It all started on Tuesday; my first day out in the field in my internship. First off I have a new found respect for the movie "Lost in Translation". I know understand completely when I first thought it was the worst movie in the world! That being said I don't think even if I was genius I couldn't learn Swahili fast enough to really be able to converse with the locals! - We went why out into the smaller village called Mbagala. Here is where YOSEFO has one of there 100 communities. We spent the whole day observing the different groups of people coming in and out paying on there loans. We introduced ourselves to each group and they had the hardest time with my name - Kim - who would have thought that it would slip people up soo much! But it happens every time!
Wednesday was my first full day of art class! It was awesome! I made a clay face - my classmates said it was a close relation to Gandhi! Needless to say I missed my calling - I should have been a sculpture! Swahili class was fun! We learned songs!! :)
Then Thursday came. Back to the field for an internship. We where late getting to work because the dala dala's were all messed up! There was not a single bus going our direction at the Unbongo hub for over a half an hour. Then since everyone and their dog was waiting for the same bus we literally had to run and fight our way on to the bus and stand like packed sardines on it for hours. There is a saying in Dar that the capacity of a dala dala is always "one more"! And I can confirm that... I kept thinking there is no way they are going to get more people on this bus but sure enough we stop and pick up more people! Anyway we get to work late and head right out to the Mbagala again. We meet even more people and I was even more frustrated cuz I didn't know all the Swahili words I wanted too.
After a day at the internship I am exhausted! And Hungry because I have not eaten since 8am and its 3:30! So Kelly and I head to the cafeteria and along the way we see a huge gathering of people but don't really think much of it.
We talked about how something is going on and the students are getting ready to protest about their living sty-pin of 5000shl. We learned latter that we had just come upon the after mass of a huge protest where people got hit with branches until they joined in. We also learned that the real protest was starting tomorrow and they where going to mark down the main road and stop traffic! So in worrying that it would happen mid morning and the men demonstrating would probably force us to join and we had been warned to not be a part of this. CIEE therefore made us pack up all of our belongs and leave. We are now staying at a hotel on the beach for the day in hopes that we can make it back to campus today. If we are lucky we can get back mid afternoon and still make our trip to Morogoro. Crazy - Very Interesting Day to say the least!
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