Time for Part-Two of the "Two-Part Thriller" that is my crazy Tanzanian life/weekend in Bagamoyo: Good news folks (sort of)...due to the kungi on campus today (otherwise known as, in english, a 'student protest'.....and for even more new swahili words: university=chuo kikuu, and today=leo) classes were canceled, which has enabled me to have an excellent day-off AND find some quality free time to continue my ramblings about this past weekend and my safari to the Arts Festival in B-Town (sidenote: no one really calls it that, i just made that up...). As a preface to my B-Town break down, however, I should first clarify that aside from the deranged men with sticks guarding the main entrance to the Univ. and most classrooms on the main campus in order to prevent any student and/or teacher from entering/learning today, everything is fine, I'm safe, and while I really have no idea what the kungi is all about I'm sure it'll all subside shortly. In other news, after a cold shower and a little chapati this morning, I headed down to the Primary School for my first day of volunteering/teaching. I was warmly accepted and greeted by the head administrator and my mwalimu (which means 'teacher'....that is to say, the teacher I'll mainly be working with this semester)and was quickly wisked off to meet the students as class was about to start. After greeting "my class" and stumbling through a short self-introduction in Kiswahili, I took my seat among the Standard IV students (between the ages of 8-11..?) in order to watch my teacher at work and hopefully get an idea of how best I'll be able to assist her this semester with her English lessons on Monday and Tuesday mornings. All I have to say about that is that English is freaking confusing. Try explaining to an 8 year old whose first language is kiswahili the difference between take, took, taken, and taking and you'll know exactly what I mean. Props to these kids for tackling a subject like that, and may God have mercy on my soul. I'll be honest in saying that I'm a little overwhelmed about the task ahead of me, but am optimistic about the students' ability to at least get something out of my meek attempts at teaching them a subject I don't even know that well. I feel stupid for thinking all these years that other languages didn't make any sense, and equally as ignorant for having already significantly failed twice at learning a second language in my educational history. Not to mention my grammatical and structural knowledge of the English language in the first place is rather sub-par, to say the least. Oh well though, these kids are resilient as hell and definitely brighter than me so I'm sure they'll soak up anything I throw at them like a sponge. Anywho, after Primary School this morning, the rest of my afternoon shaped out rather nicely, what with a trip to Mwenge for some lunch/market perusing, a little sporting round of frisbee toss and a strawberry ice cream liter-binge with Sam, and a short nap; all making for an excellent day-off. And being that I came straight here (to the computer lab that is) from dinner (which tonight was a plate chalk full of fresh pinneapple[nanazi], banana[ndizi], papaya[same], oranges[chungwa], and cucumber[tango].....ummm delicious!), this blog post, along with a little late night naked-Yoga on the roof, should just about round out my kick-ass Monday. But yeah, about this past weekend....like I said before, this weekend (and actually all of last week) was highlighted by the 25th annual Music and Arts Festival going down in Bagamoyo (about 45 min. to an hour north of Dar) at the Bagamoyo Fine Arts Institute; a nationally recognized and widely attended event...even the President showed up for the opening ceremonies last Monday, although, unfortunately, he wasn't there this weekend so I didn't get to see him for a second time in as many weeks....bummer! I had originally planned on going with Arni, but due to Arni's all too sudden bought with malaria (pole sana Arni), I was forced to change my plans a bit and instead go with the small threesome of my newest Norwegian friends from the Univ. of Trondheim (Sigruun, Malvin, and Eileen...way cool, way Norwegian). We ended up staying at this really nice beach resort owned by this crazy French couple, complete with beach side bandas, a nice big pool, and French-style continental breakfast, and all for only 12000 Tsh. a person, per night...kinda felt a little spoiled but oh well. Anywho, the festival itself was amazing and proved to be one of my greatest/coolest experiences thus far. Each day of the festival featured a sufficient sampling of nationally and locally acclaimed acts on the mainstage ampitheater and offered a chance at buying/perusing a wide array of hand crafted arts and foods. Plenty of good times, plenty of crazy-African artists, and all for such a ridiculously reasonable price. The standard admission price, for