Moshi Office

So the exciting news this week is the opening of our Moshi office. GAA combined with Rift Cross Safari's will now have an official offine in Moshi Town. Setty and I looked around a bit and found a suitable place where we hope to be set up by the beginning of Oct. Rift Cross is thrilled...it will also give them a safe location to store all the mountain equipment they have been collecting. We will be in a 4 story building and sad to say (or good for my training) we will start on the top floor. This is the way here...there are lots of lfy by night businesses so to move down floors you must be there for a while. I tried the American way fo offering more money as i thought a street level space would give us some walk in traffic...but no, the system is not monetarily based?! We are excited...this will allow us to get a broadband connection, have a printer fax etc. Getting work accomplished will be so much easier!
My other endeavor lately is learning Swahili...I have some weird phobias coming back to the surface while facing this...dates back to my senoir year of high school and my spanish teacher. Mr. Ragone...my time with him ended with me calling him a "fucking pockface". I was promptly kicked out of his class, had a rather uncomfortable meeting with the Dean of students and my mother....and never took another language again. Surprisingly...I can speak Spanish. Jay my younger brother still holds a grudge that I ruined his spanish career as Mr. ragone took out all his frustration with me on him...sorry Jay. Anyway...I am having to remind myself that my academic falterings always ( they happened other times as well) had little to do with my intelligence and more to do with outside influences such as: boys, skiing, sleep etc. So I am mustering up some self-confidence and tackling this language. It helps tremendously that I hear it all day everyday...I've gotten to the point where I know the essence of what people are saying pretty much all of the time. I know quite a bit of vocabulary...but i am afraid to go over the next cliff which is actually putting a sentence together with correct tenses. There is no X or Q in the Swahili alphabet and everything is pronounced as it looks....inflection always occurs on the second to last syllable. In a sense this is a simple language to learn...we'll see. So far just bumbling along, always with the encouragement of the people here, they love to have you try....not like the French. Pearl is still the bravest and always quicly applies her swahili class new vocabulary when we are out and about.
So I have had 4 different people from very different walks of life tell me about this book....Three Cups of Tea. Now I have started it and learned that the author's parents started the school that nell and Pearl are attending. His father also started KCMC which is a major teachihg hospital just down the road from us. It's really excitng to see how this American's time in Tanzania is effecting what he does in his life as a grownup....hope the school and the country have the same effect on all of us! Read it! Then we could have a long distance book club! I have been reading like crazy....several books a week. This only happens in my life when i am super content....so glad to be back to this place. I just read a book called Race Against Time by Stephen Lewis....he is on the UN's special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa and a commissioner for the World Health Organization. The book is a series of lectures...a very interesting and compelling read...he starts most of his lectures with the comment "I have spent the last four years watching people die" his words a wrenching but powerful.
Hope all is well with all of you!!! We are well and thriving!!!
Peace!
Sarah

Staus Quo

Who would have thunk I would feel like this. All seems relatively normal now...that giddy excitement that I felt for the first few weeks has settled down to a calm and contentness that I haven't know in years. The girls are really loving school...there is a lot more evaluation here...but I don't think they feel pressured by it, I think instead they enjoy the feedback. I wonder if their Montessori base has given them a certain confidence in their ablitities and now they get a chance to see where they stand a bit. We'll see I guess how this translates when they are back at NNMS next year.
Work has really picked up for me. The more I discover about this business and this country the more there is to learn. Each cool location and trip idea leads to about 10 more. I think I will never tire ofthe possibilites of this country. Also the people who come here to work and live are a special sort. They recognize the beaubut also want to be a part of the culture. I have been meeting with a group called the Asilia group who are Dutch partners of a series of camps and resorts. I really want to work withthem as they have a similar philoshophy as GAA. They do a lot of side projects that aid the country and have two camps in Massai territory that aid that ecomomy and tradition. Everyone here says they are doing something of this sort but few do it well. So everyday lots to be learned and discovered.
Alex is comingon the 4th of Oct. and will be here until the 29th....so he will travel to Kenya with us on the girls Mid term break...I am sure he will demand an area with surfing so this is another thing to explore.
Time is going too quickly..
Love and Peace
Sarah