Rain, Dancing (again), the Lake, Christmas

"Don't worry, I can beat the rain." Spending twenty-some odd years in the Pacific NW, you'd think I would have learned the error inherent in those words. Nope, ever the optimist I suppose. Just this morning, I'm heading out the door of my friend's house. We look at the looming storm clouds, complete with thunder and lightning (apparently Bukoba is the lightning capital of Tanzania), and my friends say "Maybe you should wait until the storm passes." Then I respond with that foolish remark. Well, as it happens, perhaps 2 minutes into the 30 minute walk to town, I feel a couple raindrops. Oh, that's just a fluke, I tell myself. So now I am zero for two on the day, as 5 minutes the later the cloud broke on my head, fierce tropical-style rain. However, I received another shining example of the hospitality of Tanzanians when a vehicle pulled off and picked up me and the few others I was walking near. I think they felt bad for me as I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. So I got soaked, but got a free ride to town. I'd say I came off pretty even on the deal, I've gotten a bit lazy and tired of walking everywhere lately. As I am typing I have to lean back so as to not drip on the keyboard...
As for the rest of my life, I think I have adjusted to living here. The water-shortage/ student-fetching problem doesn't seem to be a problem anymore. I've got enough drinking water, that'll do. I can pronounce many of the teachers' names (to name a few: Kaisarege, Nywawa, Mswaihidi, Tibaijuka, Edwin) and recognize their faces. The cat seems to only attack guests now, especially Aaron. He has a knack for getting in these epic battles against Kali, where neither of them will submit and he ends up looking like he was shadow-boxing in a blackberry patch. I learned the critical difference between corn flour and wheat flour, and learned that banana pancakes taste better with the latter. I went to another wedding, of one of our teachers. I believe that I presented my dancing stamina a bit better at this one (however, Aaron and I left only an hour into the dancing. "Snuck out," as it were. I learned my lesson the first time. The next day one of the teachers told us we had a "nice escape" the night before. I thought so too.) The wedding brings me to an aside: soda. I think I wrote before how Mama Mipawa tried to cure me with Coca-cola when I was feeling sick ("or do you like Fanta?" was what she asked. They all cure equally). I am beginning to realize that soda is the ambrosia/panacea of Tanzania. Like beer in Europe, its both cheaper and easier to buy cold soda rather than water. When we were at this wedding, Aaron and I got two choices when we walked in the door, beer or soda. Keep in mind there is no refrigerator at a wedding. So I chose warm soda over warm beer, call me a wash-out if you must. Well all my neighbors were drinking beer, and the waiter was bringing them out one by one. I expected the same treatment. Apparently if you order soda, instead you get all of them at once. The waiter proceeded to come out with his arms overflowing with a total of five cokes. I didn't really what to do. It didn't help that everyone was staring at us anyway, and then Aaron starts busting a gut laughing. The guy offloads them on me, I don't know where to put five sodas. I don't even think I can drink five sodas. Luckily, my awkwardness was lessened by the fact that Aaron had also ordered soda, and soon his lap was overflowing with bottles as well. I got two bottles deep by 11pm or so, and that was enough. But every five minutes, the waiter would come back and try to open another bottle for me. Even my neighbors would flag him down and look at me like I should finish what I started. No way, man. Eventually I thought the waiter and I would be holding the same bottle, wrestling and jockeying for position as he tries to open it for me. That was about when the dancing started and we made our escape. A good move.
Otherwise, I've just been reading a bunch, and watching movies with Aaron (he brought a laptop. We also just finished season one of "Lost". I want to know what the heck is in that hatch.) We explored our campus and the area surrounding it the other day, and took some really good pictures. I'll try posting them sometime soon. I was talking to Grace (my niece who is turning 7 today! Happy birthday. Enjoy your peanut-butter ice cream cake. You have no idea how jealous I am of that) and she asked me about Lake Victoria. To be specific, she wanted to know how big it was. She wanted to know if it was as big as a house. I said bigger, and we went through the list of: 2 houses, castle, big castle, 1000 houses, some crazy number of houses that was over a million. I said it was closest to the last one. I have never seen the Great Lakes, so a lake this large is new to me. I have an almost one-hundred and eighty degree view of it, and seriously, I can't differentiate it from any ocean I've ever seen. When we were taking the ferry across from Mwanza, you could look in every direction and only see blue. It truly is gorgeous here. You'll see...
Finally, its Christmas time! Let me say that Christmas in 80-degree weather feels a bit bizarre. The internet cafe I'm in is playing some instrumental classic Christmas hits (not as good as Celtic Christmas, UW Club). It seems to me that Tanzanians celebrate the exact same way that Americans do. Presents under the baobab tree and all. Some other volunteers from around the lake region will be visiting us for the holiday. I think we will do a white elephant exchange. Right now my plan is to buy a live chicken for it, they're like $5. Any other ideas?
Take care, happy holidays. Have some egg nog for me.