example (which wasn't even collected during the day at most times), was only 500 Tsh.! The acts, ranging from dramas, choirs, drumming ensembles, live bongo-flava bands, and dance troups, were all very entertaining (although, some for un-planned reasons as I'll explain in a moment..) and proved to be some of the most quality entertainment I've ever experienced (although, the cold cement ampitheater seats were hard and uncomfortable enough to make even the softest and biggest butts significantly sore...but hakuna matata!) Anywho, there was entirely too much that went on over the course of the 2 and a half days I was there, so I'll just hit on the main parts... my favorite act was this group of dancers decked out in these crazy flailing palm tree leaves attatched to their waistes and shoulders and all decorated with what I think must have been traditional face and body paint. Sweet dancing coupled with an amazing percussion ensemble, and topped off with some slightly insane snake-antics......and by that I mean they brought out three of the largest snakes I've ever seen, danced around with them, wrapped them around their bodies, and I think one of the dancers even put one of the snakes' ENTIRE mouth and head inside HIS mouth....all while moving his hips and body like Shakira. Complete craziness, but very cool. The Saturday night line-up made for an equally entertaining as well as hillarious display of events. Most of the acts were utterly amazing, but some were slightly less remarkable and would have been down right dissapointing had it not been for the sheer hilarity of it all. First shout-out goes to the group of dancers whose performance was slightly altered by the heavily intoxicated gentlemen who decided it was a good idea to wander up on stage and proceed to shake and shimmy what the good Lord gave him in front of everyone AND in the middle of the dancers' routine and formation. To top it all off, no one (including the dancers who just continued to dance around him) made any kind of attempt to get the guy off the stage so he stayed up their, in the middle of everything, disturbing the poor dancers' performance for the rest of the song.......and then came back during the next number to "entertain" us some more, again uninhibited! Someone probably should have done something about it, but boy was it funny! Definitely turned an otherwise average performance into an all inclusive, quality chuckle-fest...feel kinda bad for the dancers though. The act two acts after that takes the cake, however, for funniest act of the night. For what was the only magic act of the weekend, and probably all week, I've decided that, despite its hilarity, Tanzanians should definitely stick to dancing, singing, and drumming and should leave the "magic" to Siegfried and Roy....minus the getting eaten by a tiger part. This poor girl and her less than intelligent sidekicks started off bad enough with a lame rope trick that even I could figure out and ended off even worse with a botched attempt at the "stick a person in a box and then pierce the box with a bunch of swords" trick. Not only did the routine take forever (while the same lame song repeated 4 times), but the freakin box fell apart midway through the trick, exposing her scrunched-up-in-a-ball-well-below-the-swords sidekick and the true extent of her "magical" abilities. I was laughing hard enough as it was, but for awhile I honestly thought Malvin was going to wet himself. Good stuff. As for the rest of Saturday night, which keep in mind lasted until 8:30am when I finally went to sleep, was highlighted by the raging-reggae rastafari drum-love "beachy fire" beach party. Basically, after the last act the party (including any and all who were crazy/kick-ass/awake enough to join) totally moved from ampitheater to beach-side bon-fire, and in less than 10 min. everyone was down at the beach huddled around a big bon-fire, enjoying various fine spirts/tons of marijuana, and jamming out to some quality drum beats and randomly improvised reggae/bongo-flava singing. Needless to say I joined in on the drumming action and found myself drumming side-by-side with some insanely talented (and some, not so talented and sufficiently high) and wicked crazy rastas for most of 6 hours. The temperature was perfect and the beach-side star gazing (even with the beachy fire) was absolutely supurb. Anyway, after sunrise I proceeded to jump in the ocean for an early morning bath, walked back to the hotel with Sigruun, took a shower (not with Sigrunn, however), ate some breakfast, and crashed for about 4 hours before catching a dala dala back to Dar in the afternoon. Not much else worth mentioning about Sunday, but I think you all can get a pretty good jist of my fantastically fantabulastic weekend. Time for bed now, but I hope this new post finds all in the best of spirits and warmest of moods. Much love to all. Badaaye.

