Settling In

Hello every one,

Quick update- things are going great here and every day brings a new adventure! I like my Fridays the most here because I teach very easy hours, and it’s of great variety: violin group class (where I conduct), a flute lesson, and a piano lesson. It makes it much more interesting to change up the instruments! Last night (friday) Alison and I went out with Liza for one last nice quiet dinner with her before she leaves on Monday. We had incredibly delicious pizza at this wonderful outdoor restaurant/art gallery called Masai Café. It was a truly beautiful evening, as it is getting warmer each night and the stars come out in the clear night sky. Afterwards, we went to another terrific restaurant called the Blue Heron for drinks and to hear the live music. We were surprised to see a bunch of American-sounding musicians playing blue-grass sounding Bob Marley music. While we were there, we saw three of our students, a parent of the students, and about 6 other people we already knew! It’s starting to feel more familiar all the time. We also met up with a couple of guys who are staying in Arusha- one is working here for a year or so and we met his mom on the airplane on our flight over here! Then, we noticed that one of the guitarists in the band was none other than one of our fellow music teachers at Umoja, Bob! We went up and talked with the band when they were done and they were very excited to know some more musicians in the area—we plan to jam with them some time or perhaps even do some performances! I’m also looking at trying to revive something that Umoja used to do when Liza first started the organization: song-writer’s nights! There are a number of venues that, we are told, would love to host the song writer’s nights again. It’d make me practice some more guitar and write more songs, too!

Unfortunately, this morning I awoke around 5am to some pretty awful stomach pains. I was awake feeling sick for some time and was very upset that I couldn’t attend the parent-teacher meeting we were having for our Umoja outreach students this morning! Alison went, however, and said the meeting went well. I’m up now and feeling much better, but still eating lightly. It’s an absolutely gorgeous day here—the sun is out and shining! Oh, also very good news: my mom may get to come visit me here in November! I sure hope it works out!