A quick Hello!!

Habari Asubuhi!! That's Good Morning in Kiswahili!! How is everyone? I am doing well...just wanted to give you all a quick update as to what I am doing!! I am going back to the Toledo Sec. School today to talk with the English Dept. there and listen to their teaching methods and watch them in their English classes to see how everything is taught and then the teachers and I are going to discuss different types of teaching methods and I will be helping with different projects within the English department during the day there while the children from the orphanage are at school! The children from the orphanages all go to different government schools and none of them attend the Toledo Sec. School. It is quite a far distance from the orphanage but that's alright! I am very excited for this opportunity!
I spoke with Mr. Charles, the Headmaster at the Tanga International School, and he suggestyed that I get my certification in teaching English as a foreign language- TOEFL Cert. from the Open University here in Tz. I am going to check on the price today and see what it entails and maybe take the course online here! That way it would be more legitimate and I would have a more informed perspective on teaching! I do have previous expereince with tutoring from volunteering back in the states with the H.O.S.T.S. (Help One Student To Succeed) program and also from the Learning Resource Center I worked at during highschool, but as far as a certificate in teaching, that would be nice!
Mr. Charles and John Henry and Liz all spoke on a conference call on Saturday about the TIYO coming and it went very well! Mr. Charles has media contacts and a lot of resources to really make this a wonderful experience for the TIYO, the Tanga Community, the TIS, as well as further developing the relationship between Tanga and Toledo. I am very excited about this and cannot wait for further details and to gwet the ball rolling on all the organizational details!! The venue is very nice and right by the water and the community here in Tanga will welcome the TIYO very nicely! Soon I will be introducing Mr. Charles and Mr. Ndauka to see what developments and opportunities the schools could offer each other here in Tanga! Connecting people locally is a very big deal here, as resources and information are not always shared here! I look forward to all the possibilities to come!
I will soon be posting pictures of the girls at the orphanage and the boys I work with! The girls went to the beach a few days ago in celebration of their birthday! They had never been to the beach before! Most of the children do not know their birthdays so we celebrate them all on one day! They really enjoyed the beach and it was so nice to see them all having fun! I tried to teach some of them how to swim but they were frightened at first...hopefully i will have another opportunity to work on this more with them! Most of the local people do not know how to swim and I have heard horrible stories of boats going under and everyone on board drowning in shallow water due to the fact they have no knowledge of how to swim. It's terribly sad. And when you see these boats, they are just packed full of people and there are two or three guys dumping out buckets of water from inside the boat so as to make sure it doesn't go under...oh the things I've seen here!!
Today I am going back to the City Council to HOPEFULLY get all of this immigration situation wrapped up!
I talked with some people from the yacht club the other day and they were all telling me about how many people come through looking for sailing companions! Each day I think about how exciting it would be!! Some of these people have been sailing around the world for decades and just want someone to talk with, to share the view with, and hoist some sails here and there!! I just got done reading Saul Bellows' "The Adventures of Augie March" and it was a VERY good book, similar to "On the Road" by my fav. Jack Kerouac in that it highlights the adventures of being a traveller, what one encounters from place to place and the different mindsets in different locations...the ending of the book was very good! Tim, I think you would love this book! I have already read seven books since I have been here and now I am all out of books! However, Mr. Charles has offered to let me use some of his books at the TIS!! Books are rare here and hard to find...during the previous presidency all book publishers were banned from TZ, so, one can imagine the shortage of books here, especially textbooks!

While snorkeling, it's a very good time to clear one's mind and think of all the possibilities life has to offer...just looking at how freely the colorful fish swim in and out of the most beautiful coral reefs, surrounded by colors that even the most wild imaginations cannot fathom, and while the sun is beating down on you and youre full of this life that surrounds you- it's hard not to think about what other opportunities are abound. And I feel like I've just reached the tip of the iceberg here... and you think about all the chances you've taken in life, or all the things you've taken for granted, and you can't believe that you're really there, inside these experiences...living. And I think of all the people I wish could be here to experience this with me. Each day here is and adventure...some days are stressful, and sometimes I get frustrated when I am teaching, and other times I am lonely, but it's the little things...seeing the women carry firewood back to their houses, laughing and joking with each other while they strenuously work...seeing the children coming back from school, all saying hello to me while i pass them on the street, watching the men at the market scream and holler to sell their wares, watching people carry unimaginable things on the back of their bikes (huge cabinets, a double bed etc) and I think to myself...these people have nothing, and they are so happy just living day to day...and in America, most people have everything they could want or need, and have no idea of this happiness... So i am taking it all in and remembering how all of this feels so that I can store it within my self and share with you when I get back how it feels to live for the moment and know only what is happening around you in the present, thoughts of the future and the worry of all the tangible things, money- possessions...these things don't seem to worry the people here too much! And I like that...if only i could mesh the happy medium of sustainability through planning for the future (a western ideal) with the local mindset of living happily on very little and enjoying the present day! Maybe I will find it and be able to make the two ideals coincide...

until next time!!