Wednesday, February 29, 2012

GO! hits the streets...

Feb 27, 2012


Hello!

Normally, I like to wait at least 2 weeks between updates, but there is so many exciting things going on with Hero Home, that I just couldn’t wait to share it with you. If you’re still trying to get through reading the last update, no worries, this update will be there waiting for you, whenever you get the desire!


I also had to send this update because I foolishly forgot to send my PO Box in the last email. How am I ever going to get candy without an address!!

So, just in case you get the urge, my new address is:


Amanda Furst

c/o Tabitha Martin

PO Box 11676

Mwanza

Tanzania

No pressure! Just thought I’d let you know! Also, the third reason for the early update is that I’ve created a video of some of the awesome street kids we’ve started working with. Please check out the video on youtube- GO! talks with the Street Kids of Mwanza, Tanzania and spread it around! It’s available on our website and on facebook. Please post it and help us spread the word and let everyone know why we’re doing what we’re doing!!!

So, when we left off on Feb 18th, the ground was being broken on Hero Home! Seven days later, the ground has not just been broken, our amazing well diggers (Safari, Emmanuel, and Patrick) have reached almost 30 FEET!!! It’s amazing!! I have pictures of the process up on facebook, but even the pictures don’t do justice to just how deep down they are! They are absolutely incredibly guys who work every day with such awesome energy! They are officially part of the GO! Team and we couldn’t be more thrilled! On Friday, they reached rock bottom. They had a huge rock to get through but in a day and a half of constant pounding, they were able to break it up. They’ve said the ground below the rock is moist, so we know that in no time, we’ll have WATER! It’s pretty exciting for all of us! Water really is the key to life and essential for all our future activities!

On Thursday of last week, we held a second town council meeting. Well, Tabitha and Jonathon (our general contractor) held a town council meeting. We all agreed that bringing a white girl into the meeting wouldn’t help our cause of asking for help so I went to work with the well guys and help pull up dirt and rock from the well. Although Tabitha and Jonathon already had a town council meeting last year, we needed to reconfirm our intentions and convince them to help us out with the building process. Tabitha and Jonathon did an amazing job with the 30 town council members and despite some tough questions at the start, they were able to get them all fully on board with our project! It was amazing! Tabitha is such a trooper!!! Let me tell you JUST how much of a trooper she is! On Thursday, we got up at 600am. By 715am we were out the door to bike to the land for the town council meeting. The meeting was scheduled to start at 800am but since members were coming from all different towns, the realistic start time was planned for 10am. Tabitha waited at the office and I headed out to the well. The meeting finally started at NOON, which as Tabitha says, is just BMT- Black Man Time. Tabitha did an amazing job in the meeting introducing Hero Home and explaining that the centre is not just for us but for the whole community. The sports fields are for all the kids in the community, not just our kids. We are also planning on running weekly workshops for Mamas in the community to teach health, hygiene, and even first aid. We asked that we all work together on this project as it truly is there to serve the needs of everyone. Although there was some initial resistance and a few silly questions, Tabitha pushed on and was able to get them all on board and committed to helping us make Hero Home a reality. After the meeting, all 30 people walked the 15 minutes to our land to check it out and get a general idea of where our 30 acres will be. The walk around finished at 6pm!! The meeting was supposed to start at 10, be done by 11 and then the walk around was supposed to be done by noon. BMT indeed. By this time, I had already biked back to Kisesa and was in Mwanza trying unsuccessfully to upload videos on to the internet. Tabitha left the land at 630 and not more than 5 minutes into her ride back, she got a flat tire. So, the amazing person that she is, she RAN all the way back to Kisesa with the BIKE!!!! Like I’ve mentioned, our land is about 10km from our house and the way back has 2 large hills! But, she ran all the way while pushing the bike!! Once she got home, she dropped off the bike and made her way to the main road to hop on a local bus and make her way to Mwanza to meet me. We had decided to go meet some of our future Hero Home kids who are currently living on the streets of Mwanza. We finally met up around 900pm and in less than 15 minutes, we were surrounded by 25 streets kids. It’s an incredibly hard sight. There were about 20 boys and 5 girls. Not a single kid was more than 15 years old. The youngest was 8 years old, unless you count the 10 month old baby that was being carried on the back of his 13 year old mother. The baby, sadly though not surprisingly, was the result of rape. The kids were incredible. A handful of them know Tabitha already and the ones who didn’t instantly respected her. We all sat on a street corner and chatted. We were approached by a couple of local men who wanted the kids to leave. The men were drunk and apparently they frequently beat the kids or burn them with cigarettes. It’s a horrible situation. We talked to the men and told them we would only be a while. We chatted with the kids and they were amazing. Most of them sat quietly on the sidewalk and listened to Tabitha. We wanted to organize a soccer game on Saturday and of course, all the kids were on board. Please check out the video of our first meeting and the soccer game!!! Our plan is to play soccer every Saturday in Mwanza and get to know the kids and see how we can help out, even before the centre is fully built. We left the kids around 1100pm and they went off in search of corners and doorways to sleep in. Some girls walked us to the bus stop as they were going to meet up with other girls. They told us that some of the street kids were picked up and put in a centre in town, but they were beaten in the centre so over half of them have already gone back to the streets. The girls explained that they were all beaten repeatedly at home which is why they decided to leave. No a single kid on the street is there because they would rather sleep on the street than sleep in a home with loving parents, they are there because either they don’t have parents or the parent they do have beats them so much that they sleeping on the street is a more appealing option. It’s a sad situation. In the end, Tabitha and I lucked out and got a local bus back to a town near ours and then got a ride with motorcycle taxis back to our town. We got to our town, Kisesa, at midnight and grabbed some food on the street. Neither of us had eaten since 700am when we left the house to bike out to the land. It was a ridiculously long day, and even longer for Tabitha but she’s such a trooper!!!!

