Digging with Sticks

Hey all!!

I have much to say but less than 10 minutes at this internet cafe, so I will have to make it short. I have arrived in Kiganza! This is a village on the far western border of Tanzania close to Kigoma (where I am currently in order to access the internet.) Everyone in Kiganza knows everyone else--I think they may all be related, in fact--and they have been SO NICE to me. I had a welcoming party bus at the airport (a contingent of seven or eight or nine that kept growing and shrinking as we picked up friends seen walking along the road, dropped off people at the market, and gave rides to random police officers.) I am staying in Africa's most amazing house. I was expecting poor conditions out here--most people do in fact live in mud huts with thatched roofs--but Yared (the guy who runs this nonprofit) has built a lovely place. Several bedrooms, detached kitchen and bath (with Africa's only Western toilet, I think!!!!), and only one lizard and one tarantula on the walls of my bedroom (sleeping under a mosquito net really gives one a sense of security.) All my meals are cooked over a fire and provided for me--still no electricity, but I hardly notice now. Lots of rice, beans, eggs, pineapple, and bananas.

This whole village is involved in GOSESO (Yared's nonprofit). The gardens are huge (where all my food comes from), and they have a big reforestation program going, with little seedings in plastic tubes. I dug into the dirt with a stick yesterday and planted some!! I also saw three baboons and what I think was an Ituri monkey...something like that. The people here pet them and let them climb onto their laps like rambunctious cats. I have to admit that I was a little freaked out by them, and they were obviously interested in me, squaking and chattering around me, though not daring to touch.

One minute left!! Gotta go, will try to get more internet time soon.