Two whole months gone?

Coming home after being gone for two months is a strange feeling.

The last few weeks in Africa were spent working hard with Your Sisters, and our time spent with them was incredible.  Those seven little girls and Frank and Libby became my African family; I love them so much, and it was so hard to leave them!  The videos I took of them singing make me cry every time I watch them.  It will be a happy day when Frank and Libby come to Utah.


It was hard to say goodbye to Spear, too.  He is one of the most amazing men I've ever met.  He has the most contagious smile; even when I'm in a totally awful mood, 30 seconds sitting across from Spear makes me happy for the rest of the day.  His testimony withstands everything, and he relies on it for every part of his life.  I can't wait for him to come visit America this year.


Six weeks was a long time to be in Africa, and when I look back and try to imagine being in Europe, it feels like so long ago.  On the other hand, when I think about how many nights I slept in my squeaky bunk bed or how many malaria pills I took, they both don't seem like they've been done 42 times.

It's been a couple days, and I still can't believe that I'm home and that I've been gone for two months.  I can't believe how much I learned over the last two months, either...
I learned that I enjoy being well-rounded in a lot of aspects rather than being extremely talented at one thing.  I learned who I really am away from the influences of some of the people at home; I could be whoever I wanted to be while I was gone, and I like who I was there the most.  I learned to not seat the little things and to find adventure in misfortunes; the world goes on, and everything will work out fine.  I learned to trust myself.  I learned patience.  I learned what things and what people I really care about back home.  My testimony of the gospel grew, and I learned how to share that more openly.  I learned that I don't like strangers touching me, and that I'm stronger and braver than I ever knew.  Going abroad for two months is the easiest way to learn about yourself.  I actually feel like an adult now.  I feel like I could don anything on my own and take care of myself.  It's a good feeling.

Well Project!

So this week we traveled to Magara, a small, rural village about 4 hours from Arusha. That village is what we all picture Africa to be like (but dumb me didn't get tons of pictures of the actual village). It's all dirt roads and mud houses with goats, cows and dogs roaming everywhere. There is no running water or electricity. A gorgeous river surrounded by cornfields is their only water source. The sand and dirt there has a lot of limestone and pyrite in it, so when you look down in the water, it all shimmers gold, which is really cool. But the animals go to the bathroom in it, people do their laundry in it, cars drive through it, and the people drink it. Big problem. So we helped with that problem by drilling a well to provide clean drinking water to over 1,000 people. It's an incredible feeling to look at it and know that we provided something for these people that they could never provide for themselves, but they will use everyday of their lives. We got filthy and muddy while drilling the well, but because the earth has so much pyrite in it, a lot of our clothes glitter now. We put our handprints in the cement on Friday morning, which really made what we did seem tangible. You could see each of us actually leaving a handprint in Africa.

It was really fun to drill the well, but it's a little bit of a complicated process. Landon and Jen, the two engineers of our group, taught us all the process so we would understand how it works, and it's really interesting. It took us four days to drill it with some complications, but we got them all worked out, thankfully.

Chan, Sarah (one of our country directors) and I went to the river one morning to take pictures of people collecting the water. It was quite an experience. There were more men and children collecting the water than we expected. They fill up two or three containers, probably 5 gallon size, and attach them to the back of their bicycles to pedal them home. We went at a good time in the morning because there were a ton of people there. However, most people here don't like you taking their picture because they think you are going to take the picture back to America and sell it for money, so they think they should get some money from you, which I kind of see their point. So Sarah, who speaks some Swahili, had to explain to them that we were drilling a kisimo (well) and that the pictures are to raise money to build more wells. Then we were their favorite people ever. They were so excited to see us and let us take tons of pictures of them. Just before we were getting ready to leave, two women came to the water carrying big baskets of laundry on their head. It was the picture I have always wanted.

While the cement around the well was drying we took the day off and hiked to some waterfalls near the village. It was a great break from all the hard work, and we got to play in the water and sun all day long. I got a tiny bit burned since the equator is so close and our malaria pills make us more sensitive to the sun but no peeling. :)

Spear, the branch president and owner of the well company, gave a great speech as we left the well on Saturday. He talked about how we are all sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father and how we are here to help one another, and he loves us and appreciates our help. He told us that he believes the reason Tanzania is struggling so much is because they are so focused on making money and once they learn to focus on other things, it will all come into place. He is an incredible man with a caring heart and contagious smile. We love him. Funny story about him, actually...

One of our country director's boyfriends, Spencer, flew in on Friday to visit for a month, and Spear picked him up from the airport to bring him to the well site. They talked the whole four hour drive and found out that Spencer's grandparents who served a mission in Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania, ten years ago are the ones that baptized Spear. How ironic. It seriously is such a small world even here in Tanzania.

While in Magara, we spent a lot of time singing and dancing with the locals. They taught us some really fun dances to simple songs, and we had everyone that knew another language sing a song in their language. Another girl and I sang in French, someone sang in Russian, Norwegian, a couple sang in Spanish, then Swahili and a tribal language. It was very cool to hear all the different languages.
We also celebrated the Fourth of July in Magara. Hard to celebrate without hamburgers, hot dogs and fireworks, but we managed. We had a bonfire and sang patriotic songs for about an hour. Star-Spangled Banner, My Country Tis of Thee, Proud to be an American, etc. It's weird to celebrate our Independence Day in a place like this, but it really does make you Proud to be an American!

