Updates! Graduation and travels

Hello everyone from Arusha! I know what you might be thinking... arusha what? Or why have you not been blogging??? (thanks Tom Morris for getting on my case, I cannot believe it's been almost two months..I will do better!!)... Anyways, let me attempt to fill you all in on some of the crazy, amazing, wonderful and challenging things that have been going on since I last wrote. Last I wrote we had three weeks left of teaching exams and then graduation. It went by so fast! It's been planting season so we also had some days in the fields planting and digging up weeds, by hand, or hoe rather.. It's also been raining which just meant a few days of heavy mud hoe work... Not easy, but good work and nice time working with the students. I'll attach some pictures of a myself and a couple.students that did work with me on a Saturday morning. you'll enjoy our mud shoes...the mud cakes your shoes.so I've learned to ditch them right as I enter the field, then the mud will cake to your feet and form new protective mud shoes :-) I also have purchased some wonderful tire shoes Enough about shoes!!! The last few weeks of teaching went by really fast. The very last week we had some wonderful Norwegian Bible school students who came to Kiabakari and helped in the classroom for a week! The students did a project with these Norwegian visitors and it was a wonderful way to wrap up the school year. It was nice to see many students asking the visitors questions and really trying to use some of what they had learned. Halloween visited Kiabakari this year, I decided, being born in the Halloween Capitol of the World and all, (yes... Anoka MN) that I needed to share this with my friends in Kiabakari...so I explained trick-or-treating in my class, then I invited everyone students and coworkers alike to come trick or treat at my house in the evening...of course.costumes mandatory. It was wonderful, everyone came I made.cookies and it was a lot of fun (lots of Obama costumes...:) best Halloween ever! I also taught the Norwegian children how to carve pumpkins....they were thrilled they loved it and look forward to it next year as well :-) I think the last big update is graduation and travel plans! Graduation was nuts and wonderful! A lot of preparation and work, but it was wonderful to see the students graduate. Each student was given one invitation to invite one guest, I was honored when one often of my students invited me! ;Graduation was also really surreal... These are the students I moved to Kiabakari with, and now moving on, it will be different in January... I don't think it will fully sink in until then, but until then I can officially say I've finished a whole school year teaching, and crazy enough have been in Tanzania over a year! Nuts! Travel.. I spent two days on the road by car the first day, ten hours to Nairobi, Kenya. Then on Thanksgiving I got up early and got on a bus to Arusha, Tanzania (ok i may have woken up.at 5:30 instead of 6 to indulge in a HOT.shower :-) I arrived in Arusha late afternoon, on Thanksgiving :-)It's been wonderful to see "family" and friends here! ;I am so thankful to be here and was able to celebrate Thanksgiving with a potluck of 62 people and even got invited to a second Thanksgiving dinner over the weekend. Amazing! I'm having a wonderful time with my adoptive parents here in Arusha Linda and Mark, who I am so blessed to have in my life, they are such wonderful examples for me to be around, and they treat me like a daughter :-) so lucky! Another thing I'm thankful for is the opportunity to go back to Rwanda! Two of my friends here and myself, will travel by bus from Arusha to Nairobi, to Kampala to Rwanda! Stay for a few days and then head back through Tanzania, where I will head back to Kiabakari! So that is what I've been up to for those of you who've been anxious to know!! >Thanks for reading!< Annie

Other fun things...
1. I dug up a sweet potato the size of my head, called it my child, when I asked my students if it looked like me they said without hesitation, yeah, it's white...
2 Obama is living in my backyard.. Lady the dog had puppies, due to premature birth all died but one spurred by (awesome) election results, I named him Obama.
3. Somehow hearing Christmas music at 80°makes it feel like I'm listening to Christmas music in July.. But it's advent... Hmmf it'll come...my mama's sending me It's A Wonderful Life!