"Follow me..."

Playing Uno!!

l to r: Sister Annette, Sister Paulette, MeeHa (from South Korea), myself

Andrea (from Germany) and myself!

The Three Sisters!!!

(Sister Annette (from ohio originally), Sister Aileen (from the Congo), and Sister Paulette (from the Philippines))

Habari za usiku!! (How is your news this night? as it is indeed night for me!)

**Recently made aware that there are more people reading this… a very warm “Karibu” (welcome) to my blog, and to Tanzania (through my eyes of course)!!



I realize that I have two days to “catch up” on…although probably the least eventful days since I have been here!! That means I am going to do some more processing/reflecting…

Sunday January 27, 2008

I slept a LONG time… and as dreading, woke up SUPER sore…as I said before, after not having a work-out that intense since track freshman year of college I feel as though my calves and quad muscles doubled in size!! Haha

It was definitely a day of rest as I did not leave my room at all except for my lunch and dinner meals in the dining room with the others… I spent all day uploading all of the previous pictures…which took at least 6-7 minutes per picture!! I also spent all day studying as I waited for the uploading to finish… I decided to organize my thoughts and the lessons from the book, so in a separate notebook I wrote down every single verb that I knew so far, as well as all of the nouns (some 200+), and adjectives, invariables, questions, the different tenses and personal/possessive pronouns and subject and object prefixes, etc… I’m hoping it will help!!


Monday January 28, 2008

This morning, Sister Annette gave the morning devo and focused on Jesus’ call of the disciples-specifically Levi…but the most important thing that she focused on was Jesus’ words when calling His disciples, “Follow Me.” She said that once we listen to that call, and do follow Him, another question we should ask ourselves is HOW are we following him. Yes, we can say we are following Jesus Christ, but HOW are we? How are our lives reflecting that? I would even take it a step further as a challenge to think about WHY am I following Jesus, or why should I follow Jesus… as my History professor Dr. Walther has ingrained in his students head the two most important questions one can ask are How? and Why? because they challenge one to critically think and to analyze and process/reflect.

My new teacher this week is Godfrey! (I climbed the mountain with him on Saturday)! He is my age…in fact I am exactly one month and two days older than him! :) Anyway, he is fast becoming a good friend/brother! He is the best teacher so far as his English really is pretty superb after only having it 2-4 years in Secondary School….but he tells me that he loves American speakers, and he watches American movies, and listens to American music and reads American books to pick up the language!! He also wants to come to America for college…well, specifically Wartburg since we have such a connection with the Language School. But he has to finish up at least one more year of his “Forms” (grade) before he can come and the I-20 form is super expensive to get and he’d need a good scholarship from Wartburg to come as an International Student… so there are many setbacks…but God-willing he hopes to come someday.
I did not get much further in my lessons because I continually ask questions ( I am learning more Swahili slang!!) and we go off on tangents and other topics sometimes related to language…but I enjoy helping him with some English words as well!! He couldn’t remember what the lines on a zebra were called in English! I really do not know how people teach or even learn English as I realize how complicated it is… I’ve never really thought about it grammatically until trying to compare to some tenses/forms in Swahili… We talked some more about stereotypes because Olivia, Godfrey, and myself discussed racial stereotypes that specifically many (white) Americans have of Blacks... and how the media~ specifically movies, portray Blacks therefore easily feeding the stereotype making us all think that all Blacks are dangerous and in gangs… like all stereotypes, some fit, but many/most do not… but we talked about stereotypes that people here in Tanzania also have of Americans…every country, every culture around the world has its stereotypes and IS stereotyped… and I’ve always gotten upset over stereotypes and wondered why people make such a big deal about Differences… because I have always liked Diversity(not just racial), since I was probably most exposed to it- Middle school and the beginning of High School- because the more I am exposed to and experience Diversity (racial, social, economic, political, religious, etc) the more I discover how similar we (as humanity) are… and maybe this is how I experience and best see/view God… these are the gifts and passions he has given me…eyes to see and opportunities for experience and exposure to His world… I have learned that some things transcend all races/religions, transcend borders/stereotypes… such things/feelings as depression, love, pain, hurt, anger, joy, hope…and these cannot be measured…but in discovering the similarities among humanity it brings me great joy to know that we have been made in the image of our God… we were created by Him and for Him…and the greatest gift is that we can work WITH Him… the world is only a reflection of our Creator…but it is indeed Beautiful.
I used to get so upset when I learned that people in other countries/cultures were getting “Americanized” and would only listen to American music or watch American movies, etc…but Godfrey has made me realize that he is doing so to learn the language…to become educated so he knows more about the world than just his own country, his own region which he has never left… he even wants to learn another language. And I have grown in me a greater respect for my own country as I used to be practically Anti-American… haha I used to get so frustrated with arrogant America…but my heart is being softened to see the good as well!!

Well, I am pretty tired…can’t believe that I’ve been here 3 weeks already…it seems as though time is flying and I can’t seem to catch up with it!!!!!! I think I have written enough for now…a little shorter entry!! ;)

I will write again (and add more pictures) in a couple days, as I am spending tomorrow evening/night and Wednesday morning @ Mikumi National Park about an hour from here!! I am very excited as I am told that we are staying in a lodge with many kinds of food!!! :)


**I hope by now you have been able to see some of my pictures and that they have helped to make clear some of my descriptions and writings!!! I am glad you are able to also put a name with a face (as I have mentioned many people)!!

Have a great last few days of January!!!!

continually seeking,
Alana :)