T.I.A.

Pole Sana (so sorry) but due to the adventurous and jam packed life style we have become adapted to, it appears that I, Kenya, have seriously lacked on my blog duties! So here it goes....over the course of about a week, we have released the tension of the traffic madness, forgotten the importance of clean clothes and hot showers, and begun to see the realties of poverty as well as the power of a little love. Our day started with a frustrating amount of digging, and we soon found a name for our short tempered symptoms....TRENCH FEVER. We were all the verge of mental break downs, however it took little to remind us of our motivation. All we needed was one kid, maybe Bryson, or Josef, or maybe another child who was too shy to reveal their name just yet, to poke their head around a cement wall to keep us digging. And then there was of course the song remixing, “Everyday I’m Shovelin’”, “All I do is DIG DIG DIG NO MATTER WHAT”, the list goes on. But as we left camp Moses that evening, we knew we had finished a job well done, and the trenches were alas, completed. In a frenzy of Daladala tunes, we headed back to Basecamp to prepare for our evening festivities. Lindsay, our resident “fun” coordinator, had arranged for us to go to “Via Via” a popular restaurant and dance party haven, to watch their first annual Dance Competition. Amongst extravagant costumes, incredible live music and dance moves that seemed almost surreal, our pack of Mzungus sat front seat enjoying a buffet of Tanzanian food and basking in the awe of the amazing performers. As the competition came to an end, and the groups that would not be continuing on discovered their fate, not a single head was bowed in disappointment. No actually, it was quite the opposite. Instead the entirety of Via Via, dancers, tourists, locals, erupted in dance. At first our group was shy, worried about stepping into the madness, but then the DJ announced over the loud speaker, “BASECAMP VOLUNTEERS, SINGLE RONNIE SAYS YOU CAN DANCE TOO!”  That was that, deal done we were joining in. I was even pulled into the middle of the circle in attempt to do anything that didn't make me look like a total goof. (although when one of the male dancers decided to join me in the circle I figured it was my cue to head out) It was an unreal experience, one that at first we weren't quite ready for. But as we adjusted we became a part of it, and when the music cut out no one hesitated to clap their hand and sing “Everybody Dance Now!” to be a part of it for just a little while longer. And thats just the thing, as a group, as a whole, as a team, we have adapted to our situations. We have been thrown far out of our time zones, even farther out of our comfort zones, and found the basic comfort in the bare necessitates. 

Lindsay taught us a new saying today, T.I.A.....This is Africa.