I'm sorry it's been so long

Hello! The past few weeks have been very hectic here!! I moved out of the boys' orphanage. They found a full time matron to live with them and she is doing a nice job with them. I miss them very much though and I'm sad that I don't get to play cards with them at night anymore or go to the futbol field and play with them until dinner...but I do still go there everyday and we work on homework together and I am working on their english with them still. I now live at the girls orphanage...which is actually less stressful than when I lived with the boys because they have a full time matron also and my work with them consists mainly of doing their schoolwork with them and talking with them and working on english. A funny thing happened the other night when I was going over the national exam with some of them...there was a paragrapgh about the Jewish faith and the question was for them to summarize the paragraph...in talking with them, they had no idea what the Jewish faith was!! I grabbed the little blow up globe we have and showed them Israel and asked if they knew what was going on there between Jews and Muslims...they had no clue! Then i drew the star of David on the board and asked them if theyknew this symbol...they just stared at me like i was crazy...I was fully amazed that they have no awareness of a world religion! Most of these girls I was working with were Muslim girls and I had assumed that somewhere in their teachings they were informed of different religions..but the more i asked about it...they told me that "if it's not christian or muslim, its pagani" which basically means that if someone is not muslim or christian, they're belief is in witchcraft...now any of you reading this who know me quite well must know how agast i am with this situation...it doesnt even seem possible to be so close to the middle east in geographical proximity, so engulfed in the muslim culture, and so knowledgeable in many areas as these girls are, but have no exposure to different faiths that are not in their immediate range. Don't get me wrong, there are a meriad of different faiths here in Tanga, from Singh, to Burwani-Dowd, to Hindu, Shi'ite, Sunni, the list could go on...but no knowledge whatsoever of thew Jewish faith or what is going on in the West Bank or Gaza Strip. I found this very interesting because it is something I have been very involved in studying for quite sometime...so to actually experience this was of intense interest to me and I just wanted to write about it because it caught me so off guard.
So, yes I live with the girls now and it is nice. I do miss the boys though a lot.

I am having some visa and permit issues as of late so much of my time has been devoted to figuring out the ACTUAL laws here...which are not written anywhere and asking people is of no use due to the corruption i have experienced. Hopefully, it will be worked out soon. There are some documents I am waiting on from the U.S. in order to file correctly here...so hopefully soon everything will be alright!

As far as some good news...I FOUND A LOCATION AND AN AWESOME PERSON TO HOST THE TIYO CONCERT TAHT MAY BE HELD IN TANGA!!! The headmaster of the Tanga International School has offered to host the Toledo International Youth Orchestra at his school. There is a small stage there and he has media outlets and publicity contacts to start broadcasting the event as soon as possible. The school is in a very nice area and the people around the school are all very wealthy- it's right by the ocean. The Tanga International School is the nicest school here and it's where all of the doctor's and expats send their children for schooling. The headmaster lets the boys from the orphanage play futbol on the field there all the time and he is a very nice guy so I look forward to getting all the communication links between he and I and the TIYO set up so that we can figure it all out...he said that everyone in the area would come and it would be a very exciting event for Tanga!! He was very excited about it!

I met a guy who runs a school for disabled children here and I think I will start working with him soon while the children from the orphanages are at school. He was telling me a little bit about the school and invited me to come look and volunteer if I'd like, so that was nice. It's a little ways out of town so I think within this week sometime I will ride my bike there and see which hours would be best to spend time there! I will let you know what it's like.

Yesterday I went sailing and snorkeling! There were miles of coral reef and the fish and the coloring were like that of what you see on National Geographic...it was breathtaking and unrealistic all at the same time. It's surreal. You feel like you're swimming in a beautiful fish tank because there's no way it could be real that you're actually in the ocean, seeing all of this with your own eyes in its natural wild state...its very intense and I know that colors like this could never be recreated in another sense. There's no mixing of paints or dyes or anything else that could match these colors... I have learned a little of sailing from the lady who runs the sail boat. Her name is Sabilye and she is very interesting and extrmemly intelligent- especially on the local wildlife and what is going on environmentally in the area. She owns her own eco-sustainable island off Zanzibar call Chumbe island- google it if you're interested to know more- it's very intriguing. Anyways, I have learned how to set up the sails, how to steer witht he wind and how to know when to switch the sails depending on the wind...its very interesting and I wish the internet was good here so i could research sailing more. I was told that if I'm really into it, I could post myself at the yacht club here as a hired hand and sail around the world with people coming in who are looking for help! Wouldn't that be exciting? I've thought about it- when I'm done volunteering here of course.

How's this for a paradoxical world...so there's this second- hand clothing market here in TZ that is HUGE! And some of these clothes are really nice...dolce and gabbana and designer names you wouldn't normally see...all just in these huge piles that people are sorting through and meanwhile there will be the clothes merchants putting on skirts over their clothes, acting like girls screaming in monotonous tones at the top of their lungs how pretty their clothes are and at what price they are selling them...So you're in the mix, sorting through these clothes and its packed shoulder to shoulder with people looking and tearing shirts and skirts right out from under you and all the vendors are screaming...it's enough to give you a serious headache...but the clothes are nice and cheap so you stay to look... and if a white person is at their site, they're ten times louder and they'll throw clothes your way they assume you will like. So people are all around just rumagging on the dirt through these clothes, taking them right out of your hands, throwing other ones that land right on you, screaming right in your ear, other vendors come to you and show you what they've got...youre just bombarded by it all...and here's the paradox...these clothes came from the exact spot I used to work...I HAVE SEEN ACTUAL CLOTHING THAT I HAVE BAILED when i worked at the Goodwill in Bowling Green!! I'm not kidding. That's half the lure for me to go to the market to see if i'll see another shirt that I used toknow a world away...here I am...on the other side of the world, and i'm on the opposite side of the clothes i used to be...i determined the fate of these unwanted clothes when i was in the U.S. and here I am going through them again in the most unlikely fashion...it's truly something that makes you take a step back and look at your place in the world and how quickly you went from one side of the extreme to the completely opposite other end of the spectrum...and this is not the only case in which I have experienced that transplant while i've been here!

Simon comes back from Kenya soon so i'm awaiting his return! I miss him very much and it's hard and lonely not to have his sense of humor...it's hard to meet people here that have similar interests or like to talk about things I'm interested in and Simon alwayshas interesting conversation as well so im looking forward to his return!

Ok, well, this was a bit disjointed of a post and I apologize, but the internet here has been terrible and it cuts out a lot so I have had to really rush throug this! I hope all is well on your end of the world! Imiss you!