Inspiration. 
 Experience. 
 Inspiration. 
 Love. 
 Inspiration. 
Openness. 
Inspiration. 
Gratitude. 
 Reflections. 
 An open landscape in the distance. 
 Large grandfather like trees to my right. 
 Thick green grass knee high in front of me. 
 Palm trees larger, greener and older than possible to pinpoint. 
 Birds whistling. Chirping. Singing. 
 The chorus of our environment. 
 The melodies of Kitimondo, Mafia Island. 
 A centipede slowly sways along the mustard dirt ground and a skinny honey cow moo's at my sight. 
 I am humbled. 
 The sight of that which was once a dream. 
 The reality of openness. 
 Of letting all fears, all insecurities go. 
 Letting them become more love, more understanding, more openness, more laughter and more smiles. 
 The subtle noises of the environment brings about so much peace.
 So much calmness and eventually so much wonder. 
 I am here. 
 I am now. 
 This is my experience. 
 My camera is around my neck. 
 Each turn I make is a new inspiration. 
 A traditional African hut, a pile of opened coconuts, a small sugar cane farm. 
 These are my moments. 
 Ones in which I want to document. 
 Ones I want to share. 
 Photos that need to be spread. 
 This is part of our world. 
 This is home to so many smiling faces. 
 Curious minds. 
 Ginormous hearts. 
 This is someone's song, dance, rhythm. 
 Yes, this is my song, this is my dance, this is my rhythm. 
 My reality. 
 I am thankful. 
 Openness surrounds me. 
 Together. 
 This place radiates community. 
 It speaks abundant truth to not just one person raising a child, a community raises a child. 
 The walk continues. 
 The adventure expands. 
 The melodies are still radiating. 
 The voices from the futball field get louder. 
 Laughter is a common sound. 
 Here is my experience. 
 These are my photos. 
 This is my reflection from an evening walk after a big rain storm on Mafia Island in Tanzania. 
 My vocabulary is not large enough to explain all that I am witnessing. 
 My days are filled with broken Swahili, Genki English lessons, laughter and smiles. 
 My heart expands daily all the while my brain is a little exhausted and overstimulated. 
 I have a large task at hand. 
 One in which I can confidently say will be done with abundance in abundance of gratitude, love, inspiration, passion, understanding, laughter, smiles and possible tears of overwhelming joy.
 I am blessed. 
 I am humbled. 

 I am happy to share these experiences with you. 
 As always, sending lots of love and enormous hugs. 
 Thanks for the continued support and positive vibes reaching Mafia Island. 
 I am well looked after and taken care of as this community is one that has welcomed me with open arms and very full plates of food four times a day.
 Until next time.  

Oh my, let me tell you…. there is room for one more…. took on a whole new meaning today.  It’s almost a daily experience to get some kind of laugh attack whether it’s 30 seconds or 45 minutes and today was one of those 45 minute kind of days as I ventured from Mikati Beach back home to Kunduchi Beach.

I spent half of Dala Dala ride pinched intricately between an old Tanzanian man’s knee, a woman’s left butt check, my right leg on the bottom step of the stairs going into the dala dala, my left leg holding my backpack next to the wall all the while my head was sticking out the window. 
After a few stops, the puzzle pieces of the beings involved in this dala dala ride adjusted and I then spent the remaining adventure with my left butt cheek sitting on the window with my body resting against the edge of the window all the while my head swayed in the early evening breeze.

Today was by far one of the most interesting public transport experiences I have yet been involved in as there were around 60 people crammed into a dala dala that typically seats around 25 people. 
Although we were filled to the point where people where hanging out the window, we continued to stop and pick up individuals waiting at the stops and with each stop, 
we somehow made room for each and everyone that needed to get on the dala dala.

As for some fun details of today’s adventure, the group of us whom will be teaching on Mafia Island left Kunduchi Beach after breakfast and ventured to Mwenge to shop at local cultural shops and into an air conditioned Tanzanian mall called Mlimani City and yes it was air-conditioned with cappuccino and ice cream shops! 
We then ventured on several other dala dala in Posta and Kivukoni where we took a five-minute ferry across the ocean to Kigamboni and ate lunch at a street vendor. 
One of my favorite local dishes to order is chipsi mayai (french fries with eggs). After lunch, our final destination was a local beach, Mikati for an afternoon swim with local Tanzanians and fellow volunteers.

Amongst the chaos of being a human puzzle within the public transportation in Dar es Salaam, I was once again reminded of the sincerity of the Tanzanian culture. While scrunched against and hanging out of the dala dala window, I watched an older Tanzanian man, someone who you referred to as “Shikamoo” (meaning elderly respect) engage in an extremely humble humanitarian act. 
As a woman and her son (probably around 5 years old) squeezed onto the already overcrowded dala dala, Shikamoo pulled the young son’s hand up and made enough room for him to sit on the edge of the chair. Shikamoo then took the large plastic bag of recycled water bottles filled with liquids and put it on his lap. It gets better…. he then looked at the mother and grabbed the large gasoline container from her hands and put that on his lap as to ease the burden from both the mother and her son. When it was Shikamoo’s time to get off the dala dala, he made sure this woman and her young son received his now vacant seat before he exited.

