Now it is time to play

Finally the weekend has arrived!!!! The first week of teaching little children was very overwhelming and I was glad for a break.

Friday night we went to a bar called "The Watering Hole" which is owned by two people from Georgia who are here working in an orphanage. Just about the only people in the bar were people here doing mission work and not locals. The reason we went was because they served American style food and we were ready for something different. (Grant: I did not order the hamburger but you win the bet. So how about Neu's or the Chicken?) The coolest part about the bar was the car that they sent to come and pick us up. It was a safari suv and on the back it had this bench that was a little high so that you could see over the car. The driver let us ride on the bench since we had so many people and it was really cool. All the people walking on the street stared and waved at us. The breeze on the car ride there made us cooler than we have been all week. (Dad: We do not have AC. If we did we would be royalty here.) We spent most of the night at the bar but we have an 11 pm curfew put in place by Tanzania officials so all night isn't really that much time. About 10:20 we decided to let the people know that we were going to be needing a ride home soon. At 11 the truck showed up to get us so we were five minutes late for curfew but the guard was up waiting for us. We had good intentions of being on time but Tanzanian people live on their own time schedule.

Today we went and took a tour of the coffee plantation, if you could call it that, and the waterfall. On the way there we passed these Chagga tribe women who were carrying full bunches of bananas on their heads. We then passed other women that were in their full tribal clothing carrying hoes balanced on their heads, it was kinda neat. The hike to the waterfall took us over an hour but it was only about a mile and half. But the waterfall was in the rain forest which is the first level of Kilimanjaro and it was really pretty. When we got to the waterfall there were only five of us that had ever brought a bathing suit but we felt that we needed to get in. (To my Italy travel group: Did I not learn in Greece to not jump in foreign bodies of water because they are always FREEZING?) The brave five people with a bathing suit jumped in and swam to the back so that we could be under the waterfall area. Other than being really cold it was absolutely gorgeous. After that we proceeded on to the coffer plantation which was kinda a trick. Our tour guide lives along the trail that we took to the waterfall and his family grows and makes coffee. So at his home we learned the process of making coffee and then got to try some. I still don't like it. The most interesting part of the day is that the people here making something called banana beer and it only stays good for one day. So at our tour guides home his family was sitting around enjoying their banana beer which we tried. It might have been the most disgusting thing I have ever seen and it kinda looked like banana throw up. Overall the hike was a good adventure but I am really tired. We don't get that much sleep here probably because we stay up way to late at night talking about the craziness of our day. Well that is all for now it is time to go out for the night. Talk to you all soon.

To answer your questions about bathroom issues: I use toilet paper. But I only go to the bathroom in the compound because outside of our house it is just a hole in the ground.