Magzania

Let's go to Arusha and learn together! Sunday night, we had supper and then settled in. We are sharing accommodations, two bunk beds to a room. I decided to break off from my travel group (americans and Germans) when picking rooms to see who came later - and I'm glad that I did. I have three roommates, one from Lebanon and two from India! The next morning, we had opening worship/celebration. My favorite part was the offering of gifts from each region we represent.. pictured are African and North American continents. We had two times today for community building as well as a campus tour and an introduction to the program. The weather is so beautiful here!! In small groups, we met each other. My group comes from US, Brazil, Lebanon, Norway, Hong Kong, Fiji, Jamaica, Switzerland, Finland, Japan, Cameroon. We shared about ourselves, our study focus area, and a "holy ground" rule. I shared the oops-ouch rule and we had an interesting conversation on the meaning of thos...

I made it to Arusha around 6am this morning, local time. Long days of traveling since Friday night in Chicago. I met a few people from my program in Istanbul. Once in kiliminjaro, we got our visas, luggage, and met our shuttle to our accommodations.  I am already figuring out what it means to be on African time!! Very laid back. One thing that I am not used to is squatting toilets.... After arriving and checking in, some people went to breakfast but I attended chapel here at tumaini university makumira. The whole service was in Swahili with no translation but I understood some of the orderNwith the Lutheran liturgy. But I had a young boy next to me who helped me along Our final song was the Swahili version of how great thou art. We followed each other out of the Church and sang it gathered in a circle (pictured). Also pictured, two new friends from Zimbabwe and Norway. Then I finally got some lunch and took a three hour nap! (And saw some monkeys on campus). Our program officially...