Hello, friends.

So, I promised an update about church and here it is: I went with two Catholic girls to Catholic mass. The service was in English, and it was pretty much excatly like American mass except that there were more black people than I've seen at all two of the masses I've been to in Omaha (and more surprisingly, more Indian people than I've seen in all of Tanzania so far.)

I'm feeling much better than I felt this weekend, my head cold is all but gone. Unfortunately, I have a huge canker sore right on that little piece of skin that connects your bottom lip to your gums... terrible placement. Of course to let it heal, I should avoid acidic foods (fruit, juice, and tomatoes) abrasive foods (toast and chips) and spicy foods, which literally eliminates 79% of my diet here in Arusha. Si njema.

I spent a while the other day speaking to Frida, she's one of the main coordinators for the Arcadia program here and she's an angel. I told her about my time in Dar and Iringa and more about Young Life. She asked me if I was a Christian, I told her I was and asked if she was, and she said "yes, of course!" In my experience I've met a lot of people in Dar and Iringa and Arusha that were Christians... of course that was probably to be expected for the first part of my trip considering the company I kept, but even here in Arusha, a reasonable number of people have indicated in some way or another that they were Christians... Anyway, all this to say I was glad, but not entirely surprised. Frida however was both glad and a little surprised. "Not many Christians come on these liberal arts programs to study social justice and human rights," she said. "I know Frida, what's up with that?" I laughed, "we've got to go tell them how important it is!" She smiled and agreed.

To share completely to a different, albeit amusing, conversation:
A few of my classmates and I were chatting with Charles, our instructor this afternoon over some karanga (peanuts). He is a young PhD student studying human rights law. He was originally from Tanzania, but he studied in the US and Germany, and now he's in London. After hearing a little bit about a piece he's writing for a German law journal, I asked him what his favorite sport was:
"My favorite sport?"
"Yes, what's your favorite?"
"I like drinking beer."
"Charles, drinking beer is not a sport!"
"Sure it is!"
We all laughed. I asked him if that was part of the reason he liked living in Germany-- "Oh, yeah!"

Anyway, I'm almost done with my main research paper for the class about the practical limitations on the right to political participation in Tanzania. Tomorrow I am going to Peace House to meet some of the people I will be working with, to get a tour, and to ask some questions. This weekend should be full of some adventures, too, so hopefully I'll have some good stories and pictures to post later.

Nakutakia siku njema.