Exciting Developments

So yesterday I taught my very first English class all on my own. The teacher was running late so they had me run the class. It's was a little scary, but the children were more behaved that when the teacher tried to work with them last time. I was also lucky enough to have a student there who knew English and so could translate for when they didn't understand. After teaching the children about the present perfect tense, reinforcing what they learned last class since most of them struggled last time, I had the students teach me the verbs in Swahili, which they seemed to really enjoy.
When the class was over and it was time for recess they all wanted to talk to me. They asked me what my favorite color and food was, where I was from, and what was my favorite song. I couldn't really think of a favorite song they would know because most of my favorite music isn't age appropriate and because the kids love rap. They all knew about the rapper 50 cent. They asked me to sing a song in English and all that could come to mind was nursery songs, Britney Spears, and Back Street Boys. Then Real Slim Shady came to mind and I knew that was good as it was gonna get so I sang it for them. The kids loved it, at the part where I said "please stand up" they'd all respond with a sound like "huuuh." One of the children also gave me a mango because in Tanzania, giving a mango to a teacher is like the equivalent to give a teacher an apple in the US. I finally got them out of the room to go play, but they wanted me to play soccer with them. Recess, which they just call break, is also tea time for the teachers where they all sit down and have hot chai, no matter how hot it is outside (fun fact, chai is Swahili for tea, so it's redundant to say chai tea.) When I asked the teachers if it would be okay to play soccer instead of have tea I learned that it is very rude to not have tea at tea time, I knew it was rude to not drink it when the tea is offered to you but it is also rude to avoid drinking the tea all together.
The interenet is working at home base now, which everyone is very gratful for. The only problem is that now the computer is usually swarmed because everyone wants to use it. Right now I'm on at 6 in the morning. I didn't get up just to use the computer, I couldn't sleep, but also I didn't try too hard to get back to sleep when I woke up at five because I knew nobody would be on the computer.
Last night I met some safari leaders at the Mzungu Bar across the street from the CCS homebase (Mzungu means white people in Swahili, so I hear that word alot, though Mzungu isn't always used in a negative way like gringo.) With them I made plans to go on a Safari to the Sarangeti and Un Goro Crater next weekend. The trip will be four days, starting Friday right after our volunteer work is done for the day, but it will last until Monday so I'll have to ask Moses Polepole, the leader of CCS here, if I can take that day off. (fun fact, pole pole means slowly but pole sana means sorry, in Tanzania people's last names are given based off of an event connected to their birth and so Moses got his last name because it took so long forhis mom to give birth to him.) On the safarii I'll be able to meet some Masai warriors. This safari is extremely touristy, but any safari is going to be touristy, mzungus are the only ones who would pay to get close to dangerous animals just so they could take pictures.