The only time you can actually be brave, is when you're afraid.

Wow.
I have a big decision to make.
Actually, I'm pretty sure I've already decided, I  just have to see how long it takes me to admit it to myself.
The school that I'm teaching at is called CHETI. It is an awesome school. The director is an incredible man named Zuma. He loves the kids so much and cares about the school as if all the students were his own kids.
CHETI is pretty well-off compared to a lot of schools here. The kids in my class might share 2 erasers between them all, but that's 2 more erasers than a lot of other schools have.
Most of my kids come from very poor families, but they have sponsors. They are being taken care of.

Today, I went to visit a school that is more of a day-orphanage.
Most of the kids are living with a family member or family-friend after their parents died.
The person they are living with cannot afford to send them to school or give them an education.
The classroom I was in was a class of three and four year-olds.
They had no teacher.
Someone had written numbers on the board and then left the kids in the room to copy them down.
They are three and four.
I don't know a single four year old who would sit in a classroom and just copy numbers from a blackboard with no teacher in the room.
The kids were peeing on themselves, peeing on the floor outside the classroom, hitting each other, and crying.
My cousin, Jamie, has a daughter who is four.
I kept seeing her when I looked at these kids.
Alone in a classroom with no one actually looking after her or taking care of her.
I would never let that happen to my little LuLu.
So how can I let it happen to these kids who DON'T have someone watching out for them?

I look at my students at CHETI and I just think, "I love them so much. I love them, I love them, I love them!"
But I looked at these children today and I thought, "I can help them. I think."

It will be a challenge. But I think I can make a difference.
If I decide to switch schools, I will miss my students so much. Especially little Angel.
But I know that Angel and her classmates will be okay.
Their sponsors will take care of them, they'll make it to secondary school and probably university.

But what about these kids I spent the day with today?
No one will even take them to the bathroom.
Who's going to help them learn and function in life?
Me?
I don't know.

I still have to think about it.
I will cry saying goodbye to my students and my heart will break leaving CHETI.
But I think this may be what I have to do.
Pray for me, send your thoughts my way, because I'm scared.

This is one of those situations where I have to really remind myself that I am
Braver than I Believe.

I'm usually really happy, but some days, I stay in bed and eat and cry.

So I haven't blogged in a while.
There's just a lot going on, and I can't organize my thoughts into words, so I had some friends from home ask me questions and I'm gonna answer them!
Here we go...

Question 1: Are you okay?
Answer: Yes! I am okay! Sometimes it's rough, I don't always know how to handle my kids, sometimes I miss home, sometimes I feel like I'm not doing anything worthwhile, but ALL the time, I am glad to be here and have the opportunity to serve and love and meet the incredible people I work with!

Question 2: What is the weather and food like?
Answer: Weather is beautiful most days! Here in Arusha, it's not too hot, usually around 80ish degrees during the day. It does rain a lot but its usually quick, and gets warm again right after. Food: pretty good! Every day at  school I eat Chapati and avocado for lunch. If you know me, you know that avocado is my favorite thing that exists! Chapati is like a thick tortilla kind of thing made from flour and oil. We eat a lot of chapati. We also eat a lot of rice and mango.

Question 3: Can you get a good pizza over there?
Answer: NO! Being from New Jersey, I am of the belief that you cannot get a good pizza anywhere outside of the tri-state area. I have had a few pizzas here, and nothing has measured up, but sometimes you just want some familiarity so you order a cardboardy, ketchupy pizza anyway.

Question 4: What has been the most challenging part of being there?
Answer: Hmmm good question. I think the most challenging part would be working in the midst of the Tanzanian education system and not being able to change the core of anything. I can try to implement my own teaching methods with my students. But its difficult to break through the walls that have been built up by their previous teachers and I know that even if I get through to my students, as soon as I leave, some other teacher will swoop right back in and build the walls back up unintentionally, because that's the only way they know how to teach.

Question 5: What is the most awesome thing you like about Tanzania?
Answer: The diversity throughout the country! You can climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, go on Safari and see all these incredible animals, be in a big city like Arusha with lots of hustle and bustle, go to Zanzibar and feel like you are literally in an island paradise, be in Maasai land which is beautiful but is a whole lotta donkeys, rocks, and mud huts. You can see incredible wealth and extreme poverty right next to each other.

