Wishing Cute Dogs Didn't Have Rabies

It’s been one and a half weeks at homestay. Things have been going really well. Every once in awhile I get frustrated by the miscommunication and I wish I could ask my family deeper questions about their lives but sometimes I can only scrape the surface. Also over the weekend it was a free weekend with our family and I did some data collecting for our midterms but also found myself yearning to speak to someone in English.

Some homestay highlights:

-          I really enjoy learning Swahili in my classes, I’ve always enjoyed learning languages and this may be the easiest one (very few rule exceptions)
-          When my mama told someone “Yeye si mzungu, jina lake Jennifer” or in other words “she isn’t just a white person, her name is Jenny”
-          Going on walks with my little brother Ema, and one of the local kids named mika, playing with bubbles and making random sounds
-          Making Tanzanian-flag colored bracelets with my sister Suzie and having her do my hair in cornrows (but it was tight and I took them out)
-          Watching very strange soap operas (on a TV) and laughing with my family
-          Trying to help cook but it’s different trying to things over the fire and over a gas tank (and then getting bumped to sweeping and cleaning the floor duty)
-          Trying to learn the name of foods and sometimes saying inappropriate words instead
-          Getting downtime at the center where we learn Swahili and playing soccer and Frisbee with other students, and finding some time to read
-seeing cute homestay puppies and wanting to pet them but avoiding them because they could have rabies

A few downsides:

-the bathroom
-the miscommunication with the family
-thinking I had appendicitis and trying to figure out who could take me to the hospital a country away because Tanzanian can’t do internal diagnosis (false alarm, I felt better after the day)
-somehow managing never to get enough sleep
- the roof leaking onto my things when it rains
-handwashing my clothes in the river when the spigot stopped producing water and having my mom take over because I still don’t do a good job

Although there may seem to be a lot of downsides, I would say overall the experience is so positive. We are finally interacting with Tanzanians regularly (I don’t count Safari) and I really feel like I’m being shown Tanzanian culture every moment. I’ve truly been analyzing why I’m here and putting things into perspective much more efficiently. We have midterms next week and I have lots to do. I am thinking I may even put clips of my papers on here if it helps explain how I am feeling effectively. I’m hoping for a great rest of my time at homestay, no more sickness and picking out great gifts to give my family upon my departure. Hope all is well with those who are reading this!