Contagious

Newfound friendships at their best, and boy gossip at it’s highest, I was pumped to go to work on Monday. The American family was gearing their trip down and preparing for their last day in Tanzania. Already set on going to Camp Joshua for the day to scope out the new cute French volunteer, I was happy to see that everyone else at Moses had the same plan, minus the French volunteer part.

We hung around for the morning, updated files and just doing a little work here and there, waiting for the group to be all ready to go. The creepy man who has started donating juice to LOHADA, mostly because of the opportunity it provides him with to look at attractive foreign volunteers, showed up just before we were leaving. He offered to drive some of us to Joshua so that he could ‘see the school’. The girls, wary of the juice man, climbed in Mama Wambura’s car, leaving the boys and Juliet to ride with ‘him’.

Paulo, the volunteer from France, did not disappoint. We spent the day sitting in on classes, playing soccer and I even managed to get the rest of the Sponsor A Child letters finished. Three o clock came quickly and I joined Lauren and Meryl in their trip into town. We went to McMoody’s for a quick sundae (delicious) and then went to see the B-Boys practice.

Some of the other girls in our house had met some of the locals that are in a dance crew, Contagious, that performs at some of the local clubs. I never really understood their fascination with them and had just brushed aside all of their comments. But today, since Lauren and Meryl were already going, and I just happened to be with them, I figured I’d join.

We went into a gym downtown that I had no idea existed and took a seat to watch ‘the boys’ practice. They did not disappoint. All of them were fantastic dancers and completely mesmerized us. The were doing what Daddy, the main guy/choreographer of the group, called contemporary-afro dance. Whatever it was I was impressed! We left an hour and a half or so in, and went to grab dinner at a near by local restaurant. One of the girls had been ‘seeing’ a boy in the crew and wanted to make it back before practice was over. We ate quickly and then got a call from ‘the boys’ to meet them at Via Via for a drink. Off we went and looking back now, this and the preceding events were what have caused the biggest change I’ve seen in myself over the trip.

The three of us girls sat with the boys and had drinks and listened to music and just really enjoyed the surroundings. The sun set and some of them left, the music got louder and I have never talked so openly about the cultural differences with locals. They taught us a bit of dancing and we closed the place for the night.

I have no idea why I was so happy after all of this. Maybe it was because I finally really embraced the culture here, maybe it was because I took the time to talk to locals that weren’t employed by Volunteer Abroad, and maybe it was just because I’ve started to grow up and learn to take advantage of opportunities presented to myself.