My room

I am finally getting around to publishing pictures of my room. The internet hasn't been working again

this week. Well, at least it hasn't worked for people using PCs; the Mac people always seem to be able to connect without problems. It is

something I don't understand but I've come to expect as normal! This is where I will be living until I move into Morogoro this summer. I wish I could say that the door leads into another room that is mine to use, but unfortunately it is the bedroom next to mine. Most of my time is spent in the common room or outside so the space hasn't been an issue. My lovely mosquito net even made it into the picture. The net has worked perfectly until last night. I am not sure if the 2 mosquitoes that visited me during the night found the small tear in my net or if it was user error that allowed them in! At first I thought I had escaped being bitten because I wasn't covered in itchy welts. Then I looked closer and noticed my arms are covered in small red dots where they got me. Praise the Lord for anti-malaria medications!

I also had my first semi-solo trip in Morogoro. I went with some of the other language students to and from town, but we seperated for awhile once we arrived. It gave me an excellent opportunity to practice my Swahili. Just about every taxi driver and piki piki (motorcycle taxi) driver stopped me to ask if they could take me somewhere. I also had a 'fun' new experience riding the dala dala home with Luke and Ben. My foot fell asleep because it was crammed between a bag of something (rice I think), the man across from me's foot and the wall. When it was time to get up my sandal was caught and I tugged and tugged before my foot was free but my shoe was stuck. Needless to say I was attracting quite a bit of attention. I ended up having to sit back down, pull my shoe free and walk off without putting it back on! The picture shows the inside of a dala dala although it does nothing to show the number of people that squeeze onto them. The one in the picture has 'seats' for 18-20 and then people stand in the aisle too until there isn't any room left. Where I'm standing to take the picture is the bench seat. The only reason this one is empty is because we were the first to begin filling it for the trip out of Morogoro a few weeks ago. So today when my foot was caught I was sitting almost exactly where I was standing for this picture. Lu was next to me on the bench with 2 people squeezed up next to him but at least we had seats. Standing is tricky with the starts, stops, speed bumps and lack of handles to hold onto. You basically just lean onto all of the other people standing and pray no one loses their footing! I am getting used to it although there have been a few instances where strangers faces were pushed right up in mine that were uncomfortable.