Although this interaction between strangers may seem minuscule amongst all that we witness in our daily routines, this gesture speaks loudly to my observations about Tanzanian culture in this short amount of time here on mainland Tanzania. Yes, this country is extremely impoverished financially BUT I will tell you, it is so rich in culture, so rich in openness, understanding, and acceptance. 
It is truly humbling to witness and experience the subtle gestures of local Tanzanians as majority are so overjoyed to share a small conversation, even if it is in my broken Swahili. 
With each excursion out into the cities, my understanding and ability to speak Swahili increases as I look forward to having a full conversations in Swahili without having to look at my Tanzanian counterparts for assistance.

This evening is filled with the task of repacking my suitcase as I leave early in the morning on a plane to Mafia Island where I will be teaching at a school in Micheni. While there, I’ll be living with a local Tanzanian volunteer, Seif who grew up in a town outside Tanzania. At dinner tonight, Seif and I talked about creating house rules which will include nightly dinner sessions, Swahili and English “Genki lessons”, photo excursions, yoga sessions, creating a blog for him and anything else that comes up along the way. 
I am thrilled to share this experience with a local, someone who is native to Tanzania knowing the in’s and out’s of the environment, language, school system, welcoming culture and so much more!

Below are a couple photos I uploaded to my computer. 
There are far too many to share at the moment, but this will give you a sense as to my reality for the past week. I am not too sure as to my Internet connection once I am on Mafia Island, but those details will be worked out within the first couple days of getting settled. I hope each and every one of you reading this is enjoying it as much as I am writing it. Thank you so much for your openness and support! As always, it is humbly appreciated. 
Baadaye for now! :)

Jambo from Tanzania! At 6:30am the sun rises just beyond my balcony overlooking an incredibly gorgeous Christmas tree (no, not an American Christmas tree – a vibrantly gigantic tree with intricate red flowers) and a fishing village in Kunduchi Beach, which is a small village in Dar es Salaam.

The mystical beauty of this “paradise” includes intense smells of fish, children smiling brightly, 
dala dala’s (buses) racing about on the roads, women walking with all sorts of buckets on their heads 
and fabrics brighter than imagined.

Frogs chirp loudly at night and in the early morning, I am woken with the rising sun and a plethora of roosters crowing and birds chirping. Just beyond our parameters, men, women and children walk about getting their water for the day, preparing for fishing and adventuring to whatever their task at hand may be. 
The weather is HOT and sticky, oh so very sticky. 
The mosquitos like my skin a little too much – I don’t think I’ve worn this much bug spray in my life.

At this point, I have yet to find the words of the reality I am witnessing, as it is something never before seen by my eyes – a combination of absolutely beauty and sadness. Tanzanians are so community oriented, so friendly, so welcoming. We walk about the streets and little children jump up and down saying “Jambo” or “Hi” or “Karibu” (welcome) and an occasional “Mambo Vipi?” (What’s up). A simple pause, looking at their face and responding with “Poa” (cool) brings about a huge smile on their faces. Greetings are extremely important here as you typically hear three to four when meeting a person.

We spend majority of our days at a place called Maui Beach Rest House in Kunduchi Beach, as this is where our training is taking place. Lessons begin at 8:30am and continue through dinnertime, typically around 7:30. Our training includes anything from Swahili lessons to cultural training to afternoon siesta’s where we have group swimming sessions in the pool and lots and lots of “Genki English” lessons, which is a large portion of what I’ll be teaching my students starting next Thursday.

I find out my placement tomorrow, where I can either be placed at a school on Mafia Island (off the coast of Tanzania) or Kilwa (on mainland Tanzania, south of Dar es Salaam). We gave recommendations the other night at dinner as to our preferences for schools, working with a local Tanzanian volunteer and room accommodations…. we will see where these recommendations take me.

Yesterday was a time to adventure out of Kunduchi Beach and into a town called Bagamoyo about an hour away from where we’re staying. I spent the hour standing up in a very crowded dala dala talking to a local Tanzanian who volunteered to guide us around for the day about her American interest. Once we got into Bagamoyo, we visited an old slave dwelling where slaves were held before getting sent to Zanzibar – a combination of absolute depression from seeing where slaves were hung to absolutely joy when hearing the pride in Raymond’s (our tour guide, a local Tanzanian) voice as he expressed his countries history. The dala dala ride home was spent in silence staring out the window as we passed through town after town – a sense of melancholy overcame my body as I am living a dream I’ve had for as long as I can remember, yet am seeing the struggle of the people that live this reality every day.         

Well, this is it for now. There is so much more to say, but at this time, this is all that needs to be said. I cannot wait to begin sharing the pictures of the reality I am living – it is truly a paradise and beauty I have never experienced. Sending so much love and positive light to all of you. Much love! Until next time….