Yo yo, what up peeps?, this be Z-dizz coming straight to ya'll from the TZ fresh out of Bagomoyo! ....not really sure where all that came from, but I'll blame it on the heavy bongo-flava/reggae influence my brain has had this past week...and boy what a week indeed! In a perfect world I'd write a new post at least twice a week so as to better inform you all of my wild and crazy Tanzanian happenings instead of settling for this once a week stuff; seems like there's always so much to talk about and not enough time/technology to do it. Hakuna matata though, we'll stumble through another "week in the life" together as best we can; only I apologize ahead of time if it fails to satisfy and properly cleanse your palate. So where to begin...ah yes, last weekend. I think I last left you just before I headed to the Kununduchi beach-party-bongo-flava-fun-fest-thingy last friday night. Interesting night, good times....let's proceed. Kununduchi Beach resort is what you might call a miniature Water World/Vally Fair (minus the rollar coasters, of course); otherwise known as a mzungu tourist trap, complete with water slides, kiddy playgrounds, an arcade, souvenir shops, and overly priced water. In reality, it actually looks like a pretty cool place to hang out at during the day, where as a night when they shut off the slides and close up shop it turns into an empty, ugly, trendy piece of poop. Only, open up some of the bars, set up a couple 100 tables, mark out a dance floor, hire some locally famed bongo-flava talent, and invite an entire University student body and you've got a party and a half. In general, if you can imagine, it was pretty crazy; tons and tons of college kids all scattered throughout this moderately sized water park stocked with enough food and spirits to appetize and intoxicate all of Luther College. What was even crazier, however, was the dance floor that by the end of the night had turned into a man-lovin, booty-shakin mosh-pit of bongo-flava goodness. I say man-lovin because, for reasons I still have yet to figure out, it was probably 93% male on the dance floor for more than 93% of the night, and in more instances than I can count I was either grinding, jumping, bumping or pushing another guy, who, to be honest, was most likely either drunk or high (or both) but harmless and tons of fun! And I say mosh-pit because, while it wasn't violent or rowdy, it most definitely wasn't dancing either. I know how weird, scary, and/or slightly homo-erotic this all must sound, but believe when I say it was all about the music. The place was way too packed and everyone was entirely too engrossed in the music and mood of the night to care who they were dancing with and what sex they happened to be. Bongo-flava is like a religion to these people, and even more so to the young adult Tanzanian male populous who'll spend more money, if they can, on a stereo and CDs than they will on food in a year. Anywho, after a good 4 hours of on-and-off-again dancing/food consumption, Arni (my trusty German companion) and I grabbed a Fanta for the road and headed back to campus around 3:30am; completely drenched in a mixture of our own sweat and that of our fellow dance-floor companions, and sore enough you'd have thought we'd ran a marathon. Like I said, it definitely made for an interesting night, to say the least, but I was a little disappointed with the false advertising. Not only were we NOT allowed to swim or ride the slides like the flyer had said we could, but the supposed beach volleyball tournament never happened......bad form. But yeah, after a Friday night like that, you can imagine that Saturday was kind of a slow day; not much worth remembering at all. Sunday, however, proved to be an exciting day as I got my new and final roommate, Paschal (which, everytime he pronounces his name it sounds like he says Pasco, so I just call him dude). Interesting guy, kinda quite, but nice enough and chill enough that I don't forsee there being any problems reminiscent of freshman year. He does, however, enjoy watching bongo-flava music videos and Swahili-translated Spanish soap operas on his brand new TV late at night and early in the morning, which is pretty freakin annoying at times......boy do I miss john. Such a classy selection of TV viewing and stereo listenings from that gentlemen, and so considerate. Love and miss you buddy. Paschal also has a desk-top computer and printer though, and while we don't have any internet access at the dorm, being that he's said I can use either whenever I want I'm sure his appliances will definitely come in handy as the semester progresses. Which is an interesting subject by the way. Kinda weird to be in a country like Tanzania thinking you'll need to prepare yourself for the simple life when all the sudden your new roommate shows up with more crap than you yourself have in your dorm room back in the States. And not that it's normal by any standard for the average Tanzanian student to be so well equipped for school, but I'm not lying when I say that every room on our floor has a TV now (and most, if not all, also have stereos, printers, toasters, fridges, and scanners, etc.), when obviously non had one before Sunday when it was just us international students living there. Not that I'm complaining neccesarily, and not that I don't think people should have nice things, it's just interesting to finally see the other side of Tanzanian life.... But where was I...oh yeah, in Tanzania preparing to talk about the rest of my week. I think I'll echo last week's post in saying that not a whole lot happened during the week; my weekdays so far have been rather tedious and boring what with the chaos and confusion of back to school beginnings coupled with the pole-pole (slow) Tanzanian pace of life. I did play frisbee twice, however, which is always worth rejoicing over as frisbee is the greatest sport in the world next to figure skating. If I haven't mentioned it already, I play with some local Missionaries from New Mexico and Texas every Wednesday afternoon (and sometimes Monday....like last Monday:). Kinda crazy, kinda disfunctional, kinda frustrating at times, but fun nontheless. There always seems to be a random and sporatic international-student following from week to week (Tanzanians arn't much for ultimate frisbee), but lately it's been a similar bunch so I'm hoping that a regular group of us coupled with the Missionaries should make for some good times this semester (and quality handler practice and good exercise for me if nothing else). As you can guess, the Univ. is still pretty crazy and classes are still a little non-existent right now, but I can definitely see light at the end of the tunnel and suspect that by the end of the week I'll have a permenant, functioning, productive schedule lined out for the semester. More on that later though... Even better news than that, however, is how freakin sweet my African Dance class is gonna be. I have to be honest in saying that after the first two "lectures" I was a little apprehensive about taking the course and was beginning to wonder if we were gonna dance at all. To my pleasant surprise, we had our first "studio sesson" last Thursday night and man was it kick-ass. Kinda hard in the sense that while the choreography in traditional African dance isn't neccesarily complex and/or "technically challenging", it's SO hard trying to move like an African in a way that shows mastery of controlled bodily chaos and fluidity mixed with overall sexyness. And boy is it a workout! Totally stoked about the class though. In other news, this is post is getting ridiculously long. What to do says me? Time to whip out the double post! We're gonna go ahead and publish this little ditty, let ya'll read up on the week so far, then turn around and hopefully find some time tomorrow to elaborate on our week in progress with another post, most specifically talking about my most recent weekend in Bagamoyo at the 25th anual Bagamoyo Arts Festival. Due to last night's all-night moon-lit rastafari "beachy-fire" drum session, I'm currently rollin on 2 hours of sleep, so until next time....salama. p.s. ocean water tastes better at 5am and breakfast tastes better when you haven't gone to sleep yet.....just in case you didn't know. oh, and sunrises in Tanzania...sweeeeet! badaaye.

