soo before we start talking about UAACC(united African alliance community centre), the place we are staying at right now we have a couple of things to add to Camilles and Auras last post,regarding last night and day at Bangata.
we could start describing the last 48 hours at the village as pretty "eventful". We wake up the morning of the 4th, with Curry and Zik having to tell just a minor incident that took place the night before..Apparently, at around 12pm at night, Zik found himself cooking some chilly(which by the way was amazing) when suddenly, he hears two huge bangs at the door and 4 huge black men storm into their house armed with full sized machetes and hammers. Zik, caught with a cooking knife and a mop in hand, Curry still deep asleep, safe and sound in her room(there are too many details, we cant really write about) to make the story short, Zik successfully pulled one of the machetes out of the aggressors hand and scared them off, unfortunately, men made off with his ipod, speakers and phone whilst throwing stones at Zik as they left (just to make sure he wasn't gonna hunt them down). no harm done, everyones safe and sound and this just added a little of excitement to our home stays experience..the episode definitely left no room for doubt that we are in very competent hands..
Next morning, after having heard the story, we prepared our good bye meal for our host families. Rice got over cooked and looked like Ugali(a white paste made out of corn), but it still tasted deeeelicous! we had chapati,tomatoes with olive oil and salt, salads, beans and Ziks hot chilly which had gone through too much by the time it was served..lunch was a great success, Matt and Andrea even delivered two short thank you speeches in Kiswahili form which the parents all had a good laugh out of, but still appreciated it very much!
At the moment, as said above, we are staying a the UAACC, the UAACC is a program run by Pete Oneal. Pete was the founder of the Kansas City chapter of the Black Panthers. He led the movement against prejudice and policed the police, but not only that he was a large part of the community by teaching kids and helping the community. He has now extended what he was doing in Kansas City to Arusha, Tanzania. The reason why Pete has come to Africa was because he was brought up on flimsy charges of carrying a shotgun across state lines and faced up to 3 years and prison and instead of being brought up on false charges that would keep him from helping and protecting his community, so he went to Africa with his wife when he was 30 and his wife was 19 and they have been here ever since. Now he runs the UAACC and provides clean water for the surrounding area and classes for the local children. There is also a orphanage were he provides school and housing for young kids without the means to go to school or even have a proper home. he also runs a hostel for kids like us and it is one of his primary sources of income. He is an amazing man that does nothing but try to help us for example on last Thursday we were invited by Mzee (which is a sign of respect in Swahili and means, "old man") Pete to a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Now when we got to UAACC we were not expecting anything special alot of the usual, rice and beans and such, but just lots of it, but to our amazement and jubilation there was a REAL turkey and stuffing and gravy and mashed potatoes and everything it was truly amazing and so good and apparently he prepared everything himself, and it was delicious.
ssooooo well be updating as soon as were in Moshi and know what were doing..in a while crocodile.Kwaherini, Andy and Kevin
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