Michezo

-sports and games
This past week we were invited to play in a teachers vs. students soccer game. We were all looking forward to getting the chance to run around, not have to wear dress clothes, and just have fun with the students. I was horrified when I arrived at the teachers conference room and found out that the our team would have to wear Chelsea jerseys! I mean this is like a Red Sox fan having to wear a Yankees hat! I was not at all happy about it, but was forced to in order to be allowed to play. After having been told that I was going to play keeper (the actual position I had played before) I was told about 5 min before the game started that instead I was going to play striker (you know the complete opposite of keeper, and a position that I had never played in my life). Then right before kickoff I was told to play number 9. Number 9? That is not even a real position. Positions have names not numbers. But the coach told me it was right midfield, so I went over to that part of the field only to find a teammate standing there. In broken Swahili I asked him what position he was and he told me number 7. Now I was incredibly confused, but just decided to wait until we started playing and see where the gap in the field was. It turns out that I played right striker, well until a substitute came on and started playing as a right striker. There seemed to now be gaps at right midfield and right center back, so I ended up playing some sort of hybrid position. I was so confused which seems to be a fairly accurate representation of my time here. The game was a lot of fun, even though we ended up losing 2-0. I had one time that I thought I had scored only to have a teammate who was not involved in the play called offsides. Oh also I fall alot.

Even more fun though has been teaching our language trainer the Great American Pastime (or at least something that vaguely resembles it). A couple of weeks ago I had noticed him wearing a Yankees belt. Being someone not from New York I was obviously not happy about this and asked him about it. He had absolutely no idea what it was. He just thought it was a cool looking belt. So this past week we decided it was about time to educate our trainer in American culture and teach him what baseball is. Obviously there are not baseballs and bats just sitting around everywhere so we had to make due with a stressball and broomstick. So we lined up in the inner courtyard of the school and had people lined up with a batter, a pitcher, and a person standing about where each base should have been. We let him bat first and after missing a couple of times he finally made contact! We then had to yell at him to start running, and he took off towards the first baseman. However I think he was technically out. As the next person came up to bat we told him to line up as one of the fielders. When they hit the ball, he started running to the next base. We tried explaining to him that he was a fielder and thus was not supposed to run from base to base, but as more people came up to bat and he started running around everytime someone hit the ball, we just decided to let him go. The game quickly became some sort of game that very vaguely represented baseball. You actually weren’t safe on bases, you could be pegged out, fielders were allowed to block the runner, and if someone tried to peg you you were allowed to hit the ball away with the bat if you were for some reason still carrying it. All in all, Im not sure how much we actually taught him about baseball but we all had a great time, and he is excited about getting to play again sometime.

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Sadly the stressball got lost :( Our language trainer was worried that it was a really nice ball and kept on asking me how much it cost. Do you buy stressballs? I thought you just got them as handouts at career fairs. But seriously stressballs are awesome here!

I got to go on a hike today with 7 other volunteers and a couple of Tanzanians. We ventured along a stream up the mountain towards the peak without any actual ambitions of reaching it. It was a lot of fun rock hopping around the river and even getting to do some climbing. I enjoy any opportunity that we have to actually get out and exercise. (More pictures on Facebook)

My mama went to Dar this week, and one night after dinner I was in my room studying when I heard a knock on my door. It was my bibi (grandmother) telling me that I didnt drink water with dinner and needed to come get some. I said that I was fine and didnt need any but she would not accept that. She made me come out and drink a glass as she watched me! I have rarely seem anyone else in my family drink water, while I regularly drink several litres and im the one she is making drink a glass. Basically Tanzanians think we are amphibians.


Mis Tres Hermanas Update (Spanish Soap Opera dubbed over in english of course): It turns out that Dr Contraras is actually the father of Augusto, Lisa, Beatrice, and Silvia that they thought had died 15 years earlier! And even more shocking it turns out that Santiago (Lisa’s husband) is in fact the father of Margarita's (Augusto’s wife) baby!

This week for our last week of internship teaching, we’ll be working on approximations and rounding. We find out where our sites are on Friday! and then we get to go visit them for a week on Saturday or Sunday!