Question 6: What is a typical day like?
Answer: Well I wake up at 6:30 and leave at 7:00, and by that I mean my alarm goes off at 6:30 and I hit snooze until 7:30 and leave at 8:00 and usually wind up late. I take the "bus" into town and walk to the village that my school is in, it's about an hour commute. I teach for about 6 hours. Teaching can entail actual teaching, like teaching how to count and read letters, or it can entail singing songs about mangoes and giraffes (that's my favorite). Then my kids walk me to the bus stop and I have to literally pry them off of me so I can get on the bus. I come back to the house exhausted and go to boxing class, and by that I mean I never actually do go to boxing class, but I always mean to. We usually hang out all afternoon and then eat dinner here at the house. We watch a lot of movies. It's not very glamorous, I don't ride a giraffe to school or wrestle lions for dinner. But I've got students that I cherish and roommates that I have grown to love with all my heart and care for as brothers and sisters. :) On the weekends, we try to do cool things sometimes, but I'm on a pretty limited budget as I spent most of my money on going to Zanzibar (not that I'm complaining, it was so worth it.)

Question 7: What's the best thing so far?

Answer: This is the best thing so far. I love my students! This is Angel. The moment I met her, I loved her. I walked in my classroom on the very first day and saw a little girl dancing by herself in the corner. When she saw me she ran up to me, jumped into my arms, and said "I love you teacha." There were no conditions, she didn't know me, I never gave her anything. It was that simple, she saw me, she loved me. I smiled at her and said "I love you too." I had no choice. She loved me, I loved her back. I asked her name and she said "Angel." She was speaking more truth than she could know. My little Angel.  Don't be surprised if she's standing next to me when I get off the plane at home.

Question 8: What's the worst thing so far?
Answer: The end of my trip to Zanzibar. The first few days were INCREDIBLE! Its a gorgeous island with so much to see and I was so happy to be back at the beach where I belong, and then I fell pretty ill. It was about a hundred degrees and I was in bed freezing and shaking and sweating and coughing and begging for my mommy. Finally, it's time to leave and I am so ready to be back in my bed in Arusha, still feeling a bit sick, but much better than I had been. We took the ferry from Zanzibar to Dar Es Salaam. Let me just say that I love boats. I am usually the first one to suggest going for a boat ride, I love to sail on my friends' boats at home, but this boat was literally sent from Hell. It was three hours of wanting to die. I usually don't get seasick, but as I said, this boat was from the devil. For three hours, I vomited into plastic bags while still suffering from the flu. I could not tell if the water dripping from my face was caused by sweating or crying. Every few minutes, between pukes, I would turn to my friend Megan and say "I wanna go home." That's been the only time I've been legitimately serious about getting on a plane and going back to the states. But, eventually, it was over, and I was back in my nice bed in Arusha.

Question 9: Have you been taking your malaria pills?
Answer: Yes! Geeze, calm down!

Question 10: How much do you miss me?! (submitted by my best friend Kara)
Answer: SO MUCH! But that answer applies to all my friends and family. I was so surprised by how fiercely I miss my people. I've been away for long periods of time, but I think the difference is that I've always been able to text and talk on the phone much more conveniently. It's like in the movie 'The Invention of Lying' when Jennifer Garner says "I'm usually really happy, but some days I just lay in bed and eat and cry." I am so happy to be here, but I miss my loved ones dearly.

So I hope that gave you a little peek into what my life is like, if you have any more questions, ask away! much love

Hey Katrinah, here's the world, would you just hold it on your shoulders for a minute?

I want to tell you about my students.
I teach two classes.  One in the morning, and one in the afternoon.
Today, I want to tell you about my morning class.
They are a group of older kids, about nine and ten years old.
Right now they are on their break. Here, they have their summer break in December.
It is their summer break, and every day, they walk to school, which is relatively far from home, to come and take classes from a native English speaking teacher.
I never wanted to go to school on a weekday during the school year.
They want so badly to learn.
It amazes me every day.
These kids learn English from teachers who do not speak English.
The teachers teach out of books that they do not understand.
One of the most common methods of teaching is to write sentences on the black board and just have the kids repeat it over and over and over sometimes for an hour or two straight.
When I first entered the classroom, I was so impressed by how much the kids knew. They can recite anything.
I walk into the class everyday (which is a loose way of speaking, as I teach outside in the mornings because there is no room for my students) and the kids stand up and say in unison, "good morning blessed teacher. How are you?" If I fail to say "fine, how are you?", then they wait about thirty seconds and say "we are fine"
They have been taught to be almost robotic.
The other day, I asked them to write a story for me. To make one up.
I thought they would be excited, but they were confused.
"are you wanting us to copy it from the board?"
"no, make it up on your own"
"copy from the book?"
"no, be creative, write about whatever you want."
"teacha, what do you want it to be about?"
I told them to just make up anything, and I still got a bunch of well-known African fairytales and stories from the book.
This would be a challenge.
Not only do I have to teach them English and Math and Science, I have to teach them to think.
I said, "guys, this doesn't have to be perfect, I just want you to be able to think for yourselves, so try again and just think of whatever."
"teacha, what do you want us to think of?"
I could have cried.
This goes beyond lack of education.
One thing at a time, Katrinah.
My students are brilliant. But they are bound.
By poverty, yes.
By the repercussions of war, yes.
Often by the loss of one or both parents, yes.
By old, old, spiritual lies, yes.
But there is another great bondage here.
Emotional bondage.
The teachers don't know how to show these kids how to think for themselves, because the teachers are still doing what they were taught by teachers who didn't know how to teach.
It can probably be traced back hundreds of years.
I am no one great.
I don't say that to be self-deprecating.
I say it because it's true.
I can't reverse hundreds of years of enslaved thinking.
I can only take it one by one.
Day by day.
Minute by minute.
I do not know if or what I am teaching my students.
But that is what they are teaching me.