Haha, I love how Megan knows every single one of my passwords.....I don't even think I told her what my blog password was, she must have just went through the list of obvious Zach-password possibilities until she cracked it. Thank you though, that was a good way of informing everyone of my honest intentions to update despite my current technilogical handicap. Anywho,seems like forever since last I graced your presence with a new post; again, on top of what Megan said, very sorry for that. It's been kind of a crazy week, what with classes starting (or not starting, depending on how you look at it), registration (which one would normally assume to take place before the start of classes, right?), kiswahili, and the normal everyday adventures that only Tanzania can provide..........like being stared down and then chased by a 3 foot monkey holding an empty bottle of Gin. No joke. But anywho, while it has only been a week it honestly seems like forever. Not a ton has happened by comparison to all the other crazy things I've done over the course of the last month and a half, but definitely enough worth writing a new post over. For starters, I'd like to first thank everyone for the very sincere, very inspiring, and very comforting comments you left after my last post. Special shout-outs to Mama Mkubwa Booz (big mama booz) and Mama Pat for their unwavering motherly love, encouragment, and support. Nothing makes a guy feel warmer inside then two heartwarming comments from his mother(s). As you might have been able to tell, I was kinda feeling a little down and out about my Tanzanian misfortunes and struggles. Really no big deal when looking back, but significant enough at the time to send my mood southward.....and considering that I'm already in the Southern hemisphere, that's enough to turn even bozo the clown's smile upside down. The point is, while this country has significantly blessed and continues to bless me everyday with so many amazing opportunities, insights, experiences, etc., etc., I feel like it all comes in such a large dose sometimes that it can be somewhat overwhelming....... to say the least. Everyday is an adventure in Tanzania, regardless of whether or not you were looking for an adventure in the first place, and if there's one thing I've learned since stepping foot in this beautiful yet CRAZY country over a month ago it's that the minute you think you know you really have no idea. One must always be prepared to expect the unexpected, because the reality is that most things here are in no way what they initially seem like and nothing ever seems to go as planned. Which, in many ways, is part of it's charm. The fact that Tanzania is SO different from the States is what makes it so fascinating.........as well as, at times, so aggrivatingly hard to deal with. For a pampered American mzungu like me, living in Tanzania is an adventure, a challenge, a safari, a kick in the ass (a pain in the ass), a vacation, and an educational experience all at once. Which is exactly what I was looking for in the first place but exactly what I don't want sometimes when I'm feeling home-sick. What I am starting to realize though, is that even when things get unbearably frustrating to the point of constapation (which, in reality, is never a problem here...) it's really just a blessing in disguise. My life has been inalterably changed forever due to the experiences I'm having here, but I honestly wouldn't trade it for the world. And even when I feel like nothing else other than a hott shower and a cheeseburger can make me feel better (not to mention some quality fun time with all of you!), it's important for me to recognize the value and sheer priveledge of my time hear, and that I should never wish the time away because before I know it it'll all be over. Long story short, no need to worry about me; life is tough and sometimes I get so depressed and homesick I kinda feel like a big pile of shit, but life is also amazing and at the end of the day I really have no room to complain about anything. And in the words of the great Bob Marely, 'every little thing is gonna be alright'......and in less than 100 days I'll be home! But anyway, back to my life. Last time I wrote it was a Thursday and today it's a Friday. Meaning that I have week to catch everyone up on. So about last Friday then......all that's really worth mentioning about last Friday is the crazy "International Student Mixer" that took place on the roof of my dorm....Hall IV, Block D (represent...). In total I think we had 7 countries represented that night: Germany, USA, Austria, Norway, China, Uganda, and Tanzania. Basically, the Germans were crunked by 8:30 and by the time the Chinese showed up at 10 everything was out of control.......in a good way though. No unneccesary drama, no party fouls, no late-night