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Lara Kroeker Interactive

POST 7: Whatever works, works!

One of the tunic’s I brought to wear needs a belt and along with having forgotten sunscreen, which is not sold anywhere in Kondoa town (ouch!), I also forgot a belt so now I am using my USB cord to pull my outfit together. I think it looks rad as long as you don’t look too closely. That’s the way life is here, you use whatever you have around you because you have no choice.

I bought a solar mechanics kit for Iyoli school but realized that there was no way they were going to be able to read the instructions so Moshi and I sat all morning trying to figure it out. We did not have a star shaped screwdriver and used a flat one so none of the screws really go in properly but it still holds together. Anyone who knows me well will think this is funny because I HATE reading instructions but we did it and it was a proud moment for me (Loc, you in particular, will be very impressed).

Tomorrow we are going to the school to show the movies (song and greetings) to the storytelling club and gift them with the book from Strathcona. I have shown the video to the girls who work at my hotel in Kondoa, Jafari, the water technician, my seat mate from Turkey I met on the way to Tanzania, the woman working at the restaurant in Kondoa town and even a guy I met from Kenya in the hotel in Arusha. I basically show them to anyone who listens so beware when you ask me what I am doing. We are going to rent a generator for Iyoli instead of using the inverter, which is a good thing because it eliminates the possibility of acid exploding in my face!

We bought 3 movies for the whole village to watch in the evening after the sun goes down, one is about the importance of learning and on the front cover there is a man dressed in a school kids uniform part 1 and 2 and the other is about some sort of mixup with a family. I am also renting big speakers so there is proper sound and the guy renting them to us is going to come along, which is great because if they don’t work he will be there to help me trouble shoot. I have no idea how it’s all going to work and I think i just need to NOT worry.

A sister of one of the girls that works at the Kondoa Climax Hotel (that is the name of my hotel) knows english really well so she is also going to come with me and Baraka (the other young girl I met) to help translate. She is a lovely young 21 year old who just moved to Kondoa. She is so sweet and gentle and I am so happy to be able to call her a friend now too.

So I am signing off in a flurry of activity trying to get everything ready because there is no “borrowing” or “buying” things if they are forgotten.