I have been in Africa for a month now and absolutely loving it. I moved yesterday into a guest house that is attached to the school. I don’t live in the dormitory with the students, which gives me a little more personal space and time away from the kids to plan lessons. I have a sitting room with a couch, a separate bedroom and a bathroom. It’s wonderful.

I have some exciting news. I will be staying in Africa another month. I was a little shocked to find this out. Rhoi changed my plane ticket and was planning to change it so I came back the first week in August, but she couldn’t get a seat on the plane until August 25th and without hesitating she put me on that plane. At first I couldn’t figure out what I was going to do. I had to go back and work and pay rent, but Mama Rhoi told the students and they were so happy that I couldn’t change the ticket back. And not only could I not change the ticket for the kids, but they had already given away my old seat and there was no way to get it back. So another month in Tanzania, this gives me the chance to work with the older students doing reading comprehension on “Is It Possible”, “Mine Boy” and “Things Fall Apart.” The students are very happy to have me here to teach them more English and the other teachers want my help planning lessons and preparing for the next term.

We are getting a new English teacher named Lorna. She is wonderful. She is from Kenya and has been in Tanzania teaching for around 20 years. She likes to make visual aids and sing songs to help teach the students. I think I will learn a lot from her. I am also hoping that we can work together and plant more vegetables behind school and also get the kids involved in community clean up. We are thinking of ways to make Boko more green and get the kids to start picking up and getting the community to clean up trash.

We are having CAMP this week at school. Camp is a time for underprivileged youth and youth who have lost their parents to AIDS to come together and play and learn. The kids are focusing on leadership and HIV/AIDS and how to be leaders in their community. There are about 35 kids here and this morning we all got up at 5:30 a.m. and went running. We are supposed to exercise together every morning. I am not actually a part of camp because I didn’t plan it and I don’t speak Swahili, so I can’t really join in the fun. I am planning to study Swahili, go to the internet café and maybe try to go into town a few times this week while the kids are in camp.