Mimi ni mgojwa kidogo (I am a little sick)

I am a little sick today...nothing serious, just a cold I think. And I have been taking my Malaria pills religiously so I am nto worried. The worst part about it is that the showers are all cold, so it seems to worsen the sniffles. Today no more volunteers arrive, tomorrow the bulk of them come, but so far there are 9 of us plus our two coordinators. One of our coordinators is a Tanzanian teaching partner. Here name is Hanifa and she is so great. I have asked her to do a Swahili lesson, since I need to brush up and force myself to speak and most of the volunteers have had even less instruction in Swahili so we are all in need of this. The other volunteers are nice, I especially like the three from England. I want to not only know Swahili when I am done, but I want an English accent! Today we are going to visit a lake nearby the hostel. The area surrounding us is amazing, you can see Mt Meru from the middle of town (at the clock tower) and it just brightens up the whole sky in one direction. We don't start official training or orientation until Wednesday, so we have a few days to explore. Yesterday I bought some fabric and will go tomorrow to the tailor to have a skirt made. They do not use patterns, instead you draw them a picture of what you want and they make it via the picture and a few measurements.
Yesterday we went to the market. It was amazing, so crazy. Bananas, avocados, tiny fish that smell really bad, and people shucking corn all over are main sights. Everywhere we go they shout "wazumgu!" or foreigner. Today is Sunday so we don't go out walking or take public transportation. We take taxis everywhere because people drink on Sundays or go to church and then drink so the crime rates go up. But it is better to be safe than sorry!

So far my blogs are not that exciting. Have faith and keep reading. Writing these makes me think of all of you :) Missing you all.