It was a long, hard day but meeting up with the street kids definitely gave me the motivation I needed to keep going. It reminded me why all of this is necessary. No one should be living on the street… but I believe our world has failed if we let 8 year olds sleep on the street, especially when it is within our power to change the situation.

So, that was Thursday. Friday and Saturday we biked out to the land again and on Saturday, some of the town council men came out to mark off our land. I think they measurement skills were a little sketch, but in the end, we got a decent piece of land and on Tuesday, we will finally get the official documents for our land. Very exciting indeed! Saturday afternoon, we headed into Mwanza for our soccer game with the street kids. It was a BLAST!!! My body was exhausted from all the biking and the 12-16 hours a day we had been working, but it felt great to play! The kids were awesome!! Only a couple older boys had a bit of a temper, but the rest were just excited to play! We had a good meeting at the end and set some ground rules and mutual understanding. It went really well and we’re exciting for next week’s game to see how things progress! Yesterday, we rested! It was much needed! I washed clothes, since I hadn’t washed my clothes in well over a week and was definitely in need of some fresh t-shirts.

This week, our plan is to keep working on the well. Once we hit water, we need to make up cement rings to insert in the well and then build a cement cover for the well. We’ve decided against putting a manual pump on the well for now, as we’re hopefully electricity will reach our village by the end of the year and then we can go ahead with a motor to pump water up to a tank. We’ll see what happens!

I hope everyone is well! (no pun intended!) Thanks for the all “get better” wishes. I’m mostly better. The cough is hanging around but I’m getting used to its company! J

Take care! Peace and love!!!

Amazingamandaintanzania

Sunday, February 19, 2012

All is WELL...

Feb 18, 2012

Hello!!!

How are you all doing? I thought, since another two weeks have passed us by, I’d bring you up to speed on all the latest developments of Hero Home!

So, where to start…. Well, first off, just to get it out of the way,… I’m sick. SHOCKING!! I KNOW! :) However, so far it’s just been a 3-day cold so nothing that a good Winnipegger can’t handle. Although, instead of calling it a cold, they should really call it a hot because I feel way more hot than cold… I think I like having a cold in Winnipeg a lot more than in the African heat. The last couple days, even my sweat has been sweating! On the upside, my voice has sounded like an 82 year old grandpa for the last 3 days. Tabitha likes it… she says it feels like there’s a man in the house. I would laugh at her, but my laugh also sounds like an 82 year old man... and then it just ends in a coughing fit.. very unattractive.

But, so far, this “hot” hasn’t slowed down productivity, so I’ll bring you all up to speed on HERO HOME! It’s exciting!!!!!

