Harry the snail and birthday cake

This is Harry, the snail I found while walking to the bathroom...

Another day of language class all day... we are starting to get the hang of it, and now we're all sitting around doing our homework together. We're all complaining about the 3-page long handout where we have to conjugate verbs, etc... we act like we've never done homework before and 8 out of 12 of us are science majors.

It was a relatively uneventful day. After class, we went to the orphanage and played with the children. We were only there for about 20 minutes because the children had to eat. It's amazing how patient the children are with our Swahili... Conversation primarily consisted of, "Habari gani? Jina langu ni Anna. Jina lako nani?" And these exchanges went on for the entire time we were there... greeting eachother and asking for names. Don't forget the bubbles and stickers which were absolutely torn into. Today, Kim told us about how nearly impossible it is to go through the adoption process at the orphanage... it's so sad because some of the children have been there for quite some time.

Tomorrow is our last full day of language school. Wednesday we have it in the morning and then we leave for Mikumi National Game Park... safari! So excited. My computer finally works so I'm uploading pictures now!

So I just took a small break from blogging so the four of us (Katie, Shannon, Laura, and I) could go to Hans' birthday party. Hans, our language teacher, turned 23 today so we made him a ridiculous card. We just walked a ways to the place where all of the teachers stay where they had a small get together for his birthday. As soon as we arrived, all of the boys quickly got up and got us chairs before we began the introductions. We and several of the language teachers drank soda and ate cake while they all took pictures. We were surprised how formal the introductions and "agenda" of the party was.

We suggested they put a candle in the cake so Hans could blow one out so one of the boys got a giant candle and dripped wax on the table and stuck the candle on to the table. We had to count around the circle to 23 to see who would feed Hans the cake first. Everyone took turns feeding eachother birthday cake and then Hans blew the candle out. We laughed the entire time... in fact, we are still laughing.