Busy life

12-30-10
Life has been crazy as most of you already know. Thanksgiving was really nice because there was a lot of us PCVs together under one roof cooking all day and just having a good unwind. I was able to talk to my family and even my gma. The next day wasn’t so good when I found out my gma was in the hospital and it wasn’t looking good. Its crazy to think that my gma is gone now, she was a HUGE part in my life, she helped me in every way possible and I don’t know it is just crazy (still don’t believe it). When I got home from Thanksgiving I talked with my mom and she and some family figured out how I could get home for the funeral and I was gone the next day. Many many hours of travel later I was home in the snow! I was so nice to be home for the memorial and a good family lunch where we caught up and talked highly of gma Flo. I was in the states for awhile and I enjoyed every second, I even got to see baby Brianna the day she was born! Congrats to the Nagorski family! Anywho the trip was short and I found myself back in Dar sweating uncontrollably, I jumped on the first bus to Moro and was off to IST (In Service Training)… IST was nice because I was with my whole class (39 of us) and all of our counterparts (people from our vil’s that we plan on doing projects with). I was only there a few days but it seems as though my counterpart got a lot out of it and is super ready for work!.. I left moro with a large group and went to Dar for a few days where I swear it was America! It is so crazy that Tanzania has 2 extremes! We drank frozen drinks, ate cheese sticks, went swimming in awesome pools, went to the mall and even went to the movies! I forgot to mention, this whole time my new site-mate (PCV that lives closest to me) was babysitting my puppy Amadeus aka Ami….From Dar we went to Mafia Island for a nice x-mas BUUUUT it was not that way!! The boat there made me accept the fat that I would die, seriously I came to terms that I would die lol… it was a horrible boat in big ocean waves for 4-5 hours were I was practically drowning in the waves that were crashing into us in the boat. We finally got to the island but had to jump down into a smaller boat to get to land, this was just like getting onto the boat where everyone is impatient and it was just crazy, needless to say a mama pushed me and I fell into the small boat banging up my leg! When we finally got onto land we went to our hotel (its dark by now) and turns out they have no rooms and they only reserved 2 for the next day when they were saposta reserve 5!! We then begged a hotel owner to let us stay at his hotel for half price (we are poor) and he finally agreed, it felt good to get a bed finally but we all woke up with bed bugs! …The next day we went on a wild goose chase to find a hotel in our price range and ended up in the ghetto so I decided right there I was willing to throw a few more dollars out. Tala, Trudy and I went to the other side of the island (nice side) and told the guy at the gate that we wanted to just look and would be out ASAP but he said we still had to pat the 30,000tsh to get in the gates! We argued that we are volunteers and that we are residents and should pay the Tanzanian fee (2,000tsh) but they decided that we make American wages living in Tz so we were turned away. Needless to say we were on the boat the next morning back to Dar! … The remainder of the break was nice and relaxing full of Glee and Modern family and also some hot coco with marshmallows… When I got back to my vil they were super happy to see me and I was happy to get Amadeus back, turns out though that he was being trained in tribal so I had to learn too lol … Now im just trying to get motivated to write out a schedule and to seriously start work b/c I only have a year and a half left and I need to get moving!… Oh I forget I got 4 packages on top of all the stuff I brought back from America THANK YOU NAGORSKI FAMILY, KELLY, COLLEEN, AND OF COURSE GRANDMA!! … I was/am the envoy of peace corps members right now with the amount of American goodies I have! …Anywho it’s the rainy season and my clothes are not drying lol, should’ve thought of that b4 washing all of them! … Ami is too small for his collar and everyone laughs really hard when I carry him, they call him an American dog and are waiting to see what tricks he can do (did I mention I don’t know how to train a dog?). I bought a modum so I can get internet anywhere, but since I left Dar I hasn’t worked but I am trying to fix it so I can be online more often and even better to skype! … feel free to write letters and send anything your heart desires but PLEASE remember to write PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEER on my package or I am stuck spending money I don’t have :/ Missing everyone and hope your new year is GREAT!!! ….