So, we moved in 2 weeks ago and spent the first week settling in. Tabitha was sick with lingering Malaria which was very unfortunate!! It was painful seeing her so sick. She’s usually up at 5am like a ball of exploding energy, so it was quite a shock see her in bed til 9 or 10am. However, we got settled in. Bought some buckets and stuff for our house. Filled our pantry with 3 kgs of dry beans, 5kgs of dried corn flour and some rice. Hunted down the closest water source and went to town filling up as many buckets as possible. By the end of the week, we were all stocked! I managed to open a bank account (in case anyone wanted to wire us money :) and rented a post office box (in case anyone wanted to send us candy). So, basically, by the end of the first week, we were set to get down to the real work.

Our first order of business is digging a well, as without water on site, everything else takes a lot more time and money. So, Tabitha and I began seeking out some well diggers. You know how in Canada, there’s like.. the internet and you just type in what kind of service you’re looking for and in seconds, you have 89 460 options. Or for the old schoolers, you go to the yellow pages and look up your desired service and start calling away. WHILE, let me tell, in case you didn’t realize…. Internet advertising has yet to hit rural Africa! Bummer! So, we walked around town, talked to friends, stopped at every random well and tried to track down the owner to find out who dug it and how much they dug it for… (sounds like the start of a hip hop song… “did you dig? Ya I dug!” ok, not a good hip hop song, but I’m sick… what do you expect!).

So, we found a couple of young dudes… they quoted us 7000Tsh/foot. So that you can appreciate how ridiculous of a price that is, let me give you some background info.

*A regular well in these parts is anywhere from 45-65 feet.
*Three well diggers can dig about 5 feet per day
*1$ is roughly 1500Tsh
*So, to bring you back to your elementary school days, here’s a math problem for you to solve:
If three well diggers dig 5 feet of well in one day and charge 7000Tsh/foot, how much does each of them get at the end of the day? I was going to let you figure it out, but it’s so ridiculous that I just had to write it… 11 667 Tsh/day!! (approx 7.38$ PER DAY!!! Nobody in a rural African village gets 11 667Tsh/day! An elementary school teacher that has a college diploma gets roughly 6000Tsh/day and these dudes expect us to pay 11000/day each!!!! It was crazy!!! A highshool teacher with a bachelor degree might make 20000TSh/day but that’s only after 4 years of university. I think you get the point :)

*Also, talking to our friend (and newly appointed general contractor- kaka Jonathon) we learned that the price should be about 2000Tsh/foot.

So, needless to say, we didn’t waste too much time with those blokes and quickly went on our way. We got word of another digger and went to visit him at his mud hut. We met his wife and 5 kids but he was nowhere in sight. He paid us a visit later that evening with an even more ridiculous quote of 8000Tsh/foot. We let him have it a little before we sent him on his way. We did the math for him but he didn’t seem to think that 40000Tsh/day for three people was ridiculous. His defense was that it was hard work. But here’s the thing.. ALL work in rural Africa is hard work! Living is hard work... it doesn’t mean you get to inflate your price 400%! So, we sent him on his way as well.

So, we’ve quickly learned that two women, both under 5’ 6”, one of them being a young white girl and the other looking like a young black women (Tabitha is in her 40s but doesn’t look much over 30) will not get a good price on labour. On some level, we expected that we would have a challenge but we were definitely a little discouraged by the lack of respect we got… thus, leading us to recruit Kaka Johnathon. He’s a good friend of Tabitha’s and was instrumental in helping her secure the land back in 2010. We invited him over, explained our dilemma (us having boobs and not a penis- tho, we didn’t explain it in those terms :). We asked for him to join our team and help us make Hero Home a reality! He accepted and we cheered! So, he’s our new GENERAL CONTRActor! It was a great day!!! So, now our team is one person stronger! Very exciting! Two days later, he had recruited 3 well diggers!!!!! We’re loving it! He’s lives out by our land, so he has great connections and gets things done!

On Wednesday, we headed out to the land to meet our new diggers. I biked (I’ll tell you the bike story in a minute) and Tabitha took a motorcycle so that we could deliver the digging supplies which I had picked up in town. I was going to write about getting the bikes.. but I decided it was not that exciting of a story.. basically, it took us 6 trips in to town (and more than 30 hours of waiting) to find and purchase 3 decent used mountain bikes. Like I said, internet advertising hasn’t hit rural Africa so unfortunately we couldn’t goggle map “used bike shops in mwanza, tz.” It made for a lot of walking and hours upon hours of waiting for bikes to be tuned only to discover they have irreparable damage.. And keep in mind, when I say “decent” it’s all relative! We are the proud owners of a Raleigh, a Solar-made by Raleigh, and a Schwinn… so.. yeah, definitely relative. However, the gears work, the brakes don’t rub too much, and the tires aren’t too warped..so, we’re happy.