This is Africa.

My brain goes a mile a minute.
I love it here.
I hate it here.
I'm never going home!
I'm getting on a plane and leaving right now!
I want to take every kid home with me.
If another kid touches me with their sticky hands, I am going to kick them.

Seriously, I love it here.
But I miss home. It's so different here in a lot of ways and sometimes I get so frustrated that I can't do more to help.
Some days I feel so exhausted like I poured out everything inside of me.
And some days I wonder what the hell I'm doing here. And it hasn't even been two weeks.

I love my students. I love their eagerness to learn. But I get so frustrated with the society that they live in. I want to change the entire education system in Tanzania. In the entire continent of Africa.
I can't do that.
But I can pour out my heart to each individual child who is placed in my care. One at a time. I can show them love and support and express my faith in them that they actually do have a shot in life. That they won't become the lies they are told. That they won't fall into the poverty and disease that plague their parents. I can do that.
That I can do.

There's a lot to adjust to living in Africa.
I am not a clean freak. But I do like to wash my hands regularly and steer clear of germs if I can help it.
The other day after school, I was walking to the Dalla Dalla stop with at least five little kids running next to me and behind me. A little boy was walking next to me eating a popsicle. With his grubby hands, he broke off a few pieces of his popsicle and handed them to his friends. I though "how sweet of him to share." He then proceeded to lick his hand to clean it and then grab my hand and smile up at me with a big, drooly smile. How could I possibly pull my hand from his in disgust? I smiled back and said "This is Africa."

My students share two erasers between the whole class of about twenty. When they need the eraser they say "teacha! futo!" I ask who has the futo, and every time, someone spits the eraser out of their mouth and hands it to their classmate.
This is Africa.

I can't walk down the street without having the word "Mzungu" (white person) screamed at me, or someone yelling that they want to marry me and come home with me.
This is Africa.

I have 20 weeks and 2 days left.
It already feels so short.
In 142 days, I will be a different person.
I will have new experiences and many stories.
Because you know what?
This is Africa.

Welcome Home

I am in Africa!
It's been 5 days, but it feels like 5 years and 5 minutes all at the same time.
I already have so many stories to share, I don't even know how to organize my thoughts.
I arrived on Friday night, and walked off the plane into the warm African breeze.
I was a little panicky that no one would be there to pick me up and I would be all alone in Africa, but someone was there to greet me when I walked out of customs.
She smiled at me and said, "welcome home."
Welcome home.
It's a weird place to call home. But I love it.
Driving to the house from the airport with the moon shining over a shadowy outline of Mt. Meru, I breathed deeply for the first time in days. I had been freaking out about leaving, but now I was here.
I inhaled the smell of Africa.
It smells like dirt.
But I don't say that in a bad way. Dirt is earth. Dirt is real.
Dirt has become my life.
It is embedded in my fingernails, permanently clung to my feet, and settled in my nose and throat.
I love the nature in Tanzania.
I wake up in the morning and can see Mt. Meru in the distance standing tall and proud.
The sky is bluer and the stars are brighter.
But I work in the city.
An African city is nothing like Philly or New York.
I walk out of our little neighborhood and get on a Dalla Dalla.
A Dalla Dalla is like a fifteen passenger van that functions as a bus mixed with a taxi mixed with a mechanical bull.
It is the craziest mode of transportation I've ever experienced.
You could be sitting in the dalla with an African man half-way on your lap, and a woman sitting next to you holding a basket of chickens.
I get off the dalla at a stop called Kona, which after a few days I realized is corner.
I walk about ten minutes and get on a different dalla to swahilini, where I walk a few blocks to get to my school.
I am greeted by an incredible chorus of  "teacha teacha teacha! Mambo Teacha!" And a hundred little brown hands reach out for a high five.
We walk from the main building to C-2 which is about a block away. I can't walk very quickly for fear of tripping over one of the ten or fifteen kids who are gripping one of my appendages and fighting over who gets to hold my hand.
I love them. I love their bald heads, and their lack of any kind of hygiene and their lack of any kind of personal space, and their lack of knowledge of socially acceptable behavior. And their abundance of love, and their tendency to start singing and dancing out of nowhere, and their patience with me as I try to teach them things I don't even know myself. I love how easily they accepted me. I love that they love me. I love them through and through.
I am exhausted and there are a million things I could write about Africa already, but its all just floating around in my head. I'll try to write a post every few days, so that you can experience this with me.
But for now, know that I am here, and although it is difficult, I am so happy.
Through and through.

