odds and ends before a big weekend

A soft gray Saturday morning finds me at my FAVORITE spot in Arusha. The Blue Heron. This place has big fluffy pillows on couches and beds spread all throughout a lush landscape of flowers, grass and trees. And free wireless to boot. Wanted to fill you in on a few funny things before the happenings of this weekend because they will need a blog on their own. Also, as I write this I am multitasking and trying to fill out school loan forms and do reading for class. woo.

Monday night around 1 am, we awoke to POUNDING noises in our apartment. It was actually quite startling at first, we were all thinking the worst (WHO IS TRYING TO BREAK IN). After the initial feelings of fear I got up to double check the lock on our door, and realized the pounding was coming from our neighbors apartment. I could hear their voices talking calmly. These are the neighbors you may have read about on Selina or Eunice's blog, with the 11-year old daughter, Olifia, who is always pounding on our door and following us around. I went back to bed thinking it was some late night construction project. The next morning there was definitely blood out on our gorgeous mosaic tile court yard. Turns out, Olifia's dad had brought home some animals and had to chop them up outside our door before they spoiled. GROSS.

Did I mention it rains every Friday here? Seriously. How weird is that.

Last night we watched the under-20 world cup game! Go figure Tanzania is making a soccer lover out of me. Yeah Ghana!

Tonight is the long anticipated birthday party for Selina, we rented out a little venue and have our chef friend Victor and invited at least a third of Arusha... Seriously, its going to be really cool to see all the people we know in one place: students, interns, security guards, fruit stand workers, etc. It will be a true test to see if we can recognize everyone outside of the context we know them in.

Tomorrow is a "surprise" safari trek... about 8 of us are heading out to a place that Alfred picked for us for another break from Arusha. I'm hoping to make this a new Sunday tradition. What could be better than fellowship whilst exploring??