I'm still pissed about it, I miss it more then I could imagine... I got my iPOD stolen. The story goes, I crammed onto that lorry at about 5:45 I guess, maybe just after 6, and I was sitting down with Tanzanians all over me the whole ride. Having been up since 4:30am my natural inclination was to try and get some sleep. This was the tragic downfall. Though I didn't get any sleep, in the midst of the chaos someone managed unbuckle my jacket pocket and take my beloved iPOD- a gift from my Dad. Some questions arose after this occurred. What would a Tanzanian think this device was, and why would he/she take a device that one did not know how to operate? What will the said Tanzanian use the iPOD for? Why couldn't I have caught the thief and started an even bigger chaos on that truck? Forever a mistory I guess... You live and you learn... things happen for a reason... blah blah blah. I'm pissed.

My house looks like a home. Thanks to some decorating from Jenny, my house no longer looks like a prison cell. Pictures to come later on this post. I also have a place to put my clothes as I got someone to build a cabinet for me. It looks nice. I will have chairs this week, and my house will finally look completely like a home. So that's nice. I'm grading grtading grading these days, and apparently I have to write up my student's report cards, so I'm looking forward to that, and the 'remarks' I am supposed to write.
This morning was an interesting one. I left Jenny's Village at 4:45am, the bus was really early, and I almost missed it. I wish I had. It broke down about a half an hour into the ride, and the entire bus pilled onto the back of this lory. Very crowded and something absolutely terrible might have happened on the ride, but I'm holding out hope for now, so I don't want to post anything for now. Anyway, 3 hours later I was in Mafinga, and my day started off terribly. I later learned today that I have to stay here for the duration of the whole week, even though I was previously informed that we were doing nothing and I could start my break early. DSo kind of a bummer day, but hopefully things will pick up during the week.

Got some more pictures finally. I also sprinkled some of my older posts with a few pictures.

I thought I wasn't sick anymore, but I fainted once on Monday, and then twice on Wednesday. Probably just something left over from the dysyntery- because that probably drained my system. Feeling better today, lots of rest yesterday, and read a lot. The battle with food is getting better. I've resigned myself to enjoying rice, and taking in some Ugali when I can. Ugali is like a really thick mash potatoes dish that you eat with beans, or greens, or cabbage, or anything that you can scoop, because that is how you eat Ugali. You take a chunk of it off the mound, roll it up into a ball with your right hand (The left hand traditionally is used for wiping after you use the bathroom here, so peple do everythin with their right hands) then you press a divet in the ball to scoop up the food. It's kind of fun, and I like it better than rice, which surprises people here, because Ugali is cheaper, and lower on the class list of food.

Let the slide show begin...

This first picture is foremost, as it gives evidence to the fact that Leaf fans are EVERYWHERE!! The man next to me is wearing a Leafs Jersey. Sad the picture doesn't capture the magic all that well :( maybe next time... The Hockey Jerseys are everywhere.

This is a picture of the Ulguru Mountains to which I wrote my final Anthropology paper on to get my degree:

These are pictures from my birthday. The Indian Ocean (sort of) and our view in Bagamoyo.

My house... I'll have pics of the inside as soon as I'm done moving in... it's a slow process.

Took me forever to load these, so I'll write more later.

I'm not sick anymore. I am taking anti-biotics so I am now back to being 'regular.' I had a meeting yesterday with the rest of my staff and the school director in which all of the teachers were fined 5000 Shillings a month for lack of results in the students work. I guess things might get a bit more serious then they have been around here maybe. I'm delaying the start of my adult English class because of it... They need me at the school now during the time I was going to teach. I'm hoping things will relax again, and I'll be able to teach english in September maybe. We'll see. We're about to start midterms, and things are getting pretty busy. We have a break coming up at the start of September for two weeks which will be really nice. On top of that next week is all grading, so it won't be too tough down the stretch here I imagine.
I should have some pictures up by the end of the week, so heads up for that. The internet is now officially on at my school, so I won't be complaining about that. I'm not certain, but I believe it is no problem for me to be on the internet everyday for a short while, so that's nice. It'll be good to have a better way to keep in touch with people
I'm looking forward to hearing about this new KU Hockey season starting up, and I wish all you guys the best: let's go boys.

