Intro to TAFCOM

Hooray! I got to meet my mentor at TAFCOM this afternoon! She came to the CCS home base to introduce us to what TAFCOM does and answer some of our questions. She is very, very nice...I will have to clarify her name though. Didn't quite understand what she said. Tomorrow will be our first day at our volunteer placements. Erin (another CCS volunteer) and I are both at TAFCOM and we will spend tomorrow in their office in Moshi getting to know the other staff members and reading some of the family profiles. Then we begin several days of in-home visits to people living with HIV/AIDS. Our mentor said we will visit about 2-4 families each morning...thankfully she will be with us!!! I don't know why, but I'm having a difficult time learning even the simplest Swahili. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to tomorrow when I get to actually begin what I came here for!

Speaking of my poor Swahili...we had our first real Swahili lesson today from a teacher. I'm just not really "getting" a lot of it. For some reason it was a lot easier for me to learn French - maybe just a younger brain back then. :-) I will keep trying! I hope it will improve over the next month.

Here is a very weird story - turns out that I'm related to one of the other volunteers here at CCS!!!! His name is Joe and his brother is married to my step-cousin. So his sister-in-law is Amy Block, who is my Aunt Phyllis' step-daughter. Small world, huh?! Funny that we met in Tanzania of all places!!!!

Also, it seems that the rainy season has finally begun. Last night it began raining around 11 PM and didn't stop until this morning. We had an assigment to go out into the neighborhood and get to know some of the neighbors. Shari and I paired up and were assigned to go to the Amani Center for Street Children and learn the name of the director, how many kids they have, where the kids come from, and their genders. The assignment was a little tough, although we finally found someone there who spoke English, but the hardest part was getting to and from the Amani Center! The CCS house is on a long dirt road...after an entire night of rain it is just a big MUD road. On the way back to our house I moved aside for a passing vehicle and stepped right into a big muddy mess. It went into my shoes and all over my legs - it was pretty funny, but I'm certainly glad that it happened on the way back home rather than the way to town!!!

Well I have run through my computer time and there is a line, so I'll have to continue later. FYI, for those of you who received the volunteer phone number, it doesn't seem to be working. We aren't sure if it's the phone line or the telephone itself, but the Mama's are checking into it. Sorry if you've tried to reach me.

Much love!
Kimberly