So, back to the well. The diggers are good guys in their early twenties! They initially quoted us 4000Tsh/foot but we worked them down to 3000Tsh/foot and we would bring them corn flour and dried sardines so they can cook up lunch while they work. I’m not sure everyone would agree to those conditions, but they did! J So, on Wednesday, Feb 15, 2012, we hired our first workers and today, Feb 18, 2012, the land will officially be broken and work begins! It’s a very exciting day in the story of HERO HOME! Tabitha is heading out there right now to deliver the food and see the start of the work. I would be going, but being that I sound and feel like an 82 year old gramps, I’m opting out of the journey in hopes that I heal up quickly and can head out there on Monday.

That’s the end of the updates for now! I’ll keep you posted on the well advancements.

My last little bit of news is disappointing news… but I thought it was important to share it with you all. So, Tabitha and I created our budget back in 2009. However, as I’ve discovered since returning to Tanzania, inflation has hit… and it’s hit hard. Prices of everything has sky rocketed while salaries remain unchanged. The world has decided that anything less than 1$/day per person is “poverty”. I can say without hesitation that the majority of people living in Kisesa have fallen well below that line. Since the inflation has hit, families of 4 or 5 are living on anywhere from $1- $2 a day. It’s a sad situation. In 2005, sugar was 600Tsh/kg, today, in 2012, sugar is 2400tsh/kg. Unfortunately, salaries have not increased by 400%. Even 1 kg of beans now sells for 1500Tsh whereas in 2009, it was somewhere around 700Tsh. A bottle of Fanta was 350Tsh in 2009 when I left and now it’s 500Tsh. I could go on, but I’m sure you get the picture. Life is much harder. A 50kg bag of cement, which not too long ago sold for 9000Tsh is now up to 20000Tsh or 18500Tsh if you’re lucky. So, what this means for Hero Home is a re-evaluation of our budget. We’ve sadly discovered that because of the price changes, our target of $50 000 is not going to be enough. We’re not discouraged though! It just means we need to be smarter, work harder, and do our best to raise more money. I know that all of you have already been wonderful supporters and we appreciate it a whole bunch!!! None of this would be possible without the support you’ve already shown!!!! And we don’t want to keep asking you to support us as we know everybody has financial responsibilities and times are hard everywhere. All we ask is that you help us spread the word to new people… your friends, family, co-workers, and maybe we can get more supporters on board and we can reach our new goal, which right now, is sitting around $70 000.

Thank you so much for all your help!!!!!! I hope you’re all doing well!!!!

I’ll be sure to keep you posted as construction rolls along! Pictures are on the way. I had some videos but my camera card has picked up a virus so I cant upload them! Don’t worry, I’ll get some soon!!

Lots of love and hugs!
Amazingamandaintanzania

PS. Apparently the google search assignment from last email was harder than I intended. For all of you who searched "side effects for women on antibiotics in hot climat" and didnt find a concrete answer, the answer was YEAST INFECTION. now you know!!! yikes!! it was painful!!!

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

I've Finally Been Outdone!!

Feb 01, 2012

Part 1
It’s 520am. I’m wide awake. I can’t pinpoint one cause of my extreme alertness but rather a multitude of causes that of course I’ll share with you! (obviously :).

But first, some background info. I’m in Mwanza!!! HORRAY!! I made it! I’ll give you a quick run down of the week before departure. On Monday (jan 22) I took the 600am bus to Moshi, at the base of Kili. It’s amazing how your sleep patterns can change so drastically in such a short time. Now, getting up at 400am is hardly a shock to the system. In fact, I actually like getting up at 400am as I can enjoy a few hours of only +25C instead on the constant scorching +40C. I was checking out the thermometer the other day and it read +34C inside. It’s was 820pm! I haven’t seen it dip below 29C inside and even than, it was around 430am. I did see it climb as high at 37C and that’s inside, in the shade, which means that I can only guess what the temperature is outside in the sun! Anyways, I digress! (shocking :).

