I've blessed the rains down in Aaaaaafrica!

(That was a shout-out to Ms Kat)

When it rains it pours, right? They aren't kidding about that here. I mean literally - when it rains in Tanzania it is serious business! Around breakfast time this morning it started raining and within minutes our dining area was flooded. Most of the roads here are terrible to begin with, just dirt and lots of rocks. And when it rains the roads are even worse - the dust turns to mud, huge holes form, and you are lucky if your vehicle doesn't get stuck. The mud cakes to everything so your shoes end up weighing about 5 pounds heavier and it's impossible not to get muddy.

When it rains a majority of the children don't attend school. I'm talking a ~75% absence rate. Many don't have umbrellas, and those who do have umbrellas must trudge through the aforementioned mud - sometimes for miles. About 99% of adults don't have vehicles, so parents can't take their kids to school on bad weather days. So lots of them just stay home! CCS has a van and a driver who takes us to our volunteer placements each morning, so some of the volunteers went to their teaching assignments and had only a few students in attendance all day.

Erin and I went to TAFCOM, but Nie decided that it would be best to wait until tomorrow to go on any home visits. When we go for home visits we have to take the daladala to the village, then walk quite a distance to get to the various homes. With the rain we decided to wait until tomorrow in hopes that the weather clears up, so we stayed at the TAFCOM office working on grant applications and updating the organization's profile documents. Unfortunately the power kept going out so the computer was basically unusable most of the day. Since I've been in Tanzania it has become crystal clear how much I depend on reliable electricity, water, and even technology in my day-to-day life. I very much appreciate the "basic luxuries" that I have in Texas.

P.S. I'm feeling much better, no tropical disease here! I think my body was just punishing me yesterday for the strenuous hike the day before.