We had a lot of fun in Magara, but I am very happy to be back home in Arusha. I can't believe how quickly the time has passed. I only have two and a half weeks left here. I keep thinking of all the food I want to eat and things I want to do when I get home, which instead of making me homesick like most people would think, makes me excited about how lucky I am to live in Utah. I don't wallow over the things I miss; instead they make me excited. But I do frequently have cravings for Cafe Rio, The Dodo and Maggie Moos. And I am excited to do the summer things I love like Bees games with fireworks, Alpine Slide and the zoo.

One bad piece of news this week. Chan and I have had to move from our bunk bed in our bedroom to air mattresses in the living room (that's not the bad news) because our roommate, Bailee, somehow got an eye ulcer, which is now infected with puss, so she has strict instructions to put eye drops in every hour for the next 48 hours. She had to leave the well project early to go to the hospital and eye specialist in Moshi, about 2 hours away. They said its pretty serious and if she doesn't take care of it, she could lose her eyesight in that eye. She has to go back to the doctor in Moshi tomorrow to see how the drops are helping, so keep her in your prayers, please.

Other than that, everything is great, and I really can't believe how fast the time has gone by. Chan and I are starting to have to plan time to go do all the things we need to do before we go home because we're starting to run out of time! It's so strange.

Post Safari

Life is good here. I had one really bad day last week where I was very frustrated with some of the people and the way things work in the city. But things are better now. It was just one very bad day last Tuesday.

Our safari was AMAZING! We saw almost everything you can imagine. We started our safari in Lake Manyara, which is heavily populated with elephants, giraffes, gazelle, impalas, baboons, hippos and so many different kinds of birds. Within the first few minutes of being there, a young elephant had sprayed us with water. My pants had water spots on them because an elephant sprayed me! There were some baboons that almost jumped on our car and another herd of elephants that held us up on the road for 20 minutes. We spent the night in Lake Manyara and had some delicious food! They feed you SO much in a safari. Basheer first brought us out some zucchini soup. It was delicious, and we all ate a lot because we thought that was dinner. Then he brought out more plates of rice, vegetables, beef and bread. So we ate that. Then there was a tray of a variety of fruits-pineapple, oranges, mangoes, etc. it was so much food! But it was delicious. And that's what dinner was like every single night. Their vegetables here are delicious! They cook them in some kind of sauce we think is chili sauce. But I love it.

The next day we drove to the Serengeti, which means endless in Maasai. Endless is the perfect description. You look out and think you see the end of the world because you see where the plains hit the sky, and there are no trees, no buildings, nothing in the distance. It is incredible.

The Serengeti is littered with zebras and wildebeest. They are everywhere! The zebras are so cool! I don't know what it is, but I was fascinated by their stripes. I've never seen an animal with such distinct stripes like that, and it is so cool. We also saw some ostriches, which are way bigger than I imagined, and hyenas before we set up camp. The campsite is just out in the open, like any animal could wander in whenever they want. After we set up our tents, we went back out to the animals and saw two lionesses stalking a zebra. Oh my heavens, it was so incredibly intense. They watched the zebra's every move and kept following it. But other dumb safari drivers drove right near the zebra and scared it away, so there was no kill. :(

Saturday was one of the best days of my life, no exaggeration. We woke up super early and watched sunrise over the Serengeti. It was absolutely beautiful! Early in the morning there, the sun is totally red, and the sky just glows orange. It looks exactly like the opening scene of The Lion King. After the sun, we turned around and saw five cheetahs, one of which was chasing a jackal. Man, they run fast. And because they're the same color as the grass, the cheetah blends right in, and you can hardly see it when it runs. I also got to see not only one lion in the wild but a whole pride of lions, right cubs, two mamas and two daddys, feasting on a zebra carcass. We watched them for about 45 minutes. The cubs played and pounced on each other, the mamas cleaned the cubs. It was surreal. If you turned in a full circle from the spot where we watched lions, you could see the pride, hippos, zebras, wildebeest and elephants-all in 360 degrees. It was so unreal and something I have ALWAYS wanted to do.  We saw cheetahs eating a zebra later, too. Poor zebras (but there are millions of them, so it's okay).


We left the Serengeti that afternoon to head to the Ngorongoro Crater and after a couple hours our driver noticed something was wrong with the car. We had lost four of the five bolts on one of our rear tires on the unpaved and incredibly bumpy roads between the parks. That's a long story, though. We eventually got to our next campsite overlooking the Ngorongoro Crater. It was freezing up there because the elevation is so high; it's like being at the top of the tram at Snowbird in October. There were elephants and zebras at our campsite, like I got within 30 feet of them; it was incredible. The next morning we headed into the crater and saw TONS of flamingos, more lions, hippos, wildebeest, zebra, gazelle and even a mama and baby rhino. It was the most amazing experience!!! I can't wait to tell you guys everything and show you all the pictures. But I'm bringing home an African man. His name is Basheer, he's Muslim, he's 21 and super shy. He was our cook on our safari. We asked him if we were dumb Americans, and he said yes. After he said that a few times we asked if he knew what dumb meant. He said no, so we told him it meant pumbavu (stupid in Swahili). His face was priceless! He felt so bad!!! Then we asked again if we were dumb. "No, no. You not dumb. I so sorry about that. I did not know what it mean." It was one of the funniest moments of the trip. I will never forget it. On Wednesday we leave for a village called Magara to drill a well for them. We will be there until Saturday, and I'm super excited! Since we will be driving four hours on Wednesday, we are taking the day off Thursday to celebrate the 4th of July and are going swimming in some waterfalls and to see the monkeys. It will be so much fun; I can't wait!!!