So, off to Moshi (which is not to be confused with my friend, Uncle Moshi). I had a nice visit with my friend Rasta Rich (a jewellery maker & seller whom I’ve worked with in the past). Unfortunately for me but fortunately for them, other friends have moved away. Some to study, others for work. It’s funny, the city looks the same as when I left, but clearly, life has moved on. It’s so hard to believe I’ve been away for over two years. I had a nice visit with Rasta Rich. I made some paper bead necklaces and sold some stuff. By the end of Tuesday, my sea urchin sting had swollen to new proportions! Even walking on it was a challenge. I hurried off to the internet café and did some research. Apparently digging out the spines with a pin is NOT recommended. Whodda thunk it? The internet wisdom recommended using vinegar to dissolve the spines. So, I hobbled to the store, bought me some vinegar and headed back to the guest house. I did a hot water soak and a vinegar soak. By this time, the swelling had already worked its way up my ankle. I didn’t get any luck after the first soak, but by the second hot water soak I was able to squeeze out the spine along with some tears! It was very exciting! It was a decent size too! I considered keeping it but it was nowhere near as impressive as Walter the Worm so I tossed it. It felt much better once I actually got to spine out. I guess all the running just worked to push it deeper and deeper in my foot!

I headed back to Dar Wednesday morning after a mere 39 hours in Moshi. I spent the rest of the week in Dar getting work done on the internet, checking out a football game between two Tanzanian men’s teams and the highlight was going to see Twiga Stars, the women’s national soccer team take on Namibia in the African Women’s Championship qualifier. The game was amazing!!!! There is a new stadium is Dar that holds 60 000 people and though it was far from full, it was still an impressive sight. I couldn’t believe how many people came out to support the women’s team. It was amazing! Not only were there close to 20 000 people, everyone was fully enthralled in the game. The men and women were ecstatic! Everyone was wearing jerseys and cheering like crazy! The men couldn’t say enough good things about how great the women played… and it was totally legit praise… not like.. “they played well….. for girls..” Twiga stars ended up winning 5-2 and one player whose nickname is “fundi”, which means “expert”, scored 3 goals and 1 assist. She was amazing!!! She had sweet passes, never hogged the ball and could walk by 2 or 3 players without blinking an eye. It was impressive!!! Way better than the men’s game I has seen the day before!

So, Monday morning (of this week), I once again got up at 400am and said goodbye to my house mates in dar. Have I mentioned my house mates yet? Forgive me, if I have, but they were pretty awesome people so I think they deserve a quick shout out. So, there was “wifi” who is the wife of a friend of Uncle Moshi’s. His friend is working in Arusha so Wifi was renting a room at uncle moshi’s with her 2 kids Nasala (Na for short) and Mariam (Mamu for short). Wifi is my age and is AWeSOme!! She works so hard around the house. I felt ridiculously guilty and tried to help as much as possible but I already know for fact that I don’t make a good African wife. Wifi would get up everyday and clean the house, make tea, take care of her kids, and then prepare lunch and dinner for us. Wifi made awesome beans with shaved coconut! I loved them!!! I tried to contribute by carrying water from the pump, cleaning a bit, and washing some dishes, but I avoided the kitchen altogether. I know what skills I have and which ones I definitely don’t!! Wifi’s kids were 3 ½ and 1 1/2. Na, the older one is super quite and calm and Mamu, the younger one is crazy! She’s always talking and running around shaking her booty! They were super cool kids!!! I also lived with Babdogo (Uncle Moshi’s uncle who only like 23 years old) and his wife, Mama Asubuna. Asubuna is their first kid. He’s almost 2 and Mama Asubuna is probably 18 or 19 at most, so you can do the math. Asubuna was living with us for a while but he went to stay with his grandma because Mama Asubuna is 8 months pregnant and could pop any day. It pained me to watch her. So, those were my housemates. I said good bye, and then Uncle Moshi and I headed up the hill to the main road with my 4 bags in tow.

I got on the 6am bus to Mwanza and at 1030pm, a mere 16 hours later, I pulled into the Mwanza bus stand with a warm welcome from TABITHA!!!! HORRRRRRRAYYYY!!! Let the work begin. We headed to her house (2 little rooms in a strip of side-by-sides) and I crashed instantly. We got up yesterday and headed to kisesa, the village nearest to our land, to find a house. We looked at a big one up on a hill but decided it was too big, too far, and too expensive (133$/month). We found another house that we thought had already been rented but to our JOY and good fortune, the people hadn’t moved in yet… So, as is the way of business here in Africa, we showed them our money and we got it!!!!!!! Hoorrayyy again!!! Things are looking up!!!! It’s a beautiful house!! Simple cement construction, 3 bedrooms, a room for a kitchen, a sitting room, bathroom and shower inside (but no running water), electricity, and 3 little rooms outside for cooking and storage!!! Very exciting and the price was right- 70$/month!! It’s awesome! We were both excited! It’s super filthy right now and there is more bat poop than I prefer, but.. it’s great!!! :)

