A beautifully cool day in Dar today and it has been a great past couple days here. Saturday I had a rough day after an all day unsuccessful visit to town. I went to exchange traveller's cheques, but hit a brick wall in terms of service. the banks here close at noon, which I knew, so I got to the bank at 11:30am to get my money, but the Tanzanians said cashing checks took too long and they were already closing. I tried to argue in Swahili tonly to hit blanks. To compensate for the bad experience a few of the girls and I found an italian restaurant. It's been our mission in dar, to seek out and find the best restaurants. They are all generally cheap and always a relief from rice and beans. Sunday was great fun because we went to the beach! It was a beautiful blue with a warm sun and security guards so we could feel safe on the beach. We all chilled on chairs and I read "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" which was kind of fun 10 years later. That evening we went to church and of course stuffed our faces with the free potluck style food after the service. I think Anna and I ate a half loaf of banana bread after the service. Yesterday was also a great day. I finally got money in town and also found an ATM that accepts my card! It only took one month. It was great too because on the way I found the only Subway in Tanzania and found the prices quite reasonable, only 2200 shillings for a 6inch meatball. I know where our next getaway is! Also, we are finalizing trip plans for our vacation. Our plan right now is to take the train two days west to Zambia and visit Victoria Falls! So if anyone has any hotel tips or things to do let me know! I met a German in Dar yesterday who told me bungee jumping is only $50...I might just have to do it to put the pressure on bekah to bungee while she is in New Zealand!



Today we started teaching again and we taught writing a letter. Bre who teaches with me has some kids in America to do the penpal thing with our class so we tried to write a letter which went quite. It was fun because we told them Pat Meyer's theory of writing 3 ideas and then we wanted to reinforce question words which they just learned. So they would write, I have three brothers and four sisters. Do you have three brothers and four sisters? They probably should be penpals with 1st graders and not 6th graders but it was fun.



Nothing big planned this week, but Friday we are going to a party/dinner put on by this guy named Zano who hangs out at campus. He works at the French Embassy as a chef and is cooking the meal for us! I'm excited! We take Swahili until the 12th of September and then have two weeks off before we start class at the end of September. We'll see how entering the real classroom goes. I'm a bit apprehensive.



I'm off now to see how the twins are doing and to reply to fun e-mail from Bekah. I received a package today from my mom with supplies which should get me through the rest of the trip! The funniest thing was holding the newspaper. I didn't realize the papers here were so oversized until I held up the argus leader and felt like I wasn't holding anything! But more news later. In the meantime check Anna's site which has more details on the trip:

annaosterbur.blogspot.com