Freshi?

Freshi.

This word in Swahili translates roughly to “feeling fresh”. It’s used as a greeting amongst young people. It’s also my new favorite word.

You feeling fresh?

I’m feeling fresh.

Best greeting ever. I’m planning on saying this to my students as a greeting when they arrive in class. Freshini!?! (Y’all feelin fresh!?!), and they’ll respond with freshi!!! Should make class a little more fun. You know me. I’m bringing a few heaping doses of ridiculous to this country. I just can’t help myself.

Speaking of, my fellow PCTs still don’t really know what to make of me. I’ve already gotten “are you gay?” and “where did you come from?”, and a large number of appalled faces after I say terrible things. We’re having a good time.

We’re learning Swahili at a breakneck pace, which is an invigorating experience, if a bit exhausting. Being surrounded by fellow Swahili learners, native Tanzanians, and having some of the best language teachers I’ve seen makes for a pretty fun time. I love watching everyone progress. It’s only been a few days but we’ve all already made massive strides. Learning a language is much easier when you know your survival is dependent on it.

Tomorrow’s a big day. Time to move in with host families. I’ll be living in a large family of 7 that owns chickens and cows. So stoked. I’m definitely going to try to learn to slaughter a chicken. #usefullifeskills They also get their water from a river which is pretty sick. This part of the world is incredible. Being in a country going through the process of development is beautiful. Clean tap water may be hard to get, but cell service and internet are pretty easy to find. Wat? I wish I could say more about life/culture here in Tanzania, but I just haven’t seen enough. I can only say that the people I’ve met so far are some of the friendliest I’ve ever met. Lots of smiling, laughing, and tons of energy. My kind of people.

America, I wish I could say I miss you, but I just don’t. I may have to wipe my ass with my hand, take a shower with a bucket, and deal with mosquitoes, but American society isn’t exactly idyllic. Living in a country that values isolation, values material goods, over sexualizes women, doesn’t respect elders, doesn’t love thy neighbor, and values escaping the world we live in whether through Netflix, Facebook, Snapchat, video games, etc is challenging in its own right. This isn’t to say I don’t love the good old US of A, I’m just trying to give some perspective. We aren’t perfect. We shouldn’t expect other countries to be perfect and we shouldn’t expect other countries to be the same as our country. If we do either of those things we’re missing out on opportunity to see the beauty in other ways of being. Sure, we should be critical, but we shouldn’t forget to see what makes something great/beautiful/valuable. #Wordstoliveby

Anyway, internet is about to take a huge nosedive in quality, so I don’t know when the next update is coming. I know you’re all holding your breathe in anticipation of my updates. I’ll be back as soon as I can.

Freshi?