Getting Reconnected (12/12/2005)

I have been at site for one week, and some of you are probably wondering where the promised long email is. I don't think this is it and I apologize for the delay.
My new mail address is:Thomas Curtis c/o Msufini Secondary SchoolP.O. Box 8903 Moshi, Tanzaniaphone# is 787482705

In one week so much and so little has happened. I have started cooking on a kerosine stove, actually bargaining for my food at the market. Things that I had done before but always with the assistance of others (or at least moral support). It is liberating to do these things by myself and gratifying to see my improvements to the house. None of the changes have been big, but I now have a system for boiling my water, keeping my house clean, and have identified how to fix the smoke dector and electric stove.The house is mostly furnished but the small things add up, today I bought bed sheets, and spoon.Yesterday I took pictures of my house and hopefully soon I will post them. I don't start teaching until the end of Jan so I think the internet visits will become steady again.

One of my recent adventures:Two weeks ago I went on a short safari to Mikumi National Park. We took spent an evening and morning in the park and saw lots of animals. Spottings: 2 female lions after they had finished eating a freshly killed wildebeast. We presumed they had just eaten because they were lying down away from the mauled carcass and panting rather hard. So hard in fact that many of us thought one of the lions was dying until we realized that it was just resting. Live wildebeasts. Warthogs, which have punk like mohawks. A big bird about six feet tall with a long featherless red neck and huge beak about 2' long, some say this is a pelican. The most dangerous animals in the jungle, that's right hippos. Also in the water hole was a crocodile. We saw a few elephants that seemed unimpressively small and slow.The last animal I wish to comment on are Giraffes. In the zoo giraffes are incredibly boring because they just stand and eat hay. But on the safari I think they are the most fun to watch because they are hilarious to watch run. Their head bobs completely out of rythm with their body and their legs are so long that the body has to move to acommodate the legs.
T.