Day 9 - Nyumba npya

Yesterday afternoon, we met our new host families, with whom we will stay for about 2 weeks. We were all fairly nervous about being split up and leaving TCDC. Hugh (the only other male on in the program, and therefore my roommate) and I are staying with an extremely nice family near Arusha. Last night was our first night with them. The father works at TCDC and also owns a massive (from what I can gather) coffee plantation. I believe the mother works at home and they have three kids (Jane is 18, Beda is 13, and Ullrich is 6). They also have two "helpers," who stay with the family and help both inside and outside the house. This concept was new to both myself and Hugh, but it's fairly common for middle class families to have at least one (although I believe we're the only family with two).

Josephat (the father) was telling us how Ullrich, who is the six year old son, was so excited to have guests staying in the house. Even though he was excited, Ullrich was very timid our first night. Hopefully he'll get used to us as time progresses. The house has a spectacular view of the surrounding mountains - including Kilimanjaro, which I saw last night for the first time. It's only ten minutes away from TCDC (so not extremely proximite to Arusha), but it is nice to get outside of the campus. The environment here is exceptionally nice - but it was starting to feel a little too sterile, if that makes sense. I could very well have been staying in Atlanta, Georgia, instead of Arusha, Tanzania, in other words. I'm sure in two weeks time, I will have changed my mind.