Safari means journey:

Hello Friends and Family! This is Clara. Tanzania is so beautiful, and we wish that you could all be here with us! Yesterday was our first day of Swahili class, and it was crazy! We learned about as much as I did in my first year of Spanish class, only we learned it all in 3 hours…a little overwhelming! It turns out that Kyle is the most advanced of all of us because he has already begun to speak Swahili in his sleep. We’ve had a lot of opportunities to get out into the community to practice what we have learned.

Yesterday we also had the opportunity to visit the orphanage for a little while. As we approached the orphanage, we were all greeted by the children running into our arms. They were definitely not afraid or shy. I don’t think that anyone was able to set a child down long enough to take out their camera to take pictures, but don’t worry…we are going back on Monday!

                Today we spent the day at the youth prison and the cattle market. At the cattle market, I felt that we were on display as much as the cattle were. Every pair of eyes was on our group, and we definitely stuck out with our mid-west-just-got-done-with-winter skin! We won’t be so white and pasty for long though…we have been getting plenty of sun. The cattle market was a blast! We saw a goat being slaughtered, and then we even got to try some goat. It wasn’t that bad. Dani really liked the goat meat, and she even tried some of the bone marrow (along with Amy, Ellerbroek, and Drolet).

                Tomorrow is our first village visit. We have been having choir practice, so we should all be ready to sing tomorrow. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers for us while we are here J

We have arrived!

Hi everybody! It is Emily again - I will get someone else to update at some point, I promise!

We arrived here in Dar last night, took a quick bus ride to the Catholic Guest House, crashed on our beds, and then had breakfast bright and early at 7:00 this morning! Let's just say, the jet lag is starting to take affect today, as it is only 10:00 and nearly everyone is already asleep.

After breakfast, we took another bus ride to the seminary, where we will be staying for a majority of our trip. This bus ride was much more hectic than the first! We had our first real taste of Dar traffic, which was pretty exciting, interesting, and sometimes a little scary. At one point, I'm sure there were only supposed to be two lanes on the road, but there were definitely cars on both sides of us. Like I said, it was interesting to say the least!

After arriving here at the seminary, we had a quick lunch and then had some time to settle in. So far, we all seem to really like it here! Well, except for the slow internet connection! For all of you LOST fans, I think the seminary grouds looks a lot like Dharmaville! There are mountains in the background and palm trees all around. (I will attempt to upload a picture at the end of this post, assuming a good internet connection)

So far, it has just been a lot of free time for us here at the seminary. Some of us have discovered new card games and we have even started a winner/loser board for our games! For each game played, the winner gets a mark on the winner board and the loser (last place) gets a mark on the loser board. At the end of the trip, the ultimate loser has to buy the ultimate winner a pop! So far, we have only played a few games and no one has neither won nor lost more than once. It will be interesting to see how it turns out!

We also got our first taste of Tanzanian food today. In general, it is pretty good! We stopped at a little restaurant on our way from Dar to the seminary, where we had a dish made of what looked like french fries and eggs. I can pronounce the name, but I am not even close to spelling it, so I am not even going to try! We also had some type of meat-filled pastry. Also, we finally got to try the pop that we have been hearing so much about -- we found out that Passion Fanta is delicious! In general, everyone was pretty impressed with the food, and I definitely don't think anyone is going to starve!

Tomorrow, we start our Swahili classes. It will be nice to finally know a little bit about what everyone is saying! So far, we have picked up a couple of greetings and how to say thank you. It seems like everything we see or hear can be made to relate to The Lion King. Also, tomorrow we will be making our first trip out to the orphanage. I think this is something most people are excited for, so we will definitely let you all know how it goes!

For now, that is it! Thanks for reading and we will update again as soon as possible!

Hello everyone! This is Emily with our first post!! We made it to Amsterdam! Now that we figured out how to view the website in English, it is much easier to update!

Our first flight went by really fast - having movies to watch the whole time makes the time fly by! We feel like we are ready for bed, but it is actually 7 in the morning here, so we have actually already been served breakfast. We should be able to catch up on sleep during our next long flight, though! It has been nice to catch up on movies that we haven't seen in a while! A few of us thought one of our flight attendants looked like he could have been from Twilight! He had blonde hair that was very neatly styled. :)

Food was constantly being served to us on the plane, even if we were trying to get some sleep at the time (right, Maddie?!). I don't know about the rest of the group, but I am not hungry at all right now!

Currently, we are just wasting time in the Amsterdam airport before our next flight leaves in a couple of hours. It was nice to find a location with free Wi-Fi, even if it is just for 30 minutes. We have found some interesting stores while walking around here, such as "Bread!", "Say Cheese!", and the "Tulip Shop".

That's all I have for now! The next time we update, we will be in Tanzania!! :)