Wednesday, April 13, 2011

{hello from newlands}

This week has been a bit of an adventure, although I feel like I say that each week. Each week there is something new or exciting. My favorite part of this week has been my adventure to Newlands to work at Born To Learn. Born to learn is a school that was set up by a group of volunteers about a year ago out in a small village about forty minutes away from Moshi. The kids that attend school there are from ages 6 to 14 or 15 years old and, of course, are so adorable.

Monday morning I woke up early, had breakfast, and walked out the door with Huw and Fredrik. We walked all the way through town to the opposite side (about 35 minutes), down a dirt road (10 minutes), and waited for a truck (20 minutes). The truck we caught was pretty big about the size of a truck that would carry tons of bricks or wood back home, and rode on that with a bunch of locals down a dirt road, which eventually turned into a paved road, past all of the acres and acres of sugar cane until we got to the junction (30 minutes). P.s. All the drivers here drive way way to fast and really crazy. I am convinced I will be hit by a car, or at least get into a car accident by the time I leave, I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet. Anyway, at the junction we proceeded by catching a few bike taxi's which are guys with small racks tapped onto the back of their bike (10 minutes). Ha so fun! I loved it! They rode us down to the middle of town where we then walked down the street to the school (10 minutes) totaling about 2 hours in travel time to get there.

Once we got there we took about six of the younger kids aside to work with them on writing, math, and let's face it, play around. Babu was my favorite. He was about 6 years old and loved to dance. We could barely get him to sit down he was dancing and singing the whole day. It doesn't matter where you go in this country, you'll find an adorable little boy or girl. After school the little kids took our hands and walked us back to town while we sang lion king the whole way there and the kids did their best to teach me a bit of swahili. I can't remember a think... ha We got lost a little bit in the village, but eventually made our way back to the road where we started back for the junction hoping to catch a truck. While we were talking tons of little school kids from the private school started walking behind us and I kept turning around to peek at them and they kept laugh so we all put our hands out and in a split second we each had four kids attached to each hand. I will miss that! Where else can you walk down the street and hold a million little darling children's hands? Ah...I get sad just thinking of it.

While we were talking a brick truck passed by which we ran and caught up to, and jumped on while it was still moving resulting in a few cuts and bruises but no major damage. We road the brick truck all the way back to Moshi where we got off and walked back to town, had lunch, and headed back to the hostel. Can I just explain to you that there is one thing that I love oh so dearly here, and that would be an ice cold fanta, out of a glass bottle, in 100 degree whether. Hardly anything can beat that. Anyway, that was my adventure of the week so far, and hey! It's only Wednesday, this week has just started.

I hope that everyone is doing well back at home! I love and miss each of you and hope to hear from you!

Love,
Kels

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