STAR VALLEY ADVENTURES

Well, I survived the move. Barely. It sure was interesting starting work but having no place to live. I hadn't closed on my house and work started. At first, I tried to drive back and forth from Bear Lake but after being late I realized I needed to be closer so I rented a motel room. What an experience! The guy who owned it was very nice but would pop up outside my door to surprise me. I'd be hanging out with the door open and all of a sudden I would hear "Monica". 

Scared me everytime! I almost pulled out the kickboxing moves a couple of times. 'watch out now!' 

My first day of school though, another teacher introduced herself and offered to let me stay with her. As I stayed, we realized we got along really well and since her lease was up we decided to keep the roomate situation and have her move in with me :) Yeah! She even has a fun dog that is very well behaved. So, a win/win situation for everyone. 

Finally I got closed and I joined the world of homeownership. The first thing I realized is there's a lot of work to homeownership! We began cleaning the carpets but the previous owners had pets that peed on the carpet so they smelled horrible and they were not coming clean so Joanna and I ripped out all the carpets. (girlpower!)

But that took a while because we are both working full time. So, it took the whole month of september to move in and get settled in. While doing all that I also had to get set up with the post office, get telephone, utilities, tv...the essentials. I'm also in the process of starting a dance school up here and I've been working on that. 

I'm basically working 12-14 hours a day! It's been so crazy and I'm sure it will continue to be. Although, it has settled down. Last Sunday we finally finished unpacking the kitchen. I can now cook real food instead of eating at Maverick. That's been nice. 

The weather here has been very nice! The mornings are fairly cool. This morning it was 27 but the afternoons have warmed up to 70 which is perfect. I'm cringing for winter though. I've heard lots of horror stories. But so far so good...no snow. 

I'm looking forward to helping with the roundup this weekend. My dad invited me to come ride through the hills and round up dogies. I'll have to take a camera and take cool pictures of the fall foliage. The leaves and colors are beautiful up here. 

Well, work comes early and I need to get to bed! 

Laters

Day 4-10 Highlights

It's taking a really long time to load pictures even with cable internet so I'm just going to touch on the highlights of the rest of the trip.

Sunday a few of us went on a hike with our new friend John. He took us to see the waterfall that he lives by. It was crazy to see all the beautiful scenery and then think people are living in such poor houses in the middle of it all. We were especially baffled to see such a beautiful waterfall in the midst of the city. Every now and then cars honked at us as they drove by on the dirt trail. We kept forgetting we were on one of the main roads.



We spent the rest of the week doing speech therapy testing. There were about 5 of us in the speech committee.







Towards the end of the trip I did get a chance to teach some Irish dance and country swing dance to some of the older girls. That was a lot of fun.

On friday they performed some traditional dances for us in the closing ceremonies. We in turn got up and performed the Boot, Scoot and Boogie. It was a such a fun experience. Afterwards one of the teachers came up to me and said "I like your dancing. You are a very vigorous dancer" I said thank you but I started wondering "Was that a compliment?" :)

Our last day at the Kaaga school, I got to say good-bye to my two favorites Lucy and Elosee.

During the weekend the group went on safari. I selected some of my favorite pictures. My favorite animals were the elephants and lions.

Oh, and we got to see a tame rhinoceros, Morani. He was pretty cool.





The next week the speech committee spent more time at the Kaaga school while the rest of the school went to the Huruma center. Then on Friday it was time to head back home. It was a very good trip and I hope you all enjoyed the picutres!

Day 3

(I hope you all will forgive the formatting...I'm not very good and arranging these blogs)

My roomates and I woke up and took turns showering. The hotel was really nice and had hot water. We were all a little worried about that. Then we went to breakfast and it was amazing. Anything you could want...fruit and crepes and omeletes...and all kinds of juices. Real juices sqeezed from the actual fruit not made from a concentrate!

After breakfast we headed across the street to buy the last Harry Potter! Everyone in the group was anxious to get it. There was a fun little mall strip right across the street but we had to make sure and leave in groups. Everything was gated there especially the hotel we were staying in...Well, my roomates finished breakfast early and left and then I couldn't find anyone else who wanted to go to the mall. But I knew tons of people were over there and I was told it was just across the street...all I had to do was cross the street and then I would be with everyone in the group... So, I walked out to the gate and asked the guard to show me where to go...He looked at me very concerned and very kindly told me the mall was very far. But I told him that everyone in my group was there. He said "Let me get you taxi" I said "no no, that's okay I don't need a taxi. Is it really that far to walk?" (see I was confused because everyone had said all morning that the mall was across the street) He told me it was and that it was not good to walk alone. He suggested very nicely that I either needed to take security with me or take a taxi there. So, I decided to stay at the hotel until I could get with my group. So, even though it is dangerous in Africa...there are many that keep their eye out for us white people. Then Amy and Kim came back from the Mall and I asked them to go back over with me and they took me a different way. Out the back way...and it was just across the street. I told them that the guard had said it was so much farther and they said that he was probably referring to the other mall that is a couple of blocks away...We bought Harry Potter than came back to get ready to load the buses and head out to Meru. We had another 7 hour drive ahead of us...

The drive was long and bumpy. The roads aren't exactly finished there. One time there was a dump truck full of people that we passed. That was pretty amazing to see. I guess it's pretty typical since we passed various types of vehicles crammed with people. We saw the largest outdoor air market in Africa. We passed it as we traveled on to Meru. Many times we passed beautiful fields and land only to see the homes built there were barely liveable. And often the shacks had chickens or cows tied up outside and there was no running water...

We stopped a few times for potty breaks. Each place had markets with people that would follow you around trying to get you to buy things. And all of the things were very over priced. One of the places we stopped was the equator and of course we all got pictures to show we were there.

Finally we arrived to the opening ceremonies. We were a couple of hours late but all the teachers were still waiting. Akuna Matata. No worries. They had invited several officials from the government to take part. The african people are very formal and loved ceremony. Each person wanted to stand up and basically say the same thing "We welcome you. We thank you. we appreciate all you have done" and then they would introduce the next person who stood to say the same thing in slight variation. It was very nice to have everyone so excited to see us. The kids would swarm anyone with a camera. They loved getting their pictures taken.

After the speeches we all had our first tea time together. Then we headed to our hotel room. When we entered it was pretty clear that it was no Jacaranda hotel...but it was the nicest hotel in the area and I didn't think it was that bad really. Maybe a little small. But we had beautiful sunrises we could watch from outside our hotel room door.