It wouldn’t be a morning in Tanzania without waking to the knock of Paul and him calling out “Mr. Keppy!”. “Evan” is hard for him to say so he often chooses to just call me by my last name like most of my friends back home. It always makes me laugh to hear him say it. Of course it was time for my bucket bath where the water was extremely hot. I had to just wait in the bathroom for it to cool off as it felt like it was taking off my skin.
One thing that I haven’t mentioned about showering and being inside the house in general is shoe etiquette. Generally when entering the house, you take off your shoes and put on your inside shoes. Or if you go inside of a house and don’t take off your shoes at the front door, you’ll take them off at the door of someone’s room and put on another pair of shoes (often sandals or flip flops) to enter their room. The same can be said for the bathroom as there is a special pair of communal flip flops everyone wears when going into the bathroom.
This custom was hard to get used to at first and isn’t strictly enforced, it’s just a nice sign of respect. The floors of the houses are concrete so keeping the mud and dirt out means less cleaning and an overall cleaner home. Paul’s house, being a bachelor pad at this point, doesn’t seem to be very strict about the whole custom.
After the shower, I got ready and read my book while Paul bathed and got ready. Once he was done he escorted me to the main office building to once again start my generation of content. I again did this for the entire day. Eli insisted we do push ups to make sure our blood is flowing and to wake us up from the sometimes boring work! It was fun to split up the work with a little physical exercise.
Once tea time came, we simply had mandazi and tea. I love the tea here and how enriching and sweet it is. After all, there are tons of tea plants here so it only makes sense they have good tea. I know that ginger and lots of sugar is added to make the tea taste good. Afterwards I continue to work on generating more content! The group of us three slowly but surely begin to make more and more progress!
To stretch our legs and free our minds from work, we all go on a walk and admire the beautiful nature surrounding us. It is so lush and full of life here! We walked down to the local soccer field, which I had never seen before, and just talked about anything and everything. We took some good pictures of all of us together as well as the beauty around us. The soccer field has a great view of the village and the rolling hills all around us.
When we walked back it was time for lunch! We had rice, tender beef, beans, cabbage, and a spicy sauce similar in texture to salsa. One of the things that makes these meals so good is the fact that everything is so incredibly fresh, something you can genuinely taste. Everything is locally sourced and therefore natural and very good for us too! I noticed Henry wasn’t eating much and found out he hadn’t been feeling well lately. I hope that it’s just a minor adjustment to the life out here and nothing serious.
Lunch ended too soon and we were back to generating more content. By the end of our session we generated 288 documents! 144 lesson sets and 144 solution sets to represent all of Form 1 math and half of Form 2. A lot of work but only a third of the way done! As a reminder we have a total of 6 Forms to do so there is a lot more work ahead of us. With today’s AI work finished, I used the office projector to check on Kolibri to ensure that everything worked the way it was supposed to and it did (for the most part)!
We finally had a break and played some more hacky sack. Eli was the one that brought it and something that we do frequently. He can do a ton of really cool tricks like catching the hacky sack on his foot or kicking it to himself without it touching the ground for a decent amount of time. In general, playing hacky sack or more commonly called "sacking" is something that’s gotten mainstream popular for Gen Z.
Sacking is not a Tanzanian thing at all and our local friends are always so confused as to why we play it. They always tell us they have larger soccer balls that are easier to hit thinking that we are only playing with the hacky sack because we have nothing better to do. Contrary to popular belief, sacking is a ton of fun and really pushes your body’s coordination! In the short time I've been able to get some tricks down. When I get back to the States I will certainly make sure to invest in a good hacky sack to play with.
The sun sets quickly and I wait at the office until it’s time for dinner. We had ugale, beans, greens, and cabbage. As I’ll keep repeating, the meals here are wonderful. After dinner I spent time with everyone staying at Paul’s house before retreating to my room. I got some good reading done and finished my book All Quiet on The Western Front which I really loved! I wish I had read the book before I watched the movie, but the ending was still amazing.
I should note that Paul (which happens to be the name of the main character in All Quiet on The Western Front funny enough) was not here tonight again as his extension cord adventure was unsuccessful and wanted to go back again to get it. This means that there’s no loud music playing which surprisingly makes it harder to fall asleep now that I’ve gotten used to it. However, the sounds of Ratrick never seem to cease… Nevertheless, I’m always ready to fall asleep and pass out immediately!
It’s fun to see all the pictures! I’m glad to hear you get to move your body. Walks are the best! I look forward to playing hacky sack when you return. I played it the nineties a lot with friends. Good work moving forward with project! I love that you balance out when you get stagnated energy. You know me! Just like Dr. Ida Rolf said, “ More movement, more life.” Keep moving!👏🏼💪👏🏼🙏🏽 we will continue ongoing prayers for you and team and community. Especially healing.🙏🏽
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