So, now back to the present…it’s 520am. Our plan is to go clean our new house today, but for now, we’re at Tabitha’s “house”. Like I said, there are a multitude of reasons that I’m awake… For one, it’s super hot and being that her house is 2 small rooms, circulation is minimal and she doesn’t have a fan. Two, there are lots of mosquitoes. I have a net but somehow they still manage to find your ears and buzz away. Three- sometime around midnight, the neighbour started fighting with her boyfriend. Apparently she is one of the neighbourhood drunkards. She was screaming for a couple of hours and apparently things got violent. I couldn’t understand most of what was going on so I stayed in bed. Tabitha was outside for a while with the rest of the neighbours. Apparently she was beaten until she passed out. Crazy stuff! I knew something was up when it suddenly got quiet at 3am. She was taken to the hospital and her boyfriend was beaten by the other women in the neighbourhood. The police eventually took him away. Not a pleasant situation. The last reason that I haven’t slept last night… is actually beyond my sharing in a bulk email. I know I promised to keep you along for the whole ride, but this time, as I alluded in the subject line, I’ve finally been outdone. Even I will spare you the details on this one. If you’re really curious, I don’t want you to feel left out, so feel free to google “side effects for women taking antibiotics in hot climats” I’m sure you’ll find your answer. It’s been a painful 6 days since I started taking antibiotics for my foot! And a 16 hour hot bus ride didn’t help… so needless to say, there have been quite a few sleepless nights. Hopefully any day now, I’ll return to full health!!!!!!! Fingers crossed!! :)

Part 2- 02 Feb 12
It’s Thursday at 800pm. I’m sitting on a rock outside my new home, typing this email, enjoying the starry sky and listening to Beyonce belt out Single ladies. All and all, not a bad way to pass the time. We officially moved in today! We did a huge clean on Wednesday, with help from Tabitha’s friend and her daughter and daughter’s friend. It was a big job, sweeping, mopping, scrubbing the walls, etc.. but we got it all done and it looked amazing! Tabitha and I were exhausted by the time we got home as neither of us slept much the night before due to the fighting. This morning, we got up at 500am and packed up the two rooms. It’s amazing how much stuff Tabitha has! I felt bad about my four bags, but Tabitha definitely put me to shame! We hired a little pickup truck, loaded up our stuff and we were on our way by 730am. We got ¾ of the way there when the pickup died. The driver worked some magic and we were off in no time. Then, while trying to manoeuvre down a crazy bumpy, rocky, sand road, we managed to get a flat tire! Oh, the fun never stops! The driver got the tire off, took it back to town, got it patched up and we were once again, on the road. He managed through the crazy paths without flipping the truck, and we were very thankful! He delivered everything to our house and we got to unpacking and setting up! Tabitha’s friends came over and helped us set up and roasted some corn on the cob! Delicious!! It was a great day and now, Tabitha and I are sitting outside, relaxing after 3 busy days! By Sunday we should be out at the property and I’ll be sure to send back some pictures!

I hope you are all doing well!! I hear the weather is still a little too hot for “winter”. Be thankful it’s not +40C!

Oh yeah, last thing before I go. I forgot to mention it last bulk. So, while I was in Zanzibar, I was at the internet café. I took my phone out to check my phone number and put it down beside my keyboard. When I finished, I of course, left without my phone. I walked the 5 minutes to the bus stand, got on the bus and made it to the second stop before I realized. I jumped off the bus, started running back but then decided it would be faster to hop on another bus and head back. So, back to the bus stand, ran back to the internet (which definitely got some laughs from the locals, I guess they don’t see many fat girls running). AND to my complete joy, the worker at the café had picked up my phone and put it behind the counter!!! So, score one for the good guy! I guess it’s a tie now! One phone stolen, one phone saved! After all this, I’ve even figured out the moral of the story.. I gotta start remembering where I leave my phone!!! :)

Okay, peace, love, and lots of hugs! Tomorrow is Mama Africa day so give a little extra lovin’ to your African mamas (or in their absence, your white mamas will do too!)

Amazingamandaintanzania