Who knew rainboots would come in handy in Africa?  The rain today, I've been told, is a 'female' rain - gentle on the earth, soaking deep into the ground to nurture it.  The Africans rejoice, but the students who wished for their laundry to dry on the line may not have the same reaction.
We hit the books this week, taking in lectures on Africa's slave history, cultural context and it's implications for religion, history of the Swahili people, Ethology, and today, to our great excitement...ungulates!
Mornings here are early, as are our nights.  The electricity comes on around  7 pm and turns off around 10 pm, so late nights don't really tempt any of us.  I wake up to the birds and have found myself chanting the pneumonic devices Eli (our wildlife professor and avid birder) has taught us for different bird calls.  While I love how my ears are tuning in to this music of African mornings, hearing things I never would have caught on ton, EVERY TIME I hear a red-eyed dove, my mind starts chanting along with it's call 'I am a red-eyed dove'. 
On that note, I embarked on my first bird walk on Sunday morning, only to realize that I am distracted by the trees here and forget to focus on the birds.  The trunks of trees here seem to always be a twisting of several smaller trunks which then shoot up into incredible leaf shapes.  I should learn to appreciate birds more - which is why I'm grateful to be surrounded by people who are so passionate about them - but my eye is attracted more to color, and the colors of bark, leaves, and Tanzania's red dirt, trumps brown birds. 
Later on Sunday, we joined the ex-pat community for Iringa's Rugby Fest, hosted on a local farm.  With no rugby skills to offer, i joined the children and was quickly leading around British girls looking for their 'mummy' (it's a struggle no to talk back to them in an accent) and throwing my African buddy Akim around on the blow up slide.  But I soon noticed a group of village children gathering just out side of the festivities, watching the other children.  I attempted a Swahili conversation but realized my actions would communicate better than words.  I kicked a soccer ball to the oldest boy and soon we were off in the field for over an hour playing soccer.  The smallest boy, who looked to be 4 or 5 but must be more like 7, was enthralled with the game, even though his dirty sweater kept slipping off one shoulder and he had only one sandal to wear.  And he never broke a smile.  When we ended for lunch, my feet were dirtied beyond recognitions of ever having been white.
After our break, I wandered back to find more village children had gathered.  As they stood, arms around shoulders, a baby on the hip of a 7 year old, I couldn't help but take in the clothing.  Some literally had rags assembled as clothing.  The baby wore a sweater, young girls wore old 'sunday' dresses - one with a huge hole torn so that her swollen belly showed - and the smallest boy who loved to show me how he could slide down the slide, wore pajama pants that were split in the front and back.  Hardly would you call this clothing.
But I'm grateful that my time with these children didn't end with me feeling broken hearted because of their poverty.  That hour we spent in the field filled me with such joy - to see their excitement and their smiles was almost enough to make me forget the rags.
Perhaps the birds here haven't captured my heart because the children have.

My shoulders have a slight sunburn from swimming in the Indian Ocean, I've fallen asleep under mosquito nets to the sound of waves, can properly identify a mango tree, and have marvelled at how wrinkly an elephant really is up close. 
We've finally made it to Iringa after spending a few days along the coast,getting to know eachother and to shake off the jet-lag.  We now live in the shire...or at least in a beautiful campus which houses us in small, thatched-roofed bungalows that all certainly look like the shire.  One of my friends even brought a tin whistle to play the shire song for us in the mornings.
Driving through several towns on our way to Iringa, I've watched Africa through the car windows, and am amazed at the rich colors of this place. The red dirt is a deep teracotta color, the women's Kangas are vibrant and mismatched, and the skin of these African people is such a beautiful and rich darkness.  It's been interesting to be a minority, really for the first time in my life.  Here, I am known by my color.  When we drive by, women stare out of their doorways, children pause their play, and men look up from their work to notice the truck of white students driving by.  Never before have I been known for my color, but here that is exactly what identifies me.  (how about that for an anthropological concept to contemplate?!)
I've already been on my first safari and saw just about every African animal you'd hope to see, except a lion.  Elephants came right beside our window and cut us off from the road as they crossed to be with their family. (did you know that an elephant have 105,000 muscles in it's trunk?)  And my fingers and ankles have trails of bug bites crawling along - I try not to think about what this means when I sleep.
Speaking of sleep...the night sky here is incredible.  With hardly any light pollution, Orion's Belt is the clearest I've ever seen it, and every inch of the sky seems to be covered by stars.  It's quite breathtaking really.
I realize this update jumps around...my mind is quite distracted what with the 20 other students typing away in the cafe.  But to finish, let me share one quick insight:  I worried for a bit that I made a mistake coming here.  Some of the other students on the trip have wanted to come to Africa for years, and cried upon landing in Dar...and I found that this isn't me at all.  So the first few days on campus I coulnd't figure out what I was doing in Africa.  Of course I'm here to study, but that simply didn't have enough purposefullness to satisfy me.  I work off of vision, and I didn't have a clear vision for my time here.  But I was meditating on  a passage in  Isaiah...Isaiah 43:18-19 to be exact   'Do not remember the former things, or consider the  things of old.  I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?'
This part about a new thing really gets me going.  Even hough I function off vision, the Lord still had promised to do a new thing in me here even though I don't perceive what this will be.  And even though this ambiguousness can be frustrating at times - because it can look like purposelessness - I rest in the assurance that this patience and dependency of the Lord will be worth it.
So I continue to walk the dirt roads and hike the mountains here, unsure of why this semester is happening, but certain that a new thing is springing forth. 

All life is a safari

I was blessed to share a meal tonight with a few people who love and have loved Africa for much longer and with much more vigor than I have.  As we spent some time in prayer before leaving, someone said (with that tone you get in your voice when you're smiling and talking), that all life is a safari.  And I couldn't help but love the implications of that statement.  Life is a safari, a journey, one that will take you to unexpected places, involve you in the lives of the most unexpected people, ask of you the most unexpected things, and reveal to you the most unexpected wonders.
And it is with this understanding that I go.
This part of life will take me to Iringa, Tanzania for three months to study East Africa - it's culture, history, people, environment, language. 
With snow just beginning to find it's place here on Ohio's earth, I'll soon escape to live beside rivers, to sleep in huts, and forget to wear shoes...and to seek the Lord in parts of His creation never before seen with my eyes.
...and I hope to share these wonders with you, my dear friends.  My intent is to keep track of my time in Tanzania here so that I don't have to re-tell all my stories when I come home :)  Contact may be inconsistent, but hopefully rich nonetheless. 
May you enjoy the creation set before you, and marvel at the beauty of the safari.