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.