It's fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A.

Our mission should we choose to accept it: To find the Y.M.C.A. and to observe the economic activity out front.
Partner in crime: Zahra, a sweet 18-year old girl from Scotland.
Directions: Take a right outside the gate, a left at the end of the road and the YMCA is right across the street.

Off Zahra and I go. Following the directions to a T. We arrive at said location a mere 3 minutes after beginning our journey. It didn't look like a Y...we thought we better ask. We greet a local woman and ask. She doesn't understand a word, but luckily, there's a group of young men nearby who overhear us and point us further down the road. Again, we set off.

After walking for another 8 minutes or so with still no sign of a Y, we decide we should probably inquire again. Thankfully, we had stumbled upon a gas station. In we go. Again, greeting in Swahili, followed by an awkward exchange of asking where the Y was. We resorted to just saying the letters, "Y.M.C.A.?" Another point and some directions in Swahili. We start moving again in the general direction of the pointing and realize that we are just going to have to ask one more time.

The nice woman we stopped on the street graciously pointed us in the right direction. Much to our surprise, we had wandered right in front of it!! While our directions were terrible (we complained later!), we found our way to the Y.

Once there, we didn't see anyone outside...and therefore no economic activity. We ventured inside and found a couple of other volunteers also at the Y learning about the activities the Y has. We ran into John from England who offered to give us a tour of the facilities. John is the education director for all of the YMCAs in Tanzania...and he spoke no Swahili. I greeted him with a Shikamoo (the greeting I give to elders) and he looked at me as if my head had just fallen off. It was really odd to think he held such a position, but couldn't even greet in the language that he worked in. It was really a shame. He was a nice man anyways, but it's quite sad and explains some of his later behavior.

The Y has a pool that costs 3,000 shillings to use (that's about $3) for the day. The catch is that there is no halfnakedness allowed. Women must wear a full piece bathing suit and shorts. Men, a shirt and shorts. No one was swimming yesterday.

We were shown the auditorium, which is an open-air room that can seat up to 1,000 people and is used frequently for large university events. It was really neat and looked like any other lower income auditorium.

He showed us the clinic which was just another building with offices. There are two doctors and a dentist on site and they accept walk-ins. There were quite a few younger people waiting outside for a counsel, but John told us the clinic is very expensive and not many Tanzanians can afford to go there. The clinic also had a a couple of operating rooms, but we didn't get to see beyond the closed door.

Our next stop was the Shule Watoto (children's school). We visited two classrooms of preschoolers (anywhere from ages 3-7). John brought us in and introduced us to the class. We greeted them in Swahili. The children were extremely excited to see us. They were grinning from ear to ear with a look of awe on their faces. The sisters had them sing us a Tanzanian song and we applauded them in Swahili (not your typical American applause, but involves rubbing your hands together, clapping your hands, stomping your feet, and blowing a kiss). They thoroughly enjoyed that -- and they definitely laughed at us! John was a bit awkward with the introductions.

His introduction: We have very special visitors today. A person from Canada, a person from England...AND two people from AMERICA. They are our special visitors today and how do we greet our special visitors?

He then began applauding and the children followed suit. It was quite bizarre and made me very uncomfortable. I'm very well-informed that people from the States are very highly regarded, but to have that encouraged by someone who works in the community about someone who works in the community was really disheartening. This is why the notion that Americans (and other foreigners) have some special quality lives through generations.

Our next visit was to the adult class. The Y also houses a hotel management school where locals can go to learn the skills needed to manage hotels. John strolled through the class and interrupted in order to introduce us, the special visitors. He introduced us in the same way. The students were our age and it was even more awkward than with the children who didn't understand. I wish it had been different and we could've interacted more with the adult class, but our time was limited and we got a whole lot more than we had bargained for already!

On our way out we ran into another Canadian volunteer who commended us on our efforts - that's always refreshing! We bid adieu to John and the other volunteer and off we set on our trek back to home base. I little humbled, a litte sheepish, and a lot more curious and excited about our next three weeks.