Sunday was an interesting day. I was supposed to go to the Roman Catholic church with my friend Jimi.  Sadly, I missed the boat.  Whoops, I will have to go another time.  Maybs this weekend.  I am interested to see this flavor of Christianity as even the Lutheran Church here is pretty high liturgy.  Way good. So I spent most of the day working on the hospitality junk and Kiswahili.  At this point I can't really totally tell if it is going well. There are days when I can pick up on nearly everything spoken about throughout the day and others where I can hardly remember how to greet.  I am sure it is fine, it is just odd to move this quickly through the basics of a language for a three month experience.  Very difficult to pick up on some things.  But it is nice that the general population has little expectation when it comes to our skill.  They are so used to mzungu with no language.  So that's good. Keeping expectations low all around the world.  So yes.  There was some excitement in the langauge school as we had a run in with a cobra. The video is posted on Steve's blog and youtube under cobra killing.  They had to coax it out a hole.  It attacked Sachin but he whacked it out of the air and into the ground with a rake.  It ran into the bush but some of the workers and Jimi beat the tar out of it.  Quite interesting.  

Today there were no snakes just a burst of change.  We leave in forty days.  Realizing this has made me examine why I came and ask if it is like I expected.  It is nothing like I expected. Better in a lot of ways but personally I have been a little out of it.  I have felt a little empty.  While doing some reading I came to see that this is due to what can often be a selfishness in study abroad.  So much of what we focus on is what we are getting out of it and finding ourselves.  This is good in many ways but has certainly become overwhelming for me.  It is difficult to explain.  I can try.  I have done things like largely forgotten about justice.  I have asked myself so much about me as is expected of study abroad experiences that I forgot to ask about the other.  In all my thinking about hospitality I have ignored hospitality as a two way street and often involves role reversals.  I have done little to exist with and for anyone other than myself.  Little have I even questioned the mix between hospitality and justice and whether the hospitality as expressed in Tanzania is an absolute or even relative good.  In a country with malnutrition and hunger rates so high does abundant table hospitality for American students justly have a place?  How is he guest mutually responsible to the welcomer?  Where can we as visitors serve?  I ask this not because this place needs it so badly, everywhere needs companionship, community and assistance, but because as Christians and guests in general we are called to work to appreciate and facilitate and grow the fullness of abundant humanity.  I am thankful that I have reached this thought at this point because this desire to act is spurred on by numbers and statistics but by the love that has formed.  It is time I stop worrying about what I am getting out of this and start asking what I am putting in and how that relates to what is needed.  I am tired of consuming things, experiences, people and God for my own gain.  What this means and how this realization will change things, I am not certain.  But the questions have been raised and that is good.  

So tomorrow we are supposed to go to a very active Masai village, Kilosa.  It has been in the news a lot recently in rather slanted stories.  We are lucky to hear the opposing side.  I wrote how the Masai are kicked out of many places and largely disrespected.  This is the village in which two Masai men were murdered by local farmers.  They retaliated by killing 7.  They were retaliated against by having 400 cattle stolen (their holy livelihood).  The police and local governments are only focused on bringing the Masai to "justice" and ignore that the farmers are pushing them out of their land, began the mess and have committed the most recent act of violence.  The police try to raid and capture the village men.  And when one is found he is beaten.  Tomorrow we will go to a church full of women as the men must stay in hiding and stand with them before a God who shows no partiality.  They are not free to travel so we will try to bring food.  But don't worry moms we are not going if there is a sign of danger. The area of the church is very safe. And it has been quiet for days.  They just need food and church.  I will write more tomorrow.