Scavenger Hunts and Talking Stones!

Authored By:

Delina Auciello

Habari yako rafiki? How are you friends?

All of us here in Iringa are sending lots of love to all of you in the States.
Today (Day 2) was a jam packed day of trying new things and seeing new places. We started our day off with our first Kiswahili lesson. The girls learned basic greetings like:

Hodi! Hodi! (May I come in?)
Karibu (You are Welcome)
Asante (Thank you)

[and]

Habari za leo? (How is your day?)
Nzuri (Good)

Everyone really got the hang of it pretty quickly and were excited to use it in their homestays when they returned in the evening.

After Kiswahili we had our Orientation which included a scavenger hunt throughout Iringatown- the girls split up into two groups and had to ask people they met how to get to the places on the list. They had an hour and a half and had to finish at Neema Craft (a very cool coffee shop where most of the staff is deaf and speaks Tanzanian sign language). The only hint the girls were given to find the places on the list was the phrase “________ iko wapi?” Meaning, where is…(insert building they were trying to find).

My group which I accompanied but was not allowed to help was unfortunately disqualified because we went to a shop to purchase five kangas (thin pieces of fabric with beautiful colors and a message in Swahili on them which we wrap around ourselves to cover our pants) but it only had four! I sent the girls back to Neema and went shopping around and purchased the remaining kanga but was about three minutes late back to Neema.

 

After lunch we set up our emergency and personal phones with local sim cards which took a bit longer than expected. The girls decided to take advantage of the situation and set up a game of spoons (we used pens - but hey, it’s the same thing, right? ). It got pretty intense!!

 


After the phones were finally completed we did a sunset hike to Gangilonga Rock (which means “talking stone” in Kihehe) and took some incredible photos as the spot offers an incredible view of the town (see below)!! This is a very important place to Iringa as it was the large rock that Chief Mkwawa meditated and learned that the Germans movements way back when Iringa was a military station.

The hike was followed by dinner at the Greek Club and watching France defeat Belgium in the World Cup semi-final.

Overall it was an incredible day and we are all so excited to travel to Ilula tomorrow to introduce ourselves to the schools and girls we will be coaching in soccer.

As promised, here are more videos of members from our group and their goals for the program- Eugenie and Maya (These girls ROCK!!)

[VIDEO::https://youtu.be/lQobwOgBOQw]

Tutaonana (We will see each other),

Dee