Pictures of my students:

Being sick in Africa is not fun. It makes you really homesick really quickly. I now am starting to really miss the food too. I've actually been dreaming about it, only to wake up to the cold reality of rice and beans again.
I've been pretty sick I guess, something Dr. Patrick (Canadian Dr./Friend of ours over here) has diagnosed as Amoebic Dysentery, which means basically bloody Diarrhea. I feel better now, but the whole process has been pretty draining. He told me to take it easy, so I postponed my adult English class until next week. I'm excited about that to start. I was eating at a restaurant when a the woman next too me after talking with me for a while said my Kiswahili was quite good, and she said she would like to learn English. I said I would like to start an English class for adults, but I don't know where I could teach. She suggested I teach in the back room of the restaurant and then asked how much I would charge for the lessons. I said I wouldn't charge any money, but she told me I had to charge something so we came up with a plan of asking for donations and then donating the money to the orhanage here in Mafinga. So once that gets going I'll feel much better. Anyway, not that much time- they say my school will have internet soon, so hopefully pictures, and longer posts to come.

Do you like American Music?
I have two stories about music and my Africa experience that I thought have been pretty cool. First, my extremely cool neighbor. She tries to teach me how to cook, but it just turns out to be her making me dinner every night basically. She is aweswome, about probably 35, teaches at the school, lives with her niece, and we share the housing complex we live in. It's seperate houses, kinda like a duplex. Anyway she is great, and very religious. She will take me to church tomorrow I guess. She is always playing music (she calls it the songs of God) and I decided to introduce her to Gospel music with my ipod. She really enjoyed it, and said she prefers when church is energetic and everyone is dancing, so we'll see how it goes tomorrow. I went to church in Jenny's village the other week and it was interesting to see the similarities/differences. The church was pretty plain, but had more money it seemed then most of the village. The windows were tinted different colours, instead of pained glass, but there were a lot of statues. The walls were all white, and the ceiling was probably about 25 feet above the ground, maybe 35. The service itself was a lot like a mass in Kansas/Canada, with the same format. There was however dancers aged like 7-12, who danced to the keyboard and the singers (This specific week we went because Jenny's teacher's at her school were singing) There was a part of mass where a certain area of the village gave up an offering and they came dancing down the aisle shortly after the collection (or halftime as I call it). They brought bread, vegtables, and other items that they could give to the church as an offering. In the pues, the women sit of one side, and the men on the other. At the end, only a hand full of women and I think 2 very old men went up for communion. Not sure why that is yet, but I'm told villagers actually don't attend church as often as people in the city. We'll see tomorrow.
Anyway, the other music endeavor happened at my school. I was in the music room one day and I was playing guitar with the music teacher who doesn't speak a word of english. I tried to explain in my broken Kiswahili that I wanted to play guitar in the African style, and maybe I could teach him the American style blues music: Labda Utafundisha nikucheza guitar Kamma Africanne, na Nitafundisha wewe kucheza guitar Kamma Americanne- or something like that. We tried each others styles and I was really surprised that he was as bad at the American style, as I was at the African stlye. What was easy to me made him struggle. I also really thought it was funny that I was sitting there a white Canadian kid teaching an old black man how to play the blues. But it went well. We're good friends now, and he really likes that I can speak some Kihehe (his tribal language). That's actually the way to make friends here if you're white. Speak Kiswahili of course, but know some Kihehe and you're golden. People are even more friendly, they want to know where you learned to speak that way, and they don't seem to want to skrew with you on prices as much.
So that's what I got this time, hope everyone is having a good summer, it's been fun here so far after almost 2 and a half months, and I'm looking forward to seeing what's next.

I've got 8 and half minutes to write out this blog... I finally figured out whow to post (blogger.com is in German or Dutch over here for some reason) I won't have internet at my school for another two weeks at least, and I haven't had the net since my last post, so that partly explains the lack of posts, which I will post more of now that I live in Mafinga (it's kind of a town). Let's see, on July 3rd we killed a goat, or better yet I watched as a few of the villagers killed a goat like they had done it a thousand times before. They held the goat's mouth shut so it wouldn't scream, I thought that was nice. On July 4th we ate it. It was good. 5 minutes left (yes the net is that slow) I started work on the 16th, after I had come to Mafinga thinking there was a teacher's meeting the previous meeting... there wasn't even though that's what they told me. I've learned that this sort of thing is the usual for Africa, so no Mike Lewis' here. I got sick this week, but nothing serious- just an excuse to stay in bed for half a week. Teaching is amazing. It's my first experience teaching so I'm learning as I go and I have no idea what I am doing, but the students don't seem to mind because I think they think I'm cool, which works out nice for me. I knew I'd fit in with the 5th and 6th grade crowd anyway. 2 minutes left... I'll post more later, but I just wanted to give an update... when I have net at the school I'll put up more pictures. I promise it will be less then a month before my next post, maybe a week so stay tuned. I'm out for now.