Show me the way to go home.

As I sit here writing this, I am so sad.
My heart is in physical pain.
On Friday morning, I got a call from a dear friend telling me her cousin had died.
Dory and I were best friends from the beginning of high school. That's how I met her cousin Aidan. I think Aidan was barely two when I met him, and even then, he was smarter than I'll ever hope to be.
Aidan loved to sing, and dance, and show off how cool he was.
From the beginning of our friendship, I was close with Dory's family. Her parents were like my second parents and her cousins were my cousins.
In the summer, Dory would babysit Aidan and his little brother Declan, and I would go over there all the time. Aidan loved playing pirates and pretending we were characters from Harry Potter or Star Wars. The kid had an incredible imagination. He knew every word to every Disney song (and a lot of Bruce Springsteen songs) and basically had the entire Jaws movie memorized. As a toddler he would walk around singing "show me the way to go home, I'm tired and I wanna go to bed..." This boy truly lit up the lives of every person in his path.
He was nine years old when he passed.
Nine years old.
That's single digits.
I'm just having a really hard time making sense of this.
Today, I attended a funeral for a nine year old boy. That shouldn't happen.
I hugged a mother and father who had to bury their baby. That shouldn't happen.
Yesterday, I played "balloon fight" with a little boy who just became an only child. That should. not. happen.
My heart is broken. That's the only feeling I can define right now.
This does not make sense.
On Saturday, I talked to my friend Shyanne on the phone, and I was crying and telling her that I didn't get it and desperately asking her to explain it to me, to make sense of it for me.
And she couldn't.
But she did say something that stuck with me.
She said "Katrinah, I don't know why this stuff happens, and I don't know how to make it better, but I do know part of the reason why death sucks so much. Because we were not made to die! We were made to live! We were made to be eternal beings.And I know that you're sad and I can't explain it, but Aidan is in Heaven, and he is fine."
I believe that. He is. And I wish it didn't happen like this, because I wish we had more time with this amazing kid, but right now I just know that he is okay, and all I can do is pray for peace, because I really believe that if you seek, you WILL find.

When Aidan was little, Dory's mom would drive us home from school and she would bring Aidan with her. Without fail, every time I would get out of the car, Aidan would sob. To get him to stop crying, I would hug him and say "Don't cry Aidan, I'll see you again, I promise."
"Don't cry I'll see you again, I promise."
I feel like he's the one saying that to me now.


Rest in peace, Aidan, I miss you already <3

summer turns to Autmun in disguise

It's happening.
The beach is becoming less crowded.
We're seeing less New York license plates on the Garden State Parkway.
School buses are causing traffic every morning.
Pinterest is exploding with recipes for pumpkin-chai everything.
The sun is going to sleep earlier and earlier.
The sweaters are making a comeback and the flippy floppies are hibernating.
And I'm calling doctors looking for a yellow fever shot.

I'm leaving for Tanzania in 2 months and 3 days.
My bank account is draining and my heart is filling up.
I am so excited, and I also may have a heart attack.
This is the strangest fall of my life. (except maybe the one fall I was living in Texas and the leaves didn't change color. That was stupid, leaves are supposed to change color.)
This is the first fall of my life that I'm not in some kind of school. I'm not getting ready for midterms or shopping for Christmas gifts. I'm buying plane tickets and travel insurance and making paintings and scarves to try to sell to raise money for my trip. And I couldn't be happier.
I can't wait to meet my new friends. I am going to be sharing a living space with strangers from across the planet. I am going to spend my mornings walking along dirt roads to go and teach kids so that they can have some kind of a future.
I am so lucky.
I am so blessed.
Those are both the right word. Not everyone gets a chance to do something like this.
I will get to be a part of something that is way bigger than myself. Way bigger than me.
AAAahhhhh!
I'm a creature of habit. I don't love change, and I don't relish the thought of being away on Christmas. I love tradition.
But this is way bigger than tradition.
This is cooler than pumpkin spice lattes and gingerbread cookies.
Although I do love me some gingerbread cookies.

Fall is the Earth's metaphor for change. Everything changes during the fall. That's what I love about fall. And as we bust out our boots and scarves, let's think of these kids who's lives have been a constant: poverty, joblessness, hopeless, and often parentless.
And let's get excited for change!
I'm not trying to bum you out, I'm saying I get to be a part of  change! A part of giving them an education so they have hope for a future, regardless of their past.
I'm nervous about the change that will occur in my life.
But I know that I am
Braver than I believe.