Yes, We Can.

YES! Obama WON!!! I am SO excited. This morning PC drove us to town to watch the results come in at a hotel w/ satellite & CNN. The rain here messed up the satellite & kept us from seeing McCain's concession speech, but we did see Obama's speech. It was so fun. (saw McCain later on a rerun of the speech). There we were 33 Americans in a Tanzanian bar cheering on our new leader, singing the National Anthem, celebrating, etc. It was such a fun day - even if I did have to get up when it was still dark out! The international reaction was almost more fun that being in the US for this historic event. TZ shares a border w/ Kenya, so everyone here is overly excited. Apparently all of our names are now "Obama" because all day walking around town we'd hear "Obama" yelled at us from all corners, newspapers shaking our direction w/ his picture on the cover, etc. They are as excited for us as we are. It's a good day for our country & our history.

Onto PC things. I'm doing well & not necessarily thinking about coming home all of the time, but it is still a thought... Swahili still sucks beyond belief, but I'm just coming to terms w/ sucking at it. Oh well - we can't be good at everything. I'm learning a lot of humility here! Our favorite thing to do while sitting around relaxing & not practicing Swahili is to talk about food. Although TZ food really is very good, it's monotonous and we miss the variety of food here - especially cheese. Funny story that maybe only my family will truly get, but here it is. I was swimming w/ some friends at a hotel pool last weekend and we started talking about food as usual. The conversation lead to cheese & a friend was talking about how she missed Laughing Cow Cheese. This is a big thing in my family, so I commiserated missing Cow cheese. Afterwards we went to Pira's - this westernized small grocery store (about the size of a large walk-in closet) and wouldn't you know it - they had Laughing Cow Cheese! So, of course we bought it (for 1900 shillings, about $1.90) and ate the entire wheel! Training is all but over. I have some tests left, shadow week where we visit a current volunteer for a few days & then some final things before being shipped off into the unknown parts of TZ by ourselves - YIKES! If I ET anytime soon, it'll be during Dec. when I'm all alone w/ nothing to do for an entire month!!!! Buy calling cards & call me!

The hot season is in full swing. It's HOT. Like over 100 in the sun during the day, but still cool at night. It's a heatt I can't explain. The sun is literally right on top of us being so close to the equator. The temperature difference between the sun and shade is 15 to 20 degrees, though, so we just head for shade or sit inside a lot and it's tollerable.

Please keep letters & care packages coming. They truly are the lifesavers of the week when they arrive. Books are great, gummy candies, whatever you can think of! Letters, too.

One final thought - there really is a color called "sky-blue pink" - If you don't believe me, come to TZ and watch the sunset. There is no other name for the color than "sky-blue pink". Dad - all those years you thought you were being a smart aleck. Wrong.