative when we proposed reduced prices for clusters of items.

We came home and had a dinner of tilapia from Lake Victoria that totally hit the spot.  After dinner, we inducted two more members into the Order of the Purple Bike: Anthony and Camille.  Anthony was technically yesterday's inductee, but our night out postponed his ceremony.  Anthony was an incredible worker on the late shift yesterday, as one of the four of us who returned to the worksite after lunch. That group of four (Anthony, Marlina, Nate, and Scott) worked harder in those three or four hours than the rest of us had worked all day.  Along with his great work contributions, Anthony adds a very welcome sense of playfulness to all that we do.  As Lindsay said, he always looks like he is about to say something hilarious (she calls it his "resting giggle face").  And usually, he DOES say something hilarious, which we all appreciate.  Of course, he also showed great leadership in the English class, and will continue to do so into next week.  Thanks, Anthony!

Our second inductee is Camille.  She also has a happy and uplifting spirit that we all feel throughout our jobs.  Today in the floor pouring job, she kept going and going and going even when others were taking long breaks to recover.  She took breaks (recognizing her limits, as we agreed we would do!), but they were short breaks and she got right back to work.  Further, she got scraped by a concrete block the other day and then got a big insect bite on that same leg yesterday.  She had bandaids and medicine all over her leg and never complained.  She's a great team member, with great dimples that never fade (and that the kids LOVE).  Congratulations, Camille!

 While we were waiting for our bus to arrive, Matt collected flowers and added them in his hat.

 Alex took a long exposure of the night sky. We are lucky that this is what we can see every night.

 Today we spent half the day looking at cool paintings by local artists.

 Paint is fresh, after finishing new painting for the crafts fair to be sold.

Alex (caterpillar) emerging from his cocoon after a long day of work and shopping.

 The sunsets are always picturesque here… and photos don’t even do it justice.

Simon’s sunflowers were a beautiful piece of his garden.

 Matt has been collecting different flowers and placing them in his hat and hair on all of our walks.

 A shot of the river that we have bathed in.

A selfie from the best tent group around!