A new home!

Hello! I must sincerely apologize for not having made it to a computer in order to update my blog...I really didn't think many people were reading it because I rarely get comments- besides my mother of course (thank you Mom!)

The past week has been quite hectic! There have been numerous problems at the boy's orphanage so I have moved in there! There are fifteen different boys attending different schools at varying levels of english capabilities and each have their own emotional needs that are quite complex, so it has been a big adjustment for us all but it is now going wonderfully!! Besides the well-being and safety of the boys, I am in charge of the "store" which is basically a supply room there so I am to order the food, look after all the supplies and distribution so that all the boys have an equal amount of necessities (sheets, toothpaste, pencils etc.). I wake them up at 5:45am for exercises and then i make sure each of them showers, brushes their teeth, washes their clothes and makes their bed. Then we have porridge for breakfast and i check that they have what they need for school and make sure they get there on time. When they get home we sit down to do homework and then we work on english and then we play games. They are very active and now that they are used to me they listen respectively and interact in very interesting ways!! They are so much fun to be around and it's kind of like having fifteen younger brothers!

I am pretty busy with them so I really do not get the chance to make it out much. However, before I moved in I got to have quite a few adventures!! Last weekend I hiked the Usambara Mtns. It was phenomenal!! It was 1,900ft up and it took us a few hours, I kept getting elevation sickness and felt lightheaded...i guess im out of shape- but PT with the boys every morning will fix that! The whole way up, Boris, my friend that runs the lodge in Mambo- where the Mtns are located, kept cutting down sugar cane and we ate sugar cane the whole way up the mountain! It was quite a trip- just cutting something and then eating it right there, it's very sweet (as one can imagine) but it has a celery-like consistency and after you suck all the juice from it it's like eating shards of cardboard...so the trick to eating sugar cane- if ever you find yourself in this position, is to shear off the outer layer, bite down into it and suck all the juice out, then spit out the pulp right away because if you chew on it, you will never get it out of your teeth!! It was fun though! Then we went over a waterfall and the view was amazing! Imagine being on the side of a mountain, overlooking villages as far as the eye can see and knowing you're on top of a waterfall!!
Well, by the time we got to the top I was sweating buckets and could barely imagine getting down the mountain...then i saw our transport down....i really can't tell you what i felt...

It was a wooden plank...suspended in the air on a cable system and it was for transporting logs down the mountain...there were logs stacked into a pyramid shape and all the guy running the machine said was "hold on" yea, i know right!! So, ther I am, looking down this entire Mountain thinking to myself, it'd almost be safer to just tuck and roll and bare with a few broken bones rather than fall to my death and curse my stupidity for what would seem like an eternity until i hit the ground...but then I saw two other local people get on and I figured, if they can do it, i guess i can. Boris said no one has died on it yet...and just to hold on and dont stand on any wood that seems shaky...hahaha...describing it now does not even do it justice!!! There was another lady there taking pictures and she was literally shocked that we were getting on it, she thought for sure we were going to die...i kind of did too...just a little...but here i am! alive and well! Wait till i figure out how to post pictures!!!

I really wish i had more time to write but i need tog et back to the boys! Next time i will tell you all about the sailing i got to do, the snorkeling in the reefs and the swim/walk through the mangroves here...i will most likely make it into town tomoro afternoon to post!

Bye!