May 11: Today was our first official day free of Swahili class! We got to go into Morogoro again and toured the Tanzania Tree Seed Agency (TTSA), which is an organization that helps fight deforestation and preserve other plant species in Tanzania. We were given a “brief” presentation about the company and then given a tour of the plant. From there we went on to a University in Morogoro to meet with students to talk about gender differences in society and how they affect the spread of HIV. It was a very interesting discussion because we got to see how our preconceived ideas about African culture matched up with how things really are and how they compare to the culture in the United States. After the discussion emails were exchanged between students and many pictures were taken. We headed to LJS after this and watched Kadege play soccer..his team won 4-1! After supper the usual festivities began, including many card games. The night was made much more interesting by the random outbursts of songs by Kyle, which led to the whole gang singing..I’m sure the entire seminary enjoyed our free entertainment.
Day 12: We started off the day by attending a presentation given by a professor from the University in Morogoro. He talked about how they are trying to preserve the wildlife in Tanzania. He talked a lot about the elephant populations, which were endangered for quite some time due to decreased land for them to thrive, conflicts with the human population and illegal poaching. Afterwards we started a work project on the seminary grounds which included the strenuous tasks of planting two trees each and planting a handful of seeds. Needless to say, it wasn’t as extreme as we were expecting so we used our extra energy to play Wartburg’s first international kickball game. We split up into team Bwana and team Denis and played a few fierce innings before team Denis finished it off by completely demolishing team Bwana. Needless to say team Bwana needs some work. Some highlights of the game included homeruns by Kyle, Jake, Bwana, Denis, Laura and Dani. It was decided that Dani was MVP for the game. After the game the group got ready to head out for an exciting night at the Dragonaire Restaurant, which everyone had been looking forward to all week! Everyone enjoyed American food, which included pizza with CHEESE, burgers and ice cream! While we waited the 2 hours for our food we played cards, pool and watched Rugby while Jake explained the rules of Rugby to the group. After we all consumed crazy amounts of food the night was concluded by an enjoyable bus ride back to the seminary with the whole group singing songs from Shania Twain to Disney songs to many other classics. Bwana and Denis tried to act embarrassed but we all know they were very impressed by our beautiful singing voices.