No words but future gratitude

"I'm going to want to tell them all these stories about my life, but all I can say is 'asante'."

-A Peace Corps trainee

Tomorrow we leave to begin our ten weeks of homestay experience. I think it's safe to say that none of us feel prepared - but I think this is one of these situations it will be impossible to be prepared for. We are well versed in a few Swahili phrases such as "thank you", but beyond that our command of the language escapes us.

I had my first (and possibly last, for quite a while) beer at the bar here in the compound, with a group of fellow trainees. The community we will be staying in for our homestays is primarily Muslim, therefore it is unlikely that we will be consuming alcohol at all. In addition to the Islamic factor, female trainees and volunteers throughout Tanzania are discouraged from drinking in their villages, even in their banking towns (larger, more central towns with more assets...such as banks), due to the perceptions and cultural attitudes surrounding the activity and various related acivities.

So my last beer was a Safari. Appropriately named, because tomorrow we take a journey.

Kwaheri, Dar es Salaam. Hujambo, northeast Tanzania.

Great things are waiting.