upchucks, just quality international-student love coupled with intriguing conversation, roof-top dancing via laptop i-tunes hip-hop shuffle, and plenty of fish pizza (I'm sure you can appreciate that Dad!). However, my roommate Sam from Boston (my third new roommate of the eventual four that I will have had in Tanzania....my fourth and final, and actually Tanzanian, roommate moves in either this weekend or the next....complicated story...) bought six new glasses for the occasion and now only has four, my German friend and neighbor, Arni, had a bit of a rough morning-after, and we didn't actually order the fish pizza. We ordered, or at least meant to order and thought we ordered, cheese.....but hakuna matata! Oh, and did I mention alcohol was involved? I think at one point before the party moved to the roof we had like 25-30 people in my room. Which, if you can imagine, is considerably smaller than mine and John's was last year.....hehe. Good times. As for Saturday, if I had to describe the day in one word it would probably be 'ridiculous'. Start off with some french toast for breakfast, a little mid-morning roof-top yoga, maybe some journaling or a little afternoon emailing as the day progresses and you've got yourself a pretty solid and relaxing Saturday. Throw in a Tanzanian National soccer game against Burkina Faso with seats 20 ft. away from the President (Jakaya Kikwete) and I'd say your simple Saturday turns into one of the most ridiculous experiences of a lifetime. No joke folks, I saw the Tanzanian national soccer team play a REAL match AND saw the freakin President in the same day at the same time. In what was an opening round match of the now-underway 2008 African-Cup qualifyers (finals slated for Summer '08 in Accra, Ghana), the Tanzanian Taifa Stars ('taifa', in kiswahili, means 'national' or 'nation', and the swahili word for 'stars' is 'nyota'......but i guess they didn't like the sound of Taifa Nyota?) rounded fourth-seeded Burkina Faso in a 2-1 thriller.....AND, in front of a sold-out home crowd! This was also head coach, Maximo's debut on the Tanzanian international stage. Kikwete just recently hired the new Brazilian coach to help his team finally qualify for African Cup finals.....and boy are they well on there way! (*knock on wood*) The stadium was absolutely nuts and when the Stars scored the deciding goal I'm pretty sure I would have wet my pants were it not for my lack of hydration that day. Absolutely unbelievable.....I only wish I could describe it better. Some of my favorite moments: Tanzanians climbing and dropping off of the 30 ft. wall behind the general admition stands in order to sneak a peak at their newly re-vamped team, and everyone rushing the field at the final whistle......not to mention Kikwete's sweet Tanzanian sport suit coupled with matching hat and sunglasses.......which we saw him wearing only after his Mercedes Benz motorcade drove into the stadium and first did a few laps around the feild before dropping him off at his seat. Yeah, pretty crazy. As for the rest of my week.........kinda boring, especially in comparison to that. Like I said earlier, I've just been relentlessly trying to figure out my class schedule in order to finish this whole registration process. The University serves just over 17,000 students, but is estimated at only being able to adequately accommodate between 12 and 13,000. As you can imagine campus is generally a nut-house, especially these past two weeks as everyone has been constantly struggling to figure out there back to school stuffs. On top of that, this is the first year that the Univ. has decided to switch over to an American semester system, where as before they always used a system similar to that in England and never started much before Oct. 1. We're (as in us LCCT students) also in the process of finishing up our beginning Kiswahili instruction and hoping to also organize some times within our schedules for volunteering as English tutors at the nearby Primary School, so I'm just kinda working through a bunch of transistions right now and have to do my best to remain patient. In other news, tonight should definitely be an interesting night; supposedly the "party of the year" is going down at a local beach hotel/resort, complete with locally famed Bongo-Flava talent (Bongo-Flava is a type of reggae-hip-hop music that's very popular in East Africa), and swimming, dancing, and volleyball contents. I'll be sure to give an update about all that....otherwise, thanks for your patience in receiving word from the Motherland. I'm sorry I couldn't offer any more right now, but it's been a long week and an equally long day and I'm ready to unwind with some quality Bongo-Flava madness! Keep it real and stuffs and don't forget to drop me a comment, they're always the highlight of my day. Peace and Love.