Lightning-speed Post

I've got 10 min 35 sec left to blog.

We haven't had power in Arusha all day today, but it was amazingly productive.

We made friends the owner and chef of a local Shanghai Restaurant. Good Chinese food that we COMPLETELY beasted. Jess Gu, he remembers you! And he told us that we were the future of China (although he knows we're from Taiwan and HK) as he served us a dish of crab on the house. Our Mandarin skills paid off, so did our easily foreign appearance as we recognized the two Chinese men from our hostel the night before. I've also seen the two men walking on the streets of Arusha, looking just as out of place as I'm sure I do. Either way, the food was good, and we loved the taste of home. The most veggies I've had in a LONGGG time.

The diet, indeed, is mostly rice and beans, but it is so much better than that. Those are definitely the things that fill you up, but the cabbage dish the mamas make are delicious as are anything else we get treated with (or so it seems).

Yesterday we went on an all-day adventure on Mt. Meru. Although we did not climb the thing just yet, we hiked to a waterfall with a guide named Mwalimu (Swahili for teacher, lol. he thought it was a weird name too). Lots of team bonding so far around the campfire and in our little mud huts. I WILL find a time, SOON to post pictures, but we've had enough trouble getting POWER on the weekend in Arusha, much less Internet.

Today we also went to market today to buy fabric, pick up skirts we got made, and such.

Um. yeah. I know it's a lot of rambling and probably does not make sense, but I'm so happy to be here and cannot wait to REALLY start our program this Monday.

Tanzania(ns) is(are) more beautiful than I could've imagined.