The Buswelu wildlife

This morning my class played a memory game - we had cards with lots of different animals turned face down and the kids had to find the pairs. Every time someone turned over an animal I had the class say the name in Swahili and English. My fave Swahili word has got to be Punda Millia (Zebra). I keep getting emails from people asking about the animals here, but I saw more wildlife on the cards this morning than I have in the almost two weeks that I've been in Tanzania. I've seen plenty of cows and goats, and there are an awful lot of chickens and ducks running around freely. One of the other volunteers told me that the fine for killing a chicken that isn't yours is 50,000 Tsh ($50) - a HUGE amount of money here, though it's hard to understand how people would know which chickens are which as they all seem to be running wild.

The animals in Buswelu are the kind you don't really want to write home about. Bats fly overhead frequently. There are MASSIVE spiders around the house - the American boys spent a few hours trying to kill one just outside a few days ago. It took most of a can of deet (insect repellent) and quite a bit of fire to finish it off. We've spotted dead scorpions quite a few times, frightening as the house has many, many dark corners where they like to hide. Rachel and I saw a creature we think was an enormous centipede slithering across the road last night - I've only ever seen something like it in Sci-Fi movies. Last but not least - loads and loads of mozzies. Rachel and Grace (one of the staff at Hisani) both have malaria, so I am being really careful about covering up and keeping insect repellent on!