With much anticipation, I woke up today excited to begin my Tanzanian teaching career. However, much to my chagrin, late last evening the President of Tanzania declared today a national holiday in honor of my arrival to Tanzania and Founders' Day for the great Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated. Seriously though, he called off school today because of some recent happenings in Zanzibar - go figure. So this morning, at 7:35 (when school was supposed to start at 7:30), Stella Maris found out about the national holiday. Some of the children had not heard the announcement and still came to school. Thus, I spent a little bit of time this morning meeting the children that traveled to school today and playing a few games with them. Apparently tomorrow is also a national holiday, so school is now planned to begin on Wednesday. Stay tuned.
As it turns out, there are two American med school volunteers who are here until Saturday and they were visiting a clinic today in a village in one of the nearby mountainsides. Because school was cancelled, I joined them for the day. It was both a beautiful and eye-opening experience: beautiful because of the breath-taking scenery as we trucked up this mountainside and eye-opening as I compared the hospital today to American and Ghanaian hospitals.
Today concluded with a trip to the center of town, my second Tanzanian run, a traditional Tanzanian dinner and a ride to and from the airport to keep Innocent company since he had to go to the airport multiple times today to pick up and drop off guests. I had been told that I would be able to move into my permanent room today, but there was a slight adjustment to that as well, so I will not be moving now until Thursday or Saturday. Again, stay tuned. So all in all, it was not the day I expected, but a great day nonetheless. As I lay my head down to sleep tonight, I feel peaceful and thankful.
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