Tanzania Day 3 - July 14th

Got to sleep in for the first time in a while this morning, as we woke up at 8:30. Changed and headed over to the big house for breakfast. Then left pretty quickly to jump on the bus to go to the village. The ride took one hour to go 5 miles. We made it to the village right at 10 am for the church service. Willam, the pastor, wanted us all to come to church in the village. The service was very loud. Amanda had gotten them speakers last year and I’m pretty sure they had them turned all the way up. Two women that lived in the village started the service with two songs, then lead a prayer. William had us stand and introduce ourselves, after he profusely thanked us. The two women got back up and sang another song, they then sat down, and four children came up to do dances for us. So cute. It was definitely practiced. After the dance, we took the children to the classroom in the school. Sydney and four of the girls played out a bible verse to teach the children about God. While they taught the lesson, I sat in the classroom with the children. They are all so damn cute. After the lesson we gave them color crayons and markers to draw what they learned from the lesson, then we gave string and beads to make bracelets and necklaces. They just loved any and all attention we gave them. Some of the children really liked my fancy camera, and they tried to take some pictures. We then took the children back into the church, as William had finished giving the sermon, and danced to one more song on our way out of the church with all the amazing village people. Then we slowly made our way back to the bus. The children followed us all the way onto the bus. They did not want us to leave, they ran after the bus all the way down the street. We then headed to pick up Stella, who cooks our food while we are here. She needed a few more things before she made dinner so we stopped at a market. A few girls and I got out with her. The market was all fresh fruit grown locally by the people selling it. We got the food as well as a homemade basket that I purchased and got back on the bus to head home. Once we arrived home, we had lunch that Stella has pre-made for us. At lunch we all got deep with Brandon and Amanda told their love story, some of the girls talked about bad boy friends and break ups, and we talked about faith in relationships. It was all very enlightening. Once “group therapy” was over, we went down to the beach!! This was the first time that I touched the Indian ocean! The beach was so cool. It had both black and normal sand, lots of crabs, and cool caves that have been carved out by the saltwater. Brittany and I walked around on the beach for a long while. We then tried to pick up a crab but instead Brittany tore the arm off, so we walked around scaring people. Sydney freaked out and I even got a good video of her running from Brit. After watching the sun set on the beach, we went up for dinner. The dinner was weird and I didn’t eat much of it. It was basically flour turned into a jello-like thing with beans and rice on top. The weird part was that you had to eat the meal with your hands. Once dinner was done, I eat some of Amani's Mac and cheese, then set out to prepare our lessons for the school children tomorrow.